Your Life Matters Soul Connection Podcast Episode 11

In this episode, host Junie Swadron talks to fellow coach, Devorah Spilman. What is your soul story? How do you find it and why do you need it in your business and in your life? Discover a whole new way to use story, image, and metaphor to connect to clients, sell and align your business and your soul. In this interview, you will learn and experience the 5 steps to soul story creation. | Devorah Spilman has been a master storyteller for over 30 years.

Transcript

Welcome to Your Life Matters Soul Connection Podcast with your host,

None other than moi,

Junie Swadron.

And today I am absolutely delighted to welcome Devorah Spillman.

Devorah,

Hi.

So happy you're here.

Hi.

Hi.

Hi.

So I'd like to share a little bit about Devorah before we start our conversation so you will know what to expect and just be as excited as I am.

So Devorah Spillman has been a master storyteller for over 30 years.

Today she is also an intuitive coach who helps writers,

Creatives and entrepreneurs find clarity and confidence to tell their deep authentic stories and to live their purpose and transform their lives.

Her in story group,

Her very special signature group,

Takes people on a journey to find and manifest their soul's calling and bring their story,

Their mission and their message out to the world.

Devorah has clients all over the world,

Following their calling,

Writing books and building businesses based on the deep work that accesses their inner story and the power to integrate and use all parts of themselves.

If you have ever been told that you have a story and to succeed,

That you need to succeed and then wonder how to do it,

Wonder no more because Devorah will take you within to find and tell your story and to access your soul's calling.

That's a big deal to recognize and to really,

What is my soul's calling?

What is my purpose?

Why am I here?

How many of us asked that question and you don't have a clue where to go from there?

Well Devorah,

Through her signature in story process,

Takes women writers,

Creatives and entrepreneurs within so they can access their authentic stories and bring them up in the world to make a difference,

Transform their businesses,

Their personal lives and ultimately through sharing their stories,

Their unique stories of their lives,

Inspire and transform countless others throughout the world.

Wow,

Welcome Devorah.

Thank you.

So Devorah,

I think before we even get into your in story process and what that's all about and what does that even mean,

Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in all of this?

Tell us your background.

How did you find out what your soul story is?

Well,

I guess I might have to tell you a story.

Would you please?

Yes,

Please.

Once a long time ago in a faraway,

No I'm just kidding.

The dark and stormy night,

Yes.

So what happened was all my life I always knew from when I was very little that I wanted to work with little children and I was always very creative,

Making up stories.

And when I was volunteering in a preschool at the age of 18,

It might've been a little younger,

I was a very enthusiastic,

Energetic teacher and I was out playing tag with the children and I was chasing them and they were going,

You can't get me really hate that.

So I said,

Okay,

If you want me to chase,

You say,

It'll be big.

So they're going wiggly,

Fliggly,

Fliggly.

And I'm so tired.

I finally said in self-defense,

Okay,

Sit down.

I'll tell you a story.

And these are those moments where something just happens in the moment out of my mouth comes once there was an Iggledy,

Biggledy boo that lived in Zamba doodle.

I just started telling the story about the world,

Zamba doodle.

The next day they said,

Could you tell us more of that story and the next day and the next day and the wildest voice who would never sit for anything would sit for as long as I would tell this story.

And Zamba doodle became a story told for 30 years to thousands and thousands of children.

And it's a world where the grass is purple,

The sky is yellow,

The sun is blue and the children get there and the cave disappears and they have to find their way home.

And what was so interesting,

Junie,

Is when I went back later and really like looked at what I said,

I even without knowing it,

I embedded so many powerful,

Deep transformational concepts into the story.

So for example,

To get home,

They have to jump off this cliff and they're like,

We're not going to do that.

Oh no.

They were over the lake.

You'll appreciate this.

They were over the lake of a creature I called the Ora.

I didn't even know I don't think I've been doing an aura was and I certainly didn't know that in Hebrew,

The word for light is or and but this creature who's called the Ora and aura is a name in Hebrew is a creature made of light and her lake is this pink light and they have to jump off the lake and how does it send them home?

You have to picture where you want to go and believe you can get there.

And then the late the light of the Ora will send you there.

I didn't know.

Oh my God.

Right.

So that was in my very first story that I made up.

And and then I just started putting more and more of this these deep teachings into that story and then I began doing storytelling in the public schools.

And now when I look back,

I think of it as what I would call infiltration.

I infiltrated the system of imagination.

And then I wrote my undergraduate thesis on the importance of imagination and learning,

Which is,

Of course,

Still a disaster till this day.

We have lost it's one of my I love to tell people to talk about your soapbox topic.

So one of my soapbox topics is imagination,

How we have almost as a society beaten it out of our children and devalued the power of the imagination.

And so one of my passions is bringing that back.

And so that has gone through all these iterations.

And eventually I got back into my Jewish spiritual life and created a whole show about that and started doing storytelling in the Jewish world.

Again,

Where I infiltrated by making these fantasy adventure stories that were filled with the power of prayer and the power of deep conscious experience of God's presence in the lives of the children.

And the thing about storytelling that's so amazing is I would go into schools when I was just doing storytelling and not even the teaching part,

I would walk in.

It didn't matter if it was a classroom of 20 or an auditorium of 500.

By the time I started speaking,

This just hush goes across the room and everybody goes into this other realm.

And I think what it did was it brought this.

It's like it's almost like story meditation in a sense,

Because the children just let go of all of that stress and all that pressure and this.

And then worlds open up for them.

And so I did that for many years until I can tell you if you want the story of how God got me fired from my job,

Which wasn't working anymore in my last Jewish school in a very bizarre way so that I could start bringing this work to adults.

Well,

I just love how certain things happen and they might feel really traumatic at the time.

Oh my God,

I've lost my job and I thought it was really great.

And I brought my imagination and everybody loved it.

And then it just takes you to the next place where you're supposed to go.

Just like what you just shared right now that you had no idea this was going to be your soul's calling,

But it just happened to you,

For you,

With you at a very young age.

You just start being so tired.

You just said,

Okay,

Everybody,

If you really want,

Then you just have to listen to the rest of this story or you just came out with it.

What was it?

Call me the name again?

Zambadoodle.

Zambadoodle.

And every time you just were with these kids,

Everybody gathered around and you were a kid and you just,

It came right through you and to you at such a young age that you followed that thread and brought that into your world,

Made that a thesis,

Imagination,

The power of imagination.

I mean,

What gift could be greater than that?

You're speaking my language,

Sister.

I mean,

I know that.

I know that.

And I know how often in my younger years,

How I was shut down because of my imagination.

It's just your imagination.

Yeah,

But it's everything and it makes me feel good.

Right.

No,

That's true.

So now when I've discovered in working with women to bring their soul calling out is that almost all of us knew it as a child,

But for so many people it got shut down.

But the good news is you always get to have it back.

And especially now in our times,

And one of the things that makes it so different now is for so many people,

What happened was they would go and try to bring this wondrousness of their being to the wrong people.

It was the only people around,

Right?

It was their family.

Oh,

It have people who are more shut down.

And so the got slammed when the really profound differences now because of the internet is we can find each other.

Like here we found each other by I guy host in story show.

So I also interview lots of people and what happens is you can call in your tribe and there's something amazing,

Which is,

You know,

A lot of times people don't want to share their deep intuitive,

Creative,

Imaginative,

Authentic self,

Because they're afraid they'll get a negative reaction because we got so many negative reactions at some point in our lives.

But it turns out that if you're calling in your tribe,

I'll tell you a really interesting thing I've been teaching lately,

Which is if something moves you,

Like if something comes to you,

You get an inspiration,

You get like a download and you write something.

If you're honest with yourself,

You love what comes to you.

Like when something comes to you in that flow,

If we're honest with ourselves,

We love it,

But we're worried no one else will.

And the difference now is if you're connected in your tribe,

Not like some executive over here or some business person over here or something,

You know,

If you're connected in your tribe,

This is how you know,

If it will move someone else,

If it moves you,

It will move your tribe.

If it moves you,

It will move the people who are resonant with you.

And this is a very big shift because we were most of us grew up that the things that moved us or what we had to hide.

That is so profound.

That is so profound and so true.

And as you know,

I help people write their books and their stories,

Their memoir,

Their stories.

And the common denominator for everybody is their low self-esteem.

No matter how much they've accomplished in their life,

They could have gotten like,

You know,

The last Academy Award or doesn't matter what,

Doesn't matter what they've done that the world looks upon them as,

Wow,

You did this and they don't think it's good enough.

And it's so locked in that piece that no matter how much and even my book,

Your Life Matters,

And it's all about writing story,

And it's all about how your life matters and to value it in the way that you're talking about.

And that if it matters to you,

It's going to matter to everyone,

Other people,

They're going to care too,

Because we're all connected.

Gosh,

That's a hard one for that for people to get.

So what I find is what helps is when that's why I have a group of women who are like-minded.

You know,

I always tell everybody I'm deep and a little wacky.

And right,

If you laugh,

You're part of my tribe,

You're good.

And so the women who come by definition into my year long program and even who watch my show are already aligned.

It's already people who are in that same domain with you.

So what happens is they then take bravely share this thing and they get this incredibly positive feedback and it starts to rewire that old programming.

Because the thing is,

It's hard to bring a new thing out in the world when you still have that old voice yelling at you.

When you are with a tribe of women who support you and you're in there over time and you share with them.

So like,

I'll tell you an example of what I do when someone comes in to do this work over a year.

First,

They share on our calls bravely.

Then I make them post in our little private Facebook group,

Which still feels like,

Oh my God,

I'm showing this to the whole world.

And then I put them on my show,

Just like you're interviewing me.

I make them get interviewed by me,

Offer a free gift,

Put themselves out in the world and they don't die.

It's a miracle.

They're so funny,

They say,

Devorah,

If it's really terrible,

Can we do it over again?

And I always say,

Oh yes,

For sure we can.

Of course,

We never need to.

They finally watch it.

And without fail,

They'll say,

Oh,

I wasn't so bad.

Right?

Oh my God.

And it's partly what you do.

It's the same thing you do with getting somebody to know that your story matters,

That your life matters,

That someone else sees it and reads it and goes out in the world.

I used to do my in-story show,

My twice yearly series with only people like you.

You've been on my series,

Big experts.

And a few years back I said,

Wait a minute,

My series,

I can do whatever I want.

I'm putting my clients on my show and they said,

Devorah,

We are so not doing that.

Yeah,

I'm watching.

Oh yes,

You are.

And what happens is it allows just like what you do when you get someone to focus on writing their story for a book,

It focuses their story and their message together.

So what is your story,

But what is it that you have to say?

I actually really believe we have something to say and that what we say,

Just like you said,

Like our lives matter,

What we say matters.

And when you connect your story,

What you have to say,

And then you connected with who can you help,

Suddenly you start,

This is how you start to see your purpose.

You start to see what you've always loved,

What you've always been good at.

And it turns out,

This is such a funny thing,

And I'm sure you've talked about this,

That our culture makes you think that the thing you should get paid the most for or work the hardest at is the thing that you hate.

That's true.

But nobody says it doesn't matter.

If you hate it,

It doesn't matter.

It pays well.

Right.

So the thing,

But then we think the thing you do most easily with the most grace and ease and flow,

You think,

Well,

That can't be worth it.

Cause that's just me.

I mean,

I didn't do anything.

I mean,

It just comes to me.

So that can't possibly have that.

And it turns out that especially for our tribe,

Women who are over 50,

Which is a lot of my tribe,

We have wisdom.

We have gotten up over and over and we truly have wisdom to pass on.

There's no question.

I know.

And the more I love what you do and I love what I do and I love all the women who are out there helping other women do that so that they can help others.

And that's how it continues to go.

But what you just said,

It brought to mind something that I'll always remember.

I remember being on a subway in Toronto when I was in my twenties and I was working for an ad agency,

But I was the receptionist,

But I was,

I was always hanging around the writers and you know,

The copywriters and the this and that.

And on the way on the subway,

I wrote a jingle for one of the products that one of the,

You know,

That one of the copywriters was talking about that they were writing for a particular client.

And it just came right through me.

And I was embarrassed to show it because I was just a receptionist.

Right.

Right.

And then after the fact when they had another thing on,

I said,

I was talking about,

Well,

I had written it.

Why didn't you show this to me?

Right.

Anyway.

Oh my gosh.

I can tell you a million U-turns,

Creative U-turns that Julia Cameron talks about of those kinds of things where we don't value it comes easy and natural.

Yeah.

So you're changing that.

Well,

It's,

You know,

We're,

It's like I said,

You get to have it back because a lot of the women come into my world,

I talk about how you've always had this creative,

Spiritual,

Intuitive part,

But you didn't lead with it.

And I think that's the difference is we're being called to lead with this part of our culture.

Language things.

Right.

It's like,

I want to talk about intuition,

Talk about God,

Talk about my spiritual guidance and,

And creativity and not like have it just be in the background.

I have a thought.

Between now and the rest of this interview,

This conversation,

Why don't you take us through a little imaginary process right now so that everything that comes next will be what people can experience within themselves.

So we're not just talking about it,

They can feel it within themselves.

Are you willing to do that?

Absolutely.

I would love to lead my in story guided process in an interview because it will really give,

It'll give all of your listeners really an opportunity to have a real experience.

And love that you're doing this for us.

Thank you.

And they'll have an opportunity,

You know,

Afterwards to get on my website and find me in if you have questions.

So,

So it's called the in story guided process.

It has the acronym state,

And there'd be five steps.

And I use this to kind of outsmart our resistance because often people come to me and they're stuck in what I call the spin cycle.

I'm thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking,

And it's not moving forward.

And this process allows you to access information from the subconscious before your resistance has a chance to get ahold of it.

And so I will do a basic version today and I use it to clear things,

To open up things,

To give people endless infinite access to your creative flow,

Your higher guidance,

The muse,

Whatever you want to call it.

Once you know how to use this process,

You literally will never stay stuck again ever.

Oh,

Bring it on sister.

Okay.

All right.

So go ahead and close your eyes and just begin to notice your breath coming in and out.

Really allow yourself to feel that shift to stillness and feel a sense of breathing bigger than your physical self.

Now allow your awareness to shift to that flow from above and feel your connection to God,

Source,

The universe,

And feel that light from above coming down to the top of your head,

Filling your whole body,

Your whole being with light,

Love,

Healing,

Blessing,

Guidance,

Clarity down through your feet into the earth,

Rounding you in the earth.

And breathe up that solid rooted,

Comforting energy of the earth into the center of your being and be aware of being in that state of connected flow.

This is always the first step of the in-story guided process.

And it has acronym state as I mentioned,

And the S is always stop and breathe.

And it allows you to enter what I call the state of connected flow.

This is,

You'll see,

This is always the start to all of this kind of work.

So you're going to keep your eyes closed and we're going to go through five steps.

So the second step is always think about it.

And that is a unique step to my process where you're going to connect your conscious thinking to what you ask for.

So take a moment now.

And I want you to think about all of your gifts.

Just think about what do you love to do?

What are you grateful for?

What are you good at?

What are your blessings?

Sometimes we do the reverse and we do a clearing,

But for today,

I want you to just focus on what are your gifts?

What do you love to do?

What are you good at?

What is your,

What are your blessings?

Use gratitude as a great way to tune in.

So just let that be very gently in the front of your consciousness.

And then the next two steps always go together are ask and trust,

And you always ask and you trust the first thing you get.

So what you're going to do is ask what is an image or a metaphor for who I am and what I do in the world.

It's an image or a metaphor that's just right for me in this moment that opens me to who I am,

What I do,

What I,

What I can see right now.

And you trust the very first thing you get,

No matter what it is,

If you went through,

No,

Not that,

Not that,

Not that you'll go back to the first thing.

And this is how you outsmart the ego resistant mind is you trust the first thing you get.

Once you have an image,

The last step is always explain,

Interpret,

And you just start to associate how are you like this image?

How is it like you?

What does it seem to be about?

And allow yourself to let the image get more detailed to more expanded.

If you get something that's very,

Very beautiful to you,

Then you always say to breathe it in and whatever you get in this process and in this realm,

It is always true.

It sometimes takes some work to interpret it and understand it,

But it's always true.

So breathe it in,

Trust what you get,

And you could always use,

Ask and trust in this process.

We do many things with it.

You can always use it to get more information or to get clarity.

So if you want to understand something more about your image,

You can ask and trust the first thing you get.

When you use,

Ask and trust in the process,

You always ask and trust the first thing you get.

And so just notice what it is,

Notice your image,

And just take a moment to notice if there's anything else for you to see or hear,

Feel,

Notice.

And then begin this,

We're just going to do a basic version of the process.

I'll tell you a little bit more what else we do with it,

But go ahead now and just begin to bring yourself back into the moment.

Take a breath and just begin to bring yourself back.

And then when you're ready,

You're going to open your eyes and you're going to come on back.

And then for those of you watching,

What I encourage you to do is just write down what you got.

I'm going to take Junie through talking about it and you'll see kind of how to do that.

But the first thing is just write whatever you got,

Just so you keep connected to it.

And I'll talk a little bit about the power of invention metaphor,

But first we're going to go in and tell us what did you get?

What was your image?

Wow.

Well,

My image is not a surprise in one way,

But what came right with it,

Like right sliding right into the image.

What was the image?

Tell me the image.

The image was a microphone.

The image was a microphone.

And the next image that just kind of slid right in was a Torah.

And that was a surprise for me.

Not a surprise because I'm with you.

And so that's not so surprising,

But it is for me that it would come with a microphone.

Go back,

I'm going to make you go,

Take a minute and this will help everybody else.

Just describe the microphone a little more in detail.

Like was it just a microphone floating in space where you hold it?

Just describe the microphone image the way it's actually like,

It's actually like this.

Okay.

Uh huh.

Cool.

Did you just,

It's like a feature.

Did I see it in my mind?

Yeah.

Yes.

I pretty much did.

It kind of looked like that and it was,

Yeah,

It wasn't me in front of it or anything,

But it had that.

And what's the feeling of the microphone?

What does that mean?

Like it's important not to discount any image because we're so quick to do that.

Like,

Oh,

It's such a normal,

Popular film.

That doesn't matter.

It still has something to say to you in the moment.

So how are you like a microphone?

How's the microphone?

Like what is the significance of microphone?

And then we'll do the same thing with the tower and we'll explain what that is.

So the significance for the microphone for me is to continue telling my truth and having my voice out there in the world.

Having a podcast is new for me.

It's only been in January this year.

So it's new.

And yeah,

It's about,

Huh,

I'm moving into deeper areas,

Deeper wacky areas that are not necessarily what I've normally been speaking about.

And so it was maybe a confirmation of,

No,

This is important to Ginny.

Don't,

Don't.

Yeah,

Just speak.

Walk your talk.

I'm always asking people to come out with whatever's true for them so that they can bring it into the light so they can heal it so they can move through it.

And I'm starting to write the stories I've never told.

And it's taken me up till now to move through some of the pain and shame and heartbreak and stuff associated with certain memories of and,

And,

And things of years ago.

And so I've always had this decision,

Well,

That was then,

This is now,

That's not now.

And yet it shaped me.

And it made me need to have a voice.

So anyway,

The microphone is,

I think that expression of being able to have that voice and trust that even now,

Or even especially now,

That I'm moving into even a more vulnerable area for me to come out.

Right,

Exactly.

That's why I'm always asking people to go really more and trust the image.

The first image you get,

You always have to trust it,

Even if you have a judgment on it,

Because the microphone is such a powerful image of being,

Have your voice expanded for a bigger reach and all those things you said.

And often the image you get,

You're so right what you said,

Often is a confirmation.

Like I always say,

It's always true,

Like a microphone as a metaphor and an image is a confirmation of the expansion of your voice into a broader realm,

Into a more expanded realm.

And so you get to kind of take that as a,

As a,

As a confirmational truth that strengthens you to know,

Yes,

This is working.

I have a microphone.

I,

My voice is more expanded.

It is happening.

And so just because you get an image,

This is for everybody watching that you might say,

Oh,

This is like trite or,

You know,

Like the same as everybody else would get.

Don't do that because we're so,

It's so good.

You said that because it's so common and it's so good that you said it because it allows people to notice in yourself.

Did you discount your image in any way?

That's why I always say you have to trust the first thing you get,

No matter what you say to yourself about it.

Because people deeper,

It will have great wisdom for you.

And anyone who is like lost,

They'll see on my website is there's a way that I offer people what I call a free soul story session.

And it's a way to,

First of all,

If you've watched this interview,

You can come and tell me what you got.

And it's a way to see how do you take your work bigger?

What's the calling on your soul?

Where are you supposed to broadcast your voice like Junie's microphone?

So your,

Her second image,

The Torah is a Jewish image and I'm Jewish and Junie's Jewish.

And we've had this Jewish conversation and it's actually an ancient scroll,

The Torah itself,

But I want you to describe it again,

The detail you said it came kind of sliding in what described what you saw.

Like what was the image?

I just saw the Torah,

Like,

You know,

The scroll,

With the Hebrew letters on it,

Right?

On parchment,

Like that's the parchment scroll.

That's right.

Yes,

That's what I saw.

And I'm not particularly observant,

Although I am very Jewish,

But I don't read that way.

And I love my Jewishness.

I love the traditions and the practices when I remember them.

I usually will have to go online or call my niece or whatever and say,

Oh,

What holiday is it?

Yeah,

Coming up,

Right?

And so it's not like I wasn't raised in a traditional home.

It was pretty loose.

And sometimes my mother lit the,

With some black candles and the Sabbath candles,

And sometimes she didn't,

Sometimes she believed in God,

Sometimes she didn't.

We didn't go to synagogue,

Whatever.

And I've had my own journey with Judaism.

And I've never really particularly,

Even though I've lived in Israel three times,

We went there during the Yom Kippur War and stayed here and feel very attached or connected to that land.

I'm an inclusive person and everybody,

So I just never stayed with any one synagogue,

Although I'm friends with the rabbis and all three in Victoria,

All three synagogues.

So it surprised me.

What can I tell you?

So you know,

What comes up for me is that I'm always talking about including all of ourselves.

And I think because right before we went live,

We were talking about bringing,

You know,

Like I bring in my Jewish tradition and thoughts and teachings and that into what I do.

And I said,

I'm always encouraging people that your whole self is,

Your authentic wholeness is true.

And I,

You know,

People come into my world because they have this deep soul calling.

And I always say,

If you're not going to talk about God or spirituality or whatever your languaging is about it,

Your thing is not going to happen.

If you're not leading from that deep spiritual soul connected God place of,

Or whatever word you use,

I had to re-inhabit the word God myself.

Cause I grew up in a kind of a reformed Jewish family.

And I went to synagogue and I had holidays where they would say,

You're going to be written into the book of life for the book of death.

So obviously God must be a man and he must like,

Like the rabbis have a beard and a book and be in the sky.

And so it's like,

By college,

I was like,

I know what God is and it's not a man,

The guy with the beard and a book and I'm out of here.

And you know,

Then I kind of joined the new age,

Groovy hippie movement,

Which also didn't really fit me,

But eventually that cycled all the way around to meeting spiritual Jews who would come back to Judaism after having left and brought all that spirituality and opened up spiritual Judaism.

And I was like,

They never told me that in Hebrew school.

And I,

After living in Israel for five years,

I came back and I created a one woman show called is God a man in the sky and,

Or the Jewish disappearing act.

And I,

I created a 45 minute sort of story theater piece on how I kind of left and what happened and a little bit of my,

My parents Holocaust journey.

And there was a really interesting moment in that whole story where I was in college and I was in this course called reevaluation counseling,

And it was peer counseling where we would learn to counsel each other.

And they also had,

Would have themed event,

You know,

Themed classes.

So this one was,

You know,

We had sexism and racism and we,

This one was on antisemitism.

And she said,

This is a long time ago,

Like 40 years,

Years ago.

And she said,

Um,

Divorce.

They know it's Jewish.

If they do anything about it,

Would you mind working from the group with massive,

No problem.

She said,

Good.

I want you to stand up and say proudly,

I'm a Jew.

I got up in front of the class and I went,

I'm a,

I'm a,

I could not say I'm a Jew.

I felt like I was calling myself a swear word.

And if you had asked me if I had experienced antisemitism until that moment,

I probably would have said no,

But I grew up in Holocaust stories.

My mother was born in Germany pre Hitler.

And so they got out,

But I grew up on those stories,

Does not the,

The,

The,

The shiny black boots at the Nazis at the door.

And what happened after that is I decided to go to Israel and visit my father's brother who had become religious when they were young.

And I spent the whole time arguing and crying like this is the most sexist religion in the world.

But it opened me back up and you know how things unfold.

So when I came back to Santa Cruz,

There was this spiritual rabbi named Rabbi Shlomo Karabakh who was going to be speaking at the,

At Mount Madonna,

The center of the silent guru named Baba Haridas.

So of course I had to go to that was my first Shabbat back after Israel.

And I didn't even,

I'd never even heard of Shlomo Karabakh then,

But there was a couple there who were clearly religious.

Like I could tell by their garb,

But they would look like hippies also.

So they invited me to their house and I,

And he had gone to the journey and his name was passed away now,

Rabbi David Zeller.

He had gone through leaving his Judaism,

Going to a guru in India who finally said to him,

Now go home and be a Jew.

And so he became like a spiritual new age,

Kind of groovy,

Observant Jew and taught Jewish meditation.

So it unfolded this Jewish spiritual path.

And what I have discovered is that that's just part of the ground I stand on.

And so I'm always telling people,

If you don't talk about and emanate from the spiritual core of your being,

The ground that you stand on,

The thing you want to do now at the stage in your life is not going to fly.

We have already become experts at conforming and complying and obeying the outer expectation.

We're so over it.

We're so over that.

And so I think that for you,

That message of getting a Torah while you're talking to me is reminding you of allowing all of the teachings of your life to be part of what comes through the microphone of who you are.

Like letting the Torah have its voice through that microphone,

Not instead of or replacing,

But as fully as any other part of you.

It is your soul,

Who you are.

And that microphone,

It's like,

I feel like the Torah came and said,

You know what,

Could you put me on the mic,

Please?

That's beautiful.

But I really resonate with everything that you've just said,

In a way,

I have been rejecting that.

And because I've never wanted to just fall into one category,

I don't care who it is.

I've never been one of those people that followed a guru.

You know,

I was lucky enough to be in a was called Mind Awareness New Age Center when placed in Toronto way before there were a million spiritual books on the shelves.

You know,

It was really I was in like 21 or 22.

And way back then it was very uncommon.

And I went there and the person who was leading it said,

I am not your guru,

Spell guru,

G-U-R-U.

And he said,

You know,

You can go to EST,

Whatever his name was,

Warner,

I forget his name and or there if you don't like what we're saying here,

Ask questions,

Go there,

Ask questions,

Go where.

So throughout my life,

I recognize there was no,

For me anyway,

Person preaching the truth of the only truth.

But I would find these teachers throughout my life that would speak to me.

And it didn't matter what denomination they were,

They could be Sikh,

They could be Jewish,

They could be Roman Catholic,

It didn't matter to me.

But they could be Indian.

It didn't matter.

It mattered what they said.

And so for a while,

You know,

Ram Dass,

Whoever it was,

He would come and they would be my spiritual teachers.

And many of them stayed all my life.

I was so sad when Wayne Dyer died.

You know,

I mean,

It was like my personal friend left,

But he's always there.

So these teachers have always been with me.

And yet there's been something about Judaism for some reason,

That I feel that I have in some fact,

Went like this.

And so I thank you so much for the interpretation that you just brought to me.

And it's just funny because I do belong to a synagogue here or a foreign synagogue that I have nothing to do with,

Other than occasionally going on a line for a very,

I don't want to get too off topic,

I want to go back to it in story,

But it's all part of it.

And just this week,

I got a message saying that they're now opening it enough for live congregations.

And I love this rabbi,

She's a woman,

And she's beautiful.

And I don't usually do the Friday night thing services on or Saturday.

But I was thinking it would be nice to go to a live service.

And just so I got this thing yesterday.

And who knows,

I know that I am now feeling ready and willing to open to the deeper truths that come through the spiritual teachings of the Kabbalah and so many things of Jewish tradition.

I think it's a matter of really trusting whatever is authentic to you.

Right.

So I left Judaism,

But that didn't work in the long run,

Because I happen to be Jewish.

So it was like,

That's,

You know,

I just had to come around to I had to meet people who could show me a more elevated perspective than the ones I had learned from as a child because they just didn't have the capacity then.

And that's a big difference now is there,

There is an opening,

There is an opening for a lot of what we couldn't talk about now we can.

And because of the internet,

We can find each other,

You can reach so many more people with what you have to say.

And you can reach the people who are resonant and open and willing and want to receive what you have to say.

And it's amazing when you begin to develop that trust in your own intuitive guidance.

And I think a lot of us have really worked to develop our own way of getting that higher guidance and trusting it.

So that guided process that you went through just now.

So when I teach,

Like the women who work with me over the year,

Every single week,

I leave my call for our group.

And every single week I lead a version of that process.

So every single week you are getting a chance to kind of leave that try harder mind that drives us crazy,

You know,

And you just leave that mind.

And what happens is over time,

As you start to get more and more of these images and we ask and go in and get stories and all kinds of things,

I have a lot of variety of processes.

And what happens is the content that you start to receive becomes the body of work you deliver.

Becomes the story you write,

It becomes the work you shape.

And I call the process that I take people through,

I love alliteration,

I call it shift,

Shape and share.

So I want to get up and dance to that.

Shift,

Shape and share.

Exactly.

I love alliteration,

What can I tell you?

So you shift,

Especially when it works.

And so you,

Because this is a very true thing,

What the process is you shift,

First we all have to have this ability to shift out of the old story,

Out of that constricted energy.

And this is work I do it every single day.

I'm constantly shifting out of the old stories.

And I have learned to use my own process myself and I teach you how do you use it on yourself,

By yourself.

And constantly learning to shift out of that low self-esteem,

Unworthiness,

All of that.

Then the body of a lot of the body,

The work I do in the program is what I call shape.

Because a lot of times people will come and say,

I have a feeling of something more.

I know I'm supposed to do more,

But I just don't know,

I don't know what it is exactly.

It means you don't have the shape of it.

Because if it's so amorphous,

You can't share it.

And so through this work,

You connect to this flow,

The state of connected flow.

And so more and more content comes in and as you collect it and you write it and you reflect upon it,

You get this source content.

Because if you try to put,

Do form before content for most people that doesn't work,

You need to let that higher consciousness,

That higher guidance come in through image,

Metaphor,

Story,

You collect it.

And it starts to take a shape.

And I told you,

I make women go on my show.

Oh,

Does that force you to hone your voice,

Your story,

Your content.

And like one woman,

She came in,

She said,

I just want to have something to do after I retire.

And she's been with me for two years.

She leads with me now.

She now created a whole,

A backup.

When she came in,

She wouldn't say anything in my group.

She finally showed a collage that she'd made.

It was so unbelievably gorgeous.

We said,

Do you have any more?

And she's like,

Yeah,

As in like hundreds of them,

She had done them as part of soul collage,

But she turns out she was a very good artist.

And so we turned it into her own work.

It's now called key collage.

She teaches this kind of deep collage guided process.

She turned the work she had done with emotions and image into a book now.

And cards and shed nothing.

And she had this gift and this ability and the work she had done to be able to feel again,

Her backstories that she couldn't feel.

And so now you can go find her,

You know,

You can go find key collage and see this work she created.

But when she started,

She didn't,

She had the natural gift,

But she didn't have a shape of it to actually share the intersection of her gift and her life work experience to heal.

And now she's put those together.

And this is what happens when you begin to let this higher content come in and you're supported.

You're not floating around alone in space in your head,

In the spin cycle,

Beating yourself up.

You're collecting hundreds of collages that you put in a drawer somewhere that no one ever sees.

Right.

Until a divorce doorman comes along and says,

Oh,

Do you have any more of those?

And she finally gets the courage to show you one and look at her today.

Right.

I mean,

And that is the power of number one,

Having a coach,

Somebody that will hold a face face for you as well,

You know,

To go through in story or whether you're writing a book or whether you're,

Whatever it is that your thing is that you have someone that you feel safe and who does this,

Who's already doing it and helping you throughout the,

Right?

So that you are accountable,

That you do feel somewhere that you can go and just be held and work through the monkey mind to start to bring up what you talk about of that spiritual awareness and the downloads that come through that shape the stories that bring out the truth of who you always have been to come out into the world again.

And that's the beauty of the whole container of someone holding the space and allowing you to just become more and more and more expansive through your creative expression and bringing that out into the world.

I mean,

My gosh,

I mean,

I'm just waiting for COVID to end to cut the ribbon of ACH or the Academy for Creative and Healing Arts for people with mental health challenges.

Right.

And it's all about that.

It's about healing and creativity,

Changing mental illness into mental health,

Using our imaginations and creative expression.

It is huge.

It's,

You know,

I've seen it in my own life.

I've seen it for 30 years in clients' lives of how people change when they walk into their own power through finding out who they are and having someone believe in them.

Yeah.

It's really powerful.

I like to think of it as the soul story awakening,

Right?

You know,

You're awake.

You're in your soul story.

And one of the other metaphors I love to use is one that we all use all the time,

The metaphor of the caterpillar to the butterfly.

And I remember when someone taught me that the caterpillar,

When it makes its chrysalis,

It turns to goo,

And then it reforms completely.

And I remember thinking,

Nobody likes being in the goo.

It does not feel good.

But here's the thing.

It turns out that those steps of the caterpillar that turns into goo that becomes the butterfly,

Those steps are the steps of all creative endeavor,

No matter what.

If you even,

And I don't know,

If you look,

This is the Jewish part,

You look in the very beginning of the Bible,

How God created the world.

The first thing it says is that in the beginning,

Bereshit,

Beralukim et ha'shamayim be'et ha'aritz.

In the beginning,

God created the heavens and earth.

So that's a vision.

That's the caterpillar.

I got this vision.

I got this butterfly.

What's the very next thing?

Ma yatohu v'vohu.

There was chaos.

That's the very next thing.

That's the goo.

There was chaos.

And then only after that does God say,

Let there be light.

And so there,

It's always vision,

Chaos,

Manifestation.

Steven Pressfield calls it resistance,

Vision,

Resistance,

Manifestation,

Creation.

There is literally no other way.

I say,

Look,

If God had to go through that,

You think you don't have to?

So now here's a really powerful shift.

When you feel like all hell is breaking loose and you're stuck and you're not doing well,

And it's so hard and you're just back in the same old stupid pattern again and my clients now say,

Oh,

I'm in the goo.

And when you're in the goo,

You say,

Oh,

I'm in the goo.

What do I need to do?

Rhymes.

I'm in the goo.

What do I need to do?

And that's the thing,

If you think of goo like quicksand,

Just switch the metaphor a little bit.

Someone stuck in quicksand,

We've all seen the stories,

Even if we've never experienced it,

That the more you struggle,

The more it sucks you down.

To get out of it,

You have someone has to throw you a rope and pull you out.

Like that's having a coach or a mentor or a friend or a family member,

Or there has to be a branch you can reach like a book or something.

And you pull yourself out.

The only thing you need to do when you're in the goo is something.

There's just one thing not to do.

One thing only.

Beat yourself up for being in it.

That's the only thing you cannot do when you're in the goo.

But if you know,

Oh,

I'm in the goo,

This is the second step of all creative endeavor.

There's no such thing as doing it without.

That's Steven Pressl's whole thesis in the War of Art in his brilliant book.

There is no other way.

You will always encounter a form of the goo.

But here's the good news.

If you know that and you've got a tool bag,

You don't stay in it for very long.

That is brilliant.

More quickly.

That is so beautiful.

Only there is all I say there's only fall down,

Get up.

That's it.

It doesn't get any better.

You might fall down less often and not as far or as hard and get up more quickly with more grace and ease.

But you if you are endeavoring anything visionary,

Anything creative,

You will fall down.

You will get in the goo.

But to what?

So then you say,

Oh,

I'm in the goo.

What do I need to do?

I go for a walk.

I do channel guided writings.

I talk to,

I have conversation stuff.

I talk to my higher guides,

Whoever I need to talk to.

I talk to the trees,

You know,

Have that whole my blessing from the trees series.

And if you know this,

You will be able to move forward.

You will not.

This is another way to not ever stay stuck.

That is so beautiful,

Devorah,

Because awareness is everything.

It's key.

It is key,

Because it's seen so ingrained in so many of us,

It sure was me for a million years,

It seems that if I'm in the goo,

Oh,

Geez,

Something wrong with that happened with all the resilience with all my tools with all the ha.

But when you know that's a stage,

Hello,

Yes,

It's just expected because you've had this brilliant idea.

And okay,

What's my next step?

What's my tool bag?

I just love how you express that and explained it because as soon as you know,

You can might might as well expect it,

But you're not stuck.

Be happy,

Just allow it.

The caterpillar had to go through a metamorphosis,

The goo to transform into this magnificent butterfly.

Right.

And that's who we are.

We have to go through a child doesn't come out for nine months,

Right?

It's there being incubated.

So in that goo is the time that we can go within,

We can look at it as,

You know,

Instead of looking at it as Oh,

What is it in retrograde?

What is the one that's we're always blaming it on?

Right?

It's Saturn.

No,

It's not bad.

It's Yeah,

Right.

No,

What if that's a blessing?

What if it's the shabat?

It's the time to just be within and feel into what's going on and love those parts of us that are afraid.

Be with the pain,

The pain of it.

And instead of saying,

Oh,

My God,

I'll never get there.

How about look how far I've come?

Right?

Instead of look how far I have to go.

I know.

And you said something that that made me want think of something when you said like,

You know,

How birth takes nine months.

So I wanted to share because this is a thing people can get for free on my website.

I called it the five steps to soul story creation,

But it that's not how I found it.

I that there I talked about those three steps,

But there's another five step process like my guy to process five steps.

But once about my husband and I pulled a book off our shelf by a Hasidic,

A Jewish spiritual teacher,

It's called the meshi law.

And I pulled it off this,

I pulled it off the shelf in the evening.

And I thought,

I read this for a while.

And I opened it up and started reading in the beginning.

And he's like,

Last time I read it,

This didn't really jump out at me.

But now it was like,

Wow,

That was so interesting.

And the next day,

My husband said,

Oh,

You know,

I saw the meshi law had and I read it and it was like very more compelling than it was before.

So that was what happened to me.

He said,

Listen to this.

And he read me this very short,

Unbelievably profound sections section on the five steps of creation of the creation of all life,

Of all endeavor,

Of all things.

And it of course,

Parallels the creation of a life,

But that's not the only thing.

It's the creation of all endeavor.

And so it's like,

And he went through,

It's like,

Great.

Because of course,

First you have to open to conceive something,

Right?

And then it has to,

Like you said,

Incubate inside,

It's in the womb,

And then you have to push it out and then it has to grow up and then it gets to multiply.

Well,

I got,

I knew I was supposed to teach that week.

I had been feeling that I wanted to do a teaching in my community for over five over the week.

And I was like,

What should I teach?

What should I do?

And on my walks,

I teach that,

Teach that.

So I did.

And it was amazing.

It turns out that if you really pay attention to these five stages,

You can ask yourself,

What stage am I in?

Am I just opening to conceive something new?

Then why am I beating myself up about not producing it out in the world?

If I'm just have a brand new thing and it's just growing,

Why would I push that out too soon?

Or if it's ready and I've been holding it into and I need to work hard and I need to push that thing out.

Or does it need to grow up and develop and have more aspects?

Is it now being delivered to other people so it can reproduce?

So I ended up teaching for five days on this.

And the first day of the first teaching I did is my free gift on my site.

Cause it's,

It,

I taught,

I told how it came to me,

How I taught it and how you can use storytelling in your teaching.

And it also,

It's a whole thing on how do you trust your intuition?

How do you tap into your stories and connect them to your message?

And so I called it the five steps to soul story creation,

Because it's really the five steps that when your soul is ready to create something,

You'll be able to go take it through these steps and know which step you're on.

And if you know what step you're on,

Then you know what to do.

Right.

Oh,

That's brilliant.

It just makes sense.

I love things that have order because I'm a kid that never wants to put her toys away.

And so,

Which in fact,

When there is order and there is something to think about and how to do it,

It actually gives more time and more freedom and everything else.

Right.

It allows you to assess yourself more accurately.

Exactly.

I love it.

And that,

And thank you so much because you are offering that free gift to everyone that's listening to go to your website,

Which is what?

Go to my name,

DevorahSpillman.

Com and get the free gift right on the homepage there.

And then what I think some of your people might like is we have,

It's sort of a new website with my sort of stained glass trees.

They're really magical.

It is magnificent.

I just wanted to say something about that.

May I for one second?

Sure.

David and I were looking at your website last night.

And when he saw that,

When he saw the top of your,

With the stained glass windows,

He said,

And he's a painter,

He painted this painting,

Right?

And he does magnificent work.

Before he left London years ago,

England,

Where he went to art college,

Etc.

He painted something.

He said,

I don't believe this.

This is like a painting that I did years ago,

That the way in which the light reflected it looked like stained glass.

And he had to keep looking.

He said,

This is unbelievable.

Anyway,

Sorry,

Just said it.

It was sort of a mystical download of Inkfish who made my website of their owner.

She's wonderful.

And what I was going to say that people I think will really enjoy is on that site is a tab that says programs.

What it says in story stories.

If you go there,

You can actually hear some of my clients being interviewed and you can hear these women who never were,

They were not professionals online.

They're brilliant in their areas,

But not in this.

And you can hear their,

Their conversations and you can go in and click to the interviews and see what that looks like,

Because it will encourage you.

And I put on there,

Not my well-established,

Um,

Experts.

I put on there,

My visionary clients who are bringing these brand new,

This brand new vision to the world.

So there's also a link that says a free soul story session.

So anyone who feels their soul calling you to something more,

Do not sit alone in the spin cycle,

Reach out to Ginny.

If you want to write your book,

If you want to tap into your soul calling,

Reach out to me,

Reach out to somebody.

So you don't sit in the spin cycle by yourself.

It is one of our great things we do for each other is we really help each other bring that light out in the world.

So I do this and then,

Then you turn around and you do that for the next person and our world needs us.

We so need that.

And if we're here on this earth at this particular time,

That is what our calling is.

And every single one of us has a calling.

Every single one of us is born with gifts that may be untapped,

That are our responsibility to find out what they are so that we can light that match.

That candle,

A light candle that illuminates the world and each other.

That's why we're here.

I really truly believe that if we and those people who resonate and are listening to this right now,

Your beautiful approach to life and who you teach and why and your story and look at you,

You're just beaming.

You're just beaming.

You were such a light devour.

You are truly,

You are truly a candle in the darkness.

You are illuminate the world with,

With,

With how you connect us to ourselves and to one another.

And I thank you so much for,

For being here today on our Your Life Matters Soul Connection podcast.

And I'm so grateful that we,

We met and that we've had our soul connection and do and look forward to seeing where that will develop and carry on throughout the years.

And again,

I just want to thank you so much for everything that you have shared,

Your beautiful wisdom with us.

And if you're listening to this,

Go now.

It'll all be on site by the time you see it,

Devorah's beautiful face,

Her picture and this podcast and her website and everything that you will need to take advantage of all her beautiful offerings.

So go and tell your friends.

Okay.

Thank you so much Devorah.

Thank you.

It's just an honor and a joy to share our wisdom,

Our light,

And to inspire all of you listening to do the same.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.