Kute Blackson: Trusting The Process & Breaking Conditioned Responses

Wellness Force Radio.

Feelings are essential, but.

They can't dictate our actions. We literally infect each other with our emotions. We came here for a special purpose.

Let the purpose unveil itself. Knowing without doing is the same thing as not knowing. They're not just trackers. I'm gonna wear this and it's gonna help me do the right thing.

Wellness force radio episode 73 with best selling author and transformational teacher Coot Black.

Behavior is a manifestation of something different. So if we just change the behavior on the surface, but you don't necessarily deal with the underlying motivation and giving that part of you what it needs in a healthy way, likely either you'll keep doing the behavior or you'll stop for a moment and keep doing it, or you'll find unhealthy ways or other unhealthy ways to get that same need. It will manifest in different ways. That's why we have to go from the inside out rather than the modifying the behavior simply on the surface, you know. And I think when we're able to do that, then real healing can happen. And love, compassion is the key. Healing happens when we facilitate and apply love to those parts of ourselves that are in pain, to those parts of ourselves that are hurting. That's when healing happens. It's a little counterintuitive.

Welcome back to another episode, my friend. I am your host and wellness coach, Josh Trent. Thank you for spending your time with me here on the podcast. This is where every week I bring you access to global experts in wellness, technology and behavior change. On this podcast you'll learn from exceptional people who are dedicating their lives to driving real transformations in physical and emotional wellness. My intention with the show is that together we'll discover the connections between your emotions and healthy habits to live your best life and enjoy the process. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Supplements, a company I'm honored to stand with who walks the talk with their values of non GMO pesticide free real food supplements that support us all on the wellness journey. Hop on over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce Enter code wellnessforce to save 10% off your entire order at checkout. Wellness Force Radio got a five star review last week and it's from listener Lynn Pink. Lynn says this is an extremely informative podcast that covers a large range of topics and does so in a very engaging way. You can hear his passion on every episode and at the end of the podcast you're left feeling inspired to get on track and stay on track with your fitness goals. He's done all the research and presents it in a motivating way. If you're looking for encouragement and motivation for your all around wellness, look no further and listen to this podcast. Linds. I'm giving you a huge digital hug and a high five through the airwaves. Thank you so much for your powerful voice to support Wellness Force radio reaching over 1 million lives to greater wellness through technology and emotion. Head on over to wellnessforce.com review. I will read yours and send you a free gift. I am so stoked about the emails we've received for the episodes from Melissa Hartwig, Natalie and Bob, Glenn Stoko, Dr. Jade Tita. So many people are getting this impact from the show. I would love to hear your voice. You can always email me at any time@josh wellnessforce.com Today's show with Kute Blackson. You are going to love this episode. I got to sit down with best selling author Coot Blackson. This is a charismatic visionary. He's a transformational teacher. He's a speaker who offers this bold new look at spiritual awareness by providing new tools needed to live a life truly inspired by love. We're talking about Coutts new book. You Are the A Bold Adventure in Finding Purpose, Discovering the Real you and Loving Fully. This is one of those episodes where we take a lot of valuable twists and turns, but how is that a perfect mirror for our life? Because on today's episode, Coot is going to show us how to get clarity and find and live our deepest purpose. He'll share his real life story of this tremendous hero's journey, how he works with clients and to help them break old habits and old mental conditioning. How all of us can recognize early when we're not in alignment with our wellness so we can avoid suffering. He'll show us how to get in touch with our fears and actually make them work for us. We had some really powerful Facebook questions I know you're going to enjoy and Coot was generous. He's given away two advanced tickets to his man breakthrough experience for women October 14th in Los Angeles. At the very end of the show, I'll give you all the details how you can enter to win and work with Coot live in person in Los Angeles. This is an experience you will not want to miss. If you are a woman who has read books, been to seminars, done lots of personal development stuff, but you have all the information yet you're still frustrated. You keep attracting the same types of men that aren't right for you. This is how you break those old patterns of self sabotage and get into some real valuable and worthy relationships. This seminar he describes is all about decoding men and transforming hidden blocks that keep you from attracting the love you deserve. I'm feeling like, wow, maybe he can run one for all the single men out there. So stick with me till the end of the show and I'll enter you to win in the live experience. All right, let's get in there. Learn and live large with Koot Blockson Koot. Welcome to the show. Great to be here this year. You've so exploded the media, man. People are receiving your message with open arms. But I'm curious, you know, besides what's about you online and your story, which we're gonna get deep with. Can you share something fun or exclusive about you that most of us don't really know?

Fun or exclusive about Coot? Let's see. I'm a wannabe DJ, electronic DJ that very few people know about. Really into DJs like Skrillex, Martin, Garrix, Afro Jack. Who else Chromeo made? I'm just really into electronic music. A lot of people don't really know that, but I'm pretty fanatical now.

What about DJ Shadow? Are you familiar with him? That's back in the day.

I know DJ Shadow. I'm really into DJ Snake now, who just is just incredible. I saw him perform a couple of years ago at Ultra Music Festival. Blew my mind. Blew my mind so good. The creativity of these cats, some of these cats. And you know, it's also fascinating to watch the marketing as well. So a lot of people don't know that part of me.

Well, I finished your book last night in prep for the show. I am so ready, my friend, to dig deep into breaking some conditioned responses, finding purpose, diving into your book. But I got to be honest with you, I'm really bursting to kind of ask you this one question. I think it sets that's the tone for our time. I finished your book. I wrote in my journal for about an hour, you know, like 10 pages. This one sentence you wrote hit me towards the end of your book and you called it the true spiritual practice. How did you come up with this simple but powerful awareness of what you describe as the true spiritual practice is for us to all open our hearts and share what's inside.

I think really the essence of that came honestly and I think I share this story in the book too. When I went to India for the first time and one of my inspirations and teachers was a man is a man called duakoji. He's currently 94 years old, but when I met him, he was about 80 years old. So I've known him for about 14 years. He was a former disciple of Gandhi. He's been serving people for about 60 some years now. I mean, he takes hundreds of thousands of kids off the streets, teaches them the Gandhian ways, put thousands, tens of thousands of people through his orphanage. An incredible man, like a Mother Teresa figure. And I went to India to basically spend months and be a part of his orphanage and serve these children. And I had these visions, I'll be honest, Josh, I had these visions of being like Mother Teresa, you know, thinking I'm going to serve people. And, you know, the kids that he takes off, these are kids he finds off the street and living in the trash, living with animals. I mean, it's just. It's intense, it's heartbreaking. And I spent two weeks with these kids and I was. I was very challenged. And I realized that service isn't so sexy. It's raw, it's real. I mean, it's in the trenches. And these kids weren't responding to me and they weren't giving me love. So after about two weeks, I was ready to give up. And I remember looking at Dwarka Ji and his orphanage is right by the Bodhi tree, where the Buddha got enlightened, where the Mahabodhi temple is. I mean, it's like the Buddhist Mecca. It's incredible. And so I told him, you know, Dwarku Ji, I'm going to go meditate for a couple of weeks. I'm having a little tough time. I'm going to go meditate at the Mahabodhi temple. I'll be back in a few weeks, get my head straight. And he looked at me with eyes of compassion. I mean, real, raw, sincere compassion. And he said to me that this is where I think the Genesis came from. And he said to me, it's beautiful to go and meditate, go do it. It's beautiful to go and sit by the statue of the Buddha and under the Bodhi tree. But he said, just make sure your heart doesn't turn to stone. Because right here, that just stopped me tracks. Because he said, right here in front of you in the face of these children, right here in front of you in the eyes of these children, these poorest children in the world are living Buddhas, living Christ, just waiting to be served and loved. They are waiting for you to worship them. So just know right here. And that for me is what Blew my mind. And I realized that real spiritual practice isn't just meditating and doing yoga poses and drinking green juice and doing Reiki and chanting and raising kundalini, which is all great, going to temple and church, but it's how you live your life, moment to moment to moment. And the recognition that every person you meet is an expression of the divine. Every person you meet is an expression of God, the infinite, whatever label you want to put on it. That's the real spiritual practice. And growing up in the church, my father has all these churches. We can get into that if we want to. But I remember being this little kid, you know, six, seven years old. Everyone would be in church on a Sunday, right? Thousands of people praising the Lord, praising Spirit, Hallelujah, Jesus, what have you. And then they'd come, come out of church. I kid you not, every week they come out of church after praising the Lord. And they'd be bitching, moaning, complaining, gossiping, talking crap about each other. And just the disconnect is like, wow. So that's when I really started feeling real spiritual practice. It's not what you do simply on the yoga mat or in temple, but it's how do you live your life? How do you treat every person you meet as an expression of the infant? And that's, I think, where I started to see life itself as yoga, life itself as meditation, life itself as that practice.

Incredible, man. Absolutely incredible. So in the intro, I kind of talked a little bit about what you do, and as someone listening can already tell, you have many layers of depth. And I'm excited to get into this depth today. Now, for someone new who maybe hasn't heard of your work, can you describe kind of who you are and what you do in a few sentences?

Wow, a few sentences.

Not to pin you down to a.

Few sentences, but, yeah, in a nutshell, I would just say I'll kind of keep this as short as I can. I was born in Ghana, West Africa. Father's from Ghana, mother's Japanese. So I feel, I think, really integral for me is I really feel like a citizen of the world. And my first memories was really this deep calling to serve humanity. So I remember being a chubby kid, lost in the crowd, and literally seeing. This is really what informed what I do today. Literally seeing. I remember I must have been age 7, seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor. She picks up the sand that this man walks on and wipes it on her face and stands up. This man was my father, whose hand she picked up. So week after Week. I grew up seeing blind people, seeing deaf people, hearing people come to him walking in crutches and throw the crutches away. People come in wheelchairs. And he would say, stand up and literally stand up. And they would say, but I'm sick. And he would say, do you believe? So I grew up with this radical sense of possibility that felt very normal to me. Age 8, I started speaking in my father's audiences. He had 300 churches, hundred thousand followers. Age 14, ordained as a minister, given a mandate to take over his entire organization. Hopes on me. And I knew, Josh said in my heart that this was his life. This was his dream for my life, this was his expectations. And yet I was afraid to. I was afraid to tell him the truth. That's the honest truth. I was afraid that if I spoke my truth, that this wasn't my path. If I spoke my truth and I told him how I felt, that I would lose him. I'd be outcast, I'd lose everything. I'd be abandoned. I'd lose love, essentially, and I'd be outcast by the community.

There's this actual piece where in the book you write about your dad's upstairs, your mom had talked to you in the kitchen, and you took this big, deep breath, and you kind of walked upstairs, and you had all this fear in your heart around how you would be received by your father, but he actually gave you a blessing, and you were in this point in your life where you really wanted to go to America. What was this kind of driver for you? And how did that conversation go with your dad?

Well, it took me four years to master up that conversation. And I knew. I reached the point where I knew I had to make a decision. And I knew I was afraid of rocking the boat. I was afraid of. I mean, I was just terrified. And so I remember making the decision because I felt like if I keep going down this path, I might be successful by everyone else's standards, but I would be a complete failure. I could have everything in the world, but if I don't have myself, I have nothing. So I remember walking up the stairs one day and having a conversation with my dad, thinking he was going to scream and be upset. Honestly, he didn't say anything. He said nothing, which I don't know if it was better or worse, but he just said nothing. And the truth is, we didn't speak for a little while, a couple of years, we barely spoke. And I felt so alone. I felt like I was following my heart, and I felt so alone. And Maybe those listening have been in that situation. And I felt so alone and kind of abandoned by the universe. And I said a prayer to the universe. God, if you're really out there, if what I feel, the dreams and the visions I feel in my heart are really true, give me a sign. And that's when someone handed me a magazine called the Economist. I looked in the back of the magazine and it said, the American government's giving away 55,000 green cards in the green card lottery. Long story short, I won a green card in the lottery. And that was really proof for me that I was. I was following the right path. That was proof for me that when we really are true to our souls, knowing when we don't compromise ourselves, when we live in alignment, then the universe supports us. It may not always look how we think it's going to look. And that's what instigated me coming to America. And I always wanted to come to America, Josh. Because as a young boy, I was obsessed with personal growth. I mean, I started read my first book when I was age 8.

Yeah, you actually read. You read 800 books from 8 to 18, right? More than 800.

I was, you know, I'd wake up in the morning, I'd start reading, I'd go to school. On my way to school, I was reading a book, I'd be walking to school, I was reading. I was on the train back, I was reading. Why?

Why did you read so much? What was driving you? What did you feel?

I was obsessed with trying to. It was, you know, I guess it's my destiny. Tiger woods plays golf. I mean, personal growth has been my life. So I just wanted to, like, why do we do what we do and how are we the way we are and what's the purpose of life and what's the meaning of all of this? And why are some people who have everything completely miserable? Why do some people have nothing happy? This drove me because I just felt this compassion for human beings to somehow help people end suffering within themselves. And so I just read and I read and I read. And I grew up with a lot of money, so maybe it was also a way to escape my situation and my environment. And so being able to 8 read creative visualization by Shakti Gawain and think, wow, even if I don't have any money, I can think. So this is pre secret, right? Pre the secret. I could think something, I could feel something, and I could start attracting it. Then age 11, reading unlimited power by Tony Robbins and seeing this young guy who was Flying a helicopter and just came from nothing. And then reading the seven habits of highly effective people at age 13. I'll never forget finding this bookstore and finding Stephen Covey's book and just having my mind blown into new worlds of possib. Yeah, I read a lot of books trying to understand life and who we are. And they inspired me greatly. And I think they gave me a lot of courage to follow my heart and really tell the truth to myself. There was a book by a man called J. Krishnamurti. Because I tried to deny the truth, that this wasn't my path to take over my father's church, which I think a lot of us do. We feel the truth in our heart. We feel a knowing. Maybe this relationship isn't quite right for me. Maybe the job I'm doing isn't really in integrity with my being. But we lie to ourselves. We BS ourselves. This relationship is okay. It's not so bad. I kind of love her, this job. One of the keys to freedom I found at a very young age was we have to be willing to tell the truth to ourselves and look at all the ways that we are lying. And I read a book by a man called J. Krishnamurti. You may have heard of him, an enlightened Indian mystic and enlightened Indian philosopher. Really relate to his life because he was being groomed to take over this spiritual organization called Theosophy. But when he was 29, he left everything behind. And as I read his book, around age 15, this was after I was ordained, after I went through this, after I made this commitment to the church and my father, I read this book and my heart exploded. And I knew. I knew the truth. I knew there was no going back. I knew that the life I was living was way too small for what my soul was. Were seeking to unfold through me and as me. And it was one of those holy shit moments where I thought, wow, this is the truth, and my whole life is going to fall apart. And I'm terrified. I'm so terrified. But I knew what I had to do.

I want to go back, too, because your mom is actually. This is an important piece that I think can shine a lot of light on the contributions that you put out. Now, your mom's from Japan. She spoke only Japanese. Your father is from Ghana, and he didn't speak a word of Japanese when they met. So you had this incredible, incredible learning space as a kid. Your dad's founded 300 churches. He has a million people following him. How do you feel like that space Shaped your message and your mission.

You know, what I will say is that their lives, my parents lives, were. Which is really what my life is about even today. Their lives were really purely about service. I mean, in an extreme sense. I mean, I see a lot of people in the west talk about service, talk about service, but I think a lot of it is about ego, you know, and they were radically. In the same way I envision, let's say, a Gandhi was or Mother Teresa was. No social media, no tv, no pr, just pure service. And day in, day out, they came together, these two souls that my dad is as black as you can get, an African as you can get. My mother is as Japanese as you can get. These two souls came together not being able to speak, having never seen each other, with a soul connection and a destiny, and. And I grew up seeing each day, literally 24 7, my father, serve people, serve humanity, give himself over and over and over and over and over again and be a vessel and be a channel. I grew up, on the other hand, seeing my mother be of profound, selfless talk about selfless, egoless service, that it really wasn't about her. And I think that that humbled me, that moved me, that really shaped the foundation of what my life is about, which essentially, even though I teach and I write books and what have you, it's really coming from a place of it's not about me because it was never about them. It's not about me, and it's about serving humanity. I asked my mother a couple of years back, Josh wanting to be the good son, right? I asked her, what's unfulfilled for you? What dreams have you not met? I wanted to. To kind of help make her dreams come true. And I kid you not, no one's around. There were no cameras, nothing. Just me and her in the kitchen. She just looked at me so sincerely, and it kind of. It so humbled me as a human being and melted my heart because there she said, I just want to do God's work and serve people. And it was the simplicity of that statement. It wasn't like, I want to travel here. I want to be here. I want to have this many followers on Facebook. It was just, I just want to be a servant. And so for me, my question that serves as the foundation of my life when I wake up each day is universe. How can I be of service? How can I less about what do I want, what can I get, but more about how can I serve? How can I serve life? How can I serve the divine? How can I be of service to humanity? Spirit, use me, life, use me. I'm available.

And the power of allowing. In your book, you mention many different times that we really just get to get out of our own way. And that's exactly what you did in this kind of new threshold for the hero's journey. You know, you went from being in service in the church, you had your path set, and then all of a sudden you felt your heart's call and that brought you to Venice. Then you arrive in here in California and you're seeing like girls in bikinis. You're like, wow, this is amazing.

Yes.

And then you get to this point where you're like, okay, I need to save money. So you moved to Koreatown and you were literally having to. At this point in your life, this is where the struggle kind of ensued your growth. You were going in, circling Vaughns and eating bread and sleeping on friends couches. And you had this moment, though, where everything changed. You were just going through a lot of pain, which a lot of people do in order to break through a new threshold. What was this moment of pain? Who were you angry at in that moment?

You know? Yeah, I remember that moment. I was living in Koreatown in a $250 a month apartment, which is one room and a shower, and I had no furniture in it. I was probably in the US A few months. I had just. I don't even know if it was Vons, but it was a Vons supermarket. And I just kind of stole bread basically and came back. And I was just. I don't know, I was furious. I was mad. I was angry at my father because I felt like I was just abandoned and had no support and he didn't support me in any way, shape or form. We were not speaking. So I was mad at him and I was mad at God, frankly. And many people may relate to this because I felt like I was following my path. I felt like I was following my. And I was broke. I was struggling. It was hard. I mean, it was hard. I didn't even know, like, how am I going to eat today kind of thing, you know? So maybe I had this idea that if I. You know, sometimes we have this idea. If we follow our path, then the lights open up and the unicorns fly and the music happens. But sometimes when you follow your purpose, it's actually very challenging because we have to face obstacles and tests to really test to see if we really want it. But all those obstacles, challenges and tests, I feel prepare us. I look at myself and those challenges prepared me to. It's like they are the dumbbells for the soul. The dumbbells, the gymnasium, the dumbbells for the mind, the body, the heart, to prepare us to be able to be the person that is able to fulfill the dream and the vision. So there I was in my room in Koreatown off of Beverly Drive, and I was crying, screaming, mad, kind of dejected. And. And I don't know, it was like a moment of feeling so sorry for myself and so pitiful about myself, and I realized it was like an epiphany. Like, I heard this voice almost say that rose internally. And I saw how all of my focus was just fixated on me and myself and what I want and why me and why not me? And I was being complete victim. And what I saw was, number one, how ungrateful I was. How. How utterly freaking ungrateful I was to life. How I had this and I didn't even know it. I just had this sense of entitlement, like my parents, my dad owed me something and how God owed me something. Like God should be doing something differently for me and making me a millionaire and manifest. And it was a humbling realization because I realized. And I just started crying because I realized how ungrateful I was and how entitled I was. And something shifted in me because I saw, like, if I don't shift, if I don't let go of this anger I have towards my father, and in that moment, God, I'm going to stay stuck. And I realized, oh, my God, I'm so ungrateful, but I've been given so much. Here we are. I have hands, I have eyes, I can move. I'm like, athlete, health, athletes, Yes. I have no money, but I have been given so much. And it was like feeling the grace of the universe move through me in that moment and feeling like, wow, I'm a miracle in each moment. Here I am complaining, and I'm being like, we are being loved. Every breath we take is such proof of the unconditional, profound love of the universe manifesting in each moment. And it was just like a humbling moment. And I looked at my father and I figured, yeah, I'm right. But if I hold onto my righteousness, I'm going to be miserable. And I had to ask myself, do I want to be right or do I want to be free? And I realized, you know what? No one owes me anything. God doesn't owe me anything. My father owes me nothing. I'm not saying he wouldn't be Nice if he supported me even just with a hello. But the sense of, he's already given me so much. He's given me life. What else do we want? And. And so this sense of gratitude arose for me. And that was a very, very, very profound moment when I gave up the sense of entitlement and I gave up this idea that. And I adopted this idea that no one owes me anything, nobody owes me a thing. That really freed me up in such a. That reality, that perspective freed me up in such a profound way to have, you know, no expectations. And then anything that people gave me, it was just like a radical blessing, you know. And so it freed me up to be grateful and tap into my own inner resources in this moment.

This is like a skill set that you've acquired of letting go. The skill of letting go is a muscle. And we'll talk about that. We're going to dive into some behavior change. We have some Facebook questions for you Koot that people ask from our Facebook page. We're also going to dip into technology. But one last question. When we look at your story, you had these five years you're working and living in LA and you were feeling kind of stuck in this space. You then had a spark. A friend of yours gave you 10,000 doll to go on a trail. There's a special name for this trail. A lot of people do this pilgrimage. What was the name of the trail? And can you walk us through the gift that you got on that trail?

Oh, the gift I got on the trail, yeah. The name of the trail is the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. It's on a ley line, an energetic vortex line.

What's an energetic vortex line?

If, like the human body were made up of energy in the planet, they say the planet is also alive. It's a living, breathing organism. So there's certain points, power spots in the world, that kind of pulse certain energy. And these ley lines, these energetic lines carry a certain vibration that when a human being or human brain comes in contact with these energy lines, like, let's say, I'll give you some examples, Jerusalem has several lines crossing through them. Glastonbury, Australia, Ayers Rock, Uluru in Australia, Stonehenge. Many of these places have these energetic lines. And so the camino is a 900 kilometer trek, the entire trek on a la. And people like Dante Chaucer, St. Francis of Assisi, many great folks walked this and had pretty profound experiences because it said when a human brain comes in contact with these vortex, like Sedona is another Example, it can trigger the unconscious and bring to surface things that aren't aware. It can facilitate healing. And I think that's where we're drawn to these places, because things stir up things, move things, heal things, clit. And it can be an intense. So I decided to walk the Camino. Cut. Long story short, I was frustrated, and I said a prayer one day. God, I'm tired. Like, I'm frustrated. Like, tell me what to do and I'll do it.

I think we've all been there. Yeah, we've all been in that moment.

And I was driving to San Diego, and I heard the voice that said, do the Camino. And I thought to myself, well, yeah, I mean, not. I mean, God, not that, you know, I mean, tell me something else and I'll do it. And it just got stronger. I walked the Camino. I was gifted money, as you mentioned, and it was amazing. I shaved my head, took a backpack, and just began walking. As you walk 900km, it's like the Camino is life. Life is the journey. Life is the ultimate journey. The first day I walked probably 19km straight uphill on an incline up the Pyrenees in extreme fog to the point I couldn't see anything around me, and then straight down and through this black forest into Spain, out of the south of France into northern Spain. And what you have to observe all along the Camino is the only thing you have to follow are these yellow arrows. So you'll see a yellow arrow painted on a tree, a yellow arrow on a bench, and that's your. Your guidepost for the directions of the entire journey for the next month or two, depending on how long it takes you. So what was profound for me was learning to follow the arrows was no different and symbolic of really realizing that in life, life gives us many arrows, life gives us many clues, and we just have to follow the arrows. And the thing I saw while walking the journey was many times my mind just would go crazy. Oh, my God, I'm lost. Is there going to be another arrow? What's going to be happening? And I got to just learn. If I'm just willing to trust the journey, trust each step, trust each moment of the journey, all of a sudden there's a yellow arrow. And there will be guidance. There will be guidance along the journey of life exactly when you need it. And some things you can't see. Sometimes we try and figure life out, but there's so many things that we can't see from our current perspective that it's only by taking a step and taking another step, taking another step that then once we reach that third step, then we're then able to see around the corner. I got to go on a trust walk and follow yellow arrows for 27 days simply trusting each step of the journey. And it was profound and it really opened me up to realizing that that life is a journey and we get to trust and life will always, if we're willing to trust, provide what we need when we need it in the ways we need it. And sometimes it won't come in the way we think we need it. But life we may not get always what we think we want, but life will always give us what our soul most needs for our highest evolution. And that's what I saw on that journey.

We'll get right back to the conversation with Kut. You know, on our wellness journey, it's so important now more than ever with our jam packed schedules, the practice of self care and self love for both the body and mind. We're talking a lot on this episode about how to drop into that self care listening to what the body needs to give our bodies what they deserve and need. I've hand selected three of my top superfoods from Perfect Supplements in a Wellness Bundle specifically designed for the Wellness Force Radio audience. Inside the bundle you'll receive Rhodiola Rosea to elevate mood and calm stride. Prescript assist prebiotic and probiotic to keep our guts healthy and squeaky clean and 100% grass fed hydrolyzed collagen for satiety skin and joint health. You know, we've talked a lot about if you're on a paleo or a Weston A. Price diet, you're probably familiar with bone broth. Bone broth is that nutrient dense food because of the gelatin. It's produced when you cook the bones well. Gelatin is just cooked collagen. It's an abundant source of protein. It's included in the Wellness Bundle. Hop on over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce. Click on the Wellness Bundle and save 10% off off your already heavily discounted package. Get some good health and save some money in the process. Let's jump back to this amazing conversation with Koot Blackson. You are tapping into the biggest muscle that I get to grow in my lifetime. My core issue is trust. So that's something that a lot of people deal with and it really sparks something. In your book you wrote about for conditioning conditioning you quote is to the degree you are run by your conditioning, you are not free to choose and Create your future. Can you contrast this Koot? I mean, when we look at trust, growing trust as a muscle, allowing as a muscle, how do we overcome conditioning from childhood events that have happened? How do we realize this, that they happen for us? How do we condition that?

Yeah, two things. I'll say. I want to deal with conditioning, but I also want to really. Because I think you're hitting on an important topic of trust. To me, trust and surrender go hand in hand, you know? Yeah. We say it's hard to trust, but if we really bring our attention up and bring our awareness to even our breath, I mean, if anyone's, Whoever's listening, Josh, even if you were just to breathe right now and to just sit with, whoa, I'm not doing that. It's happening, it's happening. I'm being breathed. We're being breathed. The same force that's breathing you, Josh, is breathing me, is breathing. Oprah is breathing Obama is breathing Donald Trump is breathing. Seven billion human beings and is functioning. Does that same intelligence that's breathing you and facilitating trillions and trillions and trillions of cells in your body right now is the same intelligence that is functioning. The sun, the star, the moon. The moon is the same intelligence that's doing all of existence. It's like it's in you, it's inside you. It's living you, it's breathing you. And I think if we take some time to just. Just realize it's inside of us, it is us. Whoa. It's miraculous for me, trusting that. Wow. To really bring awareness to that intelligence that is moving inside that intelligence. My father would often ask me, when I would not trust as a kid, he would often ask me, why are you stressing so much? Why are you worrying about this and that? Worrying, is this going to happen? Is that going to happen? Maybe my charisma won't happen. Maybe she'll leave. Maybe that won't happen. Maybe it's like. He would often ask me, why are you worrying so much? Did you bring yourself to this planet? I'd be like, what do you mean, dad? He goes, did you birth yourself into this planet? You brought yourself here. And obviously I would say, well, no, I just showed up here. He would laugh and would say, well, if you didn't bring yourself here and you just showed up here, surely there is an intelligence that knows how, exactly how to fulfill your destiny. And I think, to me, that's the surrender. You know, that's the surrender. But we're afraid. The ego is often afraid to let go of Control, it's often afraid to let go of. But if we feel what it is that's breathing us, what it is that's living us, that in every moment we are being lived and breathed, it requires that we let go of control. It requires that we get ourselves out of the way. And I think when we do, wow. The sun rises, the moon happens. Everything happens. This whole process of life has been around for billions and billions of years. Surely there's intelligence and I think the willingness to surrender and feel that and be lived by that and trust that. Like, wow. Like if you cut your finger right now, there's innate intelligence. As you know, Josh, if you cut your finger, you don't have to pray, you don't have to meditate, you don't have to go to a transformational training, you don't have to do yoga. You don't even have to be a good person if you cut your finger and just create the space, something, something innate intelligence knows how to bring about the healing of your cut. It knows. And I think to remember that, you know, to connect to that one thing, to just also address your question about conditioning, because I think they're really connected, you know, in terms of conditioning, we are all conditioning. And yes, to the degree that we're conditioned, we are not free. To the degree that we're conditioned and locked inside, the conditioning is part of what prevents us from our ability to also trust. And I think that's a path that we're all on, is to trust to greater degrees, to open to greater degrees, to allow ourselves to be lived by life, to surrender, which the great ones demonstrated. You know, Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Mandela, Gandhi, they just. They were trusting so wide, they got themselves out of the way so completely. So for me, conditioning and how that relates is the moment we're born, we're born free. You know, a child trusts a child. A little baby will crawl up to you and it doesn't look at you and assess you. That's this just like me. There's this coop like me. A child jump on a table and love and hug, and it doesn't matter if you're black, white, green, it will just sing. It will poop its pants. Am I fat? It's just freely expressed, in touch with that true nature. You know, you look into a child's eyes, it's like, wow. So a child is born, and we're not really that conditioned. We're in touch with this freedom. But then we meet our parents who are conditioned, and they've been conditioned by their Parents and their grandparents. And before you know it, we're dealing with pain, trauma, abuse, abandonment, divorce, whatever the story and experience is. Slowly, we start learning all sorts of ways to disconnect and not feel. We start shutting down, developing all sorts of mechanisms in order to not feel the pain of neglect, not feel the pain of our parents saying this, doing that, not doing things. And we start. We start shutting and stuffing parts of ourselves down, disconnecting from our true light, our ability to feel and feel the flow, trust the flow, trust life. And we stuff our feelings. That's one thing. The other thing is we start developing a Persona and a mask, and we start contorting ourselves, not trusting that who I am, who I am is enough. Because maybe we weren't loved. Maybe we were loud and our dad said, be quiet. Maybe we were a little naughty or we didn't get a grade. So we started learning, who do I need to be in order to be loved? Who do I need to be in order for my dad to love me, for people to love me, to fit in, to be normal, to be validated, to be accepted? And we started to develop a mask and a Persona and a way of being in the world that we then kind of contorted ourselves into, identified with, held onto it gets reinforced. And we hold tightly onto this way of being because it helps get certain needs met in terms of avoiding pain and getting love, validation and approval. And so then we become this character, this person that we think is who we are, are. And we hold very, very tightly onto this way of being. And we say, no, Josh, this is just me. It's just who I am. I'm just this way. I'm just this kind of person. I'm just shy. I'm just quiet. I'm just whatever it is. And so we hold so tightly. And the more tightly we hold, the less we allow life to move through us, creativity to move through us. The less we can surrender, the less we can open, the less we can trust, because we're holding very tight onto this conditioned version of ourselves.

Within all the conditioning, there's these Personas. And you writing your book, this is just something we're desiring to get love, attention, recognition, or happiness through. You actually broke conditioning. You were a chubby kid and you've written your book. I was a chubby kid, Okay? I was fat in your Lose youe Mind chapter, and you were embarrassed. You broke your conditioning by telling yourself, you know what? I'm gonna run around the block one time. And this thought actually led you to run two to six miles a day for the next next 16 plus years. So we know we have 65,000 plus thoughts a day and most of them are the same as the day before. But these thoughts, how do we make the connection between knowing that our thoughts are not real, that they're just energy? As you write about, it's not really the thoughts that are issue in your book you quote, but it's the importance you give your thoughts.

We kind of like have this automatic unconscious assumption because the thought is in my mind, it's real and we believe believe it. And so many times we never really question our thoughts. Like is it true? Is this thought true? We often operate like it's fact, when maybe that thought is just a story and it's fiction. So we have to start becoming aware. First we have to recognize just because a thought is in your mind doesn't mean it's real. And then we have to become aware of our thoughts. So one of the ways to become aware of our thoughts is to observe them, to really start observing our thoughts. Because we often don't observe our thoughts. We attach to our thoughts. And as we attach to our thoughts, we identify with ourselves. Thoughts and those thoughts then take us for a day, two days, three days, four days, four years, 14 years down a pathway and a story and create a certain reality that may not be reality, but it's been created by attachment and identification to our thoughts. So we have to start becoming aware of our thoughts. What I found for myself is as if we can start observing our thoughts and question is this fact or is this fiction? As we start observing our thoughts, there is a space. As we start observing our thoughts, we start to observe that. If I can observe this thought, if I can observe this story, this collection of thought, then I am not the thought. Because if you can observe, like if you can observe your, you know, if you observe your shirt, I often say to people, can your T shirt take itself off? Well, it can't. But if you can observe your T shirt, you recognize, oh, I'm not this T shirt, I'm not this clothing. And then there's some space. Because many times we think we are the thought, we think we are the story. So the more we can start to observe, wow. And then in that observing, there is a space that opens up. Oh, if I can observe it, then I'm not it. We often think we're it. So as we observe it in that space, ah, what is it that's observing? And then in that space there's a moment that's now available to start making a different choice. Do I want to believe that? Is that true? Is it fact? Is it fiction? Can I know that for sure? Because prior to that there's no space. And when there's no space, there's no way to choose differently. There's just automatic playing out of conditioning from the past.

And it's almost like this bundled conditioned nerve set. We become this kind of person that always reacts to things. And that's the muscle that you're speaking of is the pause and respond muscle. It's a perfect time for this Facebook question. This is from Ben. He asks Koot I'm in the process of creating my new story this year. What's getting in my way is letting go of anger towards my father. For years I craved emotional connection because of my work and human resources. I've done an okay job of not being affected for weeks at a time. But when I'm around him for family functions, I get triggered by his apathy for what I'm passionate about in my life. How would you recommend I stop caring so much about what my dad thinks?

Ben, thank you man. I hope you listen to this. I love that question number one. Number one, I'm going to hit some bullet points. Obviously I don't get to process you through this in this moment, but number one, I would say you've got to firstly give up thinking that your dad owes you anything. He doesn't owe you anything anymore unless you're under 18. But at this moment I'm going to assume you're an adult, realize he doesn't owe you anything. It's a tough thing to swallow, but he doesn't. He gave you life and now you're an adult. Adult and let go. That's the choice you have to make. Realize he owes you nothing. The second thing is you're going to have to bring yourself into acceptance of what he is. He is what he is. I'm not saying he wouldn't be nice if he was different, if he treated you differently, if he showed up differently, if he wasn't more a certain way. But this is what he is. And if you're going to have some level of peace, you're going to have to first then bring yourself in relationship to what he is and acceptance of what he is. Thirdly, I would ask you, you talk about not letting go. I'd ask you to sit with what are you getting out of holding on. What are you getting out of not letting go? Not forgiving, not releasing. What are you getting out of that ultimately, you may have to give up what you feel you're right about in terms of your relationship with him. I had a. I had a client who, it's funny, she was very mad at her parents and very mad at her dad specifically for not being a certain way, for not showing up a certain way. And she didn't believe she was getting anything out of it. She kept saying, coote, I'm not getting anything out of it. He's just a jerk. He's just this way. He's just unsupportive and I hate him and whatever. And she had so much energy around it. And so she came to me and her thing was she never reached her full potential. She kept screwing up her life, ending relationships, just somehow kept sabotaging her life and didn't really go to that next level at work with her. What she realized was, on some level, her anger was eating her up towards her father. And what she realized, that was really a powerful moment is her payoff for not letting go and forgiving and releasing her dad was. And her reason for screwing up her life, sabotaging her life, not reaching that next level was if she failing, if she kept at this level, level. There was always this excuse of, you see, dad, this is what you did to me. I am the way I am because of you. I am the way I am because you didn't give me xyz. And I think so. We have to be willing to look at what's the payoff I'm getting by holding on? What's the payoff I'm getting by staying stuck? What's the payoff I'm getting by resisting and not forgiving and not letting go. And I think it's important that we let that go because nothing, nothing, nothing is worth your freedom. Wow.

I hope Ben took that to heart. That was an amazing question. The next question is from my good friend Faith.

Faith.

I love you, Faith says Koot. I would love to know about your daily rituals. What are your favorite tools or methods for you releasing old patterns?

Yeah, I mean, journaling, one of the things I do every day, I like to do as much as I can. And sometimes every day, sometimes less now because of my schedule. But journaling is key. Just the way of processing my feelings, thoughts out. Many times I start journaling and think it's going somewhere and stuff that I didn't even know was there. Feelings, sensitivities, emotions emerge and get to process that and clear that out. One of my daily rituals, this is basic. Everyone talks about it but this is something I have done religiously. It's non negotiable even for my parents. Even if the Buddha floated down from the clouds as I exercise every day, if Buddha said, hey, don't exercise, it's not happening. So I've exercised every single day and usually it's about an hour, an hour and 15 minutes. I run when I'm traveling, even when I'm doing. I facilitate these 12 day events and I'm sleeping three hours a night. I wake up after three hours of sleep and I exercise and get my body moving. I think a lot can get processed through our body, even in a non conscious way. So get out moving and move your body. And for me it's become a mental thing because I realized if I can have mastery over my mind and over my body and over myself. Many times we want to lead people, but we don't have mastery over ourselves. To me, the first step to be able to help someone else, to be able to lead someone else, a tribe, a community, is to be able to lead ourselves. Exercise is just a simple way. I found to have that level of mastery of my own intention. And one of the ways I've cultivated the consistency because I've maybe missed only a handful of days in 20 years, is I've just made a choice to not make it a choice. It's not even a decision. So I don't wake up and go, should I do it? Should I not? It's just what's. So it's a choice that's no longer a choice. And then last thing is meditation. I meditate pretty much daily. So those are a couple of simple things.

Man, I could not agree more. I mean, I used to weigh 280 pounds, so I've talked about this on the show. My transformation was from that channel of fitness, using that as a catalyst, looking at behavior change. A lot of what we do with Wellness Force is understanding why we do what we do. You know, how do we change our behaviors so we can have sustainable, healthy ways of being in our life? You work with incredible people. Is there a common thread coot that you see with clients that from all walks of life that tend to hold them back? Is there something common that comes up when you take people on liberation experience or just working with professionals?

Yeah, you just inspired something. If I could just address real quick because I think it's really important and might provide a little value as I kind of answer your question. When we observe ourselves, we often observe the thought and we judge ourselves. And I think it's so important to be able to observe our thoughts, observe our mind, observe those bundle of patterns and conditioning and even our behavior behaviors. Pure observation without judgment. When we can just observe it without judgment, just observe, ah, then there's space, then there's room to actually then bring compassion. And I think that's one of the things that stops us, is we're constantly beating ourselves up. We're judging us, we want to change our behaviors, but then we bash ourselves, we abuse ourselves, we beat ourselves up in an effort to try to change our behaviors, to produce some kind of behavior modification. But what we need to realize is beating ourselves up, judging ourselves into enlightenment or transformation doesn't work. Whatever we judge, we just reinforce that keeps us stuck in that behavior. Even more in working with clients one on one. One of the things I really have them see and have people observe is underlying every behavior. Underlying every behavior, Whether it's smoking cigarettes, whether it's cheating, whether it's shutting down, whether it's. Whether it's not telling the truth, whatever the behavior is that we want to shift, that we don't like playing small, hiding ourselves, not expressing ourselves. Underlying every behavior is always a positive intention. We're trying to get a certain need met. We're trying to get some love. We're trying to get validation. We're trying to get a sense of wholeness. We're trying to get some sense of peace, some something. And I think the more we're able to stop becoming conscious and aware and really feel into what's the underlying drive that's driving the behavior, then we can start shifting our relationship with that behavior. And two things. Number one, bringing compassion to ourselves even as we're doing that thing. Because the tendency tends to be when we do the thing that we don't want to do and the behavior that we want to change as we're doing the very thing, we often beat ourselves up and judge ourselves. And we can realize that then we can start bringing love and compassion. And what I find, what I found is real healing happens when we're able to bring love and compassion to ourselves. That's really, really, really, really, I think, key.

Would you say that love and compassion is actually how we change our behaviors? I mean, is that the catalyst?

That is. That is the bomb, man. Josh. That is the key. But we often. I can't love that part of myself, the very part that is doing that behavior. Behavior is the very thing that we need to love, but we're often not able to love it because we're seeing the Limitation, the destruction, the pain, the screw ups, the whatever that it's causing the behavior on the surface. And we're like, I can't judge that, I can't condone what I'm doing. And I say yes, we're not condoning what you're doing. But when we're able to understand, oh wow, look at what I'm seeking. Wow, look, it's like I'm acting like a 7 year old. I'm seeking my dad's love. I'm seeking. So look at what's motivating, look at what the underlying intention of what that part's trying to get me. We may not agree with the behavior, but when we can realize that it can at least free us up to have some compassion so that then we can find a healthy way, that's the key, a healthy way to meet the need of that part, the part of us that is motivating the behavior. The behavior is a manifestation of something, this. So if we just change the behavior on the surface, but you don't necessarily deal with the underlying motivation and giving that part of you what it needs in a healthy way, likely either you'll keep doing the behavior or you'll stop for a moment and keep doing it, or you'll find unhealthy ways or other unhealthy ways to get that same need met. It will manifest in different ways. That's why we have to go from the inside out rather than modifying the behavior simply on the surface. And I think when we're able to do that, then real healing can happen. And love, love, compassion is the key. Healing happens when we facilitate and apply love to those parts of ourselves that are in pain, to those parts of ourselves that are hurting. That's when healing happens. It's a little counterintuitive.

Man. You should see my face right now. I'm just on the edge of my seat smiling because we're talking about this love versus fear concept, getting in touch with our fear, the habits that we have as human beings, the habits that I've let go of. I know, love. Looking back, we're coming from a place of fear. We had Gay and Katie Hendricks on the show and we discussed this theme of love and fear. How would you recommend based on your experience, your life coot, how do we dance with our fear? How do we get in touch with this fear and allow it to be there and not try to fight it so much?

Yeah, I mean, I think you really just said it, you know, in a very simple and profound way. I think it is developing, allowing the fear without suppressing the fear, without denying the fear and recognizing, recognizing that we get to cultivate a different relationship with the fear. To me, no emotion is good or bad. It's just energy that's moving through and every feeling is simply a signal. So even the fear, we often label fear as bad. And in a lot of motivational, even some self help realms, oh, feel no fear, be fearless, have no fear. I think that's not the authentic path. As human beings, we are multidimensional beings and our feelings are signal. So even the fear is simply a signal of a part of us that we get to pay attention to. So I think the more we can shift our relationship to fear, shift our perception of fear and I would say even take the label off of the fear because we often say it's fear and that's bad. So if we can take the label off of the fear, and I often invite people to just realize, wow, if I can just take the label off of the fear and realize this is just energy moving through. It's either a part of me that's needing attention, some part of me that I need to look at, deal with, be with, pay attention, to bring loving, to bring reassurance to. It's usually there for a reason, for some reason that if we're willing to pay attention to and deal with that, it will dissolve. It will dissolve. And I think so that relationship with the fear is key. The issue is not the fear, it's our relationship with it and how we hold it and love ourselves through. And I think that's the key again, to love our. Like I often tell people who have kids, if you had a kid and your child was afraid because there was a boogeyman or they were just afraid, you wouldn't grab them by the neck and throw them out the window. You would hug them, you would love them, you would be tender with them, you would be kind with them, you would nourish them and that would facilitate some healing. And then they get a little healthier and then they find their own inner sense of balance, inner sense of self. So, so I think many times we don't do that with ourselves. We feel fear and we deny it, we avoid it, we drink it, we distract it. And we don't just go in and hold ourselves and recognize it's okay, it's natural. And I often say that likely this is going to sound strange, but likely. If we're not feeling afraid at some moments of our lives, either I think we're dead or or the life that we're living is way too small for us right now. And our goals and our visions likely are way too small. Because I think if we're constantly growing, if we're constantly expanding, if we're constantly evolving, then we may feel some fear, but not in a bad way. Fear in a sense of energy moving through. Fear in a sense of excitement. Fear in a sense of, oh, my God, I'm in the unknown. So if we never feel that sense of, ooh, fear, oh, wow, I'm a little outside of my comfort zone. Probably we're too comfortable. So how do you deal with that fear? One of the things is, rather than try, see a lot of techniques, try and just. Let's just get rid of the fear, move it out, NLP out, get rid of it, dissolve it, run for it.

Sure. Don't focus on it.

Actually, I think it's very important to observe where do you notice that fear in your body? And without trying to get rid of it, because trying to get rid of the fear, often you're resisting it. But when you can actually notice, where do you feel that as a sensation in your body? Not in the mind, in the body, as an energy. And if you can just be present, what I found is when you can be present in relationship with the fear and be present with the sensation and the energy, just be present and notice the sensation. Notice the sensation. Now, what do you think about. About it? But notice I should notice the sensation. It's warm, it's cold, it's this. Whatever you can be with will often transform or dissolve. And that's, I think, something powerful I've learned in terms of dealing with fear. So when it arises, notice it in the body, have a relationship with it, then notice what happens when I'm noticing it, then notice what happens next. And then many times times that energy will dissolve or transmute or transform. And I think that's a really powerful thing just to be. Because then we're not resisting the fear anymore. And the only thing I'll add, Josh, is when we realize that we don't have to get rid of our fear in order to take action, when we realize we don't have to get rid of our fear in order to pursue our vision, you can feel afraid. And often when you're growing and expanding, you will feel some fear, different levels of fear. You get to breathe through it, and you don't have to get rid of fear and have no fear in order to take your next step. And to me, that's, as you know, that's courage.

Have you ever done a exploration in your early years of fear and feeling that fear and being okay with the fear where you did a vipassana? You know, in about two weeks, by the time this show comes out, I'm going to be in the middle of my very first vipassana meditation training in 29 Palms, California. Have you done an intensive something where you've really explored silence for a long period of time to get in better touch with fear?

Many years ago, about 15 years ago, right around the time I was walking the Camino and going to India. I've reached a point in my life where I was fed up and I was tired. What I did was literally, I don't know if it was about four months, maybe four and a half, five months. I pretty much shut my life down, Josh, and sequestered myself in my tiny apartment and just journaled and I sat face to face with myself and cried. And I basically felt everything, I mean everything that I had been avoiding. My inadequacies, my anger towards my father, mother and pain and the fear of being abandoned, fear of not being enough, my insecurities, felt it all, journaled it all, cried through it all, observed it all, let them all move through and got to clear a lot of that. So it was literally a four month process for me of just sitting four and a half months of sitting face to face with myself and just looking and seeing what arise and just observing and seeing what arise and letting go and releasing and healing. And it was a life, I mean life when you sit with yourself pretty much all day long for four and a half months, Months, it's pretty powerful.

That is incredible. So koot, this is just seven questions. This is a fun lightning round where we get to know even more about you. It's just seven questions for seven perfectly answered answers. No pressure though. Are you ready?

Yes.

What's the first thing that comes up when you think about what makes you really laugh?

Wow, that question kind of made me laugh. What makes me laugh? The first thing is watching people watching. You know, like you don't have to go to a museum. Just like there's short people and there's fat people, there's skinny people, there's weird. I mean it's just, just like the infinite freaking creativity of the divine artist is crazy. You know, like here are these human beings, someone's hunched over, someone's blind, someone's crippled, someone's 6, 7 foot 4, someone's 2 foot 1, red hair, blue hair, I mean, and here we are and it's like this just living art museum of just insanity and magic and beauty. Beauty. It's like, wow. So I often find myself sitting around watching people and just chuckling to myself like God is having a riot watching us.

All right now, next question. If you could eat only three foods for the rest of your life, what would those foods be?

Man, Three. That's it.

You only get three.

Only three, bro. Okay, only three foods. First things I'm going to go with probably avocado. Avocado. I love salmon. I'm gonna go with kale.

You are so healthy, man. You must live in la.

Yes.

If you had the power to be on every news and TV station in the entire country at one time for just a few moments, what's one message you would share?

I think it would depend on the day, depend on the time. But I would just simply say, look, you are whole, you are perfect. Perfect. You are complete, you are enough. You are a perfect divine expression of the divine, and you are loved. You are enough. Plain and simple.

What is your favorite way to get grounded and connect to koot Meditate?

I mean, that's a simple way is to simply sit, close my eyes, turn everything off, unplug, and go deep inside. Because it really is what connects me to source to what I really am. Not my mind, not my ego, what I really am. So just closing my eyes and doing that is 20 minutes, 30 minutes.

It's powerful when life presents you a contrast or a struggle or different pain. Do you have a mantra or a message that you tell yourself to give?

What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? How can I evolve? What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What is this situation trying to show me? What is this situation trying to reveal to me? Now? That's one mantra, but I just have to say another mantra, man. Since we're on it, there's a three part mantra. This is going to take like 15 seconds. And I chant this a lot throughout the day. I don't have time to get to the depth of it now. But since simply, I surrender, I'm grateful it's already done. I surrender. I'm grateful it's already done. To me, this is like the ultimate manifestation mantra. So there's the challenge one and then there's the manifestation. When I surrender, I'm grateful it's done.

Feeling like it's done, that is amazing. Next last question. If someone now is feeling inspired, which by now I know they are, are how do they change their way of thinking, what can they do tonight before they go to bed to start this transformation they seek?

What can they do tonight? One thing. Look, there's several things, but one thing, since we haven't really touched on this completely, one thing I would say is look at where you are lying to yourself. Look at where you are bullshitting yourself. Look at what you are pretending to not know. Look at what you are high hiding from yourself, what you are settling for in your life. And look yourself in the heart, in the eyes, in the soul, with ruthless, compassionate honesty and tell yourself the truth, the radical truth about where you are at and where you are not. About your life, your relationships, yourself, your job, who you are. Because deep down we do know the truth and we pretend to be confused. So look, look at what are the lies I'm telling myself? What is it costing me? What is it costing me? How do I feel about it? Because even if you don't do anything and take action in shifting, just feeling like, I hate my job, I hate my job and I need to leave and I hate my. And we stop lying to ourselves, begins a process that starts burning us up inside. Then it's only a matter of time until we get cooked and we do something. So look at what is it I'm afraid of if I tell the truth? What am I afraid will happen if I tell the truth? Because so often we're running from things that we don't even know we're afraid of. And as we tell the truth, as you're on this sort of truth assignment is look at what great thing might happen, what amazing possibility might open up by telling the truth. And I believe the truth sets us free. And I believe that living a fulfilled and happy life is really simple. It's not always easy simple because it's simply required. Requires that we cut the BS and we start telling the truth to ourselves radically and honestly and without compromise. Feel the truth, embrace the truth, tell the truth, speak the truth, live the truth. Happy life. Simple.

What is wellness to you? If you had to define wellness in a sentence, what's your personal definition of wellness?

Well, wellness is being in touch with who I really am, my true self as soul, as divine as identity. Because without that, we're kind of the whole GPS is off. If we don't know who we are, then everything we go after and everything we try and achieve in the world and our goals are kind of a little off base. So I think the foundation of wellness starts from knowing who we really are, which is spirit, which is divine. And if we know who we are. Like, wow, I'm spirit, I'm divine. Then that even translates into, into if I know that I am an expression of the infinite, then even this body is the temple of the infinite. So then maybe I should take care of the temple too, you know. But if we think we're just this body, then it's, you know, then we're kind of lost. So knowing who we really are as spiritual beings.

Fantastic. You can find coot's work@cootblackson.com, we'll have that linked in the show notes as well as Coot's book. Coot, we're giving away two free copies of your book because one of them is filled with highlighter from me. I'm gonna you tell send that one out and then the other one is going to be sent to someone's house right from Amazon. You can also learn more about Coots workshops that he has coming up. Can you tell us a little bit about your workshops and kind of how you help people heal?

Yeah, I mean, my workshops have become known for producing radical transformation. And I don't really coach you, I don't really train you. I untrain you, I uncondition you. What I do is I create profound learning, experiential, immersion, intensive learning environments. One of the things I do is I take people to Bali for 12 days, 20 people at a time. It's one of my high level events, but it's one of my favorite things to do. And I use Bali as a seminar, training without walls. People can find out more about that. But ultimately all of my experiences and seminars are about helping you peel the layers away of your conditioning. Because to me, information and knowledge by itself is not enough. Many times we know what we should do, but we don't get ourselves to do it or we sabotage ourselves. So I create an experience to help you peel away the laboratory layers of conditioning so you can really rest in touch with who you really are and live and create from that place. So I do a 12 day event in Bali. I have a specific event called the Man Breakthrough Experience specifically for women. It's a two and a half day transformational seminar we're launching the Manifestation Magic Live so you can find out about all of my events and seminars on my website. Come join me. Come hang out.

Fantastic. I just want to pause and thank you so much, so much for your powerful work that you do to contribute not only to the wellness community, but to give people the permission to allow.

Thank you. It's been a lot of fun being with you, my brother.

The true spiritual practice is learning to love no matter what. Not when everything is perfect, not when you feel like loving. This is the layer that we must peel in order to access our soul. Coot Blackson My brain is full from the episode with Coot today. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end of the episode. This is how you can win those two Live Experience tickets to the Man Breakthrough Experience, the women's seminar with Coot. All you have to do up until September 30th is all your photos that inspire you to live life fully clear in your purpose, whatever that means to you. It could be a photograph of you in the park, eating healthy foods, spending time with people that you love. Just hashtag your photo Koot Blackson and do the sign for Wellness Force. You'll be entered to win those two tickets for his live event on October 14th in Los Angeles. I'll give you a big shout on the show, call you out on social and you and a friend will get to go to Los Angeles to meet Coot live in his Man Breakthrough Experience. Once again, just enter to win by posting a photograph that means something to you about your deepest purpose and living life fully in alignment with what you love. Hashtag that coot blackson and @ Symbol Wellness Force and you and a friend will end up in LA October 14th. So many key takeaways from today's episode. The notes from today are@wellnessforce.com coot we'll have everything organized for you. You can go to that show page, click all the downloads and notes and get to know Coont even deeper. Now all you get to do is go out there and create your amazing day with all the tools and inspiration from Coot and every guest that's been on the show. So until I see you again next week real soon, I'm wishing you love and.