Episode 24
· 55:49
Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallin. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership, and transformation, tools to elevate your path.
Smoke:Hi, Sarah. Hi. Welcome to the Smoke Trail.
Sarah:Oh, cool. Thanks for having me.
Smoke:It's so fun. I'm so excited to have you actually. I've been so excited since your retreat and the time we got to spend together in Sedona. And I just caught up on all the episodes on your Gaia show, so I was watching this. But at the last minute, so we scheduled this at seven p.
Smoke:M. In California. We scheduled this, but then at the last minute, I had to go to Milan. So I'm in Milan.
Sarah:Who are you? At the last minute, you had to go to Villa.
Smoke:Yeah, I
Sarah:that's wish that I could ever use that sentence.
Smoke:Well, you're here with me in spirit at least. But, so it's three in the morning here, but the good news is I flew in today, so I'm really still on West Coast time.
Sarah:I don't know what you do, Ferley, but this is just so cool. You must have, like, a really rad path.
Smoke:Well, it's kind of funny because it'll tie to our conversation. You know, I have been a serial entrepreneur and run companies and built lots of businesses. And then I had a very abrupt and deep awakening. And for the last few years, I've been experiencing that and going through a whole bunch of stuff. Since my last company, I've been helping other entrepreneurs sell their companies.
Smoke:So I do M and A, like selling companies, like people sell a product, I sell whole businesses to strategic buyers all around the world. So I help, I help find like who would be that company that would value Sarah, your company the most in the whole world that would be the right fit strategically. So we don't usually sell to like financial buyers. We sell to like strategic buyers who would fit that business. I'm helping liberate many entrepreneurs from both the blessing of their success, but also because many of them are waking up and asking what is there more?
Smoke:Is there more? What's next? And so someone just called me. I help someone sell their company and he told someone, yeah, he's like my he was like my yeah, he was my M and A banker, but he was kind of like my mentor, soul guide, you know, holding my hand through the whole process and helping me think about like what what is important in life. And I think the challenge of our time is not to become conscious and go move up to a mountain in Sedona or a cave somewhere or an ashram somewhere and just meditate and be a high vibration being.
Smoke:Although that's very laudable and valuable to humanity. I think the challenge of our time for most of us is to integrate consciousness with the real world, or not the real world, but the physical world and be both and do both in this time. And I think it's really hard, but I think that's our challenge. I'm trying to, I am embodying that each and every day.
Sarah:That's awesome. That's also the excuse I use, why I still live in Southern California.
Smoke:I found you because I, you know, we find the teacher when we need them. And, you know, things I was experiencing without any explanation and any understanding of what the words would you would use to call it. That's what the alchemist is saying. That's what Sarah's saying. I, as I started watching your videos and going deep on it, I'm like, wait a minute, that's this, that's this.
Smoke:So you gave me a many ways, a framework and an understanding of things I was experiencing on my own. I loved your episode that you just did, which was very familiar because you talked about the inner child when we were together in Sedona and just how you frame that and how you went to it. And one of the things that came to me when I was listening to it was just how much of it is it nothing can withstand our awareness. Nothing can withstand consciousness. If you'll sit with it, no matter how hard it is, no matter how deeply the pain is or whatever the feeling is, emotion or the thought, if we're willing to sit with it and not resist it, it will pass.
Smoke:And that was just my words of what I got out of what you did with your inner child.
Sarah:I really see that a lot of situations or things I struggled with in the past, maybe they're not super mainstream but that they're not as they're not as isolating as I had thought and you know when you go through something alone you don't have the lexicon for it. You don't have the community for it. You don't have a specific paradigm or even awareness to process things that makes things feel more special. And because of that, one thing I've learned in the public arena when I meet people is that they're most, a lot of just the anecdotal like person to person feedback I get is on passing comments I've ever ever made in either podcasts or just offhand when I'm the most unscripted. I don't make scripts anymore for my videos but when I'm even more off script than just the notes I take.
Sarah:And so that brought me into just the shared awareness of the the intricacies of the human experience. And so because of that one feedback I've gotten a lot was that when I'd say offhand in, in a, you know, a podcast environment, things about how I struggled, not with necessarily classical depression, but with a specific tinge of nihilistic depression and and those things that's really reached people. And so what my work has really evolved into was first it felt like when I wanted to speak on topics I wanted to speak on a lot of the the matrix on whatever way a person can be dissected and cut off from their wholeness and I still feel very cold to talk about those topics but now I have felt like even things that I should cover, I feel like no, why cover that? And then some people go like, yeah, you don't have to cover that. That's a huge topic.
Sarah:And so I'm like, okay, I'll cover it. Because now what I'm drawn to is the obscure growth spurts within a spiritual awakening. Those really hard in between spaces to navigate. And so I've kind of carved out my own energetic pull towards this rather than, well, I say carved out, but at the same time, I didn't really ever know specific. I never went into a YouTube channel or this field going, I'm gonna talk about fourth way.
Sarah:I don't think I still have, but I came from the fourth way. So I never came to just teach what I know, but I went even more off script than I had even intended. And now I'm just kind of in those weird spaces where I go, have you ever? I enjoy that and I do attract a very large audience, meaning that some of them are from Silicon Valley. Some of them are from places where when they book a session with me, they're almost acting like they're in some sort of spiritual closet.
Sarah:They're like, I've never told anyone. Yeah.
Smoke:It feels safe that they can actually talk about stuff. That's one of the things I thought, because I had some, you heard a little bit of it, you know, but, you know, when my traumatic, you know, as a child, I had some very extreme experiences and some very, you know, where I saw, you know, I saw relatives with powers over others and freezing grown men and making people's memory go away. Like, lots of really stuff that you would, like if I told someone they think I was crazy, I would think. But someone said to me the other day and like, you know, you maybe you're underestimating how many people have had experiences like that, but won't talk about it for just that reason.
Sarah:Yeah. Some of it's more
Smoke:common than we think. Right?
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah. Like, I know a few people that have had, that were born into families where they have a lot of shame because they're not necessarily as, disconnected from empathy as their, you know, upbringing and guardians were. And they even had very high status families and saw things and what have you and stuff like that. And yeah, being my being in my work has massively opened up my mind and my heart more than I was even aware of going into it.
Sarah:And yeah, whatever experience a person has had, there is a shared experience out there. And it's almost like waiting for that voice to it, so that then it can connect.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, you said something in our retreat, that one of the things that got you really excited and motivated, like I want to do that, which was soul retrieval. And I experienced it. I had soul fragmentation, soul loss, and I had a shaman who helped me retrieve, and it I'm sure it happened not all at once, like one time was very physically it happened, but also, you know, it's happened over. It's been gradual because there's pieces of it that have come back and I feel completely whole now, but I'd love to explore that a little bit.
Smoke:If you would talk about like, because like, what is that? Like, what is it when you have soul loss or fragmentation and where you're living your life, but like there's pieces of you that have like checked out because you checked out. That's what that was my experience. Like I was I had cut off whole parts of my earlier life and literally I've I just thought I was good at compartmentalizing, but it turns out I was like so good I could forget everything. And but your soul is like, well, he's not even going to he's not even on a program, so I'm going go do something else for a while.
Smoke:And I'm not even I'm not even going be part of this program. And we invited my soul back. It had the option of rejoining or not, and it came back.
Sarah:That's beautiful. So did you do that in person?
Smoke:Yeah, well, did it in ceremony, in plant medicine ceremony. I didn't know what we were doing until later. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what soul, But it was only after I read what soul retrieval was, and Ivan Reydos, who was one of my teachers who I worked with a lot, who's really cool, I'd love to introduce you to him at some point. He has a book in one of his books, had a whole chapter on soul loss and soul retrieval.
Smoke:And I was like, Wait a minute, that's what we did. I'm like, I just didn't have the words for it, right? Like, Oh, that's what that was, you know? So, yeah, it was in person. It was inexperienced.
Smoke:It was it was in an it was a it was like a opening up, cracking the armor, opening up the heart, clearing and forgiving. And in that process, opening myself up to like, Okay, you're okay. And you can you can be there and be present for it. And and it and it was a it was a I mean, no other way to describe it than I felt the presence of God for a long period of time. Very high state that, okay, this is what I would call God.
Smoke:I don't know what else to say. And it was just, it was incredible. I mean, I don't there's not really words that can give it what it was, but that's what it was. It was the soul coming back to me.
Sarah:Yeah, and that's why I still like working, even though I'm an energy healer with, you know, the people who I trust to do energy work on me, because there's something very beautiful about having that work. Yeah, as long as the person's not being predatorial in any way, because that's an issue that many clients have told me about that they've had work done by just like that they can't even believe that they're having a remote session with me because they just don't trust anyone and stuff. But other than that, like if you don't have someone who's being taking their position as being that person holding space for you in some sort of weird abusive power way, that to me is even more beautiful of a healing And that's how I had also kind of, I didn't receive my first soul retrievals in that exact manner, but I did like when I would have my shaman perform soul retrievals on me. And my first one, she said that because remember I was really into them, so I I came in with wanting that when I had reached out to my shaman. I said I want a soul retrieval not I want energy work done and if a soul retrieval happens then it happens.
Sarah:No, I said I want a soul retrieval. I read this book and she even said well I don't really do shamanic work anymore. I just received a new modality that's more quantum based. So I'm kind of transitioning and I went no the book no, I want a soul retrieval. I want shamanic before we go quantum because the book she was like, but it can't just be like, oh, soul retrieval.
Sarah:Like we'd have to prepare your body spirit for that peace. And so we worked over three sessions to even prepare my body to receive an aspect of my soul that was calling for retrieval.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. And it didn't, my experience happened. The first session opened things up. Then I did probably 35 of my own sessions by myself, which they don't recommend, no one recommends, but I had to get to the bottom of it.
Smoke:So, was like, so I'm like, I'm going like, you know, I think you can, when you start to uncover shadows, there's two reactions or maybe there's more, but one would be, I don't want that. Like, put that back away, run. Mine was, what? I need to know. I need to know.
Smoke:And so I kept digging, digging, digging. So I did a lot, a lot of work on my own. And then I had another session with the, with my, with my teacher and, and, and that's when that happened. So, it was a lot, a lot of work. I mean, it wasn't just, I mean, it was sessions, my own session.
Smoke:It was a lot of work before. So you're, I, that resonates with me. You have to be, You have to be worthy of your own soul. Like, you know, it has to want to come back. It's like, you you have to be an open vessel that is clear enough that can receive it.
Sarah:Yeah. And so how we can like psychologicalize that, because I agree with you, is through like disassociation. If we're too disassociate and we don't need to be perfectly grounded, but if we're too disassociated, then the aspect might come back, but won't be able to fully integrate. And so it's kind of like, so there's a certain level of preparation for the sake of that, that embodiment so that when the aspect is retrieved, it can truly integrate. There's something there with roots.
Sarah:The way that I describe it is like, imagine if you had a plant and you watered a plant, but it wasn't inside soil. And this is like, this is great. Might might be, you know, like great for like fifty seconds. But in the we need to ground in order for whatever work to be able to have roots in it.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. And I think you can have soul loss lots of reasons, right? I mean, traumatic experiences, PTSD of some sort.
Smoke:I mean, had a very bad case and I think, you know, you just shut yourself off and I disassociated. I'll say it firsthand because it was what I did. The only reason I'm here is because I had babies. And so I had a couple little ones and I had an extreme traumatic event that was related to my childhood event that led me to a, I was suicidal. And the only reason I didn't was because I had a reason to live because there was these babies that I was like, I have to live for them.
Smoke:And that, so in that process, everything got shut away and I completely forgot about it all. I drank for forty years. I haven't had a drink in two and a half years now in this process. It wasn't because I woke up one day and say, I have to quit drinking and I have to go join A. That wasn't, it was just, Oh, that's not serving me anymore.
Smoke:And it just stopped. Seventy five days into it, I'm like, Oh, wow, my head, my brain cleared. And I was like, I could think, you know, I was like, Woah, this is so amazing. Now, it's, you know, it just gets better and better. But it's
Sarah:That's awesome.
Smoke:So many of the things I was going through. Your library of videos is a treasure. I mean, they're so awesome. And look, and you have like bits of humor built into all of them. I'm like, I'm like, you're like, throw in some comment side comment that is funny to you.
Smoke:And like, it's a little bit off. And like, she's just having fun with that. Like, which is, I love it. It's just, it's cool. You were doing your own videos and you've got a huge following on YouTube and, you know, kind of built over time.
Smoke:Then you had this year, you just had the opportunity to kind of jump to another platform, not leave YouTube, but to do your own show on Gaia, which is really exciting. I think they're great. I love the way you've modified it a bit, and I think it can appeal to a broader audience in some ways, but it's still with you, it's still the same teachings, but I think it was well thought out. So anyway, you're not here to hear me compliment you, but I do think it's well done.
Sarah:Oh, thank you. I was so, so pleased, like speechless when I saw the blending of the worlds, because one thing that I'm concerned with, I don't know if I've really said this other than like with a live stream was that I am really immersed inside the whole production of my videos to the point where I I'm now trying to kind of like be a little less hands off, but basically, I I it was hard. It was hard for me to kind of I'm I'm not in control of the actual, you know, production of it. And so I happen to be connected and paired with such an amazing producer. Like, someone who I'm just so happy that, you know, we met in this lifetime and we were for sure supposed to work together.
Sarah:And so because of that, it was this like, like the discomfort from growth being like, okay, I did my part, but you never know how it's gonna, you know, like truly come out. And the artistic vision was such It's so interesting.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. That's cool.
Sarah:I can't genuinely say that I, you know, I made that, but I'm so happy that not only my style is infused into it, but now it, this third beauty, beautiful thing, like the chemistry between two forces creates a third, like this third thing came out. I really like that.
Smoke:Yeah. No, that's awesome. It's great when that worked. It was meant to be, right? It was the timing was you got that person and, you know, had you jumped earlier, you may not have had that right person.
Smoke:I mean, it's like everything kind of unfolds the way it's supposed to be. That's magic. But, you know, one thing I don't think you ever talked about it in one of your videos, but in one of your interviews, you mentioned this guy, Mark, I can't think of his name, but he goes into the natural law stuff. He was in a satanic cold and all this stuff. So I went down a rabbit hole and researched him, and I I actually Now
Sarah:you know why I don't really say his last name? It's because I would be I would be saying his last name twenty four seven if he was good for business. He's kind of mean.
Smoke:Yeah, yeah. No, no. He's not, no, definitely. But I, so I, I just like, I don't want to get off on a tangent, but I just, I think his teachings are like, his knowledge is really good and what he's learned is good. Anybody comes at it with such a negative energy and such a like aggressive, like in your face, you idiots, like, kind of stuff.
Smoke:And I guess there's a role for that. Right? But I I couldn't go too much further. I mean, I I I watched some, and I was like, wow. That's really good information.
Smoke:I got I got it. But, you know, he's putting out an energy that's gonna that has to come back to him. You know, it it's the way it works. It's it's actually the laws he's talking about, he's actually doing, you know, he's he's doing it with, I think, good intent, but he's doing it in a very aggressive way, which is, you know, I don't know. I guess everyone has their own path.
Sarah:Well, it's funny that you bring him up because I've had this silent dialogue in my mind, in my imagination with him, where we have coffee in my mind. And when I saw the first two episodes of my Gaia series, I went, Mark, you'd be really proud. You knew you weren't gonna bring that message, but you were just hoping that someone could, and I think you'd be proud. I think I made you proud, Mark.
Smoke:Yeah, no, I think you, your treatment of natural law was done in the positive, welcoming stance that I think will create less resistance. So,
Sarah:And he said, you know, like a long time ago, and I'm not really sure because I haven't learned from his work in a long time, although I'm very eternally grateful for his work. So I don't know how much he has said this, but I do remember a few times him kind of, badgering his audience by saying like, this isn't mine. This isn't something that I should only be speaking about you. This is just as much yours. This isn't my thing that you, why aren't you doing this?
Sarah:Why are you watching my stuff and waiting for perfection? Like he, he would really lean in. And so because of that, I find it to be something that he kind of always knew that he's not even going for, or why would he he he there was a subtle clarity in the fact that he was never intending himself to be those people that PR it.
Smoke:Some of the lessons I've given have been, you know, it's repackaged things I've learned from Hawkins or from you or from it's because it, we're, this is universal law. It's natural law. It's a real thing. It's, you know, and it's a shame that it's been in some ways hidden from mainstream. Certainly, you know, I can't I've spent a lot of time with meditation, with contemplation, with mindfulness, done a lot of that.
Smoke:And I, when I, when I got to Gurdjieff, and really, his student, the woman who wrote the book that you recommended
Sarah:Jan Zasalzman.
Smoke:Yeah. That's the first I read several of the books around him, and they were all really hard to absorb for me. Maybe it was the timing and everything else. But her book was so well written, and made sense it all made sense to me. But by getting a handle on the gross energies, the gross energies of emotion and thought, and getting to where those are not driving everything, and we're now able to perceive the subtle energies, that all, like it clicked.
Smoke:It was like, okay, now I know what you're talking about. And you just said it in your video today, talking about the subtle energies. You can't perceive them unless you have mastered your own gross energies that are always swirling around in this realm.
Sarah:Yeah. And what I love about those teachings in particular is that I'm kind of like a force way geek. So I'm continuing to learn that stuff through sufis, through sufi knowledge, who have who have walked that path. And so apparently shocks the way it's taught is not actually the way that it's fully met. And so inside her work, now I revisit it and I go, oh wow.
Sarah:She was really understanding these shocks without saying that. That was almost like a poor translation. So for those who don't know when I'm talking about shocks, because I just realized how vague all of this could sound. Shocks are a part of the, alchemical process, the nine sided circle or the Enneagram, which is, Gurdjieff's, well, who knows? Gurdjieff flushed out the ideas fully, but he compiled them from his own teachers and orders that he was learning from.
Sarah:So he was kind of like a hipster. The best way to describe Gurdjieff was he was a hipster who would travel in between the esoteric crowds and learn knowledge. And so a lot of times people think he was from like this like specific Christian esoteric order, but he was actually learning like through many different, you know, pulling from many different and then fleshing them out through his own system. And so he was a synthesizer as well. And so who knows where the Enneagram truly came from, but from his system, the Enneagram, the nine sided circle is a process that contains two shock points.
Sarah:And those shock points got, and I've even been guilty of this in the past, those shock points when they got transferred to the West, we took them as more like dark nights of the soul. We took them like, the universe shocks you awake, Alright? So like and I still think shocks have their place inside the esoteric world. So it's kinda like that one song from Dido. My tea's gone cold, I'm wondering why.
Sarah:I didn't know she was saying that. I was singing for ten years. My tears grown cold, I'm wondering why. When I found out the real lyrics, went, so she didn't say that, does that mean I could take it? Yeah.
Smoke:It's the
Sarah:same with the shocks. The shocks are great, but the way that they are meant inside his Enneagram, his alchemical process of a person's transformation, they're when an outside energy needs to enter the alchemical process because the work needs to move to the next stage. And there's a point in the process where if there's not an external energetic momentum into the next phase, the work will be incomplete. And so there's two shock points in the work that mean that energy from the outside needs to enter.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah, that makes, a lot of sense. And it seemed to me like so he he went and got enlightened, you know, he hung out with Sufis. He hung out all kinds of cool people. And I like, the hipster thing is a great great description.
Smoke:And then he they but then I think he, was like, regular people can't do that, so I've got to create a system to make them get them there. And so he built his system, like, to try to bring it to a broader audience in some ways.
Sarah:There's a split when it comes to Gurdjieff in my not, I don't know what's going on with the Fourth Wave circles. There's a split with him because I love his work and I respect him, but as a person, I don't really get the vibe. And this is not from anything I've read. This is just my personal intuition. I just feel, and it's funny because me and him are both the same archetype of the trickster, which is why I respect his work.
Sarah:I know what he's doing, but at the same time, there's an aspect of him that I just don't really understand. And so I don't know how, like, I know I can't genuinely say, and I've never heard someone else. So I can't even repeat if he had like love in his heart for humanity. He had a tough love and I don't know if I'm romanticizing that. I don't know if I'm going because I have, I have a tough love in me that goes, look, I love you so much.
Sarah:I don't care how I look. I'm gonna say this for the larger good. So I might be projecting my own tough love onto him. I really don't know because even Ospinski, his closest student, people drift away. That's just what happens.
Sarah:Especially if you have a teacher, if you have that dynamic, it's just, it's not gonna last forever. But on the terms and conditions of their departure, it kind of felt like more why my instincts or intuition just get a very curious blank spot with him. And that's because I don't know if he had like pure love for humanity, but I'm so grateful either way that he felt a compulsion and a deep soul compelling to bring it forward either way.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. I understand that. So, your comment about the tea made reminded me of I was reading Thomas Merton. Thomas Merton was a Christian mystic of sorts, kind of in the 50s and 60s in Kentucky, who wrote a bunch of books, right?
Smoke:He became really pretty well renowned, of the tradition of the Eckhart's and the Christian mystic.
Sarah:Yeah.
Smoke:And he was fascinated by Zen, And he realized how much in common Zen had with what he was experiencing. He had a chance to meet this Zen master in at Columbia in New York and where he had graduated. And he went and they were having formal tea, formal Japanese tea ceremony. And this guy was a famous Zen teacher. And they, you know, it was all set up properly and they were in this room and Merton writes about this.
Smoke:And they basically, you know, they had the tea. It was all very, very formal. Merton had researched it, you know, he obviously knew what to do and he was very respectful. Just out of the blue, abruptly, the Zen master grabbed his tea and gulped it down. Like, totally not in, like, absolutely not part of the tradition.
Smoke:And in that moment, Merton had an awakening. It was like this shock. And he realized that at that moment, the Zen teacher saw him as exactly what he was. This guy who was on the path, was trying so hard, trying so hard to show up and be there and be respectful. And what he needed, the message that he got was, there's no one path.
Smoke:There's no rules to this. You're going to figure it out one way or another. And it was like an enlightening moment, just that abruptness. It was kind of cool. Anyway, that made me think of it.
Sarah:That's nice. Yeah, I love when I hear those stories about monks and zen masters that just do something to screw with someone. They just completely do something that a person proverbially becomes, you know, like falls on their face about something. So that's actually one of the ways that I have been portraying shock. And I don't think that that's wrong.
Sarah:That's just not what the Enneagram meant. So I don't think I'm pretty clear on what gnosis emerges versus what gnosis is lovingly integrated that didn't necessarily come from Sarah's higher mind, but maybe, you know, like a soulmate, whoever. But I do feel like the concept of shock is still something, or maybe even Osho said it, like shocking a person by disrupting their normal patterning of the habituation of the ego. I mean, ego bad way, just like their habitualness. So even if we have a spiritual ego or even if we have anything that we've kind of like calcified into, There's a beautiful monk or some sort of trickster will shock, which is the destabilizing of that ego.
Sarah:And so that's fun. That always brings us closer to our humanity.
Smoke:Yeah, well, look, the more I'd learn, the more I know I don't know. And so I keep that thought in mind all along the way. So I feel like, wow, I know so much more than I knew before. Right? Like, I'm like the me human, smoke human today versus smoke human, you really just gotta be like, dude, you need a lot of work.
Smoke:And yet, that makes me aware, more aware than ever that there's that much more I don't know. So, a reminder, humility reminder at all times.
Sarah:Yeah. I mean, I've said this before, but I'm just running my leg of the relay race. And so instead of running faster, because what is faster when there's no time, it's instead doing my Rubik's cube. And I do actually believe that we can do a Rubik's cube. I don't think that that will lead to like a finality.
Sarah:So that's where we get that beautiful ancient wisdom that you had said right now in your own words, which was that like the more, you know, the more, you know, you don't know. But I feel like there's a bit of a reconfiguration of, you know, said life, said experience in reality and that we can to the best of our ability reconfigure or integrate that. And by no means does that mean we know anything about the multiverse, but that if we were meant to, we would have the organs too. And so I just, the perfect way to navigate reality in my personal opinion is the fractal nature of reality. If our organs are only giving us a small bandwidth of spectral perceptual awareness, then who cares necessary?
Sarah:It's not who cares because, you know, I'm a metaphysical SOT teacher. But what I'm saying is it's like to the best of our ability within that bandwidth, it's when we start thinking that we either can't know anything or that we have to know everything because then we'll start putting real false structures over things if we think that we're even capable of knowing everything. In a limited spectral awareness for a reason.
Smoke:Yeah. I think plant medicine gave me shocks that helped me jar out of a, you know, a set ego mind, you know, thinkingness, that helped me like, woah, okay, that opened my mind, and then I did a lot of work not on plant medicine, right? I've spent more time not on plant medicine than on plant medicine.
Sarah:Which now we actually have to say out loud.
Smoke:I know it's funny.
Sarah:Because people will assume the opposite because so many other people have spent way more time on it than off it.
Smoke:Yeah, no, it's
Sarah:Oh no, they're powerful tools, you know? Like, I feel like if my energetic bodies could have even handled more, I would have just done more. So I'm kind of glad my energetic body's gonna handle more because, you know, then at that point, I don't know, like it's a path, it's fine. I definitely don't get triggered by the fact that other people have, you know, made that their path because I view things as paths. So my path is one of Yana.
Sarah:I have a high emphasis on cognizance that whether that be clear cognizance or the acquisition of valuable knowledge. And so do I expect everyone to have that same path? I don't expect everyone to have that same path. I do hold that other people should respect that I'm on that path, yeah, like there's these different paths. And so I'm just glad that my energy body wasn't meant or built for that path.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. But whatever path, Again, going back to today's video, or maybe I can't remember because I've watched I I refreshed on the shows on my flight, I could be prepared. But, you know, whatever path we take, regardless of direction, there's lots of different avenues. A step along the path is getting mastery over these grosser energies, your thoughts and your emotions.
Smoke:Because if we don't do that, we can't perceive any other stuff. And so, getting to, I guess, higher mind, lower mind, you know, the way you phrase it, is, you know, is on all the paths. You have to get there one way or another. And otherwise, you're just mechanical, you're just animalistic, you're just responding. You know, a CEO said to me, I gave a little talk in Thailand and one of the CEOs said, well, you know, it sounds really good, but why is this helpful to me?
Smoke:You know, I said, well, you know, just think about this. If you could instead, if someone came at you, a customer, an employee, an investor, and they came at you really aggressively and they were mad or upset or whatever, if you could create space between what they're coming at you with and your reaction, and you could take the time to think through what are the best possible ways I could respond to this situation and this person, what are they really saying, and go through that without emotion, would that be good or bad for you in your role? Oh, yeah, that'd be great. Like, that's a little practical piece of what we're talking about.
Sarah:Yeah. And
Smoke:that applies to anyone in life. I mean, if any of us can be in a place where, you know, you don't automatically react to whatever is being thrown at you, you're in a better place.
Sarah:I think it's a beautiful gift to be able to pitch consciousness to people?
Smoke:Well, guess a little bit that's I guess I'm doing that a little bit, but I'm also very conscious of, if they're not asking, I'm not pitching. So, it's a Now, in some cases, I'll be in a group where I was asked, and there's people that want to know, and some of the people aren't there, right? So then it's a little bit of a mixed bag. But I'm not doing this show or any of my talks to go and evangelize to the world. Because I know I have that strain in me.
Smoke:I have that ability, that strain to go, like be enthusiastic about whatever I'm working on. I did it as an entrepreneur, and now this feels like that to me. But it is about those that are ready, that wanna understand it, wanna hear it, and that this can be helpful for, I'm there for it. That's how I'm doing it, or that's how I'm approaching it.
Sarah:Well, I actually meant that seriously and not as a bad thing. I meant that almost as a poor testament to, how, perhaps the world can sometimes not understand the importance or the value of it. And then the creative endeavor is literally, and I'm not even saying this as a joke, it's literally people who can bridge that gap and pitch consciousness.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, I guess I'm part of that program.
Sarah:It's kinda like, I don't mean to cheapen this whole thing because I'm a part of it as well. So, but it's like those people back in the day, day that would go to your door and try to sell you a vacuum on the spot. And it's like, why would I possibly need your vacuum? And it's like, oh no, Let me tell you why you need this vacuum. Only for, like, like source.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, it's funny. Along the way, you know, and it was it was a while back, but I was I was fairly coming along this path, and the Jehovah Witnesses showed up at my house in Ventura. And, in the past, I would have been like, no, not interested. Take a hike.
Smoke:And and I was like, well, know what? They are pitching God in a certain way. And hey, I'm on board. How are you guys doing? Like, tell me about your day.
Smoke:I engaged with them, which I would never have done. And I just said like, hey, I'm with you. I'm already with you. Thank you for all your hard work. And they were like, kind of blown away like that they got that response.
Sarah:Well, when they came to my door last, I said that I'm Buddhist and I have to go get my hair done. But I love your approach. That sounds so unifying.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, look, in their way, in their lane, that's what they're doing. So, you know, they are doing good work and intentions are good and whether it's, you know, their paradigm is their paradigm, but
Sarah:Are we talking about Jehovah's still?
Smoke:Yeah.
Sarah:Well, they're horribly Are
Smoke:they really? I didn't know that.
Sarah:Oh yeah, no. So there's like Jehovah's outside of this one beautiful boutique coffee shop that I frequent and I saw them eating like, I don't know. I don't know. It was something. It was like chips.
Sarah:It was it was something bad. It was something that triggered me and I was like life is the perfect teacher. You like like who needs the I love the fourth way but like who needs the fourth way? Like if you want to see where you're at, just go walk into the world get my mom to Jehovah's and they were like eating bread or something like that. And like, I was like, that's gluten.
Sarah:Like, how would you know God if you can't even be healthy? I was like, God is inside your body. Like, so anyways, I was just working through because I love to be aware and to process my own judgments. I was processing my own judgments as I saw them, but yeah, their diet is probably the least of the abuse that happens inside Jehovah. But yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Sarah:You're saying that someone else has a different belief system than yours. They're possibly just as committed just through a different way. And you're trying to extend your compassionate heart out to other people's beliefs.
Smoke:Yeah. That's a good way to say it. I was in New York for some meetings last month and I ended up, we were right by Times Square, which is the opposite of where, it's the opposite of Sedona, right? So it's like, I have peace, I have nature, I'm hiking with Bodhi, my little puppy, and like, I'm happy. And then here I am in Times Square.
Smoke:But I'm in such I'm in a good place. It's like, all right, I'm just going to treat this as a science experiment. Going to walk around Times Square and look at everybody and just stay in my peaceful state and just observe. And I literally spent like two hours looking at the bizarreness of and the animalistic mechanical behavior of the people everywhere. It was just it was it's so clear when you're aware of it, right?
Smoke:And it's and I was when I was in my piece, I was like, I'm not judging. I'm just observing. But it was an interesting juxtaposition to be in that place.
Sarah:Yeah. Yeah, especially with Sedona, because in Sedona, it just feels like you're in another dimension.
Smoke:It really does. It is a powerful spot. I really love being there.
Sarah:Yeah, that just reminds me about being in Times Square and then being there about like, be of this world. Wait, be be in this world, but not of it. Because I really feel like out of all of the esoteric wisdom that one can pull from that, that ancient esoteric wisdom is so profound because sometimes we get lost in the extremities of being emerged into, you know, the, the third dimensional mindset here versus, or we feel we need to absolutely extract ourselves from it. And there's this, I find it even more beautiful to be in this world, but not of it because you can almost, won't, I won't say people aren't enjoying themselves, but you can enjoy things more when you're more aware of what and the mind itself, if it's not at all in a form of expansion, is a prison onto itself. So it's not like a person's genuinely happy anyways.
Smoke:No. Yeah. And for me, it translates into being in a contemplative state as much or always. I try always, but obviously I'm human and I get caught up in a meeting or whatever. But even in that, I'm better and better.
Smoke:Like, I keep getting better at like just being, oh, I'm aware of the room. I'm aware of the people. Like, I can't quite see out of their eyes, but I know they're we're all the same. Like, you know, I'm like, I I'm in that state while I'm like talking, negotiating some contract or whatever. But anyway,
Sarah:it's It's fun to be aware of the characters that we are while we're the characters. It's like even funner or funner. It's even more fun. It can be, it can be more fun to play whatever, you know, role we, we are.
Smoke:Yeah. It's a, it's a somewhat, it's a costume you put on, you suit up to go do what you gotta do. And, and, but if you can keep awareness that it is not, it is not, it's not, not real, you know, it's that middle point, right? It's the middle point of being in spirit and also being present in the world. It's kind of, it's, it's, it's hard.
Smoke:It's a hard, like it's cause it's the finer energies to do that. Right. And, and these, these visual images and, sensations of being in this physical body are so intense, they're so well designed to distract us.
Sarah:Yeah. And it's funny, there was this one source of information, channeled information a long time ago that I was really into. And they said that if everyone awakened at the same time, it would be too chaotic. And that it's, you know, more something that ripples and then just like waves, like a first wave or a second wave or a third wave, like there's these waves of it. And I really see how it's fun for people to, I mean, you know, fun after it's devastating and horrific.
Sarah:It's fun for someone to step into that wave to guide the other wave after them and stuff. And so what's happened a lot inside this whole awakening process, because like, I keep talking about the spiritual community, but at the same time, spirituality itself is like, it's not just a community. Like we're all, like everything spirit, regardless of whether it cares about the spiritual community or, you know, spiritual concepts or not. And so idea of people that have gone through some form of awakening that then can turn to, you know, their position and then help that wave awaken. And then that wave can help that wave awaken.
Sarah:And then, so we're always kind of like in this like beautiful progression. Well, we're in this beautiful progression so that our role and our interests shift because someone else comes into that role and takes that role because now they have a lot of passion and energy for that specific place. And so that's just what I like because before it was more like, I mean, like culty, just spirituality was culty. And now it's more like you have people hopping off into their awakenings everywhere. And what we're moving out of is the mind frame that a person can't have a nine to five, role and position and be super spiritual.
Sarah:And so that's what I love about this time period. It's so beautiful to see people who had businesses or own this or do that, and then they had a spiritual awakening, and now they're over here being pillars or spheres of influence for their community.
Smoke:Yeah, no, it's actually, it's turned fun for me. It wasn't that fun for a while, but now it's turned more enjoyable because it's like, I'm not digging on trauma. I'm I'm more like, alright, just trying to understand things and be a witness and be present and, you know, see what what the universe brings me. I mean, it's it's It's a fun. It's a fun game and fun life, I think.
Sarah:Yeah, absolutely.
Smoke:Well, Sarah, I could talk to you nonstop because you have so much knowledge and I love your spirit and what you do for humanity. I honestly think you're doing great work and it's helped me and I know it's helped a lot of other people. So, thank you for joining me. Thank you for being a part of this and for being a friend. I'll call you a friend of mine now, for sure.
Sarah:Thank you for having me. I so enjoy speaking with you.
Smoke:Yeah, absolutely. Let's hopefully we can do this again at some point and let's keep the conversation going and let me know if there's anything I can do for you.
Sarah:Thank you. You can stop Jehovah Witnesses from eating bread. Well, I don't know if I can do that, but No, I'm kidding. I
Smoke:can, there's other things I can do, but I don't know about that. All right, well, awesome, awesome, awesome. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and blessings to you.
Sarah:Likewise, infinite love and gratitude. Yes. I've adapted it, by the way.
Smoke:I've been using it nonstop since we talked about that. Oh, Infinite love and gratitude and
Sarah:optimal And optimal abundance, yeah.
Smoke:It's perfect.
Sarah:Thank you.
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