Capitalism & Christianity: Exploring Business and Spirituality w/ Suzy Batiz

And my only prayer was that that not happen to her. That's it. And I can feel like right now I want to cry. You know, it's such a. Such a betrayal in my mind. So what do you do when you are betrayed? You betray, right?

Hey, Ryan.

Oh, hey, Susie.

Thanks for being here.

Of course.

Okay, so, yeah, I told you we were just talking about this podcast and I said, oh, I interviewed a few people, never did anything with it. And then last night you said something that I felt alive in my body. And I was like, hold on, I want to talk about this. Right. And tell me a little bit about your past. Like you were a preacher.

I was going to school with the intent on becoming a pastor. So I grew up in the North American Baptist Church and for most of my life thought that I was going to be a pastor of some kind. A youth pastor leading a church. I would be involved in the church in full time ministry.

Right now. Your voice sounds like a pastor.

Some would say I still became one.

Oh, interesting.

You know, so.

I'm going to go just a cannonball into a rapid.

Hold on a second. What's North American Baptist like? I grew up with Southern Baptist. What's North American Baptist?

A different kind of Baptist.

That'S only in North America apparently, right?

I don't know.

Okay. That's just what it is.

I grew up in the Baptist church and my little collection of churches that was their own denomination was the nab, The North American Baptist Church. Yeah.

Wow.

Never heard of that. And I was also involved in the Christian Missionary alliance, which is just another group of churches that is mostly a Baptist church.

You were in hard?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I was in. I was in real hard. I went to a Wesleyan school. I was well balanced in my different denominations. But I made the statement that some say I still am a pastor. I prayed a really dangerous prayer when I was maybe 17 or 18, which was.

God, I want to know the truth. So no matter how painful it is, no matter where you have to lead me, no matter what I have to give up. Please put me on the path that leads me to truth. So that's a danger. That's a dangerous ask.

I actually felt nervous when you said that. Like shit.

And that led me my pursuit of truth. I just had this assumption that the pursuit of truth is also the pursuit of God. So if you're honestly pursuing truth.

Yeah.

Then even, even if I don't come to the right list of conclusions, I think God honors that. I think the pursuit of truth is the pursuit of God. And it led me away from church.

Now let me ask you something. When you asked that as a 17 year old, were you assuming you were going to be led deeper into the doctrine of Christianity?

Absolutely.

Okay.

Absolutely. So read the Bible cover to cover.

Yeah.

That opened up some questions.

Really, These people are angry.

And also it's so easy for us to read the text in our North American culture. And the American version of Christianity is a little different. We love the lists of things to do and not to do. It's very black and white here. It's not that way everywhere in the world. So. Yeah, so. So the, the Americanized Christianity that we have is very, I would say, off path of the message that Jesus had and we interpret it through our own cultural lens and we assume that's the, the way of the religion or the way of the faith. And I will still to this day say I haven't so much rejected God or the person of Christ as much as I've rejected the Americanized black and white Christianity.

Yeah.

And basically no one disagrees with me when I say that until we start going into what that means.

So this was, this was my childhood and I think I shared a little bit last night with it. But I was raised super conservative Christian. Right. You're going to go to hell if you dance. Or actually even in church you can't even have instruments because, because God apparently doesn't like pianos.

We used to say in college that there was no sex allowed because it might lead to dancing.

Right. So that's it. So if you dance, you're going to go to hell. Right. So basically anything you did, you were going to hell. And I remember I used to, and I had.

No open minded people around me. I grew up in the sticks of Arkansas in the rice fields. And, but just naturally I would say, okay, let me get this right. There's this guy who lives in heaven. And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, and he loves me. Yes. But if I wear shorts or I dance, he's going to burn me in hell forever. And they're like, yes. I'm like, but he loves me like, yeah. And like. And then also my, you know, my stepfather's a deacon in the church preaching this to me as he's molesting me. So I had always these really conflicting things within me. And let me tell you something more interesting. When I was being molested, guess what? I went to church. I went to praying. I would pray to God every single night that I could take this. And for this not to happen to my sister, right? Because I wanted to protect her. But I never even dawned on me because I had no power. Because in Christianity, I wasn't taught that I do anything. God or Jesus does everything through me. So I went straight to praying every night rather than taking any kind of physical action. So that kind of loops back to this conversation. And then when I found out, you know, that my sister was molested, I was honestly like, you know what? Fuck you. Like, fuck you. Fuck you, God, fuck you people. Fuck all of you. And I abandoned any concept. I just was like, you know what? I'm not gonna feel this burning in my belly. I feel this like, oh, God, you're gonna bur in hell for saying this, Susie. But I was. I was so angry, like how you are the one that can make these things happen and you didn't do anything, right? You let this happen. And my only prayer was that that not happened to her. That's it. And I can feel like right now I want to cry, you know, it's such a. Such a betrayal in my mind. So what do you do when you are betrayed? You betray, right? So I just abandoned it and was just. So it's always been a dance. And ironically, I live in a church, right? So when you told me you just did these medicine journeys and religion, I'm like, okay, I want to hear more. Because I just had a dance with religion and unwinding some of this core fear and some of. I'd unwound a lot of the anger with God.

But unwinding this really core seeped in my bones. Fear that was actually brainwashed. It was brainwashing. When you look at actually what was happening, watching these videos of Armageddon and as a child hearing all the time. So imagine putting this together. If I wear shorts, I'm going to go to hell. And then I'm being shown these videos of Armageddon. And you see, like, I can just hear these words. It's like the gnashing of the teeth, the clawing of the fingernails, the voices screaming for eternity right? Now. Tell me that's not fucked up.

Yeah, it is.

The whole situation. And I'm like, I don't understand this. God is supposed to be a loving God. So I had all these conflicts within me. So I want to hear what the hell you found out in ceremony. Because I've not ever faced this in ceremony.

So I have done two three day Ayahuasca retreats.

And religion has come up in both of them very heavily.

Really.

The first was like A reconciliation of my religious background. In fact, so much that I would say I would have rejected the idea that I was a Christian. So if somebody had, like you said, asked you, are you a Christian? I would have said, no, I'm not a Christian. After my first Ayahuasca retreat, I would have been very comfortable saying, I am a Christian because. Because the difference is realizing the unicity of everything and understanding that Christianity is simply the route through which it is the context through which I understand what I call God. Oh, interesting that Jesus was a teacher for me to understand what I call God, for him to point to the source that we're all seeking, that is in all of us. And the way that I described it to someone was that I realize now that consciousness or God is like the ocean and we are like fish in the ocean. We're swimming in it.

Yes.

And someone wades into the ocean about ankle deep with a cup and drops down and puts the cup in the water and brings this cup back to his village and says, this is God, and puts it out on a table.

I got it.

And everyone looks at the cup and says, this is God. How do we experience God? Well, first you have to sit down here and bring it up to your lips and don't drop it.

Yeah.

And meanwhile, there's just this ocean filled with God.

I love this.

And we condense our idea of who God is into this cup, completely forgetting that we can just go do a dive and swim in it all the time and experience it versus don't drink it, because there'll be less for this person. And. And we. We contain it rather than it being everything, it being all. It being all that is all that was. Nothing exists without it. Which is a paraphrase from. From John.

Yeah.

So that was. That was my first reconciliation, in fact, my, My. When I went up for my. My ventiyada at the end of one of my ceremonies. My shaman sometimes will make snarky comments to me at the end of ceremonies. He's just awesome. I sit down there and he looks at me. He says, for your ventiata, I think we need to call on our gigantic friend, Jesus Christo. And I don't know what he's saying or anything like that, but. But it meant so much to me in that moment because I had been experiencing that all of the things that I had learned or been holding on to or resisting were really now ways that I can practice. I can have a spiritual practice through the context of Christianity that brings me closer to God. I can now Use the religion and the spirituality that I was brought up with as a portal, as a way for me to continue to cultivate what I call God versus it being the only exclusive way.

Right. Well, what about this? Do you believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the light, and the only way you can get to heaven is through Jesus.

So can we break that into pieces?

I just know this question because I've been asked a lot.

Yeah.

So.

If we read that as an exclusive statement, no one comes to the Father except through me.

Right.

I'm the only way. I have to reject that.

Right.

But if we. And forgive me, I haven't done a biblical word study on this. And shout out to any nerds who know what that is, a biblical word study, which is really.

I have no idea what it is.

Basically, you break apart the individual words, look them up in the Greek etymology.

Yeah.

See how they were applied in other ways. So you have a deep understanding of this.

I like this.

But when I hear I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, I think it is also true. Flipped. You are the way, you are the truth, you are the life. No one comes to Father, except through yourself.

Yes.

So it is much more, in my opinion, a much more universalist statement.

Yeah.

Than.

Saying I'm the only way.

Yes.

I have the answers. It is not that. When I read the teachings of Jesus now I view them more as.

An individual who understood his own divinity.

Yes.

And was speaking from that place. So I'm holding my journal in front of you with it, has all my notes from my last ceremony. And I would like to read you the very first thing I wrote down.

So after. After coming above water, if you will, my intention going in was finding my happiest path. And I've done a lot of work over the last 18 months to clear the past. You know that we've both done emdr, and I've done therapy and all kinds of things. Like, I clear out the traumas and the junk of the past. And that was all really helpful for me. And now I feel like I've done enough of it and I want to open up the next chapter. Susie. It's like, I'm ready for the next chapter. Like, I'm so thankful I did all this work. Now what?

Yeah. I want a breath.

And so that was my intention. Show me my happiest path. Show me where I can be of the greatest service.

Yeah.

This is the first thing I wrote down. Are you ready?

Yeah.

Quote, whoever tries to find his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. Oh, so this is. This is interpreted as.

In the Christian church, this is interpreted as Jesus saying, you know, pick up your cross and carry me. I'm the way. Follow me. But if we interpret it as a more universalist, more universal statement, whoever tries to find his life will lose it.

Yes.

I think about the context through which I was operating, like, show me my happiest path, show me the things I can do to be the best. Me is kind of an inherently selfish perspective.

But the way we really find ourselves is by giving up our lives in service to others.

Wow.

Service to our peers, service to the earth, service to something. Right. Our lives don't really have meaning unless we are willing to give them up for something.

Yes.

And we spend so much time thinking about what is my purpose, what is, what can I do that will bring me happiness, wealth and love so that I can feel good? But we really don't get those things unless we are giving them to something that is greater than ourselves. That is. That's the search for meaning, if you will. So the first thing that came up for me was if you try to find your life, you will lose it because it's not found.

But if you give up your life for a cause, a person, for a belief, for others, we only really under understand ourselves in the context of other people.

But it says in there for me, so I can see I interpreted Jesus as, you have to give your life up to me. Right.

Well, he also said in our American translation, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.

Oh, interesting.

Do you know the Old Testament name of God?

No. Oh, no.

So Yahweh, which is translated as I am Moses at the burning bush, who should I tell them? Sent me. Tell them I am that I am sent you, I am is the most universal statement. The name of God is universal. Jesus saying, yahweh the truth, Yahweh the life. Yahweh the way to me is a much more universal statement. So I now, when Jesus says me, I now read it, hear it, feel it as all.

All. Yes.

It's not.

I'm the glass of water that represents the all.

Yes.

Yes.

And we're the ocean.

Yes.

So whoever loses his life for the ocean will be poured back in.

Yeah. Oh, that's so good. That's incredible.

Have you experienced in your ceremonies that were not separate?

100%.

And it's such an illusion that we're separate. We are wired to be together on some cosmic level? Almost so.

That'S why I now interpret the words of Jesus through that lens of him having that knowing of him teaching from that place. And so when he's saying me or I am, I read that as us all.

You know, what I'm appreciating about this right now, Ryan, is I don't feel any arrogance in your statement when you say that. And I will tell you, there's a lot of people.

Even people that talk about Christ consciousness, you know, like, I am Christ. And there's a level of arrogance that I don't resonate with. With some people. Right. It's like. I don't know if that's right either. It's not that the statement's not right. It's just the energy from which they're coming. Right. So it's like they've adopted on this superpower supernova that I am Jesus and I am that, yet I. It is a. It's a Persona or a character. It truly isn't all of that. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Huh? Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know that I'm right. And I.

It feels true to me, so I appreciate that.

I don't. I don't know for certain, because I was. I've only understood in the last few years what my teachers and professors said when they said that the spiritual path is a lifelong journey. And so I'm 31. What do I know this life.

You know, What I'm saying, though, is I don't claim to know. This is my experience as the result of 14 years post praying a prayer of, please put me on the path that leads me toward truth. And I hope that five years from now, I'm a little bit closer to the truth, because I believe that I'm five years closer to the truth than I was five years ago. And so this is a path. This is a journey.

So when you say, I am Christian, so in my mind, I.

Put you in a box that you are not Muslim, you are not Jewish, you are not. Right. You are. You are not those other things. So I'm curious about that.

I think that's the same thing as saying, I am white, I am black.

Oh, interesting.

I'm Hispanic.

Yeah.

They're cultural reflections of something that does not separate us. And I might have things in my culture that kind of conflict with your culture, but I still understand that you're a human being on your own journey.

Yeah.

And it's a really. We're in this very polarized culture where we want to groupify everything.

Yes.

We want to Label everything, which in my opinion, takes the individual completely out of it. You're no longer. I'm no longer Ryan. I'm now white Christian male. And that gives someone else the ability to judge who they think I am. Gosh, you know, Christianity and religions are the same.

I do judge. You know, I was on Bumble for, like, a minute, and that's how we met.

That's how this.

Exactly. That's it. It's our second date.

We decided to go there really deep with Jesus. But I see people, and when they. When they mark Christian, I swipe left because of my upbringing, right? So I judge that. Oh, boy, I'm gonna, you know, be in that.

That really confined box that I grew up in. What you're talking about all day long, I'll buy in. I'm in. Sounds great, but that was not my experience. I remember Byron, Katie once doing the work on someone, and this woman was really suffering, saying, my sister always witnesses to me. And Katie says, okay, like, what's that? And she said, well, she's always witnessing, trying to get me to take Jesus into her heart. And Katie goes, okay. And Katie goes, well, do that to me and pretend like you're your sister and do that. And the girl says, will you take Jesus into your heart? And Katie goes, yes.

And she goes, well, you know, And Katie goes, I have a big heart. It's big enough for Jesus, Buddha, Krishna. I'll take all of these into my heart, Right? And it was interesting how disarmed that was the first time I was like, oh, hold on. I've resisted this so much, Right? So what part of that. What am I resisting?

Yeah.

And I think basically you're here to witness to me.

That's the flip.

But I do want to tell you one other thing. So also, my father was diagnosed bipolar in his 50s, and he was an alcoholic his whole life. But he used to teach me. And he had no concept of metaphysics, right? This was God, you know, 40, 50 years ago. So my whole childhood, he was telling me how the universe works. He would tell me, you cannot believe in angels and not believe there's a devil. There is good and there is bad, that the universe is balanced. He would draw me out pictures of how the universe works. He would go into churches and he would say, here's actually what Jesus means. So he would preach to them. He would tell me. But because everyone said he was crazy, I even dismissed what he said, right? So fast forward to after my bankruptcy, and I started studying other religions. I got into metaphysics. And I called him and I'm like, daddy. I'm like, you know all that stuff you taught me when you grew up? I go, there's a word for it. He goes, what? And I go, metaphysics. He's like, well, wow. You know, he had no clue. He was really just tuned in. He understood the Bible and the doctrine from what you're saying, but he understood it intuitively. And he would say things like, you are Christ consciousness. This is what Jesus means when he said that, which was super progressive. Had he lived in California, he probably would have been a guru, right? But he lived in the sticks of Arkansas. He was the crazy man in town.

I would like to invite you to consider.

The idea that those who wrote the Bible and those who interpreted the Bible later were operating with their best understanding of God that they had at the time.

Oh, wow.

So when I was there, there are some people who read the text and they interpret it as. As.

Negative toward women.

I heard a really good reframe on this that really changed the way that I read Scripture, which is. If you don't read the trend of scripture, which is a reflection of cultures at the time, so you have women treated one way, Old Testament, and the laws being written to liberate women a little bit, and then later on they're liberated more. Jesus comes and was an enormous liberator. He broke cultural norms, talked to women alone, which was naughty. He then later in. In action in the church, they had women leaders. In the year 50 AD, there were women leaders in the Christian church. So the Bible actually reflects a trend of liberating women. Now, the reason I use that as an example is because we often take things and read them and apply them to how we are now. And that's a misunderstanding of what is being communicated on a much deeper level. So when someone reads a passage about slavery, they say, oh, see this can. This condones slavery. I'm throwing this out. But what they're missing is that the laws written about slavery were for slave owners, which were extremely progressive at the time about how they should be treated, which was an enormous step forward at that time. So there is a tremendous amount of liberation, freedom, respect in the context of Scripture. And when we try to interpret it in our own context, we completely lose that. It's a very judgmental way that we view it. So when someone.

Tries to draw conclusions differently than your. Was it your mentor or your teacher draw about metaphysics?

That was my dad.

Oh, it was your dad. Okay. So when somebody does something different, like in the beginning, God Created the heavens and the earth. And I'm going to put this together. It looks like this was written 6,000 years ago. So the world is 6,000 years. We have completely missed the point of what is being communicated. We call that proof texting in Christianity. So there's this enormous temptation to try and read the Bible in our own immediate setting and then judge it when in reality there's a much deeper meaning that allows me to feel comfortable calling myself a Christian if someone asks me. So that's why I don't push away that label. And I'm very hesitant to draw a lot of conclusions about someone when they say, I am a Christian or I'm a this or I'm.

So at the beginning, you said you show me the truth. That sounds like.

A serious jaunt to find the truth yet. Are you ever going to find it?

I.

Because if so, I'm going to run from you.

Yeah, I would encourage you to do so.

I think I will find truths, but can we.

Can I go down a rabbit hole?

Oh, I love it.

All right. So my interpretation of God is the unicity of everything. And so God creating the heavens and the earth, God creating us is him creating and reflecting himself to understand Himself more.

So are you still. Are you still with me?

I am.

Okay. Step one, complete. So God is experiencing himself more fully.

Yes.

Through creating.

Yes.

And therefore there is always going to be a deeper understanding. There is always going to be a closer to what you called the truth.

Yeah. Okay.

There is no end to the pursuit of truth because even God and his infinite understanding wants to understand deeper.

So who am I to think that I'll ever find the truth?

God?

Yeah. I feel really relaxed when you say that. Like, my shoulders drop, like, oh, thank you.

I can stop now, right? I can stop. Stop this hellacious pursuit.

Well, it's the idea that there's a pursuit of an answer that completes it.

Yeah.

When I was.

They say the same thing in Buddhism. Like in meditation, it's that pursuit of that. Or even in Hinduism or in Eastern philosophy of that, you're going to get to nirvana or to this enlightened state of being, you know, as if that's an end point to anything, but it's also the pursuit of which keeps you from that. Right.

Yeah. And even if you were to achieve nirvana, there's still a deeper level that comes. You're not, like, done.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah.

That's like, now you've started.

Yeah. Now you turn the faucet on.

Yeah, right, right.

Wow.

I think you should be a preacher.

Some say I already am. Yeah.

So, okay, let me ask you this. So why do you run? Why is your conference called Capitalism Conference? Because it's seriously still a disconnect. Because, you know, I didn't want to go. I was like. But JP was like, I think you'll really dig Ryan and his group. I'm like, I had a yes in my body, but my mind was so confused. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna go talk to 600 white guys about money. Like, I'm not even interested in that subject. So, yeah, I just want to. This feels like a completely different person than that label or that name.

So my company's capitalism.com conference where we met is the Capitalism Conference. I am just noticing that you have the same judgments about capitalism as you do about the word Christian.

I do.

Yikes.

So. And it's. And it's a common judgment. Yeah, It's a common judgment that capitalism is dog eat dog, which may have been our highest expression 500 years ago.

Yeah.

Today, you and I both know that what we collaborate on and create is much, much bigger than what I can do or you can do by ourselves. So capitalism is very simply the way that we organize, coming together to collectively solve problems. So this interpretation that capitalism is one person getting rich at the expense of others is a misunderstanding. Capitalism is the system through which we find a way to work together to serve the collective. Capitalism is incredibly collective. I think we agree that environmental challenges, even climate change, will be solved not by restrictions, but by innovation.

100%.

By people coming together and creating something new that serves the collective.

Interesting.

That's called capitalism.

So would you say there's. And I'm not an expert in this. Is there as much innovation in a socialist country?

No.

Exactly.

Hmm. That's interesting. What's the definition of capitalism? I don't even know.

Capitalism is the system through which individuals are incentivized to serve one another.

That's it.

That's it. Wow.

Yeah. I have.

It's all about money because money is the byproduct of what happens when we serve one another. So money.

Well, one byproduct. It's not always.

It's. It's a. It's a data point.

Yeah.

It's a measurement. It's. It's. It's our way of expressing attention. Money is simply attention.

Yeah.

That we're applying to something. And that's why I believe money is the result. Right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the cause. People always ask Me, it's the energy that is produced from. Right. So people always ask me about money and going towards money. I'm like, I don't even know how much money I have. Right. It's like I create and things come together and people come together, and the offshoot of that is an energetic form that money is a part of that. It's not all of it.

Really. Do believe that money is an illusion.

100%.

It's a bunch of. Well, I always crack up. I'm like, okay, so these are other questions I always ask when I was young. So if you have a bunch of lines and the more you have that are straight and the more you have that are curvy, and the number of those all together actually mean something. Does that make sense? Like, you've got.

I didn't follow that.

So, like, you got like a straight line down. Then you have like a curvy line and a curvy line or a straight line and a squiggly line or eight line. But all of those together. And the more those little lines are together, the more it means something important.

Yep. Okay.

And it's really just a bunch of damn lines. Right. You look at your bank account. Is that real?

No.

Exactly. It's so funny.

Yeah. And so I really do believe that it's just a way for us to make agreements, to pay attention to something. So if we transact something, dollars are the way that we solidify that.

But how do you keep from being so transactional?

I think you, if you're pursuing the result of the transaction, you are now transactional because you're in pursuit of the money. You're pursuing an illusion. We might call that idol worship. It's a. It's a false thing that we're pursuing. So the way we avoid being transactional is by giving up our lives so that we will find it, by being in commitment to something that is bigger than us. So much so that other people are drawn to that, and we are now creating that together. That's how people get rich.

Yeah.

They create something that wasn't there. That makes the collective better.

You know, I can truly say that my mentor, gay. He will, you know, I'll say, how. How you doing today? And he's like, great. I got a, you know, big old check in from one of my books. You know, I'll call him another day. How you doing today? Great. I won $100 in golf. They're completely equal. Like, in his mind, it doesn't matter how big it is. You know, I'M saying. And it's always such a. Or, you know, I lost $20 in golf or. That is no different than, you know, Netflix not picking up the sports and now Amazon's going to. You know, it's. I'm always so amazed at his interest in currency as a play form, but the lack of attachment to the amount of it. Right, yeah. It is a playful, fascinating.

It is a playful.

Okay, let's get back to religion. Okay. We went off on a little. Yeah. So why does God only like money? Why in church do you have to give God all your money?

That's what I really want to know.

My grandmother used to. My grandmother dirt poor. I mean, my grandfather worked at a. A little mill. You know, like, I mean, poor, poor, poor. Right. And he. She used to give all of her money to Jim. Was it Jimmy Swaggart or.

Yes, you know.

Yes. One of these, you know, televangelists on tv.

Yeah.

So why do some people.

Yeah, I do. I actually do have something to say about this. I'm surprising myself that I have something to say about it. Okay, so the early church.

Basically operated under a socialist policy. You made money and you brought it into the community and they took care of widows and orphans.

Right.

And it was all voluntary, completely 100% voluntary.

Yeah.

That was the purpose of the establishment of the church. It was to have. Now I run capitalism.com, i do not believe in socialism. I think it's quite literally the devil. But when there is no force applied, when it's voluntary and you're in service of someone else, you can express that however you'd like, and it is more effective than when it is forceful. So the early church got together, had basically a very large common purse, if you will, that they used to directly take care of other people. That was their community. That was how they served, took care of and protected one another. And we have then institutionalized that in two ways. We've institutionalized it with official churches that require tithing so that you can pay the salaries of the people who are running the operation, which is what happens when money becomes the aim. You just are looking for money to keep operations going rather than the money going into service. If they just flipped the model and they said, we're now going to distribute this money to those who need it, widows and orphans, you would actually create more abundance because now you are literally incentivized for us to serve one another. We are biologically wired to work harder to support people we love than ourselves. So if you know that we as A group are quite literally bringing our resources together to serve one another. There's a chance that we're now hardwired to work harder and bring that. To serve one another.

Interesting.

And there would be more for the pastor to then take home. Like, there would just be a bigger pot. So when we institutionalize it and it becomes about operations, we lose the reason and the meaning it's there in the first place.

So do you feel scared talking about this? Like, your viewpoint on religion, on Christianity?

Zero.

Gosh. See, I do still a little. I'm like, oh, shit, here we go. I have the little fear of that punishment of, you know, people will reject me or think, oh, God, she's not Christian. Like, what's going to happen?

I have been afraid to talk about it, not because I'm afraid of how people will perceive it, but up until recently, I felt like it was. It conflicted with my message. As somebody who talks a lot about business and money.

Yeah.

And now I realize it's all the same. It's the same.

It's the same. Yeah.

It's all the same pursuit. So.

I love talking about it. I have no fears at all.

I want more conversations on this because this is something I'm journeying through. I told you just two months ago, I did all this work on getting rid of. I think the fear. I think all of that ingrained fear was blocking me a lot. So now that I actually did EMDR on that, on this programming, Christian programming or religious programming. And I know that even with my father, there's a source of truth that I understood what he was talking about. So I've naturally leaned a little more towards metaphysics because it's more inclusive. Right. And I veered away from Christianity, actually repelled it, you know, like, oh, my God, get away from me because of all of that old dogma. But I'm interested more in inclusivity, and it's just a new journey for me. Like, hold on. I feel it in my belly a little bit, like, oh, boy. And I feel a little scared. Like, oh, my God, what if I become Christian? Like, that's going to be a plot twist. Right.

That'll be funny. I'll make a lot of people happy.

And I do believe in Jesus and I love Jesus and I think he's awesome. And from what I've been told, that's different than being Christian, you know?

Yeah, it is. And I think you have to be willing to risk becoming a Christian.

Yeah.

And it won't happen in the form of an altar call. Praying a prayer, accepting Jesus, having a conversion.

Right.

You might just wake up one day and say, I think I really jive with the teachings of Jesus.

Yeah, I do jive with the teachings of Jesus, hands down. What I don't jive with is the dogma of Christianity in the way I was present. Served it. Right.

So let me.

It's like, I like broccoli, but I don't like the way you make it. Right.

Well, so we've talked a lot about religion. Let's. Let's use its contrast of politics as an example. Since you can't talk about those.

Let's talk. And then we're going to talk about sex after that.

That would get just fine with me. So. So in the lens of politics, someone might say, I believe in freedom. I believe in personal responsibility. I believe in property rights. I believe in.

In staying out of each other's bedrooms and other people's bank accounts.

Right.

But. So these are all things I do believe.

But I'm not popular at a libertarian convention. Yeah, it's. It's. Sorry, sorry, libs. They're a bunch of weirdos.

I actually called myself a libertarian for a while.

What's that?

I actually identified as a libertarian.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's the closest label.

Yeah.

That I would put on myself. But the. But once it's institutionalized, it's pretty radical. It becomes, it becomes a. It becomes weird because now we are debating what type of force we are going to use to maintain our illusions.

Right.

So. So.

Like, politically, my bias is I tend to vote Republican on the federal level and Democrat on the local level. That's my bias.

Yeah.

But to try and as soon as you identify with something. I'm Libertarian. I vote Libertarian. You've now found truth rather than are in pursuit of it.

Yeah.

So that's why I say, if you become a Christian, and I'm using quotes with my fingers. If you become a Christian and you use that as the label and you are now deflecting the other things that might be truthful now you're not in the pursuit of truth anymore, which is why you will just wake up and say, I really like the teachings of Jesus. I'm going to stay in that center. I'm going to keep pursuing.

I've never left that center.

That's great.

Right. But when people say that, I'm hearing it as within that confined religious.

Well, that's their junk.

Yeah, got it. But what I'm afraid of this is, this is my fear, is that when I say yes, I am Christian. Then now I'm jumped into their dogma. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I mean, basically what we're. We're talking about is like, how do we label what we believe? And yet I think that the labeling is what shuts off the pursuit.

Yeah.

You might just say, I jive with the teachings of Jesus.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is the truth.

It's if 100%. I'm trying to.

But I also jive with the teachings of Buddha. I jive with the teachings of Krishna. I really do. Every master I jive with.

It wouldn't surprise me if Jesus had teachers and mentors that he also jived with some of their teachings.

I think so, too. Yeah. So see.

Oh, my gosh. You know what's funny is there's like this under, like, there's a. There's like, this misunderstanding among a lot of Christians that, like, Jesus just fluttered down from earth and was never taught or he created all of the thoughts.

Yeah.

And he. Some of them were probably original.

Yeah.

But you better believe that he had, like, mentors and teachers and.

Yeah.

People who invested in him. So what's the resistance to saying, yeah, I jive with the teachings of Jesus. There's other people. I jive with the teachings of Byron Katie. I'm not a katyist.

Yeah, no, I'm not either.

I like everything Byron Katie says.

Yeah. I love it. Yeah.

And it seems to echo a lot of the teachings of Eckhart Tolle.

Totally.

And that seems to echo a lot of the teachings of Jesus.

Hundred percent.

Yeah. So, like, I can call myself a Christian because it's a cultural reflection of what I believe to be true from many teachers and masters.

Well, you know what? We got to wrap this up, but I'm going to go baptize myself in the church. I am officially Christian again. You have brought me back to my Christianity. I love this. I want to. Seriously, next time you're in Dallas, I want to continue this conversation because it's a super juicy conversation that I'm. And I think a lot of people are interested in. Lots of people are questioning, you know, and I'm excited. I think we should question.

I appreciate your pursuit. I appreciate how studious you've been about it. And, yeah, I want to hear more about this. Yeah.

Thank you, Susie.

Yeah. I think you should really even have a whole. I think you should do three different podcasts, one focusing on religion. I guess they're all going to enter.

What were you just about to say? Please say what you're about to say.

One religious, one political, and one sex.

Okay.

Three people.

She went sex. I'm looking at Chris right now. Yeah, I thought you were gonna say business. And I was like, we just made the decision that we're gonna do a personal podcast.

I know.

Oh, no, it has to be sex. Susie says no, it has to be a sex podcast.

I think you need to do the three taboos. Let's talk about everything people don't want to do.

Susie, I was a virgin until I was 26. I have very little to offer on the topic of sex.

Did you masturbate?

I. I once or twice. Yes.

That's it. Wow. Okay, see, this is.

That was a joke, but I'm glad she bought it.

This would be the next. This will be the next series. We're gonna find out about Ryan.

Sex with Ryan.

Exactly.

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