5 Elements Of Life- How Ancient Wisdom Can Transform Modern Living- with Nicole Goott EP 371

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Welcome back to all of our loyal listeners and a warm greeting to those joining us for the first time. I'm your host, Brian D Smith, and I'm welcoming you to another transformative episode of Grief to Growth, where we explore the intricacies of life, the universe, and our place within it. Today we're honored to host our guest Nicole Goode. She's a distinguished author, she's a spiritual facilitator, and she's a consultant whose life work is to illuminate the paths of those seeking deeper understanding, and personal growth. She was born and raised in the vibrant city of Johannesburg, South Africa. Her journey took a pivotal turn when she moved to the US at the age of 24. She became disenchanted with her career in financial services, and she sought deeper meaning and purpose, leading her to immerse herself in the rich worlds of theosophy, Indian philosophy, and various healing arts, including Reiki, biodynamic craniosacral therapy, Ayurveda, and Thai yoga bodywork. Her extensive travels to India and Thailand not only broadened her perspective, but also deepened her commitment to her spiritual practices and teaching. So for over a decade, she's been a passionate educator in yoga, meditation, and spiritual self-discovery, touching lives through her groupship, through group classes, workshops, and intensive sessions in both the United States and internationally. And she's got an upcoming book called Yoga and the Five Elements. Spiritual Wisdom for Everyday Living, and encapsulates her philosophy, offering readers a modern interpretation of ancient wisdom through a practical framework that connects the physical body with the subtle energies that influence our lives. So today what we're going to do is dive into Nicole's insights on the dynamic interplay of the five elements, the profound, the profound concept of subtle bodies, and how understanding these can lead to a life of balance, joy, and fulfillment. So you might wonder, how does this all relate to grief? Well, grief— did you know the name of the program is Grief to Growth? And so this is, I believe, Nicole's way of looking at the world as a way that we can grow after we go through a tragic event. So with that, I want to welcome Nikki Goode.

Thank you, Brian. Thank you for that really beautiful introduction. I'm really pleased and excited to be here.

Yeah, I'm glad to have you here as well. And as we were talking before we got started, you know, your work of personal transformation and growth ties directly into what I do with Grief 2 Growth, because grief— the first part of our grief journey, we might just be in shock, and we're just trying to survive. But at some point, a lot of us kind of wake up to like, what's this life all about? Why am I here? How do I move forward? And that's where I see, I think you can help our listeners. So I know you had a kind of a transformative experience after you moved to the US. So tell me how you got started in your life's work now.

Sure, I'd love to share that. Probably it goes back a little before that. Well, actually, I should say it goes way, way before that to a very early childhood memory. Which I recount often because it was so vivid and really set the stage for sort of the path that I've taken in the sense of awakening to who I am. I remember being 3 years old and sitting in the sandbox or the sandpit at school, looking around and sort of wondering where I was and wondering who all these people were. Well, these are the kids, these are the 3-year-olds. And thinking to myself, you know, who am I? And, you know, I want to go home and not home to mom and dad, but, you know, home, I guess, at the time, or as I reflect on it now, home to myself inwardly, but also home to that, that non-physical place that we're connected to as well when we're in physical form. And so those, you know, that early question just grew as I got older and You know, by the time I was in my mid-teens, I was interested in, I was interested in spirituality and yoga and anything involved with self-help and self-development. And it, you know, it kind of grew from there. But I didn't really know what my course was, what my plan was. You know, some of us, I think, bloom blossom later on. Some of us have a very clear idea of what we want to do with our life, what we feel our, our goal or our passion is. It wasn't the case for me. Um, and, and what I will say is, before I moved, um, you know, to the United States, there was, you know, a, an earlier event 4 years prior to that. I was involved actually in a serious car accident when I was 20. And, uh, you know, I remember, um, I remember the car accident from the work I did actually later in life with the somatic experiencing practitioner who helped me sort of unwind the trauma of that event. But in some ways, that, that was another propulsive force. I was already looking at the path of moving to another country following an inner call. But in some ways, the car accident also sort of propelled me on my journey forward. I became interested in how to heal the body and how to heal the mind. It was like sort of this bam, this big wake-up call. I once heard someone say at a workshop, sometimes the universe hits you over your head with a 2x4. That was my 2x4 moment.

Yeah.

Moving to the US when I was 24, it was sort of this big step into the unknown. I was still in a financial services background, and all the healing and the self-introspection, that was something I was investigating still inwardly and sort of, you could say, on the side. It wasn't till later in my later 20s that I really started to take the step outside of that plan and change focus, change direction. And that's when I began really teaching and doing healing work. And that's evolved. We never stay the same. We're always changing and growing. And so that's developed over the past you know, decade and a half. Yeah, I'll pause there.

Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that. I think it's really interesting. I think I'm always fascinated because we talked about that feeling of being 3. For me, I don't have really early memories of childhood, but I think it was around 5 where it's like that feeling of like, I don't belong here. How did I, how did I end up here? Like you said, who are these people? So there are some of us, I think, that can relate. I know I can relate to that experience.

Yeah. Yeah. And there's not a lot necessarily of examples often around us of having that early experience as a child of kind of a consciousness awakening because the personality is still developing. And here we are having this experience as a 3, 4, 5-year-old. Which is a very adult kind of way of thinking. So there's, you know, there's already a knowing and awakening that's come online. What I call that today is self-remembering. And self-remembering is the process we go through. So I take a reincarnational point of view of life. In other words, I think about the soul transmigrating through multiple lifetimes, not just a single lifetime. And that self-remembering is this process we go through lifetime through lifetime. We sort of pick up in a way where we left off, but we remember what we learned in all those successive experiences and we wake up to who we are. And then we expand that knowledge into the leading edge of our growth. So what's the, what's the new, the new frontier in this lifetime of what we're here to learn and integrate?

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting thing to explore. Because a lot of times people will say, well, reincarnation doesn't make any sense to me. Because if I were being reincarnated, I should be able to remember what I did in my past lives. Otherwise, I'm always starting from scratch. But anybody that's been around small children realizes we don't start from scratch.

Stay with us. We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

Absolutely, absolutely. It is an interesting thing to think about because just as you say, you know, the natural thinking is, oh well, I should just remember all my past lives. And actually, if you've ever had a past life memory, it's not a walk in the park. It's not this necessarily glamorous life that we've lived as like Cleopatra, you know, or Julius Caesar or some emperor. Lives have many different shades of experience, and we take on many different roles depending on what we're learning. And sometimes that can be painful. So there's almost a— the way I think about it is there's a— in the same way that the body, we don't really remember pain, and I put that in air quotes, is we don't walk around every day saying, I remember exactly how it felt when I stubbed my toe when I was 5.

Right.

It would be, it would be incredibly overwhelming to our sense, uh, sensory field to, to carry that every single moment, right? So I think, I think of it in a similar way with past lives. We trying to remember all of that could be a tremendous amount of sensory overload. What we remember is the energy because, um, so I think of the soul as energy, uh, And when we come into physical form, we come into the physical body. And so there's this dialogue that happens between soul and body, soul and personality. And so what we're bringing back is non-physical experience, non-physical memory. Not so much this idea that, okay, I have to remember it like a book that I read yesterday.

Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. And as you were saying that, it just reminded me— we're going down a little bit of a rabbit hole here, but I want to explore this a little bit because there I've seen stories of people who can remember, like, every moment of their lives. And we would think that would be a great thing, and they'd say it's a curse because they're like, it's like it just happened yesterday. So if they had an argument with someone yesterday, for most of us, that memory fades, and we kind of remember the feeling, but it's not there. And they're, they're like, for me, if I remember what my mother said to me when I was 15, I'm like right back there again. So we have to be careful what we wish for. And I think coming into this life We do kind of, in a way, we wipe the slate again. So we're not carrying all that with us. But we do carry that, that tendency and those, those lessons. And then it's really interesting that sometimes it seems like these little bumps along the way kind of remind us. So when, like when you were 20, and when you're 24, and that in the car accident, so, you know, I, everybody's got some sort of triggering event in their life, some sort of trauma or something. Propels them forward. It might be a car accident. It might be losing a loved one. It might be a divorce. It might be the loss of a job. It can be a lot of different things. But those, those things, that's what they have in common. They kind of push us forward. I agree.

I agree. And, you know, one of the things that is in what you said is, you know, I think of, I think of the experience of physical reality and non-physical reality is kind of going through 3 sort of principal phases, um, an emergence, um, and a birth, uh, a, um, a living and a sustaining of that experience, and then a gradual dissolving of and, um, retraction of that experience. And so, you know, you know, if we think of life as circular, it is in a way, but it's it's not circular going around and around. Well, it is. I'll, I'll share a parable in a moment. Sure. Um, when, when we're stuck, but more in the sense that it's a spiral that expands constantly because we're always moving in, uh, in and out of processes of an emergence. So for example, starting a new job would be something new opening up, but stepping away from the previous job or, um, or home or something that you let go of, that's a dissolving, that's a letting go of what was the form and allowing for something new to emerge. So I heard that a little bit in what you were talking about there. But I have a parable to share.

Yeah, please.

It goes something like this. I'm sure it's been retold in many different ways, but this is how I remember hearing it. So a man wakes up in the morning, gets out of bed, brushes his teeth, uh, puts on his clothes, gets dressed, walks downstairs, you know, goes out the door, walks down the street, and falls in a hole. You know, if you've— if this is familiar, if you've heard this parable.

No, sure. Yeah.

Okay. And next day, same thing. He wakes up, gets up, does his routine, goes downstairs, walks down the street, falls in the hole. And this repeats over and over and over and over until one day he wakes up and he walks down the street and he sees the hole, but he still falls in. Continues a few times over, and then he wakes up, walks down the street, sees the hole, and takes a different path. And so the parable is the story of change and you know, how we're able to let go of habits and tendencies or habitual ways of being, of seeing things, and being able to move, you know, move forward. And the reason I bring up this parable is this idea of, you know, when we self-remember, we're also bringing through the experience of what's the word I would use, where we have a repeated pattern that we have to unwind that allows us to take that next step in our growth. And sometimes it can be hard to see because we're just caught up in our own wheel, our own cycle of repetition. But eventually we get to see what that is, and then while we may not make that change right away, um, we're at least in the stage of recognizing. And then at some point, through whatever it is that helps us move forward— tools, inner changes— you know, we take a different path. Um, and, and I think that's another thing to think about with respect to self-remembering, is that we're not always stuck with the same— you know, our lot in life is not determined or predetermined as not to be changed. Um, we always have a choice. Um, I think is where I was going with it.

Yeah, I think it's a great parable because I think we can all relate to, you know, doing the same things over and over again, knowing that it's not the right thing, knowing it's not what we want to do, knowing it's not the best thing for us, but there's that habit that forms. And then, and so, but then it's recognizing, okay, now I have the choice, but we still do it. So that's the— and then eventually we— that's why we need tools though, because we need those tools to break the habits. It's not just a matter of saying, okay, I'm not going to do this anymore. So I think the parable makes a lot of sense.

So it, it ties into a way to think about, um, you know, I've been talking a lot about non-physical reality. Uh, so we're in a physical body, but we have a non-physical experience and that's what I talk about as the subtle bodies. And these are the, the other layers of our being that we experience while we're embodied, while we're in physical form. But there, we just aren't necessarily turning our attention into, in that direction, into that awareness that we have these more subtle layers of experience. So for example, If we think about where our emotions and our thoughts live, you know, then we could say that we have an embodied experience of our thoughts and our feelings because they have a— they can have a pressure and an expression through the body. But where they originate from is a more subtle level of being. Excuse me. And similarly, our, um, our path in life, our, our dharma, our unique, uh, reason for being, uh, what it is that, uh, our prime unique function is in the universe. Uh, these are these subtle levels of being that we're constantly drawing down through into physical experience. And so the, you know, part of the parable is recognizing you know, at the level of the, the mental body, for example, what are our habitual thought tendencies? So we all get caught up in likes and dislikes, for example, and that keeps us in this polarity of thinking, well, I like this and I don't like that. And that's very binary. And when we can find the middle path, there's a lot of freedom and openness in that, you know, it allows for our life force to really flow through.

So if you could explain the various bodies that we have, because I know that that can be confusing to people. It's like, well, I have, I have this body, but what's a mental body? What's a subtle body?

Right. So beyond the physical body, some of your listeners may have heard of the term an aura, or the human energy field. So I'm talking about that sort of relationship we have to what's beyond our physical body. So we have kind of 5 basic layers. There's more, but the 5 that I deal with are the ones that we're most involved with. The first is your etheric body, which is the body of vitality and health and well-being. You know, you might think of prana or life force as, as part of that field. We then have an emotional body or an astral body. So that's the level at which we, we deal with our feelings, dreams, you know, all of that inner, inner emotive experience. We have a mental body. So that's the level of not just mind, but really beliefs and values. And it's a level at which we create reality. And then we have a causal body. So causal, you can think of cause and effect, but it's also really the causal experience of your life purpose evolving, um, through lifetimes and in the particular lifetime. And then the one beyond that, the, the fifth that I deal with, is the buddhic body. And that's beyond time and space, beyond the ego personality, um, and it's the level at which we all feel our connection to each other and everything. It's the level of interdependence. And it's actually, if we can access that place, it's probably one of the most restful, peaceful places that we can experience in terms of states of consciousness and inner being, because it is free of time and space. It is free of the ego personality tendency to want to label and judge and be caught up in what I call the sensory mind, which is that place between the mental body that gets stuck in judgment and that presses on the astral or emotional body that experiences emotions that either propel us into the highs of extremes or the lows of lows.

Yeah. So how do we How do we start to access these, these various levels of ourselves, if I can put it that way? Time for a real quick break. Make sure you like and subscribe. Liking the video will show it to more people on YouTube, and subscribing will make sure you get access to all my great content in the future. And now back to the video.

So for me, finding the, the framework of the, of the subtle bodies was really life-changing because And I say this first before I answer your question specifically, because, you know, I'd been sort of studying and looking at different ways of dealing with energy and self-development, but none of it really kind of made sense. I couldn't really fit everything, the pieces together. And it wasn't until this framework came together for me that things started to click. I really started to understand that I'm more than just my physical body, that I have these other levels of experience, but also that I'm not my emotions. Those don't define me, that I'm not my thoughts either. Those aren't the definition of who I am, that there's something deeper. So part of it is, I think, I think how this framework can help others is to realize that you are multidimensional. So I think that's the first thing I think that's important to understand is the multidimensionality of experience. I think the second thing is being able to know what level you're dealing with. So in other words, what body you're in, in air quotes, So if, if, um, if I'm having an experience, uh, uh, where is that coming from and how do I, how do I unwind the, the pressure point or the trigger? Uh, so all emotions are, uh, the way I think about them are messages that come from our soul. They're, um, the communication between the soul and the personality. Uh, So if I know what that emotion is and I can see the thread of where it's coming from, it's much easier to unwind the energy and the trigger in the first place. In particular, emotions that can be very overwhelming in being able to stay present in an experience of being in a mind state of witnessing or equanimity, not being swayed by the, the waves of, of feeling. Um, and similarly with, with thoughts, being able to sit with and be with the experience of, okay, I can see my mind stream, but I don't have to be pulled into or engage with all of those levels of thinking. So, so, so one is understanding the multidimensionality. Two is understanding that there is this framework, that we have this way of, or this lens, and it's just a view, it's just a perspective. Some people may not resonate with it. It just is one, one way of looking at energy and things. And then I think the third is once we start to develop this awareness, we're awakening to what are called inner senses. So we're used to just our normal 5 sensory perceptions, what I can see with my eyes, what I can touch with my hands, what I can smell with my nose. But we actually have a whole sensory field inwardly. And once, once we're— once we start to kind of awaken to that, a whole other field of information becomes available to us. And some people might think of this as intuition. Right, feeling into or knowing something that's not just thinking into something. So thinking into versus feeling into are kind of different sensory, inner sensory experiences. So it's like developing a different muscle. So when we close our eyes, let's say, to meditate, we're actually tuning into those inner instruments of perception. We're opening up our inner visual field, to see things with our non-physical eyes, to feel things with a non-physical touch sense, etc. So that would be another step, is developing that. And you, you, you're doing it naturally every time you sit to meditate or when you are involved in a creative project. Those perceptions are there. It's, it's really just like taking a flashlight and turning your attention in that direction and saying, oh, okay, I'm aware of that now. Um, and I think, uh, the, the next step is practices that are related to those different levels, some of which I talk about in my book. Um, but I've already mentioned one, which is meditation.

What are some of the other practices?

Uh, so I use journaling a lot. I think that's a very easy and accessible tool, um, and it doesn't require a huge investment of time or coaching really, because, you know, with a piece of paper and a pen, you can just write down your own thoughts and what you're thinking and feeling and put it on the page. And it's not just a good exercise, I think, for Um, uh, it's a, it's a great exercise for emptying out the content of what's in there, but it's also another tool for reflecting, seeing, uh, you know, your own experience reflected back to you from yourself. Um, we so often, I think, uh, tell ourselves a story about ourselves to other people. That we don't necessarily know that that's the story that we're telling.

Right. Right.

So part of journaling is a way of seeing the story we're telling ourselves. And that begins the process of, okay, how can I unwind from the story? I don't have to be the story anymore.

Yeah, I think that's a great practice. And I like the meditation as well. And I think people, you know, it's interesting because I, what I always say, there's like a couple of questions that everybody has that, that these existential questions— who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going? Where did I come from? And for most of us in, in our, in our society, in our Western society, I'll say, we've been— we identify so much with our body. It's like, I— this, this is me. What do you mean, who am I? I'm this right here. This is me. And then we might move beyond that and say, well, I'm my thoughts, or I'm my emotions. And so we start to find out as we start to explore this, no, I'm not that. No, I'm not that. And then we're always left with, you know, who am I? So these frameworks, while they may not be literal, you know, there's not like a— maybe there's not a literal etheric body or whatever, but they're helpful for us to understand that we are multidimensional, that we are more than this. And that we do have these other senses that we've kind of turned down in our society. And these are ways to help us to open them up. So I'm trying to make this practical for anybody's listening going, I don't even know what they're talking about, or how this is going to help me. It's, it's that peeling away of and identifying with that spiritual aspect of ourselves. And you talked about the soul and the personality. So maybe you could define that for people that may not be familiar with those terms.

Sure. So the soul is our essence, and it's our expression of being in energetic terms. So if we're not in a body, if we're, you know, and actually, here's a way to think about it. When you go to sleep at night and you close your eyes, right, we sort of make this assumption that we're going to wake up in the morning. We don't even think about it. We just— it just happens, right? But where does our consciousness go? You know, our thinking mind. Uh, so it's a thought experiment that, that, uh, I invite listeners to make, which is when you go to sleep tonight, or whenever you listen to this, think about what happens to you, the you that you think about, your consciousness And where does that go at night? And just see where that thought experiment takes you. But so that's one, that's one practice that I'll leave listeners to do on their own. So the soul is energy, then what is its housing? What is its way of being in the world?. And so it's a— what's a vehicle? And the physical body is really just a vehicle for that consciousness, for the soul. And there's a mediator between the body and the soul, and that's the ego personality. So it's the, um, it's the veil or the, the mask or the many masks that we wear, uh, when we present ourselves into the world. How we describe our characteristics or how people describe us. Oh, she's friendly. Oh, he's easygoing. Those are just the labels of identity. But beyond that, there's a deeper essence, and that's the soul, the non-physical part of us that is in this constant dialogue with the personality. And so another way to think about the soul is, if the soul is energy, then the body is like your Earth suit, right? And your soul is the captain, and your ego personality is your chariot. And it's really taking the instructions from the soul and implementing what the soul is directing. And when we can hear what the soul is directing us to do— or another way to say it instead of soul, um, is your highest self. Mhm. Um, that might resonate more for, for some folks. Your highest self. Um, when that level of, um, wisdom and knowledge is flowing through The personality is really just taking directions, taking orders. He's the general in the captain's army, right? But what can happen is that the ego personality wants to be in control, and that's when things get tricky. That's when the soul or the voice of the higher self gets walled out a little bit. That's when we start to feel stuck. Not knowing what the next step is, feeling like our choices are binary, feeling as though there's, there's no possibilities. We get caught up in our blind spots, in our shadows, because there isn't this higher level of wisdom and illumination that's able to penetrate what is sometimes a very thick wall that's walling out this level of being. So part of why I use the framework of the subtle bodies is that we can start to see that the way the ego personality gets triggered is through the, you know, the astral body, the mental body, emotions, the sensory, our sensory experience. And that when we can bring in that higher self, that higher illumination, that higher wisdom, The sensory mind is no longer the way we are operating in the physical world, but we're operating with our higher, our higher mind, our wisdom mind. So making that distinction between am I operating, am I stuck with the person, the ego personality, am I just operating out of habit, habitual tendencies, or is there this fulfillment and satisfaction and joy, which is the higher level of being. So that's maybe another way of thinking about it, is the soul. When we're more connected to our soul, we feel an increase in life force, we feel satisfaction, we feel fulfillment, and we feel joy.

Yes, I think that's a wonderful way of putting it. Thank you for explaining that to people, to all of us, because Again, it's that this identification, and that's the thing that some of us felt, that little nagging thing when we were kids, like, this is not me. And I was kind of smiling, thinking of a friend of mine who had a near-death experience when she was like 2 years old. And she came back and she kept telling her parents, I'm not Ingrid, you know, I don't, I don't even, I don't need, they're like, who are you? I don't need a name. Because she, she connected that thing that's beyond the personality and people, people get very confused when we say this is not who I am. But some of us feel that it's like this, this doesn't, this is not really me, you know. And we have that connection. And then there's, again, to talk about these awakening periods of time, there's a time where for some reason we feel dissatisfied. We're like, this can't be all there is. This, this is, this is not the reason why I was put here. This is, this doesn't make any sense. And then we reach out to that, hopefully reach out to the higher self and realize there is purpose here.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a shift, at least I've started to notice that there's been more of a shift and a pressure to move out of the usual ways of labeling identity, who you are. Yeah, I think certainly younger and younger generations are kind of coming into the world saying, yeah, I'm not interested in that way of being. I'm not interested in you labeling me as, you know, X, Y, and Z. Um, there's, there's more to me than that. So, you know, even if we're, even if we're just looking at it from, uh, sort of the, these younger generations and the way they're doing it, I think that there's a mass consciousness that's shifting towards a realization that, um, all of us, you know, within, uh, are much more than the, the usual ways we want to, you know, we want to label ourselves. Um, you know, every, every human being has three very fundamental unifying needs: the need to be seen, the need to be heard, and the need to be understood. And that's really deeply at the soul level. I mean, sure, we could say the personality, we want to understand each other, but really fundamentally we're connecting at a soul-to-soul level. And that can be challenging, right? Because it's easy to look at the world and say, oh, well, there's a lot of good and then there's a lot of not so good. How do we stay connected to that compassion in ourselves to see that. And I think whenever we're in touch with moving beyond the personality ego and we can really see what's, you know, within, that we're each a soul all on a journey of an experience to learn and grow, can we see that we're all looking to have those 3 basic needs met? Yeah, I think that invites a much larger sense of self and a much greater awareness of the connections we share and being a little bit more tolerant and a little bit more compassionate and kind, I think.

Yeah, as you were saying that, you know, talk about identification, I just was kind of laughing at like, you know, what's going on right now. Just, I just take gender for example, you know, there are people saying I, I don't want to be labeled as this or that, and I think there's like 43 genders now. I don't to some, you know, number much higher than we would have known. And then people are like, no, no, no, there are two genders. You are male or you are female. This is what I was taught in 7th grade biology. This is the way that it is. And but there are people that say, I don't want to be put in that box. Because that's not who I am. I think identifying more at that soul level. And I think there's just one example of how we're seeing this. And I, I agree with you. And I've heard many people say that people that are coming into the world now are older souls, if you want to use that term, that are more, more developed, I guess. And they're saying they're pushing back against the way that we've done things. And I see young people— I have a daughter who's 27, and my wife and I just laugh about like, I'm like, they're just living their best lives. They, she's traveling. They're like, we're going to have experiences. We're not interested in working 8 to 5, sitting at a desk. I want to be fulfilled. And people my generation are like, it's not about being fulfilled. It's about getting the job done.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a really great point. I mean, for me, one of the ways I look at that is through the lens of COVID because I think COVID was— I mean, it was global, and it was a big shift for so many people. To re-examine and re-explore ways of being. And to your example of your daughter and her generation and wanting to have experiences and fulfillment, what, you know, to what is satisfying, what is satisfying, what really is deeply meaningful inwardly. And it's not necessarily all the ways that social and family-conditioned ideas expect or demand that to be. There's a different, uh, deeper way that we can experience that. And I think part of the world waking up to that, uh, in, in many different ways is the realization that, uh, life is so much more, uh, and it really is fundamentally that when we can experience or move through experiences from one to the other where we have that sense of deep fulfillment and satisfaction, that joy arises. So, uh, you know, it's not something that we can manufacture or, um, do a practice and say, okay, now I'm in a state of joy. Joy comes from, you know, our natural state of being when we're allowing our life force to flow through and we're not governed by what we should or shouldn't do, or dealing with the pressures of external— what's externally projected onto us, of what's expected, or what society expects or demands, or even our own conditioning that may come up and say, well, I should do this because that's how I was brought up. You know, when we unwind those tendencies, right?

Right. Well, we do. We internalize those, those things that society and our parents and teachers and everybody puts on us. And we, again, that's another thing that we misidentify with. We think that voice is ours. Excuse me. But then when it's not making us happy, we've got to realize, maybe that's not me. Maybe that's, that's coming from me. That's why it's important to tease all these things apart that you're talking about and understand this framework and really get to understand ourselves as these multidimensional, multidimensional beings.

Yeah, and you use the word happiness, and happiness and joy are sometimes, I think, interchangeably used, and I make a distinction between them. I think of happiness as an emotion, and it comes and goes, it's fleeting, whereas joy is a state of being. And when we do experience that free-flowing life force, when life force isn't stuck. And when we do experience the satisfaction and the fulfillment, joy is that natural byproduct. And I think the distinction of not searching for happiness or not— what we're really looking for is the satisfaction and the fulfillment that brings us to that inner peace and that joy.

Yes.

Happiness comes and goes. It's sort of like a roller coaster. And, and the mind wants to recreate experiences that give us that same high. So when we're seeking things that make us happy, what we're really seeking is the pleasure that we got from that. And so that what I was talking about earlier about the way the mind gets into binary thinking of likes and dislikes, what, what is going to make me feel happy? The happy emotion versus what do I fear and what do I want to run away from? So craving and aversion are often at interplay with each other, like a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth. Right. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead.

I was just going to say being able to move out of that tennis match and come to the middle.

Right, right. Exactly. That back and forth between what do we want to avoid and what do we want to— what do we think we want to have? Yeah. Your book's titled Yoga and the Five Elements: Spiritual Wisdom for Everyday Living. So we've talked about meditation, we've talked about journaling, but we haven't talked about yoga. So how does yoga tie into this?

Good question. So yoga, the way I think about it is is that it is a, it's a, it's a path and a philosophy and a way of being that allows us to open up to these multi-dimensional parts of ourselves and to bring everything into union inwardly and outwardly. So it's, so I think of yoga as harmony, harmony within and harmony outside. I think many people who are exposed to yoga today often think of it as the postural practice.

Sure.

And that's one component, certainly how it's been popularized. But yoga is also an inner practice. And when we can see that there is this vehicle for coming into union with ourself— and it's a funny thing to say, union with ourself. What are we coming into union with?

Right.

Particularly when I've been talking about making this distinction between the soul and the ego personality. And really, it's the, the unifying aspect is being able to transcend the tendency to allow the ego to be in control and to not have this disconnect or this constant battle of inner will between personality ego and the soul, and rather to bring the two into alignment and into harmony with each other such that there's just a flow of communication and energy so that we experience that fulfillment and satisfaction and that joy. So that's how I think of yoga. And the inner practices that I talk about, certainly in the book, involve meditation where we touch on different states of consciousness, different states of awareness that allow us to feel into what it means to experience inner peace. So when we free our mind— well, that's a funny way to say it now that I think about it. You know, our thinking mind, our sensory mind is always on.

Yes.

And, you know, or sometimes the expression that's used is the monkey mind. That doesn't really go away. What goes away is our engagement with that sensory mind is our capacity to step back, what I call witnessing, and to be able to observe, to observe that inner experience. So a practice is, for example, first sitting with yourself and, um, and, and getting quiet and coming home to just being with you. Sitting with your breath, which is actually really hard to do. All beginning meditation starts with breathing because it's fundamental and foundational. Thank goodness breathing— I once heard Jon Kabat-Zinn say this— thank goodness breathing is automated, because if we had to actually have mindfulness of breathing, we'd all expire.

Yes. Yes.

Pretty quickly.

Yeah.

So focusing on your breath and being able to watch your breath and to realize, okay, I'm actually observing my breathing. Well, then who's doing the observing? So, you know, there are these gradual stages of developing this witnessing capacity that leads to states of non-judgment and equanimity. So an emotional calm and emotional neutrality. And, and those are practices that are really connected with yoga because As we kind of go through the, the runs or the ladder of moving out of our lower human tendencies and human instincts, and we're able to rise above and rise through that spiritual ladder, we're reaching up for higher states of consciousness and for higher states of being. Um, so yoga typically talks about, for example, withdrawing the senses. Really what we're doing is we're withdrawing our engagement with our sensory experience. So, you know, whenever we turn on the TV or we turn on the radio, we're engaging our sensory mind, right? Because we're just taking in information and then there's some sort of categorizing and labeling happening. And if we're not necessarily sitting in present awareness, which, to be honest, we're watching Netflix, really, who is, you know, just involved in the suspending belief for a moment of watching a movie. We're just absorbing sensory information. But through stepping back, we start to observe, oh, what is that? What is the content I want to take in? What are the choices I want to make about how I feel when I engage in that sensory experience?

Yeah, that's great. And I think it's a really important thing to say, because again, a lot of times we think of yoga, we just think of the exercises and the posture. People might say, what does that have to do with what we're talking about? But it is that union. And we touched upon ego. And we touched upon monkey mind. And I find a lot of people will think, well, meditation is about like silencing my monkey mind, and you get rid of this monkey mind thing. And we think about ego, and people are like, well, my ego is a bad thing. And I hear this a lot with spiritual, spiritual people. We've got to get rid of the ego. If we can get rid of the ego, we're going to be fine. What roles do the ego and the monkey mind actually play in us, in our human experience?

So I'll start with ego first. You need your ego. It's actually— it has a function. So the understanding that I think is needed is to realize that what we're doing is transcending the ego, transcending its tendency to hold us in its needs to be satisfied of, well, this is what I like and that's what I don't like, and you need to feed me. Um, so another way I sometimes say it is you can't kill your ego and you shouldn't try, right? Uh, and that's, I think, one of the great spiritual traps is thinking that you need to kill your ego. You can't. It is also quite a long and lengthy process that requires deep spiritual maturity to reach the state where you can transcend your ego. Because, and this is talked about in some spiritual texts, that when you transcend the ego, it's like a, it's like a death. In the sense that you are able to shed, uh, all the, the binds of identity that have held you together, of the I-making self, to let go of that and to, to rest in easy comfort and easy awareness of who you are as energy, as essence. Without the need to any longer be identified with this identity, which is your ego. And that is really difficult because, like you were saying before, so many of us identify with our identity. I'm this body, I'm this job, I'm these clothes, I'm this house. What happens when you strip all of that away? And it can be really quite a spiritual crisis and quite maddening when you start to pull all that away. So I would caution anyone who's, you know, thinking, okay, well, I can just do this, I can just, you know, transcend my ego. No, it's not that simple. It is a journey, and it requires, as I was saying, you know, deep spiritual maturity and I think a real understanding of, of what that means, uh, to transcend your ego. Um, and then with respect to, with respect to the monkey mind, so our sensory mind is important because, um, you know, we are in a physical body, we're in the physical world, we're on a physical plane, and we're having physical experiences. And we're learning through form, through physical form, and those forms change. And that's the, that's the trick. That's the lesson is can we move in and out of the experience of form and formlessness? That's where the causal body and the buddhic body, that's where you start to make that crossover of being able to move beyond really time and space. Can I allow an experience to come to its natural evolution and let that dissolve and allow myself to take the next step in my growth. So being open to, as opposed to resisting, what that growth is and see what new experience comes. So the sensory mind has a role to play in that we really, we need to process what we're experiencing and translate that back to the soul so that that dialogue can happen. It's what we do in that translation process. That's where things get sticky.

Yeah. I'm glad to hear you say that. Because, again, there's this misunderstanding that people think, well, I want to just transcend all this and live as a spirit. But we came here for a reason. We have, we have a body for a reason. We, the sensory experiences we're having for a reason. And we have an ego for a reason. And ego, again, I don't think it's really necessarily an entity. To be killed anyway. It's just, it's a, it's a construct that we use to explain, well, I have to protect my body. I, if I didn't have an ego, I wouldn't understand the difference between you and me. I, I would walk in front of a bus. The bus is coming, I'd say like, it doesn't matter, the bus and I are one, you know. Um, if I didn't have it, I wouldn't go to work every day because I wouldn't, I wouldn't care about my physical. So the ego is here, but I like it's here to serve us. It's not here to be the be-all and the end-all. And I think one of the challenges as humans we set up for ourselves— because I view this as all virtual reality that we set up and we stepped into— and it's like, let's play this game. And one of the challenges we set up was like, how do I live when I'm going through these changes in form? It doesn't mean they're not real, doesn't mean they don't happen. They're not the ultimate reality. But I'm having this experience for a reason. Um, so I'm not here to kill the ego. I'm not here to silence the monkey mind, the sensory mind. And that's a lot of things with people. They meditate, they're like, I can't meditate because I can't— I just can't shut my mind off. And that's not what we're trying to do, right?

Exactly. Um, you can't. It's, it's, it's what I was saying too before, of this— it's disengaging from that, right?

Right.

Um, and to kind of borrow from what you were just saying about, um, you know, as if you were stepping into a virtual reality, just as you can step into it, you can step out of it. So you can take a step back, uh, from the, the monkey mind jungle gym and, and observe what, what's happening. That's the, that's the process of the disengaging, is to see, to see the game that's being played and then decide Do I want to, do I want to hop in or do I want to hop out?

Yeah, well, I, I love the video game analogy. My daughter and I love to play video games, and they're so immersive these days. You know, you get into it and you, you, your heart starts racing, your palms are sweaty, you're sitting on the couch but you feel like you're running through a jungle. And you can, while you're playing the game, you can realize, okay, this is just a game, I'm really sitting on the couch, but still enjoy the game. And that's why I think the challenges of being a human— it's like I can, I can, I can be immersed in all this. I can look around and see all the terrible things that are going on and all the beautiful things that are going on. And I can choose to engage with them on any level that I want to. So I— it still bothers me to see the things that are going on, the things I'd like to change. But I realize they're not the ultimate reality. So it doesn't affect me as deeply as someone who's totally identified with this.

It's interesting you say that. I'm working on a lecture at the moment related to how we see the world and what our choices are. We can choose to see the world burning and on fire, or we can choose to see the world as full of possibilities. And You know, um, we, we always have a choice in what we're doing, um, and more importantly is we all have a, um, a dharma, a path, uh, and when we're called to something, um, so we're, we're all still sitting at home reading the news digesting what's going on. And you still have your life to live. That doesn't go away. But then there are also choices and listening for a call, listening to, am I being called to something other? Am I being called to something higher? Am I being called to step into something? And sometimes it's in the moment, you know, funny enough, I was thinking about I don't know why, I guess maybe to relate this, this morning, some years ago when I was living in Boston, in Cambridge, I was coming home at night somewhere with my husband and there were all these cars, you know, kind of going up and down the road. And I noticed that there were cars kind of swerving in a really weird way. And I realized that there was a bunny in the middle of the road. And a cat. Because when you live in the city, you often have domestic cats that sometimes are let out, and they like to catch bunnies. And there was this bunny in the road. And in that moment, it wasn't really even a choice. It was, I'm getting out the car to help because that's what I felt called to in that moment. Obviously safely and with care, but it's a small, tiny example of how we can help or make a change in our life and in what's around us. And I think when we can step out of the feeling of overwhelm of, oh my gosh, I look at the world and there's so much that's on fire, what can I do? As opposed to, I'm just going to sit at home and worry and stress. And point fingers at what everybody else should be doing. Instead, you know, to sit and be with yourself and just listen quietly and inwardly. What am I called to do in this moment? Is it to write a letter to someone, you know, to reach out to a political representative in your area, or to go out and to campaign, or whatever it is that we're called to? And that's, that's, that's that dialogue that we come back to when we're not caught in the sensory mind and the ego personality, and we're instead listening to the soul. There's, there's a much higher wisdom that comes through and that can guide us. And I think that's a really important message maybe to, um, for people to hear, is to be guided, to be guided from a higher level of being. Is a very different way of experiencing yourself and reality. And that may sound lofty or, you know, far or unreal, but I'm sure if everyone were to close their eyes and just think for a moment on an experience where you were guided deeply, but you didn't think about it necessarily as your soul or your higher self or something, there was just this guidance that came from within. And we can tap into that. And let that, you know, lead us more often than not.

Yeah, as you said that, it reminded me, you know, when I was a kid, I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian. So we were always taught that there was God. So you pray to God, and God's the thing you reach out to. And then later on in life, I learned that like Catholics prayed to saints, and, and then as I became more spiritual, people said we have guides, and we've got ancestors and all that stuff. But we're— these things, what they have in common, they're all reaching outside of ourselves. And then as I became more and more immersed in, like, the practice you're talking about, it's like our highest guidance actually comes from within. It's actually our— it's our— it's that higher self, if you want to call it that, our soul. We have the wisdom that we're looking for. And that, even saying that, coming from the background, it sounds— it's gonna sound blasphemous to some people. But we can, we can turn within, and we, we have the answers within. And so this, this framework you're talking about, and, and we're coming to the end of our time, but you talk about, I know, inner and outer terrains, and this might be a great way to finish on that subject.

So the inner terrain is, you know, this whole— excuse me— inner landscape, um, of ourselves, of our, um, of our inner being, you know. And the outer terrain is how we meld the two. So we're always moving between physical and non-physical reality. I remind listeners about the thought experiment when you go to sleep tonight. Your inner experience of where your consciousness goes, your dreams, that's an inner experience. And then the outer experience of bringing that back into, you know, physical reality and moving between the two. And, and while it's a movement between the two, and there are— there is an inner and an outer, it is also a balance. And if we can hold them in equal balance, then, you know, then we can find the greatest support and foundation, uh, for ourselves, uh, because there is, you know, whenever we're following the Middle Way that's, that's where we have the clearest path, the clearest light. You know, it's normal human tendency, normal for life to, you know, be swings from the pendulum going from one end to the other, but finding that balance. So the, the, the inner terrain of all the beauty that's within exploring your own inner landscape, your own inner consciousness and inner states, and, and bringing that back into, you know, physical reality and seeing things with new eyes, bringing things back in and feeling into those experiences, uh, and being able to change your relationship to what you see outwardly, no longer as this thing that is separate from you, but rather as what is part of your universe and how what you're thinking, feeling, as you project that outwardly creates your own reality. So maybe a thought to finish on is we all have the power to create our own reality.

Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Nikki, remind people the name of your book and remind people where they can find out more about you.

Sure. Thanks. So the book is Yoga and the Five Elements: Spiritual Wisdom for Everyday Living. It's available through all online retailers. If it's in your local bookstore, please support local. So Amazon, Bookshop.org. Bookshop.org is actually an interesting way to support local by buying online because you can choose your own local bookseller, if people don't know that.

Oh, I didn't know that. That's great. Yeah.

Yep. So Bookshop.org. And then my website is my name, my full name, my birth name, nicolegoethe.com. So, um, two Os, two Ts. And I, I'm on social media very little, but you can find me on Instagram. I do have a Substack where I write. It's called A Seeker's Guide: My Search for an Ever Awakening Life. And I write about inner and outer experiences, some of what we've been talking about. So people can find me on Substack, my name. And that's, you know, that's it really.

All right, well, great. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for doing what you do, and, uh, have a great afternoon or have a great rest of your day.

Thank you. You too, Brian. Great to be here.

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