 Welcome to Dare to Dream podcast, featuring your host Debbie Daschinger. This show is sponsored by Dr. Dane Here and Access Consciousness. They do extraordinary energy healing work out into the world. You can join them at Dr. Dane Here, H-E-E-R.com, and accessconsciousness.com. Dare to Dream podcast has been nominated for two People's Choice podcast awards, as well as a Webby Award. And Dare to Dream is ranked in the top best podcasts in all of the USA in self-improvement on Apple podcast, as well as top podcasts in multiple other countries. Debbie Daschinger is a certified coach whose expertise is visibility and media. She coaches people to write a page, turn a book, takes their book to a guaranteed international bestseller and shows clients the entire system of how to be interviewed on median podcast and how to get massive results. You can locate your tribe, fill workshops, sell books and gain exposure. It is the way to go right now in the world to find your community. Connect with Debbie at DebbieDashinger.com and get your free tools and templates so you can discover what your message is out into the world and be able to say it in one sentence. Go to DebbieDashinger.com slash message, D-E-B-B-I-D-A-C-H-I-N-G-E-R slash message, that's dot com slash message. So today's show promises to be extraordinary conversation because the conscious consultant is here to talk about how you are more powerful than you know. My guest today is Sam Liebowitz who is a mentor, coach, speaker, healer, serial entrepreneur and author of the number one bestselling book, Every Day Awakening at everydayawakeningbook.com. Since 1993, Sam has owned several successful businesses. His current ventures include talking alternative broadcasting and double diamond wellness in Manhattan. Sam has lectured in New York City and was a featured speaker at TEDx Upper West Side. You can learn more about Sam Liebowitz at theconsciousconsultant.com. This is Debbie Dashinger on Dare to Dream podcast and I have the great fortune of having Sam Liebowitz here with me. Sam, welcome to Dare to Dream. It's so great to have you. Wonderful to be here, Debbie. I'm so grateful for you to fit me into your schedule and have me come on your show. I really appreciate it a lot. Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to learning more about you because we've hung out but we've hung out more like mastermind and I've seen you on stage speak but still there's something, I don't know, I feel kind of intimate that takes place when I have the opportunity to hang out with somebody like you. So I wanna start first with the worldly stuff. For anybody who doesn't yet know you, what is it that you do and offer out in the world and then definitely mention your new book? Oh, absolutely, thank you, thank you. So really there are kind of two sides to me or two things that I do. Like yourself, I do a show but I also run a whole network. I have a live podcasting network called talkradio.nyc where I have several hosts who all come on and do their show on a weekly basis. And then I also run a wellness center through which I offer my services as the conscious consultant where I do transformational work with people. And I utilize all the different practices and skills and things that I've learned over the last, I guess, 20 years of being on this path and basically work with people to help them. Get past their blocks, move forward, find those underlying energetic patterns that keep reoccurring and move past them. And as you mentioned, I did just come out with my very, very first book. I'm very proud of it called everyday awakening. And it's done very well. We hit number one bestseller on Amazon in three different categories. And it's just the whole process of coming out with a book for me. It's the whole thing I loved it. It was a wonderful vehicle for me to reconnect with old friends, to raise sort of my game to a higher level and to really support people because I'm getting so much positive feedback about it. A lot of people have been saying like how much the themes and what I talk about in the book resonate with them. So I really feel like I've put out something of value, not just in my own mind, but other people are telling me, hey, there's some real value here. Yeah, I think there is a lot of value and wisdom in your book. And one of the things that you talk about, which I think is so apropos for right now is about the importance sort of stepping out and just taking a moment to reset and come back to center. So since this moment in our history is so important and a much needed practice for humanity, how can you suggest that people who are listening to this, people who are watching this can powerfully reset and recenter right now? Well, I'd like to keep things simple because for myself personally, when practices and things start to get too complicated, I lose my patience in a way. So one of the most basic and simple yet powerful things that I always suggest to people is take a breath. Just before you start to engage in anything, before you have a meeting, you do a Zoom call, you have a conversation with your family, sit down to a meal, just anything, stop for just a moment and take a deep breath in, breathe it out and maybe do that two or three times. And it's amazing when we do it consciously, mindfully, it relaxes the nervous system, it helps us to calm down and we're much more present. So then whatever we're about to enter into, we're entering it into it in a much more present manner. And if you wanna really like soup up, soup it up, so you take those breaths with some intention, what is it that you're looking for from whatever this thing that you're about to enter into? You're about to do some work on your business, take a breath, put the intention out that the work I'm about to put in will reach millions of people or take a breath, this conversation I'm about to have with this person is going to really move them and touch their heart or take a breath, this difficult situation that I need to deal with right now, I'm going to be able to deal with it calmly and mindfully and get through it as easily as possible. So taking a breath, it's so simple, it's so basic, yet how often do we forget to do that? I do, I'm calling the kettle black. I have to remind my, I say these things to remind myself. I love also the New Yorker perspective on this, in a New York minute, because I'm in New York, well, I live in California now, but I grew up in New York and I have that too. I get bored easily, something has to capture my attention, my mind bing, bing, bing can go fast. And I like the simplicity of that and I like that you don't like to complicate things. You also talk in the book about having a peaceful state of mind. So give us a suggestion or even what did you do coming to this interview, Sam? What was it that you did? Did you make a shift? What did you think about coming here? How did you get yourself prepared peacefully? For me, especially something like this, this kind of interaction, I just think about how joyful it's going to be to do it. I mean, to have a conversation with a woman who I think is amazing, who I've always had such wonderful interactions with, who's willing to share me with her audience, I just have so much joy and gratitude for that. So I focus on what is there to be grateful about what am I going to engage in? And gratitude, it's one of those energies that just puts us into such a wonderful state. So for me, it's always what's the joy in this? What can I be grateful for? And it's so interesting that when we just ask ourselves the question, what is there to be grateful for in this, we always find something, but we have to ask the question. Then that's the key is getting into that habit, doing it over and over again, so then we don't have to think about it, we just do it naturally. But inevitably in the beginning, it's always asking that question, being a little mindful, putting a little sticky note up, somewhere, what do I have to be grateful for about this? You know what I love about that too, is when you say that you thought about the joy of this conversation, anytime, that's like creating the future right now. And I know for myself, and thank you for the reminder, when I do that, when I'm like, oh, this situation will be, and I imbue it with something that's amazing and something to look forward to, it inherently becomes that, and even more beyond my wildest dreams. So in a way, the fact that you were able to get into a peaceful, excited place by using the idea of joy and gratitude coming into this, how could you not create that? That is the energy that you're leading with. Right, right, now I have to admit, like it doesn't always make it as joyful or as amazing as I would want, but it definitely makes it better than it would have if I didn't do it at all. And also I've learned that sometimes you do it, but then it's about dropping the expectation, because sometimes when we grasp too much and try, and it's gotta be this, it's gotta be that, then there's some resistant energy in there, and then it doesn't make it so good. So it's being grateful, joyfully expecting it, and then dropping it, and it's just being present. Okay, what is it? You know, what is it going to be? And to me, when I can do that for myself, that's when even better than I can imagine actually happens. Yeah, you know, you write, I have a quote from your book, and I thought this was really good. You said, what we often don't think about is how real world shadows indicate where there is a light source. Maybe psychology, our shadow indicates something similar. Will you speak more deeply, Sam, about how the shadow reveals the light? In my experience, there's been people who've written whole books about our shadow, right? But the idea that the shadow actually shows, it's actually science, by the way, right? Spaces like the shadow, darkness shows where there is light. Talk about that, because that was sort of revelatory for me to review. Well, that was something that was inspired by my teacher, who, when somebody asked him about shadow work one time, he said, well, there's always shadow, except when the sun is at high noon, but any other time, there's shadow. And this is one of those things that's really just a basic observation of nature. When we pay attention to nature, there's so much information there, and there's so much to learn from it. But just look at nature. When the sun is out, there is a shadow somewhere, except at high noon, except when it's right above our head. And even then, there's like a shadow right underneath us, in a way. So light shadow, light shadow. And the point that he was trying to make, and what I was trying to say in that particular essay is that you can't separate the two. So many people talk about doing shadow work, and we have to work on our shadow. It's like we got to get rid of it, it's a bad thing. No, there are two parts of the same whole. And it's that dichotomy that we see, that we think one is better than the other, and we're placing these judgments that dark is bad and light is good, that kind of keep us stuck in this cycle of, I have to work on myself. There's something wrong with me, because I have a shadow. No, it serves us. It shows up, and it may not feel good necessarily to look at it, but that shadow developed out of some need for survival, and it had served us at some point in our life to help us to get through some difficult or traumatic event in our life. Now, this does not mean that we got to be so attached to our shadow, that we live into it when it's not apropos, but it's just recognizing that we have it, loving it the same way we love the light, that then we can integrate them together and we become more authentic, more real, and more empowered individuals. And that's ultimately what I really want people to understand and get from the book and all the different aspects and things that I talk about is when we stop judging things so much and really accepting everything about ourself and the world around us, that then we become more empowered. But when we're judging, when we're making things bad or wrong, we can't do that to something outside of it without doing it in some way to ourselves, and that disempowers us, that makes us a victim. And in my view, my hallucination of the universe, we are creators, we are not victims. And it might be wrong, but you know what? It helps me to live a more empowered life. So I'm a big believer, if it serves you, you use it. If it doesn't serve you, you can put it to the side. So it's for you, that's what I hear you saying. It's not something aberrant that needs to be solved or fixed, it was there for great reason and served a great purpose until it does not any longer. And I'm wondering if you could give an example either from you personally or maybe one of your clients who found something in the shadows and found a way to love it so that the light could come and that there was some kind of a healing or a shift that occurred. So there's another passage in the book that says, our greatest pain is our greatest blessing and paraphrasing at the moment. And it was something that came to me in ceremony when I kind of knew it and I've been working through it, but this feeling I have of just not being good enough of that got cultivated as a child because my older brother and older sister were both so brighter, straight A students, my brother was a chess master. He used to play me blindfolded without his queen and he'd made me in like six moves, you know? And so, you know, as a little kid and then even though my parents never said it, you can, as a child, you feel it. You kind of feel like, oh, you know, they're better than I am. You know, my sister was like the darling and my brother was the genius and I was the black sheep of the family. But then what came to me was, you know what? There are many, many, many people out there who also feel not good enough, who also feel less than, who also feel compared against and judged and don't feel like they measure up. And why that's a great blessing is because I can relate to people now with that same challenge and I can help them to show them one or a few possible ways to heal from that, to love it, to bring it into themselves. So it's actually a great blessing and because my life is one of service and I love to work with people and support them and help them. This is a way that I can now relate to people and they'll be able to relate to me. And just by telling that story, how many people go, oh, yeah, like that's me too. And if I can find a way to look at that challenge as a blessing, maybe other people can too. When this came up for you, Sam, in ceremony, this, wow, I've always perceived in myself not good enough, which is always interesting when for those of us on the outside think there's a successful businessman, there's somebody who's confident, there's someone who's on the radio, there's someone who writes books and coaches and all of that, right? It's there, but for the grace of God, all of us go because, and just like as a little aside that just popped for me, I went to USC, I majored in dramatic arts, boy, these people went out and did amazing things with their lives and even in school. Like it was pretty serious, the talent there. And one of the guys, he's doing beautiful things in New York and interviewing people and teaching classes and writing beautiful books all about the entertainment business. And he gets to meet with people like Brian Cranston. So he's got this new podcast and he brought on, he's culling a little bit from our class. Some of the people that he felt were successful in entertainment and he wants to interview them. So he reached out to me, which was a beautiful thing and said, I'd love you to be on the show and he's gonna come on mine. I'm very excited to have him back on the show. And he said, and here are some of the people I've interviewed. So I looked through the list and I was a little more interested in hearing some of the people who had gone to USC. And I listened to one of the guys which I will tell you this guy was a rock star at USC. He was in all the productions, one of the most talented, really confident, really like skills and dancing and singing and acting and very popular, had the most beautiful girlfriend, ta-da, all this stuff. And he went on to become a director and a screenwriter and he's done very, very, very well for himself. And what was fascinating was Steve Kudin is asking Andy Tenant these questions. And somehow USC came up and Andy said, oh my God, I was so unsure of myself back then. I had no idea what I was doing. I was so insecure. I came from this poor family and here I am at this rich school. And I sort of had no idea what I was doing but I was just sort of throwing myself at everything. And Steve says, oh my God, if anything, I think everybody would have called you cocky. Like that's amazing. I felt even me these decades later, oh, of all the people I wouldn't have thought and yet I loved him for it. I loved him for saying that. And I quickly wrote an email to Steve and said, yeah, weren't we all? Didn't we all look like we had this together? So I find that fascinating and I love the juxtaposition, the duality of who you be, really, who you obviously really are as a child of source or a part of source. And yet there is this little thread, this little wounding that's been carried forward. So my question is when you're sitting in ceremony, Sam, and this pops for you, where did you go with that? How did you navigate that experience and how did you come out the other side? Well, for me, one of the things I love about ceremonial work is it's in community. And so the way I work with people is also like not we're in our own little corner quiet and just in ourselves, we're talking with each other, we're engaging with each other. And so when this came up for me, I just had to share it with somebody and I shared it with somebody and they're like, wow, me too. And it was just like having that instant validation was like so, you know, it just made me feel like so not alone anymore. And that's the thing I think so much of our wounding happens with other people. And so because of that, I feel a lot of our healing happens with other people. I mean, we can do some of our own introspection, our own healing work by ourselves, but it's so much more impactful when it's with other people. When you can share what you're going through in your process and they're like, me too, I can totally relate to you. Oh, you know what, that happened to you. This is what happened to me and you share your stories with each other and then you find out that we're so much more alike than we are different. Yeah, it's so wonderful. So you've been witnessed in a way. Yeah, and you get to witness others too. Sometimes we think that when we share what's going on with us, it's just for us, but so many times it's also for the person you're sharing with that you don't even know what they've been through. But once you share your experiences, they're like, oh my God, I have to tell you what happened to me. And then they share back and it's like you're the same person just in two different situations. Leveling the playing field, it's so good of humanity. There's also another section in your book, Sam, and it has this quote. It feels right in our body because we are learning to trust our body's intelligence. We were taught to value the mind's intelligence above all else. This makes trusting the body more difficult yet when we do amazing things happen. I find that to be profound because that's something I have been working with and I'm at a point in my life where that's how I live my life. I ride the gut emotional wave until I know and when something presents, I wait for the body's wisdom to give me a yes and no or how do you feel, what do you wanna do? And it's so amazing because one of the words you used is about separation and disempowerment. And I think it's incredible. Would you say to a star, you're not worthy or you're in the wrong place or you're not built right and yet we do that to our bodies, right? So talk more about that. Talk about how our body knows and how our body has intelligence. It's so interesting to me how in Western civilization, we have so glorified the mind that we think our body stops at our neck and like there's nothing below the neck but there is so much and science is finding out like every single day, like there are neurons in the heart, there are neurons in the gut that the relationship between the nervous system and the muscles and the bones that there's so much intelligence there. And there are so many amazing people who've done amazing research like Dr. Gabor Mate who has done lots of research about how there is no separation between our emotional health and our physical health. And for me, I've really learned to value the body much more because again, I'm a nice Jewish boy from the Bronx. We're all about being smart and everything because we're usually not very good athletes but again, when I started studying and you can relate to. So the work I follow, we look at like four aspects of the medicine wheel or the four archetypes of heart, mind, body and spirit. And the first thing is just recognizing like our heart space and just realizing that for most of us when we just start to do the work that we don't even feel safe to be in our heart because it's been wounded so much but then there's body, there's presence. And even that, for many people there's trauma and there's all kinds of things that kind of keep us from being a little bit too present. Many of us disassociate by daydreaming and checking out because it wasn't safe to be present at some point in our life. And my wife is a psychotherapist. She does things like EMDR and somatic intervention. And so I've also learned a lot from her about the importance of the body. And it's just so interesting that I mean again, it's so challenging for some people to really start to be present to this amazing vehicle that just carries us through life. And there's this, I don't know what do they say now? 75 to 85 trillion cells in the body and each cell has its own intelligence and it all works together and it really is a marvel. And when we can pay attention to it, that really, it, I don't wanna say never because I'm not an extremist but it very rarely leads us astray. And there were whole studies like kinesiology where you use your strength of your muscles when you ask a question to see like is this good for me or not? And I know people who do it, I used to use it, I don't quite use it as much anymore but there's so much wisdom and intelligence just watching how the body responds to something. And my body is different from your body is different from someone else's body. So something that might be good for me might not be good for you but could be a little bit good for somebody else. So to own that individuality that we have within our bodies, it's so important. And when we start to value the body and learn to be a little more present to it, there's so many rewards, there's so much great guidance to it that I continue to learn to value it and to be more and more present. And believe me, this is a struggle every day for me. This is not something that is in my wheelhouse, as some people say, but at the very least, I've just learned the value of it and the importance of it. So I continue to make strides in that direction. Yeah, do you have rituals or a practice if you feel like you're veering off course, how do you come back to reconnecting with a body and quieting down so you can hear what it is the body wants to suggest? The first thing is I work on not making myself wrong for checking out or for not being present and just noticing it, being curious about it. And then again, it comes back to sending gratitude to the body. Is there something, do I have a little ache or pain or is there something where I just need to send some love and some joy to that part of my body? And then again, I hate to be a broken record, but then it's like coming back to the breath. It's one of the surest ways to get back to presence and get back to body. And it's really just about asking the question, what's going on in here? And it's sort of the more conscious I am of what's going on inside of me that once I have that awareness, things kind of relax and then amazingly, I'm more aware of what's going on around me. And the ancient sages said like everything is within us. All the answers, all the wisdom, it's all inside of us. We just need to look in there. And once we do that without judgment, without attachment and we just honor whatever comes up in the moment, it really feels good. And a huge, for me, a huge lesson with that was when someone's head to me once, it's okay to say no and not explain yourself and that it's just how you happen to feel in the moment and that no is a complete sentence. And that to me was such a huge relief because I'm always explaining myself to people when I am not giving them the answer they want. But just to be able to honor and say, no, no, it just doesn't feel right in the moment right now for me. What a relief that is that I don't have to explain myself. And that helps me to be, okay, body, yes, no, what are you wanting? What are you feeling like right now? And just asking that question, what are you feeling? What am I feeling inside of my body? Just by asking the question, it brings a little more consciousness, a little more awareness, a little more attention. And that can sometimes make all the difference in the world. Yeah, it's incredible the empowerment of no. And I concur, I appreciate you bringing that up, the idea, first of all, finding a peace in your body. And it makes me wonder like, what does the body think of us that we push it away, we denigrate it, we criticize it, we judge it, we act like, who are you following me around? And it's really, it's actually miraculous when you think about what it does on our behalf every moment without us even consciously thinking of it. And I know for myself, one of the things that gave me a lot of freedom, somebody once taught me, and I don't even know who to give credit to, but it was some time ago and somebody said, you can always say, I don't know, can I get back to you on that? Yep, yep. I was like, damn. Absolutely. Yeah, so it's like going to the body wisdom and sometimes it's really clear, I have those moments too, and then sometimes it's like, I don't know, I really don't know. Or I may be, you know, I may get afraid to have an answer and then it does get confused. And I love the idea of that. And I try to practice it as much as possible because it's wonderfully empowering. So I really don't know. About seven or eight years ago, I had this practitioner who does something called human design. And I got my human design done and he gave me a reading and I was the last reading he did before he left New York City and he recently came back to New York. I listened to the recording of it every couple of years, every year or two to remind me. And one of the things though that has always stuck with me is he said to me, in the moment, you don't even know how you feel. So if somebody presses you for an answer, always use the phrase, I have to sleep on it. And it was like, once he said that to me, I was like, oh, thank God, yes, I need to sleep on it so that I can then know how I actually feel about something. And how much do we like give in to the moment because there's some peer pressure or there's somebody wants an answer right away. And we don't even know, but we give them an answer and then we regret that answer because we didn't really know how we felt in the moment. So for me, one of the most empowering phrases, I need to sleep on it. I need to sleep on it. I don't know, I need to sleep on it. And to just be able to say that without being obnoxious about it, but just saying that in a way of, you know, it's just my process. It's just what I need. It's expressing our own needs and not making those needs wrong. Oh, what a relief. Can I ask what you are in human design? I'm a manifesting generator, one, three, split definition, right angle of the right cross of the rising Phoenix or something like that. Wow, that's amazing. That's so cool that you use that. And you know, Sam, interesting enough, same. I have a very dear friend who's very well known doing human design. And I remember, it must be four years ago now when she did my chart. And I still have the recordings too. It was a life changer because she told me things about myself I could have never understood, including how my whole career had been created. Cause I'm a two-four generator. And she said, sweetie, tell you why you're here. You fulfill other people's needs. So you can create, create, create all you want, which was me always, you know, getting out there, getting out there. And she's like, but when it really happens for you is when someone comes to you and says, I need this, can you do that? And it's like, that's why I'm a book coach. That's why I do the best seller launches. That's why I coach people on interviews. That's why I do the visibility stuff cause everybody came and asked me for it. And I started doing privates and groups. I was like, oh my God, my life makes sense. But also takes the onus off because it caused me to much less get out, you know, roll up the sleeves and have to wrangle in there. It's like, no, life's gonna come to me. I don't have to do very much. Right. Right, yeah. That example. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the things I learned from human design is how many of us, not all of us, but many of us are designed to be in response. So it's like, I'm one of those people, my authority is emotional and I'm designed to be in response. So it's like, if you want me to initiate something, that's not really my design, but you come to me and you ask me something, boom, I have an answer. And it's so funny, like watching myself now that I really get it because people ask me questions and I know an answer and I have no idea how I know it. And so it's like, I've always considered myself kind of a Claire cognizant. You know, there's a Claire sentient, Claire, audience, you know, all the different clairs are psychic senses. But for me, it's just like, something comes out of my mouth and it's right. And I was like, where did that come from? That's so cool. You'll have to do it with your wife, too. I don't know if she's had it done, but it's also interesting to look at relationships. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the problems is she's also designed to be in response. So it's like, what do you want for dinner? I don't know, what do you want for dinner? I don't know. What other choice? I don't know. That's hilarious. It's like Saturday night live human design. Right. So here you are. And anyone who's listening or watching right now, it's abundantly clear. You have a lot of wisdom. You've done a lot of work. You've been really open to this path. And who knows, maybe it was even not feeling enough. You know, sometimes our wounds are so great to set the trajectory for our life and the deep work we do. So I'm so curious about your spiritual traditions. I'm so curious about your unique shamanic lineage. Would you share some about that and some of your journey, whatever you're comfortable with? Sure, sure. So I had the fortune, I guess, to kind of get thrust into a very spiritual path early in life when I was in college, my first year of college because of some friends that I met and this experience for a number of years. However, it went really bad. It went really south. To the point that I had to walk away from the whole thing just to save my own sanity. Yet so much of my identity was tied up in this experience that once I left it, I was like, I didn't know what to believe in because I really thought that this whole experience was divinely guided and stuff, but it went so bad and so south. I was like, how could this be spirit if it was so messed up? So then after that, for a long time, I was just kind of drifting. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know where to go and I became an entrepreneur, I became a businessman, started starting working on businesses and stuff. But then I like to say the universe is gonna have its way with you, whether you want it to or not and slowly but surely it kind of nudged me back onto a spiritual path. But what's amazing is it didn't throw me back into a spiritual path because if it had, I would have run in the other direction. And it just started off with finding some old recordings of Tony Robbins and other personal development stuff. And I played it for my wife and she was a therapist and she loved it. And then we got more back into, I got back into the sort of the personal development which then I got exposed to a bunch of healing modalities. And I started taking all these healing workshops not because in a million years I ever thought I'd be a healer, but for my own healing, until there was that one workshop where I learned this new method and I paired up with somebody and I helped her to release a condition she had since she was a little girl. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, you mean like this isn't just to help me, like I can use this to help other people. And then I was like, okay, I guess this is what I'm supposed to do. And so then I started to marry these worlds of business and spirit and energy. And even someone read my palm and I've done many astrological chart readings that say I have a foot in both worlds. So it makes complete sense. And then I started studying again. I studied with this gentleman who was a spiritual ascension teacher. I got involved in different mystery traditions and I consider myself a product in many ways of the ascended master tradition. People are really into like Saint Germain and all these beings and that formed a lot of my early stuff. But then about six and a half years ago, so interesting. I got a text on a Friday afternoon from a friend of mine inviting me to some open house at a friend's apartment. And it was a Friday night. Now my wife just happened to be this weekend. She was away at a mental health conference in China. She had never gone to like, and she's a therapist. She just loves to do her clinical work. She'd never gone to one of these conferences before, let alone one in China, which is where she's originally from, but she had decided for some reason to go away. And so I go to this open house and I'm talking to people. No one's really talking about the work. And then eventually my friend shows up and I ask him what it's all about. And he explains it to me and he says, hey, you know what? We're doing a ceremony tomorrow, do you wanna come? And I'm like, no, it's not really my thing. I'm not really interested in it. But then I'm like walking home and this guy's apartment, by the way, is seven blocks from where I live. So I'm walking home and I thought, you know what? This is the only weekend. And like in my entire year that I have nothing to do. My wife is in here. I was supposed to get through with a friend, disappeared on me. I actually have space to say yes. And I'm like, you know what? I can try the ceremony once and I don't like it. I like never have to go again. And so I go to the ceremony and I remember that this beautiful woman with curly blonde hair greets me and gives me a big hug and I give her a big hug back and she has this laugh and she goes, oh, you're gonna fit right in with this community. And I'm like, I have no idea what she's talking about. And so we do this ceremony and the ceremony comes from a lineage of this Peruvian lineage holder who came to the States 45 years ago and brought the sort of indigenous traditions from South America and was trying to get people to engage with them and people at the time away into LSD and all this other stuff they were not having it. So he went back to school. He got a couple of PhDs, this guy's a genius. And he studied traditions from around the world and he created a much more modernized version of these indigenous traditions that's much more accessible for people. So you come, you don't have to go to the jungles of Peru. You don't have to be on a special diet. You prepare yourself. You come, you do a ceremony on a weekend. You go back Monday morning to work. You can do it. So I go to the ceremony and I have this huge release of energy. And it wasn't like any new content came up for me. There's all stuff I'd been dealing with but it just felt like by the end of the night I had been carrying this 1,000 pound energetic weight on the back of my shoulders that I wasn't even aware of and I dropped it and I felt so much lighter and so much better. And so my wife comes back Sunday night. Now keep in mind she's in China. I hadn't spoken with her at all. She had no idea what was going on but I noticed she started responding to me differently like cause she could feel the difference in me. And so then during the week when we had time to catch up I was telling her all about it and I was like, oh, why don't you come to the ceremony? They're doing another one next month. And she's like, no, no, no, it's not my thing. And she's usually, and my wife is really great. She was very open. I used to drag her to all these like healing ceremonies and spiritual stuff. And she would come out of curiosity but then she'd always be very judgmental to people. I'm like, oh, look at these people so spiritual they can't even pay their bills. She's really like, none of the stuff really resonated with her. And so I said, okay, she doesn't want to come but she kept asking me questions about it. So I kept saying, well, you know do you really got to experience it together? She goes, no, no, just tell me LaBella. And so over this back and forth for a couple of weeks and then finally she said, okay, I'll tell you what ask the guy if he'll give us a break if we come as a couple next time and then I'll go. I'm like, okay, call him up that day, ask him. He said, sure. So that night I said, oh, I talked to the guy today. He said, sure, he'll give us a break. And I could tell like stone cold face but underneath it she was like, damn because I took away her excuse that to come. So then two weeks leading up to the ceremony like she'd ask me questions, resistance. Oh, I don't know resistance, resistance, resistance to the whole idea, literally up until the, and I started like getting a little a little angry almost because it was like, okay I told the guy we were going to come. You said, okay. And now you're like trying to back out on it. And then like that day we're supposed to go out there and these are overnight ceremonies. And she's like, you know, if I stay overnight I'm not going to be able to sleep. You know, I can't stay overnight and we got to come back in the middle of the night. I don't care we'll take a cab or subway back in middle of the night we'll come. And I was about to get upset and like say something I was going to regret. And then all of a sudden I heard this little voice in the back of my head. I have not heard it as clearly before or since just say yes, just say yes, just get her there and we'll take care of the rest. No idea what that meant, but I'm like, okay honey whatever you want, if you want to come back in the middle, we'll come back in the middle of the night. She comes with me for the ceremony, really, really nervous. And I give her space and she's crying. She's in the corner most of the night. And then like, you know, halfway through the night she has somebody bring me over to her and I come over and I go, yes, dear, how are you? And she goes, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so pigheaded. Of course we're not going to go back in the middle of the night. I'm sorry. And of course the next day she felt so much better and she was totally on board with it. And I mean, I've done this work a lot more than she has but she's totally supported me over it. And that was six and a half years ago. And I tell you, like she really dove into it like a trooper. She shows up in ceremony and she's working deep on herself. And I've gone a lot more but then she was like go to a ceremony. She would see if she started seeing a therapist. She'd been talking about getting her own EMDR therapist for years, but it wasn't until we started doing this work that she started actually seeing one. And I have to tell you, it's totally transformed our lives. And on the outside, things might not seem that different from six and a half years ago, but on the inside it feels completely different. Oh, that was a great story. I loved every aspect of it and I have so much compassion for your wife because I think for many people, ceremony can bring up the unknown, brings up a lot of fear. And especially when you have the idea you're ingesting something, it's my consciousness we're playing with, you wanna be sure. And I certainly, I really, really understand that and then all her secondaries if you will that were popping up. And I love this voice that came to you. And I was thinking when you said that because they said, just get her here and we've got it from there. So it was a we. And they say that once you drink medicine that the plant lives inside of you, right? The wisdom, the energy. I mean, I love that idea. And it seems to me that that's what occurred in that. Yeah, and I tell you it like really shocked me one time because I have a friend who, she's not here anymore. I think she's in Sedona, but who I knew from like all this spiritual stuff. She used to like help set up events for people who would visit New York City, spiritual stuff. And I didn't know she did medicine work. And then after doing it, and I just done it like once or twice or something like that. And then I saw her at an event and I said to her, oh, you know, I finally tried something. And she goes, yeah, I can tell I can feel it in you because she had been done it so much herself. And it's kind of one of these things like when you're with somebody who's been involved in this stuff, there's a certain presence that happens between the two of you. There's a certain connection that's different than people who've never done it. And it's kind of, I like to say it's the intelligence of the plants and they kind of recognize each other. Yeah. Have you ever had the experience where you came back from a weekend or maybe four nights or however long you've done it? And you're back in your home and you're slowly reintegrating where you throughout the night or the day you feel like you're back in ceremony where you absolutely feel like you've drunk the brew? Well, it's quite interesting. And I've done intensives that like three nights in a row but where I felt like I was back in ceremony was not necessarily an integration. I'm glad you brought up integration, such an important part, but the facilitator who I used to work with when I first started, he used to host an open integration meeting every Monday night. It just open, it doesn't matter if you just were in ceremony or if it was a year ago and people would just gather and we just talk about where we are in this process. And I remember I had gone a few times in the beginning and then I got busy and I didn't do a ceremony for a while and it was about a month since I saw anybody in the community. And then I was like, after work, I was like, I got to get to the integration meeting tonight and I leave the office and I run downtown and I get there, I'm a few minutes late and I walk into the room, I open the door, I walk in and I see everyone sitting in a circle and I just feel my heart opening, going, and that's when I knew it's like, these are my people. And in an instant, there was this instant connection with everyone there in the room like there had been when we were in ceremony. And so there's something about having this shared peak experience that's very experiential, very physical that you share with other people that really creates a strong energetic bond that when you're just even physically come together, you can start to feel it a little bit. I mean, much more subtle, it's not like, but oh my God, it just that moment, you know, when you've been away for it for a while and then all of a sudden you come back, it was truly a moment for me that really, I think planted me on this path very firmly. And I would say within like three months after that, I went to the facility and like I got to learn how to do this. And he's like, okay, okay, just keep showing up. And then like six months later, I'm like, no, that's it. You got to start training me. I want to do this. And that was three and a half, four years ago. And I've just recently graduated like just a couple of months ago and about to start working with people. I haven't, we've been renovating the apartment and doing all kinds of stuff and with precautions and wanting to be careful. So I haven't even started yet, but probably this month I'm going to start working with people just on a one-on-one, one-on-two kind of basis. But it's been something that I wanted for so long and I was actually very attached to it for so long. And once I finally dropped that attachment, that's when it was like, okay, you're ready now. And I'm like, oh. And what did that necessitate? I mean, obviously, you know, you can't give away all your secrets because you'll have to kill us. But basically, does it involve a certain amount of drinking and if so? No, it's not a brew. What we do is working more with, I don't know, extracts. And when we work with the plants, we look at it not so much what is the plant, but where does it fall on the medicine wheel? Is it heart medicine, body medicine, mind medicine, spirit medicine? And it's about tilting consciousness and one of those directions or some combination thereof. And it's really, I don't know, again, it's just a very modernized version of ancient indigenous technologies. And we use plants from literally around the world from not just South America, but China and India and Africa, Native American stuff. So it's really a very holistic kind of approach. It's very sophisticated in its own way. And I think the best way to compare it to the traditional stuff, I remember, and I was doing like this work like three years before I ever did the traditional stuff. And I was actually very glad I did it that way because I did a lot of the emotional work, a lot of the hard work first. So then when I drank, the first several times it was a very pleasant, very beautiful experience. And it took a while for me to get to the deep stuff. But there was something my wife said when she came to her first time and she just recently, like a year or two ago, came to a traditional ceremony. And afterwards we were talking about it and she goes, you know, this stuff feels much more primal, much more primordial in a way compared to the stuff we're used to doing. That's much more sophisticated, much more civilized in a way. Like the traditional stuff is much more like in the jungle. And what I do is much more modernized, much more approachable for people brought up in a Western culture. Now, I do also work with some certain traditional medicines as well, but I'm not a Khorindeha. I don't consider myself a Shaman. I'm a facilitator. I'm a facilitator of consciousness. And I just use different tools and some of those tools involve indigenous practices. Some of those tools are more spiritual. I'm amazed when you were telling your story that you were told, oh, you don't have to worry about the diet or the diet. Because that's always, you know, is that still so for you? Because I want some of that, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we fast. What I usually do is, and they don't even say you have to fast the day. They just say, you know, if we're starting a ceremony at six, seven o'clock at night, like don't eat anything past 11, 12 o'clock that day. But for myself personally, I fast on that day because I want to make that day special. I want to make it sacred. To me, this is very sacred work. And there are many people out there who are doing this kind of work and they don't really have a sacred approach to it. They're doing it in a very, I don't know, not necessarily recreational, but they're doing it in a very haphazard or in a very loose way. But to me, this is a spiritual practice. So I want to make that day special. So I just fast. Now, you know, when I do traditional stuff, I'm more kind of being careful with my diet leading up to it. But with this work, I mean, I already, and actually from doing this work, after about the first year, maybe nine months of doing this work, came to me in ceremony, no more meat. No more meat. I'm like, okay. And I had been vegetarian before a pescatarian. I'll do fish, but then I didn't. And then I didn't eat meat for like a year. And then I was like, oh, let me have just a little bit. Let me just try it. Cause you know, my wife's Chinese sheets, everything. So I had a little bit of meat and I had nightmares that night. And I was like, okay, that's it. No more meat. And then like a year later, again, I was at a party. Someone had made this pulled pork sandwich. Oh, it smelled so good. I was like, oh, I gotta try it. So I had some of it. Again, awful, horrible nightmares. I was like, that's it. I just can't do it anymore. So I mean, I do fish, I do seafood, but I'm mostly vegetarian diet. And it's interesting how many people I know who are on this path end up being not just vegetarian, but almost vegan. I'm not there yet. But I do believe that, you know, our bodies are our temples and the better we treat our bodies, the better our bodies treat us. And so Sam, for people who would like to find out more about you, what's the best place for them to connect? So my website is theconsciousconsultant.com. So you can find out about different things that I do there and there's a contact form or if people wanna email me, they can email me. My email address is Sam at theconsciousconsultant.com. And also my book. I created a URL. The title of the book is Everyday Awakening. And I created a URL that points right to Amazon for it everydayawakeningbook.com. I'll take you straight to Amazon. And if you go to my website, theconsciousconsultant, and you click on the link that says Sam's book, there are a whole bunch of free giveaways that people who've given me testimonials gave me some meditations and programs and discounts on programs. So if you buy the book, you go there, you put it in your name, your receipt number, get access to all these gifts, all these presents that to help support you on your journey. Beautiful. So this is Dare to Dream, Sam Liebowitz. What do you next dare to dream? What are your future dreams and goals? Well, I look forward to really building community. To me, one of the importance of doing the work that I do is about getting people to feel comfortable being in community with like-minded people and remembering that community behavior and getting people to work together. Because I feel that when we work together and come together and find the commonalities instead of the differences, there is no challenge we cannot meet. There is no challenge in this world that we cannot solve if we just come together. So for me, it's about building community, empowering people and just creating an environment where people feel good to be themselves. Thanks for coming on the show today. This was yummy. Thank you so much, Debbie. I so appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me on the show. Great conversation. I end today's show with this quote, in many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence? Thanks for joining on this number one weekly transformation conversation. My guest next week is Vitaka Kulhof. This is her fourth time on Dare to Dream. Vitaka lives in the Netherlands and channels, the extraterrestrial being named Arjun. Vitaka is world-renowned for her art, for her channeling, her energy healing and is often seen on the Gaia TV show called Interview with Extra Dimensionals. Thanks for joining us today. And remember, don't just dare to dream, dare to turn all your dreams into your reality.