 Hello everybody. Welcome back to Esoteric Atlanta. I'm so excited. This was kind of a last-minute video And I've got my two two of my besties here Katherine Edwards Across the pond over in the United Kingdom and that pond might just be a creek for all we know That far away from each other giving the circumstances of what we're learning about our geography And then of course my friend Emmy who's up in Michigan and dealing with the cold Tundra winter And I of course and I know I have a different background I of course in Florida right now where it is hot and unfortunately the air conditioning went out last night So my hair is a little wild because there was no way on God's green earth that I was gonna stand under a hot hair dryer With the air conditioning out. I've got the fan going. So if you hear a noise behind me guys That's not the growling of a demon. It's literally a fan So So I am so excited pretty heavy topic today We there's a lot of different points we wanted we wanted to cover But the first thing we want to just kind of start with and I'm gonna pass it over to you ladies is this concept of toxic positivity which is Definitely kind of a trap. I think that a lot of people especially when they're new to Spirituality kind of fall into and so I'm gonna hand it over to you guys like I mean I know that you have a lot to say about this as does Catherine. So One of you ladies just give an example a layman's term definition I am gonna put all the definitions up on this video guys What's the layman's term definition of toxic positivity from your experience and your knowledge? You want to go first Catherine? No you fall ahead. Yeah Okay So I Feel like like spiritual bypassing is Soxic positivity is a form of spiritual bypassing and When you don't know how or you're unable to handle or deal with difficult situations or difficult emotions that come up Whether it be resentments triggers any kind of attachment issues that you may or may not know that you have Using that is a way of going around it Especially when you first come into the spiritual community and you're having an awakening and you're learning all of this stuff It's easy to say things like oh it is what it is. Oh Everything happens for a reason and those of those things are okay in and of themselves if you're speaking them from a place of Acceptance and surrender and you've done the work but if you're saying things like that or You're just covering things with positivity and not dealing with the difficult emotions or the difficult situations It's kind of like spray an air freshener in a poopy bathroom. You just have rosy colored poop, you know So if you if you're if you're saying those things to get out of or to escape Dealing with difficult emotions or difficult situations Then it's an issue And it can be really really subtle so developing your discernment is of utmost importance You know because one thing for one person could be something completely different for another I know when I first started coming into the the spiritual community I'm about 2016 and 17. I did that a lot. I did that a lot and it wasn't until I started my 12-step recovery programs And stayed I've been in and out now. I know not everybody Likes 12-step recovery. It doesn't work for everybody. I've had some pretty bad experiences with it myself. However, I felt that I Needed to stay to help make the changes from within because if no one stays and tries to make changes within then it's never gonna change so I Did that a lot because I didn't want to deal. I had so much to deal with I didn't know where to start and It was just taking things a little bit at a time as it came up Instead of saying those things like it is what it is or everything happens for a reason and then not dealing with anything I would say okay This is this has been brought to me because I have some kind of lesson to learn and if you're not consciously and Intentionally working through life's life's lessons. It's going to settle It's going to come through the the causal body and settle into your physical body somewhere And you're going to end up with physical issues if not months down the road years down the road And then you're not going to understand. Where is this coming from? Well, it's because we didn't handle it correctly So and then you know the toxic positivity is just one of the things that we can do with spiritual bypassing and You know when when we have difficult emotions come up The positivity can be used as a form of escapism just like any kind of addiction, you know food cigarettes Drugs gambling shopping, whatever it is that we're attracted to we can use those as escaping our difficult emotions instead of Working through them allowing yourself to feel allowing yourself to sit in that difficult emotion and say welcome What do you have to teach me It's really hard to do that when you're triggered Yeah, really hard calls on that for a second because I want you guys to hear what Emmy just said because she's The idea that everything happens for a reason most spiritual disciplines will teach you that that yes, everything happens for a reason. However however When you are bypassing it, you're not stopping At that at the reason at the action and actually confronting it You're just using that that that term to kind of push it off to the side. Does that make sense? Right like like if something awful comes up in your life That's hard to process or deal with to say oh everything happens for a reason. It's okay That's the toxic positivity say but to say yes everything happens for a reason. Let's lean into this Let's look at this What is this? It's like our friend Shanti says from Aquarius rising Africa. What are you here to teach me? Right, what is this awful thing here to actually teach me and in doing that the tears are allowed The screaming the anger the punching the pillow it is allowed And if you go through trauma therapy which in my opinion a lot of people have different perspectives on therapists I've loved my therapist. She incorporated a lot of what we learn in spirituality in my trauma therapy She was the anchor that helped me be able to turn around and look at patterns and pull from them Really uncomfortable Horrible things pull from it so that I could grow and learn from it And I will forever be grateful if that does that make sense the difference between the two And what I love about what you were at your explanation of it Emmy and what you were just saying Bryce is because both of you are very much looking at it from what you've just said in terms of a Responsibility for are you as an individual showing toxic positivity? What I've got. I'm one of these people I hate labels. I just hate labels Because I think they're so often used as an excuse. It's like anything We always talk about every tool can be used for the good or the bad and I think Understanding if you are going through toxic positivity and not sitting with it and doing your inner work, you know I love the saying, you know address the war inside of you Not the war outside of you and I think this is what it's all about was actually when I was looking at this subject And yes, it was a late-minute one, but everything I've seen Sort of on the internet related to toxic positivity Has been loads of different whether they're therapists or videos or or Ted talks of people Putting the blame for others showing toxic positivity and that is a massive trigger for me because I think you know I've got an example of my own house, you know I might something that triggers me and I would see as Toxic positivity my husband wouldn't see it as that at all. So the fact it is me. It's my trigger It's not necessarily the person and I think these days Everyone expects, you know, we were so treading on eggshells because if you say the wrong thing to Someone you can be branded as you know a narcissist or toxic positivity and these things absolutely exist But when the term is overused for what I would call and I know everyone's going to have their different levels for this For trivial things all to pass the blame or expect someone else to have knowledge That they don't have so not everyone is a therapist So not everyone is going to understand That term and the important thing is if it's affecting you that you understand it That you absolutely you can recognize it in others, but also most importantly recognize it in yourself And what you want to do about it? and be patient with yourself and be patient like We don't know what we don't know so don't expect yourself or anyone to be an expert in something that you don't know Especially when you're first learning it and trying to put it into practice So just begin by becoming aware of it and noticing it and and be very very kind and gentle with yourself It's not a race. We're not going to heal overnight. It takes years years lifetimes Yeah, and it's it's you know one thing, you know, we see it kind of in a big way a major way You know, I I've seen this a lot where somebody Kind of in a very broad stroke like the the whole regardless of whether you're doing spiritual work through yoga or Tai Chi or Reiki or whatever modality or hell even running are doing bar Whatever modality you're using to intentionally trigger Hell thought in the body to come up Sometimes when that health thought comes up all that all that's coming up the remnant of this whatever happened to you is Emotion and sometimes you don't know where that the story that emotion comes to So sometimes what we see is all the somebody some all the sudden somebody's having like a panic attack I'll use myself as an example in the ashtanga practice. I I Went through primary series pretty easily Got to second series and that's where shit hit the fan I started having I started having physical reactions to this practice for example because of all the deep happening I was in my sword class one day and I had already gone through some therapy from an abusive relationship I had already kind of knew about that But I wasn't fully understanding the amount of trauma I had been through in the past But my body started to shake uncontrollably Which is what a lot of service people in the military you can see and that was actually was actually Todd who said This is something you need to go to a therapist about your body is your nervous system is actually Is being triggered now what he did in that moment as a mysore teacher was responsible He sent me to a trauma therapist because he recognized that there was something in my psyche That was being shown through my body Now if what he did was absolutely correct and that's what what I do as a teacher if I have a student that shows signs I will send them give them a therapist card and be like I think you need to go speak to someone This is serious. This is out of my wheelhouse. So what he did was absolutely correct Now what some people will do when situations like that happen is they'll brush it off to the side Oh, well, you know, just think happy thoughts, you know Just just just just make sure you're thinking happy thoughts If you just don't put yourself in that position and it'll like what do they think it's just gonna magically go away? No, it's not gonna go away It's just gonna get very deeper and deeper and deeper inside and eventually it is going to that's where we get the anger issues Where people all of a sudden explode and start punching walls It's because of this held Yuckiness that they have not allowed to to they've allowed themselves to experience it in a healing modality. Does that make sense? Absolutely, I think you see that a lot where people are like, oh, well, just you know, just just You know that don't think negatively just don't think that well There's a difference between being pessimistic and thinking now get negatively and having a legitimate trauma That's coming up for you There is I do think in in daily life I mean when you're in a situation like you just discussed when you're in the mice all room with a professional It's absolutely I would expect that professional to recognise it But if you're in a conversation with friends or if you are and I think this is where for me I think it's a fine line between these things being really useful and used as an excuse So when we were going through there's the 30 day challenge that Brice and your friend, you know Everyone participated in so many people The whole point was it's that's what we've all got to realise at an individual level It would be so different for each of us and that and where that sits can vary for each of you day by day as well depending what's going on on your internal and external environment and I think you know I love the people I have in these conversations about things like toxic top positivity because I do think we've got to identify and understand what it means And then decide how we need to work on ourselves to deal with it because at the moment We've got a huge wave of the population A lot of them are younger people but not always Where everything is someone else's fault So you know sometimes I was listening to something and it was a really good example I thought where someone was going in for major surgery And they were using this people's responses to them telling that and their emotions behind it as a description of toxic positivity But an everyday person whether it's a good friend a parent A sibling a lot of people don't know how to deal with death how to deal with Terminal illnesses how to deal with tricky situations and a lot of people Are learning where that line is and and you know some people like open and you know, I'm a classic example I love open and honest discussions. I just absolutely love it Other people would see that as confrontational It's so so individual and I think when we realize that It all you know sits with us I don't think for me and I'm really happy for you guys to disagree with it all of it because I know It's very controversial, but I the older I get the more I realize that No one else can make you feel like that It's a trigger within you of a trauma that's not addressed But to blame the other person now. I'm not talking about atrocities here. I'm talking about everyday situations I'm not talking about someone that has Physically mentally sexually abused. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about everyday situations It's really interesting when I look at how much this discussion comes up for things that The other person couldn't possibly have necessarily known that was going to be that bigger trigger It's it's a difficult situation And I think this is where when we all work on ourselves and keep working on our own communication our listening skills So one thing I got out of listening to some of these discussions was some really good suggestions of what you could say instead And I think if we educate ourselves on that and start using that language back to people then people do pick up on it And it snobles and we get better way of just get describing it because I do agree with you But if you in that situation you in if someone was to just say to you I'll just get on with it just think positive It could be disastrous But I think also A lot of people don't understand that and it's not their fault. They don't understand it And I think you're right. We are living in a society now. We were laughing before we even started filming. I mean my childhood compared to the children today was I mean They were classified as terribly abusive because we were kind of taught just to have and I think about like like I remember when my parents got divorced There was kind of of course this was my parents who my mom was doing the very best she could With the situation it wasn't in my society at that time That wasn't super common. Our dad just kind of left us. She my mother had these two kids And she would say we'll just have a step up to step up her lip So when pain would come up instead of dealing with it just hold your head up high Which couldn't itself be considered of a An a situation of toxic positivity. However, my mother at that state also didn't know how to deal with it And so her that was the best way she knew how to deal with a situation Nowadays we would know for sure. So you're kid to therapy like we would know exactly how to handle that You know, and so you're right. There is this lack of understanding, you know, we see it in some situations, you know, somebody Isn't achieving the goals they want to achieve they're told. Oh, well, you're You know, it's everywhere. It's in every religion. It's in every corporation every business And this kind of gets into the next thing that kind of leads what toxic positivity can lead into is spiritual manipulation Which we see on an extreme level. We see this with cult abuse I right now I'm in the process of really studying Scientology because I do want to do a breakdown of Scientology and I've been reaching out to x members Because if you look at like Just use it as a big example And then we can bring it back down to smaller examples If you look at things like Scientology or nexium another cult that's recently been exposed All of the core information of these cults all come from The vetic text the upadishads yoga the reactive mind But then they have people come in and they manipulate that It's really funny. There's a video of L Ron Hubbard the creator of Scientology saying I've created this system for man To be like free of and can can heal himself Well, that if he actually believed that then he wouldn't have formed a cult He would have just made a class like a yoga class and sent people on their ways, right? So you kind of see where the manipulation comes in and so pulling it back to toxic positivity And how that's a form of manipulation and mind control Sometimes with toxic positivity. It does turn the the the I don't want to say the victim because we all are human beings And we're all here on this journey to learn and grow But the person who's experiencing the friction Who's experiencing the shadow that's being presented to them and is feeling the emotions of the darkness To have someone then turn around and say, oh, well just think positive thoughts can be a form of spiritual manipulation Which then falls into the lines of abuse where the person who's already feeling The darkness the pain the anguish these real like it's like Guruji said in astanga We use pain because pain is real. It's a very real sensation and they're being told that they're feeling this way Because they're not positive enough or they're not being spiritual enough It becomes a form of abuse at that time. Does that make does that make sense when i'm saying? Yeah, and honestly, I think it stems. It's just it's generational and it's cyclical We don't know how to process or feel or handle emotions. We pass that on to our kids They don't know how to heal process emotions or feel them correctly I see it a lot with men in particular, you know Pretty much the only acceptable emotion for a man to have is anger You know when you have these manly men Manly men telling their telling their little boys when they cry. Oh quit crying. You cry, baby man up You know, you're not allowed And then the child thinks that the emotion Is unacceptable that the emotion is That they're not allowed to feel that instead of addressing the behavior To their reaction to the emotion They assume and they learn that the emotion is not okay to have And for men, you know, they see their dads being angry. Okay. Well, it's okay for me to be angry So anytime they're sad or upset or triggered or depressed it comes out as anger and it's like a It's like a veneer. It's like a it's like a cover and then they don't even realize or understand when those things come up How to appropriately process or even how to feel And then they pass on that To their children and the same thing goes over and over and over And we have these abusive situations That are almost inevitable And a lot of times the parent doesn't even realize or understand that it's abuse And it's yeah, it's it's difficult. My We woke up to some really bad news this morning One of my husband's um school acquaintances another one passed away last night from a drug overdose And these have been with the exception of a few These have been all men He's the 27th acquaintance that has passed away from a drug overdose in the last eight years 27 And they're mostly men because we don't know the you know with all of the toxic feminist movement and the toxic masculinity and men having to Be these hard rocks that don't feel and don't Have emotion and are just expected to work and provide and produce and they're not uplifted They're not given any encouragement. They're not shown how to do affirmations or meditations And they don't know how to handle this stuff. So they're escaping through drugs and alcohol and they're dying left and right I mean, this was a good guy They have all been good guys hard working You know you think of someone dying of a drug overdose and you think of somebody homeless living in the the gutter. No, these are people like me It's just so scary and so sad It's just that yeah Sorry It's such a hard one because atrocities have always happened and that is awful and there's nothing these of you've said that I disagree with um What I personally think and again very controversial So I really do think use the word abuse is misused these days And what I mean by that I'll go on to explain by that is there's a fine line for me Between what is abuse and what is life and going through life learning lessons? So if every lesson that people are learning now whether it I mean, I'm a parent I've fucked up in loads of ways You know, I did the best I could and You know the things I look back on now and think oh god I wouldn't do that now with the knowledge I've got now But I did it at the time and that goes for my two-legged children and my four-legged children And it's really interesting because what I have learned I mean, I don't want to go into too many personal details But my family because it's not fair because they're not choosing to be on here But you know, I've got siblings and you know, I've got a twin and my elder sister isn't much older than me So you can look at how similar we've been brought up but our outlook on life is completely different I mean completely different And so we've all experienced the same things and we're all because we're all on our own individual journeys and learning our different lessons reacting to it In a completely different way And I think this is where For me it's it's so It's a bit like mobile phones and zoom, you know, we can use it for really good purposes And we also know they're used for really nefarious purposes. I think Taking this self responsibility for each of us to use and understand all of these things about the abuse about the toxic positivity about narcissism About spiritual manipulation. It's so important. We have that awareness But I think that awareness has to come with quite a bit of responsibility To not project our situations and our belief systems and our triggers on other people that aren't feeling it So I had an example where a family member. I went to a family event and I was wearing one of my T-shirts, so it's probably one of the Liz ones, but I said it had Something like be happy on it with my big smiley face and one of my family members took real offence to that And really really laid into me for you and your stupid bloody t-shirts with all these things on but for me I wear them Because they're for me. I'm not wearing them for someone else. I'm not trying to tell someone else to be happy And again, all these things about social media social media can be really great for some people and it can be really abusive In other ways But if someone is putting on their things a lot of people are putting things on their social media for their own Self-development and their own and if someone else takes offense to that I don't think they should be responsible if they're trying to work through ways of actually Dealing with things going on in their own lives, you know, we talk a lot about the law of vibration the law of attraction Um, you know what how we behave we attract into our lives So a lot of this for all of us is trial and error and I think this is where I I just really hope people start Start not overusing these terms because then it obligates it if saying if children having an argument on the playground is automatically abuse Then I think to me that's a dangerous line for the children that really are suffering Yeah, absolutely. I think You know, there's got to be less Oh It's in life that you learn that you're not letting something catastrophic Yeah, and what and of course it's it's going to be a case-by-case situation. I mean we were laughing before we came on I released my video on Avril Lavigne yesterday and I made a joke about Canada because I was shocked. There was such country music Fans in Canada because I'm from the southeast The southeast is called the Sun Belt. Isn't it Emmy? That's what we're called is the Sun Belt in the southeast Atlanta is called hot Atlanta It's hot down here It's hot And I make fun of that all the time and I made a joke about how I was because when I think of country music I think of really hot working in the field You know and I was shocked that that's so big in Canada because in my mind my perception of Canada is really cold Same with where Emmy lives in Michigan because that's my perception Oh, and I made a joke about it Oh people got so upset That I made a joke about canada being cold And I'm like well, it is cold And the southeast is called the sun canada is not called the sun belt the southeast is Right, so and it's it's true and that's that's scary to me because that's what the left wants us to do Have you guys seen stand-up? I love stand-up comedy like I love it. I will watch stand-up comedians All day and they're not politically correct. That's what makes them so fucking funny is that they're not politically correct It's hysterical. I love it, but now they have these like woke comedians and it's not funny at all So when we get so sensitive because we're not working If you're triggered by the fact that I made a joke about canada being cold Which it is cold compared to where I live in the southeast Then that's your problem There's a trigger in you and there's something wrong because you're labeling yourself as canadian when that means that you've obviously Not connected to a sense of self beyond that and so that's your issue. It's not my issue I say I make fun of the southeast all the time. I'm constantly I love where I'm from in the southeast But I'm always making fun of it because there's a funny shit down here, right? But I want to also kind of talk about two another form That that may be a little bit easier for people to understand in a more vague way of what toxic positivity And spiritual manipulation is A while ago. I was doing some deep dives and I still am like I said, I'm really studying Scientology right now I'm a deep dive into these cults and that when the josh jugger situation happened I took a deep dive into the i blp, which is the institute and basic life principles Which I won't really get into that here because not the point of this show You guys can go back and watch that episode or look it up for yourself But I found out statistically that most of the especially for women obesity rates for women who are in very fundamentalist Baptist churches are through the roof So we look at at food being a drug which for a lot of people it is It's it's probably one of the hardest drugs to combat because you can go without heroin But you can't go without food So what's happening and what we see in a lot of these religious organization is it not just christianity We see this in the Mormon church. We see this in Scientology is that if you're not putting on this Show of being super happy you watch like michelle dugger a very keep sweet very soft spoken happiness Blazed over look in their eyes the cult look in their eyes If you are not portraying that you feel this way, then there's something wrong with you and you're not aligned with god And so what we see in these these religions and it's again, it's not just christianity It happens a lot with the iblp is that these women especially What they will do is they will feel these horrible Shadow side things that are supposed to come up because we're human And instead of talking to someone about it because they'll be chastised because of their feeling this way that they must not be aligned with god They eat their emotions, right? And i wanted to kind of so that's a form. That's a very subtle form of toxic positive positivity You know, I wanted to show you guys I looked up. I'm going to share a screen quickly now I will put other pictures in this of the um terminology of some of these things But I wanted to show you guys so I kind of looked up different Things about toxic positivity and spiritual manipulation manipulation and spiritual abuse because they all kind of run together It's it's to manipulate to manipulate us to negotiate control or influence for one's own advantage Spiritual manipulation is a technique used by some abuse of churches and cults To control individuals and acquire gain all the while giving the impression that their teachings are based on the bible or whatever If you're in Scientology, it's based on, you know, the reactive mind nexium. It's based on the same thing they were active mind, right or But literally these teachers if they're used probably you wouldn't need any coercion or control So um, they'll they'll take scriptures just so people that will say oh Well, you know this verse in the bible or this shows that you should be happy all the time You know that if you really believed in jesus if you and emmy, I know you grew up in a church Um, if you I think I think katharine was spared spared that growing up But if you really grew up in a church you would you hear people well if you really believed in jesus Jesus would take all your worry away Jesus would take all your pain away, right? You get that a lot. That's a form of toxic positivity Okay, and so there this and this is coming from a a christian website But I I really like what they have to say so victims of spiritual manipulation seldom realize what's happening to them Here are some indicators of a spiritually manipulative church legalism demands for obedience, which you can say toxic positivity When you're threatened with salvation Is a form of obedience right unquestioning submission Punishment loss of privilege shunnings or expulsion misplaced loyalty emphasis on performance Exclusism Isolation and humiliation of the disobedience So I just kind of wanted to put that out there because I think a lot of people will recognize that in maybe their Um, their religious upbringing, you know, here's a great. This is another this is again another christian page But she has a lot of great stuff that talks about what you're going to see with this form of behavior And you can tie toxic positivity into this and it doesn't again doesn't have to be religion You can whoever's doing you can interchange the bible with the corporation With a manager education. Yeah Or science. I mean, what do we see now? No, kather. We've talked about this because captain's a scientist my view of science Is that you're you create a theory and then you question your own theory That's what science is. It's always questioning. It's always questioning. What is science today? It's not questioning. It's obeying trust the science Trust the science What have scientists ever trusted the science? They've always questioned the science. That's the point of science That's the cool thing about science, right? It's always questioning itself Right. This is one thing too spiritually abusive leaders gas like you into thinking you are crazy So how many so let's let's um, let's exchange that with toxic positivity How many times has someone gone up to a friend or a family member or a teacher or a spiritual leader and been like I'm really feeling depression anxiety And how many times have they said, oh, that's because you're doing something wrong Are you don't believe enough or you're thinking too many negative thoughts? That's gaslighting you to think you are the problem When your body your beautiful beautiful body and your beautiful beautiful mind Was created in my opinion by god by source to be able to be a gps system to show us Where things need to be healed And where there's triggers where there's pain. There's potential and there's power It's like cindy our friend cindy. She says without without suffering there would be no mystic Because suffering is what leads to question asking right and so toxic positivity So I was going to say because this is really useful what you're putting up and do you think both of you that um, where we're at now at this moment in time that doesn't exist but say it does and we're um That you know, we've gone from the old where these things were just were not discussed and people couldn't show their emotions at all Particularly as you said emi men and things like this and we've gone We're almost now at the other extreme where you can't say anything but for fear of offending someone And do you think we're you know at this rebalancing sort of stage where we need to sort of come back to some sort of way in the middle because I'm just wondering from what you've shown there. It's really fascinating that when you think about Resilience and where people are now and why people are so sensitive to this I do genuinely believe it's a real agenda that's made it through there with the physical health bombardment You know, you you can't be emotionally resilient when your physical vessel is that far out of balance and we all know at the moment It's so difficult to keep your physical vessel in balance It's like that on going hamster wheel because you're we're all having so much thrown at it through so many different directions So you can see why we've got to this stage And I know so many people will argue most people watching our channels will think there's an agenda behind it Other people think there isn't agenda, but the lessons haven't been learned But there's got to be some sort of balance. It's so good that people can talk about these issues now That thank god they can because as you've just said with that awful situation with your husband's friends Every single life, you know, every single person that ends up on the streets They've all got their own story as to how they've ended up there. Most of them are really really sad often through a lot of Circumstances that they didn't have control over so It's all coming back to balance again, isn't it how you can use these things responsibly and not throw them Out to try and inflict guilt on others I've seen a lot of people use a lot of these phrases To project blame on others rather than taking responsibility And I suppose that's where my tolerance has gone down and thinking god these things are so overused I mean five years ago. I did not know what a narcissist was if you'd have asked me to define a narcissist I could not have told you the definition. I'd have heard of it, but I didn't really understand it And then I had two people in my life That kept calling everyone else a narcissist and I was fascinated and to begin with I believed them and then I started Doing my own research and I realized the ones that were the narcissist for those Yeah So it was a very steep learning curve for me Um, and I think that's the stage certainly I'm going through with a lot of these things because I think on one bit of me is that it's so brilliant these conversations I love the fact that there's generations growing up now that can be open about their emotions can be through to who they want to be But equally I'm very conscious of the censorship. We've all been through and people have to be allowed to Express themselves freely and I've been at the stage with some people Which is probably Exhibiting this to me where you're so treading on eggshells to talk about things because if you get one word wrong They'll throw a label at you and you're like, this is just exhausting. I can't express myself if you're doing that So I do think we've got to use these things these terms responsibly and Keep going back to say why am I this trigger? What can I do? And if your parent for example, you know Giving your children some of these tools or professionals that they can help go to whatever it might be So that they can understand why they're feeling this because that vulnerability to me is so so dangerous and puts them in a very dangerous position Absolutely, and I think too because we haven't been given the proper tools of healing. That's why so many people are triggered Yeah, and he was saying like people wouldn't be triggered if they actually understood what triggers were and it's We stayed halfway at lake city and I don't have a tv We don't watch tv But I had the tv turned on in the hotel and I was watching this interview about the body positivity movement Which I can't stand personally. I cannot stand the body positive It's the other side of this this fight they do They're really masterminds at giving a an organization a label That's a really good sentiment. I think everybody should love their body. Absolutely But what the body positivity movement is doing is basically saying like You know celebrating Obesity basically yeah Doring the science and this woman got into a fight on this tv show with an actual doctor Who was saying these are the statistics? most diseases are caused by Obesity this is just a science, you know It's not saying you as a person are Are a bad person because you have a weight issue. It's just saying this is an issue It's just like an alcoholic like or or a drug There's an issue that needs to be taken care of and she literally when she got to the point where she couldn't argue with them She just said he felt that way because he was a white man And this is the world we live in at this point where it's just ridiculous and um And it's it's just it's it's not okay. And I think I think that we are gonna hit a precipice But we're gonna have to start to look at ourselves instead of instead of throwing the blame on everybody else looking at ourselves And and and that's the beautiful thing when you actually that's what shadow work means. It's to look at your shadow side It's to look at it's not called the Light work is working in the light shadow shadow work is something no one can do your shadow work for you You have to do it for yourself You have to be the one to actually be brave enough and I will say like I was when I was preparing for this episode Two I was reading some like what are tools for people to use if so say you have a friend um Say you have a friend that is coming to you Something and they're feeling really emotional. There's something very heavy They're dealing with and you yourself are not prepared to deal with this with your friend for whatever reason You don't think you can deal with it There are things you tools you can utilize to still support your friend But remove yourself from the situation one is to say do you want my advice or do you want to vent? Yes Let them vent because sometimes that's all a person needs is to hear their own voice spoken out loud So then they'll have a aha moment If they want your advice, but you don't feel like you can give advice This is what I do as a yoga teacher My my rule of thumb just kind of like what Todd did for me is I will listen to what they were saying I will validate their feelings Say I that is awful I understand why you feel this way. That's a very hard thing to process I I totally feel get you but this is out of my wheelhouse of of experience Let would you mind if I recommended Someone to you who could help you with this whether it's a therapist or a rakey healer like emmy Whatever and and offered that support that way instead of saying. Oh, you know what just think positive thoughts because you don't know Just admit your vulnerabilities and say, you know, I don't know how to help you with this because this is really heavy and it's really awful And I as a person as brice don't know. I don't know what to say to help you But I do have resources. I can't help you By referring you to someone who does have the tools Who could help you work through this and so I wanted to let because sometimes some of the articles I was reading like Some people react with toxic toxic positivity because the person's darkness Makes them uncomfortable with their own darkness. And so they react that way And so if we just know how to respond to this It's like and I want to say too, you know, when you're going in through this I I was also thinking about the idea of isolation and control if you go to the extreme of this the idea of How cults are formed, you know, if you do feel like you have to walk on eggshells That's a really that's a huge red flag If you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around someone big red flag I never I never want people to feel like they have to walk around eggshells with me, honestly I never would if I knew someone felt that about me. I would be devastated Like I I always want people to feel like they could be really comfortable with me and really open and honest with me about stuff Um, but if there's someone in your life that you feel like you can't be honest with red flag If this person also tries to isolate you from others red flag If this person if you can't question this person red flag, you know There's all these things you can start to notice to help because we can't we can't take responsibility for other people Right, like the only the only person you can ever control yourself You can't take responsibility for anybody else But if you start to to live your life in a healthier way where you notice these red flags You know how to react to people that come to you if you can't help them Then I think it will start to shift Everyone will start to shift in a sense. Does that make sense? Like it's like a pool Actually, they break the pool balls and they all kind of start to spread You know, and we just have the tools to understand how to handle Listen humaning Humaning is hard Deciding to come to this earth and be a human is it's really great. Sometimes there's some awesome things about being a human But there's also hard things too. That's the that's the whole idea of polarity It's all it's not all rainbows and butterflies. It can't be Because it's humans side them and you watch our animals interact. They get it wrong when they're learning You know why dogs play when one of them oversteps a mark and gets too boisterous the other one will let them know Horses do it all the time and I think that's a thing. It's like If someone's letting you know So long as they're doing it from a place of kindness Do you think a lot of this just boils down to intent the intent of the person? You know they you can say the wrong thing but mean it from a place of love Or you can The person has worked the other person has worked on themselves honestly I can see like, you know, you're with the triggers like 10 years ago if someone had said something to me in a way I might have reacted differently than I do now Because I have Sand triggers now and I do and doesn't mean that I'm free of triggers. Of course It does not mean that I don't get we're always if you're in a human body You're always going to be triggered Like there's always going to be new new things to explore about yourself But um, but yeah, I think a lot of it does have to do with intent But maybe even not even knowing that that's their intention is just People are so fragile because they haven't you know, we we do have to Kind of globally especially in like the western world with in a capitalist society Which I there's there's nothing wrong in my capitalism to per se, but we have to like Be the best, right? We have to be the best Appear look at social media Most people's lives they put on social media are not their real lives, right? You know, they the happy smiley pictures. That's not really What's happening to them at four o'clock on a Tuesday When they're crying in the corner because they have an uncomfortable feeling coming up. Does that make sense? Like it's so I think that we're trying to live this facade which the facade itself is toxic positivity Versus actually allowing ourselves to be more human And I think back in a time like for us three of us and most of our people watching right now when we were kids We didn't have social media We didn't have cell phones. And so there was more privacy and with that privacy I think there was more Exploration of emotions even if we didn't realize it at the time Whereas kids today are people they are so so bombarded with images of what life is supposed to look like That if if if they're Not living that way or they don't feel the way that these images look like they think something's wrong with them Does that make sense? It's but it's all an illusion. It's all just an all social media is is an illusion Well, we have to take responsibility for our actions You know if you agree to meet a friend at seven o'clock on friday night outside the foot cinema If you didn't turn out they were left there on their own and there's no way of you getting hold of them similarly if you Said something abusive to someone you had to do it face to face and you were going to get the consequences of that one way or the other Was now with all this distance between us I think there's whole there's so many people that have grown up without having to take the consequences for their action Which makes you really vulnerable You know, you you learn the whole way don't you? At school or even if you didn't go to school if you've got siblings and things like this You learn how to adjust your interactions by getting feedback and some of that feedback is really harsh And you hear it time and time again when people are sharing their stories it's wonderful to hear because The consistent theme that you get come up is that this is where I could see my problem starting from but the Person that said that to me or did that to me to them. It was trivial. They didn't realize it was an issue And this is the point about all being an individual. I know myself. What can upset me one day? I can laugh off the next, you know, when I am in a better state, you're not allowed to say hi vibe now because that's triggering But you know, when I'm in a better state things don't trigger me When I'm not things trigger me This the outside influence hasn't changed. I've changed and I'm not in a state to do it And then through life, hopefully you learn to be able to say to those around you I'm not able to cope with that today or whatever The words or actions might be But actually that takes quite a lot of self development to have the confidence to do that, doesn't it? Yeah It's so funny you say that I about kids like I I as you guys know I did a big video on the 1899 child strike and I've been studying I'm still I've been studying the play over and over again to see little tidbits and I I was watching I love broadway. Anyway, I love plays anyway. I was watching backstage I was watching interviews with the actors and they were talking about everything they had to do because this musical is like gymnastics, I mean backflips high dance It's their kids, right? So it's high energy lots of singing and I was watching the audition process and the brutality That these broadway actors go through our western actors go through over in england with with the competition Of the brutal of of their what their bodies go through and I was like, oh my god kids today would go home crying They would because of all the participation trophies. We're not taught how to deal with Rejection how to deal with just the way it is, you know, like when I was a kid no one got participation trophies No You either one or you lost and if I was a parent stay honestly I would want my kid to lose more than he want because losing is where you learn That's where you learn, you know, and so and that's that that kind of relates back to the shadow work if you if you understand Doesn't make it doesn't make darkness. It doesn't make personal darkness any easier That's for sure. You're still a human. You're still feeling the pain But when you actually have an understanding of what it is what it is It's like I love in the hindu culture demons Are short for demonstrators which are teachers Oh, wow Your darkness is your teacher Not the light that's your teacher It's the darkness And so when you understand that even though in the moment It's so painful to lean into that If you actually can lean into it and not toxic positively whitewash it away But actually faced it and looked at it and said Thank you for being here What are you trying to teach me? I think another thing too That gets people. I know what got me Is that spiritual growth and ascension is is not linear like you were saying brice. It's not linear at all It's like a spiral It's like you go through stuff. You do your shadow work You have epiphanies and downloads and then you're you're in this higher state And then you come back around and you have more to learn and then after you reach this higher state Especially the first or second, you know first couple times and you come back around you're like, what am I doing wrong? Like I thought I was past all this stuff But it's a continuous Spiral a continuous spiral you have ups Where you integrate all of the stuff that you've learned And then you come back around and you do it again And then you just kind of slowly go up. It's it's not it's not linear and you'll revisit the same issue over and over and over Not just once it's like Like you were saying in a text to me brice. It's like you're peeling away layers of an onion If you just went straight to the middle of the onion It'd be completely and totally wrong. You wouldn't have you know any shell for protection to move on it. It'd be devastating But when we go through it cyclically We have a chance to integrate and process and embody what we've learned and then we Do it again with something else or another layer or a deeper part of the same issue So it's just in it. It's all trial and error like you were saying Catherine It's all trial and error You know, we we go through these things and we Learn these things about ourselves and we become aware and then we can carry that through to the next time and pass it on to other people It's it's we're really walking each other home with blinders on it's like, okay. Let's lock arms. Okay. All right. This seemed to work Okay, let's keep going When you said that do you guys remember the game red rover red rover? Yeah Remember playing it but I can't remember how you played it. It is the most violent game Like we were some tough kids. I don't think they would allow kids to play it You lock arms you stand across from your friends and you lock arms with people and you You like whisper and you're like and you all stand each out red rover red rover Send temmie right over and so temmie would run and try to break through your arms Exactly If you couldn't break your arm he had to join your gang But if he could he got to bring some of your gang over. I mean, we were literally like Like charging at each other And the teachers was also watching one scene of comming and talking about growing up in the 80s teachers Where we're in the corner smoking their virginia slips Like like hurl their bodies at each other and just like don't break your arm like Absolutely, I think you know I think they're very serious issues and it's really really good that people discuss them and aware of them And actually it's really good that for a lot of people not everyone But a lot of people there are a lot of resources out there where they can go and get help now And I love the fact that these things can be talked about but I also think that You know, like we've said all the time that having a sense of humour can get you out for a lot of shit in your life So I mean in the uk I doubt that you guys have heard of them if you heard of the carry-on films Now Are they just real british slapstick humour from back in the 60s? And you've not I'm surprised they're still allowed show them on tv because they're So sexist, you know all the women are showing off all their Bums in short mini skirts and things like this and all the men are dirty old men and But it's so funny because sometimes you can learn a lot of lessons Through humour as well, you know, I love it where people like Ricky Gervais say, you know, you I think for me That's the key. You know, if you're going to go to one of his shows It's going to be completely politically incorrect And if you're easily offended don't go but the beauty is there as people have a choice Whereas I suppose in a lot of situations, you know, we're looking at where people don't have a choice Like like these poor children that are born into cults and things like this is absolutely horrendous You know think of the the journeys they've got to do to to do it and It's also like the fact that still in this day and age so many cults exist And the ones we're finding out about Just shows to me, you know There's obviously a lesson that is humanity We've still all got to learn because really people have been aware of the dangers of cults for a long while And yet they still spring up so much and a lot of people still Voluntarily and I'm saying it like that because Who knows the reasons choose to join it's it's You can't understand it if you're not in it. Can you? No, you can't You can't And but I know we want to do is coming up in an hour right now I know we want to do like a part two and so or that might be a shock to you ladies But I want to do a part two because I want to see from our viewers our friends watching right now Like is this is this a new concept? I do as I said in the beginning I do feel like this is something that people new to spirituality gets sucked into a lot And we see this in very big Very big ways and cults and very small ways just an everyday interaction You know and so I want to um Ask especially since we do have the 60 day challenge coming up again very soon Are there any questions that you guys have about about toxic positivity and or spiritual manipulation or spiritual abuse? Um, I will I've been thinking about this a lot, especially as I prepared to potentially talk to x x Scientology members like What is the difference between a teacher and a cult leader? Well, the biggest difference to me is that somebody who is healthy minded Is not going to put you in a position where you are made to feel like you can't talk to them And they're also not going to try to control you. You know, it's it's um It's like on our signal group that we have on All three of us are admins on that group, but we're not even on it that much. Are we? I can't keep up. I know Filming is a cheat, but but if we were trying to coerce a cult We would be on there controlling everything that was being said, but no we It's everybody's group, you know And I always say like that's my biggest thing with yoga Like if you look at my teacher in india and the yoga texts, which are also found in Scientology My teacher in india has no fucking clue Where you're living in india He doesn't take responsibility. You got to find your own housing. He doesn't know what you're eating He doesn't know who you're banging He doesn't care who who who you're boinking every night like he doesn't that's not his business, right like He thinks all white people are either americans or english He thinks all asian people are chinese like he doesn't And that and that is so healthy because when you're in the shala with him It is about the yoga. He is in control when it comes to your education over yoga But you can't you can't absolutely say no If you're not ready for something you can say no It's okay. He'll just look at you bobble his head and walk to the next student You know, there's there's he he has authority when it comes to teaching but he's hands off When it comes to your life Yeah, I love that Your job is to take the what you learned and apply it to your life yourself and go through your own journey And go through your own karma. I know people who've gone in myself included to have private conferences with him And he he and you'll ask him What do I do and he won't tell you he gives you a metaphor And you have to like come up with the answers yourself and that's healthy. That's a healthy way You know, and so that's just giving you guys kind of an example of where there's a fine line And of course, I've never seen my teacher participate in toxic positivity never ever um, you know, he's he uh My friend my best friend who is a little bit chubby. He's on chubby side. He's canadian Love him to death. He's uh, Vietnamese descent and uh, and he uh, was in The shallow once and he will tell you schratt will tell you if you need to lose weight Like he will make it very clear. He's very blunt about it And he told chris christy to lose weight So he does that schratt does that by saying oh one chapati only one chapati today So the next morning chris was sitting a lobby way to call be called in and schratt walks up to the door And he looks at chris. He goes you Did you have only one chapati yesterday chris goes? No, I didn't have any chapatis yesterday and schratt goes good and then schratt goes to walk away and chris goes But I had cheese pizza And that's taken with you know Responsibility I did want to say I'd love to do part two because I have got so much to learn on this I've got so much to learn from other people's perspectives What they're seeing and things and I I'm really looking forward to you know learning from everyone One's comments, but one of the things you mentioned earlier brice about you know, one of the things you can say This is what I've been looking into. Okay. How can I um, you know Improve my conversational skills my listening skills and that asking do you want to vent something so simple? Do you want my advice or do you want to vent? It's really brilliant to ask that but equally for each of us as individuals How great would it be if we're coming to a friend and we said look I just need to vent here I'm not looking for your advice Do you so it means that the more clear all of us get in our communication about what we need at that stage? Would really help avoid these misunderstandings when people aren't being intentionally manipulative, which is very different Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So so bottom line is it's okay to feel pain You're not doing anything wrong In fact, when you dive into spiritual work, you are going to feel a lot of pain Hello It's okay if it gets overwhelming. There are tools and resources. That's why we have trauma therapists That's why they're rakey healers like emmy. That's why there are acupuncturists. There's why you know, there's there's so many healers out there that you can You can um call and talk to for help. They even have free therapy in the united states now for people who are really Desperately need help, right? Your friends if your friends brush it off Might be that because they're they're not dealing with their own darkness, right? You're not out of favor with god You're not out of favor With yes, shua or jesus. You're not out of favor with anybody if you feel darkness, you're human You're human and that darkness is where you can learn It's it's it's like magdalene says in her gospel the only way the only way to ascend the only way to ascend is to descend first It's the only way to ascend and so if you're feeling that darkness and you're feeling that pain Lean into it because there's a purpose there. There's an absolute purpose to ignite To give you the information and I will tell you guys like even though it's so hard I know the two of them come you guys could probably validate this as well for yourselves I've learned the most and grown the most in my life when things were really hard Yes, definitely and even though I don't want to go back and do it again I'm grateful for that for that situation because it it pushed me to a deeper level of understanding Myself in the world around you speaking of igniting. I'll give you one final story Just to end this on a happy note not to be toxically positive or anything but to end this on a happy note speaking of igniting My teacher was telling a story once In a conference about when he was a little boy and he grew up the toppy joys This is grandfather and his uncle monju joys who lives in the united states now They were kind of showing charat because as kids you kind of play yoga with them You please show them some stuff and there's these transitions you do and charat said he was just fascinating With the transitions like how do people it looks like they're flying. How do they do this? and his uncle monju Which this is brilliant. I should do this with my niece and nephew told charats That the way to take off into a night and to float was to fart Started eating as a kid a ton of foods he make him gassy so that we like he started to do something He just pressed real hard and like a lift off would happen and so that gas That is an awesome uncle to be like, you know, how you do this right Hysterical Hysterical, I wasn't allowed to say the word for when I was a kid. We had to page it so much We had to wake up all the cool Code words for it as well. So we came up with all sorts, but I won't go into those now Probably far worse than the original word Oh, oh brilliant. Well, I can't wait to see what tips people have got for us on this as well Um, you know, it's a really interesting one. I love hearing different people's perspectives on this And I will say so our 60 day challenge is coming up guys both Emmy and Catherine are all super participants. I'm Literally, I'm almost done with it. Literally. Um, I hopefully will have it ready to go by january 10th That's my goal so that people can start. I'll let you guys know so I can have you guys email me and I'll continue the template It's 60 days this time It's a long that's a lot longer than the 30 day one But you guys got this we're going into deeper deeper deeper subjects toxic positivity is one subject We're going to be working through as well as the underworld going the idea of resurrection like where all these stories come from as We're going to be the ash wednesday lint is going to happen during this time So we're going to talk about what the real story of that was and your own underworld all that kind of stuff And so, um, I'm so excited. I know we have a great poppin signal support group as we were saying There's also going to be a book club involved with this um with this Challenge which there'll be a separate signal group for the book club specifically Uh, two of rom dos's books, uh polishing the mirror. What was the second one emi that we're going to do the second rom dos book Walking each other home walking. Well, I should have remembered that one Walking each other home and so nicole who is one of our challengers. She's going to be running the uh book club I know emi's got a lot to input with that as well And so, um, so yeah guys, it's going to be a bigger challenge way more stuff to do way more options with exercise And as you were saying earlier captain, they're different strokes for different folks That's why on these challenges. I have given multiple different exercises Because I want you to experience all of these different exercises how they make you feel what they trigger inside of you So that you can find the modality that serves you the best and by serving you the best I mean the one that's going to trigger you in the right kind of way All right, and that's going to be your choice. That's your you know for me It's yoga and bar for other people. It might be kickboxing, right? There's going to be different modalities depending on where you're holding your energy and what your actual karma is It's going to affect you differently and that's not for me to say what that is That's for you to discover for yourself. And so, um, I hope you guys will join us for that Yeah, so I'm really looking forward to it Yep, I always say I always tell my students and my yoga courses to oh, I mean I also have a new yoga course starting on the 22nd of january I believe I'll put a link down that down there in the description box where it's it's our yoga and reiki combined course We had an awesome course last time great great incredible course So excited about that and I always tell my yoga students who start my course Like in case you're worried about doing 30 day challenge that's super nor our 60 day challenge rather that's super normal um, you can't fail this The only way you can fail this is if you're a complete asshole To people like that's the only way that you can really fail doing this Like even if you can't do everything that's that's provided in one day You're still doing something and that's something is is incredible and amazing So looking forward to it again ask us all of your questions down in the comment section below I'm gonna have a link to all of emmy catherine's Stuff in the description box as well. So so we love you guys Happy new year. Happy 2023 I can't believe it Hopefully this is the year that I think the planet earth is going through its own shadow base right now That's definitely cleansing here in the uk hasn't stopped raining for a week And it doesn't always rain in the uk But it is at the moment and i'm just putting it down to it's cleansing everything beautifully so Yes Just about to go get very wet again. Yeah All right, guys, we'll we'll all talk to you soon guys lots of love