118: Growth, Rebirth & Play w/ John Kempf

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Welcome to Grief and Guts. I'm your host, Melissa Dugulecki. It is my honor and privilege to serve you by sharing stories, tools, interviews, and strategies that will help you transition from what do I do now? How do I get through this? Those feelings of overwhelm and uncertainty to truly standing in your power. From my grief journey in losing my daughter laden in 2014, that I learned, practiced, was exposed to all these tools, but they are not grief specific. In fact, they apply universally to all of our unique situations. You've already done the hard part by showing up, by opening up to something new. So without any further ado, let's get to the good stuff that's going to help you in your journey. Let's dive in.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to Grief and Guts. My name is Melissa. I'm excited to introduce you to an incredibly dear friend and soul connect of mine. He is an amazing coach, an amazing human, an amazing healer, and when you talk about, you know, our beings and our souls being medicine for this planet and for other people, John is literally medicine in human form. He had so much wisdom to share. I told him we gotta try speaking a language that everyone's going to understand and relate to. But we're going to talk a lot today about not only our own energy nervous system regulation, but we're going to talk about rebirth, past lives. And so it's something that you might find really supportive and healing if you are on a grief journey to think about the rebirth and the death and the rebirth and the death that occurs naturally. And perhaps you have. You're not navigating a great journey and you still found your way here. These are things that can support you in better understanding yourself and better understanding your soul's purpose in this lifetime. So without any further ado, John, welcome to the show.

I'm so stoked. Thank you so much for having me. This is going to be an epic combo.

I know. I can't wait. We just, you know, John and I got on to record over an hour ago now and kind of just been catching up because there's just so many things that light both of us up. And, John, I can't wait for you to share what you've been up to and. And who you are. So let everybody know who is, who you be, where you are. Tell us a little bit about your story and what you're doing in the world.

Of course, of course. So I am a strength coach and a yoga teacher, and I live on the beautiful island of Maui, Hawaii. And I've been out here for four and a half years and it's absolute paradise. I'm so grateful to live. And it is my home base. And I currently run an online training business where I work with men and host retreats out here on Maui where we get to do the work together. And it's really merging the two worlds of fitness and nutrition, strength and performance, and also holistic wellness and mindfulness and yoga and meditation. And it really is the two passions of mine that merged together to create this balance of the masculine and feminine, the yin and the yang. And I started out as a strength coach, an assistant strength coach in college, and an athlete when I was in high school. And I always was really driven by strength of performance. Found out young that I had a passion for it and a knack for strength and conditioning. And I loved training. And I found that I had this ability to inspire others through my level of motivation and ability to show up. The more I showed up, the more it inspired the others around me on my team to show up. And it created that atmosphere. And so I naturally took a leadership role in that setting. In high school with football, I was the captain of the football team and that was my family, that was my brotherhood. And that is really where I learned a lot of the. Developed a lot of the character and learned a lot of the skills that I have still and teach to this day. And so then in college, I was working as a personal trainer, as an assistant strength coach. And in 2013, I had a huge awakening. I was with some buddies. We recreationally took some mushrooms. Just party on, Wayne. And on the way down from that come down, I made contact with my inner being, higher self, source of infinite intelligence within me, all the guardian angel, whatever the framework of language that you want to use. I made contact with this being that was very powerful and very intelligent. And I got a scolding. It was basically like, what the are you doing? Grow up. Put your pants on. You've got work to do. You have a destiny. You have a purpose. You know you're not fulfilling this and you're going to miss the boat if you don't start paying attention and get your together. And so it was a big wakeup call for me. I was just like, what? Okay? And I started taking my life more seriously at that point. I was partying a ton in college. I had no purpose or direction and I was just like, oh, whatever. I was definitely like Lost Boys, Neverland, Peter Pan. And after that experience, I was like, okay, I'm really gonna take this seriously. And Grow up. And I started eating real food. Jerf, just eat real food. That's a slogan that I use to this day and work with my clients on as my nutrition philosophy. As Paul Chick, one of my mentors would say, the no diet diet, just eat real food. If you do that, you're solving 90% of your problems right out of the gate. I was also journaling. Those were the two practices that I picked up at that time in 2013 and like really took seriously and I would, I'd always had the fitness piece down as semi pro football player and athlete my whole life. And I was thick and strong, but I was never lean and I didn't have that, that good body composition. I never had a good diet. And so when I started eating real food and really taking my nutrition seriously because I knew I wanted to be one of the best fitness and performance coaches in the world, I had to really walk the walk. And so that along with the reflective journaling, introspective journaling I was doing really opened up my eyes to my reality and I started, you know, purifying my vessel, detoxifying through all of the healthy foods I was eating and not eating all the inflammatory processed foods and just getting wasted all the time. So I was going through this massive awakening and growth process. And a few months into this, I randomly, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My boss at the time came up to me at the rec center while I was working out and said, hey, do you want to teach yoga? We'll certify you for free. We're trying to get more of a yoga following in the men's, the student body of men. And I was like, hey, I can do physical therapy, corrective exercise, rehab and get paid for it. Why not? That sounds cool. And about six months into my yoga journey of teaching and practicing myself, I really was tapping into greater awareness of everything about myself. And I just remember a specific moment. About six months into my teaching journey. I'd gone through a one on one student teacher training with Joanne Green, Shout out. Love you girl. She's a wizard and high power woman and she kind of took me under her wing and like really taught me yoga and real yoga to bring into union with yourself and with nature and with the, the level of consciousness, the divine within. So I'm teaching class six months later and I just had this kind of out of body moment where I could witness myself teaching the class, see my body. And I was also speaking through the lens of my mind, but I was also something else just A witness, observing. I was just consciousness observing this mind body complex, talking to these people and doing these poses in front of class. But that's the moment I remember being like the portal that was like, whoa, this is way deeper than just fitness and movement and stretching. This is profound. And since then I've really dove down the life path of yoga. And my greatest mentors are, you know, the great sages of India and Buddha and Jesus and Krishna and Paramahansa, Yogananda and Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, these saints and sages that were recorded doing acts, miracles of what we would call miracles. They were doing these profound acts and crazy amazing things that you would think are only superhumans could do, like you read in a, in a storybook. And that is to me the, the path that is most inspiring is following in the footsteps of these great sages and prophets. And they're all saying the same thing. Lao Tzu, the Taoist sage, you know, the information that they're saying is the same, just spoken in different words to different people throughout different times. But the message is the same. And that to me is that we're all one. And that the path of yoga is to bring you into union, to yoke your energies within yourself, the masculine and the feminine energies, to find a sense of oneness, of balance, of alignment within. And the program that I work with my men on, and that brand is called He Gnosis. And He Gnosis literally means universal oneness, mystical union. And it's the, the dao, as spoken of in the east, or yoga, that result of that state of consciousness where you become one with all that is, there is no other. And so that's kind of the state to achieve that non dual state of enlightenment that I believe we're all going through on our own journeys in our own ways. And now my passion is to teach the knowledge, skills and tools that people can use to find this balance, this alignment, this state of union within themselves.

So good, so many nuggets in there like, oh, hello, opening question and thank you for sharing. Something I, I think really resonates with the audience is the masculine and feminine balance. And you and I, when we were speaking earlier, you know, I was sharing how so much of my work in this last year has really evolved to while I was in my feminine and in many ways really integrating more into my work and finding that balance and that harmony and the softness and the attracting rather than the pursuit. Right. So for anyone listening, you know, how can somebody know or how would you invite them into assessing where they might be out of balance, like maybe they're two in their masculine or they're two in their feminine. Because I think while listeners may hear a lot about that, they may not be totally clear and know, okay, well then am I out of balance? Like, what do I do with my masculine and feminine? How do I know? And so just like a simple, like one or two simple things that somebody can do to maybe connect more deeply with themselves so that they can explore it or to kind of look at feedback around them to see if they're out of, you know, they're not calibrated between the two.

Yeah, that's a great question. There's so many, you know, different angles that you could come at this from, but one of them, it, it really, I think the greatest general piece of advice is to pause, is to slow down and pause and take an assessment. And how you self audit can be done in a variety of different ways. But I think just the fact that we know already where we're out of balance, at least, you know, we may not know the destination, but we know the direction in most cases where you might not know the, where you want to end up, but you know the next stride, you know the next one or two steps that you're to take. And that's your emotional guidance system. What feels good, what feels expansive versus what feels contractive, what feels not good, that gut instinct, like really there's an intelligence there that you can tune into. And we've for the most part gotten very desensitized from that connection and disconnected level of intelligence within us. But just taking a pause and taking a breath and asking yourself, am I in alignment? Am I in integrity with my values? And you know, looking at a process method for that, you know, one of them. And I love this. It's so funny because just thinking about our podcast coming up, I was just doing some yoga asana. Asana is a term in yoga. It's one of the eight limbs and it, it really directly translates to seat. And yoga asana of what most people think yoga is is the, the namaste, moving of the body, the gentle stretching, the gentle stretching and lengthening and shortening of muscles and moving of the body and the breath is really just to give you more ease and comfort when in stillness so you can have a comfortable seat. That's the outcome of asana of gentle stretching is so you can sit down comfortably and relax into stillness without the mind and the body fidgeting all over the place. And a term that I know you use that I love is wellness Check.

I love it. Wellness check.

Yeah. Like, that's awesome to me is, like, just sitting there and, like, moving. Like, oh, there's a tight spot. Oh, my spine. Okay. Like, hang out there, Take a breath there. Wiggle around. Noodle around in that space and clean it out a little bit. Okay, that feels better. Okay, move. Oh, there's another spot. Okay. You know, like, you're just going in and kind of cleaning house, tidying up, and, like, doing a wellness check. Like, where am I tight? Where am I holding tension? Where am I having a difficult time breathing? Where am I trapping emotions in my body? You know, and moving and gentle stretching is a good way to kind of take those eyeballs from the outside world and turn them in and start looking at yourself of where those things are happening within you. And I think, you know, that's a good process for the physical body. A good one for the mental body would be journaling, sitting down and write out some questions of, like, what are your values? Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? What do you want to have? You know, having some kind of an idea of the life that you want to live and then referencing that to present day. You know, okay, now I know my point. B, where I want to be. What's my point? A, where am I now? Who am I now? And what's in alignment? What's not in alignment? You know, having just basic reference points to see, am I. You know, you don't even need to know how you're out of balance or, oh, I'm. I'm too much masculine or too much feminine. All you need to know is you're out of balance. Like, that step of awareness is are aligned. It's either in alignment or it's not in alignment. And you can feel that if you really sit down and you're honest with yourself. I think even Jordan Peterson has a good phrase on this. He's like, if you want to know, sit down at the end of your bed one night and fold your hands and pray and ask. And 99% of the time, you're going to get an answer right then and there. Because you know where you're out of alignment with your word and your actions. If you're truly living in integrity with who you think yourself or say yourself to be, or if you're not, I love that.

Like, just the pause and the asking and the inner knowing. And yes, for those of you who aren't familiar with a wellness check, this is One of my favorite things. So wellness check you can do at any time of the day. And I do it with friends, I do it myself. But there's multiple benefits to it and I just want to detour in it for a second. One is the whole point is you just do wellness check 1 to 10. How we begin like how are you doing on a 1 to 10? And the practice is to bring awareness with non judgment and not trying to fix. So if somebody is at a two, you're not like oh my gosh, well you're at a two. What do we need to do? How can I fix you? It's like, okay, you're too like let me know if there's anything I can do to support like Manager 2. And a lot of times we really become uncomfortable when we're not at a 10. And the point of a wellness check is one, that self awareness and checking in and two, the allowance and the acceptance of where we be in any given moment. So that's so powerful. And you know, John, what you spoke into with the power of the pause, something I think is important for the listener to an invitation to explore. It takes a level of work to understand the cues from your body. And I can say this from experience. And we're going to get into nervous system regulation because in order to even go into the play and the life is a video game and all this other stuff, John and I want to jam on. We actually have to have a regulated nervous system. Otherwise we're in such fight or flight. We can't even see the game of life and get some support and tools. And whether it's a coach or a mentor or other modalities. But in the beginning it's very hard to untangle your trauma from your soul's calling. For example, I use this because it's an easy example. I would feel in my body a pull towards a certain relationship dynamic towards a certain type of masculine. And I was actually being called and pulled towards my trauma which hadn't been healed because that still felt good for me. So it would be like that full body. Yes. Actually wasn't my soul that full body? Yes. Was unhealed trauma. You know. Does that make sense, Sean?

Yeah, a hundred percent. And that is the. The work is connection and clear out the dross to be able to have a more sensitive attunement. You know, it's just tuning the guitar. You have to tune the instrument.

So something that you and I have both been kind of talking about playing with embodying is nervous system regulation. And a lot of the listeners here have found, you know, have found this through a grief journey. And it was through my grief journey that I discovered that I was actually running around in fight or flight in my life. Grief just made it more obvious. And so many of us are in a dysregulated nervous system which prevents us from accessing our soul. Our inner knowing allows us from, or prevents us rather, from seeing life as this fun video game, as you and I both speak into it a lot. So for somebody listening in terms of nervous system regulation, can you speak into really the power of it and maybe something they can do to begin working on strengthening that part of them?

Yeah, this is so much of the work that I do and so much that I speak on for helping people to come back to their center. And I think, like, one of the biggest themes, you know, continuing to piggyback off of the pause is doing less. Like, it's. It's actually really not about doing at all to agree. We actually are just trying to come back to our true nature, as the Buddha would stay our natural state of being. It bliss is sat Chitananda is this state of joy and connection and knowing. And we come in like that naturally. It's the layers of conditioning from the environment and the limitations that we impose upon ourselves that create the reality that we perceive. Some techniques like fasting or meditation, where you're actually doing nothing, you do less. Like, people so confused with meditation, it's like, I'm not doing it right. My mind is wandering and da, da, da. And like, no, you're just sitting there. It's just training a dog, you know? I love Joe Dispenda's analogy for that. He's like, you're gonna sit and you're gonna stay until it's time for breakfast, you know, or whatever that is. Like, you gotta train the stallion. And at first it's gonna give up a hell of a fight until you break that habit, until you break the stallion, you know, until you tame that animal body, the impulsive nature of the animal body. And we can overanalyze things really easily, you know, Like, I've worked with people with nutrition a lot. I always. I just had a call earlier. Nutrition is not, you know, to not eat McDonald's and to eat fruits and vegetables. You know what to do. Nutrition is mind. It's the mind that is preventing you from having the results that you want. So it's this old paradigm, you know, the all. Again, all of the different teachers in regards to law of attraction are Saying the same thing, you're getting the same results because you're thinking the same thoughts. And so until you, you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Wayne Dyer. You have to reframe your whole reality. And that is where you have to pause, you have to stop, you have to do less. You know, that's why I love things like meditation and fasting, because, you know, oh, I gotta go, I get this meal plan and I gotta eat these and then I gotta work out. And it's like fasting. It's like, no, you actually do nothing. And is the mental challenge itself of breaking the stallion is like doing nothing. And like sitting still is really hard for a lot of people. And so just pausing and being. It can get cliche when people say that in the spiritual space of like, oh, just be. But what they mean is reconnect to the truth that you are your true nature as vibration prior to and outside of matter altogether. This soul, you know, not a human having a spiritual experience. You're. You're a spiritual being having a human experience. And to come back to that knowing, it's remembering who you are. And when you pause and disconnect from the conditioned reality that you're living in, slash created or continuing to create, you can see things a little bit differently. See those glitches in the Matrix and like, wait a second, okay, and the number one, in my opinion, the number one facilitator for helping to heal you, bring you back to your center, release all of the external attachments to all of this noise is nature. Just go outside and put your bare skin on the earth, get your bare skin, as much of it as you can, in contact with the sun for as long as you can without burning. And just sit there and just look at the trees and listen to the birds and like contemplate life like that is so healing and can facilitate so much growth so quickly without having to go into the physiological data of oh, down regulates your nervous system and it increases coherence in your cellular structure and increases microcirculation which improves, you know, all of the metrics related to cardiovascular disease. And it decreases blood pressure and stroke volume and, you know, puts you in an alpha theta state so you're more lucid and have better clear thinking and can get into flow state again. Those are all the physiological parameters that are measuring the end result of you being, period, you just being in your true nature.

So powerful. You know what's funny is I remember joining a business coaching like Mastermind and it Was a huge investment. The biggest one, honestly, I made in a group, you know, at this time. And it was. It was like $44,000 or something for the year, like, insane. And my former business partner and I, like, you know, we invest in them. We're like, I want to do this, we're going to do this. And I remember getting on one of the very first calls and one of the other entrepreneurs in the container asked the coach, his name is Sam, asked him, you know, well, what do I. How do I. How do I get clear on this? Like, I'm not sure how to do this. And he was like, honestly, go in the woods for seven days. He's like, go in the woods for seven days. I remember being like that. We just invested it. Like, that's what you're gonna, you know, like, I was more in the, like, no, I want an answer. I want something tangible. But he was so spot on. Of course. He was so spot on. So thank you for sharing that. And you know, John, one of the things you keep coming back to that I really want to land with the listener is the power of pause and stillness. The power of pause and stillness, whether it's regulating your nervous system, getting clear on your masculine, feminine, what. What really is being, you know, what you're really being called to in this lifetime. And I say in this lifetime because something you and I have talked about are previous lives and past life regression and all of that. And of course, just last night I had my very first and only to date, past life regression experience. I'm reading a book that you've read and you and I have talked about before, and people won't necessarily see the video of this right now, but if they could see us, we got some, we got some Vikings, you know, we got some Vikings vibes going. If you could see John, like, yeah, I mean, his hair is longer than mine and it used to have braids in it just like mine does. But when we're thinking about grief, something that I like to speak into is that there's birth and, or rebirth and death every single day in the version of who we be in the work that we're creating, in the relationships that we're in, like, we get to become very comfortable. And I think it takes a level of non attachment and a level of connection to a higher soul's purpose than what we. What we see in this human form of what it, quote, unquote, should be like. And when we have that, we find freedom, right? And we embrace this death and rebirth on a daily basis, because the bigger game you're playing, the more it's going to happen. Like, I'm, like, sometimes I say to my coach, like, I'm going through another death and rebirth. Like, I'm a little tired. Come on, universe, give me a break. And that's, you know, I'm really kidding in that. But it is. It's a constant, you know, death and rebirth. I'm very convinced that we were Vikings together in a past life. I don't know about you, but let's speak into past life a little bit.

It's. It's funny because I was just. I'd contemplate death and life all the time. And I just, the other day was contemplating this because we have. I saw. I was driving. This was yesterday. I was driving. There was a dead bird in the road. And the first thought that most people have was your reaction. I was like, oh, sad. It's, you know, the bird's dead. And my thought was like, oh, he's on to a more expansive doper. You know, he's. He's back into his vibratory state of pure bliss than ecstasy. Like, he's chilling. He's good. That bird's happy as a clam. He's chilling. No problem. And so really, our culture has been conditioned to believe that death is this ending and that life ceases to exist after death. And directly from my own personal experience, through meditation and plant medicine and my own journey of introspection, I've come to a different belief. And I. And, you know, especially studying the lives of these ancient masters, yogic sages, and, you know, their perspectives on death, of how, you know, death is just the beginning. It's a transition state. And, you know, there's one way, you know, like, one thought to look at it is like. And something I wanted to bring up, right. When you spoke on this, it made me think of Satanama, which is a chant, a mantra in yoga. And sa means birth, ta means life, means death, and ma means rebirth, SATA na ma, the cycle of the breath. We inhale, we pause, we exhale, and we pause. And then we begin a new breath. And this is exactly how I teach it in my meditation course, where every breath itself is a cycle, a full life cycle and death cycle and a rebirth cycle. Every day we die, a part of us dies. A part of us, the old us, the past. Like, we'll never be that person that we were yesterday ever again. There's. There's little micro aspects of us that will never. That past is no longer and it never will come back in that way. And so it's, you know, we're rebirthed and we have the chance to live a new life today. And then at the end of this day, the sun sets, the sun, you know, the light goes down and the darkness comes out. And it's this perpetual cycle that goes over and over and over. And so birth, life, death, rebirth, and just like embracing. And then, you know, in a lot of cultures, they celebrate this entire process instead of birth, life, and then like, oh, let's not talk about the other part. You know, like it's celebrated equally and accepted equally as part of the journey. And then on the other side of death is another life cycle, another rebirth, another inhale, another breath. And so it's just reframing your perspective. And that comes through introspection and meditation and, you know, different near death experiences or life experiences where you have a direct experience of being outside of time or outside of your body, where you're aware of something beyond this physical human meat suit. And I think that is like such a powerful place to be because then you can come back into this experience without the fear and the attachment to the, the happenings, the end results. And it's just more about, you know, enjoying the present, enjoying the process as it unfold.

I love the unfolding and the allowance of it. It's something I speak into a lot. And I'll be honest, some people listening might be triggered by this. And I just want to learn. That's okay. If, if I had heard years and years ago, like in the beginning, days after losing Laden, that it was, you know, okay, and this was part of the cycle and it could be celebrated, I would have been angry. And so I just want to acknowledge wherever you're at in your journey and as you continue to heal and zoom out and see this life as a much bigger thing and do the nervous system regulation work so we can be more in our soul, not in our reactionary fight or flight. You know, these things become actually comforting. It becomes really comforting. And the day to day birth and death, rebirth and death, rebirth and death is really just a microcosm of what happens in the big picture, right? This is what happens. And we say a big picture, but like we're just talking one lifetime and then another, and then another, and then another. And this is just like as you said, inhale, exhale, moment to moment or day to day, right? Light and darkness, light and darkness. So I think it's really powerful to, to feel into that and, and see. And for Those of you who don't know, I mean, because actually, John, we didn't tell anyone how we met, but John and I actually met in Peru, gosh, a year and a half ago now. And. Gosh, was it that long? A year and a half ago now. And there was a woman there who does akashic readings. And before she even did our reading, though, she saw John and I and was like, you guys were definitely connected in a past life. Like, she was honestly, like, you guys are some type of, like, Viking warriors or something. And I'm like, we know, we know. And I actually look back because you were. You were. You got injured being a boy in the human form. Yeah. You can't see the video, but he's holding up his wrist and still has a huge scar. And I got to. It was very natural. And the way it evolved was I was able to really take care and support. Right. And support you in that. And I remember in that moment being like, wow, this. Like, I just met this person. But this feels very natural, and this feels very, like, easy. And I was, like, wondering, I wonder if, like, in a past life you are injured in war or battle. And I was like, you know what I mean? Nursing the wounds. And so if you feel this level of familiarity with anybody in your life and you're listening and you feel like, whoa, I feel like we've been here before. Like, open up. You probably have been. You really probably have been. And, John, something that we were talking about, which I'd kind of like to end on before we let the listeners know where they can find you. A magic is this feeling of play and letting life be a video game, like, letting it be like a video game in, like, this feeling of play. And can you speak into, you know, how you embody that and how listeners can find the lightness and the joy that comes with choosing into that.

Yeah. And I will say right away, too, this is definitely still something that I'm currently working on and have had struggles with to find this balance. Because the balance is in all things. It's, you know, balance of confidence and humility. And every polarity exists. It's one of the seven hermetic principles. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, go Google the seven hermetic principles. There are seven laws that, you know, govern the function of the universe. And the second law is polarity. Polarity exists. The first law, always mind. All is one universe, one song, one thought, one mind. And then also polarity exists when the one becomes two. It's the same Stick. But there's two ends of that stick. Hot and cold, light and dark, man and woman, masculine, feminine and polarity exists. And so play and work. And that's been a huge one for me. And all of these paradigms that I've worked through of if anybody is familiar with or has heard of the book Rich Dad, Poor dad, where you're coming to this realization that like oh wow, I'm creating my own poverty by the beliefs that I hold and the stories that I tell and the thoughts that I think and the actions and the habits that I carry out with. And so rewiring a lot, coming from a very poverty consciousness upbringing and a really poverty environment growing up, that's one area where I've had to do a lot of work is reframing my relationship with work and with money. And you know, self worth is a big one in there too because if I'm not working then there's that voice that's like, you've got to be, you know, what are you doing? You're lazy, you know, you've got to be working all day long to be successful and make that money to justify the wealth. And so there's like all these stories in paradigms which comes back to a lot of what we had spoken about earlier. And again check out the seven hermetic principles. It really like breaks down all of that detail of how thoughts create your reality and how that functions on those seven principles. But the work and play balance for sure is something I'm still working on and, and I'm like really doing a lot better job with because I'm realizing how much you know, it's like that this and concept where you know, yeah, work hard and you know, be in integrity and honest and do it out of humility to serve others and you know, enjoy your life. You know, like I want to help as many people on this planet as I can and I want to have the best time ever and create the dopest life I can possible. And it's coming over, it's overcoming those paradigms of like, oh well if I travel the world and go on vacations and like take days off and go to the beach, then I'm not going to be able to serve people at my best. And I'm really finding that that's actually the opposite is true where if I focus on self care and fill my cup first and nourish, I'm actually then more inspired to go work and serve at a greater capacity. And typically the inspiration allows for and the optimal function of my human mind, body, spirit complex allows for better ideas, better flow state. And like what we were talking about before the call is how I'm moving into this mindset of I can make one or two small quick decisions that influence the entire day or week or the rest of my team to then, you know, increase productivity or get the results or provide more value that we want. But it really, it doesn't have to take like an eight hour workday for me to be able to get those results. It could be one or two texts, you know, two decisions. But I wouldn't come to those decisions and think critically and find a new solution to that idea and have that out of the box creative problem solving mindset if it wasn't for being nourished and charged up and in flow state. And so it's really become this beautiful balance for me of realizing like the more I take care of myself and nourish myself and ground myself and get sunlight and go to the beach and exercise and do the things that I love that light me up, the better I'm able to show up and provide value for my people at a greater level. And so this, and like I'm winning because I'm enjoying the process a lot more and I'm providing better value. I'm being, you know, a brighter light for those that I'm serving. And the counter to that is just working yourself into a hole. And I used to do this a lot where I would just like, oh, I can't go to the beach, I got it, I gotta, I gotta. And it's that self imposed reality that I'm creating. I've gotta work. And I'd be, there's times for sure to grind but seasons with all things. And so that's just something that I've really come to realize. And like what we were talking about before the call was how now it's like the mindset when you've come to that realization where you're like oh like I, I'm like actually I was just talking with my friend, walking the beach, like we're so blessed to have four limbs and working organs and like a totally healthy functional body like that the probability of incarnating into a human vessel alone is like 1 in x trillion. And then to have like the 1% of that vessel out of, out of the 8 billion people, I've got one of the best meat suits on the market. Like I've got the prototype X2000. You know, like my machine works so well. This vessel works so well. It'd be like silly to squander that opportunity. Like go climb all the mountains, go dive into the deepest oceans, go explore and adventure and do the coolest shit. And it's like at the end of the video game when you beat the main boss and you're like level 100 and you've got all the dope gear and it's like you can just fuck around and go around the world and like do the side quests you didn't do and like find the last couple secret treasure chests. But like we were. I was joking with my buddy. You go to find the secret treasure chest, but your inventory is already full because you've already got all this other shit, you know, so it's like you're just, you're already maxed out. So it's like you don't need to, you already beat the game. You don't need to sit there and slave yourself away. It's like, just go play and enjoy yourself and see what life has to offer. And typically in that you'll show up in a way that actually allows you to serve and be in your gifts more and just. I think a good closing quote for that conversation is one of my favorites is don't ask what the world needs. Ask what sets your heart on fire. Because what the world truly needs is more people with their hearts on fire.

So powerful. Thank you for sharing and yes, definitely encourage everyone listening to look at where are you integrating play? Where are you seeing life as a game and these opportunities and what matters at the end of the day? If you look at any list of, you know, people's advice when they're on their deathbeds, it's never, did I work more. And with that I would, I would invite you into how can your work be an expression of creation? You know, I see my work as a creative expression, not as work. Like right now I'm working, but I'm not. I'm creatively expressing, I'm co creating, I'm expanding, I'm impacting. And so where can you outsource and do less of the things that don't light you up and then still do? And that's something you and I talked about, John. Like outsourcing the things that don't light you up. But then the quote unquote work is just the soul expansion and creative expression. That for me is the magic. Like I, I feel like I'm always working, never working now, you know, so. And it's same thing for those navigating grief. Don't look at it as though, like I'm grieving and healing or I'm living life. Like we can be joyful and we can be in pain at the same time, we can be grateful for life and we can be upset at what we've lost at the same time. And that duality and the allowance of multiple truths to be to exist that may seem in conflict or contrast is the polarity you were talking about in which we are fully and holistically experiencing this human experience. So, John, we could go like, I know another eight hours, but maybe we'll do another episode. Who knows? For now, let the people know where can they find you and learn more about working with you.

Yes, of course. If you want to follow me on social, my personal profile on Instagram is thorkemf and I run a men's group as I had mentioned. And if you go check out my Instagram, you'll find all the links there. But it's he gnosisfoundations.com if there's any men that are interested, go check that out and you can book a call to learn more about the program. And I also do online personal training. It's very similar, but it just doesn't include the retreat and the men's community. And that's open for both men and women. If you're looking for help in your fitness, nutrition and holistic health journey, then come check me out at Camp Fitness Professional. That's my training business and I'm happy to connect with any of you. If you find me, send me a DM and I'd love to strike up a combo.

So powerful. All right, John, thank you so much for being on the show. You are medicine and we are grateful to share that time with you.

Love you so much.

Thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts as Layden's mom, being able to spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Layden and from Layden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly, nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these messages. The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to to serve. I'm grateful to do so. And I'm cheering you on in your journeys, always.