Embracing Opposites

Episode 84 May 26, 2022 01:18:18
Embracing Opposites
Gay Men Going Deeper
Embracing Opposites

May 26 2022 | 01:18:18

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Hosted By

Matt Landsiedel Michael DiIorio

Show Notes

Have you ever found yourself conflicted about being top, bottom or vers?

Or maybe you find yourself torn between whether or not you want monogamy or non-monogamy...

Sometimes we can see pros and cons on both sides of our inner conflicts and it paralyzes us from making decisions.

Being conflicted about your desires is completely normal.

In this episode, Matt Landsiedel and Miguel Ezra Ramirez talk about polarity in life and how to navigate contradictions, preferences and the duality of the human experience.

As human beings, we can’t have sadness without knowing happiness, and we can’t understand clarity without first knowing confusion - this is polarity. We are all navigating ourselves and this world through our minds and our souls, and the polarity of this experience can be overwhelming for some people.

We created this episode to guide you towards embracing more of who you are and what this universe has to offer you through learning to let go of preferences or attachments and embrace opposites. Come on this ride with us and you might learn something new about yourself. 

Together they explore concepts like:

Connect with Miguel:

@miguelramirezintuitive

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to the game and going deeper podcast, a podcast by the gay men's brotherhood, where we talk about everything, personal development, mental health, and sexuality. And today we're going to be digging into spirituality, which I'm very excited to be talking about that. So today you're, I'm your host, Matt Landsiedel and co-hosting with me today is Miguel as a Ramirez. Welcome Miguel. Hi To have you here. So today we're going to be talking about embracing Opposites. So I'm very excited to talk about this because this has been a part of my life for a very long time, and I'm sure everybody is going to relate to this embracing opposites essentially is we're going to be unpacking the law of polarity dualism. These sorts of concepts in this podcast where, you know, you have the masculine, you have the feminine, you have the yin, the yang, you have the sun, the moon, you have happiness sadness. So this is what we're gonna be unpacking is how to dance in between these two worlds, right? We all often have these preferences of how we want things to be, right. We all prefer pleasure over pain, but how can we start to embrace the polarities that we don't seem as, or see as desirable and, and how, how embracing opposites is a secret weapon to learning how to suffer, learning how to move through challenging times and adversity in our lives. So Miguel and I are very versed in this area, and we've had a lot of personal and professional experience in this space. So we're going to be unpacking that with you guys today. So to give you an idea of what we're going to be talking about more specifically, we're going to be hearing a bit about Miguel and his, his story. You know, his origin story. We're gonna be talking about what is dualism. So I'll be talking about dualism Miguel experiences at Maura's polarity. So when we're Miguel, we'll be talking about polarity, and then we're going to be talking about our experiences, personal experiences with polarity and dualism, how to embrace opposites on the healing journey. And then we're going to be talking about how we can embrace opposites just in general and how we can actually make this transformation happen. So we are excited to have you guys here and unpack this all. I want to formally introduce Miguel. He's doing a lot of really great things. So I want to formally introduce him. And then we'll, we'll hear from, from him. So Miguel is a Mexican American queer and gay trans man, which a practitioner of<inaudible>, which is a full Keeling practice of Mexico and the American Southwest. I think I pronounced that right, and a business mentor in his private practice. He supports other witches coaches and healers, both on their personal healing journey, as well as in launching, sustaining and growing their online businesses. He's also an artist who loves to write paints, sing, and dance. Like I said, you're doing a lot of really great things, a lot of unique, unique and exciting things. So I want to hear, I want to hear from you, what do you, what do you think is the most important thing to share with the audience about who you are, your story? Let's start there. Thank you so much for that, that beautiful. It traumatic. I just, you did a great job. I just, for, for anyone who's listening, Coronado is to heal in Spanish. Curandero is a, is a healer and put on the risotto is kind of like, these are the tools like these are, this is the healing. These are the tools of the healing. Oh, amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So just wanting to break that down and thank you for that incredible intro. I just, it just felt so good to hear me. I think as someone who I'm like, oh, that's me. And I feel proud that I'm like, I recognize myself and that's, that's something, that's something that I couldn't say that I couldn't say for many, many years of my life. So I just felt this inner, like happy dance of like, whoa, like he's really, he is introducing you like, and like the real me and what I do. And that is so wonderful. And a little bit scary. Yeah. I want to honor that too. Cause it's not easy coming onto these, these podcasts and really exposing yourself and putting yourself out there. So the fact that you you're here and we're doing this, I it's amazing and you deserve to be introduced and you deserve to feel Thank you as do you, as do you as USAW. It's really a birthright. So there's so much I could share about my story. I guess what feels the most relevant is, you know, just the general overall I was born in Mexico and both, well, my one biological parent diagnosed very young, another was deemed unfit. And so I was adopted, taken into the United States and was raised mostly in the New York area and was raised both in Mexico in the state. It's was a very traumatic environment. So without getting into it too deeply, but every form of abuse that you can experience is, is what I is, what I experienced. And so what's coming to me to share is like I expended, I experienced a tremendous amount of soul loss. I experienced a tremendous amount of, you know,<inaudible> what we talk about in many shamonic practices talk about is when we experienced trauma, we lose our, we lose a piece of who we really are. And so, and so when we go into that, when we go into the dark room, we go into the bad memories and we, we bring in, you know, helping spirits. This is part of me being a, which is, and I guess another important part of my story is I was very much born with one foot in this world and one foot in the unseen portals. And that is a huge piece of who I am. And it took me a long time to accept that, to not perceived myself as crazy for having these gifts to embrace my gifts. And so, and it's still a process that I'm in, but so, yeah, so it's so huge. That was what I was feeling too. When you introduced me was the amounts of work that I have done to, to retrieve who I am to reclaim my culture, because I was separated from my culture, which is where<inaudible> is, is incredibly important to me. And I love working with people and connecting them to their, to their ancestors, to the, today, the cultures that their ancestors come from, because it's like, it's like a, it's like a power chart. It's like being plugged into a socket. It's it's like, if you're a phone and you're on it, it's, it's kind of like being on 2% battery. And then all of a sudden you have this like portable charger where you're just a hundred percent all the time that is like the cultural and ancestral and then sexual power. So, yeah. And, and another thing I want to share about my story lastly, is, you know, I was, I I'm a conversion therapy survivor. I was very abused for my identity. I tried to come out in high school. It was, it was so dangerous. I was bullied to the extent of almost being killed, to be totally honest. And so, and so there's been a huge journey for me to really be seen, to be seen as a queer person, to be seen as a trans man and then to feel, and as a gay trans man and to feel safe in knots. And, and today's sort of, it's a very big milestone for me in that journey. So just thank you again for being a part of this and, and yeah, that's, that's all I'll share for now. Yeah. I want to honor your story. I want to honor everything you just shared and for the listener viewer, I want to also let them into a little bit about behind the scenes about what we were doing before we got on, we were like encouraging each other and preparing each other because we both felt nerves coming into this container. Right. Like, and that's why I said, I want to honor that, like, this is not easy stuff to do to put yourself out there. And I still get nervous putting myself out there. So, and we both made a deal that we're going to embrace imperfection and just let ourselves say what needs to come through. Not put pressure on like making this into being something that it needs to be right. The more authentic, the more people gravitate towards it. I find so, yeah, I'm just that you're that you're feeling safe to come onto the podcast with me and share your story and I will hold as much space as I can for that. So. All right. So I wanted to ask you, what do you, what do you feel? Is there something you feel called to share just about you that I don't know, maybe you haven't shared before or just something on your hearts? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's similar to you. I was born into this world with one foot in the, in the spiritual world, one foot in the material world. And a lot of my karma in this life is around feeling understood, feeling different, feeling weird. And I internalize that story for so much of my life, that there was something wrong with me, right? Being sensitive, being empathic, being a gay man. Those were my three main things that I felt I was traumatized around feeling different. And now look at me, I'm leading with all three of those things. And so I just know that I know the, the world can be challenging when you're navigating it from that part of you. That's, if you're really honoring the, that you have one foot in the spiritual world and one foot over here, you're going to show up differently. You're going to be different. You're going to see the world differently and people can really be mean, and they can be really oppressive towards people that don't see the world through the lens that they see that. And I think that's what this podcast is all about today is like, how can we embrace opposites? How can we stop attaching to concepts that say, this is the way, right? This is the way there's no, there's no opposite. Right? So it's like the human experience. We have the ability to be able to tap into the whole alphabet. Right. And there's a lot of people in this world out of fear, out of ego, out of these things where they attach to AI and they're like a, is all that matters. They is the only thing, but there's the whole other alphabet. Right? And like, that's what I really want to open people's eyes to today is that we have, the human experience is meant to be experienced through the material and through the spiritual. Right. I don't think that everybody has access to this, but some people they just haven't tuned in yet. Right. So we're all meant to have a spiritual and a human experience. And, and I just think that it's really important to embrace both, right. Because in both of these realms, we learn so much about life and we learn so much about connection and each other. And so, yeah. You know, and that's a lot of the work that I'm doing is I'm really stepping into honoring and, and owning the healer in me because that is what I was born to do. But for the longest time, I felt like it would be, it would be weird to call myself that, or it would be like grandiose or, or people would judge me or whatever it is, but that's what I do. That's what I'm really good at. I, I bring people into connection, into community and into connection. Me and I that's the result is people feel healed after being in, in, in session with me. So how can I not claim that? Right? And it's, you said, it's your birthright to claim what it is, what is that as authentic to you? And, and I think I would love for people to get that out of this podcast is to claim to claim it all claim it all claim the pain claim, the pleasure claim, the masculine, the feminine claim, it all, and see what's there for you instead of using social construct to say, I can only claim the masculine, for example. Right. That was my story for so long. I can only claim the masculine because if I claim the feminine, then it means I'm weak. It means I'm like all the things. Cause I bought into that conditioning hardcore, right? The patriarchal capitalistic kind of conditioning. I bought into it in such a big way because that's what I was exposed to growing up. Right. So a lot of my integration of masculine feminine is me claiming my feminine. Right. And, and, and working with that. So yeah, dualism has been such a big part of my life and it's exhausting. It's confusing, it's triggering, it's all the things. But I wanna go into a little bit of kind of a mini monologue about what dualism is for me. And then I want you to have some time to be able to share what it means to you. Cause we're pretty aligned, but I think we're going to take a little bit of a different spin on it, which is good. It's good for the audience to, to hear that. So the way I look at dualism for me is it's well, maybe I'll define non-dualism for, so in, in the spiritual sense, non-dualism is about integration of mind, body, soul, and, and we are not split between our ego and our soul. That's usually where the split occurs in, in, in human beings. So dualism is about that split and the, the one that's the most relative to me in my life is ego and soul, right? I, my ego is tends to be very controlling, rigid. Fear-based judgmental. It seeks separation, right? Whereas my soul, it seeks freedom. It seeks oneness, it seeks nature. It's accepting, it's loving, it's unconditional, right? So I ha I've always been navigating these two polars in my life. Right. And I, for the longest time I rejected and I was, I was hiding parts of my ego in my shadow self. And, and a lot of the work I've been doing over the last few years is integration work around shadow and really moving towards authenticity and authenticity to me is that it's honoring all of us. Like all of me, it's honoring all of me, all of it. And they know the masculine, the feminine, the shadow, the light, the desire to separate the desire to, to, to come into connection. All of that has integrated into one being, and that's what I'm learning now. But what I'm noticing is there's a, there's a real challenge for me to honor my needs because I'm not sure what I need because part of me needs this. And part of me needs that. So I'm, there's a lot of dualism in my experience. I feel split a lot and I feel like I can't make up my mind a lot of the time. So that's the birthplace of this podcast. We both were talking and we both were experiencing this. So we're like, oh my God, let's create a podcast on this topic. And I'll read out some of the things that I've been grabbing or grappling with when it comes to my own dualism. So masculine, feminine was, it was a big one, mental, emotional. So I am the type of person that I love to retreat in my mind. And I don't want to feel my emotions. So I've had to learn how to bring the emotional back in, in line. And if you look at it, masculine actually is more of the embodiment of the, of the mental and feminine tends to be more the embodiment of the emotional. So as I've been making peace with my feminine, guess what else has been coming? You know, the, my emotional self has been also been coming back online again. So they're very connected. Perfection and imperfection is another big one that I've been really grappling with because I am a recovering perfectionist. And it creates a lot of discomfort for me to be within in perfection and not internalize that and make it as if something's wrong with me, if I'm not perfect. Right. And I know you relate to that. What what's going on for you when I share that I'm curious, I'm like deep breaths. I, yes, the perfectionism for me is, is they think more ingrained that I than I would like to admit. It's a huge, a huge coping mechanism for me. And it was, it was a huge way that I attempted to survive. So that's, that's just, what's coming up for me. Yeah. I appreciate it. It's the same as me. Totally. A trauma response. Yeah. Not feeling worthy, not feeling good enough. So I make my world up here. Perfect. So then I feel more perfect. Yeah. Yes. Also, there's this social facade of like, oh, look, I'm perfect. There's no problems here, which is, that was modeled by my parents. Like, oh, just pretend you don't have problems, you know? Yeah. I think, I think what's helped me is like the illusion of perfection. Like it's just, it's not even real. And it's like, who's perfect. Am I striving towards, because it's, it's not actually, it's not actually a one size fits all thing. So for me, it's like, oh, I'm just trying to conform still to my father's definition of what a perfect girl is. Unfortunately. And, and so that's, but, but I think for me, I'm realizing that there's no such thing as perfectionism is, is helpful or that there is it's, it's our soul. That's perfect. Right. Or our soul is whole and perfect. And, and we, we lose sight of that. We can lose sight of that perfection and wholeness, which is really the perfection is the perfection. Yeah. We're all perfect as imperfect people. That's, that's, what's beautiful about being a human being. So anyway, Yeah. I love that. And we're going to get into that a little bit later is that paradox of the healing journey. And I'm excited to hear your take on that. Cause it, it gets juicy in that area. So some of the other ones for me are the yin and the yang, which is the, you know, the yen energy is more slow. The yang energy is more fast, right? Inaction in action, yang, right? Masculine, feminine, we all have bolts. We all have both masculine energy. We all both have feminine energy. We all have yin energy. We all have yang energy, right? This is just how it works. The sun and the moon, right? Again, masculine, feminine. The sun represents the masculine energy. The moon represents the feminine energy, pain, and pleasure. That's a big one for me because a lot of my life I've been always gravitating towards what feels good and sometimes what feels good. Isn't the thing that we need. Sometimes we need to move towards discomfort. We need to have difficult conversations. We need to make choices that are gonna impact us in negative ways. Right. So learning how to make peace with that. Polarity has been a big one for me, clarity and confusion. That's another polar that I'm really, you know, in a lot of me, I so seek clarity and certainty, but there's times where we need to be confused. And there's times where we need to surrender and not know exactly what's going on. Right. And then the last one that I've noticed in my life is introversion and extroversion. So again, the polar between those two. So yeah. I feel like I've defined enough as far as dualism and what that means to me. So do you want to talk about polarity and kind of what that's like for you? Yeah. I would love to, I'm just pulling up my notes cause there's a couple of juicy things on I'll know. I'll forget if I don't get this. Yeah. Fair enough. While you're doing that. Oh, go ahead. No, you go, Well, I was going to say, well, if you need time to look, I was going to say, I'll talk a bit about balance and what that means to me, but if you're Oh yeah, no, let's go there. Let's do that first. Yeah. So grab your notes and I'll do that. So balance, I just want to say too, because this isn't about in my experience, at least, you know, non-duality or balance we could call it. Isn't about always walking the middle path. Do you know what I mean? It's about discernment, in my opinion, it's like, okay, masculine and feminine. I've been working with both the energies of masculine and feminine, and I feel like I've made some really great strides and I feel like I'm pretty integrated with these two. Now. It was a huge struggle, but I feel like I I've made peace with a lot of the feminine energy. And I want to just say that there's not really like, I guess sometimes in my life where I'm really like both and I'm embodying both, it's usually I'm feeling masculine energy and I'm like in that energy and I'm productive and I'm getting stuff done. And then when I moved towards slowed down time, maybe it's time to go have a nap or maybe it's time to just be with my body and stillness. Then I enter feminine. So again, it's, it is about the swinging of the pendulum. That's balanced, balanced, but it's discernment in knowing when to activate what, when to practice, acceptance for the polarity that we maybe don't desire as much as the other one. That's what, how I feel like balance is been, you know, established for me. So I wanted to just bring, bringing voice to that So much wisdom. Oh good. Yeah. And I love what you said about sometimes, sometimes it's balance isn't balanced at all. It's actually going into the extreme of the polarity that brings balance. And that is that for me, I feel that, you know, this topic is so cute. I feel like because in many ways, you and I are exactly the same and the exact opposite. So I actually feel a lot of polarity within like relationally within the relational fields and feel the dance, which is super fun. And I, I feel that we're opposite in the way of, like you were saying, you always gravitate towards comfort or towards pleasure and shy away from pain. And I'm, I'm sort of the opposite. I have a very score bionic. I'm like, let's go into the pain. Like I just want to go into the darkness and transmute it. Right. Like I just want to like, and, and I actually, but I've realized that part of that is my trauma because I never had a comfort zone established. I was born to a homeless addict. Right. I was like born on the street with nothing. Right. There was no comfort anywhere. And then I was, and then I was raised by people who gas, let me out of my culture and made me feel very unsafe emotionally. It didn't accept my sensitivity. And so it's like for me, it's actually moving towards pleasure and the comfort zone that is uncomfortable. And then let's go into the pain and go into the trauma. It's kind of like, how can I feel good right now? Like, can I take a bath? Can I make myself some tea and like really developing that self suiting and self comforting is my that's my growth points. And then in terms of healing work, I really help people. I'm not scared of the dark. Right. That's the thing about me is like, I'm not scared of the dark. I'm not scared of anyone else's dark. And so I help people really go into like the worst shit that they've ever been through. And I hold that, that safety and that candle for them too, you know, I can't walk there for them, but I feel like I hold a candle and I, and I walk with them as they go into their stuff. Cause it's very hard and it's very, it's very ego breaking, right? Our ego doesn't want anything to do with that. Like, are you guys like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just going to like come out and like watch some Netflix, you know? So I think this is also like the purpose of healers coaches, therapists is, is that handholding into the things that are diff difficult or the things that we are just for no fault of our own, a little bit deficient in, you know? Yeah. So anyway, probably be a three-hour podcast, but just for the sake of time, I was curious, I Googled polarity and it says the state of having two opposite or contrary three tendencies opinions or aspects. I also want to say that I can relate to them so much. I actually had therapy right before this and something I was talking about was, I don't always know how to set boundaries with people because I have different parts of me and the parts can be not in agreement about some parts are okay with what happened or what the person did and other parts aren't. And so a huge part of my healing that I do for myself and hold for other people is like, we have counsel with the parts that are, that are in conflict about something and yeah. Yeah. So there's that, but anyway, yeah, that's important. I want to talk about actually a lot of what we're referencing in astrology since January of this past year, all the way until July of 2023, we're in south node in Scorpio and north node in Taurus. So we're very much in this we're mastering non-physical reality. We're mastering spiritual stuff where we're mastering intensity and growing through intensity and in order to move into yes, exactly. In order to move into talk to Ray and things like comfort, feeling at peace with the body stability, both of them also very much have to do with money. So that's, that's very much a collective message and that those, those two signs are polarity. Polarity is it's everywhere in nature. You, you talked about sun and moon. That's a big thing in curanderismo. We have Gran grandfather, sun, grandmother, moon, and that's the horizontal polarity. And then we also have the vertical polarity of sky and earth of traditionally father, mother though. They can be inverted to that's. The other thing I want to say too, is, especially for my gender blessed gender nonconforming trans non binary community, is that I know that some, sometimes this language around masculine and feminine energy can be very triggering. And that for me, it's not about gender, but it is about it's about energy and about working with the construct that exists, right? Like, so it's like maybe not the best construct because, because of the associations and because you know, something I was talking to you about is like, when I came out and started transitioning, I was doing all of these women's moon circles and sort of very like earth based practice things that was very healing for me. And it was a tremendous loss and it was this realization of like, why are we not aware of the wholeness of ourselves? And the fact that men need lunar transformation, two men need to connect to the moon cycles too. Like I actually men need, you know, earth based practices and worship. If they feel, they say, it's not a, it's not an overall prescription, but it's like, that is, what's so depressing and oppressive literally about, about these gender based roles is that they're not real they're extractions. And they're very small boxes that are designed to keep us acting in a predictable way, dressing in a predictable way. And this is where I feel like being trans we're I'm, I'm sort of here to bring this polarity within myself. I think that all trans people bring wholeness as, as a spiritual purpose, bring wholeness to the world because here I am a man who was trained as a woman, right? Like I was trained that I, I could cry. I could have, I could have feelings, but not anger. I was not supposed to be angry. I was supposed to be a good girl. Right. And that is a really shitty thing. But then men, you know, from what I've heard, you could be angry, but nothing else, you know, you can't be, you can't be a cry baby. You can. So, so we have, you know, and I'm just speaking about there's a lot of kids say there's also gender non-conforming again, I'm thinking of more binary trans people in binary, right. In this moment where it's like, we, the world needs me. The world needs, the world needs women who were trained as men and, and men who were trained as women and people who are neither or all of the above are fluid because it's, we remind society of our wholeness. And I think that as we remind society of that, there's a tremendous threat that that can happen. But yeah, I think, I think that's all I'll say on that. It's a huge, it's a huge thing. And I'm, I feel like that's part of my purpose and working with sensitivity, I come up against this a lot because I see a lot of men who come in that are well gay or, or, or not, it doesn't really matter. There's a lot of repression of their sensitivity because they see it as feminine or a weakness. And there's a lot of deconditioning and deprogramming that has to happen around that. And I feel like that's where a lot of my purpose right now, and now in my practice, my private practice, I'm attracting a lot of heterosexual men, believe it or not, because they're, they're being submitted into embracing their feminine, whether they want to, or not, there's things that are happening changes to their body changes to their sexual selves. And there's a lot of shame coming up. And so, yeah, we're, this is, this is all good stuff though, because we've been conditioned and programmed into gender roles and they don't work. They do not work because I have a masculine energy and I have a feminine energy. And my feminine energy is my emotional self. And my, my, my masculine energy is my mental self and they both need to be honored. And when I was repressing my feminine, I was repressing my emotions and that has led me to disastrous places. And I'm much happier now being an integrated beam. Yeah. We're on the same. Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah, totally. And so for me, obviously, embracing anger has been the medicine, you know, that I get to feel it and, and taking sacred rage workshops. And I actually do a whole practice with myself where I write down what I'm angry about and I punched pillows and I let myself really go through this whole, this whole process. It's something I've held space for, for clients, especially clients who are assigned female at birth to where it's like, there's been this, this shaming out of anger, which leads to a lack of boundaries, you know, and, and I guess healthy ego, right. A balanced, balanced ego, if there is such a thing, Sometimes it enslaved sometimes as deeply. And so then like, it's like, okay, like where, where is that balance? You know? But there was something else. Oh yeah. I want to just say, I love that you have this dualism of, of your mental self and your emotional self. I have a incredible mentor. Who's a medical medium and many other things Dr. Sarah Larson. And what she taught me, that's really stuck with me is that the feminine, the way she defines it is the feminine is spiritual, emotional, and it's the left side of the body. And the masculine is mental, physical, and it is the associated with the right side of the body. And Yeah. And then it switches in the brain. Right. Then there, there there's that there's that cross and that meeting in the middle, right. Then we have the pituitary gland, the pineal glands at the center of the brain that represents where the two are. That is where the two come together. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously in polarity, there is this paradox and that's, you know, I was introduced to this concept by a female shamonic practitioner and she was talking about it and she said, you know, we live in a world where two opposite things are true at the same time. And she put her hands together like this, which is, which is something that most religions have this position. Right. Because it's like this, this coming together to go within energy with the nerve endings in the hand. But something just really, something just really hit me in that moment where it's like, oh right. That's what I am confused. Right. You're like, you talk about confusion and clarity and it's just as they like it, it brought me this acceptance of life. Like this acceptance of like, is this something that teal Swan talks about is like, she's like a spiritual teacher online and author. Cause she talks about how we don't need to try to feel better or feel happy. We need to get better at feeling like the goal is I'm blushing quote, but it's like to get better at feeling. And there's something so grounding and being real about the fact that like sometimes life is really shit and traumatizing and awful and confusing and scary. And there's no escaping that for anyone, regardless of body size, race, gender identity, or anything, we are, we're all in this thing. And sometimes it's great and sometimes it's total crap and it's also everything in between, you know, it's like the weather, it's not fucking sunny unless you live in Los Angeles. It's not, it's not sunny out at 72 degrees with a, with a cool gentle breeze every day. That's not life. Right. There's winter. And so a lot of my like shamonic healing path has been, you know, how do you say thank you to winter? How do you say, thank you, thank you for how fucking hard this is. Like, you know, and just that absolute, radical acceptance of my own crap and the difficulty, you know, have people love with journey. There's people who love skiing. I was born in Mexico. Right. So like, that's not my ass. I'm like, you know, it's like 60 degrees out and I have my little like abuela sweater on. Right. So, but I, I, I will say so, you know, so there's, there's challenge there, you know, and there's, there's challenge for all of us in different areas areas. So what's coming up for you around this. What are you, what's been your what's been your, well, you touched on this already, but like, I don't know, what's on your heart about your own, your own healing journey and the ups and downs. And how do you, how do you navigate that? I want to say one thing before I answer that, I think Because of what I want to talk about the polarity that, of what you were just talking about and what was it? Just a statement. Yeah. It'll come back. Did you want to continue on with polarity or you want to Yeah, sure, sure. I think, oh yeah. Like I want to name a couple of other polarities that have been important to me spirit and matter. Right. We kind of touched into that with this Scorpio tourists situation that we're all navigating death and rebirth. That has been a very powerful one for me, especially on my journey of being trans. It's like, you know, I have one name and then I didn't have it anymore legally. Right. I had certain body parts for most of my life. And then, boom, they're done God. And now I am this new version. That is my most authentic self. It's very dramatic. Right? It's a very, it's very, very dramatic death and rebirth process where you realize these things, death and rebirth date. They seem to be two separate things, but they're really not. And they really are really separate things. They're really one in the same thing. It's two opposite things. There's paradox inherent in polarity. And what's amazing too, is coming to me is to show people like there's a magnetism, right? So there's like the moon and the sun and the polarity of that opposite illness. And then the polarity of the sky and the earth. There's a, there's a as human beings, we're in the middle of all of that. Right. And also nature animals, everything, the, and this is the true th the heart, right? We have this vertical thing and then we have our arts and where everything meets is the heart. And I just think that, I just think that that is so beautiful. And it reminds me, it reminds me that I belong, right. Because so much of my life Bernay brown, she talks about, she talks about how, oh, I lost it. I lost it. I lost it because I had a thought, which is, I want to acknowledge that Bernay brown isn't necessarily for everyone. I know. I know that, I know that black women in particular take issue with some of what she teaches around vulnerability and I am mixed race. So that, and blackness is a part of my mix. And so I too feel some conflict around her. And she is also someone who's deeply benefited life. There's there's polarity, even in this experience for me, it's like, wow, she's really great. And you have a lot of privilege to be saying and encouraging certain behaviors that are built off of a lot of privilege. That she's good at acknowledging, but I don't know that she's fully dismantled. And yeah. So I just wanted to say that, but she, one thing I watched a talk of her a few months ago that I really feel changed my life because it articulated something that about my experience, which is about belonging and how often when we're fitting in, we're actually, we're not belonging because we have to belong with ourselves first. And so when we're trying to fit, in which many of us, I want to say myself included, had to do to survive. Growing up, we had to shape, shift, fitting with our families. We had the people pleasing, be calm, codependent, and associate and all these other really, really terrible things. And to get through middle school and high school, oh my God. Forget about it. Right? Like I could not be myself. I was going to get murdered in there, but I'm on this inner teenager healing. So that, that part of me is like this, entertainer's your healing journey. So that part is very strong, but I realized that, you know, and then, so it can take some time as an adult to realize you don't have to fit in anymore. You don't have to betray yourself anymore, but to also have compassion for the fact that your nervous system in your body and your mind and heart formed around survival. And so this is another false polarity for me, is self sabotage and self love, self betrayal, and self honoring to self betrayal. Let me survive. Right. So how is it that the self, so the self-sabotage to write the self-sabotage helped me survive. So how has it, how has it not self-love that I did that because it helped me to survive. So that's another, that's another polarity that I think about is like the grace and compassion with our adult selves, with our younger selves that is going to take, it's taken me anywhere. I'll just speak for myself. And I would say most people, you know, we can't snap our fingers and be healed overnight. It's, it's sometimes like a real journey and requires patience to allow younger parts of ourselves to catch up to the fact that we can honor ourselves. Now we can love ourselves and we don't have to have these defense and protective mechanisms in place anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I love that. I think I did. Yeah. I wrote it down. I hate when that happens, but it happened all the time For me too. The, The ego, I want to say I have the same experience with the ego, because like, for me, my ego was developed very early because I couldn't be gay. I couldn't be sensitive. And the ego in mind from, from the context of which I'm speaking of it is it's that, that part of us that we develop in ourselves that we, that we it's the voice in our heads that tells us who we are at. It, it tells us how to interact with people. And the ego is an inauthentic aspect of ourselves because we come into this world, we're born into this world. We're authentic. We're just this expression of love and presence. And then we realize, oh, okay, that environment over there, isn't accommodating for me. So I need to change myself and I need to put on a different mask so that I can walk over there and feel like I fit in. Right. And so that's been my experience. A lot of my life is it's just like this ego formation wearing different masks of who I am. And a lot of the work I've been doing is moving towards my soul. What does my soul crave? And my soul is in my body. So I listened to my body, what does my body crave? And so it's this dance, but what I want to say, but my whole point is that we have to offer love to the ego because it was actually very adaptive. Ego is very adaptive. If we didn't have it, then we wouldn't be able to feel safe in environments that technically are our authentic self are not welcome in. Right. So I had to build an ego around masculinity and, and heteronormativity, right. These sorts of things. So I could fit in and not get beat up at school. Right? So like all of these things. So the ego serves a very adaptive purpose. However, I will say that we come to a point in our life where if we don't have connection to our soul or our body, and we're purely governed by our ego, it's very maladaptive because we're not connected to our true, authentic desires and needs, right. Because we feel unsafe to share those with the world. So it's all time and place. And it's all contexts where these sorts of things come into play. So I wanted to just make note of that. The other point, the other point was the, this thing around static and dynamic and how our, how the, the polarities, you know, when let's say, for example, when we experienced adversity and we have like a preference towards pleasure and not pain in my experience, pleasure is very static when you're experiencing pleasure. You're not really growing as much. You're not really evolving as much, but it's through our adversity that we enter the dynamics of, of psychology and we are really challenged to, to grow and develop. So I do think that the, the polarity that we often deem as undesirable is the, the, the, the, the, the, the energy that we need to enter, to heal and grow and develop. And it makes us more dynamic and more character and more depth to our being when we do. So. Yeah. That was my point. I'm glad that Yes, I am too, because I knew that Forgetting and remembering, you know, and my thing is like, if it's important, it'll come back. You know, it always comes back at the right time. Exactly. Yeah. I clearly needed just to say, like, Ray, I always, I like to adopt like, radical trust. I clearly needed to say all of that other stuff first before we went there. So Yeah. It's all good. Cause we don't have to be perfect. Remember Exactly. I wanted to say to, I wanted to say this like forever ago, but when you were talking about yourself in the beginning and you were saying, you know, I realized that my coaching, you know, people are really able to heal from my, from my coaching. I will say to you, I've been able to heal just you looking at me, it's like, you don't even have to do anything. It's just like, I just wanted to express that because I think, I think so much of the, so much of the gifts that we bring are just in our beingness and in the inner work that we've done. And we have that frequency automatically. We have that energy of embodiments of this is the work. And so it's like, I, yeah, so it's like sometimes and people have, people have told me, there was this really sweet trans girl at this former community I was in. And I was unfortunately in an unstable housing situation. And so I went to stay with him at the time he had a guest bedroom while I was waiting for my, at least to start. And, and he told me, he was like, you looked at me. And I literally, I literally felt like you knew, I felt like you knew I was a girl. And I was like, so scared. And I guess I just felt like you could tell when you looked at me and it wasn't anything conscious for me at all. But because I see myself, I went through my total ego death of, oh, this is my real gender and said, yes, to my transformation. It took action. It took hormone therapy. It's like, it's like, you become a trans person activator and an activator of everything that you've done. You've done your work around it. And that you've embraced about yourself. So I thought it was so cute. I was like, oh honey, I have no idea. I lit, I truly didn't. But she knew if she knew when I looked at her. And then, so I think that we have so much power and magic. That's just in our beingness. That is, that is so important to note being in doing there's another polarity, right? It's so important to note in a society that values only doing that is very imbalanced in the masculine that is in very, very imbalanced and patriarchy. Right. And for those colonialism separated us from the earth and from, from a more community non-hierarchical based Way of living. Yeah. Which is part of why I love gay men's brotherhood because it's community, you know, when you do this, you have people who come on and it's like, you know, there's this value in, what do you have to share? What are we going to talk about? And it's like, everyone brings equal value. Yeah. I love that. Love that feel complete in your shares around polarity. I want to make sure you've had a chance to share everything you want to share. And then we'll move into our own personal experiences with polarity and dualism. There's a lot more than, I don't think I'll ever be More so to say you're sharing. Yeah. I write a book. I do want to write a book. I, I guess I want to spare. Yeah. There's one last thing. And then I'll be complete. Two last things are related. I contain multitudes. Walt Whitman, right. Part of being mixed race is, is like, I am technically white and brown and black. Right. I'm Afra Brasilia, and I'm, I'm Mexican. And I just want to name that this, this is another area of not fitting in to belong, right. That, to belong with myself. That is really huge for me on my healing journey. And I, I love the mixed race community. I get along with them best because we're all people who don't fit in, but we were trying to find belonging with ourselves because it's not black or white for us literally. Right. And so that's, that's been a huge embracing for me. There's still not a lot of representation around that in the world. And can we live in a society that wants us to only be one thing. It wants us to only be one thing. And so that's, that's what feels so radical about that, that journey too. And the other thing is, you know, there's a lot of false light, right? Like this, this, especially in the spiritual communities, right. We'll see. There's, I guess I'm wanting to name that on the healing journey. A lot of people just want it to feel good. And, and there's a lot of these yoga teachers who are, you know, abusers and, and in that we can see there's, there's a lot of darkness and people who are only trying to be in the light. Right. And so it's, it's actually the people who own their darkness in your own, their shadows and who are really, really real about, you know, sometimes I'm a controlling bitch, you know, like this is my shadow. Like I own this, this is the behavior that I don't like, but it's something that I'm working on. There's so much, there's so much more lights ironically in that. Right. There's so much more, you know, Rumi said, the wound is where the light enters you. I think that the wound is the light is the light. Because again, like in, in spiritual truth, none of this is separate. Right. Last brief, Manuel, there's this thing, I see a lot of these tech doctors and tick talkers and people on Instagram who are like, you are not broken. You are whole. And I just, I just hate it. I hate it because, because I am broken and that's okay. Like I'm also whole, I'm holding my soul as whole. And in my, in my personality and my human self, my spirit is whole. And I know that, and I can, I think that's what they're trying to call on. Right. So I have passion for that, but I am also really broken. And so what, right? Like what if, what if I am glorious in my shards, right? Like what if it's so beautiful? How broken I am? Because of course I'm broken because of the trauma that I went through. And if I don't say, okay, I'm whole, but I'm also broken. Then I can't tend to the brokenness that is ultimately going to be my healing journey. That's going to allow me to feel the wholeness more to remember. It's really a remembering of the wholeness when we heal. So yeah. Very passionate about that. Just wanted to say we can be broken and whole at the same time. Yes. I love that. I love that. And that's the whole point of this. That's the whole point of this podcast is we can be both. Right. It's a, yeah. Yeah. I love that. All has a great Todrick hall. If you don't know him. Oh my God. Look him up right out. But he has this great song. I can do both. I can be the masculine. I can be the feminine. I could be a bitch. I could be a sweetie. I could throw a pitch. I could be receiver. I could be a diva. I can do all of it. I can do both. I totally fucked up, but it's worth, it's worth checking out. Yeah. Okay. So let's, let's talk about our experience with polarity and dualism. So I'm going to start. So I've identified three, actually, and these are the top three that I'm navigating in my life right now. And the first one is introversion and extroversion. I am innately an introvert, but I would say I have 30% of the time. I really crave connection and I want to be around people, but I have a threshold when I'm out in a boat I'm very on and I can have tons of fun, but then I hit a wall or like a ceiling. And it's like, literally, it's like a switch flicks. And I just need to get the hell out. I love people. I work with people for a living, but people also are draining for me because I feel everything. And I it's just it's a lot. Do you know what I mean? Like I hear the unspoken. I feel the unfelt like, everything is so intense for me. So I'm really navigating this right now. Like there's a part of me that just wants to be at home and be introverted. And there's a part of me that wants to be out and about and being in the action. Right? So I'm learning this, this middle ground, which is actually Ambi version, which is a blend between introversion and extroversion. So I'm trying to, you know, letting the moment, help me define what it is that I want to be in that given moment. So that's a big one for me that I'm navigating my relationships, my relationship to community, all these things are impacted by my, my introversion and extroversion. Right? So this is a big one. The other one that I'm really navigating right now is non-monogamy versus monogamy. And, and what that means for me. And do I want to be in a monogamous container? There's a part of me that is more rooted in fear, more my ego, that I desire safety and certainty. That part of me really wants monogamy because it's a safe container. I know I don't have to worry about<inaudible> and all these things, and it just seems more, more practical. Okay. Then my soul comes along and is like, you want freedom? You want versatility, you want variety. You want all these experiences. You want to be able to love freely, whoever you want. Right. So I'm honoring both of these parts of me. And I'm feeling very confused right now because I don't think I've made it far enough along the journey to be like fully absolved of my relational fears. Right. I still have insecurities around that. And I still experienced jealousy, which really at the end of day, I don't think it ever goes away. It's a human emotion. We're meant to experience it, but maybe the intensity decreases. But so that's a big one for me right now that I'm really unpacking. And, and then the, the, the whole notion around topping and bottoming and it being super mood dependent for me and safe safety is plays a role in that. So it's, again, like my ego probably has more of a desire to bottom and my soul probably has more of a desire to top, right. Because I am more of a masculine energy and I do have a desire to kind of play that role. But there's also this part of me that likes to submit. And so, again, it's just this dance between two. And I don't like the, the, this notion of versatility either because I love role definition. That's a part of maybe my ego attached to stuff, but I love defined roles. I love knowing that in a sexual experience, I'm going to show up as the top, or I'm going to show up as the bottom and it doesn't, I'm not really into like flip-flopping and, and all that sort of stuff. So there's just this energy of, so anyway, so these are a lot of the polarities and the, and the dualistic stuff that I'm navigating right now. I'm curious for you, what's, what's coming, coming up for you. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I just really, I just really cherish your, your courage and how vulnerable you always are. All of this. It's like really amazing. You're welcome. Yeah. I guess before I answer it, I want to respond to that by saying like, like, I think when we've experienced trauma, first of jealousy, I read in this book on attachment trauma, that jealousy comes from attach like that. Tell us. Yeah. But it's also a human emotion that never goes away, which is, which is sort of the vote towards non-monogamy. Right. Is it's like, well, this is always going to be here, you know? So yeah. And I can relate the jury's out for me on monogamy or non-monogamy my feeling is like maybe a monogamous I'm I'm in the same navigation. I'm also not really focused on, I'm not focused at all, actually on dating at this point in my life. But I still think about, because I will, at some point again, I'm just doing a lot of recovery and healing and reopening my business and designing classes and stuff like that right now, but, and friendships and just the amazing, the amazing romance that is friendships. I there's, there's some quote that my therapist told me that's like, we would all do well with our friendships becoming more romantic and our romantic relationships becoming more like friendships, which I think, I think is a very balancing oh, great idea. Yeah. I was going to say something else. Oh, this story keeps coming to my mind for the past couple of days when I was thinking about doing this, I, first of all, when I say it makes so much sense that you wanted to have it to find roles sexually, because that's what creates safety, right? That's the, the clarity and not the confusion with clarity comes safety. So like, I think that that's amazing, you know, I think that that's great. And I think, again, it's this whole, just for me personally, there, there are certain, I, I truly, I feel like for a long time being a trans man, it's like, he wants, you want to be 60, but just me. I want to be this. I want to feel SIS. There's this body envy, right? There's this body jealousy but I am truly grateful to not have the, in on a certain level indoctrinated into this, this gay male community, because I don't have this program of top and bottom. I think it's kind of another construct where we all contain multitudes. So I kind of feel like on a spiritual level, most people are versed. And I, I feel like it's about that vulnerability like that vulnerability of tapping into wholeness. And I think sometimes we meet people who can really change our orientation in that way. We'd be people where it's like, oh, I've never wanted to bother them before, but now all of a sudden I feel safe and I feel like I could receive that. You know? So I think it's also like a trauma informed individual type of thing. I took this class called tantra meets BDSM, which kind of like changed my life. It didn't kind of trays my life. It did. And just that the defining of the roles and the energy of the roles that is just, it's just so powerful. And it created as someone who's as sexual trauma and sexual violence and incest survivor, it creates so much safety, so much safety, just knowing who, who is doing what, and with the safety comes, the healing. But in terms of this like pain pleasure, poli, the teacher had everyone, you know, so one person is the top and the other person is the bottom and the bottom sit and just energetically, not anything sexy. Well, when you start exploring the sacred sexuality, tantra stuff, it's like, what even is sex and what isn't. It starts to get really fucking weird. So the bottoms are sitting in the chair and the tops come and they're like the teacher and everyone consented to this. Right? So the, he, he Dom's and stuff. It's just the language we use. So the Dom starts pushing this point in the jaw of the, of the bottom as, or I think it was like up here. I don't know, it's some, some pain points in the body it's painful and he's like, push it. He's like yelling. He's like pushing it, go harder, you know? And everyone has safe words and everything. So I want to, I want to, again, like presence and everyone consented and people were, they were screaming in pain. They were like, oh God, they had tears. Right. And then something really fucking weird. I was with, I was like, I'm not playing this game. So I witnessed all of a sudden, you can see, it starts to flip. It started to get real weird. People's eyes start to roll back into their head. People started moaning. People started like I could see people's just being extra sensory. I could see people's souls having an expansion and having a like pain meets pleasure, like threshold, whole point where it's like, oh, it's so painful. That all of a sudden it feels good and maybe I've turned on and it's like, this is like, what's so amazing about that stuff. And sorry, someone messaged me on Facebook is, is like that. It gets to be that's. What's exciting about BDSM and dominance and submission and all of those roles, especially when they're done in a sacred container with a teacher holding it in my, in my experience that creates a lot more safety is like, it gets through, what is it? Is it pain? Is it is a boat. Is it? Oh, now it's people. Oh, all of a sudden now it feels really good. Again, it flips so fast that you almost can't even track it. And that is where that integration comes in. Yeah. It's like, it was so amazing to experience. Add a similar thing emotionally that when I started facing my sexual abuse of my dad, I was in so much emotional pain, but it was so liberating because it had been so trapped for so long that it was like, it was like euphoric. Like it was like, I got these repressed memories back and it was that soul retrieval of like, oh, now I know. And then I experienced for the first time nondual emotions, which is where I was crying and laughing at the same time in, in the processing of that trauma, I was crying because it was so painful. And I was laughing because I was so free in facing it. And I had so much courage and I, there wasn't any really line between the two. And I think that that is the gift of the healing journey is you do find these moments. We can't keep them, they don't last, but we have these moments of like, oh, it's all the same. Like, I, I know that my soul longs for that, like, it's all one thing. And I'm all one thing and I'm hold and I'm, I'm one with all of myself at the same time. Anyway. Yeah. So I don't really talk about how that, I think that was just more important to talk about then how this relates to my Experience. That's more so in the past you were talking about kind of sharing. That's true. I want to be mindful of time. So I think maybe we should move into how we can embrace opposites. So I want to leave the viewer and the listener with tangible things that we have that we've experienced that are beneficial, that can help people do this, this work. Cause this is really tough work to be able to embrace opposites. It takes a lot of consciousness. And so, yeah. What, what maybe like your top three things, what would you say? And then I'll do mine after I have two that are coming to mind. Maybe I'll iterate the third on the fly. The one is a quote that I said in the beginning, which is embraced feeling rather than trying to, rather than trying to feel happy and trying to feel good. Just get good at feeling, just get good at whatever it is, because eventually your ego it's like anything else. It's like, you go to the gym, you build muscle in certain places like you build this muscle of this, like lack of duet, you build this muscle of, okay, my sadness is here. It's like the rain being here, it's going to pass. Right. It puts you in touch with impermanence, which is another spiritual concept that just really helps me is nothing, nothing lasts. If you have a negative bank account, it's not going to stay that way. If you have $10,000 or $20,000 in your bank account, it's not going to stay that way. Everything is always impermanent. It's part of, it's part of this, this world and the other, the other one is, is similar. It's, it's really the same concept, which is from that con or our friends. Yeah. I feel like I'm manifesting. I'm like my best friend, but I call him, I don't know him personally, but he, she talks about, he talks about, I love the one who, so sometimes, you know, an example for me is like, okay, I'm depressed. I'm going into this depression. I feel like I can't get out of bed. You know, I it's like, I love the one who's depressed. I love the one who feels like they can't get out of bed right now. I love the one who's in despair. And just, just repeating this, repeating this sort of mantra of, I love that whichever one of me is showing up, right. Whichever whichever emotion is showing up, that's, that's who I'm choosing to love. And it won't be easy, especially not at the beginning. Yeah. I think in a sense, healing gets easier and it also gets harder because you get stronger. So the deeper layers come up, but it gets easier in that your view you've sort of been, been at the healing gym and have been working out for for years. So you're strong. So yeah, those are, those are my, those are my tools. And, and just, just remembering how funds who I know for me sometimes I just have to flip it and just if you're in that despair place and you're in that sadness place to remember, you can some maybe not always, but you can make choices. Right. So if I know for me, like knowing myself, if I put on upbeat music, if I paint, if I start reading myself module or poetry, if I really just get into my heart, you know, by myself, hot chocolate, I do to also like move towards the joy and the flood love to dance, to music, just with myself in my apartment. That's a huge, that's a huge morale booster for me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So how about you? Okay. So I think the first one for me is going to be allowing and welcoming discomfort. Yes. Because we often times choose the desirable polarity because we don't want to be with the discomfort of whatever the opposite polarity that you don't want. So the more we, we practice allowing discomfort and your light, it's like the same analogy as you go to the gym, right? The more you practice being at the gym of discomfort, the more you develop the muscle and tolerance of being okay with discomfort, because it's part of it. It's part of life. Right. And what happens is we, oftentimes we dissociate, we shut ourselves off. We were pressed. So we don't have to deal with that. All other polarity, but really we're, we're stunting our own evolution. We're stunting our own growth. If we don't mingle with that other polarity that maybe we don't want to. So, and I think that, that the biggest thing around that is probably using curiosity is really important. Like why do I feel so repelled by that polarity? What would it be like if I allowed myself to move towards it and, and, you know, felt that and tried that, right. So it's like about putting on the hat of like, feel the fear and do it anyway. Right. Because oftentimes we don't move towards a polarity because of fear. So it's like, feel the fear, be with that fear and just choose to do it anyway and see what comes up. So that that's a big one. The second one is let the moment inform you and practice discernment. Because like, for example, the thing with me with topping and bottoming, it's like, the moment will let me know what my body wants. And if I'm in a connection with a guy and I feel like topping, and that's what my body is communicating to me, then I will follow that. Right. And it's like, I think what happens is we make these hard and fast rules. We make up our mind about what we are and that's the ego. And then we live by that. But really there's this other part of you that maybe wants to be more experimental and more exploratory. And I think just let that part of you out and let the moment, and for me, that's, that's what authenticity is for me. It's honoring desire in each moment, right? And not saying, oh, well, no, I've got this hard and fast rule that I'm only a top forever, forever. And always, I will always be a top. Well, what if a moment comes along and your body craves to be, to be given you crave, to give your body over to somebody and you just keep denying that craving. Well, it's going to eventually lead to a further split between you, your ego in your soul, right? Your soul. Often our souls often really desire things that our ego shames, right. And those are the desires. In my opinion, then we attach the shame to it, through the ego. And then we don't allow ourselves to have the things we desire. And I think that a lot of, a lot of the times it's really limiting, you know, so I'm learning this, I'm learning all this stuff now. And I'm by no means a master at it. It's, it's very confusing and very hard to honor. And Trump fear and shame and honor what my soul wants because of my conditioning. Right. So, yeah. And then the third one I have is developing witness consciousness because I think this is just the game changer in general, this'll, this'll solve pretty much everything really, and it's not easy to do, but this is what witness consciousness is. The seat that we take within ourselves, where we can observe our thoughts and our emotions and not become one with them. Right. We are not our thoughts. We are not our emotions. We are the consciousness that can hover above and watch us. Right. So I can be crying and hurting and I can actually watch myself cry and hurt. Right. And that takes practice because you have to meditate, you have to do things where you detach from self detached, from egoic, self I'll say and develop that, that consciousness that is, you know, the witness, the observer self, right. And for people that have a hard time grasping that concept, it's like, think about this idea of like thinking we have a thinker, self that's just always on and it's just spinning like a wheel. It doesn't even when we're sleeping, we're still thinking. Right. And in the background and we have the ability to stop. And I can tell you what I was just thinking. That means I have an ability to be able to watch my thoughts. Otherwise I wouldn't know what I was just thinking. That's the part of us that we want to tap into. Right. That part of us that can sit back and it can, it can watch as we're playing out. And I'll give you an another example. Like this happens to me on the regular, when I'm reading, I'll be reading a book and I'll read the whole page. And I don't even remember what I read. I was thinking about something else. Right? So the witness consciousness is the part of you that noticed that you weren't paying attention, that your, your eyes were just moving, but your thoughts were thinking, right. So it's very meta. It's very complex, but we have the ability to catch ourselves doing that. And that's consciousness. That's, self-awareness, that's, that's, that's what we're essentially, you know, moving our way towards is having that separation of self and being able to watch things play out. So there's lots of things you can do to develop this. But my, my best tip would be one pointed concentration. I'm not going to go into it too much for time sake, but you can Google it and find out what it is. And one point of concentration was a really powerful tool that helped me develop that ability to be able to master my mind, control my mind and the attention. So I can sit back into that seat of consciousness and to watch things play out. And I think that'll help with this because it's like, we, it's really important to know, to watch where your thoughts, where your ego wants to take you when it comes to polarity and be able to kind of notice that, oh shit, like my ego really is fearing being over in this polarity right now. Like, what is about that? Right. So we have to have that distinct separation from ourselves to be able to notice where our fears are constantly wanting to take us instead of right. And then once we have that awareness, we can start to apply less judgment towards the fear and be more curious and move towards the things that maybe we, that maybe could benefit us on a soul level, but we're terrified to do on an ego level. So Yeah. Oh, I love that. It's so juicy. Yeah. Yeah. It was. I was going to say a, I was like, oh, that's the third one that I forgot? Is that the health, you witness that loving, loving detachment. Yeah, exactly. Like it can really be, it can really be a medicine this as much as going into it can be, it can be a medicine going into the pain, but the detachment and meditation is something that I think meditation, like you say, one point focus, right. Meditation is something that really helps, can help develop that, that witness consciousness. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a game changer for sure. Before we, before we wind down, is there anything that you think is important to share with the audience before wrap up? I wanted to share just the last response to something that you said, which is, I really feel like trans people are liberator's because, so there's this trans person. And she's what she says is a, it says in relation to topping and bottoming and identity and, and Cape your own scene, she says, she doesn't give a definition of gender, but she says, gender is X marks the spot, right? Like on a map where the treasure is, gender is the nexus of power, desire and identity. So for me, it's like, you know, the different desires that come out with different people, right. Because desire is going to shift gender in that moment. Right. Or there's maybe a different power hierarchy with a certain person. And so it's like, even if someone identifies as a top, there are these two other factors. So I'm just wanting to challenge some of your relationship listeners of like, okay, but maybe that's not all of you. Right. Maybe there's more, maybe, maybe that's not even your you're, maybe it is your identity. Maybe it's not, maybe there's more right. There's like more to be more to be explored. Yeah. And I, and I love, I feel like you bring, you know, as a Gemini, so much Gemini medicine of like, I love that. Like, what'd you say, just embracing the moment, like Yeah. Let the moments inform you that, that I feel like is going to help me be more present. So I love that. That's like, So great. Really feel like shows your, that, that Gemini flexibility as someone, someone who's a Cardinal sign, this is what I'm doing. I'm starting this, this is what I'm doing. And I'm not doing other things, decided to do this, but people, you know, and sometimes that's the medicine of like commitment and initiating something. But other times, like we need to be more flexible in life, you know? And, and that allows us to meet the moment. So that that's wonderful. Yeah. I just want to thank everyone who, who listens, because you could have spent your time in any, any which way, and you chose to listen to the two of us speak. And I also just wanted to say that, that this was like so fun and nourishing and wonderful. And I feel really like lit up and yeah, just thank you so much for asking me to do this was great. Yeah. I second everything you said. Yeah. Yeah. It feels good. I feel alive. I feel I'm more connected to you. We're building a friendship. Right. So it's like another level of like, yeah, we did this together and it's, it's really beautiful. So I want to thank you for taking your time out of your day to come on the podcast. And I want to honor the courage that it took to come on the podcast and that you chose to choose, you know, you chose courage over comfort, which is yeah. Like lots of growth comes out of that. So I honor you and yeah, I want to thank the listeners for tuning in as well. And if you enjoyed this, this episode, please let us know, let us know. Even if you didn't enjoy the episode and you have some comments you want to share with us on the, on YouTube, I will make sure that Miguel and I both see those comments. So let share your, your thoughts and your, your, your feelings with us in the comments and yeah. Much love to everybody. And may you find balance, whatever that looks like for you, Even if that looks Exactly. All right, Bye.

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