001 - Beginning the Walk
What takes us away from that feeling of being at home within oneself?
In our very first show, I share the moment six years ago that kicked off this journey. It was a year of loss, burnout, struggle, trying to hold it together. It was a year that led me to question a great deal about myself, my life, and my purpose. It was painful. It was stressful.
And it was magic...
For our inaugural episode, I'm joined by two marvelous human beings, Michael Smith of the Empath Connection and Alexis Pokorny Kahlow of Open Deltas, who’ve faced intense spiritual and emotional journeys of their own.
They share their inflection points as well as help us explore those moments that take us away from that feeling of being home in ourselves – and the moments that bring us back again.
I’m excited for you to join me On This Walk.
In This Episode
(01:56) The genesis of On This Walk
(11:00) What Michael needed to say no to and walk away from to find his path
(11:58) Alexis’ career was going places while she had to find authenticity on the weekends
(13:37) Alexis’ journey to inner peace
(19:29) Our emotions advocate for us to choose the light
(22:56) The importance of taking space
(25:12) Seeking belonging by conforming, and the dissatisfaction that followed
(28:39) Michael’s mindfulness technique to connect with himself and his soul
(36:34) “You can’t push the river.”
(42:54) The value of feeling and embracing our emotions
(47:05) Being ready to start the journey
(49:24) “Remember to call on your soul for help.”
(50:29) Alexis’ guidance to “tweak, don’t freak”
Notable Quotes
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“For me, realizing that I spent all those years, especially in a sales role, that's all about accomplishment, right? And the numbers and metrics show if I am good or not good. But I think that just that simple question that was asked, ‘are you happy?’ – it made me realize that home is inside me. It's not outside. It's not the thing that I build. It's the thing that actually fills that structure. And that's the part that we need to care and feed for. And if we keep listening to that, we stay home, you know, it never feels like work.”
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“I felt dead inside. I felt miserable. I was depressed, suicidal. Like this wasn't happening for me. I actually got my rage, came in the form of screaming at my department chair and basically getting myself fired because of it. And, and I was like, thank you, soul, for doing that. Thank you, soul, for allowing me to express my unhappiness in that way, because it directly led me to the work that I'm doing now.”
Our Guests
Doctoral-trained therapist and healing practitioner Michael Smith is the founder of Empath Connection. As a leader in mind-body holistic healing for nearly two decades, Michael has personally coached thousands of individuals to make stronger connections between mind, body, and spirit.
Alexis Pokorny Kahlow is a performance-based mindfulness expert, author and CEO of Open Deltas. Before launching her own company, Alexis spent over a decade as a top-performing corporate sales leader at Cisco, where she first introduced mindfulness to her own team. She is the author of a book called “Out of the Grind and Into the Flow” and currently works with Fortune 500 companies to provide corporate mindfulness training.
Resources & Links
On This Walk
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Luke (00:01):
Welcome to On This Walk, a show about the winding journey of life in all its realness. I'm Luke Iorio. Please join me and my brilliant heart centered guests each week, as we look to navigate this journey more consciously and authentically. Uncovering how to tap back into that sense of connection with self, with soul and with something bigger than ourselves. Now let's go on this walk.
Hello there, everyone. And I wanna welcome you to the launch of On This Walk. And so, as we begin today, I guess let's just simply start here. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And thank you for joining me on this walk. I'm Luke Iorio, the host of On This Walk, and today we're gonna be taking a very interesting journey because this is about beginning the walk. I wanna share with you some of the origins of where this all came from, what led me, not only to this show, but what led us and what led me to this moment in time with the things that I wish to share with you, because a lot of this journey has been a journey of remembering my way back home, and that's what we're gonna be sharing, that's what we're gonna be walking with today. And then in a little while, we're gonna walk with two very dear friends of mine, Michael Smith, and Alexis Pokorny Kahlow. And I will do some introductions for them in just a little while, but one of the things I've recognized is that as I have gone on this walk, as I have taken this journey surrounding myself with the support of just some really, really dear friends who could hold that space and hold that vision for me as I move forward, and at times, me for them as well, and as we've been able to go on that journey, as we've been able to move forward, it's been a very, very rewarding and connecting experience. And so I want to thank you all for having joined me here and joining us on this walk. I guess it's time to begin the origins of where I am at this time began a little bit more than six years ago.
And it was a year very, very different than I had ever experienced. It was a year that I ended up attending four funerals, two of which were expected, two of which were not. And the latter of those two funerals, one included a close family friend who passed away way too young and it hit so brutally close to home because he was also a father of kids. They were just a little bit older than mine. And I remember it being one of the most heart wrenching funerals that I have ever been to. And so, as you can imagine, this is something that hit very, very close to home. As I started to take a look at my own life and take a look at my own family and whether or not it was, everything was aligned around what mattered most. And so a very short period of time, less than I think it was about six or eight weeks later, I would go to my fourth funeral of the year.
And that fourth funeral was for, it was expected. It was for somebody who was a bit of a role model for me, as I had been growing up, it was something that sat with me in a very, very different manner. And so as we came to the day of the actual funeral service, I remember getting a phone call that morning about maybe 45 minutes or so before I needed to leave to get over to the services. And I was chatting with my former business partner at iPEC, Bruce. And in that period of time, and he's hearing me, we're just talking about this project that had been going on. It was a project that had been struggling a little bit. It was kind of one of those square peg round hole type of situations. And I'm given the update and we're talking a little bit through it and he just stops me and he goes, what's going on?
He's like, I can just, I can hear it in your voice. I can hear it in your energy and hear the emotion behind it. It doesn't match what we're talking about, right? It doesn't match the, 'what's going on in the update' that we're talking, it's talking through at that time. And so I just simply said, I'm, I'm headed very shortly. I've gotta leave here again and go to another funeral. And I just, I could feel the defeat that was there in my energy and that's what he had picked up on. And he simply was like, okay, enough, we don't need to do this update now, we can do that next week. And when we do that, let's also talk about the fact that you're beginning to display pretty much all of the classic signs of burnout. And I kind of sat with that for a moment.
And I said, okay I, I'll come back to you on that. Let's, let's take, give me a little bit of space. And so I head out that day and I head out with Dawn, with my wife, to go off to the funeral. It was a really beautiful service. It was a very touching service. It was obviously quite a bit emotional because he, he was an individual that had impacted and had relationship with a lot of different people throughout the community and, and, and through his life. And so, uh, afterwards, one of his youngest children actually delivered this beautiful eulogy that was so clear that the things that he said about his father was how everybody knew him. He was so congruent in that regard. And that's, you know, you could see everybody shaking their head, like, yeah, that's him, that's him, that's him. We could feel that.
And again, yet again, I'm struck with this feeling of that alignment of what matters most and what's congruent and how am I feeling myself? And if, if this were my day, right? Only a friend of mine just a little while ago had passed away at my own, you know, just maybe a couple years older than I am. And if this was my day, would others know me this way? And if they knew me that way, would I say that's really who I am? So the funeral and the services and the after services all wrap up and it's now early afternoon, very early afternoon, maybe just after lunch time and Dawn drops me back home. She wanted to run a couple of errands before picking up the kids. And I walk into the house, hang up my coat or whatever it is, walk in through the kitchen.
And as I'm passing through the kitchen and making it into this little sitting room that we have just off the kitchen, I collapse, and I collapse to the ground first to my knees. And then all the way down, I didn't even have the strength to stay on my knees and so much emotion and tears and the waters flowed so deeply. And it was a lot of sobbing. It was, it was a really good, ugly cry. And I just remember feeling so empty laying on that floor after, I don't know how long I recognize, wait, I wanna get up. Dawn's gonna be home with the kids in a little bit. This is not a, not a good look. I would like to get up and I'd like to get moving. And so there I am yet again, putting up that stiff upper lip and saying, you need to move forward.
You can't be seen in this type of, of way. You need to keep yourself together. And so I go upstairs and I get changed. And after I get changed, I wanna splash some water on my face and just to clean up a bit. And as I'm doing that, my head comes up and I remember looking into the mirror and looking into my own reflection. And I catch that part of myself and my own eyes. It's the same energy that's been looking back at me since I was just a child. Since I was just a kid. I can tell the face around the, the energy that was there around the eyes was different than it was when I was four or five, six years old. Certainly it had age by then, but the energy that was looking back at me was pure. It was, if I was looking at myself to my five year old eyes, again. It's never changed, that energy, that soul, that consciousness, whatever word you wanna use for at that essence, it was right there.
And as I begin to connect with that, and time is just slipping away at that moment when you're connected in that type of space. And I can feel the energy that's just starting to build in me. It starts like this low heat that was in the, the lower part of my gut. And I can feel it starting to move up and I can feel almost like this reverberation that's going on as this energy rises. And as it does, I remember the moment that I recognized, what was this energy? What's this emotion that's just about to pour out of me in this beautiful moment with my soul looking back at me? And what was rising was rage. Just this fire of anger of rage that was coming up and it finally hit my throat. And as it hit my throat, I look in the mirror. I make contact with that part of myself and I yell at it.
Where did you go? Why did you leave me? I had felt abandoned by that part of myself. I had felt as if that essence had gone somewhere, it had been elusive. It had let me go. But for those of you following the imagery of this at home, when you talk into a mirror, when you shout into a mirror, when you get into an argument with a mirror, it comes back at you. Although to this day, when I felt those words come back to me, I don't hear them yelled. Instead, I hear that part of me, that deeper part of me, ask me, where did I go? Why did I leave it? This whole journey was a recognition and where I am today is a recognition that I left home. I left that essence that we all go on these winding journeys and that it can take us away from the truth of who it is that we are.
And I recognized in that moment that it had always been there for me. It was always there. It was covered just underneath the layers and the conditioning and the experiences while I went out and I followed whatever it was that I thought was mine to go after. Whether that's the way that we get conditioned by society or by culture or by family or by friends, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. All of that begins to, to seep in. And if we're not aware of it, we begin to move away. But as we move away, there's that still subtle, small voice that's within every single one of us. That's inviting us to come back home. That's giving us little nudges to say, that's not it for you. Come this way, come with me. And we ignore that for too long. So this show, which gets to kick off today is all about that long walk back home.
It's about that remembering process so that we can put all of the pieces. When I say, remember, it's not simply, it's not really a memory thing, although there's an aspect, I guess you could say of that. It's about remembering, putting everything back together, again, putting the pieces of who we are back so that we can once again, reclaim and find and connect to our wholeness, the fullness of who it is that we are. And so I am blessed that as I begin this walk with you, I get to bring on in a moment to individuals who have been on this walk with me for the last couple of years. And they are two just absolutely beautiful souls. And as I said, when we began to open the show to be able to have that support of people around you, whether it's a friend, a family member, or whether it is a guide or a coach or somebody like that, somebody who can hold that vision of the truth of who you are that can see the light and the strength that exists within you and that they interact with you that way, they hold you that way, they hold the space for you in that manner.
And they hold that vision for you. It begins to pull you forward. And at the same time to be able to have that safe space that you can turn to so that you've got the ability to share the stuff that's really difficult. The stuff you don't know about, the stuff that you really don't even know you wanna say out loud, you may not even want to admit, but it's when we finally step into that space, when we step into the ring and we can have those conversations, that things begin to change, we begin to find our way back home. I want to bring on and I will ask them to join me here now, Michael Smith and Alexis Pokorny Kahlow. And as they join me here, let me just give a little bit of background. Many of you probably, you know, saw this as you were getting ready to get on this show, but let me start, I guess, with Michael. Michael is the founder of the Empath Connection and no other way to say this.
Michael was talking about empaths before it was cool. It was many, many years ago because he has felt his own way through this journey to be able to create an extraordinary community known as the empath sanctuary, incredible programs, the pinnacle of which that Empath Academy that he has done, but he's been on this process, this journey of awakening, and he has been deeply committed to it for a very, very long time. And so I have been very much looking forward to being able to share Michael and his energy with you guys today. And I am also joined by Alexis, Alexis Pokorny Kahlow, and Alexis is the founder of Opendeltas. And what I, you know, among many reasons, one of the reasons that I want Alexis here today was that she has this beautiful and highly successful corporate background as this professional, this sales leader, this leader that did all of these wonderful things.
And I also know which is not on her bio, but I also know that I think of Alexis a bit as earth mother, because I know just how connected she is to nature and to balance. And it's this beautiful other side of who she is and what it is that she does with her own personal work, let alone with those that she guides and coaches and teaches and trains and all that type of stuff. And so guys, I'm thankful, Alexis, Michael, I am thankful that you guys are here today to join us on this walk. I wanna thank you for coming to the space. I wanna thank you for who you are to me. And I guess where I wanted to invite you both into this conversation is that, what's maybe one of those moments that stands out to you from your own life, where you recognized this, I'm not in alignment with where I wanna be something doesn't feel congruent and you needed to make that shift? And so I'm just curious, you know, from that question, or certainly what got evoked from what I had to share. Maybe if we begin, Alexis, I'm gonna begin with you and just see, tell us a little bit about your own journey and, and those moments where you've recognized a deeper pivot is needed here.
Alexis (13:37):
Thank you for that. And Luke, thank you for such a great intro and pouring your soul out because that really set the stage. I really like the way, Luke, you, you brought up remembering as this like, not memory thing, but putting us back to wholeness because as a mom to a 17 month old, I think my memory, like she took it out of me when I had her, but, but she did, like, I do feel like I've become more whole. So it, I like the way that you use the remembering word and my path to wholeness was a lot of speed bumps and potholes and misturns. And, you know, as you said, I worked in, uh, corporate America as a, a tech sales leader at Cisco, was there for over a decade. Finally worked my way up to New York City, where I ran the New York City sales and engineering business.
And so if you can imagine very cutthroat, very competitive. And during that time there, I was doing all of these non corporate modalities. I was getting trained in Reiki and in holistic health coaching and nutrition on the weekends, I was going out and working with shamans and, and healers and all of these things that literally my teammates would ask me, like, literally, what did you do this weekend? Because they thought it was hysterical. So I had these like two sides of me and I remember getting the call and it came like a whisper, right? It came like this, like, it's time to leave, it's time, it's like you had this dream, you always said you were gonna own your own business and you were gonna do this mindfulness stuff. It felt like this, this like, this soft, kind whisper. And then I didn't really listen to it.
And it became like health problems, you know? And it became working for a terrible boss and it became the soul. It, it's kind to you if you listen to it when it's a whisper, but when it has to start like shouting and like physically jarring you, that was the point that I got. And I thought I had all these, I had all these thyroid issues and health issues and ended up, you know, the tests look fine. I, I saw the thyroid issue, but I still felt awful all the time. And then I got this house I was in living in Manhattan. And then I got a house in Woodstock, New York, because 12 years before that, I had my like, first big spiritual awakening at an ashram there, and thought, if I just get a house there and go back to this like, place, it's, that's gonna help me figure out what's going on here or I'll heal somehow.
And every weekend I'd go up there on the Amtrak and every weekend I'd hike in nature, I'd sit by the waterfall of this house, and I would just hear it's time to go, it's time to go. And so what I did was I started drinking a lot and smoking weed, which I had never done in my whole life to numb out that voice because it was telling me it was time to go, but it wasn't showing me what that looked like after I left. And I was so scared. And then finally, you know, universe again, if, if you don't get off the bus, you know, it's gonna, it's gonna throw you off at some point. And I remember going about to go on vacation and I had a two week vacation planned and it was the first time I'd taken that amount of time off and my whole career.
And my boss just looked at me the day as I was just giving him, Hey, this is the update on like, where things are gonna be in the business. And he just looked at me in the middle of it and just asked me a very simple question and it was so powerful. He just looked me in the eyes. He got really quiet and he said, are you happy? And I just started crying. And this is someone, and in an environment that I had to be tough as nails and day in, day out like that feminine side did not come out. And I just started bawling and the answer was clear. And I just, I said, no, I'm, I'm not happy. And he was like, we will help you find another job, or I will help you make sure that you exit really gracefully. And I knew he sincerely meant that.
And so that was my transition out, long story short, met my husband the day that I resigned that, you know, that day when we had that conversation, ended up meeting my husband and traveling the world with him and started a business. And six months later, I had a flourishing business that I love where I go into corporations, I talk to the high, you know, type A skeptics, put me in front of them. I speak the language and I teach, you know, productivity and performance could be like the, the way that I get in the door, but really I just teach people to be present and create balance and to listen to themselves. And for me, realizing that I spent all those years, especially in a sales role, that's all about accomplishment, right? And like the numbers and metrics show, if I am good or not good. When I think that just, that simple question that was asked, are you happy? It made me realize that home is inside me. It's not outside, right? It's not the thing that I build. It's the thing that actually fills that structure. And that's the part that we need to care and feed for. And if we keep listening to that, that we stay home, you know, it never feels like work.
Luke (18:42):
So much of what we do is that we associate home with the external situation, the external environment, the things that are around us. And very often we are connecting ourselves to this idea of how do I stay comfortable within that outer environment. And hopefully at some point that outer environment being stable is gonna like, somehow like, by osmosis, seep into my bones, right? And it, obviously, that's always forever changing. There's, there's no way around that. I wanna come back to that and some other things you, you mentioned, but Michael, I wanted to bring you in and, you know, to, to ask you something, you know, just very similar of when you started to feel that pivot, 'cause you've been on the journey for a long time. I mean, this has been centrally your life. So I'm, I'm just kind of curious of when did you start to feel that, or maybe even have continued at different times to keep getting those calls and nudges to recognize what needed to shift?
Michael (19:29):
You know, the calls and nudges, what you just talked about. Both of you came through deep emotion, pain, you know, for Luke, you know, the rage, Alexis, you bawling, me, very, very similar. I mean, I've had a couple of inflection points, maybe two, you know, major ones. My first one was, so let me just share, you know, briefly my own version of how, and, and thank you for sharing your rage. And I, you know, I say thank you to your rage. Thank you, Alexis, to your emotions because they advocate for us to choose the light. So here's my story of my own rage and anger. In 1998, I remember very specifically I was living in Santa Monica, California. I was working as a counselor trained as a, as a mental health counselor and a school counselor. And I was, uh, deciding whether or not to pursue, how to pursue doctoral training as a counselor.
And I remember thinking, God, I really wanna, I really wanna do like spiritual counseling. I wanna do something different, unique, transpersonal counseling, but I've got this scholarship offer from the University of Nevada, where you know, fully paid for ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Oh man, did that light up my ego. So, you know, of course, that's what I decided, fast forward, five years later, complete, you know, actually no, six years later, after I'd gotten the doctorate, was working at the University of Wyoming as a professor of counseling. And it was completely, I felt dead inside. I felt miserable. I was depressed, suicidal. Like this wasn't happening for me. I actually got, my rage came in the form of like screaming at my department chair and basically getting myself fired because of it. And, and I was like, thank you soul for doing that. Thank you soul for allowing me to express my unhappiness in that way, because it led me to the work, directly led me to the work that I'm doing now.
And I went and lived in a, in a tent, quit the job, you know, I was making a lot of money and it was scary as hell. Alexis, like you said, you know, it's scary to step into the unknown and I'm sure those, those are listening right now and, and watching and involved in this conversation, you're probably, you know, who doesn't have a choice to make about a particular path that we're going down right now? So, you know, and, and that's where the juiciness lies, and what you said Luke about remembering is really important. So, man, yeah. Will we remember? How will we remember and how will we choose, like I did, to follow the call and know and trust that we will be, as I was, supported by the universe 100%, within two years, Alexis, you were like, what, six months you had things moving and the energy moving. And I can give testimony to that as well, that when we follow that so call, we're given everything that we need. And within two years I had started Empath Connection and just like, miraculously went to the top of Google because there was nobody else doing work with empaths at that time and it's led me to the work that I'm doing now, and thank God.
Luke (22:57):
Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting 'cause what, I also heard, I, a lot of commonality here with, with some of our journeys, but number one, the importance of taking space, right? So that Alexis, you originally went up to Woodstock, didn't totally pan out, but then it was, it led to, to the taking of space. Michael, being able to go out, both of us, actually all three of us went out into nature and I think that's, you know, it's interesting 'cause, so what I didn't share was that after that period of time, I went from occasionally, like occasionally being interested in like being out on the weekends and being in nature. And then it became just this like thirst of being able to be out on the land and to be in that space. And when we get that chance to take space, all of a sudden we start to look back and the situations, what we've been through, what we're going through, that usually seems like it's just all entangled or stacked right on top one on the next, all of a sudden, those things start to separate a little bit and we start to see through the cracks, we start to see through what's there and it makes it easier to see the patterns to recognize what might be going on that we're not addressing.
I think the other thing that, you know, all three of us we're speaking about is that voice, that inner voice that just kind of whispers in the background, and you know, certainly I'd say for Alexis, the way you put it, and certainly from my own experience, I ignored that voice for a really, really, really long time. It was there and it's not the voice that's gonna shout, it's the voice that's just gonna, come on, just nice and gentle, let's, let's go this way. And otherwise, you know, you don't follow it. And the universe conspires to say, all right, fine. We're just gonna keep nudging you harder until we push you off path to get your attention. I wanna address this part about how we leave home to shine a light on what are some of those things that lead us off the path, meaning that we're no longer in that deep alignment or congruence with the, the essence of who we are, but instead we start gravitating. And the one I wanted to first pick up on is Alexis, something you mentioned was that, you know, you had the professional thing on the weekends, you're out in nature, you're doing this, you're doing that. You see shamans, you're doing all this stuff, right? And you said, you'd come back and tell people and they were hysterical. So if you could just use that as kind of your entry point to the influences that keep us from staying on our own path.
Alexis (25:12):
Yeah. I think at least for me it was, I wanted to, you know, just with my childhood, I wanted more security, stability than I had and I saw money as the way to do it. Plus I grew up in this time and I don't know if any of the women on here can feel similarity with this, but like rather than the universe being taught to be kinder to women, we were taught to be stronger. We were taught like, fight harder, work harder, like fit into the mold of, of men, compete at that masculine game. And so I feel like I got that hammered into me at such a young age that it was like, oh, well, if I want, you know, if I want to fit in, belong, if I wanna be safe, if I wanna have freedom, I have to do, I have to conform to society's ideal. I need to make a lot of money, I need to have the title. And so I think that's what drove me. And then when I realized like you guys have both said, you basically felt dead inside when you're trying to chase the approval of other, you, you know, after a while you realize that that's not super fulfilling.
Luke (26:20):
It's important for us to be able to take a step back from our lives and be able to see not only the patterns in us that are and are not serving us, but we also need to be aware of the societal influences that are at play as well. If we take our own personal needs for acceptance and combine them with society's desires, well, westernized society's desires, for more money, sex and power. It's pressures for conformity and to fit into the system, it's a recipe for living in a way that isn't aligned with the truth of who you are. It becomes a conditioned life. One of the specific influences Alexis references, is masculine energy. It was true at times for Michael, as well as myself. Society has skewed towards dominant masculine energy for centuries now. And at the same time, it isn't a balanced masculine energy.
The difference is that imbalanced masculine energy seeks control, power, achievement and order without end. Our society is always looking for more, more, more, more growth, more rewards, more achievements, more power, more influence. When it's out of balance, it's never enough. Balanced masculine energy can take space. It can simplify, it can breathe. It is not threatened by powerful, balanced, feminine energy either. The balanced masculine looks out for the whole, not just the individual parts. It most identifies with. Society, just like nature, is meant to work in balance. When one part becomes more important than the health of the whole, the system becomes both imbalanced and unhealthy. An ecosystem that loses balance atrophies, unless that balance can be restored. Society, and even us personally, are no different. We are meant to be in balance with our nature. Our unique nature will be walking with many of these themes on this show for a while. Ultimately, with the goal of each of us finding ourselves home again. Feeling our own innate nature and interacting with the world from that authentic center.
Michael (28:40):
I just saw a question from one of the, one of the listeners, you know, how do you ask yourself for help? It's simple. I would suggest that there is a part of us that exists on the other side, in maybe, in another realm. Some people understand that as heaven, there's a, a very strong consciousness. We're not just, you know, Alexis, you said, you know, alluded this survey, there's two sides of me, right? And we all are recognizing that we have this back and forth dialogue between our egoic consciousness, which is what often, what we mistakenly think is who we are. No, that's not, we're recognizing that the truth of who we really are is that part of us that's on the other side, that is always, it's kind of like our spirit guide. Our, some people understand it as angels. It's a guiding consciousness, a guiding force that stays with us from birth in my understanding of that. And so all we really need to do to ask for help is just simply connect and, and just like, so I would invite us to just take a moment just to show for this person who's asking this question, and invite you, the panelist who's here asking that question to just quiet your mind and imagine this is what, this is my practice. It'd be interesting to, to hear Luke and Alexis' practices as well. What I do, is I blow out with my breath. My normal ego, and what's left is the divine connection. And so we say, thank you for coming in. And I don't know about you guys and people that are up here with us live can feel the energy shift when we do that, right? Yeah. And in that stillness, that's how it felt to me. It felt still when I get out of my ego, that's where the magic is and that's where the answers lie. And when we ask from that place, we receive magic from our soul in return.
Luke (30:51):
It's beautifully demonstrated, beautifully discussed. And I think the words are, or what stands out to me, and then, then what I wanna add to this is you connect us to both a space of stillness and silence. And those were two things that terrified me for a long time, right? I needed to be going. And I believed that the loudest voice in my head was, well, I should say the loudest voices, 'cause there's more than one in there, were actually who I was. And if I didn't get into that space of stillness and silence, I couldn't hear this much, much deeper voice that was there. And that's where for me, I mean my, my practice is a few things in, in addition to actually, you know, very similar to Michael, what you, you just walked us through, is just kind of that quick clearing of what's there.
All of a sudden you can feel that energy shift, that you can feel a different part of you, that you start to connect to that. And you know that because you can begin to feel it either in your, your kind of your lower gut or perhaps in your heart. And it comes from a different part of you, as opposed to that other chatter that's constantly coming and you can literally tell, it feels like it's bouncing around your brain, right? You can feel it in your skull. And then so beyond that though, it's for me and you know, you guys are getting used to me saying this, it is being out in nature and it is taking that time to connect and to notice and to wander slowly. Like I used to be, I'd go out and I'd hike, and it's like, how many miles am I gonna do today? And how many holes am I gonna climb? Now I laugh. Cause I come home and Dawn will turn to me and she's like, hey, how far did you go today? I went almost two miles. But you, you were gone for like five hours. How did, two miles? What are you talking about? Well, I found this really cool tree and it was really talkative.
Alexis (32:34):
Having been out, I can attest that is totally accurate. And you're like, let's just go this way. I'm like, but the path is this way.
Luke (32:43):
And the more that, I think it's to, you know, when, when you, you connect to that deeper voice, that soul, that consciousness, that essence, when you connect there, the more that you start following those nudges, the moral speak and the easier it'll be to hear. And I'm not saying that you're not gonna get resistance. You're gonna come up with certain things that like your brain is like, mm, no, we're not ready for that. Find your ways of how can I honor what I was shown? How can I honor what was said? How can I slowly start to move this forward?
Michael (33:16):
You know, Luke, it's so amazing that you're calling this podcast On This Walk. What do we encounter when we walk out in nature? Trees, and why do so many Asian religions, in particular, just thinking about Hinduism in particular, consider the path to enlightenment, to be sitting under like a banyan tree, right? It's literally the gateway to God. The trees are our gateway to the divine. And so fabulous that you're promoting and helping people understand that, you know, I used to think that spirituality was like out here, you know, like up in the clouds and the ethos. And I think that's a, a misnomer, what you are promoting, Luke and Alexis and, and me and, and all of us that are on this walk, we're promoting the truth that the divine, God, spirituality is found on the earth. And that is the gateway to God. So, bravo for the metaphor of being on this walk on the ground as the gateway to the divine.
Alexis (34:28):
Yeah. And so just to add, you know, like I said, the, the walk home isn't, it's, it's an evolution. We keep doing it. And part of my story, you know, left corporate, started mindfulness, but ended up in Northern California where I got pesticide poisoning from living around the vineyards and wineries in Northern California, which then led me into learning about permaculture and regenerative agriculture, and really these more indigenous wisdoms, right? Things that have, that were around forever before, were colonization. And they sustain the earth and, and learning those stories of the earth, I think has been just so powerful, just, you know, through permaculture, realizing that like winter, death, repost, stillness, like the plants and the animals, they're doing it, they're doing the cycle every year of this springtime birth. And, and you know, then we've got the fullness of the summer, fall, things are dying and then winter, things are completely dormant seeing that cycle, that nature is doing and realizing that that is actually how we, we should be embodying and, and living our lives has been super powerful for me because, you know, when we're in these corporate jobs or in life, we think it's all about growth and living forever and youth. And actually I think the sweetest part of living is that it changes and that we go with that change. So just my two cents there.
Luke (35:48):
You know, it's interesting 'cause you and I, I know I've had some of this conversation before, but when we think about the ways in which we continue to stray from home and we look at some of those typical, societal and cultural structures that tell us, well, we should be able to plant whenever we wanna plant in the winter, we should be able to harvest whenever we wanna harvest, even if it's still in the winter or it's in the spring. And it's, it's against the natural cycles of what's unfolding because we follow these rules, these guidelines that we have put out for ourselves that is the conditioning that we receive. And there's a lot of reasons for that. We believe that it advances us. We believe that it's achievement. We believe that it leads to safety, whatever it is, right? Most of that will feed into the one of well it's, it's still always the ego.
It's either usually ego gratification or it's safety. And we keep gravitating, you know, away from these things. Being able to put yourself in these spaces where you can feel the natural flow, the natural cycles as they occur, that'll slow you down as well. Go out in the nature and stand next to a riverbank and ask yourself, how can I push this river? You can't, right? River's gonna go where a river's gonna go. You can't push the river, right? And nature is always showing you these things. And yet, what do we try to do in almost all of our life? We try to push the river because I wanna be there by then. I wanna get this done by then. I wanna have this, I wanna do this, I wanna do this. And we're constantly trying to push the river as opposed to paying attention to the flow of things. And so it's just one of those other things that, that pulls us forward. I do wanna pivot a little bit, 'cause there was a, there's a question that popped up. I think it's an important one as, as part of this journey, is when we are trying to nurture that inner self, when we are trying to be true to, you know, be really deeply aligned to that essence. But there are family and friends around us that do not quite honor that path.
Alexis (37:39):
When I left my job where I told my dad, his response was, but they pay for your cellphone. You know, it's like, oh yeah. I, I will have to pay for my cellphone moving forward. And you know, he, he was like, but you're one of the only women who, you know, got to your, and that was the comment from a lot of people was like, but you're a woman who worked so hard to get where you were and now you're gonna let all those other women down. That's a big one that actually a lot of my peers who are still in roles carry that weight of thinking that if they, they leave, then they ruin the opportunities for generations after them. And with that being said, you know, my life has been full of tons of crunchy granola and my family loves, you know, Chili's and Applebees.
And so there's always been this like kind of disconnect. So what I found is that the more that I listened and honored and respected my intuition, versus defending it or justifying it, the more people were also respective of my unique choices. And the best example is, I went back to my family in Tampa, Florida this past week and our lives could not be more different. The community that we are driving, my sister lives in, every like, 10 feet, it felt like there's a sign saying that pesticides have just been applied to the perfect, you know, they all have perfectly manicured yards and I'm actually working with our city right now to become pesticide free for city of six, 60,000 people. And so it's like, and my brother-in-law was out there spraying pesticides, while we were there, while my children were like out playing in the yard and we eat completely different foods.
And we, and if that had been five years before, right before I left my job before I really honored my intuition, I would've been like throwing all the stats out about that they should know and all, telling them all the things that they should be doing and why. And this time I just like, I just settled in the fact that I am, the best thing I can do is embody my own choices and lifestyle without having to be an evangelist. And that felt right in that situation, I'm not saying that's every situation, you know, sometimes you do need to call things out and again, trusting your intuition when those times are. But I had a fantastic trip with my family this time because there was none of that defensiveness justifying, we all just because I brought that energy, they met it as well. And that's a really sweet lesson for me.
Luke (40:07):
I wanna touch on that and then actually I wanna bring this back, Michael, to you, but in a, in a different way, because it's something you said before. So one, Alexis, I just wanna acknowledge the recognition that it takes, right? Of when we realize that we are defensive to our views, defensive to the way that no, this is who I am and we can feel kind of that wall, right? That energy that starts to come up to assert itself, but in a, in a, in that defensive type posture, that armor that we begin to, to, to put on as well, there's a few different things that came up there is one, is the acceptance, that you just demonstrated the acceptance of when we can bring acceptance of who these others are, as well as our own path and acceptance, there might even be tension in this process as well to literally practice that acceptance with like, every step.
I think the other is that, what that made me think of is how often if I was looking for that acceptance, it's because I wasn't giving it. And really just, you know, going back to the mirror, how often is it? The very thing that we're not receiving is the very thing that we are not giving. And to be able to sit with that, to be able to hold that and to be able to allow that, to bring you back to, well, I can extend these things. I can do these things and I can be very comfortable in doing that. The last two things I wanted to mention is making sure you do have some form of support system even if it's just one friend, one, one person that you can turn to, to really express the truth of the journey that you're on. Because in addition to what we described before, whether it's through breathing or connecting in nature or through meditation, when you are seen, when you are witnessed in the emergence of who you are in the journey that you happen to be on at that time, it resonates in your energy and your field and who you are just so much more deeply when even just one person can see you.
And it just electrifies you in a different way. And then just the last point that Alexis you brought up is, and it's also okay to have boundaries. It's okay to put healthy boundaries in place. That's understandable. You do need to do that for yourself to be able to, to move through in certain ways. And so it's feeling into, you're not probably not gonna get the, that figured out the first try. It's gonna be a moving thing, it's also probably gonna change over time. Michael, what I wanted to bring back for you, because I think this is a critical part of this journey is that you, when I began with that conversation around rage, you said the 'thank you', to thank that emotion, to thank the rage that was there because your emotions are advocating for you. And so what I'd love for you to chat about is the struggle because we are so uneducated about our emotions for the majority of society, and for you to just share a little bit of that perspective of how we wrestle when we're more imbalanced, meaning when we're not really aware that our emotions are trying to advocate, 'cause that's what takes us away, versus when we open up to the fact that actually they're trying to get us back on track.
Michael (42:55):
Yeah, emotions are life, it's, it's life force, it's energy movement. So no matter what, in my perspective, no matter what emotions we are having, it is reflecting back to us that we are alive, that we are here and that we have a choice to make when we become aware of our emotions. And in particular, what some people shy away from repress, judge, deny negative emotions. Oh no, I, I must never be angry. I must, you know, never feel scared. I must deny my fear, you know? No. What if fear were the exact thing that you needed because when you recognize and do this to yourself, like, oh, I'm afraid. Okay, there's a part of me that's afraid. Okay, so now what? What do I do with that? Will I deny it and take the easy way out and, and just attempt to like, fake it?
Oh, I'm not afraid. I'm just gonna deny it or will I hold it and say, oh, okay. I'm a, I'm afraid right now. Let me ask the question. How will I respond to my fear? We have those two sides of us. And we have two choices when we recognize that we're afraid, we can go down the path of fear and amplify it. We can, we can deny it or actually three choices or we can, uh, go the path, take the path of our, of our soul, which would always say fear is wonderful because it's allowing you to make a choice to listen to me. Your fear, you're scared, your anger, your rage, your shadow, what people come, so call the, you know, the shadow emotions, that don't feel so fun or hot. The soul always says, fantastic. This is amazing because it's an invitation, you use that word, Luke, to listen to the voice, the small, still voice of your soul.
Luke (45:02):
When we, so there's, there's a few things here. One, I wanna come back to awareness and that, that kind of awareness practice in a second. But part of what you also got into is to recognize to, number one, go with the flow of the energy that's there, it doesn't mean that you act out or act on that fear or that anger or, or what's there, but it's to recognize what is it trying to get you to see? What is actually there at any given time that it's trying to say, hey, look at me, there's something going on here. And what we, you know, we don't usually take that chance to, to recognize is that to be centered in self gives you this opportunity as if you were sitting in the middle of a circle and to look around and for you to recognize that over here is the part of me that is feeling fear, here is the part of me that is feeling anger. Here's the part of me that wants to protect. Here's the part of me that wants to love. Here's the part of me that wants to play. And it's to recognize that we have so many selves that are bundled together within who it is that we are, but there's a part of who we are that still sets, it sits at the center that doesn't have to be, get, get carried away by any of these things.
And so it's building these different relationships with ourselves. It's building these relationships with all of these different parts of who it is that we are and not rejecting them, not pushing away, not trying to, to say no, I'm, I don't wanna feel this, I don't wanna hear this. It's being able to sit in that center. There was a question before, and for either, either of you, that, that wants to jump into this, is that, where do you need to be in life? Meaning it was this great question of what does it take to be ready to hear? And so, you know, I wanted to bring that back to what you also, Michael, brought up around awareness. Is that like, is there a point where it's like, oh, now I can hear things or now I'm aware or now I'm ready to hear that voice. And I'm just curious for your guys' perspective, whichever one, I know where I was, but I wanna know where you guys were. How ready were you? What makes you ready?
Michael (47:05):
Pain and suffering, sometimes, you know, intense emotions can definite, right? I know, just speaking from myself, that's,
Luke (47:12):
I'm with you.
Michael (47:13):
In the past, in the past, right? That's what always allowed me to hear and got my attention.
Luke (47:21):
That's what it was for me. I mean, seriously, I was yelling at a mirror. I mean, it was something had to be building in me that, that got me to that point. It's not that I couldn't have heard earlier on, but I didn't have the awareness for it. Now, does it always have to be pain and suffering to trigger you? Well, the funny thing is, is it, it doesn't, it's recognizing all of the little discord, the dissonance, the things that are out of harmony, the things that are out of alignment, the things that, you know, if you would sit at the end of the day in a little bit of stillness and silence and go, what felt like it was like really off track today and what felt like it was just not congruent or not drawing me deeper or was drawing me to some old tendencies.
And then all of a sudden you recognize the voice is always there. It's always been there. The readiness to me, it, it unfortunately, usually comes out of the pain and suffering because we're, we're running all of the time and we're not taking the time to actually sit and listen to that voice, but it doesn't have to be that way. So I'll be honest, it's one of the things that even before the, the, the story that I shared with you guys, way, way, way back when, and why I've traveled the path that I have, and not just personal development, but in coaching and, and all these other facilitating training stuff that I've done. It was because I didn't want other people to have to experience the depth of that. There's nothing wrong if they do that's part of their journey. But if I could save them just like that little, tiny bit, maybe they didn't have to go through quite as much, or maybe they could, they could get some guide, you know, guidelines of, guide post of, oh, let me look for these things to steer me through this at this time. So the last thing that I wanted to bring up just before, is with where you guys are today in your lives and on this walk, what is it, and, and whether this is practices or whether this is part of what you feel that you connect to on a regular basis, what is it that has you consistently coming back to remembering the truth of who you are and acting from that place?
Michael (49:20):
Hmm. What is it? Well, the voice of my own soul, which I have made it, my sole intent, s-o-l-e, sole intention to communicate with my own soul, s-o-u-l, everyday, 24-7, multiple times throughout the day. And Alexis alluded to this too, and this is sort of your practice too. Life is messy, right? We've got kids, we've got family, we've got death, we've got left, right, up, down. In the midst of all of that, Luke, you use the word, the centering energy is to remember that, oh yeah, in this moment, I'm a little stressed out. I'm freaked out about something. Last night, I had to boot somebody out of my, out of my program and it affected my energy in a way that hit like very, very intense. And in that moment, Michael, remember to call on your soul for help, back in the moment and centered. And it's, that, that is my practice.
Luke (50:26):
Beautiful. Alexis?
Alexis (50:29):
Yeah, I think I was working with the client last week and we were kind of, we were talking about this and I was like, I've used this motto before with clients, but it really struck home last week. It's like tweak, don't freak. You know, 'cause like, things really only ever need, like really, it's a little tweak here or there maybe it's perspective, maybe it's, you know, asking your husband, I need to have X number of hours a day that you watch the kids or, you know, it's typically just a tweak, if you are doing that check in. If you're waiting till once every, you know, 20 years, when you go on a solo retreat, like that, those are usually big U-turns and like sharp left turns that you've gotta make. And so I think if you're doing that daily check in and like you said, not maybe not even daily, it's like, in between calls with my clients, I call them performance breaks, you know? There are these little mini breaks just to check in, how am I feeling? What speed am I working at? Like what's going on here? Then you can just make those minor adjustments, just like, oh actually, I'm thirsty instead of waiting till you're dehydrated, you know?
Luke (51:33):
No, that's interesting. 'Cause what you just added, so I, I wanted to go off of something Michael said, no, I gotta go off of something what you said too. We start with that, those check ins. I think it was something that I realized was I was the individual. I mean, I, I remember when so much of this started shifting, I ended up sitting in a, a workshop, a, a seminar that a friend of mine happened to be running and it wasn't unrelated to any of this stuff. It was just a different, different seminar. And I'm sitting there in the, the audience and I'm watching him and I go, this is the first time I've been sitting in this seat and not been a presenter in like seven or eight years. And I was in this position where I was not the one that was sitting and really dedicated to my practice in a really, really deep way.
And that changed that as part of what, what was changing in my course, and the course of my, my, my direction, my path, and what I started doing was figuring out, okay, what are the daily, the weekly, the monthly, the quarterly, the annual type of things that I wanna put on my schedule so that I do have those guide posts? I'm not gonna go to a retreat every weekend, that's not practical, and, and it's also not necessary. But if you're, if it's a meditation, if it's a walk out in nature, if it's whatever prayer, whatever it is that works for you, do those types of things daily, and then figure out what are the other bigger things. There are other practices, whether it's with a coach or whether it's with circling or other group meetings and, and community type work, that might be the thing you do weekly or a couple of times a month.
And then maybe you figure out, okay, I'm gonna go to, to retreats this year, one retreat this year, and you figure out what is that schedule that just keeps you kind of on track, right? And then along those everyday practices, Michael, to what, to what you brought up is, you know, how many of us, and you'll be horrified, go look inside of your phone for the number of hours and minutes that you have spent on each app, and you will be horrified at what you probably find in there. And what you're you're gonna realize is I could probably spend just a few minutes less and maybe spend 15 minutes taking a walk with my soul, taking a moment, taking a breath, to be able to give a little bit of spaciousness back to your life and back to all of the circumstances through unfolding, because when we enter into that space, and then we take that deep inhale and exhale that Michael walked us through so incredibly well, now you can start to hear again, and the more you begin to hear, the more you also can begin to recognize it's a dialogue. It's not one way, it's actually a relationship.
Michael (54:07):
Yes, and it's such a joy to be able to receive back, when we commit to speaking with the universe and our own soul, God, spirit, whatever label resonates for you, and to receive that back. So I would invite everyone who is listening here to commit today to doing five extra minutes, take five minutes. And with the intention that you will receive back, whether it's through energy often, it's, it's just simply through the energy. Sometimes the divine gifts us with these glorious moments where we have these aha moments maybe that will happen for you today, would you like that? Commit to doing five minutes and see what happens.
Luke (55:03):
Love that, I love that too. So number one, again, everybody, five minutes, that's kind of like the no brainer, right? We're not asking you to do 20, 30 minutes, like right now, right? Five minutes, just five minutes. I will up it a little bit and just say, and do that for the next two, three weeks. If you do that for just the five minutes a day even, and you do this for a couple of weeks straight, I'm telling you, you're gonna be very, very surprised with what starts coming through. It's, it's hard to, to fully describe, but it is amazing what begins to happen and what you begin to, to, to tune into. I wanna thank Michael and Alexis. I wanna thank you guys for going on this walk with me, with us today. I wanna thank you for the beauty of who it is that you guys are.
All of the insights, all of the wisdom. And I know that everybody here is gonna be seeing you on this walk again. And so guys, I just wanna thank you so deeply for being here as we begin this walk. For everyone, the same to you, meaning I want to thank you for being at the very beginning of this journey. And as I described, as we, we began our talk today, as I shared my story with you, that was the very, very beginning moment of all of this. And we began to explore just a handful of areas that start to move us away from that self. But this is a long journey and one that we're gonna be going on for a very, very long time, what I hold true, and what I consistently come back to that helps me steer it with all of the other things that we shared with you today is consider this however you choose.
I was able to read a blog post that came out many, many years ago, and it was the top five regrets of the dying. And the number one regret has to do with, I wished I'd had the courage to be true to myself, as opposed to the expectations of others. And if you read the next four of those five, three of them relate to the same issue. It's basically the same thing, just reiterated in different words. I am in a position and I, what I'm I'm inviting you guys to do at this point is to figure out what you want to tap into to have that courage so that you can begin to be true to the soul, the essential self that exists within you. And the more that you consistently choose that, the more that you say I am walking down that path.
It's not gonna be easier. I'm gonna tell you that right now, at least not for a while, it becomes a lot easier, I will promise you that. But initially, it's gonna feel like you're breaking from the path that you know, because you are, but I can promise you the rewards of it are things that you could never possibly imagine at this point and the way that you will feel about your life and feel about yourself will be damn near magical. So that one day far off into the future, we can look back and say, yeah, I like the way I did that.
As we wrap today, take a few seconds to reflect. What have been your mirror moments? Those moments that had you pause, take a long look at how you are showing up in your life, and also connect back to the essence of who you are. Are these in alignment? Have you lost that sense of home? Are you close, but just looking for the nudges that bring you back the rest of the way? Please take a little extra time to reflect on these questions in this theme, before you move on to your next thing, you've given yourself this time and space to be here, to listen in. So be sure to go through it and see it through, on our next episode, we're gonna be looking through the lens of purpose, faith, and love with two powerhouses. Tambre Leighn, who is faced adversity only to find her way into service that supports thousands of people every year, going through the oh so difficult journey of cancer, and Billy Ward, who's one of the most inner sourced and genuine human beings. I've had the pleasure of walking with, who will share a bit about his own journey back to loving himself and how that pours out into his life now.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of On This Walk. Before signing off, please subscribe to the show and don't miss a single episode. Also, please rate and review us. This helps me greatly in getting the word out about this show. And remember, this is just the start of our conversation. To keep it going, ask questions, add your own thoughts, join the ongoing conversation by just heading over to onthiswalk.com and click on Community in the upper right hand corner. It's free to join. Until we go on this walk again, I'm Luke Iorio. Be well.