191 Mary Shores | Conscious Communications: Harnessing The Power of Your Word

Instead of, instead of feeling just completely defeated by my circumstances. I don't allow myself to stay there very long before I start evaluating what's happened and saying, how has this benefited me? How has it strengthened me? What do I have in my life that I wouldn't have had I not gone through that? But truly your purpose is whatever your skills, gifts and talents are. And all I needed to do to be on my spiritual path was to allow those gifts to come out into the world.

That was Mary Shores and this is episode 191 of Wellness Force Radio. What's up my friend? It's your host, Josh Trent. And welcome back to another episode for your weekly access to global experts in all things wellness as we discover the physical and emotional intelligence we need to live life well. In this episode, we're talking about a powerful yet often overlooked vehicle. One of the biggest tools hiding right in plain sight for letting go of old weight, improving our posture and getting more energy. It's the one thing, the real secret behind all of our successful relationships with ourselves and with other people. It's the power of our words and their association to our self identity. This podcast is brought to you in continuation of our Stand Tall series where with our partner Intelliskin, creators of human technology smart compression. Learn more at Intelliskin.net while we learn from this award winning international best selling author, speaker and just great human being, Mary Shores, author of Conscious Communications, your step by step guide to harnessing the power of your words to change your mind, your choices and your life. So whether we realize it or not, the words we use dictate and control our lives. These persistent monkey mind messages we repeat from time to time can actually frame our thoughts and trap us into a mindset that's difficult to break. This mindset often manifests itself with statements like I'm not good enough, I'll never find the insert the blank here or I can't do it. But many times we don't stop to consider the profound impact that these negative, limiting words have on our mentality, our life choices, and honestly, the path of possibility that we all can manifest in every moment. After gathering years and years of research and personal experience with how words affect individuals mentally and emotionally, business owner and communication specialist, our podcast guest today, Mary Shores, she realized that there's a life changing theme persistent throughout ancient traditions and spiritual foundations that are supported by scientific professionals. And they all agree on one recurring truth. Words have the power to create and transform. And so by the end of this podcast, which became an instant classic and Mary became an instant friend. You'll learn why the power of words holds so much significance to both our physical and emotional intelligence. Why what we say can reveal our deepest subconscious reality. The healthy boundary between getting rid of stuck negative thoughts and spiritually bypassing them. How Mary's negative energy was directly affecting her colleagues earlier in life and how she tactically overcame this negativity to build stronger relationships. You'll learn why a conversation with Chaz Palminteri of A Bronx Tale changed the course of Mary's life forever. One of my favorite moments in this conversation and what Mary believes are the true, pragmatic and practical steps we can all take to get back in alignment with who we really are through the power of our words. She describes them as the core four. These core four habits, these ways of being, will give us the outcome and allow us to achieve what we really want by focusing on these pieces that need our full attention. Show notes today can be found@wellnessforce.com 191 make sure you give Mary a shout out on social media. Let us know you're hearing and enjoying these podcasts. Today is going to be an absolute blockbuster audio experience. Okay, my friend, no more waiting. Let's step into this compelling and connected conversation with Mary Shores. Mary Shores is an award winning international author of Conscious Communications, a self empowerment guide to creating a life in alignment. Mary Shores, welcome to Wellness Force Radio.

Hey, great to meet you, Josh. I'm so excited to be here today.

This is the first time we're talking and it's beautiful. I love conversations like this. We're talking about Conscious Communications, which actually wasn't the first name of your book. You were gonna call it something else. How did this even come to fruition? We were talking before we recorded. I want people to know why the title and why now? August of last year, this book came out Harnessing the power of our words. Why did this book come through you?

Well, I think that the book came through me because I am just somebody who's absolutely the most passionate person that I've ever met that's just wanting to get my knowledge out to people. My journey through life, whether it's my entrepreneur journey or my journey as a woman or a single mother, it has just not been a graceful one. And over my lifetime I have become a personal development junkie, a spiritual growth junkie. And I've learned so much and I think that my skill set just really lends to speaking and writing and I have so much to share that I couldn't actually not share it.

You had to get out of the way so that higher intelligence could actually speak this through your body as a conduit, in a way.

Absolutely.

This woman, mother, entrepreneur, spiritual growth. You had mentioned that you're a neuro nerd. Like, you have a lot of different aspects of Mary Shores. I mean, people know you. You're on Facebook all the time. You've gathered decades of information, Mary, about really the scientific research, but then also your own personal experience about the power of language. Let's start this conversation off. I'm ready to dive in here. Power of language, the words that we. I check myself all the time from my trainings where instead of saying, I have to go to work or I have to do this thing, I replace the have with get to. And that makes me feel lighter in my body. Your work and all this research and your own experience, how have you articulated this? And how have you come to be a leader when it comes to the power of words? This understanding that words hold so much weight in our body and in our mind.

Right. So you know what? I'll tell you a personal story of mine. So for like 10 years, I just absolutely was obsessed with the idea of writing a book. But I would go around and I would say to anyone, I want to write a book, but I'm not a writer. And the thing is, words are a mirror to your subconscious. And when you hear me say the words I want to write a book, it's like you can see that written on my soul, like a purpose. But I have a big problem, Josh, when the next words that come out of my mouth are, but I'm not a writer, because those words are also a mirror to my subconscious. And what they're doing is they're revealing that somewhere, somehow, I have a belief that does not support me ever reaching that goal of becoming a writer. So if I was going to change that, I needed to invest in myself to make a change. So it's not just about becoming a writer, though, because how many times do we say, I want to start my own business, but I don't have the money or I want to lose 20 pounds, but I don't have time to go to the GY or I can't afford to buy organic. It's like we always say the thing we want, followed by the but excuse.

Yeah.

And so that's like one part of it, and there's a lot more. I found something very fascinating about words through my career. I own a collection agency. And what I started to study, and this was maybe 15 years ago, is the impact that words have on people considering where they're at in their nervous system. In other words, certain words actually trigger the fight or flight response. And negative words are what triggers that. What we have is we have an actual physical reaction to our words on a molecular level that in a lot of ways we're still learning how to understand. But I think that the ancient civilizations understood it so much better than we do. When I was going through that crisis over that title that we were talking about before, I remember one morning I woke up and I had this strong intuition that I had to go learn the Hebrew Alphabet. Like, literally. Who wakes up at 6 o' clock in the morning?

Where did that come from? Was that downloaded into you?

I don't know. It was just. I had to get up and it was like, I have to learn the Hebrew Alphabet today. I went to YouTube and I typed in Hebrew Alphabet. And this guy who's a rabbi, his Hebrew class came up and he had videotaped it. I got 29 minutes into this video and I know the reason why I was led to that video is because he said something I will never, ever forget. He said, there's a word in the English language that everyone knows as the word the magician uses when he pulls the rabbit out of the hat. And the word is obviously abracadabra. And he said that this is an ancient word from. I think he called it Aramaic. It's an ancient Aramaic word that is actually two words that means abara, I will create, kadabara as I speak. I will create as I speak. I get chills right now every time I say that. Because the Hebrew language and the Hebrew Alphabet, the way that it is structured is so magical. It's alphanumeric. So every symbol has a meaning and it has a numerical value. So for example, the word pregnancy actually equals the number of days a woman is pregnant. Like, that's crazy to me. I mean, I'm not that. I don't know where they got this language from, but it's an extremely intelligent language. Another example is the word for personal troubles in the Hebrew language. The word for just like troubles. They can read the words frontwards or backwards. When you read the word backwards, it means awakening.

With awakening comes many different things as well. Because I'm thinking about the word awake. So many people are sleeping and they're sleeping. And there's certain language that we use when we're asleep. And I know this because not as if I'm wearing a white robe on some mountain where I'm all Enlightened and everything. But I will say, like, I've done the work and you've done the work as well. This is what you teach in your work. One of my favorite guys in the planet, by the way, gave you a beautiful quote for your book, about your book. And it's from Mike Dooley, the Universe. I get his emails every day. And he said about your book, Conscious Communications. It is a book that positively changes your association to the words you use for yourself and others. This is an interesting way to set us up. Association, the association of the words we're associated to everything that we put out of our mouth. Because as you said, this is what we're learning as we speak it into existence, as we speak it into truth. This association is a learning curve, though. When did you actually begin this journey into the power of words? Was it when you were writing the book or was it way before then?

In the way, way back machine? When I was like a young girl, 20, 21 years old, I used to be a telemarketer. And when I was a telemarketer, I was the number one telemarketer. And this is so silly, but I was the number one telemarketer in the whole company. And the whole reason for that was because we were scripted and they would have these people listen to you and you had to say the script word for word or basically you'd get fired. But for some reason, they would let me sne in one little word at the end, which was, let's go ahead and sign you up today, okay? So I would add the word okay at the end of that. And what I learned from a very young age was that whenever I would say okay to someone, they are just conditioned to respond back and say okay.

Yeah.

So I know that that sounds simple, but that was my first understanding of the power of words. Like I could use my words to influence someone's decision. And I learned that very early on. And then I think going further from that, you know, I just started learning how words were just so important as far as our interactions with other people, and then became the part of. Wait a second. Our words are actually a way of self programming our subconscious mind. And that's where the real power hit me.

This is the real power, Mary. It's like we operate on three levels really. I was just talking to a friend about this earlier today. It's like we have this current reality where we're in this meat suit and you and I are talking through a computer and everything's fun and you know, we get to go to work, we get to eat food, we get to hug each other. Then there's the subconscious mind. And then below that, there's also a deeper spiritual connection to higher intelligence, to the world that's out there that we can't actually see. We can only feel. What is your faith based practice in regards to this spiritual path? How did that shape you in writing this book?

I'm still trying to get over the fact that you said meat suit, because other than myself, I've never heard anyone else say that.

This is why we're doing a podcast today.

I say it all the time. My meat suit. Yeah. I mean, I think that the further into my spiritual development I go, I think it starts with Law of Attraction. You start learning about Law of Attraction. And with my book, I was very specific that I didn't want the book to be about Law of Attraction per se, because I have always believed that science and spirituality are talking about the same thing, but they're using two different languages. And so to me, it's like, wait a second. All the Law of Attraction fans, they don't need another book. There's already a million bajillion books out there. Right. What I wanted to do was have a book that teaches people how to get in control of their own lives. Because the reality is that everything we say, everything we do, every action we take, every choice we make in the thinnest sliced moment of life is actually building our life. Like a set of Legos. It's like one frame after another. The tiny, tiny choices make the biggest difference. And it's so subtle that you don't see it, but once you understand how those things work, it's not even about Law of Attraction anymore.

Yeah, this Law of Attraction, too, it can be a little bubbly for people. It can be kind of esoteric. And when I first saw the Secret, I felt the message more than I heard the message. I underst that, oh, I have conscious power of thought and I can put things into action. I can speak. You know, you were talking about the Hebrew language. I can speak and learn about this being true, because I say so, because I'm putting it out there. But I'm curious for you. When we look at this paradigm of where someone actually is right now in their monkey mind versus where they want to go. You posted about this on Social. Actually, you said, where you are right now does not matter. The same power that fueled the Wright brothers, Oprah Winfrey, Princess Diana, and the young Mala Yusaref. I think I said that. Name, right. Even Albert Einstein lies in each and every one of us. This same power lies in the thoughts we think every day. This having a mental awakening. Can you walk us through why you even posted this? I think it's a beautiful spot in our conversation.

Well, because I really believe that, you know, I really believe that wholehearted, me, wholeheartedly with every cell in my being. That, like, sometimes I look at the difference between me and the difference between another person. Let's go right back to that thing with the book. I mean, how many people say they wanna write a book, but they never, ever do it? And that was me for 10 years, but it wasn't until the moment I. Because, you know, there's. There's that missing piece. It's like I need to always be moving myself in the direction of what it is that I want because you get at that fork in the road, you know. So I got. And I really believe, too, that, like, you take one step in a new. New direction, maybe two steps in a new direction, and the universe or God or whatever you say will come down and it will meet you halfway. And that. That has been true for me. I mean, I could tell you story after story of things that I manifested. I mean, I was even on at an Abraham Hicks event, and they looked at me, or she looked at me or whatever that is, and she said, you are the most powerful creator we have ever encountered. And I don't know if that was true or not, but I realized that the whole reason I got on that stage was because I halfway raised my hand and I had this thought, if I get on stage, I know all these thoughts I have are true. That was, like 10 years ago. But it was this powerful moment for me. So, I mean, I think that, like, the power that fuels the Wright brothers is the power that says when you take steps in the direction of what it is you want, you're actively thinking about it. You're visioning it in your mind. The end result, you are moving towards that every day. Because a lot of times I like to say, in everything you're doing, you're either moving towards what you want or you're moving further away.

And I love that concept because we can all relate to that. There's a section in your book, actually, that meets people where they are. This is what I like about what you've created, Mary. You have one foot in personal development and academia, really, in the corporate world world. You also have this foot in spirituality. Talking about being on stage at an Esther Hicks meeting, there's A section here. Managing the toxic buildup. The nervous system processes your experiences and sends a rush of powerful hormones into your body to produce whatever recipe is necessary to match your experience. Let's talk about this. This is where people find themselves not wanting to believe in the law of attraction, wanting to eat unhealthy foods, wanting to lash out in anger. How do we manage this toxic buildup? It's what blocks us from the love.

Yeah, that's such a great place to talk about, especially on your show. So we like talking. Who talks about that? In conjunction with creating your own reality. But like you said, it goes right back to the meat suit. Okay, so we incarnated with this meat suit. So we are, we are a spiritual being having a physical experience. And the meat suit was created so that we can experience the world. Right? Because if I'm in spirit, how do I know what chocolate tastes like? I have to have a body, I have to have a tongue that has taste buds, right? And when you eat the chocolate, it has to be able to correspond and have an effect. In my meat suit. So it gives me dopamine in the brain to say this is a pleasurable experience. And so the thing is that we're living in a time period where our bodies are so overloaded because for more time than ever, we have constant notifications go off. We're living under more stress, stress, more measurable stress than I think has ever taken place in history. I think happiness levels, for the most part, are way down. And a lot of the things that we think are great and good and convenient are actually the things that stress us out. I mean, if you get 50 notifications a day off Facebook, that is causing you like a little bit of a low level PTSD type of situation, because it never stops. So on the other hand, the whole reason that our bodies have that fight or flight system is because back in the day before civilization, we needed to be able to escape in a dangerous situation. So our bodies are built in a way to constantly promote survival. Which means if a tiger is chasing us, we have to be able to have all of our physical abilities go towards the things that our muscles and those adrenaline bursts. But when we have that happen because your boss yelled at you or because you got a nasty email or because you almost witnessed a car accident. The thing is, you never do the running away, right? So those toxins stay inside of you because in the old pre civilization, you would actually run away from the tiger, which means that your body would use up those chemicals so it would flush them Out. But instead what's happening is we take on all these stress hormones all day and for everybody it looks different, so I can't tell you, but everyone's little makeup is different. But then they just stay in us because we go home, we eat dinner, which is probably junk, and then we lay on the couch or do nothing or play on Facebook for the rest of the night. We're notif we would go to the gym. We could get rid of those chemicals.

Yes, this neuroscience too. There's a big piece of this, and this is something that you studied for a long time. There is a component of synaptic pruning and synaptic forming. When we look at personal development, by the way, we're all love, we're all beautiful. It's honestly just getting out of our way. But how do we explore this where people truly are? Mary, going back to the way you've written this book, it's like meeting people where they are in this current reality, but yet giving them the step by step process, exploring the other two worlds, the subconscious and the spirit. What do you believe about these mechanisms that are worth mentioning, at least for synaptic forming?

Meeting people where they are certainly means that wherever you're at right now in your personal life or your professional life, a lot of times we compare ourselves to someone else. And meeting yourself where you're at means wherever you're at. If you're in a deep, dark hole and the thing that you need is just to see the light, then that's where you're at. And your focus needs to just be on how can I get myself, how can I build a ladder to get out of this dark hole so that I can see the light? But maybe that's not where you're at. Maybe you're already where you want to be. And your thing is, I just want to get to my next thing. I want to have a spiritual awakening or I want to get to the next level in my career, or maybe I want to make a change. That's what I mean by meeting where you're at. The thing about the synapses I think is pretty awesome and how you, you connect that to words. The way I picture it, it's almost like when you plant a new seed in your mind and you can feed that seed to grow into neural networks to replace the old ones. A lot of times people in the space of new thought leadership that I'm working in, they'll talk about limiting beliefs. I actually call them barrier beliefs because to me it's like it builds a brick wall in between you and the person you want to be. The thing is that those walls are created from the programming and all of the already established neural networks that are connected together by synapses that are most likely from our childhood. They used to call that being hardwired in. Of course, we no longer believe that because we know now that we can build a new neural network. I think that somehow we've been led to believe that creating a new neural network actually takes years of psychotherapy, that you have to rewrite old beliefs. But the truth is, to me, what I have found to be true is I just have to stop feeding those old beliefs and plant the seeds of new beliefs, the belief I want to have, and then water those seeds.

I love this garden analogy. The brain is truly a garden. I mean, if you look at the microbes, we had Josh Takel on the show in a handful of dirt, Mary, There are billions of microbes, the same ones that are structured in our gut. And then we know how much there is a gut to brain connection in how we feel. I'm thinking about the real reason, though, why beliefs stay stuck. Why do you think that is? Why do beliefs stay stuck? And how do we begin to loosen those?

Well, the reason they stay stuck is because they're wired that way. So let's say, for example, like, you know, you know you have a friend. I'm going to describe a situation. If you were to call one of your girlfriends or something right away, you know who you're going to call, and she's going to immediately start complaining about her day.

Totally.

I'm sure you have a friend like this, right?

Everyone's raising their hand, Mary.

Everyone's raising their hand. Great. So, like, why is that. Why is it that she always does that? How can you. How can you predict the fact that if you call Molly or Betty or whoever it is, you know she's gonna like, oh, my boss did this. Can you believe it? Or, oh, I just got a speeding ticket. Like, how do you know that about her? You can do. You know it because you've recognized her patterns. So her pattern is she's a complainer. That means that she runs a program in her subconsc that leads her to believe that there's more things negative in her life that she's verbalizing to actually create more negativity in her life. Because every time she's verbalizing those complaints, what she's doing is she's strengthening that neural network in her subconscious brain that is just creating more of what she doesn't want. Because the basic step one of this stuff is stop constantly talking about all the things you don't want and talk instead about all the things you do want.

Yeah, there is a healthy boundary line between this too. It's like we see some people in our spiritual community, in our personal development community, we're 24, 7. They're preaching positivity, love and high vibration. And I gotta say, that's just spiritual bypassing. To me, there is a healthy boundary, don't you think? Can you describe this healthy boundary between getting stuck in beliefs that we're trying to solve, focusing on getting rid of them instead of focusing on the new, or completely spiritually bypassing?

I've heard that term spiritual bypassing a couple of times now. And I had been calling it spiritual bullying. Because the way that I look at this is like we've gotten smack dab in the middle of this positive psychology movement that actually has gone to such an extreme that we're led to believe that if something happens to us, it's our fault. And the problem that I have with positive psychology going to such an extreme is that we need to have ways to process things when the shit hits the fan. Because I don't care how positive you are, something, somewhere, somehow, someday is going to happen that you cannot positive think your way out of.

Thank you.

I mean, because how can we be here to grow if we don't have to work our way through a situation? For me, myself, when I was very young, I was out on my own at 16 years old and I still had to graduate high school. And I had no resources and very little guidance. I did graduate, but it wasn't long before I became a teenage mother. My child was born when I was 19 and she had profound brain damage. It was to the point where she was blind, she was deaf, she was unable to swallow or have a suck reflex. So she had a tube, a feeding tube inserted into her stomach. She lived for a year and a half, which means for that time period that she was alive. Here I was at 19 and 20 years old and I lived in and out of the children's hospitals. I had no money, so I slept on the emergency room floor. And it was a very scary time in that I saw things you can never ever unsee, like cancer unit of children and the burn unit. And just the horrible things that I saw during that time period. This had a deep effect on me. It was. It was. In the end, it's something I can look back because it was 25 years ago and realize the gift of resilience that that gave me. Realize the gift of the character building, the integrity that instilled in me. I think that a lot of times we look at our stories in life and we have to understand that the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves become our identity. And so if we're constantly feeding the tragic stories in our lives, I don't know how that's going to serve us other than to strengthen that neural network in our mind that keeps us turning into a victim versus understanding that the most beautiful part in your story is in. How did you move on.

Man? I'm just feeling the weight of what that must have been like. My heart goes out to anyone. I mean, Mary, just visualizing that, seeing how challenging that was. This is really like a bit of a psychic event that happens and then we either choose. It's interesting that you mentioned this. Like our story is really how we respond to this, what we create after the thing happens. Many people in personal development have talked about events being neutral. Do you believe that events are neutral and it's up to us to decide after the fact?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'm not even sure that I've. That I've given a lot of thought to that. I think that some things happen and it doesn't feel neutral to me. Yeah, you know, my daughter, when I got divorced, that didn't feel neutral. That felt really, really bad. But maybe four years later or five years later, you know, I can begin to see it as more of a neutral or I can begin actually more than neutral. I think I've got this ability where I turn tragedy into triumph. I know that, like, one thing that people seem to be really fascinated about with me is how did I go from this, like, teenager with nothing, losing a child to starting my own business at 24 and having that business grow into a very successful company. I think that it does lie in that ability. It's like instead of feeling just completely defeated by my circumstances, I don't allow myself to stay there very long. Before I start, before I start evaluating what's happened and saying, how has this benefited me, how has it strengthened me? What do I have in my life that I wouldn't have had I not gone through that.

Oh, I have a very heady question for you, so bear with me. But I promise it's connected to the heart, to our real decision making faculty. That's what's always true. How did you go from being in this state of really sympathetic nervous system override where it's like you're going through pain and torment. What really drove you to create all this success? Was it the pain or was it the love?

I think it was so much of that. I think it was a lot to do with awareness. So, like, I can remember one day when I was at my company, my brother was working here with me and he said, mary, he said, do you ever notice that you react at a level 10 to things that are a level 2? And he said, walk around when you're having, you know, when you're having a meltdown about the printer breaking. True story, by the way. And he goes, I just want you to see how everyone around you, I want you to look at their body language. And I did that. And it was a wake up call for me because I realized, like, wow, my behavior is changing the energy in these other people. And once I saw. Because I feel like my whole teachings and conscious communications is all about building connections. I mean, everything is either creating a deeper connection or driving a disconnection. My answer is going to go towards love, because love is creating a connection means you're doing the more loving thing. But before I could even get there, because I was really in a dark place for a very long time, I needed the awareness.

Yeah, it's the self awareness that we've heard from so many people on the show. And you're in this group of people that choose love. This is our work. I feel like one of our biggest tools in life is can we go and make a choice from love and being not so in our head and more in our heart, even if it feels like shit, even if we're in that moment where love isn't exactly the easiest path, what's easier is to hold on to anger, is to hold on to, why did this happen to me in all these stories? And it brings up something for me from your book. One of my favorite movies, the Bronx Tale. Chaz, you actually met with him. You guys had this conversation about this exploration of responding to life's experiences and choosing how we actually go forward. How did that shape this book? Can you tell us about that conversation with Chaz from the Bronx Tale?

First of all, that's one of my favorite movies as well. So we have a little film festival here in the town that I live in. It's called the Ebert Fest. And we have. I mean, it's just weird because this is such a small town, but Roger Ebert, the famous film critic, he grew up here. And so that's why we have this festival and a Bronx Tale was one of the movies. And I was at an after party and all I kept thinking, well, first of all, the movie to me was so moving. It is one of my favorite movies. And I see it not as a gangster movie, I see it as a spiritual movie. And what happened was I was at this after party and Chaz was there. And of course, everyone is lining up to get autographs and take pictures and stuff. And when I got my moment with him, I said, do you feel like you came into this life to play this role? And that was the very best thing I could have ever done because the man scooped me up, took me into a screening room of this movie studio we were in, and he talked to me for two or three hours.

Wow.

He just abandoned everyone else at the party. And he said, he just started telling me all of these things that he had learned. He's a very spiritually connected person. He started talking to me about yoga and meditation. And actually one of the big concepts of the book, cleanse or clog, came because he looked at me and he said, if you want to be a writer, he said, you have to keep your vessel clean. I know what he meant by that is like, the cleaner that your body is, the better your connection to your higher spirit in order to write. Because what he said to me was, he said, I. My craft is movies, and I am changing the world through my art and my ability to make movies. And he said, for you, it's writing, and for you, in order to get those words out, have to have a strong connection. What's really fascinating about A Bronx Tale is he wrote that movie as a one man show. And he wrote it because he was taking this class and he wrote it in like five minute snippets a day over a one year period of time. And it's a true story, by the way. Did you know that?

I did not know that. It's one of my favorites. The scene where he says, when you go pick up a woman, make sure that you let her in first. Walk around the car, and if when you get in, she hasn't unlocked the door, you leave her. I think he said, you leave that broad and you leave her fast. It's one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie. And you're right. Like, I had no idea that Sonny did yoga and that Sonny was so spiritual. Like, of course you met him and of course you guys talked for two hours. And looking back though, you mentioned this, this cleanse or clog. So Sonny, Chaz is actually the one that Gave you this paradigm of cleansing and clogging. Tell us more about the cleanse and clog.

But hang on, Josh, because I gotta tell you this. So Chaz, you know the little boy in the movie?

Yes.

That's Chaz Calogero. Yes. I can never pronounce that right. C. Chaz. Chaz's true story is that he was C. Everything in that movie happened to Chaz Palmintieri. But his name is not Collojial, it's Chaz. Yeah, everything happened. So the girl, she's real. He told me she's a teacher now. Told me where she lives. Everything happened in the movie. The boys that got burnt up towards the end of the movie. Yeah, that all happened. The gangsters in the movie. Get this. He couldn't find actors that could play the gangsters, so he went and went to find those gangsters in the Bronx. Those are the actual gangsters.

Makes it even more real.

I know. It's like. I know. I wish you could have been here at that movie festival because that's where I learned all of these things. So, yeah, he talked to me all about the movie. Okay, so anyway, Cleanser clog. Cleanser clog is one of my favorite things because I feel like we're in this space where we're really able to accept that infinite possibilities exist for us. The thing is though, that I think when we hear the words infinite possibilities, we equal that in our minds to mean highest potential. And what we really need to understand is that infinite possibilities means that anything could happen. The good things and the bad things. Right. So I could become a best selling author or I could like have something really terrible happen to me and any spectrum in between. But the real question is, if you want to be a powerful creator, how do you connect yourself to all of the things that you really desire? Your higher goals versus swirling in the chaos of. Of uncertainty and despair. What I realized is there's a concrete way you can change your possibilities into probabilities. Probabilities meaning that it's more likely to happen. I created this concept of cleanse or clog, which just simply means that everything you do either cleanses you or clogs you. If I take the example of being on a diet, which for the first time in multiple, multiple years, I'm actually on a diet. Diet. I just know that all I have to do is look at any piece of food that I'm about to put in my body and say, will this cleanse me or will this clog me? So if I'm looking at an apple and I can intuitively understand that the nutrients in the apple are going to cleanse me, then that means I should do that. But if I'm looking at, say, a Snickers bar or a bag of Doritos, then I think that intuitively I understand that that's going to clog me. But it goes so much deeper than just a diet, because, like, what if I say everything you do, everything you say, every word that comes out of your mouth in your personal relationships is either cleansing. That relationship or clogging just changes your behavior. When you can look, look at your choices, because it truly is awareness of your choices that gives you the keys to freedom. When you become aware of your choice and say, if I say this thing, is it going to cleanse me? In other words, is it going to create a deeper connection or is it going to drive a disconnection? And if you can understand that, I got this 8020 rule, which means you don't have to be perfect, but if 80% of the time you are making cleansing, connected choices, I guarantee you that within about 45 days, you're going to start shaping a different life around you. And part of it is because you start to become more aware of all, of everything that's swirling around you, like opportunities that may have been there the whole time, but now you feel ready to take action for, because you're setting this foundation of always moving towards what you want and desire. Wow.

Mic drop. Super big mic drop. Because I think everyone just kind of breathe that in immediately. Tap your show notes right now on the phone, Pick up conscious communication this moment. It's linked right now on your phone or if you're listening on the computer. Mary, this, this focus on what we want versus what we don't want. This is an exercise. It's in the book People can do the cleanse and the clog exercises with along so many others. But I want to save some time for us here as we wrap on manifestation. Like, you are well known for manifestation. How do we actually meet people where they are when this language can be a little bit off putting to the logical analytical thinkers out there, how do they manifest? What language can we use around manifestation?

Well, I can give you what I'm working on right now. And I will also tell you that a lot of the concepts I create is because I was so confused by all the terminology that I would hear floating around. So, like, for example, I would hear things like, oh, just get in alignment. And I thought, what the heck?

What does that even mean?

What does that even mean, like, I get it now, but, you know, when you're meeting someone where they are, they might not understand like. Like what alignment means. Or how about this one? Just allow. I'm like, whatever with the right context.

Is powerful, but just saying that to somebody in a subway is not motivational at all, right?

Or I would read a lot of books that would say that, but they would never explain how to. And so for me, like, a really big thing that I love about alignment, which might again, you know, like I told you, my spiritual depth is just. It's growing so exponentially. And I have something huge to get out to the world about alignment, which I do want to talk to you about. But it's like. Like, if alignment means your feelings, your thoughts, your words, your actions all moving in the same direction, it kind of, you know, you've got to start at a. You got to pick a starting point. And for me, that. That was words, because the thoughts were too hard to change. So, for example, being out of alignment is like that example of, I want to write a book, but I'm not a writer. That's an example of out of alignment. But when I'm saying I want to write a book and I'm investing in myself by going to a writer's workshop, that's showing my words and my actions in alignment with what I want. So that's like the easy way. And you can use cleanse or clog to get there. But this piece that I've just uncovered since I went to a meditation retreat earlier, well, over the New Year's Eve holiday, is that part of alignment? And this is a part that I don't think we talk about very often, is forgiveness that we have in order. You can't be in alignment if you have shit you have not forgiven yourself for. And this means taking a look at that baggage that you're carrying around, because I did this exercise myself, and I found it difficult, but I literally made a list of all of the things that I have not forgiven myself for. And I went back a very, very long time. And the thing is that there is nothing in this world that the universe does not forgive give you for nothing. And it doesn't matter. You're not measuring against the human moral scale. You're measuring it against creation itself. And in order to get into alignment, you've just got to learn to forgive yourself and to let go. Because if you have even one speck of that unworthiness in you, which is something that I still, you know, I still find Unworthiness inside. You've got to get rid of that and start clearing it out to keep that vessel clean and get yourself in alignment.

Yeah. To the degree that we forgive is to the other degree that we can allow. I mean, this is the tactical work, Mary. It's like the logical mind doesn't want it to be that easy. And it is coming down to the power of choice. But yet, before that, what work are we actually going to do? You know, are we going to take this emotional inventory? Are we going to do cleanse and clog? Are we going to go to workshops? Can we enjoy this spiritual development that we're in? Like, how do you stay in joy? How do you enjoy this thing as you move forward, as you create?

I really do. I enjoy it so much because when it's on your path, it feels good, and you will naturally enjoy it. If you're not enjoying something. You know, there are parts of the work that are a little bit uncomfortable, and I think it's. I think that, you know, a lot of times your greatest manifestations do come when you're outside of your comfort zone. So, like, for example, that forgiveness exercise, that was uncomfortable for me, but I knew it was necessary because it was just some things I was carrying around that were weighing me down. And I felt so much lighter after I really explored it. I think it's easier to forgive another person than it is to forgive yourself. I wanted to make one other point about manifestation. This is something else I've been working on this year. I'm calling it the Core four. What I've noticed is when I get rolling with things I can get as an entrepreneur, I can be pulled in 17 different directions. And it's like, how do you really. If you want to manifest, what you need to do is you need to triple down on a few things instead of chasing everything, because if you're doing everything, you're not doing anything. So I created my core four, which is the four areas of life that I am focused in. Or if it's a business, it's the four areas of business. So what you have to do is you have to say, where do I want to be a year from now or two years from now? And then pick three or four things that will get you there and focus only on those things. Things. It's not that you ignore everything else, it's just that your creative focus goes to that. And if your energy is not going to those four things, it really should throw up a yellow caution flag.

Yeah, it's the decluttering of the mind and also incessant inboxes and all these things that distract us. How important then is it to really get clear? We do this inventory, we cleanse and clog. But how do we actually do that? How do we get clear on these folders?

Well, for me, it was based on goals. So, you know, as you know, in Law of Attraction, they'll say it's a lot about what you're focused on, a lot about how you feel. So I am really big into what I call end result thinking, which is basically like, I just know what I want my outcome to be. That was my big thing I learned from Tony Robbins in 2005 is always know your outcome. So if I want my outcome to be write a book, then I say, well, what do I need to do in order to write this book? What needs to be true for me to reach that goal? And I come up with a few things, and then I focus on doing those things and doing them to the best of my ability.

This devotion that you have to word. I mean, you study words, you speak with powerful words. How do you find the balance in this when people push against you? In other words, have you been. Been kind of reached out and assaulted for the work that you've been doing? How do you deal with the hatred that might come your way when really you're just coming from a place of using love through word?

Well, so that's really interesting because, well, I told you I own a debt collection company. And the mission of my company is that I want people to feel good about paying their debts because having a debt is a psychological burden that gets in between people and living the life that they want. So very similar to all of these other concepts. Right? So I created a strategy that was always based on making them feel good about the fact that they wanted to pay instead of feeling shame for having a debt in the first place. And my mission soon became, I want to change the entire industry. Like, I don't want to just do this this way at my company, but I want to change the entire industry. And when I first started approaching the other debt collection companies and the organizations like the American Collectors association and stuff, they were really very not wanting to hear this. They wanted me to go away.

But why?

Because they don't do it that way. There's a negative stigma in debt collections for a reason. And it's because their weapon of choice really became words where they would use intimidation, shame, and anxiety to fear to get people to pay their debts. And I wasn't about that. But here's what I learned. So here's another one of those character building exercises, right? So over about a 10 year period, because I stayed in my integrity and because I stayed in my own authenticity, that eventually I won out. And now I am getting invitations from all over the country to teach my methods. And I'm so proud of that because I feel like this is my chance to make a dent into the collective consciousness of especially the United States. But I had went through this pretty powerful crisis of meaning several years ago because when I wanted to take a spiritual path, I was really worried because I thought, how can I be a debt collector and take a spiritual path that did not seem incongruent, that didn't feel like alignment to me? Josh.

It doesn't seem like they fit. Right, but you've somehow figured this out.

Well, so I'll tell you what happened. I was at Omega Institute, and I love Omega. It's a spiritual retreat center in upstate New York. Well, anyway, I met this woman and I was talking to her about it, and I said, I'm really worried because I don't really have a fallback career and I don't know how I would support myself. This is the only job I've ever really done. And I was telling her about my mission, and she goes, don't you see? She said, you are living a spiritual path because this is the work you came here to do. And all of a sudden it clicked in my head and there's that passage from the lost gospels of Thomas from the Dead Sea Scrolls that says, when you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you. And when you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. And I think what I realized in that moment is we're all searching for this purpose. Like purpose is the big P word, and it's hiding behind some elusive curtain, and you have to go through some sort of hero's journey to discover your purpose. But truly your purpose is whatever your skills, gifts and talents are. And all I needed to do to be on my spiritual path was to allow those gifts to come out into the world.

You used the word allow, which before to people that maybe hadn't heard you speak with eloquence and power, might have said, what do you mean, allow? But I think we all get it now. I think we understand. It's the allowing through our work, through this deeper dive into our emotional self, understanding how many facets, how beautiful we are, all of our challenges, and just Honestly, Mary, it's like all roads lead to self awareness and self love, and I'm a proud, conscious man that gets to talk about this to this audience. You know, tens of thousands of people are being affected by just our one conversation. How grateful am I to have you on this podcast to show your work? I just want to pause here for a moment.

Moment.

And acknowledge the impact that you're making your work, everything you've been through, all the ways that you've used your hero's journey, your thresholds to now come from this place of conscious communications. Just thank you so much for what you do in this world.

Thank you. It's so exciting to be on the show. I really enjoy myself and talking with you.

The last wrap of the show is three quick questions, and they're all about things we're discovering. The first one is what is your word since you have such power and words. Do you have a word for 2018? My word for 2018 is ownership.

Mine is heal.

Heal from what?

So I, you know, it would be another show, but I'm writing another book called Unraveled. And it's all about when you have trauma that builds up in your body over years and years and you eventually start to manifest other issues, loss, like perhaps fibromyalgia. For me, it was starting to have spinal issues. So I'm healing from all of that. And that's my word for 2018. Also a lot of things in my heart. So next month I'm going on a retreat, a meditation retreat at Monroe Institute called Heartlines. And it's. I'm just so excited about what I can do when I really tap into and expand that heart.

Physical practice, our intelligence about this body. Our body has such a great voice. As long as we're listening, what is your physical practice right now? How are you leaning into your own physical intelligence?

Well, for years and years, believe it or not, I was into kickboxing, and then kickboxing became yoga. And right now I feel like I'm in a period of rest and also getting myself back into my yoga practice, especially Kundalini yoga.

Yoga, yes. Yoga has been so transformational for me. It's been a go to, especially for people that are listening. You're at the desk a lot and you're sedentary. The last thing you want to do is go to the gym and sit at a machine, get your body moving. In yoga, it's so powerful, the emotional inventory. You talk so much in your work. In the book, there's practical guides at the end of the book. A lot of these things relate to emotional intelligence. Your book has that flavor of emotional intelligence. But for you personally, now, maybe it's a piggyback on what your word is for 2018, but what is this edge of your emotional intelligence this year?

So I'm going to tell you that I have this daily practice. I have a couple of daily practices, and I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I have a daily gratitude practice, and I've been doing that for years. But this year I picked up a new practice where every day I write in my journal three things I'm grateful for, three things that I'm proud of for the day, and three things that I desire.

That's very succinct. And I actually feel like the clarity of that, it's just so easy. It's the rule of threes. Did you use the rule of threes or did that come through you another way?

I do a lot of things with threes, so I'll go with, I use the rule of threes. Because, you know, if you do five and you can't think of them, then instead of you being excited about your daily practice, you're overwhelmed. Because what if you can't find the. The fifth thing.

Last question for today. And it's about wellness. You know, this physical and emotional. It really stems to the spiritual as well. But when you look at wellness, what does Mary Shores believe about wellness? What's Mary Shores definition of wellness?

Oh, that's a big one. I think that it encompasses mind, body and spirit. You know, how I'm feeding my body, how I'm feeding my mind and how I'm feeding my spirit and going right back to cleanse or clog. Like, it's just so important to me that I feed my body, my mind and my spirit with nourishment. Nourishment and things that help it to grow and expand.

Well, you've definitely fed us today. Just want to acknowledge you again for coming on the show and just sharing so openly. Love the conversation we had and all the nuances. Everything's gonna be linked in our show notes today. Where can people dig in to this work and tell us what you're excited about too, as we say goodbye?

Well, I would love for anyone who's interested in our conversation today to take a look on Amazon at the book Conscious Communication. I say just read the description and when you read the description of the book and maybe a few reviews, you'll know whether the book is for you. Or not. I also have anyone can connect with me via a Facebook group called Fearless Ambition. I'm very active in that group and would love to have any of your listeners join it. And what am I excited about? Well, I'm getting ready to turn in a new book proposal for Hay House so fingers crossed that they allow me to gift the world with a second book.

Are you allowed to talk about the title?

Well, sure. The title is called the Communication Code. It's really you know what it is. It's a very more entrepreneurial version of conscious communication. So it's going to talk about my communication strategy that I use in business which is really all about how do you constantly focus on creating connections with your customers and clients and vendors and employees and and all that good stuff. Because I think that I consider myself to be in this spiritual entrepreneurial space and I know my business inside, outside, backwards and forwards. And what I really love to do is help other entrepreneurs understand how they can most be a humanitarian plus company versus a humanitarian minus and how to do that by attracting great I've got a superb workforce and I don't have it necessarily because I've always made the right decisions, but it's because my business has been built on a mission.

I love Superfect. I've never heard that word. That's a beautiful word. Mary, just such a joy to talk with you. We wish you such success in 2018 and beyond and we'll be sure to have this conversation continued in the Wellnessforce group. You can go to facebook.com wellnessf or you can go to wellnessforce.com forward/group Mary Shores. Have a beautiful day. Thank you again for coming on the show.

Thanks Josh.

Hey my friend. Thank you for hanging out and growing with me on today's show. Remember to hit subscribe Share this podcast with somebody you care about that you think gets to hear this message. Support the show by leaving a five star review for the podcast right now simply by tapping on your show artwork. On your iPhone, click that purple link that says review this podcast. It helps the show reach more more conscious and smart people like you and your voice will attract more world class guests that want to come on the show. So let them hear your voice. For all the downloads, videos, links and free resources mentioned on the episode go to wellnessforce.com radio and while you're at my house on the web, join us in the Wellness Force Community newsletter on that page and I'll send you four free guides around staying healthy with your eating, moving and sleeping while you travel. But don't let this conversation stop here. Join a group of people like you you over at the Wellness Force Community Facebook page. This is where we talk about the things that really matter. We share our wins, inspirations, struggles, and a lot more. So join us. Tap on the show artwork on your phone and hit that purple link that says join the Facebook group, and I will welcome you at the door. Okay. Now you get to go out into your world and create impact for the people that you care about. So until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.

Sat.