Unknown Speaker 0:03
Good morning, afternoon or evening, wherever this podcast is finding you today. I hope you're having a beautiful day. And if not, I hope that this podcast episode brings comfort into your life. As I know it will, we have some beautiful topics that we cover and some really, really cool, really cool things. So I'm really excited. And before we dive in, I have my speaker symposium coming up in just a few days, and I'm really excited to announce that I am bringing in a very cool group that will also offer some sound healing in the middle of our day. And they do this with sound bowls that you if you've done sound healing, you know, there's always sound bowls, but they also bring in drums and singing and intimations as well as a saxophone. So I am super excited to experience them as I can only imagine you will be too. So if you haven't gotten your ticket, go over to my website, Amanda loveland.com. Forward slash lean in and grab your ticket today. And my next guest, I am so excited to finally share this episode with you. We have been trying to get together for months and trying to coordinate our schedules. And finally, when I was down at Homestead ranch this past weekend, we were able to record out of my little cabin right by the lake, which was just stunning. And sit down on the floor and just dive into some really fascinating topics around the Mormon religion. And I have no doubt you're going to enjoy my next guest, Hugh Val.
Unknown Speaker 1:37
Are you ready? Hello, welcome to the lakeside cabins. Oh my gosh.
Unknown Speaker 1:41
Yes. Lakeside cabin number nine. Well, welcome guests. I know this has taken us months to do. And I get to hold my mic like this. So I felt a little dorky. As we're sitting on the floor. This is awesome. I'm glad we're finally doing this. And I appreciate you for stepping in and, and for sharing your wisdom and your story and what you've learned and what you've gone through. Because I know it's it's significant. So I'm excited to to share this space with you. Thank you. So where do you want to go? Because I know we were going to record a few months ago, and we kind of put it on pause and it just wasn't working. And then you said I know what I'm gonna talk about now. Do you know what that is? Do you remember?
Unknown Speaker 2:22
I remember what that was? Yeah. Well, do
Unknown Speaker 2:24
you want to tell any of your religion story?
Unknown Speaker 2:28
Um, yeah, I mean, yeah, I get asked about it all the time. And, you know, you've asked me before, what the question that I get asked a lot is, why did you leave religion? And the answer I always give is, I didn't I know that. I'm like, okay, that's hard for a lot of people. And part of it is because I think of how I define the word religion. And what that means to me. I think what people are really asking is a different question. I think the question they're asking is, are you still in actively involved in organized religion? And to that, I would say no, yeah. But leaving religion, I don't even know if it's possible to leave religion. You know,
Unknown Speaker 3:25
the title of this podcast is leaving religion and my book. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 3:31
But that's because of my definition of it. So religion in Latin, is often translated as to re ligament, like, if your ligaments were torn in your body and your ligaments were getting put back together. Okay. So the idea behind religion is to bring something that feels broken or has been separated back to its wholeness. And so with that definition, I think we all want religion. But I that's, I think, a unique definition. I don't think that's the contemporary cultural definition.
Unknown Speaker 4:11
Or what is practice is practice. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I, you and I have talked about this. It's like religion, there's so much truth in religions. And for me, I just feel like it just lightly misses the mark. And I think it's, for me, I believe it's intentional. Yeah. But, you know,
Unknown Speaker 4:27
so I think, too, talk about organized religion. And to that point, there's so much truth in organized religions. Here's what I think organized religions are, I think this is the purpose of them. At least the core, there's probably many purposes and the core purpose in my belief system is they are the keepers of the ancient stories. I think that's what organize As religions have done for the people,
Unknown Speaker 5:05
yeah, I could see that,
Unknown Speaker 5:06
because I don't think we'd have the Bible without organized religions. I don't think we'd have the ancient stories without organized religion. Mm hmm. And so I think they're the keepers of the stories. Now, an interesting thing is that to have the story doesn't mean to understand the story. So what you need in the group of people, which I think exist, but I think this gift gets denied. And that is the interpreters of the story. Okay. And I think we've, anybody who's had the gift of interpreting this ancient stories, which could probably also be defined as like translating the ancient stories. I think that gift exists somewhere, but it has not been cultivated, nourished, nurtured and grown. And so I think it lays dormant for the most part, that's probably been happening for a couple 100 years at least. And I think it could be a little bit more prominent than, obviously, then what it is, especially if it's dormant. Yeah. So just because you have the story doesn't mean you understand the story.
Unknown Speaker 6:21
Right? Well, that's the thing. I mean, when we were both in religion, and you now go in translate, you go pull in different languages, because from one language language to another, it's often that it gets misinterpreted because there's no word that can directly translate. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 6:35
language drifts. Yeah, that's the thing that so a few years ago, about five years ago, I called downloads, I got to download this, my inner knowing, inner library was talking to me, right? And, and I got this download the download said, to be able to answer the questions that I was asking in my heart, and in my soul. I would have to read the ancient stories, particularly in the New Testament, in ancient Greek, and in classic German. Neither language which I speak,
Unknown Speaker 7:15
right, I was gonna say, You don't know either one. No, you're like, wait a minute, this download is full of crap.
Unknown Speaker 7:21
Yeah. No, I felt like this download sucks, because that's a lot of work. And just give me the answer. Yeah, right. But what I ended up learning, and Socrates said this really, really well is he said, the beginning of wisdom is the definition of the terms. So we have words, we have terms, and with terms, you have conditions, right, we're used to this and contract agreements, right? Terms and conditions. So the beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. So if I, if you and I have an agreement, but we don't agree on the terms that are in there, how do we really have an agreement? Right? We don't Yeah. And the other thing I think is really interesting that he's saying is he's not saying the beginning of knowledge, or the beginning of understanding is at the beginning of wisdom, and wisdom has a really deep, rich, meaning in ancient Greek. There are six filters you have to go through to understand wisdom. The two types of wisdom, the first type of wisdom is Sophia, this is where we get like, philosophy, right? Philo meaning the love of and then Sophia is knowledge. But Sophia, the Greek word often gets translated as wisdom. But the better translation would be like intellectual wisdom or knowledge. The other Greek word for that gets translated in English as the word wisdom is from nesis, which is probably my most favorite word. So a few years ago, I did start, I followed that download, and I bought every concordance I mean, I spent, like, almost two grand buying brokenness and concordance is in reading it. And I would spend about two hours in the morning, going through one verse because I would go through word for word. And so I'm just giving an example with like, some of the words that you run into, you're like, Okay, I get the translation, but it's so much richer and deeper than, than what's being spoken in English because English is an expedient language, especially the way we use English today. So there's plenty of English words that captivate and have this rich, deep meaning but in our culture, in our society, we don't use these words and even if we did, we wouldn't really understand what someone was saying because it's the we just old English. Yeah, we just don't understand some of that. depth in deep English. So the English that you and I use in most of us, probably all the listeners is a very expedient language. It's like a shortcut way. So we say things like, Oh, I love ice cream. And then we say things like, Oh, I love you, right, but we mean two different things. So with wisdom, going back to four nesis, this means to do the right thing, to the right person, in the right way, for the right reason, at the right time, and in the right place. So you've got those six things. So wisdom is different than knowledge. And knowledge is different than understanding and wisdom is different than both of them. But they one builds on top of the other. So the beginning of wisdom, the only way to really get to that, that integration, where I'm taking these things that I learn, and I'm integrating them into my life, I'm applying them I'm becoming a wise person or a person of wisdom is I have to start knowing what are the terms that my relationships are being built on, whether it's my business relationship, or my work relationship, or my spiritual relationships, all those have terms and conditions to them. And the beginning of all of it is the beginning, the beginning of understanding how to have wisdom, and that is by understanding what the terms are, then I can start doing the right thing to the right person in the right way at the right time in the right place. Right. And you go through that, those six filters. And that's super, super challenging.
Unknown Speaker 11:36
Although it seems like a lot of work. Like if you're going through and defining every single relationship and the way that it needs to look like in order to then do the six steps. Is that what you're saying?
Unknown Speaker 11:51
Well, what I'm saying, wisdom, let's, let me see if I can answer the question by talking about where for nesis shows up in one of the ancient stories. It's in Luke chapter one. This is when Zacharias who's approximately in his early 80s, his wife, Elizabeth is in her early 80s. He's, I've read reports where he's 81. And she's 83. And Zacharias is John the Baptist, his dad, right? So he gets he draws, it says that he draws lots, right, it's like a lottery. And there's multiple corms, a quorum is basically 1500 Different priests. So the the chance of your your lot, your number being drawn that you get to go in on this special holy day and light the incense in the Holy of Holies. It may never actually happen in your lifetime. So he's supposedly about 81 years old, and his lot gets drawn. And he's super excited. And so he goes to the Holy of Holies. And he lights the the incense. And the angel Gabriel shows up. And the angel Gabriel says, Hey, I've got a message for you. And the message is that your wife's going to have a baby. And immediately, of course, he starts to doubt because his wife's 83 years old, right? You can see the logic where he's like, maybe not, yeah, maybe not. And also, I've read some really interesting reports that even though their faith was so strong, the the commonality of meeting with angels and angels showing up even in the Holy of Holies, had been so far removed from their actual experiences, that it was a very difficult, unbelievable experience for Zacharias to really wrap his mind around because to him, he's just a normal guy who's been doing his priestly duties for decades and decades, just like everyone else has been, and he doesn't feel any more special than anyone else. And now all of a sudden, an angel is actually showing up. And we believe that they do, but they don't really write the code
Unknown Speaker 14:06
someone else or happen to someone else. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 14:09
So that's kind of the setting that he's in. Now. He's in the Holy of Holies. And Angel Gabriel is there and he says, Your wife's going to have a baby and gives them some instructions. The first instruction is you're going to name them, John. Right? So you don't even get to name your own child. Yeah, angel tells you what you're going to name them. So it goes. Okay, whatever. I don't even know if I really believe this. But sure, I'm listening. Yeah. And then he says, Your son, Angel Gabriel says Your son's going to be the front runner or the forerunner to the Messiah. Right? Who's, who's actually being birthed by Zacharias, his sister in law, right? Like Mary is his sister in law. And so like your son's gonna cousins, to the Messiah, right? And the Messiah means the anointed one. That's the Hebrew word for the anointed one. And if you dig Deep deeper into that not to get too anecdotal or tangential on this. But if you get dig a little bit deeper, it's the anointed one who's going to embody Christ consciousness, more than what we've seen, maybe ever not, that's really what's being said, when you're the Messiah, you're the one who's going to embody, integrate Christ consciousness into your daily practical living. And he's going to be the front runner to this. And now being the front runner, he's got two jobs. And I'll give you the King James version, the King James version, the first thing he's going to do, he's going to turn the hearts of the of the hearts of the fathers to all of the children, the hearts of the fathers to all the children. And if you get in and you translate what that actually means, it's basically saying we've got to get dads back in the homes and fatherhood is extremely important. And that's a unique message that I've never heard told in an organized religion, that the way that John the Baptist is going to be paving for the people to follow in the wake of Jesus, embodying Christ Consciousness is the step one fatherhood. That that's not a message that that I've heard a lot, right. No, I hadn't. But when you see in a really dysfunctional broken heart, heartbroken society, fathers are always removed. And it's very difficult for fathers to be involved and engaged in the lives of their children. Yeah. And so that's an interesting thing. The second thing that he gets, is to, he will, John will teach the wisdom of the just so that phrase, the wisdom of the just makes almost no sense to anybody in, in modern in contemporary English, right. The wisdom of the just is wisdom, meaning to do the right thing at the right time in the right place, right person, right reason, those six things, to the just the just being if you're a fair person, you would be a just person. So the wisdom of the chest, so only just or fair, people really know how to have wisdom. So wisdom of the just that whole phrase come from one Greek word, the word is from nesis. It's the only time it shows up in the New Testament interesting. So John's job is to teach fatherhood and for nieces, and if he can do that, he'll pave the way and be the front runner to to Jesus who's going to embody Christ Consciousness more than anyone else, and then the message can actually be accepted. So if you don't allow fatherhood, and for nesis, or true, true practical wisdom in our daily lives, we can't even accept the message of Christ consciousness, and we won't embody it ourselves. That's interesting, which is a theory of mine of why I think he actually ends up being crucified. One of the reasons he's crucified is because fatherhood doesn't really come back. And for NEET neither does for nesis. So the heart turns often, so the heart turns often, yeah, and the hearts remain hardened. Because really hard things are happening. I mean, they're trafficking children. They have slavery just as much as we have today, in culturally speaking, you know. And so this is a, this is a big task that John's got in front of him. Now, the whole point is, is that we've had these stories, but it doesn't mean we've actually maybe heard the real story, right. And so I'm appreciative of organized religion for keeping the story so that we could go in and dive in and do the homework with them. Where I'm opposed is the stories the way that they're being interpreted by the organized religion. Yeah, that's where I think it gets a little wonky. Not there sure is religion. I don't get into conspiracies that they, it's easy to fall into a conspiracy. I am skeptical about them. I know that there are conspiracy theories. And I also know that there are conspiracy facts. That's another tough Benson, quote. Right.
Unknown Speaker 19:09
But I think there's just a tremendous amount of ego that's very difficult for the human consciousness to wrestle against. And, and I guess I just speak from experience on that, like, my own ego is super challenging to wrestle with. I think that's Jacobs Russell when Jacobs dislocates his hip because he's wrestling with God. Right. I think what he's really doing is wrestling with the true stories and of what's going on and who he really is. Because that's a that's just
Unknown Speaker 19:45
facing our own shadows. And
Unknown Speaker 19:46
all that. Yeah. And your hip, right. You have to understand that your hip is your most strongest fortified joint and bones in your body. It's carrying your weight, you're twisting, you're turning, you're running just, you know. jolting all that stuff you're sitting, you're standing. That's all happening in the hip. And so our hips are very, very fortified. So to be in a wrestling match and have your hip dislocated, a little bit different than like your toe or your, your thumb being dislocated, right, your hip being dislocated, I think that's, I think the proper interpretation of that is how difficult it is to wrestle with the actual story of and I think the real wrestle is who we really are.
Unknown Speaker 20:26
Who do you think we really are?
Unknown Speaker 20:30
Well, the Old Testament says that we are the gods.
Unknown Speaker 20:34
Who do you think we are? The same?
Unknown Speaker 20:36
Yeah, yeah, totally. And I get that from the the translation of Jesus when he's talking on the sermon of the mount. And in chapter five, it's that sermon on the mount is kind of kicking off. But Jesus has to lay the foundation for the next things that he's going to say in chapter six in chapter seven, of Matthew. And when he's really digging into some of his final points of setting the tone for what this sermon really is, it's chapter five, verse 48. The King James Version says, Be therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. And this is very, very difficult for us to understand what's actually being said, because here's what I hear. Be therefore flawless, even as your Father in heaven is flawless. And I don't think that that's fair. I don't think that's just I don't think that's wise. I don't even think it's accurate. And so when you dig into the Greek version, it's saying a couple of different things. The first thing it's saying is, the Greek word is teleios. B, therefore teleios and teleios. is the word for whole complete lacking no parts. Yeah. So if we just translated right there, be there for whole realizing that you are complete lacking no parts, even as your Father in heaven is whole complete, lacking no parts. That feels different, right? That reads different. Yeah. So what that means is that perfection when it was written in English in the 1600s Perfection is wholeness, not flawlessness.
Unknown Speaker 22:33
Well, and even just a difference of those words, like you feel like you can move towards wholeness. Okay, I can do that I can, I can feel whole whatever that looks like to me versus this idea of perfection is you can't ever reach that.
Unknown Speaker 22:44
Yeah, it's like what Carl Jung was talking about, right? It's like for my, my branches and my leaves to reach the heavens, I have to realize that my roots reach down to the hell, right. And so wholeness is integrating and accepting my shadows and my light. And I think that once we can wrestle with that, and be okay with our shadows, as much as sometimes we have, some people have to be okay with. Some people are totally fine with their shadows. But they are not fine with their light. Right.
Unknown Speaker 23:14
It's that Marianne Williamson quote, we're
Unknown Speaker 23:15
more afraid of our greatness. Yeah, we are. I can't remember the whole quote. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then other people are totally fine with their light, but cannot get over the fact that they have shadows. Yeah. Right. And so the beautiful part, I think, is when we can integrate our light and our shadows. What's on the other side is the rainbow on that wholeness. Right. Yeah. Right. So the other thing that that it's saying, Here's what it's not saying, It's not saying become you therefore hole, or become you, therefore perfect, it's a be meaning realize you already are. So the way that I translate it is own your wholeness, even as your heavenly parents own their wholeness. And so to me, what that means is that we didn't come to earth to have this mortal journey to become perfect. We are having this mortal journey. And we are here because we already are perfect.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
And I was listening to a little bit of a Michael singer podcast this morning, and he was talking about how simple everything that we're seeking is actually quite simple. But it's that resistance to feeling to feeling the emotions, the pain, the grieving, the sorrow, the whatever, it's the resistance to that, that makes things so much harder. Definitely. And I would agree with what he was saying that, especially as I've continued learning it is everything is quite simple. And just with what you're saying that right there is simple.
Unknown Speaker 24:47
Yeah. And I think anybody that wants to really understand why that is so difficult for us, you just have to study your brain and understand what a function of the prefrontal cortex
Unknown Speaker 25:02
is. So here's my little plug for as you're listening to this, he is going to be presenting something this Sunday at our speaker symposium. So if you're in Utah, grab a ticket and come join. Because what you present is pretty, it's fascinating. And I know I'm sitting here to retreat. That's why you and I are down here at the homestead ranch and with several women, and we got to listen to it, and then see what you do with the most of the wild mustangs. And, you know, I cannot tell you how many times it's been brought up in conversations over the last few days from what you presented, because it really makes you what you present makes you think and understand that oh, my gosh, this is how I'm playing this out. And how can I can shift that? Yeah. So it's really beautiful wisdom that you share. And again, this, this this coming Sunday, get your ticket. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 25:49
it's my favorite thing, sharing that formula. I've been working on it for over just about five years, maybe a little over five years. And I feel like I just barely started to like, piece the final parts together. And now we're diving deeper, it just goes on, it's like an endless Well, of, of just awesomeness, but the Mustang. The Mustang, you know, the Mustang demonstration that I do, which I now call a wild horse ceremony. I used to call it a workshop. And then one day that just didn't feel like it was sacred enough. And I think I needed to change my intention for it, and what it was for me for the set in the setting to, to be created for that. And so now it does. It's a Mustang ceremony. Yeah. But what it really is, is it's, it's a metaphor. And it was Aristotle it well, it was Plato and Aristotle and Socrates, that what you really needed to do is get good at understanding the metaphors to become a master of metaphors. And I stumbled into this metaphor. And that's because where language falls short, the metaphor will easily fill in the gap. Yeah. And so the thing everyone really sees is they see themself in the Mustang. Oh, yeah. During that ceremony.
Unknown Speaker 27:15
I think I already shared with you, but I was shocked how emotional I got during that. Yeah. It was challenging to watch and really beautiful.
Unknown Speaker 27:22
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, definitely. It's.
Unknown Speaker 27:26
So why did you choose out? And you haven't laughed. But why did you choose to stop going to the Mormon religion? Do you mind sharing? You don't have to
Unknown Speaker 27:34
No, no. Yeah, cuz it's not something I'm embarrassed about. It is something I want to I would never want to influence someone to go faster than maybe what they're ready for. I agree with that. Because organized religion served me really, really well, for a very long time. It provided a tremendous amount of feelings of safety and familiar familiarity.
Unknown Speaker 28:01
Community, and I mean, there's a lot of things. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 28:04
I think we've lost some of that in our modern times right now. Yeah. There's so much litigation, there's so much liabilities that are out there that I think we lose a lot of. I mean, you remember, we used to have like road shows. And we used to have, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, we don't even do we, like we get together. And we have potlucks and everything like that. But we used to, like really engage in lifestyle activities, and basketball and softball leagues. And, you know, and maybe it got taken too seriously. But, but those are community building. And we don't really have I think some of those things that made organized religions really home based and kind of like rooted at the heart. That fun and that play. Yeah, I think that's the sad thing. So that's a motivator for me to be like, well, there's other places that I'll go that do provide that. And but I was there's an interesting scripture and Doctrine and Covenants that it's section 22, verse three. And the question is being presented, why have I caused this church to be built up in the last days? Right? That's ultimately the question that's going to get answered. And it says, Because of your dead works, have I caused this church to be built up in these last days? And I served my mission in Independence, Missouri. And so we didn't get too involved in church history. We were discouraged from that. And I think for good reason. But when you when I've dove into some of the early like the Joseph Smith papers, I think are a great, great example of that. What's the guy's name? Richard Richard Lyman bush. I don't remember he wrote. Yeah, and I might be not saying his name properly. But he wrote Rough Stone Rolling, okay, which was the big biography that that came out. And if I heard the story properly, it was he was encouraged by the church to, and maybe even the brethren to write this book. I loved that, that biography. To me, it brought a lot of like realness to Joseph into that whole experience that was going on. So, one thing I don't like is I don't like the aggrandizement of a prophet or somebody who has a gift. And to that point, I like Avraham, Gilley. Audis. If anyone's ever read any of his stuff, which I highly recommend, never heard of him. Yeah, he's incredible. He's a scholar. He wrote an awesome book. He's written many awesome books, mostly writes on the book of Isaiah, but he wrote a book called End Times prophecy, a Judeo, a Judeo Mormon interpretation or something like that. I can't remember the full title of the book, but it's called End Times prophecy by Avraham Galeotti. And in there, he talks he talks about, he makes this really cool point. And the point is that prophets, seers and regulators are not offices in a an organization, they're not roles in a, in an organization. They're gifts of the Spirit. And so what that means is that anybody could be a prophet, anybody can be a seer, and anybody can be a revelator. And if you go and read Moroni, chapter 10, what you get from that is, do not deny the gifts and if you want the gifts, then go seek after them, and they'll be given to you. So if you wanted to be a prophet, or a seer, or revelator, and Joseph was, was famous for saying that everyone should become a prophet, seer, and revelator unto themselves, and I don't think that you can actually get to a society of sovereign individuals who know their wholeness, and who own their wholeness, which I think we would really define as a Zion Taya definition of people. I don't think you can get there if they are not prophets, seers and regulators unto themselves. In other words, I think the people who comprise of Zion people are prophets, seers and regulators unto themselves. And so when we aggrandize, Joseph or anybody else, Martin Luther or Bonhoeffer, right, whoever, whoever it is, in any religion, I think we run the risk of missing what the real message is. And I think this has been done to Jesus, I agree, I think we've made Jesus into something that he is not.
Unknown Speaker 33:02
And again, this is the world according to Hugh. But one time I was, I was in a very serious mode of fasting and prayer. And what I was told so clearly, in my own inner knowing is, Jesus is not a narcissist. And I just kind of thought about that. And I was like, I don't know if Jesus like really wants people to be worshipping Him, right, and am praising his name. And that's a very controversial statement. And but I think when it's what I'm really trying to say, so hopefully, people hear what I'm saying, not how I'm saying it. Words matter. Because words, they not only, you know, help us communicate, but they shape the experience. So I'm not trying to shape this experience negatively. But I just don't think that I think when we shape it into the fact that Jesus isn't a narcissist, and he doesn't want people worshipping Him, I think what he wants is people following his his path of Christ consciousness that he embodied, right, which
Unknown Speaker 34:13
these things can you do? And then someone has that scripture? Yeah. And more things you
Unknown Speaker 34:18
can do and your greater things and what you've seen me do, right. And that was another big question that I was like, I don't think I'm seeing greater things like can I just see the things you did? Let me start there. This is there. Right? And then we'll figure that out later, right. Yeah. Yeah. And, and maybe we are and maybe I'm just missing it. You know, I don't know. I'm open to that. But I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. I don't know anybody who has seen it. I think if we had somebody who was performing the miracles as Jesus was, he would be super popular on Instagram. Yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker 34:51
Well, John of God, right. He was notorious for quite a while was performing pretty major healings. Do you know who he was? He went and people would come to him, which is all sorts of ailments, and he would do energetic surgery on him, essentially. And he'll heal them. Yeah, I don't know a ton of John of God. So I'm just gonna caveat that, but I remember that that was a big piece that people were really like, wow, there's this, this guy doing these things. And I can't remember how long ago it was.
Unknown Speaker 35:20
I have a buddy, who is a quantum physicist. And he has given me i There's not even a term for it. I'll change his name, because I don't think he would want me to say his name. But let's pretend his name is. We'll call him John two. Sounds good. Yeah, the John's are doing all the miracles. But I would call it a John blessing, right? Like, because there's not it's not a priesthood blessing, it's it. It was like a mixture of Reiki, what I ended up finding out what Reiki was, and like his own gifts, and just his incredible desire to want to heal himself. And then from there, being able to pass that on to others and help them out. And one of his ways of giving his blessings is, he really helps you understand who you are. And then when you understand who you are, then it's like,
Unknown Speaker 36:34
oh, this is bringing that wholeness in which would bring balance to the body. Yes, exactly. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this, and how Jesus actually would go in and ask if it was for their best and highest good if they were ready, you know, if you're, it's your faith that makes you whole right, essentially. And
Unknown Speaker 36:54
yeah, cuz I think a narcissist would say, let ideal do and you're welcome. Yeah, right, come save you the Savior. You know archetype, which is like, Well, no,
Unknown Speaker 37:03
wait a second.
Unknown Speaker 37:04
Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Another download that I got was that Jesus is my Savior, because he is my mentor. And Rumi has a really great quote, Rumi says, you know, the Sufi poet, he says, If you do not have a guide, you will need 200 years to take the two day journey. Yeah, if you do not have a guide, you will need 200 years to take the two day journey. And that's the same thing in science. When you have a guide, you have a mentor, then what you get to trade out is trial and error. So I would rather go sit with a mentor, and then go practice what he's showing me how to do it, and then helping me make these tweaks, then just trying it up that that failed, waiting for results to come through. That failed. Okay, go try again. Right. That's the 200 years trial and error. And I think that's part of the human experience. I think we all signed up and the terms and conditions of that, and we can totally end up in our own human journey in the trial and error stage of it. Or maybe even worse, where we don't even try. Yeah, right.
Unknown Speaker 38:25
On that would go to Yeah, we're gods but we're gods in training. So it's like we have all these aspects to be God in form, but we're learning. We're learning how to do that. Yeah. Which I think is an important clue to what you're talking about with without holding it up pulling in a guru. Yep. And that's when God changed for me and Jesus, the relationship strengthened, it was like, Okay, I need to, I don't know, I don't know these things. I don't know what I'm doing. So it's like, Oh, right. Maybe I should start working with Jesus. Because he did. Yeah. He had to figure it out.
Unknown Speaker 38:52
Yeah, you know, yeah, for me. I mean, I think this is what the the Western Christian world is talking about when they're saying, we need to confess and profess that Jesus is our Savior. To me, I think what's actually being said is, I need a mentor, I need to figure out how to embody my own Christ consciousness. And I'm going to choose Jesus to be that mentor for me.
Unknown Speaker 39:23
Now, I think this is how I've approached it. I think the Savior though the Savior archetype, right? With I need to be saved. If you carry that in your psyche and in your subconscious belief system, and it's in our programming. Yeah. Then you're going to constantly go out in the world thinking that you're, something's wrong with you, and you need to always be saved. And by the way, you're evil. You had so many sins that Jesus, you know, went through this whole process, so that you could become clean. Yeah. I don't know.
Unknown Speaker 39:52
I agree. And I was reading in the book of Mary which is the Mary Magdalene her Gospel, we've got three copies of it that we found in, in multiple languages in different parts of the world. First six pages ripped out. Yeah. Interestingly enough. And she says in chapter three, I believe it's chapter three, verse one through three, John and Mary are talking to Jesus. And John says to Jesus, he says, What is the great sin of the world? And Jesus says back, there is no such thing as sin. Now, I think what's really being said here, is there's nothing that takes away from your wholeness. Now, there's things that can create a tremendous amount of hurt harm, and pain and pain. And but yet, even then, there's nothing that can take away your your wholeness, and hand. So what i Another way I might say that is that there's nothing that can shame you. Because years ago, I was in prayer, working through a struggle in my life. And I remember spirits saying to me, shame will destroy you faster than any sin ever will. And I had no idea what was being said, I just knew it was true. That shame would destroy me. And so I dove into Brene Brown, I learned what shame was, I think simply define shame as being not enough feeling like you're not enough. It's a total lie. I think it's the great lie. Think shame is the Great Deceiver. Yeah. Because we all are enough. And and so
Unknown Speaker 41:48
when you look at that vibrational scale, right, you've seen that with how how different emotions carry different vibration. And shame is like the lowest vibrational emotion that you can carry. It's next to death, essentially. Which is quite interesting, because there's so much shame and guilt within religion. Yep. And so for me, in my belief system, I believe it's part of how it's kind of anchored in of, hey, I need to keep going to this church because I need to repent for my sins, because I carry so much shame.
Unknown Speaker 42:17
Yeah. Yeah, so the word sin going back to like, there is no such thing as sin. And then what you're saying with I need to repent, right, and the chain that that that drives in repentance? Well, sin, the Greek word for sin is Hamas, dia, and Hamas, DIA. It's used in multiple different cultural settings. One of the settings that it's used in as in the military setting, and Hamas dia could be used, if you were like an archer, and you were going out to the battlefield. And so to prepare to go to the battlefield, you've got to take your bow and arrow, and you've got to practice aiming at the target and hitting the target. And if you shot your arrow, and you missed the target, that was Hamas, dia, you missed the mark. So you missed the mark, I think I've heard that one that that sin was actually just missing the mark. But in the mark, keep practicing. So if I have if I'm in the military, and let's say I want to join Special Forces, and I'm gonna get my bow and arrow, then I'm going to miss the mark. What I've got to go do is go talk to the Greenbrae. Instructor, right, who hits the mark, and who's been to a battle and hit the mark. And he's really good at this. And if I went to him and said, Nope, I can't I'm no good at this. I mean, the first thing he's going to do is be like, hey, grab another arrow. Yeah, let me go again. We show it in a bit. No, I can't. I'm not good enough. Yeah, right. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. And so the word for repentance is metanoia and metanoia. I think better. Like the translation I like for metanoia is to re aim or to try again. So to repent is to say, Okay, I'll pull out another arrow to sin is to miss the target that you are aiming at. So then I'm going to repent. So in other words, you're in alignment and you're out of alignment, right alignment and misalignment. And we're constantly in alignment and then falling out of alignment and then getting back into alignment. And because we're this is the wrestle, right, and, and so you Yeah, right. When it's talking about in the doctrine of covenants of those who inhabit Zion, it says These are they who have overcome these things.
Unknown Speaker 44:42
Right. It's like they could be in Zion if they hadn't.
Unknown Speaker 44:45
Yeah, yeah. Because your hearts would ever say the good at missing the mark. And even better at renaming. But the thing that makes it even possible is that they have a mentor. Right, and this is what it's supposed to mean by Rabbi Yeah, is to be master or in other words, mentor. And so to me, Jesus, Jesus is my mentor. And, and Christ consciousness is my target. And he's the guy who's been there and done that. He knows where I've been. And he knows where I'm going because he's there. And so I think he embodied Christ Consciousness better than anybody else that we know of that we know of. Right? And but he did it really well. I think Mary did it did it really well, Mary did it really well. The whole people after third Nephi chapter 11 do it really well. Jesus comes and visits the Americas and chapter, you know, if you if you believe in the story that's being told, or CATSA Kuato or, yeah, so there's clearly were these people who have existed who did it really well. And they embodied that, that level of consciousness. And I think that's the target we're all supposed to be aiming at. When you dive into the ancient Egyptian endowment, the Masonic endowment, the LDS endowment, the very first thing God says to man is awake and arise, right, you have to wake up to yourself consciousness. I think that's the real message Jordan Peterson talks really well on, on the importance of waking to yourself consciousness. But I think that's the story that Genesis in Adam and Eve is really trying to get to us is that we have to wake up.
Unknown Speaker 46:36
Do you think that that was a literal story then? Or do you think it's a parable?
Unknown Speaker 46:40
I think I like Avraham Gill yachties take on truth. He says that for truth to be, and I don't want to put words in his mouth. This is how I remember it. This is how what he said to me made sense, is that I needed to understand it, literally, figuratively and symbolically. And if it met all three of those, then you got a really good chance that it's true. That's interesting. So I think that I think that there was an Adam and Eve, whether that was their actual name, right? I think that's their, like, American English name. And those parts seem quite anecdotal to me and doesn't, I don't really care in that sense. But symbolically, I bet you their names are really profound, figuratively, I think they probably mean a lot for me. And this is what happens when you go into these endowment sessions in all these different religions is that you're supposed to respectively see yourself as Adam and Eve, right? And so it's really saying symbolically See Yourself Here, you're going through this journey, too. And your journey is the same as their journey. Yeah. And my journey is really the same as your journey. And it's, I got, it starts with waking up. If I don't wake up, everything else you've said to me doesn't really matter. Yeah, until I can awake and then arise.
Unknown Speaker 48:07
Well, I think that that's something that has been coming in, recently, for me over the last few weeks is, you know, in my experience, I've only ever experienced ceremony and the initiations and the endowment, all that stuff through Mormon, the Mormon Church, the Mormon religion, and yeah, every religion has some form of that. And it has we've had that. Yeah, it's it's probably the dawn of time. Yeah. And that was something that because I know a lot of people really struggle with ritual or ceremony when they leave religion. Because I'm like, catching myself, because you don't think anybody leaves religion, but when they leave religion they struggle with because they they assume it's somebody trying to take away yeah, because I feel like it is a takeaway experience when people have left because they, they do wake up, there is an element of waking up and going, Okay, how this is operated and how this is being ran. It doesn't resonate with my soul anymore. And so, to every one that is
Unknown Speaker 48:58
true, I think that's true. I've heard how it resonates with them. I've heard how they've understood the terms and the conditions. And given their definition of it and their experience of it. I think they're doing the right thing.
Unknown Speaker 49:09
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like there has been ceremony initiations for forever. So there is a purpose and a place for it. I think that for me and my experience, I'm curious to see what else gets to be created. Yeah. That you know, when you talk about Zion say there's a community like that, that ends up happening. I wouldn't be shocked if there wasn't ceremony and rituals that would happen
Unknown Speaker 49:34
100% Because it helps the prefrontal cortex engage in the human mind to be able to believe in what I'm doing. Yeah, I just had this discussion with somebody just the other day, one of my best friends and I was talking to him about the idea of this ritual of priesthood blessing and laying your Hey, you know, they lay your bare hands on your head or or you lay your hands on someone else's head. And what I realized is that there's not there's not magic in the laying on of the hands. It's it's a ritual that helps me believe that something is actually happening. And therefore I get to increase my own belief, right. This is what Jesus said is be believing. So I think rituals actually strengthen our belief in the thing that's happening. Yeah. And, and so not to say that there couldn't not actually be power in our hands. I think that there is I'm not trying to diminish that. But I'm trying to say that the ritual is to help us increase our belief that there is something there is this energy there is this this gift that's happening. And so the giver of the blessing is not the savior. The Giver of the blessing is simply engaging in a ritual. And I think this happens in Reiki, it happens, right? We're always using our hands. It even happens in just business dealings, when I just give someone a handshake, right, there's a so a token and a symbol right there. And we do it when we meet new people. And so I could probably jump down a rabbit hole of the thing I don't understand. And I don't understand why the religions keep it sacred. Where
Unknown Speaker 51:29
you have to in order to enter the house, you have to
Unknown Speaker 51:32
Yeah, and I think it ought to be taught openly.
Unknown Speaker 51:37
Yeah, but even so when you talk about the Holy of Holies, with Abraham, in my research in my study, and I'm trying to remember, there was a video that I watched, oh, his name's Anna, come to me. He's a quantum physicist, and he's brilliant. Anyway, I'm not gonna remember, although it's relative of my time, you know, he did this whole three hour long documentary where he actually went and followed the Ark of the Covenant. And where he believed you were telling me about, I don't remember Croix know, somebody else. He goes into math and and the DECA, DECA hedron. And talks about I mean, it's just fascinating. And some of it, it's like, Okay, I gotta pause this for a minute, because my head is going to explode. But they follow the Ark of the Covenant, and they got where they believe that it would be, and they would find oil, and they would find the, I guess, Tinder or whatever it would to be delight the incense. And the Sarcophagus is in I can't remember which pyramid, it was, what exactly fit this ark, the Ark of the Covenant. And they believe that the Ark of the Covenant is the Holy of Holies. And that it was some sort of a portal. And the only way to step into the presence of it, you would have to anoint yourself with oils, because the energy is so intense, you know, because everything we're talking about is energetics. When you're talking about a blessing land a hand, Reiki, we know that everything is energy, this is 99.9 99%. Space, its energy. And you know that as you were talking about the Holy of Holies, is it possible that there, yeah, okay, anybody could go in there. But hey, we're gonna just, you know, to make this fair, yeah. Because there would have to be some sort of a system or you'd have lines constantly of people are looking for something to save them, stepping into the space, connecting somehow through some vortex portal, whatever. And, and if I, when I researched that, if I remember correctly, you did have to be in a state of preparedness, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, you know, the road to Ulis, this talks about how people would prepare their whole lives to go to this temple experience and have this once in a lifetime experience where they would die before they died. Anything that that is what has gotten is kind of what you're talking about that silver bullet. Everybody's looking for a magic pill. Hey, just give me the answers. And that's what I think religion has done a disservice.
Unknown Speaker 53:58
They've said, we have the we have the answers. And we're the silver bullet.
Unknown Speaker 54:02
Right? Yeah. And so everyone's been so conditioned to that, instead of hey, find out to what you're speaking to find the answers within your your own sovereign being that could receive downloads, and can figure out how to find your wholeness. And then in that states have the ceremonies in that you don't I'm saying?
Unknown Speaker 54:19
Yep. Yeah. And here's the here's the reason why I think the endowments across all the religions are so important. And I'm grateful for the organized religions that have kept them in the state and intact to the degree that they have been funded. At least we get to experience them now. And what I mean, more specifically, like that is like a perfect example is the endowment in the 1800s. With Joseph Smith, was about 13 hours long, holy cow, and now we're trying to shave it under two hours. Do you think that you psychedelic sem 100%
Unknown Speaker 55:01
That's what I'm wondering. I mean, because there's no question that Joseph use my psychedelics in my opinion when he's seeing things, and he's a seer and looking at magic stones. Yeah, you know?
Unknown Speaker 55:12
Yeah, I think that there is a strong strong case for the use of entheogens. In the origin of, of the church.
Unknown Speaker 55:22
Well, there has been studies that have found that there was Arigato, which was from barley that was a hallucinogen or psychedelic that has been found in the old old like Jesus's time and the wine goblets that they did use it as yeah,
Unknown Speaker 55:36
there's a fascinating book on it. I wish everyone would read it. It's called the immortality key. Yeah, I
Unknown Speaker 55:41
could not get through it. It's yeah, heavy. Well, I loved his podcast with Joe Rogan. Yeah, I listened to that. And then I got I got his book, and I'm like, Oh, my God. Yep.
Unknown Speaker 55:50
Yep. Brian, Marcy.
Unknown Speaker 55:53
Yeah, Bruce Gu or something like that Mariska and the name I was taught. It was Nasim her M. Oh, yeah. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 55:59
I follow him on Instagram.
Unknown Speaker 56:00
He's fascinating. He's brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, super brilliant.
Unknown Speaker 56:05
The endowment I think, are super important, because I don't think I think the kingdom of God is inside of us. Agree, don't think that anything that we need is outside of us. But I think the things outside of us, if done properly, are there to help us learn what's inside of us? Right. And I think the endowment is one of those external things that helps. When taught in proper context, me understand me, and what's going on inside. And what this is all about. And I think the endowment story is actually there. But it's, I think a lot of its context has been lost or drink strudel at all. Yeah. And so an easier way to say that is that what's happening in my real life is what I'm learning in the endowment session. So I don't have to go to the endowment session to receive my garments. I've already received them the day I was born. In my opinion, I think that's your human body. Yeah. Right. It's your coat of skins. It's your epidermis. Right. And so I think that it's a beautiful thing to have garments that are symbolic for people who are in a state of being prepared, becoming the initiate, and then also needing that daily reminder. Oh, yeah, I am. The I'm here. And I've been born and I have this so. So the endowment session, for example. I spent a couple of years studying it mentoring under some amazing mentors. I created a presentation that about two and a half hours long, it just seems to take that long to get to get through it, maybe even three hours long. I had hundreds and hundreds of people who left the church come to me and say, What the heck was the endowment? Because I think it was BS. And I was like, well, I'll give you the endowment, according to you. And here's this three hour long thing. Here's a three hour long, you're welcome. I had hundreds of people coming to it. And I stopped doing it. Because you, I was feeling like they were starting to put me up on a pedestal like I was going to give them something. And maybe my ego was getting involved. And they were turning to me to find the answers. And I was like, No, you just have to understand I am so damn geeky, that I just geek out on this crap. And I do the homework. And I do it with people that also do the homework, have some amazing friends that really dive in and do deep homework with me. So it's not even my whole thing. Like very little of it as mine, I piece it together really well. But I've brilliant, brilliant friends that that really put this together. And so I just present really well. And, and so I ended up stopping and doing it. But one of the things that I realized was that like the anointed, right, like we're all anointed, right? And to become an initiate, you have to be washed and anointed. Right? But when my mom and when everyone's mom, when her water broke, you were Washington water. And then when you were born in the womb, you're anointed in the blood of your mother, right? So they're, you've been Washington anointed to become an initiate. And then you got a body which now you've got your coat of skins. And so now you have your garments, and not so that you can do your work here on the earth. And, and then you received a new name. Yeah. Right. And it's like, oh, there it is. Right there. Right. So when I go to the endowment in any of the religions, what I'm looking at is I'm like, Oh, there's the story. They're just trying to teach What's actually happening in my human experience? And I think that I think the temples that hold the endowments are, I think they ought to be thought of as a university. But if the university can't teach the content in context, the delivery of it is going to be poorly received. And I think that's what's happening right now.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:24
Yeah. Yeah. I know, as you're talking, one of the things and you and I've talked about this before, because I've been sitting with this for a while, as well as the idea of ascension. You know, we even in, in religion, and, and in the woowoo world, it's all about this ascension, you know, we want the planet to ascend, we want us to send, you know, how did the city of Vienna Cassandra, how did they figure that out? It's always this idea. In fact, the definition is to, you know, climb a ladder to go up higher. But the true definition and and Mary's gospel talks about that, that it's actually going further in. Yeah, to go within to go further within. Yeah. And then again, that's where you find your wholeness. And that's how you ascent? Yeah. And, you know, that's, that's one thing again, beaking to language that's just been a little misconstrued of, or misunderstood that, no, it's actually not, we're not leaving, we chose to be here in these human bodies to have these coats of skin to learn how to be God and form. You're here. So how are we going to figure out how to stay here and make, you know, have a better life, enjoy life, enjoy the experience, and have fun and play and create this world was meant to create? And we're supposed to be brothers of ideas and experiences and you know, children?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:35
Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. I think when we stop being hypocrites, that's our dead works. I've caused this church to be built up in the last days because of your dead works, right? Because you're hypocrites, you're not really living up to you're not embodying you're making agreements that you don't keep. Right? Well, and you're still asleep. And you're still asleep. And that's okay. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think. I think there are many times that I have made agreements in my life and have not been able to be impeccable with my word in keeping that agreement. That's a really I mean, that's a shadowy thing to say, right? That's something I have to embrace. But obviously, there's times that I've done that. And I think we all have, we all have, and so it's okay. The the thing about it is that you have to eventually become impeccable with your word, you have to eventually live up to the agreements that you're you're making, and you're and you're keeping, right. And those are the people who I think have embodied their wholeness are those who know themselves so well. They know their character, and they know what agreement they can keep, rather than just the ones they want to make.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:03
high integrity. Yep. Now, you didn't share out your story of why you chose to leave.
Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
So, um, I think the I mean, part of it is. I mean, part of it is that I just, I think I ran out of temperance. I don't think I had enough temperance, maybe not enough patience, not enough meekness, to sit with people who were supposed to be my brothers and sisters, but I didn't really feel a true connection and belonging to Yeah, so there's a lot of complexity to that. I could have done better, I think, an obvious I could, like, still go back. I don't have a desire to do that. Because I have that, that community. You have a community now I have a community now. And, and, and I like my, my Mormon community, you know, I would never, in my opinion, I I don't ever see myself fully leaving the church. I know people who want to go on missions or they want to go, you know, do those things. I'm fully supportive of that. It's their choice. It's their choice. It's their human experience. It's their, their journey. So I would never discourage any of that. I think a lot of good is done in the world because of it. I think I did a lot of good in that. But for me, in leaving, I think that I think any church is a preparatory church, I think is what it is. And I think it's really important to have them. But you know, I asked this to people all the time, like when was the last time you went back to fifth grade? Right. And people are like, why wouldn't write, or think about it, even in a better context? Because you could also say, when's the last time you went back to college? People who have graduated college, don't go back to college, right? Like they don't go back and redo that one day. Yeah. And that's because it prepared them to go do bigger and greater things. And so they're off doing bigger and greater things. Now, they may come back to go help people make it through that stage, because they made it through. And that's a super cool, awesome thing to do. And so we can view church that way, with no ego in it, right? It's not to say that one is better than another. But if I learned the basics of math, so addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Once I learned that, right, then I move on to algebra. And once I move on to algebra, I move on to damaging the next level geometry. Yeah, geometry. And then we go on to trigonometry, right, and then we just continue to go on and go on and on. And then you got the quantum physicists doing the math problems that I'm like, Wait, when did punctuations and letters become numbers and all these things, right. And so. So the guy who's doing the quantum physicist, math, whatever that is, he's still using addition and subtraction and division. So we didn't throw that away. And he didn't get rid of it. Yeah, that was a foundation. And that was a preparatory thing. And so I think that's what happens in the church is that they give you the foundation, and they give you the preparatory thing. But when all you ever do is just math, the basic math over and over and over and over every single year, to me, it was like, This is awesome. This is This is beautiful. But the the the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. And I want to go squeeze sweeter things. But I'm not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yeah, I'll throw the cultural crap out all day long, right. And there's a ton of that. And I think that the, the, I know that people that that are, like running big, big departments in the church, I know them on a personal level, I've had a chance to work with some of the apostles. And they're amazing people, like, seriously amazing people, nothing I've known some of them for years, nothing in their life tells me that they're trying to create this conspiracy, to get people to, you know, do this, that the other, I think the majority of it is just the culture that the people are actually creating, not the organization. And, and that's a very, very complex problem, I think any business has to figure out how to help their culture out. Apple is trying to figure out how to make their culture better. Google is a great example of someone who's trying to be really on the cutting edge of helping their culture out.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:08
And businesses now today are starting to not trying to jump down some rabbit hole of this, but businesses are really starting to say, hey, we need to take care of the emotional well being of our, of our employees, so that they don't want to leave Well, I think churches are looking at the same thing. And they're like, Oh, we haven't really helped people deal with their emotions. And when you're telling a shame based story, that you're not enough, that doesn't help people deal with their emotions, especially when such hard challenging things are happening. It's too easy to become hardened from hard things. Yeah. And the, the the solutions, the solutions that the churches are giving are watered down. Yeah. That that don't have enough nutrition to be able to make sense of the sorrow and the pain and the loss that I'm experiencing in my life. So the juice, this then becomes not worth the squeeze. And that's, that's why I reduced my activity.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:11
I like that. Well, I appreciate your perspective. I don't know that I wholeheartedly agree. You know, in any corporation, it does come from the top. And I do think there's a lot of greed and ego within the top of the Mormon religion. I mean, plain and simple. I think that maybe Joseph Smith, a lot of people have an opinion of him, I think that he was trying to create a sacred School of sorts. And he was human and has an ego and has filters just like everyone else. And then it gets passed on to someone else who has filters and has an ego and however many generations have passed. Now, you have all of that making this interesting soup, if you will, that has created what is existing today. And you could say that about any corporation on this planet. There are some that are more wholesome, and others that are are less wholesome.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:01
Totally. You know, I
Unknown Speaker 1:10:02
think that the patriarchy piece has been
Unknown Speaker 1:10:07
hard. It's out. It's out of balance. Yeah, it's definitely out of harmony. Yeah. If you have patriarchy, then you have to have matriarchy, right. You have to have it. If we're living in a world of duality, and harmony and balance, if you've got light, then you got to have the dark right if you've Yeah, if you've got joy, you have to have sorrow. Yeah, verse you have to Vice you have to have virtue. Patriarchy, nope. Don't need matriarchy. Like that doesn't make any sense.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:33
Well, that's going into the ego and power right? Have no we're better than. And that's the thing that, you know, when Jesus started, he went to the sick, he went to the ones that had demons he went to you know, it wasn't that he went to the people that were righteous, quote, unquote, righteous, depending on that. Your perspective were the
Unknown Speaker 1:10:49
ones that he was not happy with. Right? He was like, Oh, you vipers, huge generation of vipers. Yeah, right. Yeah. He's not happy with the ones that were the quote unquote, righteous ones. Right.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:00
Right. So when you found you're getting close, I'm probably needing to wrap up. But when you found because most people when they live, leave religion, their foundations gone. They have a lot of anger. They're going through a death process. And most people, the community is a big piece. How did you find your community after leave after not leaving religion, but choosing not to go anymore?
Unknown Speaker 1:11:25
Yeah, reducing my activity? Yes. I had a lot of people that I was mentoring with, that we were kind of going through it together. Yeah. And so we, I don't know any of us that are angry. I think some of us are very disappointed. But I think the things that were disappointed in, I think those will eventually be fixed. I think there'll be corrected or healed. brought into wholeness, and brought into wholeness. Yeah, I don't like the word fixing. I would restate that to healing or wholeness. Fixing is an IQ way of trying to bring an EQ right. Challenge into wholeness, right. So you can't use an IQ to solve an EQ problem. And so fixing is IQ healing, I think his EQ, and yeah, so I never felt like I lost my community. That's good. I didn't have any anger, either. That's an interesting thing. I didn't have any I still have no anger, no animosity, no nothing. I'm like that, but I've also lost a tremendous amount in my life. In my personal life, so where I did experience loss and anger in my personal life, and hurt and pain and all the shadow emotions. That those experiences, I was looking for healing in the church and didn't find it. And so where I went and found it brought me great joy, and I didn't blame the church for not healing me or because I don't even think that that there was a time that I thought that was how it was supposed to be supposed to be. But then I kind of phased out of that. So I get that some people are very hurt. And the culture is so deep in their family lives, and it's really, really painful and really challenging for them. So I'm not trying to diminish any of that reality to them. I just didn't experience
Unknown Speaker 1:13:54
Yeah, yeah. And I was asking you about your experience. So that was yeah, that was perfect. What advice would you give for someone that's listening that struggling you know, they've left they've lost their community because most people do. Yeah. Um, what advice would you offer
Unknown Speaker 1:14:14
I would say well, I would go back to the formula that we went over at the at the retreat, you know that
Unknown Speaker 1:14:27
so come Sunday let go the
Unknown Speaker 1:14:31
story let go the story the wounded story. It's, it's okay, here's what happens. You experience you experience something that feels like or is abandonment betrayal, rejection, abuse. Do you have that experience, that experience brings great sorrow, the sorrow comes with an extremely powerful perception of loss. That's why it's so painful. And that then comes with a whole bunch of shadow emotions, the fear, the anger, the sadness. And nobody. If you think about it, no one has taught us how to face and feel those shadow emotions. So they feel horrible. And, and so I want to run from them, right, I want to avoid them. And Brene Brown says, if you have bitterness or resentment, it is because you have pain that has been avoided or ignored. And so I think when there's bitterness and resentment towards the church, or towards anything, any other person, it's not, because what they did, should be judged as a bad thing. It's that no one taught you how to sit with the pain and the shadow emotions that came. So when you don't know how to sit with it, you're going to avoid it, and you're going to ignore it. And when you're going to avoid it, ignore it, the first thing you're going to do is complain about it, because complaining is the way to talk about pain. And so if I complain, I'm now talking about my pain. If I'm talking about my pain, I'm going to find the evidence that shows where the fault was at right. And now I'm blaming, and now I have evidence, which is blaming the thing, or the church or the other person, and then I'm shaming because that should have been better. And it was not enough. And now I'm going to judge it as to that, whether it was right or it was wrong, and I'm going to judge it as it being wrong. And this is what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount. It's Matthew seven, verse one, he says, Do not judge. In Greek, it says do not make a determination whether it is wrong. And so it's painful. But no one showed you how to sit with your fear and your anger and your sadness and sit with those emotional pains. So of course, you're going to judge it. Yeah. So what you really need to do is, is attend retreats that teach you how to sit and face and feel your shadow emotions, and, and face and feel the pain that you have so that you can process it and move it and heal it. Once you can do that, then you can look back on the experience. And this would be where my my answer would come in if to answer the question is that we have to find appreciation for the thing that we thought we lost. Because if I don't find appreciation for it, then it doesn't have a lesson for me to be taught. And then how do I learn more about me if I, if I'm being tortured by the experience that I can't be taught by it? Yeah, right. So if I can find appreciation, and I don't have to be appreciative for the abandonment, the betrayal, the rejection or the abuse, but I do have to find appreciation for what it taught me about me. And then it has value and when it has value, it has meaning and any deep,
Unknown Speaker 1:18:29
deep and painful experience of sorrow that has no meaning is miserable now. So now through my appreciation, I'm now I'm now alkalizing my misery into meaning. And then I can see the the value that it had gifts and the gifts that came with it. And then from appreciation, I can now move to accountability. And this is a very, very difficult thing. Because the fact is, is if the church isn't serving me, or the people that I know, and I was a part of it. Now I have to ask myself, what was my role in that situation? And why did I choose in why did I choose in and why did I choose to be a part of a part of it because because I was teaching the elder SCORM I was doing I was doing all of these these things too. So I'm just as responsible or accountable. So appreciation brings accountability and accountability is the ability to account for what happened without finding fault. And therefore the only way I could actually do that as asked myself one question and the question is what was my role and the situation of why it is the way it is? See now I'm not blaming it or blaming them. I'm saying this is where I could have done better because these are still my brothers and my sisters this is it's still my neighbors. It's still my community. It's still the kids who my kids go to school with. Right so so I need to take responsibility I don't like the word responsibility. But I needed to take accountability and ask what was my role in the situation of why it wasn't a great place to be? Why wasn't the? Why didn't I help the juice become worth the squeeze? Yeah. So now I'm getting out of blame. And then I can move into empathy and realizing I think we're all just doing the very best we know how to do and being present. I think that's my advice, appreciation, accountability and empathy.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:24
Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anything else you feel like? You want to add or share?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:33
Yeah. Come to our events.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:38
Yes. Well talk about well, and your website, if people want to find you, what's your web website?
Unknown Speaker 1:20:44
The website is Mustang medicine. events.com.
Unknown Speaker 1:20:48
Yeah, I'll make sure and put that in the show notes as well. And it's really been I mean, you and I have known each other god, seven years now. Yeah, yeah. And it's been fun to watch your journey and where you're at and what you're doing now. And, and the impact that you've had on people, and it's it's profound, the work that you're doing is beautiful and profound. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you for sharing your light with the world. Thank you. Okay, well, I'll make sure to put that website in the show notes. Awesome. Anything else? No,
Unknown Speaker 1:21:19
I feel complete. Sweet.
Unknown Speaker 1:21:21
Well, thank you. Thank you. Didn't I tell you that would be a super cool episode. I hope there was some wisdom that you gained some perspective that maybe maybe you didn't have that you have a little bit of a different perspective now with the reality that there's truth in all things. And like I said, we I will post his website down below, if you have a chance to go see what he offers, it is absolutely stunning. And to get a glimpse of what Hugh shares and and get his formula that took him years to create to come join us for our speaker symposium this Sunday, April 24, in Highland, Utah from 10 to 6pm. And like I said, I'm really excited. Not only do we have amazing speakers, but we also have a really beautiful sound healing that will be brought to us in the middle of the day. So if you want to grab your ticket, there's a few left, head over to Amanda joy loveland.com forward slash lean in. And as always know that you are not alone, that we are here to find our spiritual centers together to find that wholeness that resides within each and every one of us and to remember all that we are sending you all so much love
