EP 174 WTH?!?: Wealth in Harmony: Mastering Life's Five Pillars with James & Bersabeh Ray

Foreign.

Welcome back everybody. I'm Dr. Greg Eckel. This is what the health. We are going to be talking about the five Pillars of well being with James Arthur and Bersaba Ray. They're architects of transformation. He is a New York Times best selling author. She's an intuitive visionary and philosopher. Both called cultivating business and brilliance and cultural shifts. And I think we're going to have a lot of fun today. Welcome aboard you two.

Thank you for having us.

Good to be here, Greg. Thank you indeed.

Now you have written several books, one in particular Harmonic wealth which is uncovering the five pillars of well being. And I think that's really apropos for our listeners and viewers of what the health.

Yes, I, you know, I had a very aggressive objective when I wrote Harmonic Wealth. If you ask 99% of the people to define wealth, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you, Greg?

For me it's my vitality. But I know for others it's probably the number in their bank account.

Exactly. Of course you would be unique and congratulations that. But 99% of the people say money. Well, if you trace the etymology of the word wealth back to its origins, it literally translates as well being, not money. And so true wealth is something money can't buy. I, we've worked with a lot of people who have a tremendous amount of financial wealth which is part of harmonic wealth. I'll talk about that in just a second. But it's only 1 1/5 of the equation. A lot of people have financial wealth, but they're not in a state of well being. And so they're not really wealthy. They might be rich but they're not wealthy. And so our objective is to help people be truly wealthy in the five key areas. We call those the five pillars. Financial is one of them, but 1/5 of the equation. And then you have relational, mental, physical and spiritual. And when all those are in harmony, not balance. And we can talk about that if you'd like, because balance is not the same as harmony and it's actually not achievable, contrary to popular memes. But nonetheless, when those are in harmony, then you're truly wealthy and that's the objective of life.

I couldn't agree more. You know, I see folks in our procedure rooms all of the time that do not have their health and they, that's the one wish. When you don't have your health, that's what you need. You need that for these vessels. So yeah, let's lay it out there for folks. I, I Love the, that component of the five pillars and, and how you, I, I also want to engage both of you in. Seems like you've got this kind of sacred couple component going together here with the feminine and the male. And I want, I want to explore that a bit on our show too, because I, I really feel like this, the, the sacred relationship is coming back into balance or maybe harmonics and maybe we can weave that into our discussion here too.

Well, we'd certainly love to do that. So where do you want to begin? Do you want to talk about.

Let's start on the five pillars of well being. And you know, you, you laid it out. I don't know if you laid those in order of how the book goes or how you think about them or how they build on each other, but I'll just kind of lob it over to you on that.

Yeah, so, so yes, that is how they, they unfold in the book. Is financial relational, Mental, physical, spiritual? And, and financial is important. We're not suggesting there's something. We're not anti money. What we are is anti making money. Your God, which is a big, big problem in today's world. And so I believe that's where we, that's what's gotten us to where we are today is we worship at the altar of money and materialism for far too long. But, but financial is certainly one of the places where we have to be healthy and have well being. Second one is relationship. And that's where we can certainly talk to that because you can measure the quality of your life and the quality.

Of your relationships, period.

You know, and we have a relationship with everything. We tend to think romantically when we talk about relationships. Excuse me. Sorry about that, Greg.

It's all right.

Relationships choke me up. What am I going to say? And so, so we tend to think romantically, but we have a relationship with everything. We have a relationship with our body. We have a relationship with food. Most people don't have a very good relationship there. We have a relationship with money. We have a relationship with God and in nature and on and on and on and on and on. And so you can measure the quality of your life by the quality of your relationships. And that's relational and then mental. You know, health is every but every bit as much mental and emotional as it is physical. You know, unfortunately, we have an epidemic of poor mental health in today's world. And a lot of things feed into that. Unresolved emotional issues. Poor diet, lack of, of exercise, sedentary lifestyles, all of that we could riff on any one of those for days.

Watching too much tv, too much social media scrolling.

Yes.

So yeah, that programming set up for imbalance and yeah.

And, and here's a really fundamental point that comes up for me as bear supermentions TV is that everything affects everything. Nothing happens in a vacuum. So we do, it's nice that you, you feel we have a great relationship because we really do and we work hard at it. We work diligently at it. It hasn't come straight away. We've been together for going on 12 years and, and we continually work at it. We don't watch tv. We, we, you know, tonight we'll have dinner together seated at the table. And we don't, we're not on social media, we're having dinner, we converse, we invest the time, you know, to invest in our relationship. And, and that's just a part of it. And so that's part of mental and emotional health as well. And then you've got physical, which obviously is, is not only fitness, unfortunately. Scroll through Instagram and we're on a fitness, a bunch of fitness fiends showing their abs and, and God knows what else. And, and yet here's what we say. Health comes first, fitness follows. So health is internal. You can't always see health. There's a lot of people who are incredibly fit but they're not very healthy. I mean let's just recognize the professional athletes who are dropping on the soccer field and those kind of things that are happening in today's world. And then finally is spiritual. And this is your one on one relationship with God. And, and however you define that, and we can't define that for you, we're not qualified. Yeah but one of the things I will promise you is that, and there's a lot of things that feed into that, simple things, Greg, like telling the truth, you know that that feeds into spiritual health, it feeds into mental health. When you're a liar, let's just call it what it is. When you're, when you're telling lies, when you're living a facade, then that has a, a detrimental effect on your mental and emotional health, your physical health. Everything affects every. And everything counts. And so that relationship with God, you have to define that. Your clergy can't, your rabbi can't, I can't. Because no one's qualified. It's very personal. But when all five of those are in harmony, then you're truly wealthy. Then you have a state of harmony and well being across the full spectrum of life. Not just one Aspect.

Do you want to add anything in there?

I. For on the spiritual pillar, I would say, well, you have to with that. You, you said you don't, don't lie. And I would say being a moral person is a big one too. Being a, believe it or not, a scheduled productive person is very spiritual. And that's not popular. But that is, that is just how it is. Unfortunately, it has been misunderstood that we're here to ascend. We're actually here to descend.

Cool.

We're here to bring that spirit here into form. So if we don't use it, there's no purpose for us to be here. So that, that's not very popular. I'll just add that in there for you.

I love that one. You know that actually it gets the hair standing up on my, my arms and neck. So I know we're in the right vein with talking about that. And you know, my explicit message is, you know, what we're doing here at our centers is helping people align in heart and brain coherence to bring their, their creation from their heart space to bring more love into the world where we're living. Like, you know, that's our birthright to have that and, and to actually actualize that here, not waiting for some afterlife or other. It's. How can we actualize heaven on Earth now? Because it's here. If you start to put those lenses on and tune into those frequencies, it truly is here now. And I'm saying that today as we have, you know, war in the Mid east and you know, all kinds of genocides happening planet, but I shouldn't say, but I'll say, and it is possible for us to get there. Those are distractions and diversions and I can choose to tune into them and create more of that or I can choose to create, have that connection with God of how I define that. There's no intermediary. And then having that as a very productive component like these vessels are really, it's a miracle that we're even here. Right. And so we won the lottery. So I'd love for you to speak into that more that unpopular thought.

I, I would. Yeah, both of us can speak to that and we'd love to because you're talking our story. You know, the thing that comes up for me that is often neglected in traditional religion and we're not anti religion either, where there's a very much a time and a place for that. And yet what's neglected sometimes and forgotten or overlooked is that the Christ said the kingdom of heaven is Within. He didn't say it's a condo on a cloud. Excuse me. He said the kingdom of heaven is within. Go to the book of Thomas, which is one of the, it's part of the Apocrypha, where it's. Are the lost books of the Bible. The book of Thomas is, is one of those books which is phenomenal in my opinion. And in, in the book of Thomas, the Christ is qu. It as saying the kingdom of God will not come as per expectation for the kingdom of God is spread upon the earth. But men don't see it. And so you're, you're spot on bullseye with, with what you're doing. And the final thing I'll say is I'm sure you're probably familiar with HeartMath Institute. I was really blessed to be on the steering committee with HeartMath Institute years ago. And they're all about heart, brain coherence, and there's a lot of scientific research. And the other brain we have is our gut brain, and we really have three brains and very few people understand that, but when those are in alignment and in coherence, then we're really in our full power and capability. And that's, that's what it's all about. That really is what it's all about. So kudos to you for, for knowing that I don't meet a whole lot of people that know that, much less who are working in that field.

Well, thank you. And you know, that is, I really feel like that's been my, my calling and to be able to speak into that just through my own life experiences and, and training people, how, how truly powerful we are. I mean, we're, we're able, you know, we just not trained, we don't, we're not educated to understand that message that it is actually within you. I like to say we create deep presence, we listen and we reflect back so that you are doing it. I like that you had that discernment with, you know, I can't define for you what God is, but you have that relationship and, and having that, you know, that integrity of word where you're not telling somebody or, you know, it's not that you know what's best for someone else, you know, what's best for you and, and it know, helping people to wake up to that. And that I think comes back to your harmonic wealth of. Why did you choose the term harmonic there?

Okay, well, let's talk about balance, because so many people are running around and preaching even and talking about balance, and I'm going to be real bold and say not one of them is balanced. Not one of them is balanced. Because, Greg, look at a scale in perfect balance. And now I'm going to ask you what's happening here? Nothing.

Yeah. It's static. Yeah.

You know, science tells us everything in this, in this universe is comprised of energy. And energy is never static, it's always dynamic, it's always in vibration and it's got a frequency. And so in perfect balance, nothing happens. As a viewer, emblazon that on your mind. In perfect balance, nothing happens. And maybe that gives you some relief because all these people are feeling frustration or a lot of people feel frustration because they're not imbalanced. Well, you don't want to be imbalanced. The only people who are imbalanced are six feet under and it's not your time yet. Right. And so harmony is more realistic. It's like life. It's kind of like an orchestra sometimes, if you listen to a brilliant piece of music sometimes. And we like classical, we like jazz because it has a great resonance and it puts an incredible vibe in our home. And, and so when you listen to a good piece of music, an orchestra, sometimes they're leading with a string, sometimes it's the brass, sometimes it's a guitar, sometimes it's the drums. But they all come together to form this magical tapestry that we call the music. And so that's what, like life, you know, financial, relational, mental, physical, spiritual. To be in harmony is dynamic. It doesn't mean that just because you, you go and work for 10 hours in your job that you have to spend 10 hours in the gym to be healthy.

Yeah, thank God.

Thank God.

Yes, indeed.

You know, it's not one for one. And yet that's what balance. And so many people, you know, find themselves feeling these, these feelings of being less than, or being incomplete or, or frustration because they're not imbalanced. Well, let that go. Let me just encourage you to let it go because sometimes you're going to be investing more time in your financial well being now where you run into problems. And I'll just use that as an example. But it could be any of the five. When you run into problems is when you totally neglect the other four. Yeah. Or even two of the four. Because if you're, if you're totally, if you're just working, working, working versa. But I do business consulting as well as individual work. And years ago we met with a man in New York, Manhattan, and he was talking to us. He, he was a big a Big, very successful on Wall Street. And he was talking to us. He was building this new investment company. And he talked to us about how we could come in, maybe help his business. And he was unfortunately, grossly overweight. And I am. We're a straight shooter, you know, both of us are. And I said to him kindly, I said, you know, how often do you work out? He said, I don't have time to work out. I'm just too good. And I said, you don't have time not to work out. He goes, well, I work for. I walk from the subway to my office every day. I said, that's not enough.

Yeah.

And he said, well, I'm just too busy. I said, well, okay, I get it. Well, fast forward three months later, he had a heart attack and died. And this story is not an isolated. An isolated story. And so, you know, everything, everything, everything counts and everything affects everything. And so consequently, that's where you run into problems, is when you totally focus on one or two pillars and you neglect the other. So many people do this. You mentioned sacred relationship, and we really like that. We're all about that. And in fact, we call SEX an acronym for Sacred Energy exchange.

Yeah.

And so that's what it is when it's proper. It's a sacred event between two committed people. And. And, you know, we're big on marriage as well and that kind of commitment. And so what happens, Most people want to work on their relationships. Once one partner says, I'm over it, I'm out of here. Oh, well, you know, can we do this? Can we do that? No, it's too late. You know, you had your chance. And so that's, that's where it becomes problematic. And that's where you break and that's where you crash. And I hope that makes sense to you.

It does. So, I mean, I think that would go in all of the five pillars. Do you have some suggestions on how to tend your garden or how to do an assessment as to, like, I think a lot of folks may not understand that they're not in harmony in all of these areas, or they have, like, maybe they have the financial concerns of. You know, I see that a lot of people working 2, 3 jobs just to kind of get by, and then they're like, well, I don't have any time here. Like, how can I work on anything else? Where I kind of encourage them to turn it around is in similar to what you had mentioned to the Manhattanite of how could you not?

Right.

I mean, it literally could kill you if you're not working on them. So how do you get people engaged in that process?

You want to talk to that one?

Well, I would say the biggest one is we live by a schedule. So things. I mean, some people say, oh, that's not very romantic that you put, you know, we put everything on the schedule on the calendar. So because we work together, if we're. If we don't do that, then we do have a very high tendency to get caught up just in work and run your own business. I'm sure you know, what that feels like is like it's worse than having a 9 to 5 job because it's 24 7.

Sure.

Constantly go at it. So what we do is we schedule things and we keep to the schedule. Now, things for our relationship, like our morning coffee together, we go to the gym together. Those things are on the calendar. They're like a meeting. It's like going to work. Those things don't move. And if there is a period of time, like sometimes it does happen where we've got very much busier at work or a lot of things happening at the same time, we may move things around to different days, but we don't skip them. So, for example, if we have. Let's just use an example of a date night. If we're not able to do that on the same evening that we've always had it scheduled, well, then we're going to move it to a different day and make sure it happens. Because if it doesn't, then what happens? Things start falling through the crack and then you get lazy about it and then it never happens. Now, person who's working three jobs to make ends meet, I totally understand. I know how that feels. And what are you. There's always time in your day. And we work with people and find out that they spend a lot of time procrastinating, either watching a lot of TV or scrolling through social media. All those things count. We live a very disciplined life. And for the viewer, I'll say, you know, we weren't born this way. Obviously, it took us a long time to get to this place. And you have to pick one thing, one day at a time, and make it and be consistent with it. Like he mentioned, we listened to jazz and classical music in the house. Well, we didn't always do that. I grew up listening to heavy metal, rock. I mean, you know, diet was not great when I was. When I was younger. Everything takes time. So it's not like we're sitting here and we're just these little perfect people. That never went through anything. That's not true.

It's not?

No, it isn't.

No. It's not.

Now that. Well, thank you for that honesty. And you know, I like to say we're all mud people and we're in the human experience together. What? You, you had a question for me and I'm curious how you would answer this now. And just in, in our setup with you said, now I got to find it. Where did I just put it? Oh, what is the biggest crisis in the world today and what's the solution? Because I think it might piggyback off of what you had just said there.

We believe the biggest crisis in the world today is an existent, existential, easy for me to say, existential crisis. We. And, and that's, that's an outcome of a lot of things. One of them is the fact. You know, one of my favorite philosophers is Frederick Nietzsche. He said when God dies, life becomes weightless. And Nietzsche was so misunderstood, people thought he was an atheist. He was not an atheist. He, he, he was a straight shooter and he was an independent thinker and he firmly believed in God. He said, when God dies. And he said God is dead. Well, guess what? Look around and for the ma, the masses, the vast majority of people in today's world, God is dead. You know, their God is money and their religion is work and their, and politics is their philosophy. And they have really missed the bigger picture. And so because we don't really know the meaning of life, then we live a purpose, less life. We don't really, because we are like heat seeking missiles. I say we as humanity, whether we're consciously aware of it or not, we're heat seeking missiles to do something meaningful. It's wired into our neurology, it's in our DNA, to do something, to contribute, to do something meaningful and, and to have a purpose. And we've been, we've been searching for that as, as a species from the time of our most ancient ancestors. We've always, you know, way, way back, years and years and years and years and thousands and hundreds of years ago. We, we looked to the heavens and we tried to figure out what's that bigger thing than us. And, and we're still doing that now. But what we've done in a secular world is we've misplaced that on a horizontal plane. We've lost what we call this vertical connection. And that's a metaphor because the kingdom of God is within, but it's a metaphor, this vertical connection with, with a, a controlling narrative, with, with A, a, a creator with whatever you want to label it, God. And therefore all we have to determine what bears our morality, our virtues, our values as we look around and we say, okay, what, what is the right thing to do? Well, if we look around right now, Greg, let's be frank. You know, it's okay to lie. It's not okay to lie. You know, people who tell the truth in today's world are persecuted. Some of them are being prosecuted. And, and so, you know, we, we've got to get back to center. We got to get back to center. And, and our center in the, in the ancient teachings, they say the heart is the throne of God. And, and when we get back to the heart, then we start, and we, we are coherent to, to do a callback then, then we start to live and feel and behave differently and we find the meaning of life. And we have to ask ourselves, am I going to be a slave for the, for the rest of my days to, to my, my mortgage and my car payment and my bank account and to three jobs and all of that? Or could I adjust my lifestyle? And I know there's, there's a lot of variations and I'm, I'm certainly sensitive to that, but could I adjust my lifestyle and realize there's a lot more important things than, than just how much I have in the bank and how many, how many what kind of car I have or those type of things? Long answer to your question, but no.

That was beautiful. You know, a, a component of what I've been asking lately is what is a life worth well lived? What does that mean to me, to my patients, to community? And, and I don't think we're asking that enough because we really are on one planet, one population at home here and, and looking at, you know, fostering in a different vibration, different harm, harmonic state of being here, where this great experiment of humanity on a planet is. You know, sometimes it feels like we're, we're sitting on a house of cards, like this thing could just fall apart at any moment. And I, I think that is also somewhat the messages to put people into a fear state and not be able to access their full, you know, frontal cortex and their possibilities and their, their greatness. So, you know, that's why I wanted to have you two on for a conversation around this because you bring such a great perspective and very grounded in a reality of this plane of, you know, this is what you got to do.

Yeah, I'll promise you. And if you haven't, if it's this an obvious. Let me just promise the viewer, Bearishman. I are not tree huggers. We're not. We're not cloud. Cloud surfers. We're really not. I mean, I built a $10 million Inc. 500 company. I supposedly. Supposedly, and I'll tell you why I use that word, was, Was worth north of $20 million in 2009. House in Beverly Hills. All the things, all the accoutrements that everyone thinks, oh, my God, that's a. That's a meaningful, fulfilled life. That's how they would answer your question. And it was gone in a matter of months. Just gone. And what I learned from that, I stepped back in a lot of pain. And I recognize the only things of true and lasting value are those which cannot ever be lost or taken away. If they can be lost or taken away, which, by the way, is everything in this material world. You're not leaving this world with it, and you know that. And so the only thing of true and lasting value are those things which are eternal, Those. Those things you become. And so, consequently, that's a life well lived. If to know why you're here and to know what the gifts are that.

God has given you, what you're capable of.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Being in fear state puts you in a weak state. Lying puts you in a weak state. Unfortunately, the. That we live in is. Got us all programmed into this fear mind mindset. And saying that, you know, lying is okay and not being a moral person is okay. All the things that are supposed to bring you back to your center in your power, they're. They're stripping away from you to. You have to be able to take yourself out of that, to unprogram yourself or reprogram yourself to what reality really is. And I will say for the viewer, for the listener, when you get to that place where you're operating from your center, life is. Is. Is such a different and beautiful experience that if everyone was able to see that or get some kind of a glimpse or feeling of it, they would jump on it. That I can promise you.

You can't. You can't. You can't really. You can't put a price on it. You can't go back. I mean, Bears but talks a lot about her early years, which were somewhat aberrant, to say the least.

Sure. I mean, I've been through all the traumas of violence and just name you name it, I've experienced it. And I felt like a person who has had these traumatic experiences, whether it was war, abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and You. Drugs, Drugs. The person feels broken when they go through something like that. They feel like, oh, this is who I am, and I can never have something anew. Well, I've gone through it, and we've worked at it, done the work to do the cleanup work. And I promise you, and I never thought it was possible that you can completely be born anew, and that's what we're capable of. And to be able to be in a place where you feel completely content without any outside stimulants or anything external, that by itself is heaven. Imagine you. You could sit in your living room and you need absolutely nothing, but inside, you're completely content.

Yeah. And that's.

That's where it's at. That's where you want to be.

That's really what it's all about. You know, I. I used to. Back when I was on the peak of my career and I was speaking, I speak to live audiences and a minimum of 2,000, and sometimes up to 17,000 was my largest crowd. I would. I would often ask the question, if you could have all the money in the world or be eternally peaceful, no matter what came at you from life, which would you choose? And invariably, the audience. How many of you would choose money? People would raise your hand. How many of you choose peace? The majority would raise their hand on peace. And. And here's. I've got news for you. When you're in harmony, we could call that peace. When you're in harmony and in peace, then you're way more productive. You're. You're way more intuitive. You're way more driven. You're. You're thinking clearly. You have a word. You mentioned that I. Discernment. You know, when you're chaotic and you're fragmented inside, then you're not resourceful, and. And you don't perform and you don't live at your best. So. She's right. That's where it's at.

You know, I love it. I love it. And, you know, that eternal peace that. That they, you know, creators were not messing around with that concept of eternity and, and that aspect of maybe that is the true work here of coming into that center, into the heart center. And, you know, really, it's much more potent coming from there, and it's a lot more joyful as well. So, you know, I have a lot of folks listening, viewing that have some chronic health, you know, conditions a lot with neurodegeneration and Parkinson's, traumatic brain injuries, and sometimes it can. You can feel betrayed by the body so but coming back into you, number one, you still have the body, you're still here and you can really gain access to. Maybe that is a sign or a symptom to say we're not listening enough to the heart. How do we get back there to really dig deep there? Because that's really where it is. It's not out here. It's not looking for those solutions. It's really in, in. The answer lies within, as the Can't Stevens song goes. And, and a lot of these great sages etc and your message. So I just really want to thank you both. I want to, you know, I'm excited to support this work and we are all in it together. If you have any last parting words for our listeners and viewers.

The kingdom of heaven is within. I'll quote the Christ if I can be so bold. It really is. And, and we appreciate the work you're doing.

Yes.

It, it's much needed and you know, we, we'd love to be able to give a gift to your viewers if that's, if that's okay with you.

It totally is.

You want to give them the link?

Sure. Give you.

Well and we'll, we'll post it too at the show notes. But you're definitely mention it here as well.

Sure. You just go to harmonicwealthglobal.com forward slash book.

Perfect.

Yeah. And you get easy. A free E copy of my New York Times bestseller yes. Which talks about the five pillars which hopefully you'll benefit from that and be able to start living that. Perfect.

Well, thank you both. I love that. For our listeners and viewers, if you all like today's show, go out, give us a five star review. Tell us, tell me, what is the action item? What are you going to get into action? What is it? What are you going to put into your life to make that difference? Because this is where the change starts right here. We're honored to serve you all and we will see you soon. Thank you.

God bless.