The Power Of Spiritual Minimalism With Light Watkins

Do you feel like you can’t meditate no matter what you do? Maybe you’ve been told you have a monkey mind that won’t calm down. Or it feels impossible to sit still and be present with your breath and thoughts. In this conversation on the You-est You podcast with luminary Light Watkins, meditation and mindfulness expert, we talk all about how to find peace, calm, and serenity within your mind, and yes, through the proven power of meditation. Light shares a wealth of wisdom and teachings about spiritual minimalism and how to change how you view your mind, body, and spirit, especially regarding meditation and finding genuine and lasting inner peace.

Transcript

Hello,

Hello.

Welcome to the USU Podcast.

I am Julie.

I'm your host.

I cannot tell you how powerful this conversation was.

I am recording the intro after having really just one of the more enlightening conversations I've had yet with the amazing Light Watkins.

And I just want to say,

Really,

I hope you listen in with your heart.

This conversation,

The wisdom,

The nuggets of just ways to really,

To truly quiet the inner chatter,

To get rid of the inner clutter.

You are going to be so thrilled and grateful,

I believe,

After listening.

I hope you are,

At least.

I think it's going to be so helpful.

And Light is just,

He's amazing.

Very special soul.

I've wanted to have him on the show for a long time.

So let me share with you all about Light and his background and get on so you can hear the conversation that I just wrapped.

And I'll tell you,

My friend,

I had tears in my eyes as we were finishing.

That's how powerful this whole back and forth in conversation was.

So let me introduce you to Light.

Light Watkins is a longtime meditation teacher and thought leader who has spoken and consulted at Fortune 500 companies worldwide on the topics of wellness,

Purpose,

And enlightened leadership.

He is the author,

And you might know these three bestseller books,

The Inner Gym,

Bliss More,

And Knowing Where to Look,

As well as his newest book,

Just released.

It's called Travel Light,

Spiritual Minimalism to Live a More Fulfilled Life.

Travel Light.

Love that.

Light has written a daily dose of inspirational emails to his tens of thousands of subscribers.

He is the host of The Light Watkins Show,

Which is a podcast that features the backstory of luminaries who've created platforms for social good.

I love that.

And in his online community,

The Happiness Insiders,

Light has created masterclasses and challenges to help spiritual practitioners around the globe embody the principles of inner work.

Light is a one-bagger.

Oh,

My god.

My friend,

We talked all about this.

He has been living nomadically since 2018 in a day pack and doing that in a very beautiful,

Efficient,

Inspiring way.

So I'm going to just stop here so that you can be part of this conversation as well.

And I just hope you know I love you.

I'm so grateful to be here,

Part of your life and your journey and becoming and living and loving your USU.

That is my purpose.

And I'm honored to be here in your earbuds.

So without further ado,

Here is Light.

So before we dive in,

Light,

I always like to start with an intention.

And I just thought,

Let's record this because you are so incredibly connected and mindful and all about intention.

So I'm going to put my hand on my heart and just close my eyes.

And if there is an intention you have,

I'm going to give it to you first.

Then maybe I'll add to it.

But yeah,

Any intention for this conversation?

Well,

My intention is really just to be present and to be grateful for all the things that had to go my way in order for us to have this conversation.

And that is never lost upon me.

So just putting that gratitude out there to not only myself,

My own experience,

But to anyone else listening to this who has a $1,

000 device that they're listening to this from and all the things that had to go right in your life in order for you to be in this position,

To be able to hear and to feel and hopefully to be able to do something if you feel inspired by this conversation.

Oh,

That's beautiful.

I'll just add that may this conversation,

However you're hearing it,

Seeing it,

May it bless you.

May it bless everyone who is part of this circle,

This human connection.

And may we all remember the blessing that we are breathing and here.

And thank you for being the blessing today on this show,

Light.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well,

That is one way to roll into a conversation because now I'm like,

OK,

Wow,

I feel like very connected.

And first of all,

I'm so grateful,

So thrilled to have you here.

I love your work.

I was going to say I love you.

I mean,

I do.

And I know we just connected,

But it's true.

It's true.

I do feel that way.

And I think before we get into your recent book and the beautiful work you're doing,

It'd be helpful to maybe share a little bit about your background,

Light,

And what got you into this whole world of being enlightened and enlightened leader and mindfulness and purpose.

What got you here?

Was it always like this for you?

Just curious.

Well,

As we were talking about before the interview,

I'm from Alabama.

And there are about as many meditators in Alabama as there are snowstorms.

So no,

I wasn't always into this.

But I did always have a curiosity.

If I really think back to when I was a child,

In fact,

I see a lot of pictures of myself as a child staring off into the distance.

I imagine that I was contemplating the mysteries of life and of the universe in those photos,

Even though I was probably just thinking,

What do I want on my Christmas list?

Or when am I going to get some ice cream again?

Or something like that.

But yeah,

I've had questions that I didn't know there were even answers to since I was a young person.

And it wasn't until well after college,

I mentioned that I went to Howard University in DC,

In that area where you're based.

After that experience,

I moved all over the place,

All over the world.

But I landed in New York.

And I was dating this woman in Brooklyn.

She lived in Brooklyn.

And I was at her apartment one night.

And she was doing that thing that women do.

They take much longer to get ready to go out to dinner than men do.

So I'm sitting there literally twiddling my thumbs,

Waiting for her to get out of the shower and get ready so we can go get some food.

And I'm just perusing her bookshelf.

And I come across this book called Conversations with God.

I picked it up.

I'd seen it in a few bookstores prior to that,

Because that was one of my favorite pastimes,

Spending time in bookstores in New York City.

But I'd never looked twice at it,

Because I thought it was a religious book.

And I grew up going to church and not really enjoying it all that much,

To be perfectly honest with you.

And so I picked it up this night in her apartment.

And I started thumbing through it.

And it was what I now consider to be a gateway book to my own conscious spiritual path,

Because the book actually is not a religious book at all.

It's a book about someone like me who had questions about the mysteries of the universe.

And this author,

Neil Donald Walsh,

Had this sort of dark night of the soul,

Where he was so frustrated with how his life was going that he started yelling out to,

If there is a God,

Why are you letting things happen the way they're happening?

And he said he felt called to pick up a legal pad and a pencil and start jotting down responses.

And he continued this dialogue between himself and then his sort of channeling or transcribing of this voice of God that was coming through him.

And it ended up culminating in this manuscript called Conversations with God.

So it was a really fascinating dialogue,

Because he's asking a lot of very practical questions about life.

Is there such thing as reincarnation?

Why would anybody wanna come back to this hell on earth?

What is the point of being here?

All these kinds of questions.

And so once I read through that,

And I think it was three or four volumes,

I read through all of them four times,

And I couldn't get enough.

And I started seeking.

After reading that,

I started going to yoga classes.

I started attending meditation circles.

It had unlocked this dimension of spirituality within me that I didn't realize was there.

And after that,

I was modeling.

I'd been modeling for a few years.

That didn't really seem relevant anymore.

There was so much else that I needed to explore.

And I had so many other talents and gifts that I wanted to offer to the world.

So I moved from New York,

Retired myself from modeling,

Became a yoga teacher back in 2002,

Before everybody and their mother started teaching yoga.

And it was through the yoga community that I met the man who became my meditation teacher about five months later.

And then I knew within 10 minutes of meeting him that I was destined to become a meditation teacher.

But now we're in early 2003.

There's no apps,

There's no smartphones,

There's no YouTube.

There's the Beverly Hills Library,

And there are some bookstores.

And those are the sources of information.

And so I didn't know how this meditation teacher thing was gonna happen,

But then I kept practicing this technique that I learned from my teacher,

Which I now realized was the minimalist approach to meditation.

And then in 2007,

I was given an opportunity by my teacher to go to India with him to study and become a meditation teacher myself.

This was the opportunity I've been waiting for.

It wasn't a convenient time though.

I was racked in debt at that time.

I had been dabbling in real estate,

And that was right when the bubble burst in real estate.

And I just had myself,

I painted myself into a pretty dark financial corner.

And so I didn't have the money to go to India and stay away for three months and pay for the accommodation and for the tuition of the training and all those things.

But I just trusted.

I trusted that this was my path.

It had not gone away since I first had that call in 2003.

And that's one of the telltale signs that something is destined for you,

That you can't stop thinking about it.

And so I got this really interesting balance transfer credit card offer in the mail.

It was $14,

000,

Which is the exact cost of my tuition for the training.

Transferred into my account,

And it was 0% interest for 18 months.

And I got that because of the real estate situation that I was in,

Ironically.

So that bad real estate deal ended up allowing me to be able to go to India.

I took the offer and just trusted that this is,

I just knew that this was what I was supposed to spend it on.

And even though I was gonna technically be in debt,

But I figured I'd pay it off once I got back and started teaching meditation.

And that's exactly what happened.

I came back,

Started teaching meditation.

Turns out I was very good at it.

I was able to pay that thing off within about a month and a half.

And so I started teaching meditation,

Taught hundreds and then thousands of people,

Started writing about it in 2014,

Gave some TED Talks.

And now here we are,

Four books later.

Latest one is Travel Light.

It just came out a couple weeks ago.

It's spiritual minimalism to live a more fulfilled life.

And the base foundational practice is meditation.

Wow.

Okay,

So thank you.

First of all,

There's a lot in there,

What you just said.

Just unpack it a little bit.

I think for those who,

You had said,

Not many meditators where you grew up,

This was something that,

I love what you said,

How you just couldn't stop thinking about it.

And that's a great way.

We talk a lot on this show about intuition.

I love,

Even before that,

I thought of that,

The teacher appears when we're ready and finding Neil's book,

Conversations With God,

And unlocking your deeper quest,

That seeking.

He's been on the show,

I love him.

And it's funny,

I love that you brought up,

It is not a religious book.

This is for everybody.

It is really to answer those questions.

And it's really amazing,

Just what I'm hearing is the deep trust,

The faith,

The trust that you decided.

You decided to believe in that and believe in yourself.

And I was like,

My stomach was in knots a little bit,

Hearing like,

Oh gosh,

$14,

000,

There's debt.

I'm guessing this was around 2008 or around the time of,

Yep,

Real estate issues.

And this is important for anyone listening because you stayed in that unwavering faith,

That trust that I'm gonna go with what I,

Can't stop thinking about with what is on my heart.

I'm gonna do this training.

And you believed in yourself.

And it's easy to look at what you're doing now and say,

Oh yeah,

Well,

Of course he succeeded.

And of course he's helped.

You didn't have that roadmap.

I mean,

You were following your inner guidance.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I love the fact that Neil's been on your show.

That's like a nice little full circle moment for me.

But yeah,

It's,

That's why it's called a leap of faith.

It's not called a leap of certainty.

You're not gonna have the answers before you take the leap.

And so,

But one thing is for certain is that,

You also can't leap with one foot on the ground.

You have to have both feet in the air.

You have to be gaining momentum and you're probably gonna be scared as hell,

Not knowing when or how the net is gonna appear,

But it always does appear in one form or another.

Especially if you're listening to this,

Cause that means that you have survived 100% of whatever leaps you've taken in your life,

You know?

So there,

And you have that,

You have that as a point of reference.

You survived the thing that happened 10 years ago,

Five years ago,

20 years ago,

Last week.

Maybe it didn't happen in the way you thought it should have happened,

But you're here and you're able to hear this and maybe you're able to be inspired by this,

In which case you're already practiced at this skill and it really needs to become,

It needs to become a lifestyle.

It can't,

You don't want a leap of faith to be an isolated act because then it is always scary.

But if you just get used to taking leaps and small leaps,

You can take small leaps.

I call them hops of faith.

You can take hops of faith until you build up the courage to take a leap of faith.

And a hop of faith is taking responsibility for something that maybe you screwed up.

That nobody knows you screwed it up,

But you know.

And,

Or being honest about something,

You know,

Or calling up someone who you may have an issue with and just having an honest conversation,

An honest dialogue without accusations,

Without blaming,

Without any of that,

Just being open to see what Stephen Covey calls,

Seek to understand,

You know,

What's going on?

How can we make this better?

We're both on the same team.

Let's make it better.

So these kinds of things,

Nothing really is at stake in terms of,

You know,

Your bank account or whatever,

Which is what a lot of people are afraid of,

But your ego doesn't like it.

So if you get into this hop of faith mode,

Then you'll find that your ego will be less powerful when it comes to running the show.

And your soul,

Your spirit will start to gain more power in making,

Helping you make some of the decisions that you're making so that you can start to create more of the life that you ultimately want deep down.

I love what you're talking about.

I love this hop of faith.

I haven't heard it that way.

And just the reminder,

I feel like everyone needs the little warning.

Like we all have an ego and the ego is going to revolt a little.

But as you,

What I'm hearing is,

As you step into greater truth and integrity and honesty,

That ego becomes quieter so that we can hear our soul.

And I love what you're saying.

To me,

I look at sometimes myself thinking,

No,

No,

No,

I do this work.

My ego is pretty quiet.

And I'm like,

Oh,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

The way that I just responded to my son or to my mom,

That ego is still running the show.

And it's kind of,

It's now a little humorous.

It doesn't always feel humorous though.

So I love that we're looking at this,

Like how to help,

You know,

This to me,

Right?

The idea of being your USU is the letting your soul guide you,

Your higher self,

Not the ego.

So I love that you brought that up.

Yeah,

You know,

And I think the hop of faith is really a sign of respect to the power of the ego.

Because the ego is kind of like a mafia boss.

You're going to get your knees broken if you defy it too much,

You know?

And the spirit,

It wants to come through and it wants to give direction and guidance and all of that.

But the ego is very powerful.

So just taking these hops of faith is kind of a way of navigating that ego self.

And so that you can ultimately tap into your USU,

Which is really where you're going to find the fulfillment and the happiness you're looking for.

It's not going to come through achievements.

It's not going to come through money and beating your next soulmate and all of that.

All of those are relationships.

You have a relationship with finance.

You have a relationship with your work.

You have a relationship with the person you share the bed with.

And all those relationships are doing is amplifying to what extent you are fulfilled inside.

So if you are fulfilled,

Then great.

You're going to have a great relationship.

You're going to be able to make great choices at work.

You're going to be able to have a great relationship with money abundance.

But if you're miserable inside,

If you're anxious inside,

Then that's going to show up through all of those relationships as well.

So that's probably the biggest mistake we make in our society is thinking that those relationships are going to become the source of our fulfillment instead of the other way around.

Okay,

I have like five things that I want to go into with you.

But before we,

I do want to go into this spiritual minimalism.

I want to talk about your book and other books.

I want to hang right here though,

Because to me,

This is so important.

Let me ask you,

Because we're talking about,

I think this idol that we often start idolizing is money,

Is success.

And so when you went to India and had debt,

I'm imagining that is a different space that you were in than when you went to India and then afterwards.

And I don't mean to minimize it,

But I am curious because for those listening,

I know I get a lot of notes and messages,

Like how do I change this relationship with money,

With success,

With feeling like I,

You know,

That I matter,

But more importantly,

As it relates to money in my bank account or not having money in my bank account.

I'm just curious,

Because it sounds like you have really,

Really redesigned that relationship.

Yeah,

And I talk about in my latest book,

Travel Light,

There's this whole chapter on giving what you want to receive.

And I talk about that from a monetary standpoint,

But I also talk about that from just a creativity standpoint.

So for instance,

If you want more friendship in your life,

You don't feel like you have any friends.

Well,

In order to truly have friendships,

You have to be friendly.

You have to be friendly,

You know?

You can't have a bunch of friends if you're not friendly.

So in order to get friends,

You have to become a friend.

In order to get love,

You have to be loving.

You're not gonna get true unconditional love if you're not being truly unconditionally loving.

And in order to get generosity,

You have to be generous.

We've all had that one friend who's super stingy and very frugal.

And what happens is if you're the generous person and you're hanging out with the stingy person,

That stingy person makes you more stingy.

It makes you stingier than you would be otherwise,

Right?

So that means that if you're the stingy person,

If you're thinking to yourself,

I don't know any stingy people,

You're the stingy person,

Okay?

As the stingy person,

You may find that everybody around you is stingy.

Now,

Does that mean that objectively everyone in the world is stingy and selfish and living in scarcity?

No,

But that's the energy you're projecting through your own actions.

You are causing those relationships to be more frugal because you're frugal.

You're operating from scarcity.

And I have written that abundance is out there.

You're either creating access to it or you're creating limitations to it.

Now,

This is not a call to go out and spend whatever little money you have,

But you have other things that are of value.

You can go out and you can offer your time.

You can offer your service.

You can be generous with your attention.

You can be generous with your compliments.

You can be generous with your support.

You can call all your friends every morning and say,

Hey,

What are you working on today?

I just wanna support you.

Let me know one thing.

If I can pray for you,

What's one thing I can pray for you today?

And you do that every day.

Imagine,

Your friends would love you.

They would give you anything.

If they ever found out that you were falling on hard times,

They would go above and beyond to make sure that they do the whole,

It's a wonderful life thing for you and raise whatever money you need and make sure you're all taken care of because you have given so much.

So that's where abundance comes from.

Abundance is a state of consciousness.

The money in your bank account is a reflection of your state of consciousness.

And it doesn't mean it's always gonna be up.

Sometimes it goes down,

But you have trust that,

Hey,

As long as I keep erring on the side of giving and being generous and being supportive,

I'm gonna be good.

And I don't know how it's gonna happen.

That's not my concern.

I'm gonna let the universe sort all that out.

I'm just gonna keep using the resources I have for good.

Okay,

That's so powerful.

Love also that you went into,

You know,

There's so many ways to give,

Light.

There's so many ways.

So it could be,

If it's not the financial dollar,

That currency,

It's a way of being.

It could be support.

It could be prayers.

I love that.

It could be compliments,

Energy.

It could be touching base.

It could be time.

Like there's so many ways that we can be generous.

I love that reminder.

And really getting,

Going back to what you said,

And I think this is often missed.

It is a relationship.

We are at cause for what is happening.

And so that relationship,

We get to decide how that relationship is going to,

How that's gonna unfold.

And that's really empowering the way you described it.

I really appreciate that.

Thank you.

I've had really good teachers.

Yeah.

Well,

And you are that now,

And we'd love to talk about this idea of spiritual minimalism and what,

How you define that,

What that means,

And like,

How can we embrace that?

So spiritual minimalism is minimalism practiced from the inside out.

The premise is that when you think about traditional,

Conventional minimalism,

Right?

What does it usually mean?

It means let me change my external environment by getting rid of things in hopes of feeling something more spacious or more expansive inside.

So if I get rid of the old couch,

If I get rid of all the stuff I'm not using,

I'll create all this space,

And then I'll feel a sense of zen or peace inside.

And that's true.

That's true.

If you get rid of stuff and you create space and you clean everything up and you organize,

You get all the dust from underneath the bed,

You know,

Get rid of the old blender you haven't used in three years and do the whole spring cleaning thing,

You will feel peaceful for about a couple of days.

And then you will settle back into whatever state of consciousness you were experiencing before you cleaned everything up,

Because that's how it works.

You don't raise your baseline level of consciousness permanently from making an external change.

But what you can do is you can be intentional about creating internal spaciousness,

Right?

Because when we think about the areas in our life where we're stuck,

Where we're stuck,

It could be financial,

It could be love-wise,

It could be relationships,

It could be,

You know,

I'm stuck in trying to build friendships or whatever the case may be,

Get my career on track.

It's not because of the external circumstance primarily.

The reason you don't have money is not because of the economy.

It's not because of who's in the political office.

And that's what we tend to project the blame is external,

External,

External.

Probably it's something,

It's some outdated belief system that you've been carrying around with you internally for years,

Perhaps decades.

Could be the result of a toxic relationship that you can't seem to let go.

And that other person has a very loose relationships with boundaries,

But you feel that you need something that they have in order for you to feel fulfilled or happy.

So when we start to look internal at the emotional baggage,

That's the root cause of most of our issues,

Most of our problems,

Most of the ways that we're stuck.

And when you can clear that out from the inside out,

That's where you'll find your inner peace.

That's where you'll find your Zen.

That's where you'll find your fulfillment because it's in there too,

But you can't access it because there's so much shit inside.

You're a hoarder emotionally.

And just like that TV show,

People are like,

If you could go in there and see what all is in there,

And all the little configurations and the labyrinth of trying to have connections,

Trying to make sense of things that aren't really matching your direct experience now,

But they were relevant when you were eight years old,

When you had to survive because mommy and daddy went and abandoned you,

And you haven't worked all this stuff out,

Then you end up creating disastrous relationships with everything else externally as an adult.

And so it's time,

It's beyond time to clean the internal clutter.

And that's what spiritual minimalism is about.

In order to live a more fulfilled life,

Which is what we all want.

Okay,

I've never ever thought of it this way.

Like I've watched hoarders once or twice and thought I was gonna throw up.

It made me so sick,

I'm like,

Oh God.

And no judgment,

There might be someone listening who lived in a house with hoarding,

But it's true what you're saying.

It's like,

And I've experienced that where I'm like,

It's just junk,

Junky thoughts,

Stories,

Things that are kind of like,

You know,

It's time to let go of the jeans you wore when you were 12.

Like they are not in and they might come back,

But they don't fit you.

Yeah,

And they fit you at one point,

They're irrelevant at one point.

So it's not about demeaning anything,

It's just discarding it.

It's like,

It's time to move on.

So,

All right,

Light.

So we're talking about cleaning this inner clutter so we can have a fulfilled life.

How do we do that?

Let's talk about,

First,

I could just hear someone's like,

Okay,

Great,

So what do I do?

Like,

How do I clear out that inner clutter?

Well,

We've all heard the term meditation before.

And some of us have even tried meditation.

And a lot of us have dismissed ourselves or disqualified ourselves from being able to meditate because we have described our experience as a monkey mind or a restless body syndrome.

And so meditation is for those other people,

Not for us.

But as it turns out,

Meditation is the most efficient way to clean the internal clutter.

So stillness practices and a lot of the ways that most people approach meditation create more mental clutter than necessary.

And so I'm introducing in my book,

Travel Light,

And I really talk about this in all of my books,

But I talk about the minimalist approach to meditation.

So instead of sitting on a cushion,

Back straight,

Fingers together,

Chin up,

Shoulders back,

Focusing on your breath,

Noticing the thoughts like clouds in the sky,

All this stuff,

You wanna strip away all of that.

I'm not saying that that's bad to do.

I'm just saying it's not necessary to get the full effects of the practice.

And if anything,

It's creating more complication,

Which is making it less enjoyable.

And at some point,

The practice needs to feel at least a little bit enjoyable for you to want to make the time to do it.

Otherwise,

You are going to talk yourself out of it like you've been doing with very important sounding reasons like,

I just have to relax,

I'm tired,

I don't have time,

I have to see what's on television.

And all of those sound like important reasons when you are going between that and some other practice that feels like torture.

Nobody wants to sit there and feel tortured staring at the back of their eyelids,

But that's not the way everybody experiences meditation.

I actually,

For me,

Meditation feels like a bubble bath and I'm not just using hyperbole,

It literally does.

And I'm one of those meditators,

I don't want the time to end.

I have to come out because I just have too much shit to do.

Otherwise,

I would just stay in meditation all the time.

And so when I'm working with people and writing about meditation,

That's the perspective from which I am offering tips and instructions is,

This is how you do it in a way that feels more enjoyable.

Because when it feels enjoyable,

You will make the time to do it like everything else that's enjoyable short term,

Such as sugar,

Coffee,

Tobacco,

Drugs,

Whatever short term fix we're addicted to,

We don't need to look for time to do it.

We happily make time to do it.

If anything,

We have to fit everything else around that schedule.

I would love to go into this a little deeper.

And if it's okay to share for a moment,

It's interesting.

I am very open about struggling with addiction,

Actually specifically around sugar,

Believe it or not,

And food,

And it showed up that way.

And I ended up having a health crisis about 10 years ago.

And at the same time was getting my master's degree in health and wellness coaching,

Integrated perspective,

And I had to meditate light.

And my professor,

We were learning about what it does to the body,

And I could not sit still.

And I remember one of the meditations,

It was like,

Sit up straight and keep your back straight.

And I'm like,

This is not fun.

I don't like this.

I don't like sitting up straight.

This is not how I do things.

But I kept doing different kinds of meditations and actually our mutual dear friend,

George,

Who connected us,

Who I just love,

Worked with me and was like,

Listen,

Julie,

You don't have to do it that way.

And I wouldn't say it's quite a bubble bath,

But I will tell you,

It has been one of the most healing things for me in my body and my nervous system and my thyroid.

That was the issue for me.

And so I,

You know,

It's so,

I love hearing this because I'm one of those people,

Like it's got to feel good to want to do it.

I've got to feel like it's worth my time.

And I don't really like pushing myself into,

You know,

Hoses or situations where it's got to be rigid.

Like I'm trying to let go of rigidity.

And I think,

Especially as someone who,

You know,

Struggled with that in different ways.

And so I think what you're saying,

This making it enjoyable and it being literally the best way to clean that internal clutter,

Let's talk about if you don't mind,

And I know you teach this in your books,

But for someone who's maybe new to you or has done the meditation type where it's like,

Sit up straight,

Close your eyes,

Watch the clouds across,

You know,

I'm always like,

First of all,

I don't see any clouds.

I'm not seeing the clouds.

I am just trying to like,

I don't do well with that.

So let's talk about how do you teach this in a minimalist,

It almost sounds loving way where,

You know,

For anybody who has those,

I don't know how to meditate.

I can't sit still.

I can't do it where that just becomes like,

You know,

Background noise and it's not important because anyone can do this.

Where do you start?

Sure,

Yeah.

So I do give a 10 step approach in the book Travel Light,

But the summary version of it is you just sit comfortably as George,

Your teacher,

Your teacher talked about sitting comfortably with back support.

That's,

It's not a recommendation like,

Oh,

You should sit,

You need to sit comfortably if you wanna have a delightful experience,

Let's call it what it is.

Sitting comfortably,

Not lying down though,

Ironically,

Not too comfortable,

But sitting like you're gonna watch television.

And then the most important thing when you close your eyes is making friends with your thinking mind.

So a lot of people see their mind as ISIS,

You know,

The terrorist organization coming in to infiltrate their meditation practice.

And instead you wanna see your mind as the ally in your practice.

And you wanna see your thoughts as your friends.

And when you do that,

Then what you'll find,

Interestingly enough,

Is that the thoughts don't,

Won't try to drown out your experience.

They'll start to gradually fade away into the back of your awareness.

And so you can achieve a very settled mind by just having an attitude of,

In my book,

Bliss More,

Which is a how to meditate book,

I call it the easy approach.

So embracing,

Accepting,

Surrendering,

And yielding to whatever you're thinking about,

Whatever was happening,

You may be falling asleep,

You may be a little bit itchy,

So you can scratch your itch.

You may find that your head is falling forward and that's fine too.

So anything that's happening in and around meditation,

You wanna accept that as proper practice.

It's not anything wrong that's happening.

And when you have that attitude,

Then you'll find that the meditation time will fly by.

Tell us in terms of travel light.

I mean,

First of all,

I love that your name is light.

I'm like,

Okay,

That's the best name.

I don't know if you were given that name at birth or you chose it,

But I'm like,

I want that name.

That's a great name.

Well,

We can change it.

I'll be light number two.

What does that mean to travel light?

Let's talk about what inspired this book.

How does that differ from what you've written about before?

And maybe just to give the high level overview.

I know we'll have the link to it as well,

Because I know it's just come out and we'll share that so people can get it.

Yeah,

So part of my story is in 2018,

I moved out of my two bedroom apartment in Santa Monica,

California,

And I started living from a carry-on bag.

And then about a year later,

I downsized to a 40 liter backpack.

And then a year later,

I downsized to where I am now,

Which is with a day pack.

And so travel light was a literal interpretation of how I've been living my life,

Nomadically,

Minimalistly.

And,

But it's also metaphorical.

It's a metaphor for being more present and not carrying the past around with you everywhere you go.

So again,

The premise is that the more present you are,

The more fulfilled you will be,

The more you will be able to tap into sentimental experiences and moments,

The more you will be able to see hidden opportunities in that present moment,

Which will then inform where you go next and how you move there next.

My teacher used to say the richest information about what's gonna happen tomorrow is found in today's moments.

So if you're not present today,

Then you're gonna have to rely on speculation and shoddy guesswork for tomorrow.

If you are able to get present today and stay rooted in the present moment,

Then the universe or life or your inner guidance will give you a clue of what's gonna happen tomorrow so that you can then position yourself to take advantage of that as opposed to being victimized by it.

Beautiful.

In this show,

I talk a lot about intuition and we've looked at it from all different angles.

And it feels as you're speaking,

Light,

That,

You know,

The connection,

Like the,

I think of it as,

You know,

When you call a friend and it's,

I live near a lot of CIA buildings every now and then I'm like,

I can't hear anything because I think they just,

No service in those areas.

It's like that,

I think of,

You know,

Our connection to that higher guidance.

And what I'm hearing you say,

And I'm curious maybe if you have any experiences with your own inner wisdom,

But,

You know,

As you stay in the moment,

As you meditate,

As you really lean into presence,

There's an ability to get that preview,

To tune in,

To have that information that you might miss.

Yeah,

And the analogy I like to use is the magic eye puzzle that you,

You know,

We may remember from back in the day,

What it has like the wallpaper pattern,

It seems like just a pattern.

And then you stare at it and you soften your gaze and you soften your gaze.

And what you're really doing is you're surrendering your need to see anything.

That's what you're doing.

So the more surrendering you do,

The greater the chances of whatever the object that has been hiding in that magic eye puzzle will pop out and you'll be able to see it clearly.

Oh,

That's a squirrel or that's a tree or that's a pyramid,

You know,

But there's no way you could try to force yourself to see what it is without softening,

Without surrendering.

And I think that's the greatest opportunity in life is to surrender to the present moment and to try to not force anything in that moment.

And as a result,

You'll be more prone to download those insights and epiphanies and ahas and cognitions that will be able to guide you to what the best possibilities are in the next moment.

Oh,

That's gorgeous.

I love how you said that.

And I am curious as someone who now is,

I'm still like,

How is he living in a day path?

Like what?

First of all,

Yeah,

I would have a lot of purging to do.

That's really inspiring.

And also a little like magician-like.

What is that like for you?

You know where you're gonna be in the next three months.

Is it more of a,

What's opened up for you like in deciding to travel this lightly?

And what is that like?

I'm assuming,

You know,

Not a lot of TV that you're more present,

More aware of what's happening,

But maybe paint a picture.

Cause that is not typical.

Well,

Look,

Here's the thing.

If you were to just say cross paths with me and you had no idea what my whole story was,

You probably wouldn't think that I was living from a backpack.

So that's the first thing.

I'm not,

I don't wanna live in a way that someone would look at me and go,

Oh,

Is he,

What's going on with this dude?

Is he living from a backpack or something or in a van?

Or what's going on?

Does he got dirty nails?

And look at those shoes or,

You know.

No,

Everything is really clean and pristine.

And I wear like button down shirts and,

You know,

So I'm not walking around with REI or what is that store?

REI,

Yeah.

Yeah,

With REI gear,

With those zip up pants.

Zip off at the knees and,

You know,

Polyester shirts that dry quickly.

I don't wear that shit.

Cause I'm not,

That's not what I'm looking.

That's not what I'm going for.

No,

I've got to give keynote talks and be on panels.

And I got my own podcast and I'm doing other interviews.

I'm going on dates with the person that I'm seeing and,

You know,

All the things going on hikes.

So it takes a lot.

It's taken a lot of creativity to curate a capsule wardrobe that allows me to be able to do the most with less,

But,

And it's an ever evolving process.

I did learn how to hand wash my clothes and that was a game changer.

That was,

That happened about three years ago.

So I can theoretically,

You know,

I was able to cut my wardrobe down into a fourth of what it originally was once I learned how to do that.

And I only wear the one pair of shoes,

But I keep replacing them every,

You know,

Four or five months because I wear them down,

As you can imagine,

Wearing the one pair of shoes.

And I also take really good care of them.

I clean them often and I change out the laces.

So they always kind of look new-ish.

And yeah,

I just,

You know,

Found my groove.

But here's the overall message.

I don't want anybody listening to this to go,

Well,

I can't,

I don't wanna live in a backpack.

That's not the message.

The message is not,

You should live in a backpack.

See,

I had an inner calling,

Just like I had an inner calling to become a meditation teacher,

Just like I had an inner calling to move from New York to LA,

Just like I had an inner calling to,

You know,

Live from a backpack.

You have an inner calling to do something that would be considered your version of that.

So you wanna look at the feeling tone,

Which is the inner calling followed by the fear.

And this is what I call in my book,

I say this,

You know,

People talk about,

Oh,

If it's not a hell yes,

I'm not gonna do it.

That's fine.

That's actually quite boring.

Hell yeses are easy to do.

Of course you're gonna do a hell yes.

But what about the scary yeses?

What about your version of,

Hey,

You should get rid of all your stuff and move into a backpack and just find comfort in that discomfort of uncertainty.

And again,

Maybe it's not living from a backpack.

Maybe it's finally starting the podcast you've been talking about for years.

Maybe it's finally starting the manuscript for the book you've been thinking about for years.

All these ideas,

You've been thinking about them for years.

Years,

Not months,

Not weeks,

Not days,

Years.

Time to finally start doing something about it.

And I'm no exception.

I thought about the backpack thing for a year and a half before I finally pulled the trigger on it,

You know?

But it didn't go away.

That's the telltale sign that that is something that is a pivotal,

Crucial step along your path,

Which means you can't get away from it until you lean into it.

That's the only way you're gonna be able to get rid of that thought and the regret associated with that thought until you finally do something about it.

So instead of trying to distract yourself from your mission by pointing at my backpack,

If that's what you're doing,

I want you to channel that energy into your mission and your version of that and lean into it and I support you 100%.

I'm so glad you clarified.

And as I'm listening to you,

It's really interesting.

I was just thinking about this the other day with the hell yeses,

Right?

Like,

Okay,

Hell yeses,

We go for that.

This is like an up-leveled.

This is a scary yes.

This is like a hell F yes,

But I'm so scared that I kinda wanna throw up a little bit.

And just as you said that,

I was like,

Oh,

There are two things that came to mind,

Which I am,

It would be my version of your backpack.

I am not fully pulled the trigger,

But I respect that and love that reminder.

Came back again,

What you said earlier,

Which is notice if you're thinking about this over and over again and it doesn't leave and that can be your indication.

This is a greater,

Higher purpose.

This is divinely guided,

Led purpose that only you came here to do.

And thank you for being a leader,

For living this way.

I really think it takes people,

Like you said,

We're contagious.

If you're stingy,

Others around you are gonna be stingy.

If you're living your truth,

Others around you are gonna be inspired by that.

And that's one of the things,

I remember actually I heard you recently,

I love Reverend Michael Beckwith and I was listening to your conversation with him and I'm like,

Oh my God,

I'm so inspired.

I'm so glad I get to talk to you.

And your energy,

There's a level of integrity.

I can just hear it.

And thank you for modeling that.

I think it's a really good reminder.

This may not be living out of a backpack or a day pack or whatever it is,

But it is that scary yes.

Yeah,

You're welcome.

You're a wonderful interviewer.

So thank you for showing up.

I,

Before we wrap,

Like I could talk to you for hours,

But I'm like,

Julie,

Just,

It's not,

Wouldn't be fair to you.

And everyone,

At some point,

I'm sure someone listening,

They're done with their walk,

Maybe their kid's calling them.

But I do wanna ask you,

With the guidance of what you've gotten today,

I know that you're very in the present,

What do you feel is the greater legacy that you hope to leave here?

The greater why for you?

What are you,

What's that scary yes in the more cosmic sense light?

I just,

I'm curious.

That's an interesting question.

And I've obviously thought about that a lot.

And what I keep coming back to is this very simple directive to just be useful,

Just keep being useful.

And so I look at things like my health and my awareness,

My ability to articulate,

Tell stories,

And all of these things as gifts that I am here to use as much as possible.

And I wanna leave everything on the field.

So I'll keep writing,

I'll keep sharing,

I'll keep storytelling,

I'll keep showing up,

Keep doing these interviews.

Because it's not about finding whatever high status outlets or prestigious associations and stuff like that.

It's just about me in that apartment and looking on the bookshelf.

And so there's someone out there who may stumble across this conversation a hundred years from now,

200 years from now,

They could be in a museum listening to the old podcasts from way back in 2023,

And from some archeological dig or something,

And they hear this conversation and it inspires them because the information,

When you talk about universal principles,

They're timeless in nature.

And the more simple you can convey them,

The more applicable they can be for anyone at any time.

So I like to try to keep things as simple as possible,

As universal as possible,

And as accessible as possible.

And it's actually easier said than done.

You have to really just keep studying things and getting closer and closer to them in order to,

It's like what Einstein said,

If you can't explain it simply,

You don't understand it well enough.

So just seeking to understand at all times in an effort to simplify.

Wow,

I think we can,

I know I personally can overcomplicate things very easily,

And that's a really good reminder to keep it,

To be in that simplified version.

And gosh,

I got chills when you,

The idea of 200 years of this being in an archeological library is kind of like,

I call it mind-blowing.

So I'm like,

No one wants their mind blown.

So mind-blowing.

I love that.

That's a book right there,

Mind-blowing.

It might be.

I know I use it all the time and I'm like,

We don't want our minds to be blown.

Why are we saying that?

You know,

Words create our worlds.

I'm like,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

I want them to glow.

Thank you,

Light.

That might be one of my scary yeses.

There you go.

That's how it starts.

Yeah,

You're such an instigator for the good.

I know.

You're like,

I know,

That's what I signed up for.

Yeah.

I always give a last shout out.

I call them heart flares,

Where it's like,

You know,

Maybe I didn't ask you something or there's just wisdom coming through you that I want to make sure to give you a moment if there's something that is there for you on your heart to just share and call them heart flares.

Interesting.

Let's see.

Let me tune into my heart and see what's there.

Don't allow your fear of other people's opinions to stop you from being your most authentic self because that's always going to be there.

And somebody said,

I don't know who it was,

But somebody said,

If people aren't expressing their opinions about you,

Then you know you're not doing anything important.

So if people are,

Then whatever you're having to say is important.

And that means it needs to be said.

So give yourself permission and don't look for it from anyone else.

And so it is.

And so it is.

Yeah.

I got nothing to add to that.

That is beautiful.

Just again,

Like really from my heart to yours and to all the hearts that are listening or that are with us,

I just feel like tears in my eyes.

It takes courage.

I know you said there's many meditators where you go up in snowstorms and just to trust and to listen and to follow your guidance,

It just takes something.

And I'm so honored.

I love the work that you put out there.

I've been listening to you.

I've wanted to share you and your voice for a while.

I wanna thank George again because he connected us and Angel who works with you and you,

Just you for being your you-est you,

For you,

You're really helping to teach millions more than that,

How we can come back to ourselves,

Come home.

And it reminds me of the,

I think Ram Dass said,

We're all just walking each other home.

And I feel like you are walking like an army of people home.

And I see that in you.

And I really,

The light in I honors,

Wow,

That's never been able to say it with someone's name,

But the light in I honors,

The light,

Light in you.

Appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for being such a wonderful interviewer and holding the space for me to be able to show up in the way that I was.

And I appreciate it.

I look forward to the next conversation already.

Likewise.

And I'll just say to everybody listening,

We are sending our love,

Our light literally to you.

And we hope that,

I hope that you take what you like,

Leave the rest,

But that this conversation inspires you to go for the scary yes,

To go for it,

To not care what anyone is gonna say or think of you and to be your most authentic self,

To be your you-est you.

Reviews

Excellent interview, Julie! Grateful for you and Light 🙏💫💕