WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek
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the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any
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suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Washington, Welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to.
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Say today, welcome to the show.
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Hello, thank you for having me.
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I'm really excited that the things that you do and
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the things that you talk about, I think are going
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to be so fascinating for the audience. So I'm looking
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forward to this conversation.
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Thank you. I hope so, I hope people will enjoy
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it and get something out of it. So were you
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living I'm in Melbourne, Australia and I have for nearly
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over fifteen years.
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That's exciting, that's exciting, But.
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I'm originally from friends here.
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Okay, Yeah, you might be enjoying Australia more at this
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point in time very much. So, you know, one of
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the questions I always ask my guests is to kind
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of tell the story. There's always a journey that you
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go through to reach you to this point of doing
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what you're doing, and I'd love for you to share
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with the audience your journey. What was what was that
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aha moment? What was that situation? What brought you to
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this point? I.
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As far as I can remember, so even in primary school,
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I was already writing in a diary about my day
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and about you know, emotions of things that I was feeling.
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I've always been curious about why we're here and what
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we meant to be doing, So that was a big,
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big question for me also in my teenage years, and
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that's when I discovered Buddhist meditation. So that was a
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big tool in helping me going words and start connecting
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with something greater and sort of experience touching onto something
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sacred or at least, you know, bigger than myself. And
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when I was eighteen years old, my mom passed away,
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and that truly reinforced that quest of finding out the
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meaning of life, why we're here, because surely, you know,
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we just didn't come here to be stuck in traffic
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and go to work and you know, run after something
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materialistic that will not nourish it. So I've always been
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convinced and looking for the purpose, the meaning of life,
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and that led me, you know, to backpacking and traveling
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all over the world for a few years and studying
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with different teachers, exploring different faith or different philosophical schools,
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or really trying to get answers from everywhere up until
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the point I read a quote by Rhina Maria Rilko
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who said the only journey is the one within. And
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that was a bit of a harm moment, as you said,
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in terms of flipping the thing on its head, because
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I realized that I had been searching for all of
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these answers outside of myself, kind of expecting that someone
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would tell me, this is what you're here to do.
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And so I really, you know, went further inwards with meditation,
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with yoga. I had kept a journaling practice on enough,
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but then at that point it going back into my
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life a lot more stronger and more regularly, so a
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lot of introspective practices to know myself better, to discover
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that sense of purpose myself. And so this is what
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I help women with nowadays, people who are a bit
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in a transition or in between chapters and finding more
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that sense of meaning and purpose and the confidence to
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go for it, to embody it and to live.
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You know that I love that, and I love that
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quote that you shared. I actually have that one written down.
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The only journey is the one within, and you know
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that that is so true and for me, it's fascinating.
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I love theology, and so you know, I've studied Buddhism.
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I happen to be a Christian, and you know, as
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I look at that, and one of the things I've
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looked at is getting into the New Testament and kind
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of looking at what was taught there in a slightly
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different perspective. And as I did that, I recognize that
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most of the parables that were taught there were find yourself,
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go within, And that's an interesting perspective when you look
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at that. And so yeah, you know, as you did that,
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one of the questions that I have that has nothing
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to do with what you thought we were going to
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talk about. But I find that, you know, as you
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talk about within, the sacredness within and so forth, it's
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been interesting to me to see the evolution that has occurred.
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And if we go back and this is this is fascinating.
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And you may have seen this, but going back to
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twenty five hundred BCE, twenty twenty five hundred BCE, there
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was a whole a different perspective of God and belief
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in God. And it's interesting when you look at Hebrew,
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when you look at Hinduism, when you look at the Chinese,
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they all had a similar belief in a God and
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his partner, a feminine God or a godness all right.
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And it's interesting that then as you trace it down,
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philosophers come in all of a sudden, this is modified
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a little bit, This is modified a little bit to
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the point. Now where with Buddha, for instance, you know
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he was Hindu, but by the time he came into life,
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he was challenged with seeing all these people suffering and
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so forth, and so he ended up not really sure,
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never saying is there a God or isn't there a God?
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It was just you know, it was more internal as
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you're talking about here, So what are your thoughts on that.
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How do you help people to because I'm sure as
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you're working with people, many of them are religious, many
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of them are not. How do you help them to
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understand what you're really trying to help them to do,
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to find that light within exists with them.
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That's a really good question. And so surprisingly religion hasn't
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really been a big part with any client. I know,
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as you said, I'm aware some of them believe have faith,
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often Christians, and others don't. And yeah, it's funny you
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ask the question because it actually makes me reflect on
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how they each of them, how they perceive what that
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sacrenous is. And it seems like if I think back,
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you know, on a couple of people who dated, they
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weren't religious, they still feel that there's something else And
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I think, you know, maybe we don't have to label it.
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Maybe people don't have to say, you know, if they
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have a faith or what they believe in. But I
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think it's that sense of something greater, that we are
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just tiny and there is a meaning to life. And
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then it's that part of there's a bit of surrender
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into the hope the hopefulness of what would be, what
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could be, a trust in that unknown. And so maybe
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people who are a bit more religious have more of
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that confidence and face, you know, to jump into the
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unknown and have a sense of peace with that. Maybe
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they might be a bit more daring or encouraged to
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make the change, whereas maybe the women who you know
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said they were atheists would require a little bit more
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work into the fears or removing the fear, or having
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that the belief reframed that you will be supported into
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what you choose to do, if it's on your path,
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if it's meant to be.
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Do you find that there's kind of this longing for
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that understanding of self and the goodness and the light
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that exists and the sacredness it exists within each one
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of us.
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I think so. And I think it's been changing, you know,
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the last few years. I think there's always been a
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quest in one way or another. I think it's been
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a lot more emphasize and strength in the last few years,
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probably with the pandemic, right when people were stuck at
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home with a lot of their habits removed or connections removed,
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and they had to spend a lot more time with themselves.
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So I believe that that has opened the door for
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a lot of people, you know, to search to have
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more meaning, like who am I without my job? You know?
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What am I meant to be doing? What do I
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truly want to do? And I think there's more of
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a realization, you know, because we if it's you know, women,
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when we sold the beauty magazines or you know, all
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of the facial creams and the fashion, all these external qualifiers,
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all those external things, I think women got really tired
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of it, and there's more of a removing those layers
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and going for something that's a lot more concrete and
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a lot more profound.
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Yes, yes, I you know, I feel like there's a
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longing and people can't even necessarily identify. But as I
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was talking right from the beginning, to see how here's
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an original belief in a sense of solidity, and then
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as as time goes on and philosophers come in, they
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start to change things, and all of a sudden, here
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we are not you know, like Buddha, he was at
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a pointing time where he couldn't say is there a God?
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Is there not a God? I just see all the sufferings,
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so I can't even say, and yet you know, so
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he really felt on that inner self, which I think
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is amazing and isn't it interesting? I think that there's
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such a longing to understand, and yet we've been so
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influenced by everything around us, sometimes we've lost that, and
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yet that inter longing is always there, that inter understanding
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of wanting to know the self and wanting to understand that,
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you know, we truly are good, We truly have that
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light within us. And as as your whole focus is
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to help women to discover that within themselves, and how
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do you how do you help them to you know,
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when they come to you and you're working with them
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and they're struggling and so forth, how do you help
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them to reconnect? And I would say it's a reconnection
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with that inner self. But before we get to that question,
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I want you to tell the audience about the book
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that you wrote, the poems.
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So I wrote a book called Poems for Living and
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it's a collections of poems that are very introspective in nature.
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It was a time when I was teaching a lot
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of yoga, yin yoga and meditation, so very convative practices,
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and there were words I would share during my classes
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about stillness and looking inwards, building that confidence, listening to
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the inner voice. And then a few of them are
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about that shift of once you've been on that internal journey,
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there's an upward energy, there's a growth. So it's a
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blend of both, and it's very much for It's not
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just for you know, yogis or meditation practitioners. It's people
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who like to journal, people who like to contemplate while
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seeping on a cup of tea. That's the image I
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had at the start, you know, people just slipping tea,
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reading a book, reading a poem, closing the book in
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about it. And it's interesting because of the it came
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out almost two years ago now and the feedback the
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last couple of years is that it's stocked in a
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few shops around me. And the feedback is that it's
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greater than gift, and it's been gifted to a lot
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of women during a divorce, women who are changing careers,
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women you know when you've got your kids are big
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and they're leaving the house, or that empty nest syndrome,
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and women rediscovering themselves. So it's been reaching very much
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all all those people at that you know tipping point
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at that journey of rediscovery. What's next? What's the next
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chapter that I want to write?
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Oh, and I'd love for you to read one of
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You're a poems. One of the ones that attracted me
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is this poem called internal Revolution. Would you read that
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for the audience. I think that will be a great
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start to even conversation here.
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I'd love to internal Revolution. In this moment of stillness
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and contemplation. There is something whispering to me. In the
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fasting from language and movement, I am touching upon the sacred.
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It can be felt in my inner sanctuary. There, in
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complete surrender, I receive the breath, its magic and healing. There,
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in open and kind presence is our doorway to accessing
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ourn wisdom.
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I love it. I have to tell you that as
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I was getting ready for this, and obviously this was
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a few months ago, and then we had to schedule
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a little bit later, but it was so inspirational to me.
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And I remember walking, which I do. I try to
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walk two to three times a week, and as I
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was walking around and I'm not in the city, I'm
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in a more rural area, so walking around and as
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I was coming back home, I was walking past rice fields,
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and you know, trees all over and everything, but right
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in the middle of this rice field was a singular tree,