“From Military to Oneness: Overcoming Discrimination & Finding Perspective”

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What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network, the podcast that brings you stories behind the success. Today we have with us Susanna Stokes, a combat veteran turned spiritual coach. Thanks for coming to the show today, Susanna. How you doing?

I am doing beautifully. Thank you so much for having me, CJ. It's wonderful to be here.

Uh, thank you for coming on the show today in the situation that you're in.

Yeah, CJ's talking about how I'm in my 39th week of pregnancy with a little king on the way.

Wow, they're getting up this early in the morning. I appreciate it. So Susanna, let's start. Uh, tell us a little bit about yourself and about your background and, uh, what led you to this point in your life.

Well, you know, I mentioned to you earlier that I grew up on a blueberry farm in Georgia, and the first kind of connection I had with my spiritual self was through nature. And I learned a lot from Mother Nature around the interconnectedness of all things and how we are all essentially one, we're all the same, you know, at the fundamental levels. But as I got older, I lost a lot of that wisdom. And I've sort of forgot, I think, like a lot of us do, right? When we're little, as little pure beings, as I think about bringing this baby into the world, we're so pure at that time. And And so I grew up and decided to join the military because I was following in the footsteps of both my father and all the men in my family. And that was what the world around me was reflecting and was kind of telling my ego to do. And that was the path to take. And when I joined the Marine Corps as an officer, I got shipped off pretty quickly to combat, to Afghanistan, and I did two tours. Supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. And ultimately, it was in war that I discovered, first of all, how I don't really think that war serves us anymore in the way that we think it does. It doesn't work, per se, you might say, right? War doesn't work, and at least the way we expect it to. And getting out of that and leaving the military service I started to really position myself and move toward a path of peace and to find peace. And that brought me on a really powerful journey of spiritual awakening and reconnecting with my Christian roots and also exploring things like psychedelics and other altered states of consciousness to really heal my body. So that's a little elevator pitch of what's been happening in my life for the last 36 years.

So Susanna, you mentioned that your father and many other men in your family, they, they sort of inspired you to become, you know, to go into the militaries and things of that nature. So what was it about what you seen them do that inspired you to go into the military? Or, you know, as I'm listening to you now, as you say, we struggle against our true calling at times, you know, so we we'll run away from it. When we're younger, we got the foundation. The Bible say, train up a child in the way that they should go, and when they get older, they won't depart from it. But as you alluded to, I had the foundation when I was younger, but then when I got a little older, uh, that wisdom that I had, I kind of like, you know, strayed away from it. And so that's my question, like, what did you see that was interesting with what your father and the other men in your family did to go to the military that inspired you to say, you know what, this is the mantle that I want to take up?

Yeah, beautiful question. I think I was actually 4 years old when I watched my older brother— because my older brother is a half-brother, he's quite a bit older, 14 years older— I watched him graduate from boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. And I'm actually right now I'm in Charleston, so not terribly far from that place. And I watched him graduate, and I saw the troops march across the parade field. And there was something that was activated in me even as a very young girl, because I saw the precision, I saw the discipline. And what I then heard from my father was, "This is a place where you can be trained in the finest leadership training in the world, and you can become a leader of people." And that was something that I really aspired to be. And I think that at the time, and up until I was in high school, it was the only intentional training for leaders that I knew really existed. But there was a part of my heart that whole time— this is what's so ironic, and to your point— there was a part of me that always thought about, well, what about the Peace Corps? You know, so I was kind of between these two places of, okay, I can go the military, which is what my family knows and all of the people that were ahead of me and wanting to find that kind of leadership training. But then I saw things like the Peace Corps and humanitarian support, and that really called my heart. But I think the ego won out and my conditioning and programming won out, and that's ultimately where I chose to go.

Yeah. You know, that's beautiful. And like you say, sometimes our pride and our ego and the things, and running away from that calling, running away from it. Like you said, 'cause the Peace Girl with the humanity, and that's where your heart was at, you know. But you're like, you know what, I don't wanna go with my heart, I wanna go with what I know. Sometimes we get content, I will go with what I know, 'cause I thought that was interesting what you said as far as your father saying that if you want true leadership, this is, you know, the things to do. And like you say, up to that point, I hadn't seen any other type of real leadership except for what, you know, my family members displayed to me. And that's a lot of times what we tend to go with. So let me ask you a question, Susanna. You mentioned experiencing a powerful spiritual awakening during your tours that changed your life forever. Can you share with us what that journey was like?

Absolutely, yes. I think that I do believe that everything happens for a reason and we choose the paths we choose because we have to go that way. And while it might seem like we're straying, it ultimately is the thing that leads us back, right, into our soul purpose. And that is exactly what my tours did for me. The first tour to Afghanistan, I remember a moment where I was sitting— so one of my jobs in the military was to control aircraft above 16,000 feet, and I controlled a team of, of Marines that controlled the whole battle space. So it was about 23,000 square miles of airspace, and we had hundreds of aircraft that are up, and they're flying 300 to 500 miles an hour, and it's just, you know, don't hit each other.

So you gotta control that. Okay.

Yeah, it's like chaos sometimes, you know. Organized chaos, we might say. And I had a moment where we were controlling a UAV, a drone, and I watched this drone target this guy with a Hellfire missile who had just implanted an IED, an improvised explosive device. And of course, when he does that, when they dig those bombs into the ground, immediately they become an enemy, right? And we're going to go target them. And try to kill them. And so we target this guy, and we're following him with our radar and actually like visually seeing the video footage. And then we drop this bomb on him, and miraculously he gets up and runs away from this huge explosion.

Yeah.

And I couldn't even— I was like, "Wow, that's incredible." And then I think about— I started to think, I had this moment of like, awareness where I was like, is this guy really an enemy? Who is this person? And I started to really like connect with the humanity of even though he's just on a video screen for me, it's really happening. It's live. And I thought, he's someone's brother or father or someone's friend. He's in a community somewhere. And my heart started to open. And I thought, this guy's probably been threatened by the Taliban or some other organization to do this, that he's not actually working for them. He's just being threatened by them. And it's either you get killed by the Taliban or one of those organizations or by the Americans, and he's just caught in the middle. And that really shifted my whole concept of like, who's an enemy? Is there an enemy?

Yeah. Yeah.

And that, and this is what Jesus teaches so much, like, love thy neighbor, because we just, we're all neighbors and we are all family and connected in some way. So how could this guy be an enemy? And that basically triggered a period of disillusionment where I started to break down my idea of reality. And then start to try to build it back up again.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, but like you say, you know, sometimes watching this man walk away from a bomb being, you know, said, thrown at him— and I guess it would go back to what you were saying earlier— a lot of times we have to go through some of the things that we go through. We may not think that this is the road for us, but We were supposed to go through that because it was something in that journey that we needed to see that was going to open us up. There's some trials and tribulations that we needed to go through, you know, for our journey to succeed. And he had to show us that. And as I'm listening to you, that was something that you had to see because God opened up your heart to it with more compassion. You know, as I'm hearing, I hear the compassion side of it. Love thy neighbor like as I love thyself, you know, things of that nature. And so, yeah, so I agree with you on that. Sometimes we do have to experience some things that maybe we don't want to, or we think that this is the right thing to do in one aspect, but in a whole nother aspect, the Bible say that your thoughts are not my thoughts and your ways are not my ways. So we think at one level, but he's on a whole different level. So Let me ask you a question, Susanna. How did the time in the military prepare you for the work that you're doing now?

Oh, that keeps revealing itself every day, CJ. That is an ongoing discovery. I went through a period of time after the military, especially experiencing a lot of the discrimination that I went through, just I mean, the Marine Corps is 8% women, female.

Yeah.

And so, and it's built by men for men. You know, it's definitely like a dude's environment. And so I had a lot of pain from that experience. And I thought, why, why would I put myself through that? And it gave me a lot of perspective on discrimination. Which I think is an important thing because it helped me understand my own privilege. It helped me understand the places where I'm not privileged. I got to see and feel the concept of people othering each other. And I think that was a fundamental thing I had to feel in order to start to move toward the idea of oneness and brotherhood and sisterhood and family. Because if I didn't experience being othered, like so many people in the world have been, then I may not have ever come to the other side of how important it is for us to be, to really love each other from this place of heart-centered connection. So the other thing is, in the work that we do specifically at Metamorphosis, we do a lot of spiritual warfare. And while I wouldn't categorize it as war in a violent way, it's more like warriors for peace. My favorite concepts to study is nonviolent action from Martin Luther King Jr., who my grandfather worked really closely with in the fight for desegregation, and then Gandhi worked in, in India. And basically just discovering that there are these forces that while I wouldn't consider them evil, there are forces within us that are created by trauma that start to break apart the system, the individual system, and disintegrate it, basically. So we step away from wholeness. And in our work, we got to kind of put, put our battle gear on sometimes, and really meet those parts that are trying to disintegrate the person. Things like deep trauma, which cause addiction, like addictive tendencies, you know, things like hatred. Uh, there's all sorts of darker energies that are working within our systems. And in our work, you gotta be ready to meet those and to really help someone integrate them into their body. And to be honest, it's pretty much the same thing as some of the war that we're experiencing outwardly. It's like the inner war.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. We be warned within our own bodies. I think that's in scripture too, you know. And then too, you know, I'm thinking about what you said about the guy. We don't fight against flesh and blood but against principalities. Of wickedness in higher places. You know, that's that, that's that spiritual warfare that you're talking about, you know. So, so let me ask you a question, Susanna, since you was talking about your— I believe this was your faith-based organization, Metamorphosis, that you were talking about.

Yeah.

So you've also done research on certain things. Could you share with us about some of the research that you have written?

Yeah, as we were founding— so we have two organizations. One is a corporation that allows us to do our coaching work and to build a community of people that are kind of being supported by our team of coaches. And then we have our faith-based organization, which allows us to work in a federally protected way with plant medicines and other psychedelics that allow people to basically go into that spiritual warfare in a safe environment and be held by our facilitators. To move through that. And a lot of that was basically— it's been the subject of my own research throughout the last 5, 6 years or so. And I've been studying this and publishing research on it. And one of my research papers is The Power of Altered States of Consciousness to Create Individual and Social Change because I really believe that in order to actually change and to start to integrate those parts, right, those warring parts, the sort of dark and light that we have within us, we have to get out of our day-to-day brain activity, which is just our patterns, right? These are just our habits and our patterns that are built off of our family programming. They're built off of our cultural programming. They're built in our trauma, essentially from our childhood trauma as well. And all of that allows us to, if we go into an altered state of consciousness, basically the default mode network of the brain, which is that habit, that habitual part of the brain, it's quieter. And then we get more creative. And then we start to see the other parts that are darker or scary, the wickedness, right? The fear, we start to be curious about it and we stop fighting it and we start to make peace with it. And when we make peace with it, that's when it can fully integrate. And that's why it's not really the same texture of warfare as it were, where it's one side bombing the other, like we're seeing in Israel and Gaza. And Palestine today, it's much more about curiosity and understanding within ourselves. And when we do that, the results are incredible. And so in a lot of my research, I explore different methods for that. Of course, there's meditation is one method. Things like breathwork is another method. And what we like to work with a lot is our plant medicines and psychedelics that allow us to get out of our old programming that is much more conflict-based.

So you said this word a couple of times, curious. And this leads to my next question because I'm curious to know exactly what is an energy princess? Because I can hear it all in you, what you're talking about, the spiritual warfare and the energy and separating yourself. So I'm curious to know, what exactly is an energy princess, and how did you step into this role?

Yeah, energy priestess. So, well, my— let's see, I started because I thought to myself, what am I here to bring into the world? What's my modality of working? My grandfather was a bishop in the Methodist Church in the Southern Leadership Conference. And he went through the structured system of the Methodist, the United Methodist Church, to become a bishop and to be attuned as a bishop. And one thing I started to find growing up in the Methodist Church and also the Baptist Church and, and really visiting a lot of different faith systems over my, over the course of my lifetime, was that there aren't as many places for women to really hold leadership. And so I started to look backward into our history, what are some of the other ways that women have shown up in spiritual service. And I personally believe in past lives and other things that where I've lived before, and I've lived many different lifetimes. And I began to remember my own experiences of being attuned as a priestess. So we have the priest archetype, right? Which, which you could call a bishop, a deacon, a pastor. And then we have a priestess. And we've forgotten that archetype in a big way. We really don't have that in our society as much. And then what I started to realize as I was beginning to do this kind of spiritual warrior for peace work was that energy was what I could feel most in my hands, and I could help people through energetic healing. So things like Reiki, some people have heard of hands of light, things like that. And energy started to flow through me and I could feel people's traumas in their body through my own body, through my hands, and by working with their energetic field. And, and it began to help me remember the power that I do hold as a woman. And that's one of the things that Metamorphosis is allowing for is I'm— we're now building an initiation path for people who want to become priestesses or facilitators or whatever they'd like to identify themselves as. We believe in decentralized spirituality. So we believe that you know best what your attunement is, what your title is, right? We're not going to necessarily say that this is your particular title because you know it. You know what your own soul is here to do.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I like that concept. I really do. So let me ask you, I only got two more questions for you, Susanna, and I'll let you go because it's been pretty interesting. So what kind of support do you provide as a spiritual coach, and how do you guide people on their paths?

Yes. So a lot of what we are here to do with— through Metamorphosis and House of Embodied Metamorphosis, which is our, our faith-based organization, is to help guide people and give people frameworks for their own path of spiritual awakening or initiation. So whatever you're initiating into, right? If you look way back into all the way back to Egypt, and then into the Bible and into these different spiritual systems, there's always a path of like initiation. How do I take the layers off of my, quote, ego or my human self to really connect more with my spirit?

Yeah.

And in the world that we have right now, we have some of those in like the Catholic faith and the Jewish faith and the Christian faith. And we have some of those initiation processes, but they're still very limited to a hierarchy. And there is like a, you have to go through another person in order to be initiated into that. And somebody else has to like, tell you that you're ready. Yeah. Yeah, we want to bring it back to you as an individual. What does your path of awakening look like? What does it look like for you to remember the spiritual being that you are, your soul, basically? What does that look like? And we'll give you tools and frameworks and processes that we know work, and we'll help you expand your mind and get curious, like we were talking about.

Mm-hmm.

But we're not going to tell you whether it's right or wrong, because it's yours. That's your process. And so in my personal work, I'm really just here to facilitate people's remembering of who they are, because it's just an activation of memory. You already know who you are. You already know what your spirit is here to do. You know what your purpose is, but it's hidden under lots of layers of other things that you think you should do. Yeah, so that's what— that's how we work, essentially.

I totally agree with that because as I'm listening to you, I think about something that I use all the time too, is planting seeds. Because in the Bible it say that, uh, some plant, some water, but neither one of them is nothing because it's God who gives the increase. And so as I'm listening to you, you say that, uh you already know your spiritual walk. We're just here to open you up to your journey, to your path. And so now it's like, okay, the seeds have already been planted. And so my job is— at Metamorphosis— is to water the seeds so that it can grow into the person whom God has already called you and ordained you to be. So I'm with you on that. I agree with you 100% on that. We water and seeds, you know. So sometimes, you know, just listening to you, because sometimes you can come across individuals just, you know, naturally that may not have a seed planted. And so you may be planting a seed, or you can be watering a seed because you don't know if somebody implanted it, you know, saying before you or not. We don't know. The most important part of our journey and expect, you know, and what you're doing, Susanna, is just play your part. Just do what God has commissioned you to do and use those hands, as you alluded to, to touch and heal. And so, um, Susanna, only have one more question for you. Like I said, I've been very interested in conversation. What would you say you're best at? When it comes to helping others?

This is a beautiful question because the woman that helps me book these, Danielle, who's now my publicist, she's been— she's just a soul sister and also a priestess in her own right. She does her own amazing, beautiful spiritual work. I love her so dearly. And she gave me a reflection one time. She said, you know, your gift is to see other people's gifts and to reflect it back to them. Like, you see the essence of their gift, and you can help them to see it themselves and kind of pull it out so they get to see it. And that was one of the most beautiful reflections I've ever received, because that's what I feel like I do, is if you feel like you came here and you are aimless, and you're walking around and you haven't found the seed yet, I can help you find that seed because I can see it a little more clearly than some other people, I guess, because it's just what I'm here to do. Yeah. Is to help you activate into what we call your true abundant essence. And I think that every single person has a true abundant essence. Everyone has a specific purpose and then a particular mission in this lifetime. That allows them to grow into the fullest of that flower or that tree, whatever that seed is going to grow. And I sometimes can kind of see what that thing will be, almost like I can see the future of it. And then I get to tell you what it looks like. And then you get to take from that what you want and you build it yourself.

Yeah, that's cool. I mean, just the insight that you say God has given you to see before, you know, like a prophet and things of that nature. Like he'd give me, like sometimes he don't give everybody the vision, you know. Like I said, I'm really admiring, you know what I'm saying, what you're saying about your gifts and your talents, you know what I'm saying? Tapping into your own gifts and talents has allowed you to tap into other people's gifts and talents. Like David was a king, right? And so God talked to David, and but when David did what he did, God didn't talk to David about what he did. He talked to the prophet to talk to David. Now, he could have told David what he wanted to tell him in the first place, right? He talked to the prophet and told the prophet to tell David what he had did wrong and what the consequences was going to be. And so I say this all the time, uh, Susanna, like I said, I admire what, you know, what you're saying and what you're doing, is that a lot of times God won't tell you what your purpose is or where you're going in life, but he would tell a prophet. And so the prophet will come tell the people on what God said.

Because everyone has their place in this beautiful pattern, in this beautiful system that we're in, right? And so to hear it from the prophet or the prophetess may land deeper in your soul than a direct message from God, right? There are ways to receive things and everyone has their different powers. And we do talk a lot about this. There's clairvoyance or clairaudience, claircognizance. There's all these different ways in which we receive the magic of God through us. And every one of us has something to offer, has some gift, and your voice may be exactly what that person needs to hear in order to activate their gift.

Mm-hmm. I truly believe that. I truly believe that. And, and so what I like what you doing too, and I leave you alone on this one and put one on your head on this one. So as I'm listening, I think one of the things that you help do too is Remember, it was a scripture where it talked about that the man gave the, the 3 talents, and 2 went, multiplied their talents, and then 1 went and buried theirs in the earth. Yes, a lot of times we bury our talents in the earth. And so what I'm listening to you say is that I'm helping those who have buried their talents in the earth to dig them back up, because those very talents that you have buried are the very talents that God gave you to move on in life. And a lot of times we don't realize that.

That's right. And they often don't look like the talents that your family or your culture says are talents.

Yeah.

So you got to recognize them yourself.

Yeah.

Because we all was created different. Hey, so Susanna, like I say, you know, We talked before we got on. I love these type of conversations. But is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we leave? And before you go there, let me ask you a question. Where can we follow you at on social media? Learn more about Metamorphosis and things of that nature.

You can follow us at Embodied Metamorphosis on Instagram. And you can follow me personally at Susanna Roses on Instagram. And then if you want, you can always go to our website, which is metamorphosis.ventures. If you don't know how to spell metamorphosis, type it into Google. It will help you.

It's a long word.

Metamorphosis.ventures is our website, and that's where we have a lot of our gatherings and virtual events. And also on site, we have retreats and things like that that we offer and virtual courses. Yeah. And then I would just say One of the things we really believe in is just like we were talking about how when you find your gift, sometimes your gift will then activate another person's gift. And what we say is your healing is my healing is our healing, because it's all the same thing. The moment that you heal, the moment that you activate into the fullest version of yourself and you connect with your soul and God, So does everyone around you.

Mm-hmm. So there you have it, everyone. You heard it right here. Once you connect with yourself, your gifts will activate other people's gifts around you. And as I'm hearing Susanna say that, and if you can activate your gifts and other people activate their gifts, we can live in a much better society because it'll be more peaceful. And more harmony. Hey, you have been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show with your boy CJ Moneyway and the combat veteran Susanna. Hey, we gonna be waiting on that book too. When you get that book out, come back on the CJ Moneyway Show. Hey, so like I said, you've been listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. We out of here. Peace.

Thank you for listening to the CJ Moneyway Show. Don't forget to share this episode with your friends, leave a comment, and drop a review. Be sure to tune in every Tuesday and Friday for more inspiring journeys. Who knows, your story might be next.

Mm-hmm.