Following Your Calling: Megan Mary Interview With Susan Sage

Season 1 Episode 13 of the Women's Dream Enlightenment Podcast hosted by Megan Mary of Women's Dream Analysis.

This episode features Susan Sage, a Hypnotherapist, Professional Intuitive, Spiritual Teacher, Content Creator, and Workshop Facilitator from Christchurch, New Zealand. Topics explored include connecting with your higher nature, following your calling, dharma, and purpose as well as stepping into the magnetic attractive alignment of abundance.

Music: An Mhaighdean Mhara, Margot Krimmel, solo harp from Ever the New Time Comes

Transcript

You're listening to Women's Dream Enlightenment.

Dream decoding,

Deep discussions,

And spiritual stories of self-discovery to inspire your personal enlightened journey.

I'm your host,

Megan Mary,

Founder of Women's Dream Analysis.

Let's bring in the light.

Welcome everybody.

Today I have Susan Sage.

Susan Sage is a hypnotherapist,

Professional intuitive,

Spiritual teacher,

Content creator,

And workshop facilitator from Christchurch,

New Zealand.

She also actively teaches on Insight Timer through her meditations and courses and live videos,

And she sees clients from all over the world via Zoom.

Her passion is helping other people to step out of self-doubt,

Get connected with their higher nature,

And follow their calling,

Their dharma,

And purpose.

She also regularly teaches others how to connect with their guidance and channel.

Welcome Susan.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so glad you're here today.

I have really enjoyed your events on Insight Timer.

I think that a lot of your message is so important for women,

And I want all of my listeners to share in what you've experienced and what you have to share.

Yay.

I'm really happy to share and just bring as much light as I can to anyone out there.

This is the thing,

Isn't it?

That's what I'm so passionate about,

Is really helping people release themselves from that veil of self-doubt that we can get lost in,

Because there really is so much more on the other side of that,

And it's so unnecessary to keep ourselves hidden away in there.

And I think that is,

In essence,

Enlightenment.

What does enlightenment mean to you?

Well,

Enlightenment means to me that I've found my true self,

I suppose,

If you like.

I feel like inside of us,

We have a connection to source energy,

Like a higher essence,

A spiritual,

Eternal nature that is the real us.

But when we kind of came into this existence,

We forgot all about that.

We turned up as a baby and we forgot everything.

We forgot what we are.

We forgot what we've been doing before we came in as a baby.

And we just got programmed by what our parents were saying and what the world was up to at that point.

And as that programming took effect,

That created the psychological structure called the ego,

Which is just all these stories that we started telling ourselves were real and true about our lives and about what we like,

What we don't like,

What we believe,

What we don't believe,

And all this stuff which makes up the structure.

And we started to believe that that structure and the body is what we are.

And that's the confusion,

The identity confusion happening on the planet at the moment when we believe that we're the ego and the personality structure.

We start behaving really insanely,

Greedily,

Insecurely,

Attaching ourselves to things because we feel so insecure thinking we are this temporary thing.

But that's not the truth of it.

The truth of it is that what we are was here before that baby that was you.

It was here before this psychological structure was formed,

Before this body came here.

We are this eternal essence that goes through many lifetimes and can't actually be damaged or hurt by anything that happens here.

And so I feel like enlightenment is when you really know that,

You click into that awareness of what you really are.

You find your eternal connection while still in this body,

While still in all of the illusion like masquerading as real.

You find that source of truth within you and you just can't be fooled anymore or tempted into suffering anymore by what happens in the outside world because you just know so strongly what you are that is above and beyond that,

If you know what I mean.

And that's my description of it.

I find that so comforting,

Really.

It's so comforting to know that you don't need to worry about what in our previous conversation you had called the portal,

That the body that we're in right now that we become attached to the ego,

The things that we think matter,

That we can let them go.

That's not how we're going to find our purpose.

That's not how we're going to achieve what we're here to do.

And that permission to let that go is terrifying,

But also kind of a relief.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't have to worry about the thing.

Sorry,

Terrifying because that whole psychological structure is built up with the purpose of survival.

It's that primal survival brain.

So when you want to release yourself down and release your suffering,

Because it's what has become normal and comfortable,

Not really comfortable,

But kind of because it's familiar,

Right?

It seems terrifying to let go of what we thought was keeping us safe.

We want to block,

Say,

For example,

We want to close our heart,

For example,

So that we don't get hurt as a survival thing.

But it's stupid.

It's not even wise,

Because closing your heart is stifling your own life force.

It's cutting off your connection to the larger picture,

To the divine.

So it doesn't make sense when you start to awaken and realize your true nature.

But in the whole psychological structure,

It makes total sense.

But yeah,

I hear what you're saying.

So when you go to make that shift,

It feels terrifying because to a part of us,

It feels like we're letting go of this mechanism,

Which was keeping us safe,

Which wasn't actually.

But that was the way that our mind was telling us what was happening.

So yeah.

Yes.

And I do want to talk a little bit later about how you have to do that to have the abundance mindset,

Because I think that that is I love that part of your work.

But before we get there,

Let's talk a little bit so our listeners can hear about your enlightenment journey and what led you here and what led you to realize all this so that you could share this with everyone.

Well,

I mean,

I had an awakening experience when I was 19.

So I was just in the middle of teenage fun times,

You know,

And I was kind of curious about spirituality.

So I started reading this book when I had a lot of spare time,

A spiritual astrology type book.

I mean,

I didn't know.

I mean,

I was curious about astrology.

Let's put it that way.

I did not know anything about spirituality,

Nothing.

I had no expectation.

I had no religious upbringing,

Completely atheist parents,

And pretty much just being I was totally just a material person and blinded,

Like looking through tunnel vision type thing.

So I started reading this book and practicing meditation,

And I had this awakening experience and one of those first meditations,

Which was just kind of like the veil was got lifted away from my awareness.

And I suddenly felt like I was enveloped and cosmic love,

If you like.

Like,

It's so impossible to describe,

But it was so beautiful that I just was absolutely blown away.

And I felt like I'd found the thing that I'd always been looking for,

But didn't even know I was looking for it.

I didn't even know I'd lost it.

You know,

Like I was trying to find it in relationships.

I was trying to find it in getting stoned.

I was trying to find it in all these different things,

But it wasn't in any of them.

It was in this feeling of remembering.

And so with that remembering and this reconnection with my spirituality or whatever it was,

Because I didn't even know what it was,

But I know it felt really good.

I just knew that spirituality had to be a part of my life,

And I started getting into it,

And I had to go through a bit of a dark night of the soul,

Because I uprooted all of my old belief system as I started to realize that I was eternal.

And all this bigger picture stuff,

This tunnel vision I was looking through,

Got blown open so quick that there was kind of an integration process that took about a year,

And it was hard.

I went through a lot of anxiety and depression.

But after that,

I entered this beautiful Garden of Eden phase of my life where I was in bliss.

No matter what was happening,

Even if I was going through challenges,

I had this backdrop of everything's okay because I know what I am.

I know I'm never going to die.

I know I'm connected to this beautiful universe,

This loving energy.

What can really be that bad?

When you know that.

And I was really in that.

I was kind of in the honeymoon phase of that awakening,

Of that reconnection with my spirit.

And then I've gone on to have four kids and traveled around the world a bit and all of that stuff.

But I've always had this really deep feeling of calling and purpose that has got to do with spiritual teaching and that kind of thing.

So I started to teach through becoming a hypnotherapist,

And I did a bit of hypnobirthing,

Helping women to have calm and natural births using relaxation techniques and stuff.

And then I started teaching people how to channel because that was something I'd learned how to do.

And so on and so on.

I've been kind of running workshops and working with people for quite a long time.

But a few years ago,

I started reading A Course in Miracles,

Which was just another huge kind of awakener for me,

Because I already thought that I was awake and that I knew what was happening and everything.

But when I read that,

It was just such another level of undoing of the ego and this psychological structure that holds us in this false idea of separation.

And so I'm still reading that and studying that.

And that's probably one of the main inspirations that I've got that I kind of draw from,

I suppose.

Yeah.

If that answers your question.

Oh,

Absolutely.

That's a beautiful story,

Too.

I don't tire of hearing it.

I think that you're so lucky to have awakened so young,

It seems.

And everyone's on a different journey.

But I like to hear how you said,

When you think you have it all figured out,

And then there's a whole other layer.

Yeah.

I'm sure there'll be more.

Yeah.

So that's really inspiring.

And I also really like hearing just about your experience in that.

It's very personal,

But I feel like it's also universal in a way.

Because I had a similar experience.

And I feel like that knowing,

I like how you call it remembering.

Because I really don't feel like it was finding or discovering.

I really feel like it was remembering.

And it felt like a returning to something I knew maybe when I was younger,

Before I was told,

Let that go.

Or here's what you were expected to do,

And here's what you're supposed to do.

And this is the straight and narrow,

And leave that behind.

And I think that that's part of the remembering process.

I also feel like there's a,

For lack of a better word,

Death that happens when,

And you talk about it as your dark night.

When you realize that you can never,

You can't go back once you have that kind of experience.

And there's a little bit of a sadness because you realize you have to let a lot of things go that can't go with you on that journey.

And you wonder what can go with you.

And it's a real shift,

And it's a real transition that you go through when you have that awakening.

And fully embracing it and figuring out,

Okay,

How do I deal with now?

Now that I've changed and I view everything differently and everything is different.

So I think that that's part of everyone's spiritual journey.

And I think those keys to how do we make that transition?

And what do we use to allow us to embrace that purpose that we've discovered and that connection that we've remembered?

Well,

I think,

You know,

When I started reading A Course in Miracles,

I went through another bit of a dark night too,

Because it was really brutal and telling you the absolute truth about your ego.

You know,

Your ego is not your friend.

It even says your ego wants you dead.

Like,

And,

Well,

And so all your ego fantasies,

You start to kind of see through them a little bit.

And that can bring you that feeling of loss,

Like you're talking about,

Like,

Well,

I can't really take that with me.

Well,

That's just kind of a load of crap,

Really,

Isn't it?

You can kind of say that you were holding on to something that wasn't really kind of real,

If you like.

And there's a bit of grief,

I guess,

That kind of comes with that as you let go of these old stories and these old expectations.

And I think it's the way,

You know,

We kind of,

Without even thinking about it,

It's a natural thing we do is we kind of project an idea of our future always,

Don't we?

We kind of have this story of,

Well,

I'm going to do this with my life.

I'm going to do that.

It's probably going to look like this.

It's going to be with this person.

And we're going to live here and we're going to do that.

And when that story gets disrupted,

What we're really grieving is that story.

You know,

It's not really anything else.

It's kind of this idea that we had of ourselves that we're grieving.

But the good news about that is that when we move into a new level of light,

When we decide to release the ego ways,

You know,

Those more,

The darker kind of self-serving ways that never really made us feel that great,

If we're honest.

If we decide to release them,

And because we want to feel more love,

We want to feel more joy,

We want to feel more light.

The outcome of that is always better.

This is the thing,

Is that we're not actually sacrificing anything.

But our mind is telling us that we are.

You know,

Our mind's going,

Oh,

You're not going to be able to hang around with that person anymore.

You're not going to be able to go to those parties and get drunk anymore.

You're not going to be able to sit there on the couch and binge watch Netflix all day anymore,

You know?

And we feel like we're losing all of these really important things.

But ultimately,

What you're gaining on the other side of that is way better,

Because it never really felt that good to go to those parties.

It never really felt that great to lie there and watch Netflix all day,

You know?

Like,

The mind isn't even really telling us the truth.

We're not really losing anything.

You know,

An example of that is like,

The ego will tempt you into eating things that you think that you really want.

Like,

Let's say like this amazing bit of chocolate cake.

And you're just like,

Oh,

Look at that chocolate cake.

Oh,

My God,

I just so want to eat it.

It's got everything I want on it,

You know,

The cream,

The icing,

The raspberries or the sauce or,

You know,

Whatever.

And your ego's just tempting you to eat it.

And you think you're going to get something from that,

Right?

You're like,

Yes,

I'm going to eat this cake.

You probably,

You know,

Feel sick after eating it.

And what did it really give you?

Maybe a very small hit of pleasure quickly to be replaced with guilt,

You know,

With now having to atone for how gross you now feel.

And so,

This is what the ego will do is that it will tell you it wants things.

You want things.

But they always leave this yucky taste in your mouth.

Whereas your higher self would say,

Let's make the most amazing raw smoothie.

You know,

For example,

Let's like put all of these beautiful ingredients out of the garden,

Like real fresh nutrients,

Just everything that's going to make our body just hum and sing and be so alive and vibrant.

And when you drink that smoothie,

It's going to make you feel so good.

It's going to make you a vessel to hold more light,

More love.

You're going to have energy.

You're going to boost your vitality.

You're going to boost your immunity,

You know,

All those things.

So,

It's actually giving you what you want.

Whereas the ego never really gives you that.

But we get trapped into thinking that it is,

You know.

So,

It's kind of a confusing thing to work our way out of.

But I just wanted to mention that,

How it's not a sacrifice,

Really.

And you were kind of asking what,

Like how can we come back to that remembering?

Is that what you were?

How do we tap into that aligned space and stay in that energy and not,

You know,

Overcome the karma and move to the dharma?

For anyone that's listening that feels like they have,

They're close,

You know.

They know that there's something greater.

They know that they're here to help.

They know that they have a gift.

They know that they're being led.

But they're struggling with that ego.

And,

You know,

Many times in my work,

People,

That shows up in your dreams.

I mean,

That's,

Your concerns,

Your deepest conflicts,

Whatever you know you should be doing and then what you're,

The difference of what you are doing will play out into a little story.

And try to tell you either just that,

Bring the awareness of that conflict that's going on or also to present a solution.

And so what are some ways that other women who feel that they want to embark on this path,

That they can get out of their own way?

Well,

I mean,

Ultimately we've got to find that sense of source within us.

Ultimately,

I feel,

Because it's like,

If you think of a record player,

You know,

The record is on the record player and it's spinning around and around and around and around.

But in the middle of that record player,

There's that wee bit that pokes up that you put the record over top.

I don't know what it's called,

But that wee bit in the middle that doesn't spin.

Right.

But the record is spinning around and around and around and around that.

We've got to come back to the middle and actually just be able to observe the stuff that's going on in our lives and our feelings and our thoughts and all our reactions and the traumas coming up and all of that stuff that's always changing and always moving.

We need to find a way to get into that stillness where we can observe that.

We need to find a poise outside of all of that where we're not identifying with it and making it our,

You know,

Who we are.

Because if we think that what we are is all of that craziness,

It's going to be really hard to let it go.

You feel like you're letting yourself go.

You can't see,

You don't have the objective perspective,

But it's having a practice.

And,

You know,

I always would say meditation,

Of course,

Some kind of meditation.

It doesn't have to be those really difficult meditations where you sit there and you watch your thoughts and you have to calm your mind and not think,

You know,

Because they're great,

Of course.

But I think people get put off meditation by thinking that's what meditation is.

And I can't do that,

You know,

I can't sit there and not think.

But there's lots of guided meditations,

There's lots of different little,

You know,

Things and exercises you can do to just come within yourself and find this source of love within you.

This eternal nature.

And we start to find it by letting go of the bullshit,

You know.

We just start with whatever's coming up in your life,

You know.

Let's say you're feeling really jealous of your partner because of whatever reason.

This is causing you a lot of pain,

You know,

A lot of suffering.

So that would be a good place to start.

You're sitting in the middle of the record player,

Watching yourself be reactive,

Watching how it comes up for you,

Watching all of the ways your mind thinks,

The feelings in your body,

You know,

Being willing to let that move and find a higher perspective.

And there's lots of exercises you can do to just basically just feel those feelings and let them pass.

And when you just let them move,

You find that they get replaced with a higher perspective.

Even an epiphany sometimes that makes you think,

Wow,

Like,

I can't believe I thought of it.

That way,

You know,

And you have this big shift in your internal world.

And when that happens,

You start to embody more light.

And it's always good to go with just letting go of what's coming up in the moment.

Because that's what we can see.

That's what we're experiencing.

Quite often,

Like,

We don't have a reference point for what it's going to feel like when we've become more connected with love.

Because we're not there yet,

Right?

So we don't know how Jesus felt at the end of his life or how Buddha felt when he became enlightened.

We have no freaking clue.

But all we can do is just let go of what we do know,

What is happening,

What we know is not working.

And that kind of creates a vacuum for the higher dimensions to kind of rush in and take the place of whatever we've let go of.

So we start to gradually and incrementally build up this level of love,

This level of light.

And we start to feel better and better and better and more resilient and more buoyant and more connected and more peaceful,

Just naturally,

If you know what I mean.

On your website,

You say,

Walking the path of a lightworker means operating by a new set of laws.

And based in trust,

Wholeness,

Faith,

Flow,

And divine inspiration,

And moving away from the old fear,

The old way of fear and control and needing to have security.

And I think that I really like what you talk about in terms of the 4D abundance and how people that are doing this kind of work need to let go of that desire and fear about security in order to bring the provisions that are meant for them to do that work.

And I think that is really important because everybody has some of this to share,

But they're all standing behind the gate,

Afraid to open it and step through because they're worried they won't be provided for when they do it.

Yeah.

Well,

I mean,

Here's the thing.

This is the identity confusion again,

Right?

You know,

As I said,

We came here as a baby,

We took on all this stuff that we thought was real.

And then we think we are that.

We think we are the personality.

We think we are the body.

We think we are the person who likes rugby or football or cricket.

We don't like swimming and ice hockey or,

You know,

We really identify with this character that we are.

But as you alluded to before,

And what I often talk about is that that person is just a portal.

You know,

Quite a lot of times I write about that,

That we're not people,

That we're actually portals.

And if we can make that distinction,

That what I am is not this defined structure of an ego and a body and this avatar thing.

That's what I'm experiencing.

If you can find the difference between that,

It's not what I am.

It's an experience I'm having.

And actually this person is actually an opportunity.

It's a portal,

It's a gateway that the divine is using.

So if I'm all identified with the person and I think that's what I am,

I'm closing off that portal.

Because I'm saying,

Oh,

Look at me,

Look at me,

Look at the person,

Look at the person,

Look at all the stories that I've got about me and about this and about that.

And,

You know,

I couldn't possibly put myself out there and do this and do that because I believe this and I believe that.

And I've got this past about that.

Who am I to do that and all of that?

Because it's all the personal crap.

Right.

But we're not that.

So it's just like we've got to find our source,

Our identity and something larger.

Which I like to say is just this essence of loving energy.

And if we can just relax the portal,

The person,

To become a portal,

To allow that larger us through,

The real us.

Then we really start stepping into what it is that we came here to do.

And we'll do it fearlessly and courageously.

Because what we're really doing is we're letting love in.

Like,

How can that be?

How can we really be afraid of that?

Like,

It's not the person that's going to take all the credit or all the failure.

You know,

It's not even the person doing it.

It's relaxing the person so that this love can come through the person.

This is more like a universal being that's coming through.

Because we are connected to the whole universe.

You know,

We're not just this little spot,

This little cell,

This little tiny little thing.

We're not limited to that,

You know.

So when we open up our heart and we start to know ourselves as something larger,

We make space for this larger energy to come and animate us.

And I think that's the key in releasing self-doubt is that it's not me that's doing it.

So I'm just going to step aside and let this other thing do it.

And I can just,

You know,

Be the messenger for that rather than being the one that takes all the credit or did something wrong.

You know what I mean?

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I love the saying that we're not humans having a spiritual experience.

We're spirits having a human experience.

And that's exactly what you're saying.

Yeah.

And it's getting that in the right order that makes all the difference.

Like all the difference to untangling the illusions in your mind and finding your clarity.

So what are the common misconceptions that people have about your work,

About what you do?

Misconceptions?

I don't know.

Maybe that it's a bit out there.

I don't know.

I think that people are either ready for it and they resonate with it,

You know,

Or they just they won't hear it.

They just won't even.

It might annoy them.

I don't know.

But generally,

I think they just don't understand it and therefore won't even bother entertaining it.

But there's those particular people that it just really,

Really sits with.

And it was really what they needed,

You know,

And then they just soak it up and just go with it and have really amazing transformation through it.

And it's those kinds of people that I'm only interested in finding anyway,

You know.

Absolutely.

I know there's lots of them out there.

I know there's lots of people too that aren't on my vibe.

And that's absolutely fine.

Because even if I only really connect with,

I don't know,

A hundred people this lifetime,

That's still a hundred people.

Agreed.

Yes.

Any change,

No matter how small,

Is still change.

And anyone that even listens to this,

That it makes a difference.

Same thing.

That's why we're here.

Right?

So what are three takeaways that you would like the listeners to take away from this talk?

You would make your way through it if that was your priority.

So that would be the first thing.

Find a meaningful connection with who you really are.

The second thing would be value what the inspiration is that's coming from that meaningful connection,

Like the guidance,

The ideas and things that start to flow to you as you're connected.

Value that over top of what the ego is trying to tempt you into doing.

Because the ego is going to tempt you into doing all these things.

Course in Miracles puts it,

Seek but never find.

That's the ego's world.

But when we start to meaningfully start to connect with what we really are,

We start to shift our vibration in a way that stuff just finds us.

We don't go on the ego's crazy endeavors to have this amazing thing happen and make this,

Like finding all this stuff outside of us,

Which only kind of satisfies us for a very short period of time.

And then it's replaced with the next goalposts.

And it's on and on and on.

And that will never end.

But when you start to come in and find what you really are,

You start to find,

You really start to find and you start to feel better and better and better and better.

And the third thing I would suggest,

And I haven't actually talked about this yet,

Is practice gratitude.

Because honestly,

I know it's been talked about millions of times by millions of people,

So much that it's probably like,

Oh,

Yeah,

Whatever,

Gratitude.

But I honestly can say that gratitude has changed my life.

And if you can,

Like I have this great meditation in one of my courses on Insight Timer,

Where you just sit there for about 20 minutes and go through all these ways of thinking about what you're grateful for and what you care about and things that have happened in the past that you really made you feel really good.

And you just basically marinate in this feeling of gratitude for this whole 20 minutes.

And by the end of it,

You just feel so amazing.

And honestly,

Just all these miracles start happening as you raise your vibration like that.

It's just crazy.

You can practice that kind of thing,

Like right in the moment,

Just sitting there and going through looking in whatever space you are right now and having gratitude for very little things around you,

You start to bring on this altered state of absolute bliss.

It's absolutely amazing what gratitude does for every level of our being,

Including our physical body.

So it's,

I recommend it.

Yes,

That's sage advice.

It's just amazing.

Well,

I am very grateful for you,

Susan.

I'm so glad that you are here today.

It was great to talk to you about all of your journey and just everything that you share with our listeners.

I know it will be beneficial.

So thank you very much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm