 Live for you, we're joining you live and we're gonna have a great discussion today and I have my friend Nina, who is based in Mallorca but right now she's in the Grand Canaries and she's joining me and we're hoping to have a lively discussion today. Hi, Nina. Hi David, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, we're laughing because we've had something going on with the technology today but we're still going so very good. Well, yeah, it was a delight meeting you a few years ago in Mallorca. You drove a car and you came onto the other side of the island, the east side of the island where we were and we had our center over in Mallorca and so I thought I would come on with you today and it's always fascinating to hear about people's spiritual journey. So I know that initially you started off in yoga and you still use the yoga, the tool of yoga but also you've gotten much more into the emotions and shadow work maybe clearing away the thoughts and the beliefs and clearing away the emotions to bring about a healing. So maybe you can share a little bit about kind of where you started and from Germany you originally from Germany and then how you got and kind of evolved into this spiritual journey. Sure. Yeah, so it's five years ago actually that I have been in a place where I felt that I need a change and I just listened to myself and I received the invitation to go to Mallorca and yeah, miracles happened and I was listening to myself and it was the first time that I really gave myself the time to be alone with myself, to be completely distracted and I felt like I need to go to travel. I always wanted to travel and so I allowed myself to follow this in a calling and then I went on a world trip and I had done my second certification in yoga and then I felt like yeah, that's what I wanna do. I wanna share what I learned in retreats and I wanna work with people and I want to help people to heal and yeah, to share the journey together because I think that's all about it to connect with each other and to help each other on the way so that we can feel our essence. Yeah, and so I decided then back in the days, I think I was in Bali that I want to start with the holistic retreats and in the last few years I was able yeah, to learn more about yoga and then about Ayurveda, nutrition and everything what helps us to become more healthy and to become a one and nowadays I'm working as a holistic wellness coach and I offer help to people in need and I help people to transform their unwanted emotions and emotional pain and unwanted beliefs into joy so that they can feel their essence again and yeah, love, love inspired life. That's great, love inspired life, you're really like a life coach, a joy coach and people know that to be consistently joyful, wow, it takes a lot of clearing, a lot of emptying, a lot of opening up our hearts to let the spirit and the life kind of flow through us so right now do you do a little bit of a combination of maybe occasionally some retreats there either in Mallorca or I know you've been to Mexico, the East Coast of Mexico and then a lot of video calls, zoom calls with people who are kind of like sessions of just where you open up your heart and just are there as the presence of love to help facilitate people going through this kind of transformation or catharsis we could say. Yeah, that's true, yeah. Yeah, I have one-to-one sessions mostly online or in person depends on the need but yeah, I like to give space and to listen and to help with what I learned. It's beautiful. What was your experience in Mexico? I remember I was following along on Facebook when you came all the way across the ocean over there to the northern Eastern part of Mexico and was that your first time coming to Mexico? No, it's actually, now I was four times in Mexico already a couple of years ago. I received the invitation from an older man if I would like to help him to go to Mexico and push him in a wheelchair. So I received the invitation to stay there in an eco-resort for four weeks and I just pushed him in the wheelchair. During this time, I had the possibility to use the yoga for first day. So I had every day yoga there and my yoga teacher became a lovely friend for me and he asked me one day because he became sick if I would like to cover his yoga class and that was actually like the beginning and then I figured I would love to teach also in English and yeah, so we had also reunion over there and yeah, to be honest, I choose joy and I choose lies but I also found myself in a, how can I say in a situation during the pandemic in Mallorca where we were not allowed to offer, for example, yoga classes and I was also a bit worried but then I questioned myself, okay, what do I really want and what is not important for me? And I just heard always these words like Pachamama and Mexico came into my mind and I just went and that was the best decision ever because yeah, instead of following fear, I just follow to have trust and everything was unfolded, it was amazing. So I'm very grateful for everything what happened so far. And Mexico in general, I love the people, I think they're very generous and yeah, I met so great people over there and I think it's just a super beautiful, colorful, lovely plays and you have all the possibilities to connect with nature and with the shamanism, it's such a real rich culture over there so with the Temascal and all these possibilities, what you have there to do different cleanses, it was very transformational obviously. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. I received an invitation to go to Cancun and then one time to play Adele Carmen to like a kind of like an eco retreat center that was kind of out in nature and it was very, very beautiful and it was right before it was the February there in 2020 right before the pandemic really came in and I came back and over to Central Mexico where we have a center, La Casa de Milagros and then we were having so much healing, so much love and we were kind of people were laughing and hugging and sweating and then we put all the photos on Facebook and everybody said, are you social distancing in Mexico because it was at the very beginning, we were just having a natural healing experience not even that, but so that's beautiful because it sounds like that invitation to push this elderly man in a wheelchair and then the possibility to do yoga but then even more of a surrender to just thank you, hire self for having me here for letting me meet these wonderful people friendly, generous people and during the pandemic, it sounds like you were there and just trusting moment by moment like everyone was trying to do during the beginnings of the pandemic, yeah. Yeah, so my first time in Mexico was like four years or five years ago and I think, yeah, when we look back we can connect the thoughts from our lives the different steps and I think everything happens for a reason on our way. So, yes, it was a great time. So, what do you like about Mexico so much that you decided to create there, your retreat center? Well, I think, I mean, right away I was drawn to the people, I just met so many happy, friendly people and then I used to just go to Mexico over to the coast where you were and then on the other coast basically just to go and from my world travels I just wanted to be by the water and hear the ocean and just be by the sand and so mostly I went to pray and meditate Puerto Vallarta, sometimes mostly over Puerto Vallarta occasionally over to the other coast but then when I went there and I did a gathering there in Guadalajara I felt this like a strong swirl in my heart and I could feel like something was coming and I've been traveling around the world and Jesus had been telling me this curious phrase. He was talking about, he was saying it was like something to do with urban urban, some kind of an urban center or urban ministry, something like urban ministry and I thought, what does that even mean? Cause I'd been to all these cities, Paris and London and over to Beijing and Shanghai and on all the continents, six continents and so many cities, I said, what does urban ministry mean? And then when I was there in Guadalajara I felt like something like this is it and Guadalajara is the second largest city in Mexico so it's very urban. So I went a little bit to the north of it to a place called Lake Chapala and it was so beautiful, it was a lot of ex-patriots from Canada and the United States and I would go around in this little village called Ikehique with all these little dots on it for the eyes and the jays and then I felt this warm feeling in my heart and I felt like, there were Mexican people all over but they were speaking English in the village, in the restaurants, in the pub and I thought, this is like a little English center in the middle of a Spanish country. I said, this is very strange and then on my way I was gonna fly back to the United States. I, somebody had put a real estate, I was staying with a minister and his wife and somebody had put a real thick real estate book and I didn't know it but one friend of mine had said to another don't let David see that book. Please don't let David see that real estate book and then I saw it and I opened it up and I saw this house with a swimming pool and 17 palm trees and I said, that looks really good. I would like to visit it before I get on the plane. So I went to visit it and everything unfolded to be able to buy it as part of a non-profit as part of the ministry and it's just flourished. That was back around 2000, maybe 13. So here we are about nine years later and it's just flourishing and we've had to trim the palm trees a little bit. One of them came down in the wind but there's a lot of healing going on there, a lot of healing. So if you ever make it back to Mexico for your fifth time then you know you have a warm invitation to come over there to central Mexico. So you stay one month in November there so for the whole November or? Well, I go there, I'm gonna be there, yeah, for November and into the beginning of December till like December 5th, you know, so. And then, yeah, I think this is my first trip back there since, yeah, since last December, I was down there. I was down there for probably about two years or a little bit over two years, even got a residency card. That was a miracle too because I like Mexico so much and but I live a very simple life and I don't have all the kind of things like big bank accounts and all those possessions and things. I live a very simple, non-possessive life but I wanted to go to Mexico and I wanted to be able to stay there. And so they sent me to the Mexican embassy in United States in Utah. And the first woman, she said, what do you own? And I said, what do I own? And she said, yeah, what do you do? What are your possessions and your bank accounts and all this and this? And I said, I don't know, I just, I live a simple life and she said, what? And you want to live in Mexico? You know, what are you just gonna let the government take care of you? I said, well, I just, she said, do you have anything? And I said, I have nonprofit organizations. There's a couple of nonprofits. She said, do you own them? And I thought, you know, you don't really own a nonprofit organization. So I said, she said, bring in some something, bring in statements, show something, show something. And I said, oh, so I told my friends, I said, she wants something. So they gather a stack of whatever they could find to try to make up something that looked like I'm a regular person. And then I went in there again with that and she said, okay, now go talk to the assistant director. I said, okay, great. So I went in and talked to the assistant director. She smiled, she laughed, she just looked at me and she said, I just have two questions for you. I said, oh, okay, here comes the interview. She said, one, do you like Mexico? I said, yes, I love Mexico. That's a tough one. I really, I love Mexico. I love the people, I like the people. I like the culture. I just really enjoy Mexico. I've been going there for some years and I like the water beaches and I told her that. So then number two, question number two, would you like to live in Mexico? And I said, yes, I would like to live. So she was like, perfect. Later I had a residence, a residence car for Mexico. And I was like, okay, this must be the urban ministry Jesus because I've never seen anything like that. So anyway, I'm a permanent resident in the United States and in Mexico. So I thought about it as well. Yeah, like that passport. And then I have a residency card. So there's definitely no problem. Yeah, it actually comes in handy when you wanna host somebody or whatever, you've got a residency card, you can just say, oh yeah, yeah, this is a friend of mine. And then they're more likely to get in. So it's worked out. Spirit has really, really given us a good life. Yeah, we can be very grateful. Yeah, we can be very grateful. It's actually amazing because I think whatever we started off in our life, we started listening to our intuitive self and then that was the big step. And then we started to get this prompts or these guidances and like you said, you can kind of see the patterns in your life. There's no accidents of who you meet and where you go. And I was saying the other day, I feel so grateful because I got to travel around to 49 out of the 50 states in the United States. And the only one I didn't go to, they invited me to Alaska, but I sent a friend of mine, Suzanne, to go up instead, cause I had something going on. But yesterday I was on Alaska Airlines. So I think the spirit's saying, don't forget about Alaska. And then I got to go to 44 countries around the world and on six continents and meet so many loving people like yourself that are just following their intuition and living their life based on their intuition instead of all the programming. Because yeah, when we really look at it, we see, I grew up in America and a lot of the programming, you grew up in Germany. I have a German last name and my grandfather's name was Heinrich Hermann Hofmeister. Heinrich Hermann Hofmeister. That's right. And so there's a lot of symbols that are tied in with Germany for sure. The people I meet and the places I go and I've enjoyed my times over in Munich and Berlin and gone to some beautiful places and met so many beautiful people in Germany. And then, yeah, meeting you down there in Mallorca, it was like, hmm, that was an interesting place for us to end up and you're still there. Well, yeah, I'm based, but I travel a lot. So I was more in Mexico now, I think. I was also in the US last year. I was also in Utah. Oh, really? Moab. Oh, wow, Moab, yeah. That's very beautiful, the arch. Incredible, yeah. Yeah, that's not too far from where I am. I'm kind of in rural Utah to the south of Salt Lake City. I'm a little bit southeast, and I think Moab's a little further to the south than that, but it's gorgeous for me when I go out to, even to go to get groceries or go to a town, the mountains and the valleys and I mean, right now it's fall over here, it's autumn. So the trees are all changing. So I just take a drive and the mountains have all this fire, either fire red or bright orange or now it's all bright yellow. Just beautiful, sharp yellow and evergreen trees, bright green and bright yellow. And I feel like that movie that Robin Williams was in called What Dreams May Come. But Annabelle Scorsese, you know, where it's kind of like he's in an artistic world because his wife, Annabelle, played by Annabelle Scorsese, she's an artist. So it's all these brilliant colors. And when I go to get groceries, that's the kind of scenery I have to look at for like two or three hours though. What are you talking about? You live with a dream. Yeah, it's like one of those screens, you know, screensavers that they have for driving through a screensaver, you know, where you're driving it. Whoa, whoa. Every five minutes, you know, lakes, blue lakes and sparkly yellow colors. It's so beautiful. Yeah. I love that. One of my favorite memories at that. Yeah. Just yesterday I went through the pictures because I took the plane, right? And mostly when we're on flight mode, we have the time to go through our pictures. Yeah. I love taking pictures. Yeah, yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, lovely. So you will go off and for hikes as well? Not so much, but I think I would like to. I've got my hiking shoes and I haven't been out as much. I mean, our monastery here in Utah is like 48 acres. So just when you walk around the monastery, you're kind of hiking all the time because it's quite a few acres. But we built these little domes that we made them out of foam. So they're very insulated for during the summer and during the winter. And we have like wooden cabins. And this past year, I mean, I've been at this monastery since about 2009. And all the buildings are wood. So they're very beautiful. They look like pine wood or like stained wood, a little bit darker than pine. And then, but it takes a team to fix them up and stain them. And we have to pour your heart in. Like the old craftsmen, you have to really give your heart with the decks. And so now it's not like your typical monastery. I mean, most of the time people think of monastery, they think of monks and nuns and just praying all day and making fudge or cheese or something. We actually have two hot tubs at our monastery. People are like, hot tubs, whatever. But it's kind of fun in the winter to be out there and meditating with these beautiful canyon and beautiful skies and gorgeous surroundings. And then you're in a hot tub out in the winter and you're just sitting there and you're feeling in communion with nature. Cause it's very quiet too. There's hardly ever a plane that flies over. So it's really pristinely quiet, which is good for a monastery. You know, we're going to train our mind to be still, but we like when it's, that's still. And we have a, we were kind of in the spring and we were saying, well, what could we do to fix the monastery up? And I said, well, maybe there's a canyon right here. It's a gorgeous canyon. Maybe we put a deck right on the canyon. And then it feels like you're out bended overlooking this huge canyon. You like on the edge of the grand canyon, just build a nice deck and I'll sit out there and give talks about enlightenment and self realization and everybody can see the view behind me while I'm talking. So we did that. And then we said, you know, we really are about oneness, but I said, why don't we try to be more in harmony with nature? So why don't we turn this kind of as into an eco center? And they said, what does that mean? I said, let's go green. So they said, go green. And I said, well, go green, go clean. Go green, be in harmony with nature and then go clean, clean your mind. Like give up all judgment and grievances and opinions. So for the last like five months we've been doing go green, go clean. Right out my window, there are solar panels. So that was one thing was installing solar panels and had to get a building permit and everything. So right now I'm speaking to you on solar power. We're kind of, it's a step to go a little bit off the grid of the city grid because we're way out here. So we have solar panels. We've been fixing up and insulating and kind of really giving tender loving care to the buildings and the places. So there were a little more in harmony with nature. And the goal I said is to be 100% in harmony with nature where we're just, we're using the sunshine for the energy. We're going to have some gutters on our buildings to collect the rainwater and put them into container tanks. So mother nature's giving us rain, sunshine and let's just live a simple life in harmony with nature here. And so we're kind of off the grid and we're just into prayer and meditation and laughing together, being together, being spontaneous, being playful and being our natural selves, that's the goal. Sounds perfect. Do you have also permaculture garden already over there? Not yet, no, we do have a greenhouse. I mean, years ago I felt like it'd be nice to have a greenhouse. But we're out in what I think in the world would call high desert. So we have, it's very different from the Eastern part of the United States where I have a little peace house with green trees and everything. So there's not as much water out here but we tried growing things a little bit in the greenhouse and then we found, wow, the sun is so strong out here. It's great for solar energy but so we had to get a humidifier and vent, learn how to vent the things. So we're moving in that direction but if you know about permaculture, maybe you could come and give us a few pointers. We're, we would love to go in that direction too, yeah. I know of your people. Sure, I can give you some context. Oh, that's beautiful. We used to have these people in the United States. I think they're known all over the world. Have you ever heard of woofers, organic farmers? Yeah. I was just thinking about that as well. Yes. Yeah, I was, I've always studied different communities all around the world and visited many of them. So I was getting many ideas and I liked the idea of organic farmers that would kind of move around the world and just go to help you out. And sometimes if you need a little help with something else, they're happy to live and pitch in. So I've met some amazing woofers around the world just in holy encounters with them. So I try to stay open to ideas of anything that the spirit wants to bring in and just welcome it when it comes. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Just one person wrote, I lived completely off the grid for 10 years. No hydro, no phone, no running water, no bills. Lovely. That's really going inward. Right. Yeah, right. Very simple. Ownful it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting when they were asking me, they said, so what is the goal? And I said, well, I said for me, go green is just to be like more eco-friendly. And I said, you know, our utility bills here in Utah are really not that high compared to other parts of the country. So it's not, we're not doing out of the sense of need or lack, but it's a sense of it just feels more in harmony. And as we move forward in the world with the seemingly scarce resources and water and electricity and everything, it just feels more natural to live a simple life. And I've always tried to live a simple life. And when I've talked to Jesus about it, Jesus will say, well, if you want the simplest life, the very simplest life, it's to be ego-free. He said, because he said it's your thoughts that are polluting your mind and it's your thoughts that are ego that makes everything complex. But he said, if you're ego-free, you can live anywhere, you can be with any people, you can be your joyful, happy, peaceful self and then it's not circumstance dependent. It doesn't depend on the environment or the people or the personalities. So I always tell people, yeah, that's my goal is simplicity, but to me simplicity is to be ego-free. So that was my goal my whole life was to just be, remember my true self, that was the goal. So true. How did, when did you started to live like that? Well, to decide, I wanna, I wanna, I mean, it's not a getting rid of the ego. It's more like to focus more on- On the spirit. More of a spirit. Yeah. Well, I think, I think I was in university. I was in university for 10 years and towards the later part of the university, like during the last two or three years of university, I started to feel something in my heart that was starting to like feel like activated or energized, like I was gonna be going in a whole different direction. Kind of like you said, you went to Bali. I actually have a friend here, Amelia, who I did one-on-one with from Bali and now she's here. She's here in Utah, the monastery. But I started to feel like, well, I feel called and I don't know what it is. And then I started to read some books and see some signs and symbols, to be more aligned with spirit and to transcend the ego to the extent that I'm willing to do that. So then I was telling a group up in Portland last, yesterday, I think it was the night before, maybe two nights ago, that I just started to hear this intuitive voice very clearly and it told me to take a travel. Like you've done a lot of traveling. I find that's a way to get out of the assumptions and the preferences that when you just live in a little box, then you tend to think only about the little box. So the spirit took me traveling for like the first trip was like five and a half weeks and then the second trip was about six weeks. But I was told just go west, drive west. And then I had to learn how to be intuitive because I was very analytical. I was in engineering and urban planning. I was very, very analytical. And the spirit was like saying, no, you need to be intuitive and learn to follow your inner self and do that. So I started doing that when I traveled. And then I didn't realize it, but the spirit had like two and a half decades of travel to really get me unhooked from the analytical mind. Like being really pulled away from it completely instead of trying to figure everything out, just be present and be intuitive. So that got me going. And then when the pandemic came, I really felt like right before the pandemic came, I heard Jesus saying again, two words. But before he got me to Mexico I sang urban ministry. And then he went here. This is what I meant. And then he was saying digital ministry. And so I said, digital, but I already do things online, but I didn't realize that the pandemic, I had no idea the zoom would explode and everybody would be indoors. But Jesus, even the November before the pandemic as he said, digital ministry. And I told everybody and they all said, what, what does that mean? And I said, I don't know. We'll find out these last couple of years we've found out what it meant. Wow. Impressive. So it's after a while, I just say, I just want to follow. I just want to listen and follow and trust, learn to trust. And yeah, that seems to be the way that it goes. Yeah, and travel is, I still have so much fun. I have fun meeting people on airplanes and in airports. And then when you land, you know, the people are just adorable. Everywhere you go, you find these adorable. They're like angels. They're just like- It's so true. It's so true. I met also the best people on the planes and all over the world. Yeah. Just yesterday, for example, was also very funny because I had the intuition to go to some to take the flight over Santiago de Composte instead of Madrid. And I mean, there were so many spiritual people there, right? Because it's the end of the hike. And I had a delay of five hours, four or five hours. So I had a lot of time there and different talks. And it was very interesting because they were able to share with me all their insights from their hike. So that was very unique. It's kind of a film. It was not really real for yesterday. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful. I do find we learn a lot just by listening to people. You know, we're never where we are by accident, you know? And then people show up and they sit down and they start talking to you and they're so friendly. And I find people do open up with me a lot. They'll sit down, they'll start talking to me and then they'll talk for like a half an hour and they'll go, I don't know why I just told you my whole life story because I never talked to anybody. But they just feel like safe, I guess, to open up. And maybe that's just how it all works. You know, we just trust in spirit and we're there to listen and learn. And sometimes we talk and sometimes we just listen. Yeah. Yeah, it can be very heelsome. Yeah. But it's just to be there for them to listen. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm so grateful that you came on today. I knew we would just come on and have some fun. And I know you have friends from the United States and English speaking friends. So yeah, I'll send you the link and you can share it with them so they can see how much fun we have. We just come together and enjoy the moment. And for those of you watching, we actually, this is the first time I kept getting the message. It said your live stream has been interrupted or stopped or something. And I thought, that's never happened to me, but we persisted. And today, fourth time was a charm. We finally pulled it off. Maybe that's the lesson for today, never give up. Yeah, never give up. I have trust. Yes. So, well, if you ever take a trip to Mexico, please message me on Facebook Messenger. And I would love to host you there. And of course, now that I know you've just been to Utah too and Moab, that's very, very close to where I am. So you can come and check out our eco Go Green Monastery we have here in... It sounds lovely. Yeah, there's a lot of good hikes down by the river. Yeah, there's a lot of good hikes. I loved it, I loved it. Yeah, it's on my list. Very good, very good. I'm glad. It would be great to see you soon again. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you, bye-bye. Bye-bye.