The Greatest Relationship You’ll Ever Have - with Anna Celestino

House that doesn't even exist. And I, that was sort of the moment where I said, ah, right, right, little perspective there. And so, you know, after the birthday was finished, I just thought there's just got to be more to life than this. And that's when I, I sort of went in search of something more and through a series of circumstances ended up in the spiritual community which I thought I'd stay there for three months one as they say.

So we actually had a power cut in my local area in the Irise studios in North London. And so I had to jump into my car and drive around to the nearest place where there wasn't a power cut because we've had storms just today and so we've made sure that we're here for you to make sure you can experience on his fantastic wisdom. So we've managed to get all of that sorted. So introducing Onna. So Onna is one of our special content providers here on the Irise platform. And Onna literally wrote the book on change. She's the author of Igniting from where you are to where you want to be. Her life has been a fascinating leaps off the proverbial cliff. And she grew up in the Midwest, left college and moved to California to work in the entertainment industry. And several years later she left her job at the Walt Disney company where she coordinated a year long international promotion celebrating Mickey Mouse's birthday to go in search of meaning. How powerful is that? And she spent 11 years living in residence studying and eventually teaching consciousness. So she believes in practical spirituality and is an advocate for living in the moment. So welcome to you, Onna. How are you?

Very well. I think I'm doing a little better than you might be right now. I hope you're warm there.

Yes, I think it should be okay. If not, I'll be turning the car back on to get the heating on, but all good for the moment and yes, and actually fun enough just reading your bio. It's very interesting how life throws us these curveballs just when we think everything's going to be okay to really test our levels of centeredness. And certainly I've worked in the past with kind of newsrooms and broadcast centers and this is what it's like. It's quite chaotic because things go wrong at the last minute. So yes, we have to find our center in that moment to keep the calm when everyone's losing their heads, you know, so important, isn't it?

Yeah. I worked in television production and you had to have backup plans for backup plans for backup plans because once you got that crew there and the clock started ticking, you know, it was a lot of money and you just couldn't afford to have anything go wrong. You had to be prepared for anything. So appreciate you being versatile and jumping in your car and like, as you say, the show must go on.

The show must go on. That's what, what they always say. So I know, I'm just so intrigued by your bio and your background and love to find out more about kind of your involvement in the kind of transformation industry and generally, certainly myself and many of the other providers on irise, they've been through a journey themselves. Something that's perhaps a big challenge in their lives or something which has really shifted their perspective on life. When was it when that you first realized, okay, this is what I want to do in life, that supporting people through personal transformation is really my purpose. How did you discover that?

You know, I think it was a slow build, honestly. You know, I had the job at Disney and you know, I thought that was my path. I wanted to work in entertainment and it was very glamorous and I thought, you know, that's what I really want to do do. And my last job in that business was working at the Walt Disney Company. And I ended up in a position where I was, I created sort of their synergy department. And so we got handed Mickey Mouse's 60th birthday and they said, okay, get everybody in the company involved in this. We want everybody participating. So I was working with people all over the world in our company and we had a year long promotion. It was a big event and I loved the challenge of it. I had never worked on anything that large before and I loved the challenge of it. But by the end of the time when we actually finally Mickey blew out the candles on his birthday, I was completely drained. There was nothing left. You know, I was just completely exhausted. And a friend of mine said to me, you know, you're stressing yourself out over a month. Ended up being there for 11 years. And that sort of put me on that path of really, you know, exploring the more deeper aspects of life.

Fascinating. What a fascinating juxtaposition of working for, you know, Mickey Mouse and the Walt Disney Company and then moving to a spiritual community. I mean, what a, what a wide variety of experiences you must have had. And actually reminds me of a very funny story. So I took my nephews to Disney World many, many years ago and it was, it was actually in Paris and we queued up for so long to go and meet Mickey Mouse. It Was one of those times where they weren't just walking freely around the park. So we queued up for about 40, 45 minutes. And I'm thinking, gosh, it's a very long queue just to meet Mickey Mouse for a minute. And we, and my nephews are so excited. He's a bit like life and you're so excited to have something happen. And then finally when they got there, my nephew looked at Mickey Mouse and said, who is this strange guy? I am not shaking this guy's hand. I am not giving him a hug. And this was, he was hiding away. In life we build ourselves up, don't we? This, this big attachment, this big moment and then suddenly, you know, something shifts and something changes. And actually it's not what we kind of expected. It's not that big build up or that big sense of positivity or relief that we, we kind of expected from it.

Well, and I think, you know, when I look back on my time at Disney, the things that I really remember are the moments of connection with people, you know, where there was actually something real happening there. It wasn't the anticipation or the glamour or all the things that went around it. It was in those moments of just a deeper connection with people. And so I think, I think you're right. I think we can anticipate and imagine all of these things. But you know, as they say, it's the journey, it's not the, you know, it's not the destination.

Yeah, absolutely. And then in your time in the spiritual community, I'd love to find out more about that. What kind of experiences did you have in that kind of environment that really propelled you along this path? How is it different to normal life?

Well, I think, you know, probably one of the biggest things is we, you know, we'd have, you know, talks and things where we would be, you know, given some spiritual teachings or something like that. And then we would all have the week to think about it, integrate it. And I think that's a difference is that we were always learning and integrating and learning and integrating. So what we got, we had a chance. Things were moving slowly enough that we had a chance to really be with what we were. The information we were getting and then put it into practice. Whether we were doing dishes or I worked in the garden for a while, which was a switch from working at Disney. But there I was in the garden and I loved that. So, you know, I think one of the things was just being able to slow down, really be able to, you know, listen to myself. I Think that was another thing. I think, you know, a lot of what we do in life, we're just keeping that show and dance going to, you know, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay. Then finally you stop and everything slows down and those shadow voices get a chance to be heard, and all of a sudden you're going, oh, gosh, I'm not okay. This is, you know, you start hearing things from your past. You start just hearing your inner voice. And I think when we actually get a chance to do that, we get to clear some stuff up, which was very helpful.

Yeah. You know, Anna, it's really interesting hearing you speak about it in this way, that so many of us are chasing our tail. And so many people who contact us at Irise, they say, you know, I'm just literally living life on the edge because I'm so busy with family or work or the kids, and I don't have a moment to myself. And that's actually one of the reasons we created Irise was, is there something that's just on your phone that you've got five minutes here, 10 minutes there. Can I pop in and do a meditation? Can I pop in with a. For a bit of wisdom? Because unfortunately, that's the way the world is right now. We only have these kind of pockets of small moments that we can develop ourselves and. And take a moment. And I think also, as you say, we don't have that time because of the distractions of life. Our phones. If we have a moment in the doctor's surgery or waiting for a bus, we don't reflect to have time, to become aware of our emotions. We're jumping to distractions on our phones or on our tablets straight away. And that takes us away from actually going inwards. And I'm getting that. In the spiritual community, you have the opportunity to really deeply go inwards and reflect.

Yeah, exactly. And I think I trained in shadow work facilitation as well. And so sometimes I think, you know, if you're a spiritual person, you're supposed to be bright and shiny, and sometimes I'm a little dark and twisty. You know, it's like I don't mind. Mind going into the darker places in myself. And I think, you know, one of the reasons we're so quick to grab our phones is because we don't want to hear, you know, we don't want to hear what's actually going on. Funny story, after I got divorced, I. At the end of my time at the community, I left the community I also got a divorce. And, you know, my husband and I used to have these, you know, regular arguments. And when I left the community and moved to. Back to Los Angeles and was living by myself, I realized I was having the same arguments with myself. You know, I was having the same critical voices come up that I was imposing on him, you know, how I handled my money or how, you know, what I did with my time or all of these things. And I realized in that quiet space, in my time at home alone, those were the shadow voices that were going on. And it didn't have anything to do. I mean, some things had to do with, with my husband, but a lot of the stuff was me. And. And I think that's a big part of, that's sort of the, the combo that I work with in my coaching is not only the. The tools and things that we can use to learn how to be more present, but also tools to be able.

To.

You know, tap into those inner voices, the shadow things, the shadow voices that keep us from having what we want. You know, I can say I want a relationship, or I can say I want a million dollars or whatever that might be, but if I don't feel deserving, if I don't feel worthy, if I have critical voices going on, I don't care how good your manifesting skills are, it's not going to happen. So I think, you know, I think that's a big part of it too, is being in that quiet time, not only being willing to meditate, which is wonder, but also, you know, hear what's going on, listen to what, what your inner voice is saying.

Yeah, absolutely. And we actually did a show just a couple of weeks ago around meditation and saying that the ability of meditation to calm and bring you into the moment is the first step of what meditation actually brings into our lives. And actually it's the next step of the insights into our patterns, our way of thinking, to maintain more of that observer position and to work on ourselves. And as you say, that kind of shadow work, I'm sure everyone would love to know, what do you mean by shadow work? And what is shadow work for those people who might be new to that area?

Yeah, well, I trained with a man named Cliff Barry who developed a particular shadow work program. He worked with four archetypes and four core wounds and then four processes to help us heal those four wounds. So I still work a lot with his map of the mind, like the four archetypes, I understand the four wounds that each of those archetypes have. That's the lover, warrior, magician and the sovereign. So I understand, I work with those. But more generally, I think the shadow is just the part of ourselves that we usually can't see. You know, it's the parts of ourselves that drive us in certain ways. So if I have a doubt about myself, if I have self doubt, or if I have a particular fear, I may not be aware of it, but it may be driving my choices. And so that's where we want to shine a light on those parts of ourselves that we've been unaware of, but they're still dictating how we live our lives and we want to clear those voices out. I have a tool for that. I love really simple tools. I have a tool called the emotional workout. And when you, you know, when you have an issue that you're working with, you run the course. It's like, you know, what about this? What do I feel sad about? What do I feel angry about? What am I worried about? What am I embarrassed about? We run the whole process simple. But, you know, you bring all of those feelings out into the light so you can see them and then, and then, you know, decide, is this true for me or not? And if it's not true anymore, then you make a different choice.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It reminds me of a message I had which was around, you know, the closer that we get to the light, the lighter side of ourselves, the smaller the shadow becomes. But the further we come away from the light, the longer our shadow becomes. So becoming aware of that shadow and how it might be impacting our spiritual growth is so incredibly important as we, as we say, you know, going closer to light and bringing that light up within us is one part of it. Absolutely. And. And we live sometimes in a kind of toxic positivity culture as well, where it's like, because of social media, Instagram, Facebook, we've got to present this perfect face to the outer world and convince ourselves internally that that is the, you know, the perfect world that is true for us, when actually it's not. And so I really love the work that you're doing around really getting people to be honest and truthful, going inwards and connecting with that. And I really encourage people to check out a lot of Honour's courses on the IRISE platform because they're very. Prof. Deep. I've watched some of the content and I'd love for you to experience it as well. So we're in conversation here with Ana Francesco Celestino, a beautiful name, by the way. It's a very angelic name. I love, I love your name. And soon, in about 10 minutes or so, 10 to 15 minutes, we'll be going live onto the IRISE platform for a Q and A with honor. A very special opportunity for ask her questions about her courses, her background, her beautiful wonderful insights on living life. So you can join us at iriseapp.com live events. So simply go to iriseapp.com click on the live events tab and you'll see a zoom link there and we'll be doing a Q and A with on us. I hope you can join us for that. And yes, some of you are asking, you know, why am I in the. Why am I presenting in a car? As mentioned, just 20 minutes before the interview, I was actually in a massive storm in my local area and all the electrics went out so I had to jump in my car with my laptop and, and find an area where we had a connection. A bit of a metaphor for life there that when storms are coming your way, move towards the light. Find the light and it will find you.

Find the connection. Yeah, find the connection.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's the thing, we often lose connection to our spiritual selves because of once again getting bogged down or involved in the day to days of life. The ups and downs that the pressures of life actually find the connection. It's there. It's always there. Yeah.

I had a funny thing happen this morning. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I heard this goose and I looked out the window and there was a goose on the rooftop right next to me. And it was just, you know, squawking away. And I realized that was like a metaphor. It's like when you feel lost, make some noise. And he was just up there honking away. And then eventually his friends came and, and off he went. So I thought, well, that's another good metaphor. It's like when you feel lost, make a little noise, your friends will find you.

Yes. Get the help and support that you need. So is that going to be one of the tools? Put your head out the window and squawk as loud as it should? Absolutely. So honor. We were now in this Self Love Awareness week. So to celebrate Valentine's we thought let's talk about how relationships and the base of relationships that can make them work. Often it's about self love and self awareness and so many teachers of transformation and so many relationship experts focus on the inter relational aspect. But actually it's missing a very important point which is a lot of relationship disruption can come from our own inner Wounding or core self that is impacting on the inter relational. And so I talked about the greatest relationship that you could ever have. And I'm so intrigued by that title. How does self love relate to kind of relationships? Valentine's Day? How do you see that connection?

Well, I mean, to be honest with you, relationships are not my topic. That's not my strong suit. So I was glad that we were kind of taking this in a little bit different direction. And for me, you know, this comes back to consciousness and awareness. And to me, the greatest relationship that we can have is, well, first of all with ourselves, but then I think also our relationship with life. I think life is always just standing by at the ready, wanting to participate with us, wanting to create something with us. And I think so, so many times we just, we don't think about it or we don't know how to make that connection with life. And we end up struggling and trying to do everything on our own power. When if we can get in the flow with life, it's like the full force of life comes behind us. And we probably all had moments where magic happens, you know, and, and that's because we're in the moment with life. And I always talk about how we don't have to know how, we just have to know what we need to know what we want. And then life comes and says, okay, great, here's, you know, and finds a way to make that happen.

That's a beautiful point that so many of us are thinking, how will I make my relationships work? How will I make my business work? Whereas actually if we focus on that relationship with ourselves and that inner relationship, then we don't need to necessarily answer the how it's about the what's and what is it that's driving us? What is our kind of purpose? And just want to remind everybody that Honor very kindly is presenting a workshop live on irise on Thursday 24th February. That's at 7pm UK, 11am PST, that's 2pm Eastern. And the title of that workshop is the greatest relationship you'll ever have. And once again it will be on the Irise platform. So please do join us for that iriseapp.com or you can go to App store and play store, type in Irise app and you can download the app and see all the different things that we have to offer you. And once again, irise has over 600 courses and classes, lots of different resources that can help you during this week for self love awareness week for Valentine's, lots of Courses and meditations on self love. And obviously we have honours courses there, a course called how to Lead a Nourishing Life. So, Onna, the workshop, you'll be presenting the greatest relationship that you'll ever have. Can you just give people a bit of a teaser about what they can expect in that workshop? Because I really encourage everyone to attend that. It's gonna be fantastic.

Yeah, I'm kind of excited about this. I haven't put things together quite this way before, so I'm excited. It's going to be a different workshop for me to offer. And so what I thought I would do is provide four or five of my best tips and tools to help us get in the flow so we can create that partnership with life. So, for example, on the Irise app, I have really. I have like several really short little things that you can watch. One is called essence and Flow, and that has to do with sticking with the essence of something. I'm not. Essence and flow. Sorry, essence. What is it? Essence and. Gosh. Essence and form. Sorry, Essence and form. So sticking with the essence of something, how will it feel when I have that versus trying to narrow down the form? Well, you know, if I want a relationship, he's going to be, you know, six foot, this and that and all the details. We let life figure that part out. We just have to know what. So I'm going to be doing things like essence and form, structure and flow. I have several different tools, really simple tools, but that will help you get in the flow and then be in relationship with life and create magic.

Yeah. Wow, great. Magic. I'm sure many of us would definitely need that in our lives right now. And you talk a lot about intuition as well on it, which I want to kind of just touch on. And once again, in the Q and A that's coming up in a few minutes, I'm sure many people will ask about, you know, intuition. How does. In our lives, in this essence and form that you've talked about, how does intuition feature within that?

Well, you know, I think the intuition piece is our ability to listen to ourselves, to listen to our inner voice, to be in touch with what we're feeling and thinking in the moment. I think so many times, you know, there's so much going on in the moment that we. We're just not present there. And if you're not present there, what's happening? The only place that life is happening is in the moment and the only place that change can happen is in the moment. So we want to be in tune in the moment with what we're feeling, what we're thinking. And that guides, you know, from when I was a little kid, I always loved navigating and working with the compass and the map. And so I think, you know, there's a big part of navigating our lives from our intuition. And I'm just working on a workshop that I promised to deliver to Irise that's called Reading between the Lines. And it's some tools, again, I like to tools. It's some tools to help us be able to deepen that intuition and our ability to do that.

Yeah, it really does remind me when I was a kid and we used to be driving to, I don't know, a holiday destination or somewhere fun and I'd be sitting in the back of the car and I used to just go, come on, come on, dad. You know, when are we get, when are we getting there? Come on, come on, come on. And I remember my mother actually telling me, look, just, just enjoy the view, look out the window, just enjoy what you're seeing. And I thought, no, it's boring. There are lots of fields and what. And now as an adult, I recognize the deep wisdom behind that, that actually there's so much going on in every moment. There's so much beauty that we aren't appreciating in every single moment, whether it be looking at just a flower or the beauty of our own children. And because of our very distractible minds and social media and our phones, we're missing the moment. We're totally not even living, we're just existing in some vague illusion of the future that has nothing to do with reality. And I think the work that you're doing and bringing people to that present moment and then navigating life from that place is just so powerful.

One of my favorite authors, Jacob Needleman, talks about, he has a book called Bunny and the Meaning of Life. And he talks about how the meaning of life is our ability to live in both worlds at the same time. So to be able to, it's like that cross mirrored, it's that crossover point where we're, we're aware of our inner world and we're also present in the outer world. And, and, and I just love that it's, to me, it's the most simple explanation of the meaning of life is just being able to be aware of what I'm experiencing in the moment and then also participating. So like in this moment we're live, it's, you know, there's some excitement about it, a little I'm a little anxious, but I'm aware that that's all going on and I'm still present with you and, and talking with you. So it's. I, I think in those moments, like I said, when, like in, you know, working at Disney, the, the moments that I remember were, was. Were when I was connecting with a per. With another person, you know, I was present with them. And that, that's because those moments had meaning to me versus a birthday party for a mouse that didn't exist.

I think that's a beautiful way to kind of conclude our interview here. And so for those of you who've enjoyed our chat today, please do come onto the Irise platform. We'll be going live on Zoom with Honor. She'll be here to answer your questions and go deeper into some of the subject matter that we've covered. I can't recommend it enough, so join us@iriseapp.com you can join us via the website where if you go to iriseapp.com click on the Live Events tab, you'll be able to see the Zoom link for today. And also if you want to download the app, go to App Store or Play Store, download the app, and you'll also be able to join us for the live event. So, Onna, it's been an absolute honor to be with you today and experience your wisdom and your insights and any final words you'd like to leave everyone with before.

I'd just like to say it's been a pleasure to be here and to finally meet you, Ashok. And also, I love mission that you guys have with your. With creating this app of uplifting, you know, billions of people. I think that's a wonderful mission. So I support you and everything you're doing, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the app myself.

Oh, fantastic, Otto, That's. That's so nice of you to say. Yes, we're here, Irise. We're on a mission to empower humanity and uplift a billion lives. We're here to really make a difference in the lives of everybody by giving everyone the. The best tools, the created courses and classes that whatever mental, physical, emotional, spiritual challenge people are facing or however they want to grow and transform, it's all there on the app for a simply simple monthly fee. And so we want to make it accessible to everyone on the planet. Definitely. Great. All right, thank you so much, Anna. And we'll go on to our Q and A in a few moments on Zoom. Thank you, everybody, for joining. And just to let you know, we'll be having a workshop on self love. I'll be conducting that on Tuesday during Self Love Awareness week. So please do join us for that. 7pm on Tuesday the 15th and on Thursday the 17th we'll be interviewing Anadea Judith, a very known and very well accomplished author and expert on chakras. We'll be interviewing her at 8pm UK time on Thursday the 17th. So thank you so much for watching. See you next time everyone. Goodbye. Bye everyone.