113: The Seeker's Journey with Daniel Aaron

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hi everybody. Welcome back. I'm really excited to be here today with Daniel Aaron. Our paths have crossed through the Internet. Not yet IRL though we've been in the same places and countries, often at the same time. Daniel Aaron is a teacher, writer and human potential coach with half a century of joyous seeking and more than 25 years of experience in yoga and personal transformation for thousands of others. He's the creator of the world recognized Daniel Aaron Yoga Teacher trainings which he launched in 2005. And he also founded the Radiantly Alive Yoga Studio in ubud, Bali in 2012, which Daniel I think I first started taking classes there when I went in 2015 and it was gorgeous. He's now back stateside and an ongoing seeker of wisdom, mystical and practical and how we can apply it to radically upgrade our lives from enlightened gurus to the deepest therapists, cutting edge nutrition, fasting and cleansing ashrams, ashram centers and caves from Maine to Bali. With a few hundred visas along the way he has lived or vistas probably and visas. He has lived everything from an excruciating childhood, which was also full of love, to helping others find everyday guaranteed joy and entrepreneurial brilliance which includes his own massively painful lessons and mistakes. Daniel, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Jenny. I really appreciate you having me.

Yeah, it's great to have you. So I'm wondering about the excruciating childhood that you mentioned and how your upbringing sparked this journey of seeking ever since.

Yeah, okay, sure. Thank you. It's when I heard you say that word which written it sounds so dramatic. My goodness. Poor baby. Excruciating. What I can say about it though is it was a very ordinary childhood. You know, lower middle class America. And compared to so much trauma that people experienced in childhood, mine was quite mild. You know, there was a lot of pain and abuse in my family, which is fairly normal. And I was probably a little more sensitive to it than some folks. One of my, I guess, key memories from my childhood was when I must have been about maybe three years old, four years old, I was standing in the front yard, this was in Falmouth, Maine. And my family was inside the house. And it was kind of the typical scene. There was yelling and screaming and maybe an occasional object flying across the room. And. And I learned at an early age just, you know, better to kind of step away from that stuff. That was my strategy. And I was out on the front lawn and could kind of hear the yelling behind me. And I looked across the street and it was. Must have been just at dinner time or end of workday because there were neighbors just arriving home from their workday, a couple different men in suits, and they had briefcases and sort of rounded shoulders, and they walked in their houses and they kind of looked at me and waved, but it was just a somewhat joyless picture. They felt like it appeared to me from those childhood eyes that they were just going through the motions. And I remember standing there, you know, with the yelling behind me and the appearance of these guys living out a Ruth in front of me. And I just thought, there's gotta be more to life than this. There just has to be more to it. And I think, you know, and then I forgot all about that and just went about my business of surviving childhood. Though somehow that always stayed with me and in a way, became the cornerstone of my life.

Yeah. What a powerful memory to be sandwiched between the chaos happening in your family and then yet looking across the street and seeing what would look like order. Men in suits with briefcases, but with sunken shoulders, as you described, not looking any happier.

Yeah, exactly. It was a good contrast.

And you might have mentioned somewhere online that you were also orphaned at one point. Did I make that up?

No, you didn't make that up. I probably have said that. And now that you mention it, I suddenly wonder if I'm using the term correctly. And I suppose what I meant by it is, from an early age, I happened to experience a lot of death around me. I was born into a family sort of young, like a second generation to a family. And so a couple of my siblings, my grandparents, my parents, they all died when I was fairly young. And I didn't have the orphan experience of, like, Oliver living In an orphanage or cider house rules or any of those kind of orphanages, though, at an early age, I got the experience of, hey, you know what? It's. It's just me. There isn't. There isn't a fallback or a connection from above or to the side.

How old are you when that. You had that realization or when that came to be?

Well, I suppose it was the last to fall, so to speak, was my mother. And that was. I was about 30 years old.

Yeah, it's. I can't even imagine what that's like where you. I do have a friend whose parents are not in her life, and.

She had her grandparents who raised her, and then they passed. And we had many conversations about what it feels like to not have a backup. You know, it's kind of in the, quote, natural order of things. Ideally, someone's parents live into old age, and you have this family structure around you. And it sounds like in your case, it'd be a very, very bizarre feeling, to put it mildly, to feel that you're it. You're it that remains from that unit that you grew up with.

Yeah, it is. It's. It's. It does feel like it's out of the natural order, and.

It'S. It's an interesting one because my mother died at a relatively early age. And I think a lot of why she died, you know, health reasons aside, that was an important part, was that she. One of her. One of her children had killed herself and another had died very young from a heart attack. And those. When children die before their parents, that's also something that's so out of our expected natural order. And she never really recovered from that.

And those were your siblings.

That's right. Yes.

Yeah. Wow. So how did you. Because your life could have taken one of those routes as well. You know, in one scenario, one sliding doors, and then in this other one, you kind of found seeking somehow and started your journey. I would love to hear what put you on that path, and maybe you found it the hard way, you know, I don't know. But how did you. What was the spark within you that said, okay, either I'm on my own, or there's got to be a better way or to. To save yourself from feeling similarly down and hopeless.

Yeah, it's a great question and one that I've considered a lot in my own experience and also with clients and students, because some people experience trauma, and the result is they shut down and their life diminishes from that time forward, and others experience a trauma. And it becomes a catalyst for them to bounce into a whole new way of being in their life. And.

I'm going to do what I always.

Make fun of my, my daughter and my clients for it and say, I don't know, I don't know why it was that way for me. And then I'll proceed to make some guesses. You know, I think there's just a certain.

Way, in a way, that moment from childhood when I realized that there's got to be more to this. And of course we all know that on some level the, the truth of who we are or the spiritual knowledge that's in all of us and knows that life isn't just suffering, you know, no offense to the Buddhist precept. And there's of course, wisdom and truth in that. And there's a part of all of us that knows there's more to it than just going downhill, even if that's popular and what's sold to us a lot. Somehow I feel really lucky that I retained some little bit of that knowledge even through the darkest times.

Right. It's so interesting that that came to you even at 3 years old. So clearly this is embedded in your path somehow, or at least the seed of awareness was there at such an early age. And it's funny, you know, even as you were saying, the answer is, I don't know, but you could start to guess. I do feel that it is such a combination of grace. It's like it's grace that descends and says, hey, there can be a different way. And then there's also the practical. You know, like you even say in your bio, the, the seeker of wisdom, mystical and practical, that there's that mystical piece of. How do you have that insight at 3 years old? And then the practical of okay, and then you kind of follow that you, there are steps you take. Listeners, you will not know this because I haven't told you yet, but when, when Daniel and I first started emailing, almost right away we exchanged, I don't know how we got to it so quick, a shared love of astrology and shared sun, moon and rising. And Daniel said, well, I've been studying astrology for 25 years, which I thought was very interesting. So at what point in your life, and the reason I bring that up is maybe you have some insights as well. I remember you saying you actually had the wrong natal chart for a while, which is another interesting quirk twist of fate.

But just where you started, when you did start to say, okay, I'm going to take that trauma and that chaos of your childhood and upbringing and feeling orphaned and kind of rudderless. And how you. What started your search, what were those first steps? Because you seem to find a lot of this stuff early on.

Well, yeah, I suppose relatively early on. Mid 20s, I suppose. And a lot of who I have become in the last 20 something years pivots around. Oh, hey, I used your word. That's exciting. Pivots around.

I love a good product placement.

Thank you, Daniel.

Yes, yes, I've been planning that for weeks to say that. Exactly right then.

Perfectly used.

No.

It all stems in a way from this very strong period in my life in 1995. And I experienced something that could be called an awakening, though that sounds a bit ostentatious to say it that way, or a big shakeup or just a way of seeing life differently than I ever had or even knew was possible. And one of the precursors to that, in fact, was my discovery of astrology. And of course, I'd grown up like a lot of people, hearing.

The little bits about astrology that you find in the newspapers and sun sign astrology. And I thought, that's completely bunk. How could it possibly be that 1/12 the population is going to have this experience today? That's ridiculous. And then I started reading. I was in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in the weekly paper there was a column by Rob Bresney. And I started reading it just because it was there and interesting and probably eight weeks in a row I noted that there was something in it that felt eerily accurate or true in my life. And when I got to the last couple weeks of it, it was so strong that I said, you know, maybe my former belief about this is not accurate. This requires a little investigation. And I had a friend of a friend who was into astrology. I didn't know at the time that actually she was about as amateur as you can get. She had a great love, and she charged me $25 to do a reading for me, which was simply her copying things out of books and writing them handwritten on a piece of paper. And she actually hand me this thing that was probably 30 pages of handwritten stuff. And it, you know, from my later experience and understanding of astrology, wasn't what you'd call a reading. It was just a listing of these little different pieces. And still it was so there was so much in it that it just opened my eyes wide. And from that point on, I said, I want more of this. And that began for me a somewhat obsessive study period.

I know exactly what you mean.

By the time I had my first reading, my friend Jennifer Raccioppi reached out proactively. When I launched my second website, Jennyblake Me, she's like, you seem fascinating. Can I do a reading for you? And then I got a few. And then there was, I think it was for me, 2015, that decided I have to learn everything there is to know about this. And I started reading dozens of astrology books. I studied for six months, pulled up over a hundred charts of friends and family, because I was as skeptical as you. And then I realized it's dead on. It's just you can learn so many things. And I would go. I was starting to play with doing career. I was calling them career cosmos sessions. And I could just shortcut directly to advice. I would have had to talk to someone for an hour to kind of try and understand, well, what are your strengths? What are your interests? What are you missing? Your life and your work. And by pulling up their chart, I could say, here's your zone of genius. Does that resonate? They'd be like, yes. Oh, my goodness. And it was just like, it's really crazy, this stuff. It actually works. It's really wild. And what you described, I love that your friend did that for you. Jen calls that commonly known as cookbook astrology, where this is why people criticize it, because if you just look up and by the way, sun sign, sun astrology, that's one of where nine other planets are in a natal chart. So it gets so much more complex once you're able to look up a full chart. And I'm saying that not to you, Daniel, but to everybody listening, that I think when people do geek out on astrology, it's less about, oh, just what's your sign? And it's more like, where are these nine planets? What time were you born? What are the. What houses are prominent? Like, what themes of your life are prominent? How do these signs interact with each other? Which ones are close, holding hands and conjunct? Which ones are opposing each other and creating tension? And there's so much. I learned so much even about myself through my chart in the four months that I was, like, doing this mega deep dive.

Yeah, so interesting. So. So did discovering astrology. I also like your approach that, huh, this is weirdly working. Maybe there's something to investigate here. And I feel like that is the seeker's way. I'm curious how you would define a seeker, at least, or your mode of seeking, how it's shown up through your life.

Yeah, thank you. I think in a way it comes back to that early realization for me that there's got to be more to this. And I've always, I feel very lucky to have an innate curiosity and I love learning. And even a few years before I discovered astrology when I was just coming out of college and also had a feeling like, whoa, what's, you know, what am I doing with my life? I know you know something about that. And.

I discovered then, what's it called? The Myers Briggs Personality Sorter. And that launched me into this sort of early obsession with psychology, which I had never studied formally before. And I thought, well, hey, I want to understand myself and how I work. And I'd had a couple experiences that scared me a little bit where I wasn't sure who I was and that led me to meditation. And then I got obsessed with psychology and these different self understanding tools like the personality sorters. And then when I found astrology, it was just such a breath of fresh air because as you said, there is a great complexity to it. And it's still the only tool that I found that actually accounts for the complexity that we are as human beings because we've got so many different parts to ourselves.

And some of them seem to conflict at times and different desires and yeah, Cookbook astrology is when someone hasn't synthesized all these different parts and there's value in that for sure. And these days it's great. You can find so much online about that. And then there's the real art as an astrologer and the art of the seeker and the awakened being is to integrate all these different parts and somehow find ways of optimizing them and getting them to talk to each other.

Right. Finding themes. And Jen told me that when she looks at a chart now, it's like a 3D hologram appears to her of who the person is that the chart no longer becomes these. You know, you could do dozens, if not hundreds of aspects of a chart and that's the cookbook. This means this, this means this. But then once you can, you know, she's so experienced now, she can look and just see this 3D hologram come to life.

Yeah.

By the way, even Myers Briggs is partially based on astrology. And Carl Jung used astrology in a lot of his sessions with people. And a lot of modern psychology, people don't realize that has roots in astrology as well.

Absolutely, yeah.

So one thing I'm curious about, you say on your website he is as ordinary as ordinary can be. I thought that was A really interesting line to put on your site. Like most people, their about pages, how extraordinary they are, why you should listen to them and hire them. And I really love that you're waving this flag of he has. He is as ordinary as ordinary can be. Now I might disagree, but I would love to hear what inspired you to put that on your site.

I suppose in some way it's that.

I've never liked the part of teaching and coaching and business where we are advertising ourselves and saying look at me and I'm so great and I'm the best at this. And whether it's through social media or through dating websites or any of that, where we try and sell all the best parts of ourselves. So that's one part I've never just really felt great about. That. And then a part of my work has become to help everybody know how extraordinary they are. And.

Part of how I've come to work with people is to.

Make myself very.

Just real, authentic, be as ordinary as, you know, the kitchen table. The kitchen table is beautiful. And when we.

One of the lines I remember from a writing teacher when I was first studying writing years ago, I think it was Paula Marshall said, if you write in the language that you heard around the kitchen table, you will write beautifully. And for all of us, I think we shine and are our best selves when we just accept who we are. When we love all the parts of ourselves, including the things that seem like imperfections or the things that we at some point thought we should be ashamed of.

Amen. So well said. I think on the subject of writing too, man, I forget where I heard this. Here's one of those Internet grapevines, but that the most popular books have a fifth grade reading level, that the best writing hits a fifth grade reading level, and that actually by writing for a higher reading level than that, people somehow don't resonate with it. It sounds. They miss words or it sounds too smart or it's overly complicated. And so I love that advice. I'm curious because only because I took classes there and it was really an incredible place. What inspired you to create Radiantly Alive? The yoga studio in Bali. And similarly on the subject of pivoting, how you knew when it was time to close out that chapter and come back to the States.

Thanks. Those are great questions. The reason I started Radiantly Alive, well, first I started it actually not as a center. I started it as a training and I guess you could call it a retreat and training business, which for me just naturally grew out of. I had been so obsessed with taking trainings and retreats and. And then working on them in different ways over the years. And I was just blown away by how powerful could be the experience people would have. And people would come to events that I was part of, leading in five days, seven days, say that their life had completely transformed. It was the most powerful time they'd ever had in their life. And it was true, and I really saw it. So that was super inspiring to me. When I moved to Bali, I was somehow stimulated by the environment, to the creativity, and it coincided with a time in my life where I had been obsessively seeking. And I was working with people for many years and teaching. And primarily, though, I was just obsessed with seeking, going back to what is a seeker. For me, it was, I want to awaken, I want to heal, I want to discover, I want to learn. And. And I'd had a realization in, I don't know, 2000 or something like that, that my seeking needed to step back and I needed to plant myself in one place. So that's why I moved to Bali. And after I got there, it just occurred to me, well, you know, how can we create. How can I create these kind of experiences for people and in a way, give back to them? And. And that happened. And I had no idea what I was doing on the business level of it, how to create it. Though immediately there was this snowball success of them, and they grew popular. And coming out of that, a friend said to me, hey, I've got this. You know, we got this little bit of land here. Do you want to build a yoga studio? And at first I said, no way. I don't know. That sounds like a lot of work.

That's not, you know, that's not me. And then something just kept occurring to me that, you know what? There's an opportunity here to create something extraordinary that will really serve a lot of people, and I can do it. And so I did. And it was a funny thing because after we opened, people said to me, oh, you must be so happy, your dream. And I didn't want to reign on their excitement. And still, part of my response was, actually, no, this wasn't a dream. It was just something I felt like needed to be done and I could do it. And that said, it was an amazing experience. I learned a lot. And how did I know when it was time to move on? Well, in one way, it was the normal way that any of us know, as Pluto would remind us. I got a lot of pain and difficulty and realized that you know what this is? I'm not anymore living my dharma. That word from Sanskrit meaning my true path. And I had gotten so occupied with the running of the business, and what I was really. What I'm really here for more is to serve people and teach and coach and work directly with people. And the business aspect of it was great, and I had enough skill that I could do it. It's not really my zone of genius, though. So eventually I realized, you know what? I'm sort of killing myself and I'm denying the world of my greater gifts by staying in this role.

I think that happens so often, which is that. And it's weird. It's sometimes weird that we expect ourselves or. Actually, I don't want to speak for you, but there are initiators and starters, and then there are really great maintainers. And we saw this even at Google and friends who work at startups and even as individual coaching clients. Some people are really great at going from zero to one, getting something from nothing, creating. Me, too. I love creating courses and things from scratch. And then maintenance mode can be kind of. It's a whole different thing. It's just its own entirely different thing. And I think that if we can celebrate the parts that we're good at and that we like that, then there is no pressure. That just because you served this need and started the studio means you now need to maintain it for the next 25 years. That actually your dharma may be in the initiating of something like that, learning, you know, knowing not to leave too soon, but also not to stay too long to where you feel, as you said, just really pain and difficulty.

Yeah, it's. It's true. We all have certain proclivities. And. And that's one of the things that I love as. As the. The process has unfolded is.

The couple that I sold the studio to who worked with me for probably at least a year before I sold it, they've done such a great job with it, and.

It really suits them doing it. And it's beautiful.

You've pivoted to creating. At least one of your projects at the moment is a virtual sangha. Can you define that for anyone who doesn't know the term and just share. Share what you're up to now.

Yeah. Thank you. The word sangha means. The easiest translation is community. And it's a term that I understand coming from Buddhism, and it's also a word in Christianity. Jesus put it, when two or more gather in my name, I will be there. And when people are come together with a specific purpose, then their individual powers are amplified. And when the purpose is, in my language, creating a vibrant life, then it creates an energy unto itself. There's an entrainment, there's a power to it. So Sangha is one of the precepts in Buddhism that says, you know, it's really hard to awaken on our own. Or as one of my teachers, Jim Rohn, put it, you become the seven people you hang out with most. And as I've been in this transition of saying, okay, well, I don't. I don't have a center anymore. I don't live in Bali. And how. What's. What are the best ways for me to. To serve and to earn a living? One of the things that came to me is while the technology is so phenomenal now that I can share teachings and things that I've learned in the last three decades through a medium of creating videos and sharing them with people on a portal, and then we can get together, which in ways that might be called a conference call. Though I think of it more in the spiritual context. Satsang, which, you know, that means a gathering of people in the name of truth.

What a better word than conference call, right? Love it.

Yeah. And it's, you know, it really is the same thing. Is it, you know, is it a meeting of a gang? Is it a religious ceremony? Is it a satsang? Is it a conference? Just about our intention when we come together and finding that people from all walks of life and all over the world, you know, there are people in our community from Australia, from the UK, from Washington, D.C. you know, all over the world and coming together with a common desire to thrive in the world, not just survive and to live a spiritual life in a way that is fulfilling to them and also contributing to the world. It's just, to me, still amazing that it's so easy for us to come together in ways that, while it's virtual on the level that we're not necessarily in physical proximity of each other, it's very real and it's really powerful.

It really is. And we have so many incredible tools available to us now. And I think that is one of the beautiful things of where technology is going. Of course, there's so much social media that it's not to like, but there's a lot to like. And this, we can't even. This is almost like the proper version of social media, like meaningful truth seeking. I mean, I'm hearing myself being sort of judgy as I'm saying this, but I'll say, for me personally, this is the social part of media and Internet where I find meaning too, is in very specific communities, like I have Momentum, which is the songhead that I've gathered. Then I'm part of a writer's group on Facebook and a part of a speakers group. And those actually bring me tremendous joy.

Versus the more broad, sort of dispersed, where I think it's just, I feel more a sense of distraction.

You've said, you know, you brought up this idea of living a spiritual life in a way that is fulfilling and also contributing to the world. And elsewhere on your site you say, you know, your religion is your life and also you're passionate about the real yoga of life beyond the physical fitness practices. I would love for you to speak to how you see your. What you mean by your religion is your life and the real yoga of life.

Ooh, thank you. Those are juicy questions. And by the way, kudos to you. I appreciate that you're hearing yourself sound a little bit judgy about what you're saying. And to have the presence to note that and the honesty and vulnerability to say it, that's beautiful and well. And actually, I guess that's, in a way, that's what I mean by I forget what the language we were just using is the living a spiritual or my life is my religion. It's living in a way that we are.

Constantly or as often as possible looking within to say, what are the effects of my. My thoughts and my actions now? And what are the effects on the rest of the world, the other beings around us? And, you know, I think almost all of the religions started with a very noble, loving aim to.

Increase the. The vibrancy and love of the world that we live in. And.

Part of what I mean by that is yoga done on the mat. One of my teachers used to say this line said, be a yogi, at least when you're doing your yoga practice. And it was kind of a funny thing. And he meant it as in really be your best self and focus here. And I've seen it in religion and in the yoga world, where we have these sort of isolated practices that we are very spiritual and altruistic and loving during those moments. And then it's challenging to carry that out through the rest of our life and day. And so in the yoga language, it's interesting, from the yoga scripture, one of the things that you don't hear about much is this physical practice which has become what everybody thinks of as yoga. You know, this stretching and moving and breathing and wearing tights and the little rubber rectangle on the ground. What you do hear a lot of, though, in the older spiritual texts on yoga is it's about how we treat each other and it's about the presence that we create through these practices. And the two pieces that I find to be the most powerful of all of that are some of the basic instructions from Patanjali, the author of the Yoga Sutra, the bible of yoga. And one is ahimsa, which means doing as little harm as possible, sometimes translated as non violence. And the other is satya, translated as honesty or authenticity. And what Patanza didn't say a whole lot about, and hard to say actually, because this was Sanskrit and it was very brief and even the origins are somewhat controversial. The key to it is to live both of those at the same time, because in some way it's, I won't say it's easy to do as little harm as possible. One extreme might be that the Jains, the religion, you know, in its extreme, where they, when they step outside, will sweep the ground in front of them so as not to step on any creatures, any ants. And so, you know, if we make our soul orientation, I'm going to do as little harm as possible. One of the results is, well, we don't do a whole lot in our lives because we're all going to make mistakes. And so one is to do as little harm as possible, and that's a challenging practice. The other is to be authentic and honest at the same time. And to balance the two of those is a razor's edge of awareness and awakening and so beautifully challenging and valuable.

I love how you put it and your emphasis on, excuse me, on the new normal, like your vision that the new normal is love and truth, kindness, authenticity and radiance for all beings of every species. And I can resonate with that so much. I feel like my religion is kindness and I'm waiting for someone to give me a reason to have otherwise, like an otherwise orientation other than kindness toward the world. And like you said, it's not easy. And I find one thing that I get curious about is like, you know, my comments about social media, it's more my opinion, my experience of it.

And that's just my view. And like, I just finished reading a book called the Righteous why Good People Are Divided on Politics and Religion. And it's a really fascinating read to kind of help understand, put ourselves in the shoes of other people and understand how the mind works, especially when it comes to morals and our beliefs. And.

Yet it is I mean it's because you can take this right down to the level of thought, you know, ahimsa and as little harm as possible, even in our judgments, even in our mind. You know, it's like. And that's gets wild and it starts to be that I'm finding for myself.

Many strongly held opinions can be debunked or seen from another light and seen from another perspective. And that there's always room for seeing another side or more empathy or more kindness or more love as you are advocating for.

Yeah, I'm with you. And that's beautiful that your religion is kindness. And.

If we all orient ourselves that way, it becomes a different world for sure. And that sounds like a great book. I'll grab that one up. And it's an interesting comment. Was it why smart people are divided? Is that how it is?

Why good people are on politics and religion? Because it's very easy to kind of point fingers at the other side and say they don't know what they're talking about or they're so ignorant or they're so wrong.

Yeah.

Or I'm with you. And I think that's the, that is the imperative that we are.

Inheriting right now. Let me translate that to fifth grade level.

What I mean is.

What we are all needing to learn as a culture and what the gifts of all the darkness that's emerging right now, what those gifts are in some way is saying to us that we can't afford to have division even though it's so understandable and good people are divided about things. What we need is inclusion and finding ways to come together and understand the apparently opposing viewpoints.

Another line of yours that I love. You say you hope to create a world where an aberrant act of meanness creates a ripple of alarm that immediately engenders a response of love and understanding so, so powerful that it melts the pain and meanness and harmony is restored. What a beautiful vision.

Wow, cool. Thank you. It's very sweet of you. Read these different pieces, most of which I don't even remember. But yeah, that is the picture that I have.

And I believe it's possible and I'm going to keep believing that whether we reach it in my lifetime or not.

At least we're moving in the right direction.

Well, tell me more about that as we start to wrap up because you've mentioned, you know, we are all needing to learn this as a culture and there can. There does seem to be so much darkness and so much going wrong. How. Two questions. How do you Maintain that hope and that positive outlook. And when you feel overwhelmed about where to start or who to help and how, what do you do? And maybe this can be. I always like to end with a little call to action for listeners. So bonus points if you can work that in.

Awesome. Well.

It'S a practice for me, and certainly there are days when I wake up and I don't feel thrilled and optimistic in light. And whether it's something I've experienced in my own life or with clients or in the world or sometimes I don't even know why. And what is extremely helpful to me is having a practice. And what I mean by that is the daily kind of ritual that helps me to remember what I believe, remember what I have experienced, what I know to be possible, remember.

Where I've set my compass coordinates in life. And.

That to me is such an essential thing for anyone who wants to live a great life. To live a. I even hesitate to say spiritual life because it sounds a little airy, fairy or pompous, though just to live a life that they love, that's meaningful is to have a part of the day be dedicated to creating our lives and our days intentionally and.

Well, maybe. I don't know. Was there more to your question that I missed or was that it? Did I answer you?

That's great. Tell us what are one or two of your must have daily practices or rituals that keep you grounded?

Yeah, sure. Well, I'll just, I'll tell you real quick what I call the Fantastic Four is first thing in the morning, doing a little bit of free writing and so valuable. I could speak for hours on that. And beyond that, some physical movement. It's just so useful and necessary to move our bodies in ways that are helpful. And that could be days of discussion too. And then breathing is conscious. Breathing is by far the most powerful tool I've discovered in all these years. And just some simple breath practices. And I have actually, I have one called the Sun Breath that's totally free on YouTube. People can see it there. It's a really simple process. And the other one is meditation. And our lives are so active and yang and energetic and doing that to have even a few moments. And with people I work with, I say, you know, make three minutes your minimum and set a timer and do three minutes of just sitting there and noticing your thoughts and as soon as you can, coming back to focusing on your breath. So powerful.

That's great, isn't it? Someone put it so well for me once with breath work that. Or maybe it was in a yoga class that the breath is the only involuntary and voluntary function that our body has. Or it's both. Like we can control it and it's automatic.

Yeah, it's tremendous in that way. It's so. Such a miracle. It's so simple. It can be completely automatic. Or at any point, we can choose to utilize it and within a few breaths, within a few seconds, completely change the way we're experiencing reality.

So true. I will point everyone to the sun breath on YouTube in the show notes. Is there a small breath practice that you can recommend for listeners now in addition to that one? Or maybe you could explain the gist of that one.

Yeah, I mean, in simplest terms, it's using your full respiratory system, which will look like breathing in the belly. Anatomically, that's not quite right. But breathing in so that the belly expands, taking as big a breath as you can in and out of the mouth, then making it continuous so there are no pauses. And. Well, let's see, we're in an audio medium, but I think I can probably give you a sense it's kind of like.

And I'm making it sound more than it needs to be. You don't really need any sound, but it's that kind of active, somewhat.

Strong breathing, or especially the inhale is this.

There's some effort involved in the exhale is very relaxed. Doing that for say 108 times. I like that number. And doing that when you're sitting down or laying down to make sure it's totally safe. And then at the end of the 108 breaths, just pausing and suspending with no breath, staying with that as long as you can. And it's great to time it. And then when you inhale, do it through the nose and take a big breath up. Imagining energy moving from your base up through your spine up to the crown area. And holding that breath in as long as feels comfortable for you. And actually imagining, and sometimes you can more than imagine experience that there is this energy or vitality, this life force coming from the base of the spine, the pelvis, and just travels right up through that center channel of us and energizes our brain or our higher spiritual centers or whichever way you want to look at it.

And that's it. In simplest terms, that would be like one round of the sun breath. And then you just take a few simple relaxed breaths after that and notice the change that happens from that. And I'll say one more thing about it, which is, I think, part of why it's so powerful and why Positive ritual, intentional ritual or practice is so powerful is because what we are doing through those is raising our vibration or frequency. And this is not even New Agey or spiritual talk anymore. Everybody knows that life, all things are made of frequency and vibration. And when we do these little simple things that raise our frequency, it changes what we experience throughout life. It changes our perception and also changes what we attract into our lives.

And why is it called the Sun Breath?

Well, I needed a name and.

I've studied lots of different types of breath, from therapeutic sort of emotional ones to spiritual ones to yogic ones. And I call it sun breath because it's great to do when the sun rises. It's great to do in the first part of the day because it sets us on a great vibrational path and it's really energizing. And so for some people, not great to do it later in the day because it is so energizing. And then there's a moon breath you can do in the evening.

Love it. It's a great name. I love the idea of starting with the Sun Breath exercise at the start of a day. Daniel, thank you so much for sharing your insights, your story, your wisdom and your extraordinariness with everyone today. Can you let listeners know where they can find you if they want to keep in touch?

Absolutely. And thank you, Jenny. It's really an honor to be able to share with your people and to get some more time together talking. I love what you're doing on so many different levels and the kindness that you bring to it and your curiosity is super inspiring. It's a beautiful gift that you bring to so many people and how people can reach me easiest is my website, Danielaron.com it's Daniel. D a N I E L A A R O N and then, you know, Facebook. I'm there too. You can find me there. And YouTube, all the usual places. Well, some of the usual places.

Awesome. Thank you for the kind words, Daniel. And I'm grateful for the Internet and the social medias for connecting me to someone like you. And now we get to keep in touch. And thank you again. Thank you for being here and for the kind words and to everybody for listening.

Yeah. And on that note, thanks to all the listeners because people that are interested in, you know, countercultural stuff like this are the, you know, that's our tribe. Those are the people that are making a difference in the world. So I'm so appreciative that people are listening. It's awesome.

Me too.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter Ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always.