new york. Thank you for tuning your heart's in for another episode of the Hearts Rise up podcast. I'm carol chapman, your host along with my co hosts and sorry and Concetta antonelli, we share our own personal experiences, tips and strategies along with powerful stories and compelling insights from guest interviews. We're here to inspire and empower your conscious evolution, help you tap into your inner wisdom and rise to your heart centered higher self. Together we can rise to a higher level of consciousness, an elevated state of being and experience more love joy and freedom. Well, hello again, to all of you, Heart centered listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of the Hearts Rise Up podcast. My special guest today is Dylan Charles.

Dylan is a writer, interviewer, speaker and the founder and editor of Waking Times, an online magazine that seizes on the transformational power of information to trigger personal change and influence humanity's evolution. Dylan is also a self mastery coach for battered Souls, host of the Battered Souls podcast, a psychedelic integrator plant medicine retreat, facilitator grounded, visionary and healer, an artist, musician and DJ and he's trained in the martial arts tai chi and qi gong wow Dylan, welcome to the show, Thank you very much carol. It's super nice to be here. I love the name Hart's Rise up to. That's a vibe we need more of in this world. Oh, thank you for that and I love what you are bringing to the world and especially I know you have quite a personal story and I love the term battered souls, It has obviously strong implications and I know that it has great meaning for you.

I read a little bit more about you than what I just introduced you in the intro section here. You're a battered soul and I would love for you to share with us your personal story. Let's start with where when or how things began for you and we'll go from there. How does that sound? That sounds great. Yeah, we're one and how let me just say this the name battered souls. Right after I said, hearts rise up to a minute ago, I thought the contrast between battered souls and hearts wide up, what that does for me is it speaks to the spectrum of possibility and emotion and experience that we can have battered souls. But when I hear that it's there's a density to it that I don't feel when I say or speak the words, hearts rise up so well, I appreciate that. And I think like density, I think that really like probably gets it. Maybe some of the experiences and trying to help people through with, with my wisdom and experience what's my story. You know, it's it's not that much different than than so many people that I know, especially like with the work that I've been with plant medicines.

I've met a lot of people in search of healing and so many people have the same stories a lot of times. It starts in the past, the very early past, you know, what happened in your household, what happened with your family? What happened with your siblings? You know? How did you navigate the cultural integration, indoctrination that we're all part of? Did you fit in? Did you fit in well? Were you able to, you know, like find a tribe easily and find a group there? Were you an outsider? You know? So I think in my case like being a battered soul, that means for me, like I always did kind of feel like an outsider in my household was it was divorce, there was lots of drama, yelling anger. I had an older brother who was very mean to me and even, you know, as much as I hate to really talk about it, but put me in stitches a couple times as a little kid, you know, for no reason I didn't deserve that. But at the time it just seemed like that's how the world worked. But looking back, I'm like, yeah, no kid needs to go through that. Yeah, there's, there's that foundation there that I've really looked back on it from this, from this perspective I have now that there was really something lacking in terms of safety and security. I think that helped for me to become the kind of person I was.

And at the time when I was young, the first things that I came into my own individuality was seeking escapism, through alcohol, through drugs or tobacco, through what do you call it, delinquent experiences and stuff as a young boy. So a lot of that lack of safety and security of my own home. Mhm. Really like forced me to find ways to soothe myself and so yeah, I mean Carol, the story is like so many others, you know, I started smoking cigarettes because my grandpa smoked cigarettes, I started when I was 12 because I found a half of his cigarette in my yard and I had nothing to do on a summer day because my dad didn't live at home and my mom was working all the time and being around the yelling and the screaming and the anger all the time and having an older brother always beating up on you when I finally got the gumption to attack my mom's liquor cabinet, wow, there was a Nice soothing blanket there for you. So I started drinking heavily when I was 14, 15 years old, that path is there, it's open and available to us, you know, that led through high school and I did what I could, you know, and to try to fit it in high school, but I always felt like an outsider and part of that is getting in with the wrong crowd, find the other outsiders when a whole bunch of outsiders at that age get together, you know, not a lot of good things really come of it, you know, I've been very, very, very lucky in my life.

I've never gotten into any trouble with the law and never gotten caught doing a lot of these things. But yeah, I mean as a, as a kid, you know, I got into some delinquency and shoplifting vandalism, that kind of stuff. Just basically like trying to find stuff to do, to keep yourself out of the house, to keep yourself out of the environment. That was you know, really the source of the pain that you didn't realize at the time that you had. So then you fast forward, you graduated from high school, you get out of the house, I left right after high school, I got out of the house and have my own place and And just started living the world on my own. And another blessing of mine was I met my wife when I was 19 years old, but those few years where we first met it was like we were part of the same kind of party scenes that a lot of people get involved into and of course there's more drugs in there and what really I think I was looking for at that time was I had sort of the way my mom put is always on always an old soul and I think old souls are seekers, right? You know, old souls are there, they're keepers of wisdom and they're seekers of more right? And I think I was already on that path. I didn't realize there was no context for there was no instruction for there was no leadership for young men on that path or of that of that bent.

It took me a long time to realize that like the drugs and whatnot weren't what I was looking for. I was really looking for access to the sacred, access to the mystery like a weighted to make contact with the the wonder of it all. And I didn't realize until many, many years later. But looking back it was like, yeah, I mean, I basically follow the course of so many other people and where does that lead carol? Of course it leads to it's kind of just crazy thinking about it, thinking about the epidemic of depression and the epidemics of, of anxiety, it leads to all that stuff. It leads to waking up and not really wanting to be in this world anymore. It leads to the suicidal thoughts and the tendency is to, you know, want to try to find ways to destroy your life and extinguish your candles as fast as possible, you don't realize it at the time that you're doing that. But when you're in a lot of pain, emotional pain and feeling depression, this stuff and you're drinking alcohol shoving drugs down in your system as well, you know, like all that stuff is just covering up the pain and you don't realize it. And when you take those routes, it really just opens the door for you know, let you know, almost like Cali the destroyer through like I'm going to destroy myself.

So help me God. So yeah, I mean, I went down that road and I experienced depression and anxiety and I tried to heal myself from the drug addiction and stuff and you know, the worst thing that I got into is crystal methamphetamines. Huh? And so, you know, I spent a few years in that world and you know, it takes a lot to pull oneself out of that space. You know, there's an element of physical chemical addiction in there, but there's also an element of like a tribalism there you're in with a group of people and you're all doing a very specific thing. And But I was able to with the help of my wife, I got married when I was 21 and with the help of her, like we worked together and we got ourselves out of that pit, but at the end of it was the depression and the anxiety and the no purpose in life, all of that, all of the damage that it does. You still had all the residual things. Yeah, the baggage that's still there. The funky baggage, all the ghosts and demons that you pick up along the way, like all of that stuff. And so you know, who do you turn to in this, that you turn to the psychiatrist, the doctor or whatever, which is what I did. And the doctor first was like, yo man, you're having a crisis, let's put you on antidepressants and they didn't work for me.

So he sent me to a top psychiatrist and you know, that guy was got some stories about him, but His perspective was that I was 26 years old and I had a chemical imbalance. None of my life experiences were the cause of it, you know, none of the none of my lack of self care was the cause up to him, it was a chemical imbalance. We know how this paradigm works now, we know it's a it's a business model that he's working into. And so his solution was to put me on seven different pills a day, this one for depression, this one for anxiety, this one to help you sleep after that one, this one to help you wake up, this one is going to, you know, wean you off of this one in a week and put you back more on more of this one a week, he was operating in that paradigm and that to me, carol was like, the biggest wake up call I've ever had in my life, because I had finally had worked up the courage to ask for help, which so many people just don't do, and I asked for help and I went to the places where I thought it was available and was it no brainer to me, that that's not the kind of help that my soul needed. And so when I left this, like top psychiatrists office after one visit, I was sort of like, had a just a real interesting moment of clarity in connection.

I walked out into the to the parking lot in the middle of the day after just such a draining emotional experience. And I had this plastic bag in my hand that was filled with samples of these pills, like, you know, just like the drug dealer outside of the basketball court, free samples, the first one's free buddy, you know, and so, and I can still hear the sound that the bag was making in my hand as you carried it. You know, the jingling of all these different pills and all these different bottles and and so in that moment of clarity, it was like, you know, almost this voice spoke to me Carolyn, it was like, well, cool, here's your crossroads young man, You know what these people have to offer you. And you can kind of intuitively guess where that leads? This guy was telling you, you're 26, you're gonna have to take this stuff for the rest of your life, right? Because you have a chemical imbalance. There's something chemically wrong with you. Like, we're going to correct that or the other path is to take full responsibility for yourself, find your own way in this world, which is what I did. And lucky for me, I mean, you know, and I'm sure you've experienced this in your life too and when you need a sign and you're paying attention to sign shows up, right?

If you're asking the universe for help and you're paying attention, the universe is going to throw something at you, if you're aware enough to catch it, if you're open enough to catch it, I hope you do. And so in my case it was like a no brainer tossed these pills in the trash right now and so I did that, I chucked him in the trash, They never even made it to my car, wow, the sign that the universe through after me after that was in my office at work. There was another guy that used to walk by my, my office every day with a whole bunch of kung fu weapons, they had swords and nunchucks and bow staffs and short sticks and like Cuando which is this long stick with a giant metal blade on the end of it. He was coming and going every day and have like a couple of weeks after this experience with the psychiatrist, I was like, hey what are you up to my man? And of course he was like, well there's a kung fu school down the street, it's amazing, you should come join us, you will enjoy the art of kung fu wow, I went, I went to kung fu and to my benefit, it turned out that my doctor was wrong when I had gone to see my doctor, I said, you know, doctor, you're giving me these pills, but would it help to eat better? Would help to exercise more? And he looked at me flatly and I said, no, that's not gonna help you.

I mean take a walk once in a while, it's not bad for you, but like exercise and diet not, you need these pills and he was dead wrong, carol, He was dead wrong. It took me three weeks of training kung fu, you know, literally just three weeks sweating it out, working it out, being around people, being around people who wanted to see you strong and capable, who wanted to build you up. And I remember three weeks later, just after a session and you know, just sweat porn, all of the hottest tech in austin texas, you know, and I just really feel them like, okay, the depression's gone or subsided and I don't feel anxious, I don't feel, I don't feel uncomfortable in my own skin to the point where I need to Medicaid or get drunk or smoke something or whatever, you know, So the doctors can be very wrong. And so that's kind of really like, like my origin story from that point on, I really started to, to look for just like guidance in the universe. I really started to look for like, what's my next step now? And in my case it turned out that like each step was almost like a book was presented to me, it was a lot of literature that got thrown in my lap and it was all kinds of interesting stuff, you know, like drunk mel genetics, you know secret of the flower of life and all this kind of really caused mix stuff, but also really grounded stuff like the works of carl young uh stories about kundalini energy rising books by Montag, I, you know about like, you know what different types of energy meditations can do for your body and your mind.

And in addition to the kung fu, I started taking tai chi at that school and it took me a good six months just to learn how to slow my mind down enough to actually get into the form. And I remember the day that I remember like my mind started to slow down, I was like, oh and so that led into like the practice of qi gong and qi gong is very, very broad and there's a whole lot to it, there's a whole lot of esoteric parts to it and there's a whole lot of different types of practices and stuff. And so I kept finding books that would supplement what I was learning at my school and so I started doing, you know, like practicing different daily meditations and different routines that I was picking up in books. So when you start to do that when you, when you make that your daily focus and your priority is to to grow and evolve. Like it's amazing how quickly things can change. Finding inspiration in all of those books and stuff, and finding different tools and techniques, the stuff that nobody had ever exposed me to before, you know? And I was probably we're looking at 25 years old at this time. 26 to at least 26. Yeah. Never been exposed to any of this stuff in my life. So, it was almost like stepping into, like, almost a movie, right?

Mystery only happens in the movies, you know, wonder only happens in Hollywood, right? Access to the cosmic in the world. Only happens through special effects and whatnot. And that's kind of the vibe I got was that there was a whole another world that had always seemed closed off and impossible and out of the reach of a normal person. And then I started to realize that there were many, many doorways to step inside this world. Yeah. Was there one thing in particular that was the turning point for you? Well, there was a couple of long way, like I said, that moment at the psychiatrist really was the absolute turning point. I mean, that was like, when I look back the most pivotal moment in my life, because if I would have gone home and started swallowing those pills, I wouldn't be me, I wouldn't be me anymore, that I would have no right to be. I mean there's no yeah there's no telling where you'd be right now. Well, you know I mentioned my history with drugs and stuff and I've done a lot of that, but I've only been offered heroin one time and the one time that I was offering heroin, like this voice inside of me screamed, hey dude, you've already gone too far with everything else.

If you take this now you it will kill you, right? So again, got lucky like with with the intuitive sense of it both with things like like the deadly stuff like heroin. I mean look at, you know, 50 something 1000 people in the United States alone these days every year dying of opiate addiction, opiate overdoses, right? It's terrible. It's just absolutely terrible. But I would have been one of those statistics that I had I taken that route had I taken the pharmaceutical rod, I would have been just another one of those statistics. That's you know, just a mine, you know, just uh that's crazy. Soulless automaton that never would have happened to me because I'm unique in my own ways. But my point is that that was the turning point where I saw that that's where that path lead some other big moments. Like really like like gang was a really, really transformative practice for me many years ago. What was it about that that created some transformation. I have been doing tai chi and certain types of chi gong inside my kung fu school. So under that umbrella of the kung fu. And to supplement that, I've gone to like the libraries of the public library and was like reading more about king kong and reading more of some of the types of practices there are in the library I found a book by a man named Montag chia.

Perhaps you've heard of him is very well known in the world of qi gong. And it was a simple book called, it was like awakening healing energy, awaken, healing energy with the towel or something. And it was all based on this one particular meditation that he teaches called the microcosmic orbit. You know how to describe that for, for you were just real quickly you would sit on the edge of your chair and you would visualize energy circulating down the front of your face, around your nose, down the front of your throat. You know, you would connect the tongue of the tip of your tongue to the roof of your mouth, down the front of your body and then through the perennial and then back up the spine. So in that flow of like kundalini energy, right? So you would create this orbital circulation of energy through the body. Now in this book, he had diagrams of the meridians in the body. You know, you may be familiar with how acupuncture works. There was diagrams of the meridians in the body pressure points and that sort of thing. And when I saw those diagrams, they parallel they were almost exactly the same as some of the diagrams I had seen in in my kung fu masters book that he wrote the kung fu master uh that I was studying with at the time. He wrote a book and then that he had diagrams of the energy circulation and how energy energy moved throughout the body and how to apply that, you know, to to attacks and sort of stuff.

You know how to apply that in a martial sense. And I was fascinated by the fact that there were these diagrams that I could see in these books from the Eastern traditions, but you wouldn't see those when you open up Western medical tradition. You see veins and arteries, right? You see facia and muscle tissue and tendons and bones, you see the physical structure beyond the physical structure of the body. There's nothing in the Western medicine that explains to you why, you know why the heart restarts with a defibrillator. You can apply a massive dose of electricity. The heart, where does that? There's no terminals on the heart. Like there is a battery. Like where is this life force? You know, there's nothing in those diagrams to explain, you know how the life force of somebody can expire because they've been underwater for too long. Where did that go? Right, that's an interesting observation, right? You still have everything, right? You put somebody submerge them in water for two minutes, you bring them back up. They have everything except the life force fascinating. Right? Where did that go? And you can't find it in a book anywhere, but in these books, in the Eastern traditions, you find the meridians and you find like, even like circuits and pathways, they'll tell you which way the energy flows will tell you how to reverse the flow of the energy and what happens when you do and stuff.

And so in this book, by Monta Key, which you know, is meditate for like 10 or 20 minutes a day and then, you know, like right about your experiences and look for these things to happen. And so I was doing that and then that it also had like warnings of things that could go wrong or bad experiences that you could have. So he had described it as like, if you begin to awaken this energy, it's gonna act up in certain ways. You may hear ringing in your ears, you may like get headaches, you may like have trouble sleeping, you know, you may feel things moving through you. Like there's a whole range, there's a whole set of symptoms of responses that you can get that seem to the layman just like absolutely, like woo, right? Like, whoa, like sure, all your headache is related to, you know, now you're G master. So you have a headache Sure, you know, like in other words, they didn't make sense in the paradigm that I grew up in, right? But here they are in literature, not just one piece of literature, another book and then there's another book about, there's another books, there's got to be something to it. So I started doing this meditation, it didn't take me, but I think it was two or three weeks into it, you know, doing every day, I would come home and I remember very clearly careless was a friday night.

I came home from work, I was working in the video game industry at the time, so we're working lots of hours and I came home, my wife was gone or out with friends or something and I was friday night, I was absolutely determined to do my daily meditation. So I sat on my pillow in the living room and I started doing the meditation and just like I had done the day before and the day before that and lo and behold like all of a sudden everything that Montag she had written about started happening to me and my body at this time first started with like all of a sudden I started hearing this like really painful ringing in my ears, really, really, really a painful sound in my ears. My head started to hurt, my eyes started to hurt and I started to feel like this flow through my body and like this energy kind of went up my back and stop between my shoulder blades and this pain, this pain, this pain, I was like oh my God, it hurts so bad between my shoulder blades. And I remember you know, reading the books and what about just you know, meditate through any of these symptoms since I was like just hold it together, hold it together, hold it together and something burst. It was like something like the dam broke and I felt this very clear flow of energy like shoot up through the top of my back, over the top of my head, came down into my forehead and it went on both sides of my nose, down through my body and it felt like a lightning cold liquid like pulsing through my body.

But it was on very specific routes and I remember I started to get scared, I started to get really, really scared and anxious and I had this fear about me like, oh my God, and I remembered at that moment in the book he talks about this thing called The Inner smile, The secret smile, the tao ist secret smile. And so it's it's a very simple technique and all you have to do is just turn slightly turn the corners of your mouth upwards, right? You don't have to actually smile but you slightly turn the corners of your mouth upwards to where you're almost smiling to the inside of yourself. And he said something along the lines, it's been a while since I've read this book, but he said something along the lines of when you do that, it changes like the polarity of the energy or, or like, you know, matches the polarity of the energy or something of that. So it creates a positive flow. So it's not like working in a negative direction. And as soon as I applied that technique in this moment, like the fear just dissipated and it was joy. So I was like, well let's hold on to this, let's hold onto this feeling. As long as I could remember sitting there for minutes, it had been several minutes, I sat there and then this like just flow of like this hot, icy cold at the same time, liquid feeling like pulsing along these different parts of my body managing the anxiety and the newness of it all through this technique called the inner Smile and then it just stopped and I opened my eyes and I was like, oh my God, there's a whole another world out there, you know, like this is all so real.

And opened up this book's immediately. And I started looking at the diagrams again and it was like everything that just happened to me has been written about before, some chance, I'm not crazy, you know? So that definitely opened up something in me and over the next few days, like it was just rapid fire changes in my life. Just rapid fire changes. And I remember the next morning it was saturday on the way to work in the morning, I had what, what I what can only describe as a moment of clarity. You know, perhaps you've had something like this happening to you, where you're I was driving up mo pack highway in Austin like I did every day and there were all the cars, you know, three or 43 lane highway, I guess there's all these cars on either side of me and they're all going and all of a sudden, like, time just ceased to exist. I'm in this moment and in my mind, I look around and in my mind, it's like everything makes sense, Everything makes sense. Like, everything that was happening. Every every car vehicle that was moving, every person that was on their cell phone or whatever it was. Everything. They were all doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Sounds like you were going through an awakening. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. It was an awakening in that moment of clarity. It was like I realized that in the present moment that no matter what judgment I passed on what people were doing, no matter what I thought, or no matter how I thought, it fit into the world that I lived in, like, everything that was happening, no matter how big or small, no matter how important are successful it seems, or how are, you know, mediocre insignificant.

It seemed all of it was happening because it was supposed to be happening. It was a grand purpose to it all. And in that moment carol, my mind was like, oh a whole lot of human experience has gone into the creation of this moment. In other words, this is the very cutting edge moment of time, but in order to get to this moment in time, like every experience of every human being in every creature ever has brought us forward to this moment. And then my mind instantly the flashy went back and I saw my whole life, I saw my father and my mother's lives and then I I literally lived through their entire lives all the way back then it was my grandparents and I lived every moment of their life and the theme that kept coming up was that everything they ever did, they're the sole purpose, The sole cosmic attention at all was just to keep recreating the present moment for whoever it is that there. And so then of course I got to work and I was floored right, Like it was a video game matter, would you just were you able to function? That's debatable, But I do know that over the next couple of days, like a really, really interesting thing happened, I'd like to mention is that when a person has an experience like that most people don't have the frame of reference, they don't have the knowledge or skill or experience based to understand it, to integrate it into their life and to you know Recraft themselves and their identity around something bigger than than than what they were pursuing before.

And so in that they need teachers, you've got to have teachers, there's there's you need leaders, teachers, it's very it's kind of just the cycle of things. And so I went into my office and it was just this weird scenario where my boss was like oh yeah my friends coming in and you know, I was a sound designer. So I worked in sound studios and he's got his old friend coming in, he's he's gonna be working in your studio today if you don't mind. And I was like yeah whatever. So I went into the studio, I introduced myself and when I walked in there it was just this like intense energy. Like like oh my God, there's something unique about this person. I remember that my my boss had told me that he was a churchgoing person, he talked to God or something. So when I walked in the room I felt that this just like whoa, I'm in the presence of something totally different. Nobody else I've ever been around has this energy really? So I straight upside down and I was like I was like all right dude you do qi gong right? And he was like absolutely, I teach, I teach this particular type of chicken wings. All right, tell me about that. Is that Well it's like this and I have to do that. I have to start immediately. Music. Okay, cool. I don't live here, but I know some people that teach it here, so I'll put you in touch and it was like zero dot, it was like this is the next step on your path, this is the next stepping stone that you're gonna jump on.

And so he introduced me to a teacher, a gentleman named tim Crisco, tim. Crisco was the student of an acupuncturist in austin texas called dr bob Zhang. Doctor Zhang was from china and his, you know, his whole family history was martial artists of the chinese imperial military and that sort of thing, like deep deep roots and an herbal ism and chinese medicine and stuff. And so basically like what happened is that I was reading these books, had the intention of having this experience and then I had the experience and it opened up a doorway all the way back to the source of the roots of these traditions if you can follow me on this, you know? So now I found myself as an understudy of like legitimate, you know, the real deal, you know, chinese master. Right? So I began a process of qi gong training with them that was called jeanne oui golden shield. There's like kind of like five or six levels to it. And I was only able to train in the first level, but it's a very, very intense practice and it has to do with like actually like tapping on the body first and then tapping on the body with things like wooden blocks and tapping on the body with bricks and then hitting the body with bricks and wooden button and hitting the body with fists and you're basically working on the abdomen.

And so like the progression of the over two years is that your basically banging on your abdomen harder and harder and harder with a combination of herbs and stuff, harder and harder and harder to shake up the energetic systems in the body. You know the way that it was described to me when I first entered into it was that like if you can imagine an old house with old lead pipes and the calcification of these pipes. Well those will be your meridian systems right? Your systems of chief low energy flow through the body. And those pathways become stagnant block cluttered, clouded, you know, muddled and so by tapping on the body to be just like a plumber tapping on these lead pipes. You know he does breaks apart the calcification. The energy is able to float through and washes away the blockages down into the sewage drain. The process was that we were tapping on the body and it was going to release these energetic blockages and these points in our system that where you know we're reduced flow is taking place and in the process the waste that came out of it was going to completely transform our life and the way they described it was that it's going to shake up all of your relationship when you start moving this stuff out of your body, when all these blockages clear and open light up, it's gonna change your relationships, it's going to change your friendships.

People who you thought you really, really got along with, you're gonna all of a sudden find nothing in common with, you might even want to leave your wife, right? You might even want to quit your job, you know like you're going to become a totally different person, it might trigger illnesses in you. I've heard of those circumstances, things that just come together and that just your whole perspective on your environment and who you're surrounding yourself with, like the energy of the sun versus the energy of the moon. How do you feel when you're standing under the moonlight versus how do you feel your standing in the sunlight? These are celestial entities, but they have a completely different vibration of frequency, you know, human beings no different. Like you know this especially with the density of the world today is in the amount of fear and stuff going on in the world. Like it's really easy for people to operate with that Heaviness about them and so yeah, everything shifted, everything that the my teacher said would happen pretty much did happen. I found myself in my office with my boss and mentor of seven years and all of a sudden I could barely have a conversation with them, I could speak just fine but when I spoke his reactions to me it was unlike anything he'd ever experienced, he was used to me being in a, you know, we had sort of locked rolls into a position to where he was the master and I was the student and all of a sudden, here I am, my energetic profile is completely different.

You can't put words on it, you can't describe what's going on, there's no context for that in our world, but like this like uncomfortableness, like you know the things I used to say to, you don't really apply anymore and I remember this very uncomfortable situation with my boss and I like that with also with several friends and of course it also triggered in me like weird, almost auto immune illnesses where I'd be sick for a while and I would lose a whole bunch of weight and that kind of stuff. But long story short, I went through this process with this particular form of qigong For about two years that was very, very transformative for me seemed to really change everything and it helped me to just have the gumption and the strength to start living the life, the way that I had wanted to for a long time, but the way that I was afraid to, you know and the best example of that was I was from Austin texas and I had lived there for 32 years and I had wanted to leave for 15 of those years. I wanted to experience what it was like to live on the West Coast or next to a mountain by the ocean and I never was able to break out of my tribe. It's hard to do that when you're just, you're conditioned and you're part of the environment.

Very hard, but now you no longer were part of the environment. No, it was total freedom. Yeah, it's like, wait a minute I've won, I've wanted to do something all my life. I don't see any reason now, I can't do it. Boom, let's make a decision. My wife and I would make a decision to leave texas. We packed up everything within a few months, quit jobs, everything just took off to the West Coast. So that really for me, like those moments that really is when I stepped out of, you know what I really considered to be like the tribal affiliations, the groups and stuff, The just the normal patterns and stuff that I had grown up with when I really broke out of those and I really attribute she going training to me was gave me the power or woken within me the power to actually start being my authentic self, so that's a gift, you know, and I really, I mean, it's one of the things I like to do with joy doing with my work as a self mastery and self sabotaged coaches to help people to awaken, you know, that within themselves, you know, and help them see how they've shorted themselves by fitting into other people's programs and paradigms and tribes and stuff, you know, and that's to be free of all that. But to still be in this world is it's a true gift.

You know, you don't have to leave behind the world to experience that kind of freedom. But when you do become the kind of person that can be that free in the world, you have a big impact on people and it's a beautiful thing and you know, that impact can be both good and bad. If people aren't willing to allow you to be yourself, it's a true joy, like that's that's one of the greatest joys I think of this life has been having the courage and the confidence to be yourself and do the things that open up your heart that make your heart rise up to you to use your podcast name, you know? So that's right. I think most people really because of the conditioning over time of what's happening on the planet and who they surround themselves with. It's really hard to break out of these patterns of wanting to fit in. We've got a pretty solid biological understanding of the body, we're making leaps and bounds and in terms of understanding how the brain works, the science of the brain that the chemistry and the electro Magnetics of the brain works, you know, we can put on these crazy hats and uh, you know, do biofeedback meditation now and stuff.

But at its root, I mean like there's a few parts of the mind and the part of the, you know, the subconscious part of the mind is, you know, the larger part of the mind and its, you know, its role in helping us to survive is to basically look out at the world and figure out what's acceptable, what's normal, what the tribe is going to accept, what's the, what's the most acceptable behavior today for the tribe, right? You know, what's going to keep me safe amongst this group of people, what things do I need to say at the coffee shop, what stuff do I need to wear at the office? You know? You know, a good example of that carol is like a couple of years ago, I never would have worn a face mask out into public. But now my subconscious mind tells me that if I don't put that on that, I run the risk of being rejected kicked out by the tribe or being, you know Accosted or worse really. I mean, you know, people are tribal creatures and when that switch of psychosis flips in the mob, it can be a very dangerous place to be for an individual for unique person. So absolutely. Because even though you might feel a certain way it's affecting others and how do you wrestle with that?

You know, you have to make a decision, You have to make decisions what it's right for you. I think that, you know, like something that really is important to say here is that, you know, we don't really have any way culturally to transform from Children to adults. We're brought up into the psychological patterns of Children because we are but there's no right of passage. There's no initiation to mark the moment in time where we start acting. Behaving and thinking like our adults, you know? And so all of that, that the behavior that security seeking behavior and stuff is very useful for Children for child psychology because Children are helpless. You know, Children aren't really capable of self defense or feeding themselves or whatever. But you know, until we make that switch switch that flipped to adult psychology. I mean, you know, adult psychology would seek happiness through, you know, through knowledge, right? And so we would we wouldn't do things to self sabotage yourself. You know, we wouldn't, you know, we wouldn't drink alcohol if we know that alcohol causes brain cancer. You wouldn't smoke, You wouldn't eat junk food. Read a bunch of sugar when you know what it does to your body and you want to be healthy and energetic and fit right?

Like. So in other words, we do these things to fit in. And even though we don't realize them because human behavior really is largely governed by the subconscious mind. We don't really have a knowledge of how that works. It's really easy for people to just go along to get along. And I think there's never been a time in our history where it's easier to see that people are just basically mimicking, repeating, parroting, echoing. Um, and just copying, you know what they see is the most pervert acceptable behavior. I don't know what your stance is on the vaccines or whatever. That's not really doesn't bother me, whatever whatever somebody wants. But you can just tell from talking to people that a lot of people aren't coming up with these ideas from their own heart space. No, they're following the herd and they're listening to mainstream and they're not really thinking. I don't want to say they're not thinking for themselves. But then again, maybe they're not, maybe they're thinking for themselves, but they are only seeing one element or aspect of the story.

We're not seeing a balanced perspective. There's there's a couple of types of thinking, there's conscious thinking and an unconscious thinking, You know, and I think that people believe that they're thinking for themselves, but what most people don't understand is they're not behaving for themselves. The subconscious mind is the Is the driver of 90-95% of the subconscious and involuntary behaviors that starts with like the autonomous processes of breathing, circulating oxygen and everything. Yeah. You're not consciously thinking about that stuff in that environment where you know the subconscious mind is basically like trying to keep the being, the whole being alive. Yeah. I mean it's scanning this environment right now and realizing that like the safest place to be is among the dominant tribe. The safest way to get through this crisis is through mimicking what the dominant tribe is doing to be. Look at how the mind works. I mean we take an X amount of small bits of information through the conscious mind and then you know, many millions of more times the subconscious mind. But in between the two there's this thing called the conscious filter, right?

And this is the thing that the advertisers, the marketers, the propaganda is that even the CIA and all these kind of people like they've explored this in great detail, they've been experimenting with this for decades. You know, a lot of this research started in the early 20th centuries, you know with people like Edward Bernays or more strong and you know these institutes like Tavis stock and whatnot. So like in other words you can call it mind control when you call it mind control, people tend to look at it as like a sci fi thing that doesn't really apply to them. But this is really just social behavioral psychology. We're all sort of hard wired to like you know do a certain thing and you know hypnotism is real. Alright, hypnosis is very real and you know it's cool. Now you can see lots of examples of this on Youtube even with like mentalists and stuff that hypnosis works, it's real. And so there's this thing called the conscious filter in between the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. And what does that mean? It basically means that it if a marketer and advertiser their propagandists can trigger that filter can open that filter, they have direct access to the subconscious mind, right?

What's the number one way to open that space up between the conscious and subconscious mind. It's fear. Okay they know this, they've known this, that's why they've done all these crazy mind control experiments where they terrorize people, you know, they keep them awake forever. Or the problem of this is that you know, there's all the MK ultra the monarch programming all this. So there's all these these just really evil attempts at understanding how to basically turn people into robots, autonomous thons to the borg. You know like there's it's a science, it's a science. I don't think that people realize that you know and everyone everyone is susceptible to this. Everyone is susceptible this because it's a biological thing and the only way to avoid it is to a is to recognize when you know when you're conscious filters are being opened up right? When you're being asked to be afraid, right? When you're being asked to hate, you have to recognize when that's happening because everything that comes after that is just subconscious suggestions, right?

It's it's you know, if you look at like a news broadcast how that works, right? You turn on CNN and it literally is there is a scientific platform with hypnosis. Look at the graphics going on in the background there, you'll see a lot of times the same like swirling pictures in the background. Absolutely. You'll see scrolling text across the bottom. It has nothing to do with what they're talking about. So it creates that that dynamic of confusion and chaos, they may be saying one thing on screen, but talking about puppies, 10 puppies were rescued in the flood. MS Mississippi you know what I mean? Like it's they're they're throwing so much information at the mind that it triggers the mind into alpha brainwave states and you know, starts to bring about hypnosis. And so then they show you images, you know, that's the main way that the subconscious mind understands the world through imagery and symbolism. So then they start throwing the images of flooding or people dying or you know, bombs going off in Pakistan or whatever it is, right, You know, so like they trigger these primal fears within you or you know, hospital dead bodies in the hospital, you know, I mean when Covid came out there was the whole situation of you know, all these people were just falling over dead in the street.

You know, there was people lying in the mall and nobody would go near him because they didn't want to get the terrible plague. You know, we know now that it's not as bad as what they were portraying. But when you see those symbols and images in your mind, conscious filters opens up and everything that comes after that is just the power of suggestion, suggestion, suggestion and what does that look like? It looks, yeah, it looks like, hey, here's the solution for this. The solution is a one size fits all vaccine from a manufacturer that we say is good. The solution is not vitamin C. Don't talk about that. The solution is not hydroxychloroquine. I ever met them or it's not eating a healthy diet or stopping, you know, stopping junk food, you know, don't go outside and get exercise and vitamin D. In the sun go inside isolate yourself. Human connection isn't, you know, like isn't a factor and I'm sorry, like human connection is the most important vitamin of all and that's what you're taking in, you know, And so, so in that situation, you know, Yeah, So most people don't realize the influence that this culture that we have and even the nefarious parts of the culture too.

I mean, I like to think that I know for a fact that I'm very skeptical of government and its motives and what it's trying to do with our world. But most people aren't a skeptical I am. But most people can, most people would have the, the intuition and the wherewithal to know when they're being duped, when they're being lied to when they're being misled. You know? And so I think that like a lot of people don't realize the depth of which their own behavior is is being tapped into, influenced and manipulated. You know, I think it's, it's interesting. Most people like to think that they know when they're being duped, but if they're not aware of the things that you just shared here, they don't think they're being duped. They think that you're getting all the all the information that they need to make decisions, the right decisions for them. They're not really getting all the right decisions. How do you write now? Make sense of this? How are you utilizing what you have available to you through the work that you're doing your online magazine to help others because there's something that I read somewhere that you were once a seeker and you're now a bridge.

And so I think that that says a lot for what all the things that you were bringing together in the work that you're doing today. Can you share a little bit more about that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've talked to a number of people recently and asked them like, you know what they thought the most important characteristic equality people need to have right now is in these times and it's discernment, the ability to discern information, you know what's true and what's not true, what's true for you? What's not true for you? You know? And so in my case like I'm doing great right now to be honest with you. Like none of this stuff that's happening nowadays is surprised to me. I wish it wasn't happening and what people like to call the conspiracy theorist world. You know, like the people who have been conspiracy theorist for the last 2030 40 years or whatever they all, you know, basically said at some point they're going to unleash a bioengineered virus and the solution is going to be a Bill Gates, you know, sponsored vaccine. And you know, so in other words, having been a skeptic and been a secret for so long. Like I've already like sort of like processed what all this means for me personally and what it meant for me personally was that I needed to find my own truth because I wasn't getting truth from the world.

And so like I said, when we took off and left austin texas and moved to the west coast, we lived there for a year and had to have just a whim to move down to Costa rica and so in Costa rica was one of those weird, not, not weird, but one of those wild synchronicity synchronized ICC events again where the plant medicines ayahuasca and I boga, which is from africa just sort of like came into my life. I didn't know what they were. I didn't seek them out. But they called to me and I felt very pulled and drawn to those experiences. And so in 2011 I had the opportunity to go drink Ayahuasca. Or we call yahoo with members of the tribe called the Sequoia Sequoia elders. That was an incredible opportunity. No idea what I was getting myself into. But it opening up to a world of were like it was me with myself and my truth with the assistance of a spirit. Right? They wanted to help me sort things out and work through things. And so that started my journey with plant medicines and so in that world. And I've spent the last 10 years journey with plant medicines like I said the African medicine at Bogle which is incredibly powerful.

Most people don't know too much about it, but it is extraordinarily powerful. How does it differ from my Alaska? It is amazing. Let's come back to that in just a second. Okay, let me just say that through those experiences, I was able to find my truth and make peace with myself, learn how to love myself and those experiences. And also and also learned that my gifts. My true gifts are helping people are sitting with people holding space mm are listening to people and offering them presents are my gifts are the ability to be a mirror reflecting pool for others. You know. And so what I mean by is I I used to be a seeker and now I'm I'm a bridge. Like I I see that my role now is to help people to come across to that perspective of themselves, right? To step into their own power to find their own truth, right? To find their own truth, Right? So, I'm a bridge. I can I can help you get there. That's really what I do with this work that I love so much as a self mastery and self sabotage coach. You know, the self self sabotage portion of it's all about the subconscious mind. It's all about using the tools that are influencing our behavior that we just talked about.

But using those same tools for yourself on yourself, right? To get your subconscious mind dragging you in a different direction to get your subconscious mind to have you create behaviors that make you successful. So, you're automatically doing things that would make you healthy and successful. So it's reprogramming. Exactly, yeah. I mean, the radio there's programming on the radio. The tv is programming, right? And those are that's the kind of programming that's creating the society of conformity of obedience to an authority. It doesn't have the integrity. No, it's manipulation. It doesn't deserve our devotion and the commitment that we're giving to it. It's manipulation. It's almost like we have like a Stockholm syndrome or something. This entity, this organization doesn't deserve the best of us, but it takes everything from us. That's a form of self sabotage, right? You've been programmed to turn over the best parts of yourself to something that doesn't make sense. It's illogical. It's unreasonable. And so the other side of the work that I do is with the self sabotage stuff. I help people to see. It's how the repetitive negative influences in this world caused them to engage in behavior.

Whether it's addiction, a distraction, messing up relationships or whatever. You know, whatever traps people keep repeatedly falling into, we help them to see those, then we use that program to help them get all that stuff out of the way. The self mastery aspect of it is really want to help people to see within themselves where it is, that they should take their heart, desires for them to be applying their lives towards where it is, that they can have the most impact in the world, in the way that they want to have. You know, where it is that they can live the life that they want to live. Most people get stuck in relationships or careers or this or that that they don't, like, a person with self master has the discipline to pursue the actions on a daily basis that are going to take them to where they want to go in life. That's why, like those two aspects of the coaching with their ideas are so critical to people these days because people are stuck in a rut and they're their own worst enemy, They've been trained to stand in their own way, they've been trained to trim their poppy is sure they will, they've been trained to take a knee in their own life. And then even the ones who kind of have that figured out the yogis out there and stuff, they still don't know where it is, they don't see, they don't see outside the box for the cage that they've created for themselves.

Too big opportunities, two big ways that I pull people across this bridge, you know, it's very important to answer your other question about the differences between ayahuasca and africa, other than the fact that they're both like extraordinarily huge experiences that are unmistakably filled with spirit. There's not a lot in common with them, I'm not sure your experiences with either one, but a lot of people have done ayahuasca. So a lot of people have heard stories about that, There's a lot of like arrows, a lot of singing, there's a lot of purging puking, you know, there's a lot of, you know, seeing crazy cosmic visionary stuff. I mean, there's a whole genre, visionary art based on that. And so you'll see the, you know, the fractal patterns, there's a lot of like cool colors, like cool purples and blues and stuff, you know, so there's a whole, like culture around that, that people in the west are familiar with the bulge on the other hand, it's completely different. You know, it's it's an african medicine. So you know what I find interesting about both of these is when you take ayahuasca, the experiences that you have within yourself very feel very much Amazonian feel very much connected to like you know, plants, the jungle, that sort of thing.

But a bug is also from the jungles, but it's an african experience. So when you like the characters and stuff that you might see the characters and the spirits and stuff that come to you in the eye, Alaska experience, they sort of have like an unmistakeable quality of being south american in a way the bogo experience is unmistakably african. But I think like the way that I can describe the difference that probably makes the most sense is to say that the ayahuasca ministerial offices copy as a vine. Okay, what defines defines? Reach up, right? They climb, they're reaching for the sky. So you know, I've been deep, deep, deep into the jungles of the amazon and we've found ayahuasca plants that are just like they're reaching up above the trees. You know, they've gone up they've reached up higher than the canopy of the trees, you know, like they're seeking the celestial mortals, the spirits up above all of us. So that experience is very much like that you feel much like you're taking away like your drawn up to, it can be like mostly as like you're drawn up into a higher vibrational realm. That's a real nice analogy for it, right?

And then you know, and in that realm it, you know, there's there's brighter colors, there's it's you know the intricacies and the colors and the patterns of it all are, you know, they feel very much like of the stars if you will, you know, celestial. Now on the other hand, carol like I boga is is a small bush, it's a shrub, timber, nantha boga, it's a little shrub with this strange looking orange fruit on it and the medicine from that is derived from the roots. You know, you actually pull up roots around the perimeter of the plant. You don't pull the plant out, but you pull up roots around the perimeter of the plant, You bring those back and you scrape off the outer bark. And then there's an inner route park before the meat of the route. And so you get the middle layer of the bark and that's where the most, the highest concentration of the I think the 15 alkaloids in that plant are. And the, you know, the psychoactive alkaloid of that is is ibogaine. But in that experience when you take that you go deep go deep into yourself, wow, let me say this again about the ayahuasca experience, it can feel very celestial, very confusing. There's like entities and angels and all kinds of weird things that you know of other worldly interesting when you take a bogey, it's it's totally different right?

Everything is very grounded, you feel very much inside of yourself. You feel very much I like the experiences about you, you don't see weird, you know two headed, you know hybrid hybrid eagle creatures and stuff walking around like you might see the visionary experience of Ayahuasca but you'll see yourself, you know you can walk with yourself as a child with people like experience so in a sense like Ayahuasca is reaching higher and want to elevate your spirit, I bogus reaching lower once you get to the root of your experience and I think that really speaks to why it's so powerful for addicts. I mean you know Ibogaine is very very very effective at helping opiate addicts detox without any without dying basically. You know it's very very dangerous to just stop taking opiates. The molecule Ibogaine actually goes and sits inside the opioid receptors of the brain you know and it fills in the spaces where the brain would be yearning for more opiates and so it dims and stops all the shakes and shivers and vomits and stuff that people typically have when they try to detox from that stuff like the real value of a boga is is this ability to go in and see yourself see your life and like see all of your belief system, see everything about your life and get a get a new perspective on it.

Even the energy of it feels very masculine of it. Whereas the energy of Ia Hasta feels extremely feminine. It feels very feminine and and easy to the touch and the energy of the body feels very stern and direct the feminine and the masculine, right? And probably would be good to do both. Not at the same time, not a thrill seeker. Not at the same time. Of course not. I'm curious what's on the horizon for you with where you're at with your coaching and the affairs of the world and how you're helping other people. That's a good question. I mean like for me personally, like it's you know, and I know I'm going to say this just because I'm an open book, but I also know that a lot of people go through the same thing like I've been stuck in life. I've been in a rut for a number of years. You know, I created a business called waking times. You know, we've worked ourselves up to having, you know, seven employees and then through the censorship and the, you know, just the climate, the clamp down on information of the last few years. It's been impossible to run that business.

And it's been, you know, we've lost all their employees. We've downsized over and over and over again and stuff. And so I've been in this very like I just sort of resigned kind of given up phase for a year, but at the same time, I've been yearning to take the experiences I've had with plant medicines because I've I've spent a number of years working at to plant medicine centers in Costa rica, one with the book and one with with Ayahuasca and in those situations, working directly with people is always where my greatest highest joy was. You know, that was me following my bliss. Like joseph Campbell told me to do. Yeah, it's taken me, I've been back to the States since we came back late 2016 and it's taken me really up until this year to figure out how to translate all those experiences in a way. Use all those experiences to help people in this environment where I was like, it was easy to help people when they go down and show up in Costa rica and showed up for ceremony. I know what to do. I know how to prepare the Ayahuasca brew. I know how to serve up a bogus. I know how to watch people all night and not have to after care for him. And you know, I have to sit and listen to them and and how to show up with compassion, you know for them. But where is that here in the United States? It's a completely different scene here.

And so it's taken me a good few years to figure out really where my work fits in in this environment. And so that's really started to come through for me in the last year and I'll tell you the turning point for me was when I reached out and asked for help from somebody and this is what I want to say to people out there, like it's really, really, really easy to take on this stoic sort of mission in life, in this place, you know what, I'm just on this mission, I've got to succeed, you know what I'm supposed to do, I'm going to keep it all to myself, I'm going to be a winner and people are gonna think I'm a winner and I was guilty of that for a number of years and I was, it was really painful on the inside, there was a lot of suffering and it and it wasn't until my love, the one started to see that I really wasn't doing that well that I started to realize that I needed to expand, right, I've been in a contraction for a few years, I need to expand again. And so I want to say to people like the, if you're feeling that way, like the best way to kickstart that expansion, the best way to like jump into a new groove in your life is to ask for help, ask for help from somebody, man, it doesn't matter, asked to talk to a friend, you know, get a coach or a counselor therapist, I've done all that stuff when I really started to ask for help, it was like all of a sudden again, you know, it was like the universe just brought forth the people in my life that I needed uh in the last like year.

So I found a couple of mentors and coaches that are helping me to understand that's how important the work that I want to do is and just how needed it is. The main thing that really flipped the switch for me was when one of my coaches told me said Dylan, you need to have more courage, didn't have more courage to speak your truth. You didn't have more courage to say what you think. You didn't have more courage, not worry about what other people think because people need your help. Yeah. People need your help and you know what what's preventing people from getting your help is your fear of being judged by other people rejected by whatever tribe you think you need to be affiliated with this. So this is a process of evolution. And so for myself, like I'm doing personal, one on one coaching, I'm actually working as an international men's coach with a group called forging Excalibur there in Australia and it's worked specifically with men. Yeah. And what's interesting to me is it's very, very, very practical. It's very, very rooted in core values standards for men. It's not cosmic, it's not ayahuasca, it's not a boga if you don't have to journey or bar from the forest or anything, You know, it's very, very, very grounded and, and the real struggles that men face like the day to day struggles doesn't deal with rites of passage sort of, we have programs that seek to create that energy that seek to harness that energy of a rite of passage.

It's actually, I had a conversation with another gentleman just a couple weeks ago about the work that he was doing and creating rites of passages for young men. Beautiful, you know, and that's, that's a whole nother thing that I'd like to get into. So what I see is the vision from my work is to help people in a one on one basis and also in group settings, but also help people through this international network of coaches that I'm becoming part of and then creating events like I have a lot of experience. I ran a yoga retreats business in Costa rica for a few years. I have a lot of retreat experience and I really, really would love to, I'll be able to bring that, you know, that experience to people now, given the current world situation. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, how am I dealing with that dealing with that with just like strength. I can't change what's going on two degree. I've already fought that battle. I've tried getting involved in politics and everything I've definitely like spoken out about this stuff for years. I've been in the info war, but nothing's changing to my favor. So yeah, I'm just watching and waiting and hoping for the best. And really just basically like spending my time working with people to help them see the things that they don't see within themselves.

Whether those are limitations, whether those are just super powers, whatever it is that they don't see, it's hard sometimes for the one that you had suggested earlier, it's hard sometimes for people to ask for help totally. And I think that's a great piece of advice. Any other advice you'd like to offer others, I think honestly, it's like spend time with yourself and figure out what your convictions are because we're under a lot of pressure. Get to know yourself, get to know yourself. But more specifically in the context of what's going on right now, carol. Like make sure that you're clear in yourself what your convictions are because you're going to be asked to do things that you wouldn't ordinarily do, you're going to be told that you have to do things you wouldn't ordinarily do things that you may have told yourself your entire life, you would never do and there's going to be trade offs for every one of these, you know, the coercion is going to come at first and trade off. So well, I'm sorry. You don't get to go to a restaurant or sorry, you have to pay higher taxes, you know, sorry, right. And if you're not firm in your convictions and what you believe in, then you're just along for the ride and that may be okay for some people.

But I think that for spiritually minded people, for heart centered people, the damage that we do to ourselves when we run afoul of our convictions, when we abandon ourselves, when we give up our personal integrity, like that's not something that we can recover. Like, I couldn't live with myself if I abandoned my integrity, I couldn't live with myself if I send a welcome Brendan was a God who have I become? Like, I had all these ideas, I preached about all this stuff. I had all these things that I believe them and I just like, but I wanted to go out to eat. So I, you know what I mean? Like our souls aren't cheap, our souls aren't for sale, right? And you can't be fearful. You know? I think that's the one thing that really stops people in their tracks from if they know their convictions, sometimes their fear gets the best of them and they don't want to put themselves out there. Yeah. So it takes courage and it takes, you know, it's going to take some amount of strength, but it does not what you stand for and decide for yourself. You know how much you're willing to accept and what you're willing to do to push back, you know? You know, for someone, like in my shoes, like, I really, really would love to see a whole bunch of people just say no.

I mean that's all it would take. It's just so simple, right? Like how much people just say no things hard pass. Yeah, I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna do this to myself. I'm not going to put this kind of pressure on my neighbor be one of those people, folks, we need more of them. Absolutely. Well, Dylan, I want to thank you for being with us today. You've shared a wonderful rendition of just your whole personal story. I just love what you have learned and what you brought to the table here to share with others. How can people find out more about you and connect with you? You know, the main platform that I've been working on for years. It's called waking Times dot com. So that's in the blog format. So we post articles every day. You try to mix it up hard information about what's happening in the world, but also like enlightening things that you know, can perhaps inspire you and help you to seek the best in yourself. So it's Waking Times dot com we have a facebook, well, it's facebook Waking Times and on that page, I don't post content from the side. I just post like my personal take on different things. And so in each of those posts, you'll find links to my personal newsletter, you'll find links to my other sides.

I do have a personal newsletter that I run. You can sign up for that. If you go to battered souls dot com, that's my podcast. There's a pop up for designing it from my newsletter. If you go to Shaolin, Dylan dot com, that's S H A O L I N D Y L A N. That's of course play on my kung fu experience. There'll be a pop up for there. And one of the things that I do that offer for people and I'll make sure this is set up and available is that I do what's called free 15 minute insight calls. If you're looking for guidance, if you're looking for help, you can call me, we'll chat for like 15 minutes and if you want to pursue working with me, I can explain like, you know, the options that we have working together are, but it's free, no obligation. And I talked to people from all around the world all the time and there's so many interesting stories to be had from that. So yeah, waking times dot com battered Souls dot com shall in Dylan dot com. And you can also like on all those, you can sign up for my newsletter, which I send out weekly. It's called on the path, I'll be sure to include all of them show notes and I want to thank you again for being with us today. Right on. I really appreciate the invitation. It was such a joy to see that invitation in my inbox carol. Thank you. Thank you. And for all of our listeners.

Thank you for joining us today. And if you'd like more information about Hart's rise up and our meditations and our courses, you can go to Hart's rise up dot com until next time. Keep rising up. Bye for now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We hope today's show helped to bring a bit more joy and happiness into your heart. We hope it inspires you to unleash your inner power and rise up to your best and loving heart centered, highest self. We'd be grateful if you'd leave us a review on Itunes. Those reviews are important to spreading this valuable message. We'd love for you to subscribe to our podcast and share the show with others, visit Hearts rise up dot com for heart centered courses, guided meditations and are popular notes from your higher self until next time. Keep rising up and may all that you love thrive