Liberated Living with Kute Blackson

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Hey, it's JJ Virgin. And welcome to the JJ Virgin lifestyle show where I talk health, beauty and personal development with some of the coolest people in the world. And I give you tips that you can put into fast action to uplevel your health and and your life. Now, today's show is all about liberated living.

What?

What is that? You'll find out in a minute when I bring on Coot Blackson. And now the first thing you're going to hear when you hear Coot speak is you're going to hear this accent. And the accent is because he grew up in Ghana, West Africa. And there's more to that story. And it's like, honestly, as I was listening to this story and the story about his mom and dad and this whole thing, I. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonn surprise, but I literally had chills as this was going on. So I am super excited to share that one with you. So Coot is a big deal in the personal development space, and rightly so. He works on this process that he developed called liberated living, a process that liberates the individual and the true self at the core and then pushes those gifts out into the universe. This helps the individual get in touch with who they really are. It's the process of breaking fees so that the individual can live, give and share the truest expression of their self. And I can't wait for you to hear how he explains this and how he came through this process and then some of the amazing stories of people who have. He's got a great book out. It's called you'd are the one. You will definitely want to grab that one. And he is just. He is one of the big thought leaders now coming out in the world and again bringing out this concept of liberated living. So I'm excited to share Coot Blackson with you today. All right, so let's do it. Coot Blackson.

Great to be here, jj. Been looking forward to it.

How are you? I'm so glad you're here with me today. It is awesome because you've got a concept that I want to share with My listeners. But I need you to explain it to me, too. And that is this whole idea of liberated living. What the heck is that?

Well, liberated living is. It's something I write a bit about in my book, but it's all about ultimately that, you know, we're born free. You know, as children, we're born free. We're born in touch with our essence. And as you look at a child, child would jump on a table and express itself and sing and dance and, you know, it doesn't. Doesn't discriminate. But all of a sudden, you know, we meet our parents and media and society, and the child slowly starts getting conditioned and the process of conditioning begins where maybe we were abandoned or we faced pain, or we were abused or we were neglected or whatever our circum wasn't. Slowly we start disconnecting and learning all sorts of ways to avoid pain, to not feel the pain of what was going on around us. We start developing all these defense mechanisms and start closing off. And then we go out into the world and we start learning all sorts of ways. We develop a mask and a Persona and a personality to fit in, to be loved, to be approved, who I need to be in order to be loved by my caretakers, my parents, my grandparents, those around me. And slowly we start identifying with this way of being. And maybe we need to be the nice person or the good guy or the caretaker, and. And we think that's who we are. So we avoid pain and we start learning this whole strategy to get love and validation. We think that's who we are. So for me, liberated living is the willingness to. So the more we are locked inside of that identified way of being, the less liberated, the less free we are. So liberated living is the willingness to question, is who I am, who I really am, or is there something more? And I think the more we can peel the layers away and reconnect with our true self, reconnect with our original, true nature, then we can live liberated and freely, truly free in the world to make choices and live life.

So that process, I mean, as I'm listening to this, I go, there's going to be that uncomfortable zone because you build up this identity of who you are, right? And I think of. I'll give a great analogy. If I'm going out as like, you know, J.J. the health person, and I go speak somewhere, and I have that. I'm kind of that Persona. It's super easy if I go out as jj, like just jj, you know, to an event, to a party, meeting People without that mask on, you feel vulnerable.

It's a little.

It's that. So how do you help people kind of make that transition? Because you're almost saying, hey, take off your mask, let down your walls, and let your true self out.

Yeah.

We don't even know who the. It's like, well, how do I. How do I locate that person who's been so shoved down and is scared in there?

Yeah. I just want to give a quick analogy or example, if that's cool, because I think that might help few people is, you know, I had a client who worked with me, and when he showed up, I. You know, I just felt like he was. He was a powerhouse. He was like a lion, but he was acting like a mouse, you know, and he was. He. It wasn't. He wasn't being his authentic self. And he. He'd married a woman who. And his whole identity was, no, it's just who I am. I'm the supporter. I'm the background person. I'm just the shy person. It's just. It's just me. And he married a woman who was very much the gregarious person. And his whole thing was he wanted to build a business. He wanted to be out there, and it just wasn't taking off for him. And, you know, to be successful, you kind of have to be seen. And so he married this woman who he was sort of hiding behind his entire life. And so I asked him a few questions. I think one of the first steps is we have to be willing to question ourselves. That's number one. We have to also be willing to start becoming aware of, and we have to be willing to start feeling the feelings that we've learned to suppress. And many times we suppress those feelings because they're painful. So the willingness to feel those feelings. And often we don't want to feel those feelings because we feel, oh, my God, if I feel these feelings, what will happen? They'll last forever. They'll overwhelm me. But what I found is all feelings are transitory. All feelings pass. So when I asked him a few questions, he came back to me a couple of days later, and he says, when you ask me those questions, I started a process, and I started to become aware of things I wasn't aware of. I started to feel things I'd never felt before, before. And I started to cry. I started to feel a tremendous amount of grief that I didn't know that was there, that was unconscious to me, that I stuffed down. And then I was willing to tell the Truth to myself about what I was feeling. So I think that's one of the keys, is our willingness to tell the truth to ourselves about what we're feeling without being in denial. And so he showed up. He says, coop, when I was five years old, this thing happened that I did not remember. I was sexually molested by my uncle. I didn't even remember this until a few days ago. And the memory popped up. I became aware. I started feeling these things. And so if we look at this guy who developed this identity of being shy, of being the quiet one, that was his whole way of seeing himself, his whole way of seeing his world through. When he was five years old, this thing happened that shouldn't have happened. He was loud, he was rambunctious, he was radiant. He was alive, he was expressed. His uncle took advantage of him. Unconsciously, he made up in his mind that it wasn't safe to be seen. It wasn't safe for me to be seen in the world when I'm seen, that bad things happen. So as a result, unconsciously, he learned to shut down, disconnect, and go into hiding. Because if. If you can't see me, then you can't hurt me. And if I'm not seen, then pain can't happen. So his survival strategy, which he became very identified with as a way of functioning in the world, became to be. To retreat, to hide, to be quiet, to not be seen in it. And which translated into him being shy. That wasn't who he really was. It's who he. He had to be.

It was a safety mechanism. Yeah.

So when he starts questioning. Questioning himself, which, because he'd never questioned, he just thought, that's just who I am. So I think we have to have the courage to question ourselves. One of the things I ask people is be willing to not know who you are for a moment so that you can actually find out what's there. And then be willing to do the work of actually feeling all those things you've suppressed inside, which. Look, it takes a lot of courage, you know, which is why I think we often distract ourselves and run away and. And deny what we feel.

Yes, but you can't escape them, and you'll never feel real joy any other way. And I hear this, and I was thinking back to my strategy that I used for years. You're going to love this strategy. So anytime something like that bubbled up, or I felt like someone wronged me, or I felt shame about something, I would just kind of. I wouldn't process it. I'd Put it, what I called, I put it in the closet. So you can imagine how well that worked. And it finally got so full. Right. But I started to notice. I just started being unable to feel anything at all. Like, I didn't get upset, but I also didn't get happy. And so you've got to. It's like these feelings have got to come out and be processed and then the more you feel them, actually, the easier it gets.

Right.

So that was the other side. I was like, oh, these really actually aren't as big of a deal as I made them over there in the closet. Now I'm listening to this beautiful accent that you have.

Yes.

And I want to take people through because they can't see you and they don't know anything about your background. And so I'd love to know because that created its own opportunities, but possibly challenges too. Growing up in West Africa and being a child of a Japanese mother, Ghanaian father. So how, like, how was that?

Wow. How was it? It was intense. It was challenging because my parents for the first maybe 10 years had a hard time communicating. When my parents married, they couldn't speak English. My mother couldn't speak English, my father couldn't speak Japanese. So they couldn't communicate. So that was a deep. Wait a minute.

So how did they even get to get. I mean, you have to ask the questions.

I can try and cut it down to like two minutes if you have time.

I think it's very interesting.

Yes.

Here's the deal. My father, when he was age 8, would have these visions of a Japanese guru. This is, bear in mind, this is in the 40s in Japan. 1940s in Ghana, West Africa. So we'd have these visions of a Japanese guru. This guru would come to him in his dreams and teach him about the cosmos, the nature of life, existence and metaphysics. My father, when he was 15, had a spiritual experience. He started healing people. He became known as the miracle man of Africa. Blind people seeing deaf people hearing. From 15 to 37, he built 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa. When he was about 35, his first wife died. When he was 36, 37, he goes into a store in Ghana, West Africa. A book falls off the shelf. He looks at the back of the book, he sees the face of the Japanese guru and he says, oh, my God, this guy. This is the guy who's been coming to me since I was eight years old. He writes to this guy. The guy sends his son in law to meet my father. The son in law then invites my Father to Japan to go on a lecture tour with the Japanese guru. My father says, by the way, I'm. I'm looking for a wife. Please pray for me. The son in law announces to the congregation, the followers in Japan, that this African man is coming to Japan to give a lecture with the spiritual teacher, the Japanese spiritual teacher. My mother is in the audience. She grew up in this spiritual organization. This was her guru. She's 28 at the time, and she's not married. You know, if you know anything about Asian Japanese culture.

Yes, I do. I lived in Japan.

You're not married. 23, 24. It's over. And so she's 28. Her prayer JG has become God, I will marry. I surrender completely. I will marry anyone you tell me to marry. Just make it clear. This is my soulmate. She gets chills in her body. She feels that this African man is a soulmate. She writes to him, my father's in London. God says, your wife will come to you tomorrow. He goes to the mailbox. There's a letter from my mother. It's just introducing herself. He writes to her sight unseen and says, would you be open to moving to Ghana? She writes back through a translation, says, if it's God's will. He writes back and says, it's God's will. Marry me. He goes to Japan, gives a lecture, meets my mother. They can't even. They can't even talk. They agree to get married without being able to speak. They just see each other. It's a soul thing, you know, Talk about truly surrendering. Last thing I'll say is they agree to get married, meet her parents and everything. It's like this miracle wedding. He has no money. If by Japanese standards, he has no money. And you can't take a Japanese bride to a foreign country and not, you know, throw a ceremony or a wedding or something. Six weeks later, he goes to his mailbox. There was an envelope, JJ, for 6 to $7,000 in US cash in the mid-70s. And all it says, anonymous, this is for your wedding. He had no idea who it's from. So I believe that when we really live in alignment with our truth, with our soul, and surrender to the deepest knowing that is moving through us without questioning, truly being obedient. Life flows, life unfolds. Life truly does support us.

What an amazing childhood you must have had.

It was wild.

Yeah, I bet it was. And I mean, first off, how was it for her moving to West Africa?

Look, to be honest, I just. Listen, I just got back from London spending Time with my mother. And we were talking a bit about that, and it was hell. I mean, this. You got to understand this woman in the 70s from Japan, first world Japan, going to really fourth, third to fourth world Africa. Japanese woman, doesn't speak English, is married to this spiritual guru guy who's not very, like, emotional, very old school. All of a sudden, she's thrust into this environment with all these African black people in a totally different environment. I mean, she lost her mind. She lost her mind for the first period of time. But my mother is someone who is so full of faith and so full of trust. And what really moves me about her is her willingness to trust her soul. And she was being guided to move. And despite it was challenging for her personality, it was challenging for her as a human being, this was her guidance and she just chose to follow her guid. And sometimes, you know, we think when you find your purpose in life, life's going to be easy. When you find your purpose in life, then you know, the angels come out and God floods you with money. But sometimes when you find your purpose in life, you are actually put through tests and challenges and circumstances that are used to develop your own soul muscles, to prepare you to do what you are here to do. And I think she went through many of her own challenges.

Well, we're never better than when we're challenged. Like, we don't grow when things are easy. And it sounds like, you know, because I always wonder how someone got on their pat. But it sounds like you just have always, I mean, to grow up around all of this. It's just who you are.

It was, it was a. You know, people often asked me, how did they get started in personal growth? And for me, it was. I was on one level, I was born into it. I felt a deep calling as a young boy around age 5, 6, to, to reach millions of people. I didn't know how. And then, you know, when I was age 8, I started speaking in my father's churches. When I was 14, I was ordained as a minister and pretty much told I was going to take over his spiritual organization of 300 churches, hundreds of thousands of followers. But I knew, honestly, jj, that that wasn't my path. But I went along with it for a few years because I didn't want to lose his love. I didn't want to lose his acceptance. I didn't want to be outcast. Ultimately, my fear of trusting my truth was I didn't want to not be loved and be alone. So it took me four years to muster up the courage to have the conversation with them and leave everything behind. And we didn't speak for years. And you could say I was outcast and came to the US and it was, was very, very, very challenging. But I got to the stage where I realized I could be successful and live someone else's life, but I would be miserable. And if I don't have myself, I have nothing. And what kind of success is that, you know? So came to the US and followed.

My path and hence created liberated living.

Yes, yes.

Boy, you do walk your talk.

I do my best.

That is fantastic. So people who want to go deeper with you, where should they go? Couture.

Yeah. You know, one of the I just came up with a book called you'd are the One. So I think the simplest and most direct places for those that want to know more, they can go to www.you are the one book.com they can buy the book. There's many free gifts there and they can follow me through that site as well.

Awesome. Well, this is a process I think everybody needs to go through. I've been talking to so many people have kind of hit that wall because they chased accomplishment. I'm one of them. And then kind of went, well, wait a minute, you know who? I've lost myself in the process. So I love what you're doing. It's fant. Thank you so much for being with me today. And again, you are the one book.com go there. Grab the book. It's absolutely one you'll want for your success. Library and grab his. Grab the gifts. Grab the gifts now. After the break, I'll be answering a listener's question, so stay with me.

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This is the time where I answer a listener's question. And today's question comes from Kathy in Alameda. And Kathy says, I've lost the same 20 pounds now I don't know how many times. And the challenge actually isn't with following the Strategies. The challenge is with me, the challenge is that when I lose the weight, I start to feel like I'm not where I should be, and I feel uncomfortable in my new body. What do I do? So I remember, gosh, I don't know. It was probably about 10 years ago. I was working with a weight loss expert who said, jj, and he's a psychologist, he said, I have this technique that works. It just works so amazingly well, yet people just don't do it. I'm like, of course. Well, tell me what it is. And he said, you know, what you do is you take a picture of your ideal body and then you put your face on it and you keep that with you and you look at it every day, and it follows along with the whole concept of what comes from, you know, Wayne Dyer of you'll see it when you believe it. So what I want to show you is, you know, you'll see it when you believe it. So you have to believe yourself that this is where I feel best. This is where I'm meant to be. This is who I am. But then you'll also believe it when you see it. Right? That's our old ways. We'll believe it when I see it. So let's just take it and let you see it right now. And I almost think of that picture that you then do as your, like, coat of armor, your defense. So if you start to slip back, pull it out and go, this is who I am. This is it. This is where I'm going. This is why. And build that case for you and create that. We talked today about comforts and being uncomfortable is the more you stay in that and accept. This is. This is me. This is the new, healthy me. This is the role model I want to be. The more comfortable you will be in your body and in yourself. Now, if you'd like to submit a question, just go to jjvirgin.com ask and you can leave a voicemail for me. I can't wait to hear from you. And one more way, I'd love to hear from you. I would hugely appreciate it if you could jump on Stitcher or itunes and leave a review for me at Helps a bunch. And be sure to subscribe and share the show with your friends. This is JJ Virgin signing off and reminding you to live courageously. Show up, step up. You're stronger than you think.

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