The Next Level

Karla McLaren, M.Ed. is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy pioneer. Her lifelong work focuses on her grand unified theory of emotions, which revalues even the most "negative" emotions and opens startling new pathways into self-awareness, effective communication, and healthy empathy.

Karla also developed the groundbreaking Six Essential Aspects of Empathy model that makes all of the processes in empathy easily understandable and accessible -- so that people can develop and manage their empathy intentionally.

Karla is the author of The Art of Empathy: A Complete Guide to Life's Most Essential Skill (2013), The Language of Emotions: What Your Feelings are Trying to Tell You (2010), and the multi-media online course Emotional Flow: Becoming Fluent in the Language of Emotions (2012). She is also the coauthor (with cult expert Janja Lalich, PhD) of Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over (Routledge, 2018), which focuses on the stories of 70 people who grew up in and escaped from cults spanning a dozen countries.

In this episode you'll learn

• Ways to slow down and examine your choices when different emotions arise.
• Tips and practices to overcome the anxiety of our modern world.
• The reasons you shouldn't run from your emotions and how to work with the ones that make you uncomfortable
• Why emotions are neither good or bad, and how you can use them to your benefit
• How shame can be used in a healthy way to help you control your actions.
• Learning to read other's emotions so you increase your caring and empathy
• How to increase your emotional vocabulary and better handle feelings when they arise.

Hall's music, a blend of roots and folk music with hints of inspiration from India, has led him to a series of sold-out tours and collaborations with artists such as Steel Pulse, The Wailers, Jimmy Cliff, Matisyahu, Michael Franti, Xavier Rudd and Nahko & Medicine for the People.

Trevor Hall's Chapter of the Forest (2014) and KALA (2015), debuted at #3 and #2 on the iTunes singer/songwriter chart respectively. He is currently touring around the US and Australia. While on tour, Hall collects donations to support children's education in India.

The Fruitful Darkness released in November of 2017, became the #1 Kickstarter Music campaign of 2017 (#30 of all time out of 53,000 Music projects) and is being released in three song installments on specific lunar dates, culminating in a 14-song deluxe edition release, June 1st 2018.

The Fruitful Darkness Part III just dropped this past Friday, so be sure to pick it up on Spotify or your favorite music platform.

Trevor kicks off his A Night in the Village Tour February 21st in Minneapolis, MN with events in IL, OH, MD, CT, NY and more. Tickets are selling out fast for this special event where Trevor will be sharing songs, the stories behind them, as well as rare images and footage from his journeys to India, Nepal and beyond. You'll have the opportunity to interact and ask questions at the end of the evening during a Q&A. 'A Night in the Village' will give listeners a unique insight into the inspiration and stories behind the songs of Trevor Hall's life journey.

Trevor's mix of deep spiritual work and the stories behind how his songs came to be are food for any creatives soul and for me has deepened the practice of seeing a miracle in every day life.

In this episode you'll learn

• How music can help you explore your inner being.
• Why pushing down emotions can cause them to unconsciously affect your behaviors and relationships.
• Ways to develop a deeper connection and love with others.
• Learning to find mental and emotional freedom by exploring the depths of your consciousness.
• How you can maintain positive energy while navigating a major change in identity.
• Why separateness is actually an illusion and how you can embrace the collective oneness of the world.

In this week's episode I wanted to share a little story with you because I realized in the last few weeks as I've been navigating some personal challenges in my life as well as some things in business that I that I found myself over focusing on the details... let's call it the problem, the circumstances and trying to move around the known pieces in the box of my known reality trying to figure things out.

If you're in a place where maybe you feel hyper focused on the problem or you may even feel a lot of stress or anxiety or overwhelm in your body, my hope is that sharing this perspective with you will give you some relief by taking the pressure off and being able to see things from a greater perspective.

Have The Vision, Patience, and Perspective Of An Eagle.

Full practice and show notes at http://jeffa.co/126

My guest today Jessie May Wolfe describes HeartRise as plugging into the radiant, integral, soul energy (R.I.S.E)... the electricity of the heart.

Her presence empowers those around her. Spreading light and energy, her infectious spirit connects many beautiful souls around the world.

With a strong creative & corporate background in fashion, publishing & marketing,

Jessie May's experience coaching & empowering thousands of creatives, entrepreneurs, and change-makers worldwide, along with her training in various modalities with renowned teachers, led her to develop the unique impactful HeartRise Method.

As a speaker, mentor, and inspirational guide, Jessie May brings the HeartRise Method to organizations, communities and companies across the world.

Her corporate clients include Soho House, Gen Art, Wework, Wanderlust, Amazon, GOOP, Westside Collective, Parachute Home, Nick Fouquet, Juice Served Here, Health-Ade, Sakara.

Jessie May's heart holds a torch for everyone.

Today we'll dive into HeartRise Method and Jessie May's new book High On Heart: The HeartRise Method.

In this episode you'll learn

• How you can win the battle between your head and your heart.
• Identifying your negative go-to thoughts that take up precious time and energy.
• Why the modern world is in desperate need for more heart centered intelligence.
• Strategies to calm and quiet the incessant chatter in your mind.
• Why it's easier to relate and connect with others when you come from the intelligence of the heart.
• How to release negative energy and tap into good vibrations.

If you've ever felt flooded by strong thoughts and emotions, then this one is for you.

Starting to create a healthy distance from strong thoughts and emotions is the first step to creating a more resourceful state where you can lower the stress response and work yourself into better feeling thoughts.

Today I'll distill a practice I use to loosen the hold on these strong thoughts and feelings to be able to tackle the current situation from a more grounded, less emotionally charged position.

These two phrases come from the work of Susan David and Emotional Agility and they are really quite simple. Our tendency when we feel something strongly is to over identify with the feeling. For me and those I've worked with, being able to loosen the grip and see thoughts and feelings as an experience we are having and not something we are has proved extremely useful for creating a mindset that allows for more creativity and solutions to emerge.

The typical response to strong emotions such as anger would be "I am angry."

Susan David suggests using the two phrases:

"I am having the feeling that..."

"I am having the thought that..."

Putting these two tools to use would look like this...

"I am having the feeling that I am angry."

"I am having the thought that what she did made me angry"

Everyone's experience is unique so try these out and play with the variations. You know it's working when you feel the charge start to subside and you can see it more as an experience instead of a state of being.

I get deeper into this in the podcast, so be sure to tune in and leave a comment below letting me know how you're going to put this into practice.

Language is a powerful shaper of our experience. The depth of training and knowledge most of us have when it comes to words stops at basic grammar. I remember when I had my first powerful experience with language and consciousness, and how from that moment forward, my view of language was forever changed.

Back on episode 065 I chatted with Mark England about Upgrading Your Language to Resolve Conflicts at Home, at Work, and In Your Head where we got into the nuts and bolts of Procabulary and how to use language. Today we are diving deeper to go beyond surface language.

Mark England is a TEDx speaker and the co-founder and lead presenter of Procabulary. He loves to travel, exchange empowering ideas and strategies and practice martial arts. Mark holds a Masters Degree in International Education and was an elementary sports teacher before developing Procabulary.

Procabulary builds fun, simple and easy to use tools that help you discover direction, purpose and turbo-charge every goal – from the smallest daily task to life's biggest dreams.

As we roll into today's show Mark and I both share our own short story of the first time we experienced the power of language and then pull back the curtain to go beyond the surface.

In this episode you'll learn

• How phrases stated by ourselves and others can influence our choices.
• The ways in which the questions we ask ourselves are dictating what we let ourselves see as a valid possible outcome.
• How what we say and how we say it matters.
• Working with your rate of speech.
• How to use your breath to embody statements and states of being.
• Skills for using your awareness when stress triggers or injuries arise.

Language was the equivalent of my gateway drug into the personal development space about 10 years ago. I was already into fitness and health, and was working as a personal live in chef for the years prior. When I got a glimpse of the "non-physical" modalities like thought, language, and consciousness, I was hooked.

In a soon to be released episode of my interview series, I sat down with Mark England who was on the show back on episode 65 talking about the core principles of Procabulary and upgrading our language. In there we dive deeper into language and go Beyond Surface Language.

This really got me thinking of what I did in the beginning to start conditioning new language patterns and modes of perception.

If you're just getting started in the language game or if you could use a little focus adjustment, then see if you can only state the affirmative for an entire day.

While it sounds quite simple, I think you might find this a little more challenging than meets the eye.

I give a few examples in today's show, so check it out and when after you put this into practice, shoot me a message over on Instagram @jeffagostinelli or on Facebook and let me know how it was.

Being able to bounce back from the inevitable hard times in life is an essential skill. The recovery period between something that happens and how we come through on the other side is known as resilience.

We often see resilience as a hard skill... something that we gain when we go through experience that toughens us up. I know I typically thought of it this way too, making "thick skinned" and resilient synonymous. My guest today has a different perspective on resilience.

Sarah talks about resilience as having a softer quality and the result of how we integrate the most horrific, embarrassing, shame filled, disappointing, experiences... integrating those into our story in a way that strengthens us but doesn't make us hard.

As a certified Life Coach, Spiritual Director and Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, Sarah empowers people to rebound and recover from the damaging effects of stress, trauma and chronic illness/disease. Her clients stop the stress cycle, double their energy and break their limiting patterns and habits. Becoming resilient – emotionally, mentally and physically – they live free from anxiety, stop doubting themselves, and find courage to take action on their dreams, regardless the difficulty and challenge they've endured. Sarah believes that obstacles and failures are part of the path to reach our fullest potential. Therefore, we must master how to become resilient instead of shrinking back from pain or resistance.

Today we are going to unpack what resilience is and how it can actually have more of a soft, integrated quality to it. We also going to get into how shame and resilience are related.

In this episode you'll learn

• Ways to reframe your thoughts so you avoid feeling unnecessary shame
• Strategies to remove negative feelings by rewiring your patterned thoughts and beliefs
• How to gain self control and change your outcomes by learning to tolerate uncomfortable emotions
• Ways to find your North Star when life seems off-center
• How to identify and stop negative emotions before they rise up and overtake you
• Why it's important to hold emotional space for others without always trying to fix their problems
• How to view your challenges and obstacles as forces working for your higher good
• Strategies to develop more emotional resiliency in your children

If you guys are yet to gather this from the show so far, I'm completely obsessed with esoteric teachings, spiritual practices, and certain concepts like Penney Peirce and I talked about in the last episode… a holographic reality.

I also love science, research, and data driven findings that reveal the "scientific proof" of what these ancient esoteric teachings knew in a different way.

Where all this comes together, literally… is integration. Bringing together all these different aspects of utilizing the power of the mind, understanding the subconscious, spiritual practices, daily rituals, and the use of our will through direct action.

I see it as a buffet where we can look at our little bag of tricks and select the best tool for the job.

In the second half of 2017 I had a strong sense to move into story and to hit the pause button on the left brain linear data driven side of things and dive deeper into spirituality, story, and creativity.

In 2016 I decided to dive into A Course In Miracles and apply the teachings daily for the whole year. Contemplating, focusing on and acting from some of the concepts in there produced some amazing shift and what I can obviously refer to here as miracles.

Late last year (2017) I was in a similar place emotionally, mentally, and spiritually where I was yearning for answers… but not in the usual research and record way that I have became accustomed to.

I ended up stumbling upon The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo and decided that this year I would go through the book each day and do the practice.

Today I want to share with you a passage from The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. In here he talks about an aging Hindu master who grew tired of his apprentice complaining.

Penney Peirce is a respected clairvoyant empath, visionary, author, and popular lecturer and trainer. She is one of the early pioneers in the intuition development movement, specializing in intuition development, inner energy dynamics, expanded perception, transformation, and dream work. She has worked throughout the US, Europe, Japan, South America, and South Africa since 1977, coaching business and government leaders, psychologists, scientists, celebrities, and those on a spiritual path about the hidden dynamics of what makes for true success.

She is the author of ten books, including Transparency: Seeing Through to Our Expanded Human Capacity, Leap of Perception: The Transforming Power of Your Attention, Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration, and The Intuitive Way: The Definitive Guide to Increasing Your Awareness.

There are these stages of understanding what transformation is doing and how our consciousness is changing and how its affecting the way our life works… and this process of transformation is what fascinates Penney and what she unpacks in the 4 books previously mentioned.

Transparency is what she describes as the last phase that she has noticed so far.

While this is a word you may relate to information, in her book, Penney outlines different levels or types of transparency, specifically horizontal and vertical transparency. She also speaks to the larger shift from the information age to the intuition age.

There is so much in this book and it's definetley worth a read. For me Transparency was a great bridge between those hard to grasp "spiritual" concepts and reality. It has also exercises in each section to put the concepts and ideas to work right away.

Today we are going to unpack Transparency and dive into what transformation is.

In this episode you'll learn

• How you can infuse the physical world with the light of your soul
• Why time and space are malleable and don't actually operate on a linear plane
• Learning how to slow down, find stillness, and drop into a deeper state of conscious awareness
• How to raise your vibrational frequency to avoid the negative emotions of others
• Why the past and future are just an illusion and everything exists in the present moment
• How a mindfulness practice can help to expand your sphere of consciousness
• Why fear begins to subside when you learn to identify with the soul
• How you can release internal pressure and tap into the ebb and flow of life
• Strategies to remove the clutter from your subconscious mind