[Ellie Deighton] ​​​​​​​Listen to your heart

Welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success with your host Jane Slack-Smith, where we celebrate the incredible journeys of individuals who've transcended their limitations and achieved extraordinary success.

Hello, it's Jane Slack-Smith here, and I am the host of Exit the Matrix Stories of Success, where we look at the sliding door moments that may inspire you in your life to appreciate those moments that might just pass you by. And today I have the most amazing guest. Now I say that every single episode, but truly from my heart, I am so excited to introduce you to Ellie Dayton. Now Ellie is a modern-day magician, a keeper of ancient wisdom, a guide for those seeking creative genius. Now she's based in Bunbury in Western Australia and has journeyed the globe in pursuit of heart-centered teachings through her online masterminds, training, her incredible music. Just go to her website. And I have to tell you, I was just sitting there earlier today listening to the music going, I should click on to the next thing, but I just want to hear this song play out. She's a storyteller, an author, and she inspires others to awaken the magic and embody the highest potential in their lives. So I can't wait for you to meet this incredible person. Ellie, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. What a warm welcome.

Oh, absolutely. Well, Ellie and I known each other for maybe like 4 years now. We have been, um, working with the, the same mentor, and we actually finally got to meet face to face in Sequoia, in the Redwoods of California. And it's so nice when you have all of these experiences of people online to finally actually have hugs and see people. So I, I cherish that time when we had together, but I can't wait to share with our audience a bit more about you, and in particular that sliding door moment for you that changed everything. So I'm going to throw it over to you, Ellie.

Oh wow, thank you. It's such a great question to reflect on, actually. And my sliding door moment came in my early 20s, the one that, that feels like the biggest sliding door in my life, because I think we do get presented with many. Um, and yeah, it was when I chose to leave med school, and I had been on this path, like powering on this path for my entire life, as long as I can remember. When I was a young child, I had said to my mom, I want to help people and I want to be a healer. And so it just went, she's going to be a doctor. And I got on that bandwagon and I really enjoyed it. You know, I really enjoyed the studies. I really enjoyed learning about the human body, the human experience. I really loved all of the connection to helping people, hearing people's stories. I used to love— in the lab, we used to always have a minute of silence to give thanks to all who had donated their body for us to learn. And that's one of my favorite moments of my week, was, was when we went and had this reverent thank you. Um, it was like a ritual that I loved. And I had, for possibly my last year that I was studying, I kept hearing this voice, there's more out there, there's more out there for you, there's more. And it didn't didn't make sense to me, and I didn't have the structure that I have today around listening to my intuition, and I hadn't done a lot of the personal development work that I have now done. And so I was like, what do you mean there's more? Like, I'm in the top few percentile of my class, I'm studying at an amazing university, I'm competing in this epic arena of academics, and I'm doing well and I'm enjoying it. What do you mean there's more for me? It didn't make sense. But in the end, I listened to it because I used to do this practice called Heart Conversations where I would imagine me and my heart were having a chat and I would journal it out and be like, I say this, my heart says this, and I'd write out these conversations. And I repeatedly got, you just have to leave, you just have to leave. And so I did. It was, yeah, it was uncomfortable. It was scary. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't have a plan. I just had this really strong message from my heart that I needed to leave school.

Just saying that you, you actually listen to that, like you can specifically put it somewhere, like you can put it in your heart. But, you know, is that something that you had cultivated or you had heard as a child, or how did you actually turn to being able to hear and be awakened to the fact that there was a voice talking to you?

Yeah, when I was a kid, I was clairvoyant, so I used to see spirits, and that was just the norm for my family. Actually, my brother and I, when we were kids, used to struggle to go to sleep at night because we'd always be like, there's a fairy talking to us, or Grandma's here, great grandma, or, you know, um, And my mom used to comfort me by saying, you know, you don't have to speak to them, you can just speak to your heart instead and go to sleep. And so I developed speaking with my heart instead. And I actually had a lot of fear around that whole spiritual woo-woo stuff. And so I made a deal with my brother when we were like young, maybe like 8 and 10 or something, but I can remember it so clearly where he was like, you never sleep and then you end up up in my bed and then you keep me up. So let's just make a deal to not see that anymore. And so we did, and we, we shut that part of our consciousness down. But I still had this thing of, but I can still chat to my heart when I go to bed, or when I feel scared, or when I feel uncomfortable. So I just started doing that, and I did it all through my teenage years, and then I still did it when I was at uni. Even though I was in a very logical— I mean, I was in the medical world. It's very logical. It's very much about memorizing systems and, and lots of information. I still had on my wall, like, you get to choose to be happy. Remember, your heart knows the way. Like, that's what was on my wall next to the skeletal system and the, you know, the respiratory system and all of that. Um, so yeah, it was just It's interesting.

I remember I grew up in the country in Dubbo, and I remember we were driving back from town to the farm, and my sister and I were in the back seat, and she would have been about 5 and I was 8 or something. And she said— she was looking out the window and she said, 'Oh, I just saw Jesus in the clouds.' And I was like, 'You're an idiot, you couldn't have seen Jesus.' And my mother went, 'No, you don't know what she saw, and you should never judge what people see.' And Pete's like, 'See, I told you I saw Jesus.' But I go, it really gave me that. And I think, you know, when you're at that age too, you're looking to your parents, right? And Mum saying, as that authority person that I respected, going, you never know what other people say, so don't judge it. And, you know, your mum saying to you, you know, you can just listen to your heart. Unfortunately, we close off as, you know, as we grow to that type of innocence of what children can see. But you've actually come like full circle, haven't you, by You talked about the rituals being really important to you. Like, that's something that's part of your life now.

Yeah, massive part of my life. And I had a mentor, like an organic mentor in the shape of one of my friend's mums who was a spiritual teacher and she used to teach meditation. She was also a schoolteacher, was what she used to call— that's my muggle job where I get to help kids and talk to people. But outside of that, she taught meditation, and, and she did a meditation with me when I was in that phase, in the midst of the sliding door moment of I was hearing that it was true for me to leave, but I didn't have the logic to back it up, so I wasn't confident in it. So I was like, this is what my whole life has been building towards. Why would I leave? Is this self-sabotage? So I doubted the message that was coming, and she actually did a practice with me. We were away at a personal development event. It was like a speaking event, and we're in a hotel together, and she did a practice with me to meet my spirit guides, which I was quite nervous about. I was scared because I was remembering being scared as a child, and I was like, spirit guides? Like, I'm a scientist. I'm not really sure where we're going with this. But I had a really incredible experience. And I felt the hand of my ancestors touch the back of my heart, and they just said, lean into your heart, just lean into your heart. It doesn't need to make sense, just go. And I actually had a sprained ankle and was on crutches at that time, at that event, and they said to me, let us prove to you that magic is real. And they put their hands on my ankle and I fell asleep. And the next morning when I woke up, I had no injury.

Wow.

And it was like a moment of, okay, I don't know everything that I think I know, and maybe I don't need to. And it gave me that oomph to just lean into this message that I was receiving.

And I guess the thing is, you know, that logical mind that we have, we're always looking for the most, I guess, the answers that we know. So you had from a very young age a compulsion to be a healer, and the only people that you see in society that are healers are doctors, right? So it makes sense that you go, I'm going to be a doctor, but why does this not feel right? And I— it's interesting, you You know, I have spoken to a number of medical professionals who, when I've asked, you know, why did you become a dentist? Why did you become a doctor? And they said, well, I got the marks. And then if you get the marks to do it, they just expect that's what you're going to do. And it's like, well, do you like healing? Like, yeah, what are you doing? They're like, well, I've been doing it for 20 years. It's what I do. I was like, gosh, you know, imagine, you know, the fact that just because of a schooling system that says there's a hierarchy of marks and there's a prestige associated with different careers is that, by the way, you're the smart one, you go here, or you can, you can regurgitate better than anyone else, you go here. So no, I just want to go to that decision to leave medical school. Obviously you've been on this life path. Your friends and family knew that you were on this life path. You were right in the depths of it. You had lecturers, you've got colleagues and friends like, was there people really challenging you? Was there objection to that? Like, you didn't know what you're going to do. What was that like for you?

Yeah, it was uncomfortable, and I had a real tendency to people-please. And so I actually, when I fully made the decision, didn't tell anyone because I just knew I just got to do this, and I can tell people that I've done Yeah, because I had started to tell people that I was considering doing it. I told a few of my friends who I was studying with, and they were just like, you're stupid, you're just self-sabotaging, your stuff's coming up. Like, we worked so hard to get into this program. And there was a level of ease for me in what I was doing. Like, it came naturally to me. I enjoyed the study. And so they were like, why would you quit something that you're good at? This doesn't make sense. And they would try and encourage me to stay, and that was you know, where they thought they were supporting me. And my family was upset at the idea of me not wanting to follow through with it. And so I just did it, and then I sat in the, the discomfort of that for a couple of weeks before I actually revealed that to my family, which did create conflict, and it did create conflict with my friends. And actually, I I lost most of my friends at that time. Um, all, all of my friends that I studied with, much as if I passed them in the street now, I'd wave and I'd love to hear how their life is going and there was no conflict. We lost contact. It was like the common ground disintegrated beneath our feet.

And then it's gone rather than a true heart connection.

Yeah. Yeah. So, wow, it's uncomfortable.

And how did you then step into the next path in your journey? Like, how did that reveal itself to you?

I had already just started studying Tantra, so I was doing these courses where I was meeting women in women's circles and coming into my own expression and stepping into my empowerment and my voice more. And my clairvoyance had started to come back and I'd started accepting that more. And my teacher in Tantra had said to me, you're very gifted in this. I want to support you if you want to learn to teach this work. And so I started going to more of her trainings, and I went to a couple of her retreats. And it wasn't my true nature and purpose to become a Tantra teacher, but what it did do was provide me with that springboard that, okay, there's other possibilities out there, there's other ways I can help people, there's other ways I can serve humanity. And I started having people just start to want to work with me. And that's how I got into the coaching, facilitating, speaking world. Literally, people just kept going, can I work with you? And I was like, I guess so. We have to figure out what that looks like because I don't work with people.

Now, a quick word from our sponsor, Your Success Club. Your Success Club is a group of vibrant, abundance seekers. If you subscribe to exitthematrix.io, we are going to drop you into the club room, which has lots of goodies, resources, and a free gift just for subscribing. Now back to the podcast. So I guess that brings us to where you are now. Like, you know, you're an author of a number of books, you're, you're an incredible musician, and you know, you obviously, you know, you coach, you speak, you have so many facets of what you to. Can you just take us through some of those things and what they mean to you and how you serve people?

Yeah, of course. I like to call the pinnacle of my work the Chalice. Um, it's not something that you'll find on my website, but that's like my heart's name for it. And my, my goal and my end result, my aim when I work with anybody and when I make art is to connect people to that frequency where they feel the chalice of their heart overflowing. And then they can look around in their life and go, wow, that's an expression of my heart. That relationship's an expression of my heart. That art I'm making is an expression of my heart, you know. So they start to look around in their life and just see more and more of their heart come to life. And so that's, that's really been my mission for myself when I, when I stepped off the platform of the academic world, was like, okay, I've just got to focus on my heart. And can I begin to create and shape more and more of that in my life. And that's what led me to creating my programs, my courses, to creating my books, to creating my music. Everything comes through that lens of, if I do this, is it going to be more of my heart in the world? And if it's a yes, I do it.

Yeah.

And so that's the, the goal of all of my teachings, trainings, programs, retreats, whatever structure it's coming in. The end result is are we going to have more of your heart in the world?

Yeah, it's interesting. The books that you write, what I love about them is that it's an observation of a journey of someone else going through an experience, and it's not a self-help book, but by the end of your book, you're like, ah, you know, there's magic. And so I'd love for you to, to just talk a little bit about the books and how that came to you and those, those kind of stories.

Yeah, cool. It was one of those moments where my heart just said, time to write a book. And I went, okay, what's that look like? And, and lent into that. And our mentor, as you know, is also a writer and, and teaches writing. And so I got into his structures and applied that system and had this idea come to me. And it was very much like, you know, like receiving in a meditation what this would be like. And, and I got this fantasy vision. There's a prophecy and there's dragons and this theme of, hey, hedonism and, and, you know, following desire and, and putting yourself first and being okay with that was like the whole thing about the main character. And I honestly, I judged it when I got it. I was like, there's heaps of that out there. There's, there's so much of that. We don't need more of that. Like, if I want that, I can find it in folds. Like, there's so much of it. But then I got writing because that was my truth. So I'm always going to follow through with, with what comes through in my heart. And I just set aside 3 days and got into it. And by the end of those 3 days, I was so into Ankara's story that I had to keep writing because I wanted to know what happened. So I didn't have a map for it. I just had the end scene in my mind.

Wow.

And kept writing knowing that that's where I was going to end up, but no idea how, how it got there or, you know, how the different characters would be at that point. And so I just had to keep writing to find out what happened.

It's, it's interesting. I wrote my first book, um, 12 years ago, and the publishers had reached out to me. Like, I'm 20-plus years older than you, right, Ellie? So, you know, I've had a bit of time to kind of live with the, the, the fact that I've had something to say and then rejected it. And it was interesting, the publishers like you know, full-on, um, courted me for a year. And it was a book about property and renovation. And I kept saying, look, I have 121 books on my bookshelf about property investing and renovation. You do not need another one. And I'm trying to talk them out of it. And they were saying, no, but no one's heard it in your voice. And it, it's funny because, you know, there, there was things that, and frameworks that I created and I talk about in, in the, and introduced in that book that people would now talk to me when I'm in, they've got the property hat on or the mortgage broking hat on and they'll say, there's this thing called the Trident Strategy. Let me explain it to you. Like, oh, okay. And, and so it's funny, but having spoken to William Whitecloud, our mentor, just this week, he said, stop, you have to write a book. And I'm like, it hasn't been true until now. Okay, I'm listening. And, uh, and I, and I had those fears that came up, which were around the fact that, you know, everyone's written books about this, etc. And he said, you know, when I sat down to write The Magician's Way, I sat down to write Robert Friske's book in an easy way for people to understand. It wasn't going to be this lovely narrative about this person's journey. And I kept thinking, he's already written it, but I'm just, you know, I'm just summarizing and making it easier. He said, if you— and you know his work and you've taught his work in writing, but I think he says something like, if the book that you end up with is the book that you sit down in the beginning to write, you haven't got it right. You haven't learned anything. And for you, was that how— like, I love this fact you had this end vision, but did you just let it unfold? Were you listening to your heart? Like, how did you go about that?

Yeah, I find it when I'm writing, and I totally agree with what you said about there's a surprise when you enter that state of genius. You're always surprising yourself with what comes out. But I find that it's like watching a movie in my mind's eye, and I'm describing what I'm seeing. And so I don't feel like I'm directing the movie or making the movie happen, or in the position to go, 'No, don't do that, Kiso, don't walk away,' or whatever it is, you know. I'm watching the movie and translating it to text. I'm putting it into the written word. And so I just have to keep watching the movie. Like, that's my relationship with it. And I'm— the movie keeps going. I thought it was going to be a single book. It's currently a series where there's 3 books published, but I'm writing the 4th right now and the movie keeps going.

You have to keep writing then, right?

That's it. Yeah. I'm like assuming at some point I'll see end credits and I'll be like, oh, it's over.

I remember opening the first book and I was in bed laying with my husband. I was reading the first scene. I was like, this is amazing. You know, let me read it. I'm not going to give anything away, but you guys should check it out. And I guess that that kind of exploration that she has of following her life and, you know, the life that you've now, you know, followed as well, following your heart, following your genius, seeing your greatness. Can you just talk about, you know, accessing your greatness and, and how people might go about doing that.

Yeah, so I think it's really interesting because we so often access our limitations, and people know, like, oh yeah, I procrastinate, oh yeah, I'm quite lazy, or I forget things, or— totally. Yeah. And what I try to remind people is you actually know your greatness too. You're just not used to looking for it. You're not used to focusing on it. And I find that when you just give people the opportunity, create the space and go, you know, what are you good at? What comes so easy to you that you don't think about? What if you had to have a list of tasks in your week? Which ones would you pick to do first? Or, you know, what, what comes to you naturally? People, people know it's inside us. It's not, it's not a secret that we have to go on some huge mission or go to 12 retreats to uncover. It's inside us. And I have a meditation that I, I give my clients to use to tap into that. And it's not a huge thing. I think it goes for like 12 minutes. If it's longer, it's just because there's music there for you to journal to, um, for as long as you want to, you know. But yeah, I just think it's creating space for people to listen to that part of themselves and acknowledge it because it is there and they would have already exhibited it in their life. And have on some level an awareness of it, but maybe not received that that's actually their gift in life and it's part of their true nature and purpose.

I love that. And Ellie has very generously, uh, agreed to pass that on to our listeners. So go and check out the show notes at exitthematrix.io/s/ellie, E-L-L-I-E. And Ellie, thank you so much for that. That is such a generous gift. I just wanna wrap up with, uh, question that we ask all of our guests, and that is something unusual that people may not know or be surprised about you.

Oh my gosh, the thing that's jumping into my head, and I'm just going to go with it, is that I still have a teddy bear.

So cute! Does it have a name?

Teddy.

So original. Right. And Teddy, for—

I was given Teddy when I was a child when I was struggling to sleep at night. It was actually my dad's Teddy. So to full circle our conversation, yeah, when I was struggling to sleep because I was seeing all these spirits and my intuition was all open and it was scaring me, my dad gave me this Teddy and I still, I still have it. Yeah, it still finds its way into the bed.

I love that. You know, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a teddy at all. My when I was very, very homesick at boarding school, my uncle and aunt got me a teddy bear called Winston. And then I became like headboarder and like there was all these young kids that were girls that were terribly homesick. And Winston used to go and spend the night with each of them, like when whoever was most homesick, Winston used to have. And I've had Winston for years. And then my son had Winston and he's now 17 and I've just got a puppy in the last few months. And now Tilly sleeps with Winston. So it's okay that everyone has a teddy bear. So I've had Winston for like 45 years or something. It's so good making you get emotional. But yeah, that's beautiful. Well, look, I just am so grateful that we got to hear your story and the sliding door kind of moment, because sometimes there's big decisions, right? There's, there's this real going against what built your way up to for so long and taking that, that insight to listen to your heart. And I think, you know, something that I'm going to take away from this is that, you know, listening to your heart and, and even journaling to it, you know, we've heard about conversations with God, but that idea of, you know, conversations with your heart, I think is so beautiful. So thank you so much for sharing your story with us today, Ellie.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Well guys, just before you go and, uh, go and check out Ellie and, uh, get— download that greatness meditation, which I can tell you I'll be double-clicking on as well. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it. We're going to hack the algorithm and get this out to more people. Now you can find this podcast on the Los Angeles Tribune podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, Google, all good places. Of course you can go to exitthematrix.io and subscribe and get a free gift from me and hear when the next great podcast episode is coming out as well. And as always, I really hope that you can now recognize some sliding door moments in your life and reflect on making a choice and going for your heart. All the best and bye for now. Here's to your success.

Bye. Thank you for listening to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success. Make sure you subscribe to future episodes at www.exitthematrix.io. Until next time, here's to your success.