How to Choose the Right Life Coach Training
[Video] 7 keys to choosing the right life coach training program for you
Subscribe to our NEW Podcast: Creative Mind Living
Please take a moment to subscribe to our NEW podcast, Creative Mind Living… Search for Creative Mind Living — a Podcast for Self-Development, Personal-Growth, Transformation — in iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or your Apple Podcasts App, and SUBSCRIBE TO LISTEN. This NEW podcast moves into areas beyond the basics covered in our retired Debi & Dr. Rob …
[VIDEO] A New Feminine Positive Psychology in Coaching
As a woman, have you ever felt that some of the personal development teachings are more masculine and focused on taking action and changing behavior? If you are seeking a deeper psychology that is not about fixing yourself but becoming your full potential as a woman, then find out more about Debra’s take on a …
[VIDEO] How to Deal with Difficult People
Have you ever felt frustrated with a difficult person? They can really take up so much emotional energy and you want to try to avoid being around them. Many times, these people are not easily gone from your life – they could be a co-worker, boss, your partner or family member. Watch the video where Debra explains how you can face difficult people with power and what you can learn from them to help you grow and expand your life.
Use the feeling of trigger to examine the question – “What am I defending?” For the most part, we are defending our pride or our safety which gives the other person power to have that over us.
Find out how to set your mind free and get the gold this difficult person has to offer you. There is no need to get rid of toxic people in your life when you understand your deeper mind and true self.
Overcoming Fear and Living Your Potential
If you have tried to change your life but still struggle with getting results, you may be trying to create with fear. You have unlimited potential but there are fears that interfere with your power.
Podcast Episode 59: Overcoming Fear and Living Your True Potential
In this episode, we help you understand how to create from your true nature.
- Learn the four basic human fears (fear of loss of money, fear of loss of love, fear of loss of health, and fear of loss of life)
- Why we falsely believe we are the ego and feel separate from our real self
- The reason why you keep repeating patterns and seeing the same results
- How to burst the bubble of misperception and start creating as if your success was inevitable
TRANSCRIPT
Debi: Episode number 59.
Dr. Rob: All right, we’re finally at close to 60.
Debi: Close to 60, 0 to 60. Today’s my favorite topic. It’s called Fear. Well, it’s not a laughing matter, but it’s something that we should take a little more lightly than we have in our lives. Fear is something that we’re all familiar with. We’re born with it, and today we’re going to talk about how you can overcome fear. The four basic human fears, if you didn’t know what they were, and how to really create with power based on the wisdom of Eastern philosophy.
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think the way to approach it is this really cool model that Patanjali, the great Yogi puts forth. He says, “Essentially, we all start off in ignorance. Not in a bad way.” Meaning it’s just that we don’t know our true nature. We don’t know what we had to do. We start off as questioning where are we? What are we doing here? All that.
Debi: We basically learn about the world through the people around us.
Dr. Rob: Absolutely, and then this questioning, this observing the world around us creates the sense of I, as separate from the world.
Debi: The I maker.
Dr. Rob: Yes, the ego in psychology. Now, this ego again, there’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s caught up in this ignorance. It doesn’t know who it is in essence. We don’t know who we are when we’re starting out in this world.
Debi: When you say who we really are, is limitless potential. We’re connected to everything that we can imagine and things that we even aren’t conscious of knowing. The idea that we are more than just the ego that we’re a spiritual being.
Dr. Rob: Yes, so we have this ignorance, this lack of wisdom about our nature. Then we have the sense of isolation as ego, as ourselves are separate from this incredible universe. Now, if that wasn’t bad enough or complicated enough, then we’re subject to conditioning because of our aversion and attachment. Meaning we like certain things, we want certain things, and we are repelled by other things. That push and pull then of the environment, has a conditioning effect on us, on that I that we are caught up in. That’s the ground floor where everyone experiences.
Debi: Regardless of your childhood, good or bad people, where you were born into, rich family, poor family, middle-class family, everyone deals with this.
Dr. Rob: Yes. That’s the ground of our existence, in essence, our biological existence. Then we get into what prevents us from knowing that deeper knowledge about ourselves. Some people talk about blocks, but well the Kleshas translates as hindrances. What are the hindrances to our awakening? One of them is that fear. The basic fear that we have of losing our life, and we cling to it. We think if something happens to this little ego, I, I’m done for.
Debi: Well, you had said to me, and you mentioned this many times, “As long as you have a body, you’re going to have an ego. You’re going to see yourself physically separate from everything else in the world, and the material or what appears to be material world. It’ll feel separate and that we have our perspective, is coming from within the body that we are trying to protect.” We’re trying to look good. We’re trying to feel good. We’re trying to survive.
We have four basic fears that the ego creates, and everyone has this. Some people have it at certain degrees than others, and it really doesn’t matter, again, what your background is. We all have it. The first fear is the loss of money in a modern world. We had it in ancient times, but it wasn’t money we used. It was bartering or resources or-
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think in ancient times, it would translate as the loss of face. It’s in some cultures, it’s still very prevalent where-
Debi: A status.
Dr. Rob: Yes, status. You don’t want to lose face, because it takes you down a few notches on the ladder.
Debi: Yes, that’s interesting that you say that because a lot of people think they’re really worried about money. When they’re trying to attract money or make more money or be successful, that they think it’s the money that they want, but what they’re really looking for is to look good and have a higher status, and have people respect them or not look bad upon them. Money has a lot entangled in it. The loss of money is one of them.
Dr. Rob: Big time.
Debi: The second one is the loss of health. Again, preserving the body. The weight loss industry is a billion, multi-billion dollar industry. There are so many people that want to have, look good again from a physical standpoint. Also there’s people that suffer from ill health, cancer, a disease, also mental health. We have a lot of this fear of that loss of health.
Dr. Rob: Yes, and the context of this, what it’s implying is that these fears then, prevent us from seeing our true nature, because we’re caught up in them and we think, “Well, if I could only avoid this fear, then I will be fine.”
Debi: Let’s clear our fear.
Dr. Rob: Yes, and so we spend all our psychological, and emotional energy trying to avoid these things.
Debi: There’s another one, there’s the loss of love.
Dr. Rob: Fear of the loss.
Debi: Fear of loss of love. We are afraid of people leaving us, withdrawal of love. That’s how our parents typically disciplined us as children, is they were stern. Even as a baby, they would give us a look that a baby could read that, “You did a bad thing. You’re a bad child.” We want that approval of that authority figure in the home. Then we end up going in relationships. It’s the same thing. Even if someone dies. That loss that that other person gave us something that we didn’t have. With that withdrawal, they’re taking away of what love is.
Then the last one ultimately is the loss of health– I mean life, which is related to health, or dying. The fear of death.
Dr. Rob: Yes, it’s the clinging to the I again. It goes back at full circle. It goes back to the only reason that we have these fears, is because we believe we are the ego, the I. To lose the I for the, let’s say for the mind that is an ignorance of its true nature, is equal to death. It clings to the illusions that the I creates, of separateness, of the world is out there and love, money. Health is out there. I need to chase after it.
Debi: Let’s just review the four fears. The four basic fears are the fear of the loss of money, the fear of the loss of health, the fear of the loss of love, and the fear of the loss of life. I think health and life overlap a little, but I think they are different because there’s a different mechanism that wants us to be healthy and look good and stay young, versus that mechanism that wants based clearly to just not die. To really put ourselves in danger. These fears are on us. If we are, like you said, if we think we’re the ego, they will always be in charge. Why are these fears in the way of us getting what we want?
Dr. Rob: Yes, I think because they lead us in a downward spiral. If you think, “If I’m starting off with ignorance, that is, not knowing my true nature, and then I’m caught up in this delusion that I am separate from everything, which is the I, then the conditioning has its power over me.” In other words, the things that happen to me, are going to determine how I’m going to behave. What am I going to do? How I’m going to defend myself and see the world. That’s a downward spiral into deeper levels of ignorance in a sense. I’m not
understanding, I’m not gaining knowledge, awareness of who I am. The true nature of my mind and the true nature of reality.
Debi: Well, it’s like that idea that our parents had these same fears, and they all have the ignorance. Most parents didn’t grow up in an ashram and with enlightenment, so we have a parent that teaches us this is the way the world is too. We, like you said, the parent doesn’t have to directly say these things. It’s implied. We learn through just watching them and watching how they respond. Then we basically follow their lead of, this is just how to function in the world. Then we end up repeating the fears in our mind, and really repeating the same actions and the way they work.
This is a very common phrase, is they’re playing not to lose, so they’re not playing to win. You’re playing to survive, and the ego’s job is really survival. It’s not, “Let’s be born in this world and create something really outrageous and incredible that breaks the boundaries of life. Go through fear and do something different.” No, the ego’s tendency is to, “How can I make the least amount of waves, and get fed every day and look good, and not make a fool of myself and survive the day?”
I would think our ancestors probably that’s all they thought about, was survival end of the day. They weren’t thinking of some grandiose path in life and purpose, except survival. Most of us on this planet maybe people not listening to the show, but we have been programmed to think like our ancestors, that are just surviving the day. There’s so much more to us than that. How do we change it? How do we go through and-
Dr. Rob: Right. We want to play to win, not just play to not lose, like you said. It is a subtle difference that most people miss, because they’re caught up in that game of life, and they’re always out to defend because of the fears, the underlying fears. Now, these fears are unconscious, because conditioning we know has a powerful effect on us. By the time we know that it’s running the show and we think we’re making free choices, but we’re really acting out of conditioning.
Debi: Let’s look at examining one of the fears, how it shows up. The fear of the loss of money. What you’re saying is that we have a pattern unconsciously that we’re operating under. A very simple example of that would be you have a fear of a loss of money, so you are overly focused on not losing. Your mind is putting all of its energy in not losing. Imagine if your mind is consumed with, how do I not lose? It can’t think in possibility, it can’t think of how do I win? How do I make more money? It’s more like how do I not lose money?
Most of us, that’s how we’re conditioned, is that the loss of money is really the scary thing. That’s why we get triggered when we get a bill that’s way too high than we expected, we lose a job, we try to build a business, but it’s not working. That fear is reflected out in our reality, and unconsciously what we’re doing is I think we’re just giving too much energy to it. That energy is giving us our result.
Dr. Rob: Yes, absolutely. It is a mind shift that happens. If you’re thinking, in let’s say accepting these challenges that we are born into. The first one is ignorance. In Sanskrit, it’s a VGo. Meaning there’s no knowledge, no light, no understanding. The first part of, let’s say, the first challenge we have is to gain knowledge. If it’s the fear of money, well, what is money? What is its purpose? Because if we just buy into the conditioning, again, we’re thinking that money’s out there. That wealth comes from the outside. When it’s a mindset. It’s the ability to think clearly and understand the nature of this reality that allows us to generate abundance.
Debi: When I refer to it as a bubble that we’re in, that we see our mind when we’re looking out in the world. If we’re not conscious of our divine self and we think we’re just, this ignorance of who we really are, we are going to see a delusion basically. This delusion of limitation. It’s almost like we’re caught up in it, and the more we do, we feel, “Okay, look, I tried to make more money, it didn’t work. That’s just the way it is. The economy’s bad, or no one wants this product, or I’m not good enough yet. Maybe I need more experience, or I don’t have the qualifications.” But we’re really just seeing our mind. We’re seeing the bubble. That’s where the bubble of ignorance and the ego is actually creating it versus it’s actually a real possibility out there. We have to find a way to move beyond that.
Dr. Rob: Right, and it applies to the other fears as well. The fear of loss of death– I’m sorry, the fear of loss of health is the same principle, because when you’re caught up in thinking that health comes from just exercises, just dieting or just at nutrition, you’re externalizing the, let’s say the will towards health.
Debi: Or even just surgeries and working on the physical body, removing parts and-
Dr. Rob: Right, depending on medication and surgery to keep you healthy. You’re missing the point that it’s a mind body that you’re dealing with, and that health originates from within the mind. The same with love, because if you understand that love is arising from within you not from without, then you’re misperceiving things.
Debi: I think very specifically, the fear of loss of love, very similar to fear of loss of money, is that most people are going out looking for a relationship or being in a relationship, with that playing not to lose mentality. That, “I better protect my heart because people can’t be trusted. I don’t know if I’m getting my heart broken again, and so I better play not to lose versus really open up and go forward with it.” What happens is that the fear of loss of love. There are times where maybe when we were younger, someone let us down and wasn’t there for us when we needed them, and we felt that abandonment. We all have, in some way.
We are trying to defend that still, and what happens is that we think it’s gone and we’re rationalizing that we’re beyond that, but it’s still operating. If we keep repeating and getting the same relationships, like, “Why do people keep leaving me? Why are relationships not lasting? It’s like maybe I’m doing something. Maybe I just need to change my dating profile, or move to a different city or get a makeover and all these physical things that we’re trying to change, or change our behavior in a relationship so people won’t leave.” It’s still going to play out the same way. If you’re fearing the loss of love, you will create the loss of love.
If you’re fearing the loss of money, you will create the loss of money. If you’re fearing the loss of health, you will create a loss of health. People try to do those diets, those crash diets, and they all say, “They don’t work.” Because your mind is pushing away a disease or overweightness. It’s like you’re rejecting it, and you’re giving it a lot of energy. You’re judging it. You’re judging yourself because of it. You’re judging yourself because you’re single. You’re judging yourself because you’re overweight, and you’re judging yourself because you don’t have any money. It’s like you’re creating your own trap. You’re not doing this on purpose. This is not a judgment at all. This is what happens when we get caught up in the bubble. We try to get out and we think, “If I just think positive or I do a vision board, then I’ll escape this bubble.” Rob, you’re going to tell us how we escape the bubble. Are we going to pop the bubble?
Dr. Rob: [chuckles] Well, actually again, Patanjali gives us the answer. He says, in essence, not in these words. I’m paraphrasing, but he says something like this, if you ask, “Well, who is the one that’s conditioned by these external forces?” The only one that’s conditioned is the I, that sense of ego, the ego. Now, if you ask, “What is the nature of the ego?” It’s not existent. It doesn’t exist. It’s simply like a construct that we hold in our mind, to operate in the world to survive now. There’s nothing wrong because it helps us survive, but it’s not who we really are and what we really are.
It’s like, if you think about the body has a homeostasis to it, it doesn’t have– You can’t find the homeostasis in the body, but there is a mechanism that balances the body and helps it stay at a certain temperature. Sweat when we get too hot, shiver when we get too cold, so we keep that body temperature move. Regulate all the chemicals as we feed our body and distribute everything. It has a balancing function. Think of the ego as our psychological mechanism for homeostasis.
The difference is, we don’t personalize homeostasis in the body. We don’t say, “That’s my homeostasis. My body’s sweating right now. I must be a bad person.” No, or, “I’m cold right now. I’m a bad person. I’m doing something wrong.” When psychologically, when we’re facing an adversity, the psyche, the ego has a way to bring us back into balance based on the information it learned before. What happens is that we personalize it. We say, “That’s me, that’s my resistance. That’s my pattern of not being able to have money, or not being able to have love.” We tend to look at our psychological patterns as related to some I.
Dr. Rob: Yes, so because ignorance is the root of all these fears. It is also, let’s say that knowledge, higher knowledge of the true nature of ourselves. Our consciousness is the solution, as we gain this deeper knowledge of who we are, what our mind is capable of, and how it creates this apparent universe for us. That clarifies the state of our being, that we were never really bound. We were never really subject to conditioning. The only reason we were, let’s say, caught up in that, was because we thought we were the ego.
Debi: If we’re not the ego, who are we? Back to that idea too of the ego not having a personality. It’s really a function. That what happens is that since we’re self-aware through our whole life, there’s this continuum of awareness of consciousness that when we remember things from childhood, what is that part of our mind that remembers all those things? It’s a continuum of beingness.
[silence]Debi: If we aren’t the ego, what is that, Rob?
Dr. Rob: Right, the question is not so much who are we, but what are we, in a sense. Right, because what is the nature of our experience as human beings? It is that awareness and the [unintelligible 00:24:55], which is really the highest knowledge known to humankind, it says very clearly, “You are that consciousness of the universe. You are the awareness of the universe.” Meaning you’re not your individual self as you believe yourself to be. It’s an apparent reality that arises from the creation of the universe. We are participating and experiencing this universe, as separate individuals, but the reality, the fundamental reality, is that we are the universe, we are the self, we are the consciousness of this experience.
Debi: How I do this. I don’t even know if I ever shared with you how I, because I’m a very visual person. I picture the bubble of my conscious, like my pattern. I could see the pattern, I can see it show up externally. Something that I see showing up over and over again. The first step is recognizing the pattern, how much money are you making? How much love do you have in your life? What’s your health right now? What’s that pattern? Then I want you to imagine that that pattern is like a bubble, that you’re surrounded by this bubble, but the bubble isn’t the totality of what’s possible. I imagine myself, what is outside the bubble? What is the potential that’s unlimited outside this bubble?
If we could start to think and imagine ourselves outside of the bubble, outside of this conditioned bubble, we can really start to break free of that fear . The only reason we are in fear, is because we’re in that bubble, that the ego’s bubble that it created that I got to survive. Imagine how it would feel if you got the success or the love or the health that you wanted? First of all, what would that feel like? How would you feel if you knew it was inevitable?
If you didn’t have fear of, “Maybe it might not happen for me.” How do we move our mind from identifying with this ego and this ignorance of we think we’re limited, to this idea that you can have it all, like the great teachers teach all the time, is that anything’s possible. How do we do that? What’s a great step for you? That’s how I do it. I see myself outside the bubble, and start imagining something outside the bubble and I don’t believe the bubble.
Dr. Rob: Yes, it’s remembering to, or reminding yourself of what the nature of this experience is. Perceptually, when you wake up in the morning, your senses tell you, “You’re separate than the world you’re seeing, the objects of the world out there. If you’re observing an object, that means there’s a subject, meaning there’s someone observing you.” You think, “Well, that must be that ego I.” But it’s not really the ego I, it’s a higher witness within us that is the creator of the universe.
That witness is a higher self, the true self, or what some Eastern philosophies call higher consciousness, the cosmic consciousness. That consciousness within you is allowing you then, to observe the world and the universe, but it’s also the creator of that universe.
Debi: When you step outside and identify with that powerful part of yourself, and reading higher knowledge. We have a great course, The Power of the Keto, talking about the public I Keto that talks about the higher knowledge. When you see yourself outside of it, the key is that you don’t feel afraid anymore. You start acting like what would happen if you weren’t afraid of losing money? What would you do? What would what would you do different? Try something new this week that you feel, “I could take a chance on something.” That if I didn’t have the fear of losing money, what would I do? What bold move can I do?
If I didn’t fear losing love or someone abandoning me, or someone hurting me, what would I do? How would I be with people? Would I be clear with them and tell them how I really feel and be open and know who I am and not worry, “I hope they like me, and I better not say that. That will push them away.” Being fully in your power, and how would it feel that everything you put in your mouth is health and vitality and nourishing to you? Because I tell you, the other two fears are probably what creates the health problem. Is the fear of money and the fear of love, creates a lot of people imbalance in eating and not working out, or overworking out or over starving themselves and putting themselves in a dangerous physical condition. They all play together, and it all comes down to that one thing. We believe we’re the I, we believe that we’re limited and we forget who we really are.
A great show today. I know it’s a lot. It’s heavy. Again, I will ask you to think about, what is the pattern in your life? What’s the bubble you’re living in? What would it be like if you were outside of the bubble? What do you want that’s outside of this bubble? What do you really want? What would you do differently if you knew it was inevitable that you get everything you want? Play that I get everything I want the game, because that’s the truth. You get everything you want, and actually when you get what you want outside of the fears, it’s fully satisfying. If you get what you want inside fear, like I met someone from their fear of love, you’re going to be clinging to them, you’re going to be worried if they’re going to leave, you’re going to be stressed all the time. If you get money, you’re going to worry about losing it all. If there’s more coming in, you’re still trapped. The key to really free your mind is to free yourself from these fears as well.
Dr. Rob: Absolutely. Yes, we started off talking about this downward cycle. Keep in mind that the upward cycle begins with higher knowledge, meaning you start to understand your mind and working with your mind.
The [unintelligible 00:31:28] says that there are many paths, but they all lead to that higher self, the true– they all lead to that same conclusion that we are not our ego, that we are his higher self. It’s important to choose a path and stick to it, and we invite you to do some of our work if you’re interested, if this makes sense to you. We have courses, we have a coach training.
Debi: Yes, young and life coach training. I also want to mention too that you’ve heard a lot of this probably before that anything is possible. What most people don’t– they leave out the idea that you have to drop the ego to actually really create. A lot of people are trying to use spiritual laws, the law of attraction, law of polarities and all these things. They’re still operating an ego that if you’re an ego, those fears are still at play. Again, I’m going to use visualization in the law of attraction to attract this ideal partner. If I’m an ego, it’s going to be a hot mess because you’re going to be stressed out all the time if they’re going to call you are not.
Tthe same thing with money or you’re going out and you’re going to use the law of attraction and visualize myself on a yacht and the bit of big mansion. You’ve seen all those videos people do. If you’re coming, they don’t teach you how to get outside of the ego. They teach you basically the good news, but they don’t teach you how to really do it.
Dr. Rob: How to polish up the ego.
Debi: How to make it all shiny. I call it the South help makeover, just a superficial makeover. You’re really still not free until you escape from those fears. It’s normal. It’s not something happened to you in the past that created these fears. We’ve all been conditioned this way, and we all have the power to choose and create something else. Hope you enjoyed today, and don’t forget to subscribe to us on our podcast, on iTunes, on Google play, on Spotify, check out our YouTube channel.
Dr. Rob: Come to see us at our live events.
Debi: Yes, we’re having a two right now, live events for the public. One is in January in LA called Alchemy, and we’re also doing a version in Prague in May next year. We hope to see you there. If you are interested, go to our website, Debi and Dr. Rob, go to events and apply today. It’s by application only to get a ticket to these very exclusive high-end events that are going to transform your mind and free you to create what you want.
Dr. Rob: Awesome.
Debi: Have a great day, everyone. Enjoy the holidays and we’ll see you next time on the Debi and Dr. Rob Show.
Dr. Rob: Much love.
[00:34:19] [END OF AUDIO]
[VIDEO] Experts and Imposter Syndrome – Creating a shadow limiting your success
Do you call yourself an expert in your career and feel like an imposter? In this video, Debi describes the Imposter Syndrome and how having it is actually a good sign. She explains the psychology of creating an Expert Persona based on Jungian psychology and the shadow that it casts and creates problems in your business. This video can help you understand why you feel so stressed and overly concerned about keeping up with everyone else on social media, why you never feel like you are enough and how to transcend the ego to create your business and life from your true self.
TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO:
Hi, this is Debi Maldonado of the Academy of Jungian Spiritual Psychology, where we provide the highest level of training for coaches and for women leaders, to reach their full potential, based on Jungian psychology. Now I wanted to talk today about the impostor syndrome and why it’s actually a good thing to have it, and it’s actually very normal, and if those of you who don’t know what it is, the impostor syndrome is this feeling that the person that everyone thinks we are is really not who we are.
No matter how much success you reached. Maybe you have other people adoring you, maybe you’re a celebrity, or maybe you are putting yourself out there as an expert, but secretly struggling in your business and you’re supposed to be this great business coach or this great business leader and you’re personally struggling with your business and you’re hoping that no-one finds out what a mess you really are inside, that is the impostor syndrome.
It really is created, if you look at Jungian psychology and his idea of the shadow, now if you don’t know that, I’m going to explain to you that when you create a persona or a mask that you put out into the world for people to interact with, if you put yourself out there on your website or on social media as an expert, what happens is the persona takes on one role and the opposite goes into the shadow or goes underneath, undercover, and it becomes the things about us that we deny or we push away.
If you identify with yourself as an expert, you automatically put in your shadow the non-expert, the novice, the incompetent, the failure, and so everything that you do to uphold your success, if you’re tied to that idea of “I’m the expert,” you will be also using all your energy to make sure no-one no-one no-one ever sees you as a failure.
Now imagine how much pressure that puts on you. How much, maybe, you work harder than you need to or how you feel dissatisfied no matter how much success you get. It’s because the shadow, this unconscious part of you that you keep pushing away, keeps telling you, you’re not that great, you could be doing better, if you worked harder you could be at her level now, or every time someone, maybe, gives you a criticism or feels that you’re not helping them, you really take it to heart and want to fix it.
All that is so draining and emotionally exhausting, to keep that idea up, now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t put yourself out there as an expert, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that you have to stop identifying your ego with that marketing persona. When we create a marketing persona and a brand identity we have to remember it’s an act. It’s not who we really are, it’s something we’re performing to put out there, like Lady Gaga has her little makeup and her crazy clothes that she used to wear, as her persona, but it wasn’t really who she was.
The way she was able to really change and grow and develop as an artist is because she didn’t get attached to that persona. She knew it was a game, but most of us, when we are first starting out, were told, you have to be the expert, you have to act like the expert and we tend to get have an inflated ego around it, and believe me, in the personal development field there’s a lot of inflated egos and I’m also saying this from personal experience. I too got caught up in that idea that it always have to be the expert, I have to have all the answers, I have to know it all, and that was completely exhausting for me, and it was never enough.
What’s the antidote, how do we escape the shadow, and how do we create from a different place. Well, first of all you have to use know that you are not the ego, and that the ego is just a conditioned idea of this personal little I that we were born into. Part of our conditioning. It’s our survival mind and it’s basically what, I’d say most of the people on the planet are actually operating from, but there’s another part of you.
If you really pay attention, there’s another part that’s the witness. It’s this other consciousness that’s within us that is not the thinker, it’s actually watching the thinker, and that’s really our true self. It’s untouched by this world. It doesn’t care if everyone thinks we’re an expert, or if we had a great six figure month, or if our book became a bestseller. It loves us and it’s just so excepting and unlimited to what’s possible.
What we want to do is step more into that part of our minds, because that part of our mind when we stop operating from that conditioning survival mind and keeping up with everyone else and making sure we look good to everyone else, we end up creating something really bigger than we thought we could, and there really is no persona that can match the grandness of who you are. If you settle for just being an expert, let me tell you, that is a low bar because you are really capable of so much more. You are an unlimited conscious being.
You have to remember that the true nature of who you are is that. Just notice, every time you get caught up with getting a bad review, or an email from a client that triggers you, or when your friend, who started her business the same time as you, is doing better than you financially, and you’re wondering why you’re not doing as well as she is, remember you’re caught up in that impostor syndrome, that persona of being the expert and creating its opposite.
Another quick tip is actually going toward that fear of being incompetent, of being the novice. What is so bad about that? Why are you running away from it? Why is it such a terrible thing? I promise if you just sit with it and watch that emotion arise and listen to the stories, you’re going to realize how much this is run your life and your business.
If this sounds really interesting for you to transcend the ego and really step into your power, I invite you to check out our new events called Alchemy, where I will personally take you through a way to access the deeper aspects of who you are through the four feminine archetypes to bring you to a greater version of yourself besides just the brand expert, something even more profound that’s aligned with your higher mission here, and that will bring you more success and more abundance than you can even imagine.
Come to our website at Debbie and Dr Rob.com and find out more about our event called Alchemy, and apply today to be a part of the magic, this is Debbie Maldonado, remember to believe in yourself and not the label that you put out there and know that you are capable of infinite possibilities. Take care.
Unleashing the Warrior Feminine Archetype
The women’s empowerment movement has encouraged many females to step forward and become leaders in the world. The way she can really make a lasting difference is to make the change in her own mind first rather than fighting the world. If you are hiding out, afraid to make waves, this is the episode you have been waiting for to get out and make a difference.
In this episode, Debi describes:
- the Four Feminine Archetypes based on Jungian Psychology and how they influence a woman’s life.
- how to cultivate the strength and courage to go for your dreams using the power of the Warrior Archetype
- the key to making social change
- how angry protester is not as effective as someone who is inspiring others
- how to integrate the Warrior archetype for women that isn’t based on old masculine models
Interviewer: Welcome back to the Debi and Dr. Rob Show.
Debi: Hello.
Interviewer: Today I’m interviewing Debi because we usually don’t get to talk about what we’ve been working on individually. I know you’ve been working on publishing in Inc. magazine. Congratulations on that. As well as empowering women and developing programs to empower women.
One of the most interesting things that has come out of your work is this idea of the feminine archetypes and how to use them in empowering women. I thought I’d ask you a couple of questions on that.
Debi: Okay, sounds good.
Interviewer: First of all, what are the four feminine archetypes?
Debi: The four feminine archetypes– I’ve done a lot of research with Jung’s who are working some of the other psychologists that have studied under Jung, the women that have worked with Jung, and out of all the reading I’ve done, the four that I think are the most important and primary are the warrior, the lover, the mother, and the priestess.
The warrior represents our willingness to make social change. The lover is our sense of pleasures, including relationships and food and enjoying life and experiencing the sensuality of life. The mother is the nurturing and creative aspect in ourselves to create life and also to nurture it and cultivate it. Then the high priestess is really our spiritual nature, our divine nature, our devotional nature.
I think if you look at women, and the four, is makes the self, which is the wholeness. That’s why I picked four, and I think those four, whatever you experience in life as a woman, whatever challenges you have, you can go to these four and you’ll find the answers.
Interviewer: It covers a lot of ground. Now, for those not familiar with Jung’s work, what is an archetype?
Debi: I think of an archetype, and he describes it, I’m not paraphrasing him, but I see it as a universal template. We have in our life, our conscious life our personal experience, and we have personal patterns and conditioning that we’ve gotten over our lifetime how to react, how to behave, what makes up our personality based on our personal experience. Jung believed that there’s a deeper level to our unconscious beside just our personal unconscious, our personal experiences, interactions with the knocks in and pulls of life that there’s actually a deeper nature to us which is the collective unconscious.
The collective unconscious is organized in archetypes. There’s archetypes for everything, and it’s basically the matrix of what creates reality. Like we talk about the mother archetype, everything has a mother. Even a plant has a mother, there’s a mother plant. It’s an idea that you can’t really see directly, but you see the pattern everywhere and you see the symbols everywhere and you’re like, “Oh yes.”
If you think about movies, just watching a movie, all the characters in the movies, if you look at a bunch of movies, I love movies, so I see them all the time. You see that there’s always the villain, there’s the warrior in the movie, the mother character, and the movie itself has an archetypal pattern to it as well. Even the trajectory of the movie has a pattern into it. We live in this patterns, and it’s just really how we create our life.
Interviewer: Just for the sake of brevity and time wise-
Debi: I can’t go on forever?
[laughter]Interviewer: Let’s talk one of these. My favorite is the warrior, the most intriguing one, anyway.
Debi: Yes, the warrior to me in this time is most important because a lot of women are stepping into their power. More and more women are starting their own businesses. It’s actually the fastest growing segment in entrepreneurship are women. More women are actually graduating college than men now. Women are not just staying home and having babies anymore, they’re actually feeling that they have a purpose and a mission in life and a career. There’s also they have to interact with this world which is very driven by men and masculine ideas. I see the warrior as not as a fighting the world, but as almost like breaking through the barriers and the conflicts within themselves that are stopping them from expressing who they are.
It’s not about going out and slaying the dragon. It’s going in and saying, “Why do I have this dragon in the first place? It’s not real, okay, let me move on.” It’s more of an internal wrestling with ourselves, an internal battle. Then when that internal battle is not realized internally, it shows up externally. It’s about moving people inside.
I think that women, if they’re not conscious of this warrior archetype, what will happen is that they’ll tend to pull back, they’ll tend to not take a lot of action in their life. They’ll be very risk averse. They’ll avoid conflict. They’ll not want to make waves. If they’re in a marriage and they have kids and these expectations of them of playing a role and they want to do something else, there’ll be a conflict within them and they tend to want to just stay in their comfort zone. The warrior is about a woman’s ability to break free off their comfort zone.
Of course… men have this too, but for a woman, it’s just a different process.
Interviewer: All right. Let’s say this archetype remains unconscious in the woman, what happens to her?
Debi: She becomes very angry, which she might never be conscious of it, and that anger gets projected out there. She sees a lot of frustration. Then when she does, it shall maybe fly off the handle, or she’ll get very depressed because it’s the energy that she’s been sitting on and she’s not using. We all have a natural process Jung has said that we’re all drawn to individuation, we’re all drawn to move outside of that comfort zone. If we don’t, we start to feel either really depressed or pissed off at the world and we’re staying, “These people are stopping me from doing what I want to do. It will feel as though the problem is external.
Embracing the warrior archetype is having this idea that you’re the battles within, and how do I get the strength, the courage and cultivating that risk in life to be willing to make mistakes, be willing to fall on your face and look like a fool for what you love. That idea that something you’re willing to die for and to make a change in your life until you see people that are really making social change have embodied that warrior archetype, unless they’re very angry.
You’ll see a difference with a protestor who’s really angry and upset and feeling frustrated, or someone who’s very inspirational and is lifting the world up. The warrior is someone who’s saying, “Let’s all get together. Let’s all make the world a better place.” Not just blaming and shaming the world for not following what they want or a social position that they want. It’s really an empowering way to approach it.
Another thing that’s really important is that a lot of people face the warrior and they try to integrate it in a masculine way. They’re like, “Well, if I just take more action. I’m a warrior, I’m going to go out.” This is very common in, I don’t want to name names, but a very popular self-help guru who makes people walk on water– I mean walk on coal. Yes, they don’t do that. Walk on fire. The walk at the fat coal walk.
I’ve seen people– I have friends that do this. Let’s punch holes in blocks and all these stuff. It’s not really about that. They just like this masculine idea of what it means to be a warrior.
Interviewer: Kind of like externalize-
Debi: Very externalize and very aggressive. For the warrior in herself, she has to come to terms with the– I don’t want to say the demons within herself, but the things about herself that she’s been hiding and pushing back and being okay with who she is. Being okay with her past, being okay with her mistakes, and fully loving herself, and that what’s going to help her integrate the warrior. Then have an image in her mind, an idea in her mind that she can hold in visualization to connect with that idea, and to aspire to become and make that her new persona versus the little old me who can’t make it in a world, little Mary who can’t make it. You’re going to be this powerful being that has this energy that people are drawn to, that people are going, I want to listen to what this woman has to say.
Interviewer: It reminds me about Joan of Arc or something like that.
Debi: Yes. I think a lot of women are afraid because of this tale, is that she got burned at the stake, is that they’re afraid that if I step out, if I speak up, if I go out of my comfort zone, my family is going to abandon me, my husband’s going to leave or my relationship is going to break up, or I’m not going to be able to go back to the corporate world, the money is not going to be there, and so we tend to want to shrink back and hold back. The warrior really gives us the courage and has us identify with a higher aspect of ourselves that’s not personal that gives us that courage.
Interviewer: You mentioned integration. I know integration in Jung in terms is making the unconscious conscious, and really making it part of the worldview that you inhabit. How does one or a woman go about integrating this warrior archetype?
Debi: I think that what happens with the warrior is that she is alive, and she is powerful, and she is in you already. She doesn’t need to be created in a sense. She’s there. You’re just not conscious of her, and you tend to push her– keep her unconscious. Your ego is trying to, “Let’s not let that cat out of the bag. Let’s keep her unconscious.” What we’re doing is we’re accepting that we’re not our ego, that there’s something powerful. It’s just like the whole saying is that we’re not human beings having a spiritual experience. We’re spiritual beings having a human experience. It’s sort of like that idea is that the archetype when we become aware of her, and we start identifying with her versus our little self that’s been through that little trials and light that think small, it helps us bring that part of us to life. It’s almost like welcoming our divinity and our power back, and it never went away. It’s just that we’re not using it. It’s about that. There’s a lot of precise ways. In 15 minutes, I don’t think we can go through the whole process, but through visualization, working with visualizations, she’ll show up in your dreams. You’ll have a dream of, maybe you’re fighting a battle and it’s a sign that the warrior is trying to activate herself. She’s saying, “Come on, I’m here, use me.” Then also through working with your emotions, like what is stopping you from– what’s the fear of allowing her to be expressive, you embodying the warrior.
Interviewer: Fascinating stuff. I can’t wait to hear about the other three archetypes.
Debi: I know. It’s going to be really interesting. There’s so much to teach on that. Actually, we are going to have an event where we’re going to go through all the four archetypes. It’s called alchemy. It’s coming in January in Hermosa Beach, California, right outside LA. If you’re interested in joining us and going deeper with the four archetypes in person, and really letting her shine in your life and becoming a vision for other women to be empowered by you, definitely check it out.
Interviewer: Well, thanks for that great conversation, and we hope to see you next time when we’ll talk about another one of the feminine archetypes. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.
Debi: Take care.
[VIDEO PODCAST] Seeking and Finding Your Spiritual Path
Do you have a strong spiritual path or do you approach spirituality with a “buffet style” — take a lot of different classes and pick which ones that feel good for you?
In this episode:
- Debi and Rob share their personal journey to find their own spiritual path
- Know why we seek a spiritual path and the difference between seeking and finding
- Understand the two basic philosophies – materialism (duality) or one consciousness (non-dual)
- We talk about Carl Jung and how he influenced much of the “new age” movement
- Learn how important it is to have a strong philosophy in order to create your life.
If you are a woman with a mission and want to explore spiritual psychology and grow yourself based on Jungian path of individuation, check out our Women’s Leadership Program called, EVOLVE. Applications are now being accepted for 2019 at http://creativewomenleaders.com
Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes and leave us an honest review!
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PODCAST:
Debi: Hi, this is the Debi and Dr. Rob’s Show. We have a great topic today. Hi, Rob.
Dr. Rob: Good to be here, what is the topic for today?
Debi: It’s seeking and finding your spiritual path. So how do we do that? We get questions like that all the time from our listeners. They say, “How do I find my spiritual path? How do I know I’m on the right path?”. There’s so much out there and so we’re going to talk about that. What do you think?
Dr. Rob: Well, how did you start when you were starting out?
Debi: When I was little. [laughs] Well, I was raised Roman Catholic, so my spiritual path that was my family origin was go to church, pray a lot, and if God blesses you and feels it’s right, you’ll get the things you pray for. It was all about being a good girl. Don’t make any mistakes, don’t be bad. Ask for forgiveness, be a good Christian and good things will happen to you.
Which was great until I was in my twenties and I was so terrified of not making Mass that I would do anything just to make sure I was there. I thought if I missed one week of church that God would punish me and I’d be single forever. What I discovered, too, was that it wasn’t giving me the answers that I needed to apply in my personal life. I had a really bad relationship and the sister of the guy I was dating actually gave me a book called, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay.
It was a self-help book, I’d never read self-help before and the first thing she said was that “Your thoughts create your life.” I said, “My thoughts create my life? I thought God was in charge.” It really changed the power from feeling this powerless person to praying and hoping that I’ll be blessed to actually, I can have a say. I can ask for what I want. My thoughts are actually creating more of my problems than me just being a bad Christian or a bad person or making sin.
It really fit for me really well and that started my path of trying to read a ton of self-help books. They didn’t have the internet back then so let’s go to the bookstore and try to figure out why my life wasn’t working. I really do believe that if I had met someone at got married at 23, I don’t think I would have been on the spiritual path that I am. I actually think it’s a gift when we have these questions in life or things aren’t working out because it drives us to seek. How about you?
Dr. Rob: Well, I guess I came across a lot of the same New Age ideas that you did, maybe a little bit differently. There is a connection because Carl Jung, let’s say my mentor in psychology, is considered the grandfather or the father of the New Age. A lot of the books that you read like Louise Hay was probably influenced directly or indirectly by Carl Jung. One of the first books that I came across that really inspired me was The Portable Jung which is really Carl Jung’s work edited by Joseph Campbell, the mythologist.
The other one was The Bhagavad Gita which was teachings of Krishna. Those two books really formed the foundation of the rest of my life. One was my academic training in psychology, the other one was my spiritual path along an eastern philosophy path.
Debi: I kind of did some eastern philosophy. I was more in the New Age. I lived in Colorado so there’s a lot of New Age people and crystals and healing and energy healing. We did a lot of that stuff trying to take negative energy out and clear myself so I could find love. I remember I would read tons of books. Any new author comes out, Marianne Williamson or Wayne Dyer, I would always get the book. I had tons of books and when I met you, you said I said, “Oh, have you read Wayne Dyer or have you read this book?” and you said to me, “Oh, I don’t read any of those kinds of books.” You said, “I go right to the source.”
That was the first time I ever heard that. I thought that this was how everyone does spiritual work. You either read the Bible or stay with your religion or you do the self-help version. You gave me the book The Way of the Bodhisattva, and I read it and I was completely confused but I knew there was something there. There was something that was different about it and the more I studied eastern philosophy, it really started to gel. What it did was, it gave me a foundation so then I could see all this surface stuff that was on top and say, “Oh, that doesn’t fit anymore and that doesn’t fit anymore.” It’s almost like the pruning that happens when we’re kids. Our brain has all these ideas and then it kind of prunes away and takes away all the things that don’t fit in anymore or aren’t useful.
I felt like I had so many different philosophies and teachers that I followed and then it started pruning and pruning and pruning until I started really focusing on Vedanta. When I did that, I feel like everything changed in a rapid way. I feel like things started happening. Like I was able to create my life in a better way. What we talk about with a spiritual path is the seeking is a very important part of it. You’re going to talk about why we seek and the difference between seeking and finding. When you’re in your seeking mode, you’re not going to get much trajectory in your life. You’re going to be seeking and it’s going to feel a little confusing for a while.
That’s when that foundation comes in. The tracks are set for you and you start to move forward in your life.
Dr. Rob: Let’s say from the spiritual psychology perspective, the seeking is an essential part. It’s okay when you’re in that seeking mode to take your time with it and to really allow yourself to be a little skeptical, a little confused. That’s what seeking is, it’s essentially saying, “I don’t really know what I believe. I don’t claim any particular path, any particular religion right now because I am in that questioning mode.” It’s right to just take your time with it and seek and ask the right questions.
A lot of people give up though because the answers don’t come easily or don’t come in a prepackaged–
Debi: Santa didn’t bring their gift.
Dr. Rob: Right. It’s painful in a way to be in that mode of questioning.
Debi: Constantly and not getting the answer?
Dr. Rob: Right.
Debi: I know you had said that it’s sort of like you’re digging holes. If you keep changing your paths, it’s okay for a little bit but if you keep staying there you’re going to dig a shallow hole. Your ego’s actually designed to keep you from the truth.
Dr. Rob: Right, it’s a metaphor that says that the seeker who keeps changing path is like a person trying to dig a well to find water but they stop at about three feet and then start another hole. By the end of the year, they’ve dug four or five holes but haven’t hit the water because they keep changing it up to the next one.
Debi: It’s almost like when they just get close to something really good, they see a shiny object. It’s the ego going, “Oh, look over there. Look at this new video that’s out by this new teacher. They have this new best-selling book. Now I’ll follow that person and I just remember-” You can see this happening online, you see people– It’s like a flood, momentum toward a teacher has a great book out.
I remember Eat, Pray, Love. Everyone was in the Eat, Pray, Love mood for a while. Then there was another book and everyone’s into that and then this author has a book and everyone’s doing Eckhart Tolle. Then the masses gel to the next big thing but then what happens is we don’t go deep enough. Since we’re not deep enough, the roots of that understanding don’t keep us there and we really need to go a little deeper.
I always say that when you’re finding that path, it’s the path that you don’t leave even when things get tough. Then you know you’ve found your right path. You love the path, you understand it, you believe in it. Let’s talk about, how do you know if it matches your belief? How do you know what we believe? Let’s go deeper. Let’s go to the water.
Dr. Rob: One way to think about it is, what is your worldview? Is your worldview consistent? We run into people a time that are presenting a certain idea but if you start to examine their ideas they appear to be contradicting themselves. They might say well, I believe in oneness or in spiritual power but there is negative things out there are trying to hurt me.
Debi: Yes.
Dr. Rob: There’s spirits or negative energy. That doesn’t make sense because they’re contradicting themselves in buying into this worldview that both is one and at the same time dualistic.
Debi: Well, a good example of that is if you’re, “I’m a spiritual being but there is things I need to be afraid of. There is things externally from me that are a threat to me.” That if we understand what the true spiritual being is oneness then you’re not seeing that separation. You’re not feeling that there is something else coming in, you are everything. It’s just a really different way to do it. The same thing with psychology, self-help has been hijacked by psychology.
Religion some way creeps its way into spiritual work and then people make it religious or the religion in itself starts to distort our ideas even new consciousness ideas. The ideas of the Law of Attraction and how to create your life. It actually gets a little religious versus philosophical.
Dr. Rob: Right. One of the most common let’s say worldviews out there is the materialistic worldview. Often it’s a dualistic because they say, “Well, there is a material world but then there is a spiritual world as well.”
Debi: Yes.
Dr. Rob: Those two things are dual. They’re saying there is two elements here. A material world and a spiritual world. How those interact then becomes the question and often they don’t have a really good understanding or philosophy as to how that interaction happens. It’s an incomplete worldview to say the least.
Debi: Is it this idea that in science there is a matter and then there is consciousness and that arises out of matter. Is that what you’re talking about materialistic?
Dr. Rob: Yes. In the West for a long time this idea that our brain is so complex. We have a hundred billion neurons firing it at once or in different sequences and out of that complicated interaction of these neurons we get what is called consciousness. Meaning awareness. Just we are aware of ourselves of the world of the universe. Now, that for most people it makes an intuitive sense that, “Yes, of course, when I wake up in the morning I was asleep and then when I woke up I see the world as it appears to me. Now, I’m conscious, I’m aware.”
Even in science now with a new physics coming in, quantum physics especially, and even in the way we perceive the perceptual science that’s not really what happens in consciousness or the way we experience the world. The way it really happens is that our brain actually makes up a 3D model in our head about the world and how it works and everything, and then that’s what we are experiencing. We do not have direct access to the physical world out there. It is essentially a mental experience that we’re creating.
Debi: It’s so mind-blowing. Quantum physics talks about that. We didn’t know that maybe 100 years ago. The ancients knew it. That’s where we’re seeing that science moving back into the spiritual realm.
Dr. Rob: Yes. If we look at the East they’ve always presented– there are different philosophies but in general, this idea that everything is consciousness. Meaning that they understood this principle that we are dealing with essentially within a mental experience of the world. A world that’s created in consciousness and they’ve gone with that for, especially Vedanta, for many years and centuries and thousands of years now that it is a conscious universe that we’re dealing with.
These two worldviews are really what’s shaping the way science and religion or faith has been playing out especially in recent years.
Debi: Dual or non-dual. Those two realities. That’s really a good basis for what is your path. Do you believe in a dual reality where you’re the separate being, separate from God, separate from the external world the Law of Attraction? Kind of, “I’m going to hold of vision and my vibration is going to go out and pull someone or something in,” or do you believe in the non-dual which is that you are consciousness. That what you’re experiencing is your own mind.
This is what Eastern philosophy has discovered and science has discovered so it almost makes sense to start thinking about would that be a better experience for me and more empowering for me? What we know is, and where I got lost for a long time, and I still sometimes forget that I’m one with everything, that the world it does feel separate. We have to keep reminding ourselves that it’s not. There is a lot of books, and psychologies, and new age stuff, and scientific ideas that are in contrast to that and they see everything dual- in dualistic terms.
You have to ask yourself which side am I on? Am I on the dual side or the non-dual side? Then you could start looking at paths that match that. What you’ll notice is once you pick a path and this is something that I’ve noticed for myself is that when I picked- when I started being really clear on what I believed that I believed in oneness I believe that consciousness arises from me, that there isn’t a separate independent reality that is influencing me that I maybe I’m not conscious of it but I still have access to it. That is empowering to me.
When I read other books or I see other philosophies I can again prune away and say nope this I don’t have to get distracted with this. This book looks distracting to me away from my core view. That’s what’s missing in a lot of– I don’t think people talk about this and that’s why people are so confused. I talk to people all the time and they’re like, “I’ve done know 20 courses and I’m still confused and I don’t know what to believe.”
We ask them well, “What do you believe?” and they don’t know. That is the most important question you can ask yourself on your spiritual path is, “What is it that I believe about reality and what makes up my reality and where is my power in creating it?”
Dr. Rob: Yes. When we say believe it’s not in the traditional sense because there is an interview on YouTube now, one of the last interviews Carl Jung gave where they ask him, “You’ve been studying spirituality for all these years. Do you believe in God?” They asked him directly and he says, “No, I don’t believe, I know.” We’re talking about a direct experience of these spiritual matters. Not a belief in the traditional sense that the church or synagogue or the temple gave you a set of beliefs and that’s what you were going to go by but more of a way of seeking and finding your own spiritual path, and having a direct experience of that reality.
Debi: The best way to do that is to keep asking questions, to have a mentor or a guide that’s going to help you. Ask those tough questions that has the same philosophy as you and look out for people that are just fancy objects. They have fancy names, maybe fancy videos, fancy marketing but they’re really contradicting themselves on their views. If they’re confused about what their worldview they’re not going to be able to how you decide.
Be really clear and that’s what’s going to really make big changes in your life. You’ll go from that seeking which is really important. In The Life of Pi, he was seeking, he was in India and he was trying all these different religions but he had an experience out on the water of what life was about and that’s part of the process. If you’re seeking you’re on the right path as long as you’re asking those questions.
When you find and you make a decision that this is what I want. I’m a dualistic philosophy or I’m a oneness philosophy, non-dual, then you’re going to see huge changes and it’s going to basically clear the clutter in your mind of, “Does this work for me? Should I try this technique? Should I follow this teacher? Should I buy this book?” It’s all going to make a lot more sense to you. That’s why we wanted to have this class because it really is so important if it all starts here with your worldview and your spiritual philosophy.
Dr. Rob: Absolutely.
Debi: What a great show. If you have any questions about this, any contradictions to what you’ve learned and want to test it out visit us on our Facebook group. It’s Debi and Dr. Rob show. Just search for us in Facebook and you’ll see us, you’ll join our group. Feel free to ask us questions, tell us what other topics you’d like us to speak about and find out more about us at www.debianddrrob.com. We have events coming up 2019. We also have some really great programs that you might be interested in as well. If you’re ready to do join the oneness bandwagon.
Dr. Rob: [laughs] The non-dualistic–
Debi: The non-dualistic bandwagon.
Dr. Rob: Thanks for tuning in and we hope to see on Facebook.
Debi: Take care, everyone. Thanks for coming.
[VIDEO] Lucid Dreaming and Spiritual Development
TRANSCRIPT:
Debi: Welcome to the Debi & Dr. Rob Show. This is Debi and I’m with Dr. Rob.
Rob: Nice to be here.
Debi: We are actually on video. It’s our first edition of our podcast on video, so if you are listening to this podcast on the audio version, we’d love for you to come visit us on YouTube and you can see this episode and more to come on video as well. Let’s talk about today’s topic which is, I know, one of your favorite topics.
Rob: One of my favorite all time topics is lucid dreaming.
Debi: Why do you love lucid dreaming?
Rob: Well, I love dreaming in general. I love talking about dreams but lucid dreaming is a special case of dreams. It’s a special category of dream-work. Now, the basic definition and most of you have probably have had a lucid dream in your life. You might not remember it, or you might have though it was something else, like an out of body experience or something, but it’s essentially when you wake up in the dream, meaning you have this awareness, this consciousness, but you’re still caught up in the dream. You’re still in the dreamscape in a sense.
Debi: A lot of people might have that just when they wake up. Sometimes they’ll have that experience and, of course, everyone knows that movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio where he says, “I’m having a dream within a dream,” and basically they were using lucid dreaming. Of course it’s not scientific, the dream, it’s a ciphered movie but it gives you this idea that your body is asleep but you are awake inside a dreamscape and you are conscious. Which is a really fascinating concept for [crosstalk].
Rob: Just to be clear, it’s not cipher anymore. Back in the ’70s or ’80s, in the ’80s, people started studying it seriously and they found out this is an actual phenomenon. Everyone has the capacity, the capability to do lucid dreaming if they just learn a few simple techniques.
Debi: We are going to talk about that on the show too. Why would we use them? What’s the benefit of lucid dreaming?
Rob: That’s a good question. In general, if you think about why do we need dreams to begin with, why would nature force us to fall asleep and then have this 3D hallucination that takes us to other places and other situations and essentially nobody knows. There are some good theories. It does appear to have to do with good memory function, good logic, good reasoning, basically the brain needs it to survive, and to thrive and to be able to function properly, just general dreams. Why would lucid dreaming be part of dreams? It seems to be more on the spiritual mystical side.
Debi: I remember I’ve had a few lucid dreams, and I remember the next day feeling euphoric when I have them. It’s like this lightness, this joy as is if I just went too strong and cleansed my mind. I don’t know what it was. I wonder is it just because you are so aware? What’s that euphoric feeling?
Rob: I think it’s just a breakthrough in our consciousness that we realize well, there is this whole other level of reality in our mind, or our mind has all this power and this capability to really explore the world of consciousness, of dreams, in a different way. That realization just fills us with happiness and joy because it is such an incredible thing. Think about it, imagine having this wakeful consciousness but then stepping outside the door and flying up [crosstalk], and it feels like you are awake and you are flying or you’re doing all these incredible things but your body is fast asleep in your bed.
Debi: Sometimes when you were kids, a lot of children talk about dreams of flying or dreams of remembering that they could fly in their dreams, so we had a lot more experiences when we were younger but I remember, just so people can know what is a lucid dream, what does it feel like, I think it was when we first met, you weren’t there, and I woke up and I got out of bed and I walked down the stairs, and I saw my roommate, she was sleeping on the couch for some reason. It was like a balcony you can overlook, and I went to put my hand on the rail, my hand went right through the rail and I realized I was dreaming and I just was walking around and then I went back to sleep.
The next day she had woken up, she didn’t normally sleep there, so I’m like, “Okay, I knew I must have done something and maybe that was more out of body experience, but I felt like I was awake and I was just walking around in the house and I it was just this kind of sensation of, “That’s interesting. I must be dreaming because my hand was going through the rail.”
I was floating and I just remember the next day thinking, “Oh my God, I just feel so happy today and so alive.” It was just this amazing experience and I think it’s what you said, maybe it’s because you have experienced another realm of your own consciousness that you haven’t experienced before.
Rob: People who have not experienced a lucid dream, I know what you’re thinking, you’re probably saying, “Well, it’s just your imagination,” or “just a very intense dream,” but it’s not that. Like I said, this is well documented and it’s a psychological phenomenon that anyone can access. Now, having said that, there is a caveat, we do not want to use lucid dreams just for fun games.
Debi: Which a lot of those retreats where people go and do lucid dreams and it’s more just to leave your body and play around.
Rob: It’s to say, “Look at me I’m so wonderful, I can do this lucid dreaming thing.” In reality, it is a gift that’s given to us, human beings, this incredible– I think it’s more like a spiritual imagination that is given to us in order for us to cultivate our spiritual life in a very direct way and so always consider, “How can I use it to become a better person instead, to increase my awareness, my capacity for compassion, for love, for connectedness?”
Debi: Well, I think one of the things that lucid dreaming the benefits could be is that when you wake up in a dream and then you can direct that dream, you are actually building a muscle of your consciousness to be able in your waking life to say, let me bend this reality as well and so we start to see, for me it’s like the dream world and the waking world become the same material and so you’re not thinking, “Oh, that’s the magical part and there’s no rules there but here there are rules and everything solid.”
I think it just comes from a place of, if you come from the ego and you’re attached to the magic, you’re not going to really get the benefit from it but if you come from a place of individuation where you’re seeing these dreams or these experiences as a way to show how your mind works and how consciousness works, I think this is a great, great tool. The people are listening going, “How can I have a lucid dream? How can I do this? How can I learn how to do this?” What would you say?
Rob: There are techniques, we can talk about one in specific that we think is very safe, very natural.
Debi: No electrodes and lights going on your eyes, a lot of people use electronics or drugs to [crosstalk].
Rob: Nothing like that. There is a precedence for this in a whole discipline in Tibet Buddhism it’s called dream yoga. Dream yoga is using lucid dreams for spiritual development in essence. It doesn’t mean that you’re doing asanas in your dream although you could, I guess.
Debi: The downward dog [laughs].
Rob: Yoga is used more as a discipline of the mind. How can we discipline the mind through lucid dreaming? That’s the way we want to approach lucid dreaming, as a disciplining of the mind to cultivate it’s consciousness, it’s levels of awareness. One of the basic techniques is that while you’re awake, in this ordinary waking world, look at you hands and ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?”
Debi: “Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming? Am I dreaming?” You could do this right now at home.
Rob: Yes.
Debi: “Am I dreaming?”
Rob: Don’t do it at work because you might get fired or something.
Debi: You can think it.
Rob: [laughs] Some people also, when they look at their watch, they make it a practice to ask, “Am I dreaming?” What they do is, they look at the watch, they look away and then look back at it. If it’s still the same, you know you’re in this waking state. If it has changed, then you might suspect you’re dreaming.
Debi: I know, because when you’re dreaming, you don’t know you’re dreaming. The reason why we have these techniques is that we start to wake up from them. I remember, before you told me about this technique, I remember having a lucid dream where I was flying through space, very crescent dream. I think you were on your way to around this planet, and I was looking at my hands going up and I’m like, “Oh.” I noticed the little freckles on my fingers and I was like, “Okay, I’m dreaming.” Because I could see my hands. When you told me that this technique I said, “That’s why I did that in that dream, I could see my hands,” so a part of me must have known about that.
I really like that one. One thing that I discovered myself is when I do visualizations, one thing I’ve realized is that, in visualizations, I’m always seeing throughout my own eyes and I’m seeing forward. I’m never looking behind me, so I’m seeing in that one direction. That’s basically how we are like, we don’t turn around all the time. We’re focused maybe on this very limited scope. What I started to do in my visualization is I would be in this place, and then I would be like, “What’s behind me?” and I would turn around and see the 360. I would just practice seeing the whole gamut of the experience.
I remember, when I started to do that every day, I think the seventh day, I woke up in a dream and I spun myself around in the dream and I said, “Oh my god I’m awake.” I was so excited and I was trying to make this tree grow and created a house and I was in this very grey, there was nothing there. It was like a virtual reality almost. It was very bizarre, but I remember thinking, “It was me practicing that.” When I was in the dream, I started turning around and then I realized I was awake. That’s another– my suggestion that I’ve discovered that really helps.
Again, we’re not getting attached to, “I have to have a lucid dream and it’s so great.” When we do, we start to see how powerful our mind is. Then if you can direct your dream, imagine what you can do in a waking world. Imagine waking up in life because most of our lives, we’re sleep-walking basically where our unconscious is doing all, we’re going through the motions with getting ready in the morning and eating, and we just go through our day at work and driving. We’re really in this fog of a dreamlike state and very, very infrequently are we wide awake. Do you think mindfulness would also be–?
Rob: Yes, definitely. Mindfulness is being aware in the immediate moment and focusing on what you’re doing in the moment and in real time. Meditation, we know helps. Visualization helps. Good sleep hygiene, which means you don’t–
Debi: Take a shower before you go to bed.
Rob: Don’t drink a lot of stimulants, coffee or sodas, a lot of sugar before you go to sleep. Certain rituals like taking a shower or meditating, relaxing before you go to sleep, all those things, we know increase the likelihood of having a lucid dream.
Debi: We could also mention to our clients is to set the intention that you’re going to have a lucid dream. Before you go to bed, you could do this with dreaming in general. Just say, “I’m going to remember my dreams.” And you’re setting that intention as you drift off. You can also set the intention, “I’m going to have a lucid dream.” The mind is so powerful, you could even say, “I’m going to wake up at seven o’clock,” and you will wake up at 7:00 AM that morning. Your mind will take orders from you.
Rob: The basic theory is this, like you said, when we are in a dream, we don’t know we’re dreaming most of the time. When strange things happen, we want to get into the habit of questioning that, “Am I dreaming?” You’re walking down main street in your town and all of a sudden you see a giraffe walking by, you can ask yourself-
Debi: Am I dreaming?
Rob: “Is this a dream?” or something. “This is strange. This is something unusual.” Those techniques, within the dream, will help you then wake up. Not wake up physically in the bed but wake up within the dream and become lucid.
Debi: Saying, “Am I dreaming?” throughout the day, looking at your watch throughout the day, “Am I dreaming?” look away, look at the time, and then being more mindful. Before you go to sleep at night, don’t have any stimulants, don’t eat lots of sugar, ice cream, take a shower, do some meditation, visualize before you go to sleep, set an intention to remember your dreams or to have a lucid dream. Those are all the recipe for having those wonderful mystical experiences. Be sure to write your dreams down, that’s one thing that’s really important. Even if you don’t know what the dream means.
Young said that if you write them down, and just read them, your psyche is going to transform because there’s a deeper part of yourself that knows what it means. From your dream life, you’re bringing it into the physical world and your higher consciousness. That’s what the dream is supposed to– It’s like taking stuff that you don’t know unconsciously to bring it forward. If you bring it forward on paper and pen, it’s a ritual for you to put it into the physical world and use it.
Rob: That’s a whole other aspect of dream working and lucid dreaming that now people are starting to use it for therapeutic purposes. Let’s say somebody has a phobia in real life or in waking life, you can use a lucid dream to confront that fear and practice. Let’s say, you’re afraid of heights, in the lucid dream, being consciously aware that you are within the dream, you’re not as fearful because you know that, “I can always wake up,” or “I can fly if I fall off the high building,” or something, then you can practice overcoming that fear in a gradual and a safe environment that’s created in your mind.
All those possibilities are just the tip of the iceberg. This whole area of how can we use lucid dreaming to improve ourselves, to become more conscious, more spiritual, more aware is just stunning. We want to do, in the future, maybe some workshops, maybe some–
Debi: We’re having a dream archetypal retreat next year in Athens, Greece, where we’re going to take a trip to the ruins, we’ll see the Parthenon, we’re going to look at all the amazing– Why are you smiling?
Rob: Oh, god no [crosstalk]
Debi: We’re going to see the ruins and talk about the archetypes and all the gods, the Greek gods, and see the archetypes within them and then perhaps a lot of dream experiences and meditative experiences. If you’re interested in joining us in Athens, in October of 2019, we’re going to be doing that as well. We also deal with dreams in any of our events, our live events here in the US and Europe.
I think dreams, to me, are [unintelligible 00:18:24] say they’re the royal road to the unconscious. I think dreams to me are the direct experience of your spiritual life. I have had ideas of what being spiritual is and what I believe is unknown and unseen and faith in the divine. Working with dreams, especially with lucid dreams, you really get to see what your consciousness is made of. It’s a beautiful practice. The more you can do it, the more you’re going to be enlightened and be aware of everything around you and your power that you have to really direct your life. Again, if you can direct the dream, you can direct your life.
That’s it for today. This is such a great topic. I’m glad you decided that you would bring it up. [laughs] Remember to tune in to the rest of our shows on iTunes and on Google Play and Spotify now. We just can’t wait to see you on the next episode. This is Debi and Rob, signing out.
Rob: See you soon.
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