The Power of Surrender: Embrace Your Authentic Life with Kute Blackson

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hey, Amberly Lago here. Thank y'all so much for tuning in to True Grit and Grace. A legend on the show today, y'all. He's amazing. I have loved doing research on him, and I can't wait to share his wisdom with you. Coop Blackson is here. He's a beloved inspirational speaker and transformational teacher. He speaks at countless events that he organizes around the world. We're going to talk about some of those. He speaks all over the world on all kinds of stages, from YPO, EO. A-Fest, so many. Mindvalley, I watched that Mindvalley talk, was incredible. He's a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, a select group of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. He was also the winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award, which is a huge deal. Um, he's considered next generation leader in the field of personal development, and his mission is simple. To awaken and inspire people across the planet to access inner freedom, live authentically, and fulfill their true life's purpose. I want to talk to you about his a couple of his books, but especially the book his book *The Magic of Surrender*. He's also the author of *You Are the One*, and y'all, he's been featured all over media on huge on Larry King, on Fox and Friends, Dr. Drew, and so much more. So it is true. Truly an honor to have him here with us on True Grit and Grace today. So thank you and welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Oh my goodness. Well, you are amazing. And your story of how you were brought up is, is incredible too. And I feel like everything that we go through prepares us for where we're destined to be and what we're destined to do. But you really had to make a decision and listen to your heart and your soul because I mean, you grew up at a young age meditating with your mother and going to church with your father. Um, before we get into so many— I've got 2 pages of questions, just so you know. We'll get through as many as we can. But, um, before we get to some of the questions, I would love if you could just share a little bit about your childhood.

Sure.

Because you— I always say I started working at 13. You started speaking at like age 8. You're— I mean, all the things that you've done are incredible. If you could share a little bit about how you grew up so it gives our listeners some context to exactly who you are and how you got to where you are today.

Yeah, look, I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana. My mother's Japanese. I grew up in London. And so I live in the US now. So I feel like I'm from everywhere and nowhere and always felt that way as a kid. As a kid, I was a very empathetic kid that I felt people suffering very deeply. I was very like intuitive. I felt people. And so, you know, as a kid, I felt people's pain. And there was always a part of me that wanted to alleviate pain in some way. I just didn't know what that would look like. And so, yeah, some would say I had an unusual childhood. But I, as a kid, I thought my childhood was like everybody else's. I didn't think it was that different. I just thought everyone had my type of childhood in that, like, my first memories as a young boy. I remember being around age 6, 7, being lost in the crowd and seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor. This is, this is when I went back to Ghana. A crippled woman crawling on the floor, she picks up the sand, the gravel that this man walks on, wipes it on her face and stands up. Week after week, they call that a miracle, you know, week after week, I grew up seeing blind people see and deaf people hear. The same man whose sand she picked up will look at someone in a wheelchair and say, why are you in this wheelchair? You're not sick, stand up. And they will stand up or look at someone who had crutches and say, why do you have these crutches? Throw them away, start walking. This man was my father. And so growing up around miracles, it just seemed normal to me because I didn't, I didn't really know anything else. So in a sense, it was a huge blessing. Because I grew up with the sense that everything was possible, and possibilities were normal. And that was a huge blessing, because it didn't seem extraordinary or out of the ordinary in any way. And so, yeah, when I was age 8, my father built 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa.

That's unbelievable.

Hundreds of thousands of followers, a huge church in London, about 5,000 people, but he was a very mystical kind of spiritual man in that he went to India in the '60s, didn't tell anyone. So had a spiritual awakening, yet had all of these churches. And so I grew up with a very metaphysical spiritual philosophy, which was, again, a blessing for me. And so at age 8, I was thrown into the audience one day, and my father said, my son is going to speak. And that began my speaking career. And then at 14, I was basically ordained as a minister. And I was given the mandate to take over my father's spiritual organization. Everyone was happy, my entire life was set out for me. But the truth is, at that age, I knew that this was not my path. I knew that this was not my truth. I knew that I felt like I had a different calling. I just didn't know what it was. But I was too afraid. Like many of us, I allowed fear to hijack my voice and my freedom. My fear was, if I dare to be who I really am, I won't be loved. If I tell the truth to my father, that maybe I don't want to do this, I would lose his love, I would be outcast, I would be alone, I'd be abandoned. And then what? And so out of fear, I tried to fit myself into a package that I thought everybody wanted me to be. And I was miserable. And so, you know, I tried to rationalize and try to make sense of things and negotiate in my own mind that maybe I can do this. But I think deep down, there was a deeper knowing inside. I think when we don't tell ourselves the truth, there is a deeper knowing inside, there's a deeper sense of truth inside, and we don't always listen to it. And so it took me about 4 years to muster up the courage, 4 years of questioning, 4 years of turmoil, 4 years of internal conflict to finally get to the point when I turned 18, I had some decisions to make. I looked into the future. And I saw that I could take over my father's organization, and I could be successful based on everyone else's, you know, standards. But if I didn't have myself, if I didn't have my truth, if I didn't have my integrity, what kind of, what kind of success is that? If I, if I don't have my own authentic truth, like, what is that? That's, that's just like soul suicide, that you can't really be truly fulfilled and happy being someone that you're not or living someone else's life. And if I lied to myself now, as a 17, 18-year-old kid, I'm going to have to lie to myself the rest of my life in order to get love, validation, and approval. And so that felt so incredibly painful that I just, I felt like I didn't have a choice. And so for me, during this time, I felt my, basically my soul calling me in a completely different direction. I felt my soul, you know, and sometimes what your soul guides you to do is not always convenient. And what your soul guides you to do doesn't always make sense to your mind. What your soul guides you to do isn't always comfortable. But I really believe if you follow your soul, and you don't compromise the deeper calling of your soul, you'll always end up in the right place at the right time, with the right people doing the right thing, even though the route that you take may not be the one you most expect. And so I felt my soul calling me to America, and I wanted to go into the self-help field. For me, it wasn't like a business, or this is pre-social media, pre, you know, YouTube and internet where, as a kid, I would see—

What year was this?

The mid-'90s.

Oh, wow. And where did you move to?

This was in London. This was in London.

In London. And where did you move to in the United States?

Yeah. So I felt a calling basically to come to Los Angeles. And the reason—

okay, I gotta know what year, because I had the same calling.

Yeah.

I went against what my parents wanted me to do. And I was like, I am moving to Los Angeles to become a professional dancer.

Wow.

And they— I had a scholarship to go to school, and I blew that off and went and got in a dance program and lived in Los Angeles for 31 years.

Wow.

And that was in 1990. And so that's why I was asking.

'96-ish, in that zone. And okay, kind of mid to '96, around then. And yeah, for me, it was going to be either India or Los Angeles. And the reason I say India is because India was a spiritual mecca, right? You know, all the yogis and the enlightened mystics. So I would sneak into my father's office basically every day, and he had an entire bookshelf of thousands of books. And you know, we're talking books from Eastern mystics, Osho, Krishnamurti, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of TM, to Western mystics, Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, you know, Western sort of mystical spiritual teachers, to Wayne Dyer, and Louise Hay, and Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and Zig Ziglar, they were all on his bookshelf. So I would sneak in, and every day I would devour these books. And for me, this was my obsession. this was my, like, life passion. I lived for it. I would— I probably read 800 books from when I was 8 to 18. And so I just became obsessed with trying to understand life. What is life about? What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? Where do we go? Is the purpose of life just to wake up, make money, have babies, have a house, have a car, go on vacation, and then die? Like, surely, there has to be more than this. And so when I turned 18, I felt my soul calling me very strongly to go to Los Angeles. Because I wanted to come to— I wanted to go into this field. Because when I read these books, Louise Hay, Marianne Chopra, I'm like, they were inspiring people without religion, without a church. And I'm like, this is what I want to do. And so John Gray, Barbara DeAngelis, all of these people like John Gray, Barbara DeAngelis, Stuart Wilde, Bernie Siegel. I mean, they were like my icons. They were like my Michael Jordans. And so Los Angeles—

I love that. I love that. They were like your Michael Jordans. You were like, yeah. And that you were sneaking books while a lot of kids your age were going to sneak drinks.

Drinks and smokes and drugs. And no, for me, this is what it was.

You were sneaking books.

This was a calling. It was an undeniable calling for me. And that's why I say for me, going into this field and doing this work over the last 20 years, building my business, writing books, has never been a business for me. It's never been like a marketing thing. It's a calling. It's a passion. It's, it's not something I just started doing 2 years ago after reading The Secret or reading The Power of Now. It's, it's It's something that I have to— it's like, it's what I was born to do. And so, long story short, when I got this undeniable calling, I knew that I had to have the conversation with my father. I basically renounced everything. I renounced being a minister, I renounced everything. And even to the point where I just had to make peace with the fact and grieve the fact that I may never have a relationship with my father again. And that was very difficult. And so when I was 18, 17, actually, I sat my dad down and told him I'm not taking over. We didn't speak for 2 years, which was very, very difficult. And long story short, I ended up winning, winning a green card in the green card lottery. And that's what enabled me to come to the US with 2 suitcases, $800 in my pocket, and following a dream. You know, and that's what really, for me, gave me the faith and the courage to know that I was on the right path, that I was, I was following something that was, that was true, it was bigger than me. And so with this green card, I came to the US and went and found many of the teachers, the mentors, the authors I read about, studied with some of them, went to their seminars, learned from some of them. And then a couple of years being in the US, I wanted something more. I began traveling to Thailand to study with monks. I traveled to Israel, studied with rabbis. I went, ended up walking the Camino in northern Spain for 900 kilometers, ended up shaving my head, going to India. And for me, it was really my time in India that really cracked me open to another level of understanding who I am, a deeper realization of my true self, my true purpose, my authentic nature. and why I was put on this planet. And that's what inspired me to come back to LA. And that's when I started working with people over 20 years ago. I was just a kid, just that, that who had a pure desire to help people experience freedom. When I came back from India, I literally was broke, broke up with my girlfriend, was broke, homeless, had no money, no prospects, nothing. And when I came back, I was so happy, so happy, a happiness that wasn't based on anything I had. And people would come up to me and friends and people would come up to me and say, what's your deal? Like, why are you so happy? What's— and I just began talking to people and then it turned into coaching people. I had no idea what I was doing. And then gradually, as people came to me, I began to, I kind of got this inspiration to it was like I downloaded a whole new way of working with people, which I called uncoaching. And that's when people's lives really began to transform. And one person came, another person came, and people started to come from around the world. And it just expanded and grew into then small groups and larger groups and larger groups. And it really expanded out of the organic, sincere desire to help people. And then it led to my first book, You Are the One, my second book, The Magic of Surrender. And here we are. That's, that's the short version.

Wow, it's incredible. And I do believe it's your calling. And you know what, you, because you have the life experience from a young child growing up the way that you grew up, and then you had this desire to learn. So you had all this, not only the life experience, but the wisdom on top of it, which has qualified you and made you be the perfect person to, as you say, uncoach people. Yeah. And it's interesting when you said The Secret. I just interviewed Dr. Joe Vitale on the podcast from The Secret. He's a good guy. So much of what you said, I'm like, it's been a dream of mine to go to India. I don't know why I'm so called to go there, but I've always been You know, had a desire to go to India. How long were you in India?

The first time I was in India, I basically, I broke up with my girlfriend, shaved my head, put everything in storage, sold everything and anything else. And I basically made a decision that I was not going to come back until I found certain answers for myself. So I was literally prepared to not come back. And, and I didn't know how long I was going to go for. Could be a month, could be 3. I ended up there for maybe 4 to 5 months in that zone. And it was just a process of riding trains and traveling around, meeting with— yeah, you could say enlightened masters and mystics. I mean, I, I ended up in some crazy places, like—

I bet.

Meeting in the middle of the jungle, meeting with this enlightened master, it was like out of a movie and sat with him for 3 days, ended up in the middle of South India with an enlightened master for almost— wow, he probably sat with him one-on-one for 7 days. I mean, it just— I just went in search of answers. And it was about 4 to 5 months. And it was really, really profound. Really profound.

Wow. I am sure. Now, I've been to Japan 6 times. Where is your mom from?

My mother's from Japan. She's from Niigata.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I love Japan. I think that's why I went back, you know, so many times. I love it there. Where is your mom now?

She's passed away. I feel closer to my mother now than when she was even alive. And I think that's even what inspired the book, The Magic of Surrender. You see, in 2016, I was on a high promoting my first book, You Are the One. I was literally just on Larry King. And then the day later, I get a phone call. Like, life has a way of humbling you, you know, like, here I am on a show with someone I used to watch as a kid, like a hero. And the next day, boom, your mother has cancer. And she was in London. I was in LA. I flew for the next year, I flew to be with my mother for one week out of every month. So I would fly back and forth. And I would be with her in her chemo sessions. And we would sit and we would be and I would sit for 8, 9 hours in chemo watching them pump the stuff in her veins. And we would just talk and talk about, honestly, nothing and everything. And what started out as the worst year of my life turned out to be the best year of my life. Because I saw that I, I hadn't spent this much time with my mother since I was like a child, you know, and as sad as it was, it was as though wondered, like, why did I wait until she was dying to make this time? And so it was challenging. And it was really profound in that about 7 months into the process with my mother, the doctor basically came up to us, I was in London, we went to the hospital. And they said to her, look, there's nothing else that we can do. So get your affairs in order. You're going, you know, in a nice way to tell you you're going to die, right? And I looked at my mother, this little Japanese woman. And I said, Mom, are you afraid? My mother says, no, I'm not afraid. She looks me in the eyes in the hospital outside of the doctor's room. And she says, I'm not afraid, because I know I'm not this body. But this body is just a temporary vehicle for my soul. that this body will die, but I will be with you on the other side, always guiding you. And so I think she knew who she really was. And that's why I say I felt closer to my mother when she was gone. Because now our relationship was no longer limited to this human interaction. It was as though she was within me, connected to me that no matter when, I just had this connection with her. And it just opened up a whole nother dimension of the true connection that I had with her that we all have with each other, although we're not always aware of it, because we were just looking at personalities. And so then I looked at my mother. And then I said, right after I said, as I realized that she was going to go, I looked at her and I said, Mom, is there anything I can do for you? Because I wanted to be a good son. And I said, what can I do for you? What do you need? What do you want? And she looks at me and she says, there's nothing I need. There's nothing I want. All I want is what God wants for my life. It was, it was profound. And she was completely in peace this entire year of chemo, and treatments, you know, in the face of your mortality. It's one thing to be like, yeah, I'm cool when everything goes your way. But when shit falls apart, you're about to die. She was totally at peace. And I saw that she wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. She was surrendered. You know, she was totally surrendered to life, to God, to the universe, to her soul's journey. And that's what— that was the reason she was at peace. And that's what inspired for me the book, The Magic of Surrender. And even though I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but I saw that that's what planted the seed for the Surrender book, because I saw my mother living surrender her entire life, even how my parents met, like she married my father without ever having met him. without ever having seen him, which is a whole nother story, which I can get into if you want. But she was living surrender her entire life. And that's when I saw that surrender is the real password to freedom. Surrender is the real secret to manifestation. Surrender is the real key to the next level of our lives. And that's, that's when I saw the magic of surrender.

Oh, that's beautiful. Well, I want to go back to a couple of things. First of all, when you said Life has a way of humbling you, you know, and you had just gotten off Larry King and then you find out your mom has cancer.

The next day.

And just, I just got back. I did my first big event where I flew in 22 speakers and I was on top of the world. It was amazing. There were a lot of transformations that happened at this event. And I come home to my dad passing away from a heart attack. And he was in a place where I think that he had kind of surrendered. I mean, he was very close to God. He read from the Bible every day. And a friend of mine helped me because she said, you know, now you're going from seeing your dad in one place to seeing him everywhere at any time. And that really helped me. But it's interesting how something can happen in our life. And it's that seed that was planted. And look at where it's taken you to writing this bestselling book, and to teaching so many others how to surrender. And I had to surrender. It started with acceptance. And I had to surrender to a lot of things in order to heal, in order— because I was in a really dark place.

Surrender.

You just did a post on Instagram about surrender is the password Freedom to freedom. Simple, simple. But some people are not ready to do that. They're in self-will. They want it their way. They don't want to see any other way. They don't want to. You know, when you think of you, you're okay. Let's take this for instance. When you're telling someone that lives in constant pain, surrender to it. They don't want to surrender to it. They are fighting it and fighting it and fighting it. What would your suggestion be to someone who is living in pain? They don't want to surrender to it or accept it. They just, they're fighting it tooth and nail. What would you say to them?

But yeah, first, I just, I'm going to answer that. But I just want to create a bit of a context for surrender. Because, because that I think will determine the conversation and people's way of listening. Because, you know, I think in our culture, there is this misconception or myth about surrender, that we think surrender is bad, it's weak, it's giving up. It's, it's being a doormat, it's being a victim. I'm just gonna surrender like a wet noodle. I'm just sit here and do nothing and be passive, that if I surrender, I'm not going to manifest my goals, dreams, and desires. If I surrender, I'm going to get less in life. And so why the hell would we want to surrender if that's what we believe surrender is? So I think we have to have a really renewed understanding and reframe our understanding of surrender. And I'm actually, I'm actually saying, if you surrender, what if you didn't get less, but you got more, maybe better, maybe not what you expected, but more? And so just to clarify, as I answer your question, surrender is a it is a letting go of control, or I would say, the control that we think we have.

That we think we have. That's key.

Surrender is a letting go of forcing and trying to manipulate life to fit our limited idea of how we think it should be and how we think it should look so that we can open and become available to the authentic life that is seeking to happen. So I say surrender is, is when you take the limitations off of life, and you're available, and you're open. And that's when magic happens. That's when beauty happens. And so, yeah, look, I would say if you're in pain, surrender doesn't mean just collapsing. And sometimes we have this, this thought that, oh, what if I surrender, I just sit here and do nothing. I just sit here and, you know, if I'm in a painful relationship, a toxic, abusive relationship, I surrender, I just stick. No, sometimes surrender means you first have to accept what it is. Because whether you resist it or not, it is what it is. There is pain. It's raining outside, whether you like it or not. You can moan, groan, complain, curse, but it's still raining. And you resisting will not change the fact of the reality of the situation. The reality is the reality. So part of surrender is acceptance. You come into acceptance to say, this is what it is.

Mm-hmm.

You resisting what is does not change what is. You judging what is does not change what is. You fighting what is will not change what is. You can't change something until you get into relationship with it. And so if you're in pain, you accept it. That's one— acceptance. That moves you out of resistance, because the resistance will create more pain but also suffering. Because the suffering comes when you're creating in your mind a story around the pain. And suffering also arises when you're resisting what's happening, coming from a mental frame of the experience that's happening is not the experience that should be happening. I should be having some other experience.

Yeah.

Experience is happening. If you sit with any moment of suffering, you're in traffic in LA, as an example, or it's hot, or someone doing— being a certain way. The experience I'm having is not the experience that I should be having. That is always the thought process that's going on in your mind. Instant suffering.

Shouldn't be this way.

Government shouldn't be this way. Well, it is this way, whether you like it or not. It is this way. Does that mean you sit there and do nothing? No. But if you can come into acceptance, that will free you up to have a different relationship with it. You can't shift it until you get into relationship with it. So there is pain. Accept it, breathe into it, relax into it. And from that acceptance, then you can look at, well, what can I do?

Yes.

What is in my control? What can I change? What, what can I shift? Maybe I can do some exercises, maybe I can see the doctor, maybe I can breathe and relax. But here's the thing, when it comes to pain, I always say that pain is a blessing. And pain is feedback. Pain is usually a messenger of some deeper truth, some deeper feeling, some deeper truth that we are not acknowledging.

Mm-hmm.

Something deeper that we are not listening to, that we have not been listening to, or some feeling that we have, we've suppressed in some way, is what usually manifests as pain. But typically in our culture today, when we feel pain, we see it as bad. And so we've learned to deny it, suppress it, drink it away, smoke it away, sex it away, drug it away, shop it away, social media it away so that we don't deal with the pain, which then we— so we resist the pain, which keeps the pain stuck even more because we are not heeding and responding to the message of the pain. And so if you're in pain and it's constant, if you're in pain, even if it's temporary, so I think it's important to sit with There is acceptance, there is pain, and then sit with and ask yourself, what is this pain teaching me? What is this pain trying to show me? What is this pain trying to get me in touch with? Usually, when we don't tell ourselves the truth, suppress our feelings. When we don't tell ourselves the truth, betray ourselves. When we don't tell ourselves the truth, we lie to ourselves. When we lie to ourselves, usually the result is pain. Pain is the messenger that there's some part of us that's not in alignment. And so sit with what is the pain trying to tell me, you can start receiving the message, oh, the pain is bringing attention to I'm angry, or all of those trapped emotions from childhood, all of those trapped emotions from that relationship, that heartbreak I haven't dealt with, the anger, the resentment, the hurt, the self-judgment that I've been carrying for decades is finally manifesting in my back, is finally manifesting in my shoulder in some way. the body and the mind are connected. So if we cannot suppress the pain, but acknowledge the pain, then we can process it, feel it, release it, let it go and shift and find ways to course correct by acknowledging the lies that we're telling ourselves. So I think one of the things that keeps us stuck in the pain are all the lies that we tell ourselves. And so if we're able to also sit with, okay, what, what lies am I telling myself? What am I pretending to not know? What lies am I telling myself? There is no transformation without truth. So I say pain, even though it doesn't feel good, is our unconscious manifesting in our body, that it just requires our attention, a part of our psyche manifesting in our body, requiring our attention, heed attention. But when you do that, the pain will often dissolve or shift in some way into a different form.

I couldn't agree with you more. I've learned this the hard way. I used to try to numb out my pain, suppress it, pretend it wasn't there. I was not acknowledging it. And it was when I finally accepted it, surrendered to it, I was able to start healing it. Now, I still have some pain. I have a nerve disease called complex regional pain syndrome. But let me tell you, when I shared this with some people, that, you know, pain is like— you're saying things like, it's the lies we tell ourselves. It's past traumas and stuff we haven't dealt with. Some people get really pissed off. I've had people get really mad at me. I mean, really upset with me because I'm like, you, you know, because I tried every kind of medication. I tried every kind of invasive treatment, surgery to try to cure this, you know, nerve condition that I was diagnosed with. And it was really, it started with my mindset and how I started to heal And just accept and like you say, surrender to it, that my pain started to alleviate.

Yeah, can I want to— I think you're saying something so important that I would love to just tease out for a second in that, you know, if someone has, and it's so delicate, you know, this issue of pain, or let's say, an ongoing disease that someone might have that is not just Oh, just change your mindset, think positive, and it goes away. Because there sometimes are certain types of physiological, biological things that go on in our body that you may not just be able to think, think away or feel away. There may be an ongoing, you know, type 1 diabetes, or, you know, certain things, nerve disease that may be in the body, that if you can see it this way, sometimes it's not about getting rid of the pain. Sometimes it's about shifting your relationship with the pain. Yeah. Because there are sometimes—

Good.

That's really good. That I don't want to put limitations that you can't get rid of. Because everything is possible. Yeah, we could drop this pen right in LA. And it's possible it could end up in India in a week. It's possible, maybe not likely, but everything is possible in this infinite universe. However, sometimes it's not about getting rid of the pain. It's about shifting your relationship with the pain. And one way to shift— because some things you might— some people might be dealing with their entire lives. It's a fact, right? And so I think what helps to shift your relationship to the pain and maybe find a deeper dimension of surrender, you have to start with a deeper understanding of who you are. to recognize that you are a soul. If you understand first and foremost, that you are a soul, not just this body, you're a soul, and you incarnate into this human experience. We all, we all incarnate, show up in this human experience. And if we recognize that we are first and foremost a soul, in our souls, we incarnate into this human experience, in order to learn, to grow and evolve, that life is a university. for our soul's evolution. Life is the classroom for our soul's growth. If that's the case, that we're souls, and we incarnate into this human experience, in order to learn, to grow, to evolve, then every person, every relationship, every experience, every— everything we go through is part of the curriculum for our soul's growth and evolution, that we incarnate into this human experience to learn, to grow, to evolve. The purpose of life is evolution. If we start shifting our relationship to life and perspective from an ego level of what happened, what didn't happen, judging success and failure by achievement or non-achievement, or how much money you have in your bank account, or you get rid of the pain or have the pain, a very one-dimensional, let's call it goal-oriented, goal line level, to shifting it to a multidimensional way of seeing life to a soul level, soul line. There's the goal line, and there's the soul line, right? If we start looking at things from the viewpoint of the soul, then if you understand that your soul incarnated in order to learn, to grow, to evolve, then maybe you can start seeing even the pain or disease that you're going through, as challenging as it is. not as something bad, right? Not as a curse. But as a classroom, as a teacher, as a teacher in your university of life, like this is part of the classroom that perhaps your soul has chosen to go through in order to grow through, then you can shift your relationship with that pain or that disease. and really start asking yourself, what is my soul in this life seeking to learn from this pain, from this nerve disease, from this type 1 diabetes, from this, you know, Lyme disease, whatever it is, what is my soul seeking to learn? And not that it dissolves the pain, but it enables you to start shifting your relationship with it, so that you can learn from it. And it can teach you and maybe enable you or inform you in terms of what your purpose is in this life, so that you can maybe even use this pain, or this disease, to inform what your purpose is and what you're here to do and fulfill for humanity. You look at Michael J. Fox, you look at Christopher Reeve, you know, you look at folks like that. And I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying the pain may even go away. But as you shift your relationship with it, and you learn the lessons, your soul can grow. If life is about the evolution of your soul, and realizing who you really are, then you can start changing your relationship and surrendering in the situation, not to just doing nothing and being a victim, not surrendering in the situation to, oh, what is the lesson? How can I learn the lesson? How can I, even in this, like when you go to school, high school, university, there are some very difficult and challenging semesters, you know, there's some very difficult and challenging professors, there's some very difficult and challenging classrooms. And so, so if you start seeing life through that lens, it can shift your relationship to the pain so that you can embrace it in a whole different way. It still might be painful, but, but you can embrace it in a whole different way, you know, and I think that's—

That's the difference.

And so it's not easy. And I don't want anyone to think, oh, because I'm not thinking positive enough, that's why I'm in this pain. Sometimes I don't think anything.

And that's what happened, actually, with me. So I was on the doctor's TV. And when you're on TV, sometimes they edit out parts. And they edited out the whole part where I had tried all these Eastern, Western medications, and they just made it sound like I get through pain with positivity. Oh, the haters came out of the woodwork about, you know, like, you can't get through pain just with your mindset and this and that. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, that's not what I'm trying to say. So you're right, it is a delicate subject. But pain has been my biggest teacher. And I do always ask, approach it with curiosity and say, okay, what is this trying to teach me? And how can I use this lesson and go teach someone else what I've learned through this. And that gives— so I look at it with curiosity, and then it gives pain purpose. And so it really changes everything for me.

Yeah.

I feel like I could sit at a campfire with you and just listen to you tell stories and then share your wisdom all day, all night long. I'm just finding myself pulling up, getting cozy in my chair listening to you. I want to get to some questions. And then I also have so many questions about your event in Bali. So I want to make sure I get to that too, because I'm like, if it's this good on a podcast interview, I can only imagine getting to meet you in the flesh.

Yes.

When you get to know your authentic self, there are so many people out there That, like, you were talking earlier, and I think it's a video. It might be on your website. I'm not sure. It may just be on— y'all have to check out his YouTube channel. It's amazing. But you did a presentation where you were talking and you have a piece of paper and in your hand, you like crumble the piece of paper. You're like, you're born, you have your parents. They say this. Your siblings say this. And it was such a great demonstration because it gives— I'm a very visual person. And so you start to lose your authentic self. I've been guilty of losing myself in a relationship before, and it took a while to find myself again. What would you suggest to somebody who's like, well, I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want. I don't know what my purpose is. How do I get to know my authentic self?

Yeah, I think first you have to be honest. You know, I kind of briefly mentioned, but I think first you have to be willing to get ruthlessly, radically, sincerely honest with yourself about all the ways that you are lying to yourself. Because we do lose ourselves, but we don't even know that we're lying to ourselves because we've been conditioned. And we think that who we've become is who we are because we've been conditioned. And we believe that who we are is who we are, but it's not because we've been conditioned. And so we don't even know that we're lying. And that's the challenge. We don't even know that we're lying. And so I think if we can first just begin by getting really honest with ourselves, what lies am I telling myself? And just get really honest, get really sincere, because there is no transformation without truth. There's no chance you can't meditate your way.

The truth will set you free.

The truth will set you free. And deep down, there's usually a part of us that senses the truth, knows the truth. We don't always tell it because we're afraid. We're afraid that we stay in relationships that we know are not aligned. We stay in jobs that we know are not aligned. We betray ourselves and say yes when we mean no out of fear and comfort and validation and seeking validation. So I think if we can just begin with the truth, what lies am I telling myself and take the pressure off of yourself from having to take action, because sometimes the fear of the consequence of the truth that you're going to tell scares us in so many ways. And so that the ego goes into this game of confusion, like, I'm not sure, I'm confused. I don't know. We know, we're just kind of protecting ourselves. So if you can take the pressure off of yourself from having to take action, and just start with, I'm not in love anymore, or I'm not happy, or I'm betraying myself, or I don't know myself, I'm not going to pretend I'm— I don't know who the hell I am. And just start, just start with the truth that will often begin a process inside. And sometimes the process, you might start feeling sadness, you might start feeling grief, you might start feeling sadness for the parts of yourself that you've denied, the parts of yourself that you weren't in touch with. Because here's the thing, as children, we were in touch with ourselves, we were surrendered, you know, we incarnated into this human experience. We were free, we were alive, we would jump on the table, and we weren't shy, we would sing, we didn't care if we weren't Bruno Mars, we would run naked through the house. We didn't care what we looked like on Instagram, we were just being. fully expressed who we were, fully loving. But we meet our parents, our parents, God bless them, they're interesting characters, you know, they're doing the best that they knew how to do based on their life and their parents and their generations. And so maybe dad was crazy, maybe mom's an alcoholic, maybe they're fighting all the time, maybe they didn't know how to meet our emotional needs, you know, so, and that was painful. And so 2 things happen often, which is unconscious, where we learn all sorts of strategies to shut down, disconnect, not feel, we start suppressing our emotions and feelings in order to deal with the pain, deal with the lack of needs being met. And so layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers of unfelt, unprocessed, unacknowledged feeling begin to sort of COVID up our true authentic essence. And we erect walls around ourselves in order to not feel the pain. And this becomes a mechanism and a strategy for us to function and survive. And so then we learn all sorts of strategies to get love, validation, and approval. Oh, who do I need to be for Daddy to love me? I'll be, I'll be good. I'll be nice. I'll be sweet. I'll be kind. And we start betraying, and this is where it happens. And we don't know what's happening. We start betraying parts of ourselves. Oh, Daddy doesn't love this. But when I'm this way, Daddy loves it. Oh, Mommy doesn't love what I do. But when I'm this way, Mommy, you know, tells me I'm a good boy. I'm a good girl. So we learn to develop a role, a mask, a persona, an identity, in order to get love, validation, approval. And now we end up contorting ourselves into this version of ourselves that we think we need to be to avoid pain, get love. And that becomes who we think we are. And the challenge is, we believe this is who we are, and we don't question it. So then we get into a relationship. And we've learned, oh, let me, let me be who I think my partner wants me to be. And then we end up losing ourselves in order to get love, validation, approval. And we're afraid to be unapologetically ourselves because like, if I'm really myself, maybe they won't love me. But we've been conditioned that this is the strategy and methodology to get love. And so we first have to be willing also to tell the truth. But we have to be willing to, I would say, question ourselves. Like, who am I really? Is who I am who I really am? Or is it who I've been conditioned to be? Because the degree to which we're conditioned is the degree to which we're not free. The challenge is, we are often afraid to question ourselves. What is afraid to question? Why are we afraid to surrender? Why are we afraid to change? Why are we afraid to tell the truth? What's afraid and what resists is the ego. The ego is our perceived sense of what we believe, mistakenly believe ourselves to be, that has been reinforced by society, parents, and life. The ego is what we identify ourselves as based on name, body, form, shall we say, past experiences, conditioning. And so now we've become this persona, ego that we hold tightly onto. So when you talk about tell the truth and surrender and let go and transform and change. For the ego, it's terrifying. Because for the ego, change, transformation, breaking through, letting go, surrendering feels like a death to who we perceive ourselves to be. And so that's—

But it's also scary for other people. Like when you start to change, when you start to get honest with yourself and ask these questions and surrender, then you start to to have this transformation. There are other people that are around you that might be the closest to you. Say it's a sibling or a spouse or a parent that are like, oh, you've changed.

I used to like you better before.

What?

That people say, I used to like you. I used to like the old you. I used to like who you— I used to like who you were. I don't like you now.

Oh, yeah.

I don't like you now because—

You used to do this, or you used to do that? Or, and my answer when they say, oh, you've changed. And I'm like, yeah, I have.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, so, so yes, you will, as you transform and change, you will lose people, that will be painful. But there is nothing more painful than losing yourself and living with the pain of self-betrayal. That—

there you go.

Huge pain. Most of us, we live with that pain of betraying ourselves and not being in touch with ourselves our entire lives. And we don't know why we are so sad. We don't know why we're full of grief. We don't know why we don't feel alive. We don't know why we're so freaking angry. We don't know why we're sabotaging ourselves, because internally, we don't trust ourselves because we're not honoring ourselves. So inside of ourselves, there's no inner alignment and cooperation. And so I think that If we're willing to just get honest and real, like, what lies am I telling myself? And who am I? Question, question yourself so that you can get in touch with a deeper truth. And that might require that you feel some feelings that you've learned to suppress so that you can get in touch with the authentic nature of who you really are that's underneath that. That might mean you lose people in your life.

Yes.

As you transform and shed and heal and get in touch with the deeper, authentic nature of what you are, you will lose people. You will lose people that were in love with the false version of you that you were pretending to be. You will.

But you will find people and you will know because energetically you're like, I was destined to meet you. You just attract the right people into your life. And you said something very powerful. Um, and I don't remember where I heard you say this, but you said you don't get what you pray about. You get who you are and what you are.

Yeah.

And I think when you start to become your authentic self, everything that's meant for you, you just— everything, like, like when you won the lottery to get to the United States, the green card, it's like things just start to fall into place because You were like, I am going to honor my soul, and this is my calling. And so things, I think, start to happen for you. I mean, it's incredible. You have an incredible mindset. Like, I can just tell in everything I've heard you, whether it's on YouTube or a podcast or even on Instagram. I love when you do your reels on Instagram and you're talking. And you did one, I think, on Surrendering in Sex or something like that. I think it went viral. How do you develop this champion mindset that you have? What's one tip before we go that you could share with somebody who wants to have a more resilient mindset, a more positive mindset, a mindset where they can surrender and start to transform?

Well, one is, I, you know, I really I think you have to understand and see yourself as a soul. Because unless you see yourself as a soul, then when you go through things, you will constantly be looking at what's happening and what's not happening on a very one-dimensional level. From that one-dimensional level, it's easy to get caught up in things are happening to me and being a victim. But when you understand, you know, I spoke about this earlier, when you understand that you're a soul, then it shifts your relationship to life. And rather than being going into the victim mentality, you're much more able to look at things from a soul perspective and go, if my soul is choosing to experience this, if my soul is choosing to go through this, how do we know that our soul is choosing to go through it? Because we're going through it. You can't argue with reality. We're going through it. So on some level, some part of us, the deeper part of us is seeking to go through this experience. And if I'm a soul, and life is about growth and evolution, then the question becomes, what is my soul seeking to learn? Why did my soul attract this? If that's the case, and so for me, that has really shifted my relationship to life. Because you will not be able to stop the difficulties and the challenges. It's no more than you can go to the ocean and stop the waves. The nature of life is change. The nature of life is up and down, duality, black, white, up, down, good, bad, positive, negative. It's— we live in the realm of duality. When you can accept that this is it, it's the 3D, it's never going to be perfect utopia. So I tell people, don't pray for life to get easier. Instead, understand you're a soul and work to developing the spiritual, mental, emotional, force, soul force, capacity to surf the waves of life more. And so when you see yourself as a soul, it transforms your relationship to life. You focus on the learning and the growth and the evolution no matter what happens. Then you also understand that every single thing that happens in your life, the heartbreak, the pain, the divorce, the betrayal, everything is really serving your soul's evolution. Even the darkest moment, even the most challenging moment, isn't sent to break you. It's sent so that you can face it. And it will— because it forces you to tap into a deeper dimension of yourself. It forces you to access a part of yourself, your strength that you weren't maybe in touch with up until that moment. Then you can see that, wow, these difficult, limiting, challenging experiences are not sent to break me, they've been sent to guide me, to show me, to give me the invitation to tap into something more, then you start seeing it and experiencing life differently. And I think that's, that's a huge blessing. The other thing is, I always see then from that perspective, life is always conspiring for my growth and evolution so that when things don't go my way, or when shit falls apart, life falls apart, things don't happen according to plan, and it can be painful. I always trust that the universe is always working for my highest good. Even if I don't understand it, even if from the ego's perspective, you can't see it, the universe is always working for my highest good. And if you can trust that the universe is always working for my highest good, so when that relationship doesn't work out, that must mean there is something or someone better that is seeking to unfold. You just can't see it right now. So Stay curious. Curiosity is a key quality in being resilient. Curiosity is a key quality in surrender, because when you can stay curious, you can be open to, wow, things didn't go according to plan. So what more amazing thing, what more amazing thing, what better thing is seeking to happen, that the universe is seeking to happen that I can't see right now? And I think that helps when we go through life.

Oh, that's— I wish I had a mic so I could do like a mic drop for everything you say. Mic drop on that one. It's amazing. Okay, I want to hear about this ballot. What is this event you're doing in July?

So yes, July 28th.

Would I get to like hang out with you in person?

Well, here it is, July 28th to August 8th. For the last 10 years, I have done a very special, unique event. It's called Boundless Bliss, the Bali Breakthrough Experience. It is Boundless Bliss, Boundless Bliss, Boundless Bliss, the Bali Breakthrough Experience. It's a 12-day experiential seminar training without walls where I create— it's a very intimate group, about 19-20 people— where I create a radically transformational healing process that is designed to help you become aware of your conditioning, is designed to help you clear away the layers of your conditioning, let go of the past, help you reconnect with your true nature. And also, let's say, catapult you forward to giving your gifts to the world. And so it's a 12-day step-by-step rigorous process that is, that is designed to help heal you and help free you of everything that limits you. And for the last 10 years minus the 2 years of COVID so 12 years, but 10 years specifically, I've done 20 of these events with people from all walks of life. We're talking about presidents, celebrities, billionaires, entrepreneurs, mothers, daughters, students. And so it's really designed for those that feel a calling in their hearts to, like, you know, that you've been put on the planet for a purpose bigger than yourself. And maybe you're tired of just reading the books, because I believe that information by itself doesn't transform. You can read 1,000 books and know what to do, but still keep making some of those choices that you know you shouldn't be making, because you can't help yourself, because there's certain patterns in your nervous system that keep pulling you there. So information by itself is not enough. And so I create a deeply experiential process that is designed to help free you. And it's, it's, it's life-changing. You know, it's, it's, there's many different retreats that go to Bali. And, you know, typically you'll go to Bali, you go to some rice fields, you do some yoga, you'll wake up at 9 o'clock, you do a bit of yoga, have breakfast, do a bit more yoga, go shopping. This is not that. This, this retreat is basically 24/7, nonstop, you know, 18-hour days that is really designed to help people get to the core of their conditioning and free them. It's about freedom. And it's, it's, it's—

And I think that's what we all really want, I think, is freedom.

Yeah, that's what we're seeking. Freedom, core of whatever we're doing is freedom. We, we want sex because we want to experience freedom. We do drugs because we want to experience freedom. We try to make money because we want to experience freedom. But we forget that what we are is freedom. But because of this conditioning of life, pain, trauma, dysfunction, hurt, we've become conditioned and we've lost touch with freedom. We mistakenly seek freedom in the external world. There is no freedom in the world. The depth of freedom is within us. And so I think when you get in touch with the freedom of your being, that's when you become truly powerful. And that's, that's what the experience in Bali is about.

I can only imagine. Oh, well, where can people find out more information?

Yeah, they can go see a ticket or they want to sign up, or is there like an application process? There is an application process. We don't take everyone. We really screen people a lot. Because we want to make sure that those people that feel a calling and have a deep commitment go on the journey. And so we tend to turn more people away than get accepted because we can only have 18 to 20 people. So people can go to www.boundlessblissbali.com. That's boundlessblissbali.com.

Thank you. And if you are like out on a run or you're driving and you can't write that down, don't worry, that link will be in the Show notes. It'll be on the website. It'll be on Apple, all the podcast platforms, Spotify. You'll be able to easily click that link. Now tell people where they can find you, your YouTube, your Instagram, all that, so they can see you on the daily.

Yeah, very simple. Instagram is my name, Kute Blackson. K-U-T-E Blackson. Facebook, Coop Love Now. YouTube, just punch in my name, Coop Blackson.

And where can they buy your book?

Yeah, they can buy the book on Amazon, get the paperback version because it's updated. Get it on Amazon.

But you also have free gifts if— right? If they go to your website and buy your book and they just—

yeah, put your information in. I think I— to be honest, I think they can still get those free gifts.

So last time I checked, it was still up.

Wow. We need to then— the gift that keeps on giving, themagicofsurrender.com. People can go there. And my main website, kuteblackson.com.

Thank you, Kute. Thank you so much for sharing so much wisdom. I'm definitely going to check out your event for July. I'm going to see if I can come. That would be so much fun to get to hang out. If you are ever in Dallas, I hope you'll let me know so I can treat you. Next time I'm out in LA, I'm gonna reach out to you. Hopefully I'll get to see you, but hopefully I'll get to see you in Bali. That's what I really want.

Let's do it. Let's do it.

Yeah. Thank you so much for being on the show, y'all. Thank you for tuning in. And you know what? Take a screenshot of this and tag me at Amberly Lago Motivation. Tag Coop at Coop Blackson. And I love seeing when you tag me in your story and I'll reshare that. So I appreciate you being here and making this podcast. A Top 1% Podcast and all your downloads. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll see you next week.