The Fierce Grace Of The Coronavirus With Brian Bergman

In this episode, Edward dives in with Brian Bergman into the timely and powerful topic of the current global coronavirus crisis. Brian shares some great wisdom and tools to help you navigate these times, including:
• What the coronavirus is really inviting us to do
• How listening to the wisdom of your body can help you come out of contraction
• The importance of choosing what we ultimately long for our lives and planet
•The hidden gifts of the past year of lockdowns

Transcript

Hello,

And welcome back to the Temple Podcast.

My name is Edward Pike.

I'm the founder of the Temple.

This podcast is really a place for us to explore everything that makes us human through the stories of some of the changemakers of our time.

In this episode,

I speak again to Brian Bergman.

Brian is a conscious dance and conscious yoga teacher based in Cape Town in South Africa.

We dive into the topic,

The very timely topic,

Of course,

Of the coronavirus.

Brian brings a beautiful wisdom to this,

Really inviting us to look at the potential that it brings,

The opportunities that it brings,

And how we can respond to it in a way that is expansive,

That invites an awakening,

A remembering,

And a deeper sense of presence into our life.

So I love the wisdom that Brian brings.

I've been connected to him for the past year,

And we've only had a virtual connection at the moment.

I've never met him in person,

Which we were joking yesterday.

It's a bit weird,

But that's what's happening right now.

We are due to collaborate in person next year in March on a retreat that's happening in South Africa in the Cederberg called Journey to Origins.

So I'll be sharing more about this very soon,

But if you already are curious about it,

Then you can come to my personal website,

Edwardpike.

Net,

And just subscribe there to my newsletter,

Because we'll be sending out all the information as soon as we have it.

But for now,

I just invite you to sit back,

Relax,

And enjoy the podcast.

Okay,

Here we go again.

Take two.

Hi Brian.

How's it going?

Yeah,

Good.

Take a long,

Long gap between takes.

We were just saying it's been like over a year,

Probably November last year.

Yeah.

So it was in the PC era.

In the PC era it was.

I remember those days.

It was so easy.

This is a massive question,

So feel free to like,

You know,

Feel where you want to start.

How has the last year been for you?

What's been going on?

How are you now?

Yeah,

It is a massive question.

Well,

I think like everyone,

It's been a pretty wild ride of a year,

But we're all in it together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's been like pretty crazy in terms of like,

Yeah,

Just having to really get down to the present moment and kind of like just follow what you follow and then,

You know,

Just not have such a certain future,

Which I think is actually,

For me,

It's been really,

Really awesome because it's never been certain,

You know,

And we've never been safe.

And I think that bubble have been burst in such a sort of radical way for us or,

You know,

Obviously it forces us into a crisis,

But at least it brings us closer to a reality of how we live in this world and how connected we are to things that are very beyond our control as humans.

And I think it's easy for us to get caught up in our bubbles and when things are going well,

You know,

And things are all flowing and,

You know,

You can really become very philosophical about stuff.

But when you sort of really shown,

I guess what we've been shown and how precarious life actually is,

It leads to very,

Very different experience of our being.

And I think it allows us an opportunity to see,

You know,

Both our strengths and our weaknesses and where we still have work to do on ourselves.

So it's been an interesting year from that point of view.

Yeah,

Adapting.

When I lived in the ashram,

One of the biggest sort of mantras that they used to talk about there was adapt to just accommodate.

And it's a principle of karma yoga,

You know,

Using action as a way of,

As a path to self-developmental growth.

And one of the things was adapt to just accommodate,

Like being,

Becoming fluid and flexible with sudden changes and things that aren't going your way and working out ways,

But to always instead of become fully resistant to what's going on,

To find ways back into the flow by making those adjustments or little adjustments or little adaption.

And I think we've seen a lot of that going on this year as well for people having to,

Or actually being forced to,

But you know,

It's not necessarily a bad thing.

Yeah.

Yeah,

You're right,

That's been amazing to observe actually the kind of the adaptability of humanity,

Right.

To be able to like shift from one thing to the other in a matter of days or weeks.

And I've also been working for and been in touch with businesses that were doing the same thing for like 25,

30 years.

And then suddenly overnight had to completely change their business model.

It makes you wonder,

What were we doing for 25 years,

You know,

As an example.

And now do we need,

You know,

Such a kind of a slap in the face to change and to evolve?

I don't know.

What do you think?

Well,

Sometimes.

Sometimes.

You know,

That's kind of like,

Again,

What Ram does call his fierce grace,

You know,

Where it's not necessarily how you would have chosen,

But you know,

There's nothing more stuff into the spirit than comfort and becoming too comfortable and to like,

You know,

Sure of things.

There's no growth there at all.

It's actually one requires,

I think in life a little bit of adversity.

Hopefully just enough adversity so that you're not overwhelmed by it.

But certainly you don't want to make yourself too comfortable.

And I think people who live like that or have lived like that found it this year a bit easier than a lot of other people who just didn't know what to do and kept waiting for it to go back to normal.

And you know,

I think we've also seen how un-dysfunctional human society is and a lot of cracks opened up.

So I kind of hope we don't go back to normal.

I hope that people realize that it was pretty bad before.

And he has an opportunity to bring change and make some shifts and,

You know,

Look at what's really,

Really important.

You know,

By not being able to work the way we've worked and having to find other ways,

Perhaps it opens up,

You know,

New conversations and new ways of being where I think people get a chance to really question within themselves what they have as value,

Of real value.

I've heard stories here in South Africa of people who just got to spend more time with their kids than they ever have before and that they found that a real plus.

But then I've had others who are like,

I can't,

My kids are crazy.

It's nice for a day or two.

Yeah.

But it's like that.

What are we doing running around chasing this on this hamster wheel,

Like chasing the back foot?

And,

You know,

And is it really that necessary?

And is there another way that we can be doing it?

And I think that so much of what we've done as humans in the recent times with our technologies has disconnected us so much from our true source of sustenance.

And as a result of that,

You know,

It's not sustainable.

So then when something like this comes and disrupts all of that,

And you realize like,

Wow,

If I can't get to the shops to buy groceries,

I can't eat,

I'm just going to starve,

You know.

And it's like,

What's going on?

Like,

I've lost my connection to nature.

I don't even know how to,

I don't even know where monk comes from.

You know,

Those tomatoes are buying a bag there.

Like,

I don't even know what the plant looks like.

And yeah,

So again,

Opportunities to just connect again,

More to our nature and to nature.

Yeah,

Shift gears.

For me,

It was an opportunity to also try be kind and a little bit more generous with people because,

You know,

So many people are just suffering that much more at the moment that you don't want to be a agent that adds more of that kind of stress onto yourself or others or the world.

So then you start to ask yourself,

What can I do to maybe make things a little bit easier or better?

And as it often does translate as being a little more kind and taking a bit more time with people and smiling a bit more and keeping it light and trying to be light.

I love what you said there,

Fierce grace.

I don't think I've ever heard that statement before.

Fierce grace.

It's like there's a real power in that.

I love the two words,

It's like grace feels really soft and gentle and there's a fierceness to it.

It's like,

Yeah,

That's a slap in the face from God.

Yeah,

Totally.

Well,

Ram Dass coined the phrase when he got,

He was,

He had a stroke.

Yeah,

That's true.

Yeah.

And he called the stroke fierce grace,

Fierce grace from his guru in that it was a very,

Very intense way of learning the last bits of things that he needed to learn.

And there's nothing else that will push you there.

We would never choose some of the paths that we get put upon ourselves because you can see or your mind will just try to protect you.

So sometimes you need a kind of a hard push or a big slap by the universe to kind of force you into places where your real growth then can happen.

But as a teacher,

You can't give that to someone,

You can't wish suffering upon someone.

A stroke on someone.

Yeah,

Exactly.

But when it happens to open to the opportunity and it has happened,

It's happened for so many of us this year.

And it is,

It's like you can see it as an abhorrent horror and like a real disrupt your life and that you might never get back to it,

Get morbidly depressed.

I mean,

You can see it in how people are behaving and how suicide rates have gone up and people are thinking out.

But others have taken it on as like,

Wow,

Okay,

Yeah,

We are.

Yeah we are now what?

And you begin to look into the spaces that it's put you into.

And of course,

A lot of them have been very,

Very tough and difficult places and spaces and it's hard to look at suffering in the eyes.

But such profound lessons can come through that and such beautiful insights about humanity and our being.

In a time like this,

You do see,

Like my teacher Nnedi used to say,

Like when times are tough or when there's adversity,

You see both the angels and the demons coming out of humans.

On one level,

You have people who really sort of like are swinging at sword for the light,

You know,

And then others who just get into that like me,

Take mine and contract in it.

And I think the only choice that we really ever have is who you're swinging your sword for.

Yeah.

You know,

Are you going to be one of those people that really like actually tries to uplift and bring,

You know,

A bit of light to this crazy dark time or are you just going to contribute to just pulling us further into darkness?

And that's a personal choice that we all have in every moment of the day,

Really,

And in everything that we face.

It's like,

How do we do that?

And yeah,

I was clear from early on,

Which I swing my sword for.

And there were times where I was using like Lord of the Rings,

The story of this powerful like metaphor for these times.

And whenever like things were crazy,

I'm like,

Where am I in the story?

And who am I playing?

Which character?

And I'm like,

Oh,

I'm being a bit of a Gollum at the moment.

Like contracted and like my precious.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

And then other times you start to feel a bit like Gandalf and it's like,

Okay,

You know,

You've got to like go through the motions of what's going to happen.

But on another level,

You're seeing a much bigger picture and you know,

The silver shawl on the other side.

Yeah,

It is a whole hero's journey,

Isn't it?

Condensed into this.

Yeah,

Pretty much.

Well,

A lifetime,

A year,

A week.

Right now it feels like a lifetime.

Yeah,

That's awesome.

I love that to be able to relate back to that.

And that's the power of kind of storytelling to be able to kind of find orientation and all and kind of find it.

Yeah,

Lord of the Rings is a beautiful map for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Many times in my life I'm being like,

Oh,

Where am I now?

And what's going on?

Oh,

There's,

You know,

There's like Saruman and there's and you can point out the characters around you in your life.

It's like,

Oh,

Okay,

Cool.

Wow.

And then you also know where you're going to go.

It's like,

It's pretty bad now,

But at some point I am going to toss the ring into the fire.

It's going to get,

You know,

It'll be a struggle to get there,

But we'll manage.

And then there is that light,

There is that hope,

You know,

Which you might like at times lose completely,

You know,

When you're wandering around the Plains of Mordor as such.

Which feels like right now like everywhere.

The Plains of Mordor.

Yeah,

It's not an easy world right now.

It's not an easy human world.

It's not easy.

Mm.

Fierce grace,

The fierce grace of coronavirus.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or in brackets,

The Lord of the Rings.

Choose your own adventure.

I love what you just said about,

You know,

You either let it,

I'm paraphrasing,

Either let it kind of expand with it or contract with it.

Either,

You know,

Follow the sword of truth or the second thing you said.

How have you found that?

Like,

Has it been something that you've been able to,

You know,

Kind of commit to?

I'm going to use this time as expansive.

Has it also been very contractive,

Contracting?

How has it been for you?

On a daily basis,

You know,

You've got to separate out your emotions from all of that because you go through times where you feel really down and low about everything.

But that if you can see that,

If you've got a little bit of awareness that's not so identified in,

You know,

The drama that is,

You know,

The Brian Bergman project,

It's,

You can kind of step out.

So,

And I think I'm lucky that,

Dwayne,

That I've been,

I'm practiced,

I've been doing it for a long time.

So to me,

It was quite easy to just continue the dance,

You know,

Like,

To go,

Okay,

Like now we happen to be in this particular territory and it's like super uncertain and like,

Who knows what's going to happen?

You know,

And you can feel like you fear like certain rhetoric,

Certain narratives that are coming at you from all over and depending on what your social media feed looks like,

You know,

You're the pro against vaccinations that that story is going on,

Like all of that kind of stuff.

And the beauty of all of that is,

Is like,

At some point I kind of like,

I think to myself,

No one actually does know,

There are so many conflicting opinions and so many arguments and counter arguments,

And it's an exhausting sort of narrative to follow.

And in truth,

Like,

You know,

Maybe the politicians are like,

In some kind of weird conspiracy where they're trying to control humanity,

Or maybe they're just making,

Doing the best with the knowledge that they have,

But it doesn't really matter.

So again,

To me,

That's like,

Instead of like,

Because nobody knows you're now free to choose for yourself.

Ah,

Choose your own adventure.

Yeah,

Exactly.

It's exactly that.

And you have to,

To feel into your own being for the truth of things.

And we have a beautiful system inside us,

This inherent intuitive wisdom that comes when you connect to it that allows you to make choices.

You know,

You may not know what's going to happen next week based on the choice you're making now,

But like,

I listen,

It's like,

Yes,

All of that is going on.

How do I feel?

Do I feel safe in the space?

Do I feel like I can move here?

Or should I withdraw?

Should I isolate myself or should I go out into the world?

And you kind of like listening and following and you go,

You've got to be comfortable with your own choices and take responsibility for them.

So how radical is that in a way,

You know,

Because it's taking back our sovereignty as such,

It's like,

You know,

You have the power now,

No one knows what's going on.

No one knows whether this is working or that's working or if this is,

You know,

The end of humanity or not.

No one knows.

And it's liberating.

It's like,

Wow,

I can now stop looking and particularly stop looking at your Facebook feed for any kind of,

You know,

Double blinded studies on whatever,

But to go like,

Okay,

It's cool.

No one does know.

And that's okay.

I know what I need to do.

You know,

I can listen and go,

Okay,

In this moment,

I'm feeling to do this.

And the next day,

The same situation may present itself to you and you might choose something different.

You know,

You might go,

Okay,

Today,

It doesn't feel a bit quite right.

It's a little bit weird.

I'm going to honor that.

So it's pushing us into our feelings.

It's pushing us into our being in this world.

And we start to then connect with nature,

Which,

You know,

You know,

There's that saying like,

If you're lost in the forest,

Just be still because everything there knows where you are.

Everything.

The trees know where you are,

The animals know where you are,

Everything else knows where you are.

It's only you who's lost.

So become still and listen.

And then you can open up the conversation,

Maybe even ask a tree,

Where am I?

You know,

But we don't,

I think humans have really like,

As a whole,

We've kind of like given over that authority because it feels like,

Wow,

Either such a big responsibility or you know,

We've just been sort of really badly trained into like,

You actually don't know what you're doing,

You know,

And you need to do this or follow me.

And he has an opportunity to go look,

Our politicians have failed us,

The businesses have failed us,

You know,

Everyone.

It's like,

We don't really know,

Science failed us.

Everywhere where you would normally try to put like,

If they tell me what to do,

Fine,

I'll tell you.

Religion,

Yeah,

Everything.

Exactly.

Now we have to choose and the more you do that,

The more empowering that becomes.

And so that is what I was saying that I'm practiced at.

Like I've been following my own and dancing to the tune of my own drum for a long time.

And so for me,

Even in this,

It was like a simple matter of like,

Wait a minute,

Like slow down for a second,

What do you need to do now?

Okay.

And it's moment to moment,

You know,

You're not given the answers to the future.

But I trust because this has been my experience over years and years of doing it,

That if I just follow the step that's presenting itself now,

Where it leads me is where I need to go.

And that's no,

That's not like,

It's not going to lead me to love and light,

Or it's not going to lead me to,

You know,

Like,

Happiness and a massive abundance necessary.

It might take you into the darkest valleys.

But if you keep following that,

You're not the valley,

You're walking through it.

And at some point,

You do peak up on a mountain and then you go down the next valley and it's like that.

So you begin to follow your last path and journey.

And you start to align yourself more with what's moving around you.

And that to me is very,

Very empowering.

You really learn a lot about yourself.

You learn a lot about how connected you are to things,

How much wisdom there is inside each one of our beings.

You know,

We share an incredible wealth of human intelligence that we just don't tap into.

And I think now's the time,

Guys.

Now's the time,

You know,

Like,

If not now,

When?

So that's why I say this year is the Fierce Grace,

But it's a wonderful opportunity to,

If you use this,

To really wake up,

To awaken further.

And to use the metaphor,

The Lord of the Rings,

That sovereignty is taking back that ring,

Right?

Or maybe giving it back.

I don't know about having,

You know,

Sometimes I perceive our sovereignty as our kind of energetic space,

Our connection with the divine,

The earth and that kind of maybe golden ring around us.

So I really see that also in the Lord of the Rings is that like,

Ooh,

We're really playing with that.

Like,

Who do we keep that power?

Are we giving that power away?

Are we keeping it like,

Ooh,

Who does it belong to?

Does it really matter if there's a ring or not?

Yeah,

Exactly what you're saying.

Or look at the ultimate beauty of it is that it must be destroyed.

It's like you have to surrender.

You have to surrender.

Yeah,

Of course.

And then be carried away by eagles.

Yeah,

Wonderful.

Yeah,

Because you happen to have a wizard who is a friend.

That's the next step.

Maybe next year we'll see that.

Maybe next year we'll experience that as a collective,

Being carried by eagles.

That's very profound what you just said.

And very true to,

I guess,

People like yourself,

Have been walking the path of having more practice,

Let's say,

Or whatever the word be,

More experience in this kind of dance of life,

Of expansion,

Contraction,

Emotional state,

Intuition,

And learning to navigate all of those things.

So what would you say to someone who's maybe just starting out on this journey,

On this path of really finding their own navigation system,

Their own sovereignty,

Their own compass,

What would be like one or two things that come to mind to share with them?

It doesn't need to look like anyone else's.

And it probably won't.

Yeah.

So don't,

Again,

We tend to,

Like one of the earlier pitfalls is looking or aspiring towards what appears to be what we're looking for out there in the world.

And it very quickly flips into that spiritual materialism where again,

We're now chasing something.

Your life is not an error.

And the situations that you find yourself in,

Whatever they are,

Whether it's something that you would think,

I can't be spiritual if I'm feeling this.

It's like,

Yes,

That is exactly what you should be feeling.

And the fact that you're feeling it is the first step already into growth as such.

So to really,

I would say,

If you can let go of any judgment you have towards your own self,

It's tiring.

And yeah,

To become curious about what's going on in your life,

As opposed to being in resistance to it,

To open up like more of a curious and even playful,

A little bit playful,

Even with the hard stuff.

You can try to become a little bit more flippant about certain feelings that you're going through and thoughts that you're having that you would consider like dark or negative,

Or you want to push them away because they don't appear to be what you think is spiritual.

So it's to take heart and be courageous to start to look at the stuff that's going on instead of just sitting in it and going,

I don't want this.

Because then you're just in resistance.

And that is very tiring,

Very,

Very tiring.

And it's such a quick,

You know,

It's just the first step you need to make.

Once you've made that first step,

You'll find all the resource you require,

Like starts to flow towards you and starts to flow with you.

Because once you're not in resistance to it,

You're going with the flow of it.

And then if you happen to find yourself down in a valley somewhere and in a real dark place,

The minute you stop resisting being there,

You can move.

You can move in that place and then move possibly at some point out of it.

So yeah,

It's really not hard.

Everything that you need,

You have already inside you,

You know.

And all that's required is to just become curious enough to start looking and going,

This is not an error that I'm feeling this.

I'm feeling this.

What does it feel like?

And you know,

Why am I feeling this anger like,

And going like,

Oh,

It's so interesting.

And what does it feel like?

And how's it feeling in this body?

And what does this body want to,

How does my body want to hold myself when I'm,

When I've got this thing going on?

So you start to just open up and you learn,

Oh,

Wow,

That's that.

And if I do this,

It shifts a little bit and it's a slightly different quality.

And so we start to grow and learn and embark upon our own little journey.

So what you're saying is not automatically that,

You know,

Once you make that decision,

Make that choice to open up,

You're going to feel so much better.

It's not about that.

Because as you say,

Often there's some,

Something we can be sold in the,

You mentioned the spiritual materialism and that kind of getting somewhere clear and,

You know,

Like as a recipe to feel good or to get a certain thing.

But what you're inviting us to actually do is to open and to be curious about that experience and really trust the intelligence of that experience.

Is that right?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Totally.

And then I think the other pitfall that people,

I think kind of mentioned,

But it is,

It's the chasing the highs,

You know,

Chasing the ecstasy and the bliss and running as far away as you can from the pain and the suffering.

And so freedom,

Which is what we really after is the ability to stand in both of those places without being bothered by either of them.

Like they're there and if they're not,

They're not.

But you enjoy the high when it comes and you also don't not enjoy the hardest stuff when that's there as well.

And then you are truly free because then you can stand in a world that's falling to pieces and gone completely chaotic.

And it's not the world you looked at a year ago and you don't recognize it.

And you know,

You freak out completely.

It's like,

Wow,

This is super interesting.

And what a blessing to have it in our lifetime.

You know,

You start to see it even this like really difficult time that most people will be like,

Fuck 2020.

It's not going to change in 2021.

I promise.

It's,

We will be tested,

You know.

And I think it's an amazing thing when you can look at what seems to be like the worst thing that's ever happened to us possibly,

You know,

I'm sure some people have lived to even worse than this.

As something that's kind of exciting and almost a blessing,

It's like,

Wow,

It's forced me into doing so many things that I would never have done.

We never have experienced them and never been able to explore and it's opened my eyes and it's opened my heart.

And that and if you can take that,

It's like,

It's wonderful.

And then once you're switching on to that within yourself,

I feel like you can kind of enable other people around you as well.

And they start to go,

Oh wait,

We don't have to say this is all bad and we have to be anti-this and conspiracy that we can actually go like,

Wow,

Let's see what we can play with in this particular moment.

Yeah.

Anyway,

Karen.

I was just going to say there's a really,

There's a completely different shift in energy as well when we do that.

Like I'm just feeling it right now coming from kind of having a fixed idea of what life is like,

Oh,

2020 is shit.

Oh,

You know,

The coronavirus,

There's conspiracy,

There's vaccines,

There's,

It can feel like walls,

Energetic walls,

But with the minute you,

You know,

You connect to curiosity and play and dancing with it,

It's like those walls dissolve a bit and it becomes more tangible.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Suddenly you're like,

Oh,

Now I'm feeling,

I'm feeling what I would perceive as what is real,

More real,

Which is this kind of sea of energy,

The sea of,

You know,

The ocean of consciousness and energy,

Which,

You know,

It doesn't have walls around me.

So that's interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I know you're feeling it on a,

On an energetic level,

The same thing because the mind can become very contracting that way when it,

When it has those narratives going on.

Yeah.

It can become very,

Very locked down.

And when,

When in a mind like that,

There's no opportunity to actually grow at all.

Like you can't,

You get,

You get caught by that.

And I think I remember reading a paper about it,

Someone,

Someone had done research on our DNA molecules and you know how like our DNA strands all twisted up and that everywhere along the DNA molecule,

There's,

There's codes for specific proteins and enzymes and things that get put out into the cells provided the thing that translates that DNA or takes the DNA through it can actually have access to those codes.

And our DNA tends to wind up really tight when we're in states of like,

You know,

Shut down or negativity.

And when we feeling a little bit more open,

A little bit more curious,

A little bit more playful,

The DNA actually unwinds itself.

Wow.

It starts to spread out a little bit.

So even on a biological level,

It makes evolution possible.

Wow.

When you are just a little bit more relaxed,

You know,

A little bit more like,

Wow,

Okay.

I'm,

I'm,

You know.

And I love that you use the word lockdown.

The mind locks down.

It's like,

Yes,

Exactly.

That's it,

You know,

That's exactly the experience where there's a,

There's a,

There's a,

You know,

A social lockdown that we can't move,

But,

And I recognize this in myself,

You know,

That's part of the struggle,

I guess,

As saving Greece,

As I was telling you before,

We've got another month of lockdown to go.

It would have been two months.

And there is those moments where the mind is locked down,

You know,

And if someone asks me how I'm doing and my initial response is exactly that kind of,

Oh,

A bit of a complaint,

A bit of a closeness.

Yeah.

I love what you're inviting there and the fact that,

You know,

And of course,

Of course the body responds,

Of course the DLA responds.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

You can see it in all your movements.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And another thing and,

You know,

A study which I will do my best to describe was that when,

When cells are put in a petri dish in an environment that is deathly for them,

Where they are bound to die,

They evolve,

Like they change,

Their genes change.

That's when something else switches on.

Yeah.

And I often feel,

You know,

Wonder if that's what we're going through as a collective too.

We're in this kind of very toxic,

You know,

Corrupt environment.

And then if we keep going down that road,

We're just going to go to extinction.

And so,

Yeah,

Something in us just has to really awaken to kickstart and to kind of evolve.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Totally.

And it's not necessarily a comfortable process.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

No,

It's not.

Yeah.

So,

Something jumped into my mind before,

Which was weaving in the topic of dance,

Because,

You know,

This is what you do and one of the things that you do.

And we've already touched on that word throughout the conversation.

How do you,

Well,

There's two questions in this actually.

First of all,

How have you seen,

You know,

How have you been dancing with this topic physically in your own practice,

In your own way?

And how could someone begin or weave that into their own life?

And I know you do lots of like recording,

So,

You know,

Feel free to speak about that as well,

Your podcast,

Etc.

Sure.

Well,

I mean,

Obviously,

I've got a lot of this stuff online if people wanted to access it that way.

But it's even more simple than that.

I mean,

That's a great way if you're wanting to explore.

But it really is to understand that the body has a much more graceful way of moving with these times than your mind does.

And where our minds get caught up on every little sort of,

You know,

Story on Facebook,

Our body just keeps moving.

I did a dance last night,

Actually,

I'm doing a class series called Past,

Present,

Future.

And we started it last night and we danced with the past.

And it was basically just an hour and a half dance where we kind of went from birth all the way to present day.

So quite quickly moving through memories and impressions that come up,

But not thinking about it,

Just letting whatever comes in the body come.

And what I noticed about it was how many times you get to a point in your life where your memory will stick in the mind.

And if you were just in the mind thinking about it,

You would go no further,

You would not get to present day in this past trip.

But because the body's moving,

It moves through that and it moves you then onto the next thing and then onto the next thing.

And so you can actually whip through your entire lifetime in an hour and a half without having too much,

You know,

Residue,

Sort of like stuckness that the mind would give you of like,

Oh man,

You know,

That happened to me 10 years ago and I'm still not over it.

It's like,

No,

The body is,

It's like,

It's now moved into the next year and the next year.

So it's a very,

Very beautiful practice because we hold so much of what's going on in our bodies.

You know,

The mind and whatever it's thought about this year is in your cells,

It's in your muscles,

It's in your posture.

So it's a great way to access it without having to think too much about it.

It's to start to just feel in your body.

So the easiest,

You know,

Dance practice is to really,

You know,

Put on some music and just be present,

Be present to what you're feeling in your body,

Allow everything that's there to be there.

Whether if you're angry,

Like there's a dance for anger.

And if you're sad,

There's a really beautiful movement for sadness.

And you know,

If you're feeling anxious,

You can actually let that be the starting point of the dance.

It's like,

Wow,

I'm feeling so anxious right now.

And I'm just going to put this song on and I'm going to hold my heart and I'm just going to gently rock from side to side because I can't really do much else with myself at the moment.

So I'm going to do what I feel to do.

And before you know it,

There'll be a curious little baby finger that starts to flare out to the side and suddenly the whole arm is moving somewhere else.

And then other movements starts to happen and the body starts to unwind and uncoil the knots that have been tied there.

And then suddenly you just start to feel that you're moving a little bit more freely.

And in one song,

You can be completely transformed,

Or at the very least one step better than where you were before.

Like a tiny step,

Less anxious,

A little bit more nervous.

Wonderful.

That's a shift already.

So I've obviously kept dancing the whole year.

It's been a necessary practice for me to do just because it does help to,

For me a lot of the times I find it difficult when I first see something new,

Like when someone first tells me about this virus and how deadly it is and how people's lungs are,

You know,

The fear mongering that was going on in the beginning because no one knew.

And like every piece of information in your mind is like,

Give me more,

Give me more,

Because I need to know.

I'm trying to work this all out.

And a lot of that stuff that came in,

It would create a complete fear and a real sort of like,

Ah,

Tightening up the body.

Like,

Oh my God,

We're all so,

You know,

So screwed here.

And then I would have to just go and dance to shake it off,

Feel more myself again,

Because you're connecting.

It's like,

Ah,

You have this body,

You have this resource.

This body is not just physical,

It's energetic.

It feels,

It connects to the energetics of the planet.

The sun still rose this morning.

It's set this evening.

The moon's coming up,

The planets are moving.

You connect on that level.

Ah,

I connect to like all the generations that have gone before me and all the ones that will still to come.

And suddenly you're in a slightly bigger place,

A much more expansive view where the virus and its little sort of situation of the year becomes a little piece of that dance,

Which you have to have because it's very real.

It's happening.

It's not denying it's going on.

But it's not so all consuming and it puts it back into its place.

So I find that the dance is an incredibly beautiful practice,

Being a somatic embodied practice rather than a mental intellectual practice.

I really like,

I don't resonate so much with,

I mean,

I know it's helpful for a lot of people,

But like to me,

Like psychotherapy,

Talking about stuff,

I'm so good at talking,

I can just talk around and around and around.

Yeah,

For years.

But the body has a way of moving it into something new,

Quickly for me.

And for many people that I've seen on the dance floor that I've taught and that have come to classes and radical transformation,

Sometimes in the space of 10 minutes.

So it's a great way to shift.

I think if you were thinking of killing yourself,

Have a dance first at this point.

And particularly if we all locked down in little houses and we can't get out and you can't do what you want to do,

And there's a certain amount of frustration in the body not being able to move.

So you don't need a lot of space,

You know,

Like a meter by meter square and headphones will be enough to really at least keep the energy flowing in your body,

Keep things moving,

Keep things from becoming stagnant and blocked.

So you'll feel more vitality and more vigor and therefore more creativity in the way you think and opening up to more possibilities of what you could and couldn't be doing.

Yeah.

It's like dances opening up the DNA.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Like that contracted DNA and then you dance and it starts to go,

Oh,

And then allowing more flow.

Yeah.

If you're really stuck,

You could do that.

You could go and you could get yourself,

Imagine yourself to be a very contracted piece of DNA and really let your body get into that position,

You know,

Like really tighten up everything and really contract yourself down and then hold it for a little while and then allow yourself to begin to move.

The body will very quickly unwind that.

It's like,

I'm not going to stay here for long.

I can't stay here for long.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

I know what you said about,

But it puts the virus in its place because you're writing into perspective because you're very right when it's in the mind,

It's so present,

It's in our news feeds,

It's on the news,

It's in our conversations,

It's everywhere,

You know,

And yet when you drop into the body,

It's like,

It's somewhere,

You know,

It's just somewhere,

But it's not here right now,

You know,

It's not here in this room,

It's in the mind and somewhere else.

Yeah.

That gives a lot of freedom.

And even if you were suffering from it and really,

Really sick,

It would still be a dance.

Then that would be the dance,

You know,

It's not like,

It doesn't exclude any experience.

But I think it does need to be put into perspective because I think the problem that we have with our technology and our ability to feed ourselves mentally with a lot of idea,

You know,

We probably see more now as humans than,

You know,

An entire lifetime,

Maybe 50 years ago of what a person took in by way of information.

And it's overwhelming.

And I don't think we've been particularly responsible about how we deal with it and how we process it as a race.

We haven't thought about the consequences of just,

It's too much information.

And largely for most people just leads to complete overwhelm.

And that you can see then in how many pills are being sold for depression or how many anxiety pills are out there on the market for people to take because they don't know how to deal with any of this.

And I go by this precept,

I was told it a long time ago,

And it really,

Really works for me is like,

Believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear.

So that's how I deal with everything.

Oh yeah.

Nothing of what you hear.

Yeah,

Nothing of what you hear and that includes what you read.

Yeah.

You know,

The minute someone says Facebook said,

You know,

You can dismiss it.

Dismiss the information.

Like Chinese whispers.

Yeah,

Exactly.

So,

But then as you say,

Like to create a broader perspective that we don't actually live by our information and by our societal structures and our norms.

We live by virtue or by grace of being part of the earth,

Part of nature,

Which sustains us by growing food that we can consume and with us giving back in that cycle.

And this is,

I think what ideally we should orient back to now because we are so disconnected from it that we're destroying it.

We're destroying ourselves,

You know,

Without seeing it.

And this is maybe a break now where you realize,

Wow,

It's all smoke and mirrors over here,

But it's very easy to go back to if I have no clean water to drink,

I'm going to be very thirsty and die of dehydration,

You know,

Or,

You know,

If I'm not taking care of the plants in my garden,

You know,

Or whatever it may be that feeds the connection.

It's a real opportunity to get back to that basic source that we are part of.

Or not.

Or not too,

Right?

Or not.

Or as you said throughout the podcast,

Like,

You know,

I mean,

I'm making this up,

But of course I have no idea either,

But sensing this awakening movement,

You know,

This kind of longing to evolve is this pull to expanding to kind of coming out of that contracted state,

Which maybe we've actually been in as a collective for actually a long time,

But without,

With the illusion that we're actually expanding,

You know,

We are free and actually we've been that DNA strand that's been contracted.

And perhaps,

You know,

That what's happening right now is,

Is either moving us,

As you said,

To kind of in either direction,

Like a further contraction until you can't,

You can't contract anymore and so you just have to surrender and to expand or for others into kind of a follow on or that expansion.

Yeah.

Awakening.

That to me does come down to again,

Which side are you swinging your sword for?

It's not like really about a battle of you against the bad people.

It's actually a battle within yourself of like,

You know,

Am I going to be light or am I going to be dark?

You know,

In each of my movements,

Am I going to bring myself closer to more expansion or am I going to just further contract and shut down?

And luckily that does also translate very directly into work like service,

Helping people,

Smiling,

You know,

You smile at someone that uplifts you,

You feel better,

Especially when there's a connection suddenly because they smile back,

You know,

Or,

You know,

You become a little bit more generous and a little bit more kind,

Even though we worried about our finances,

We're worried about like having enough at this point and that everything seems to be going into a state of lack and economies are,

You know,

In a whatever.

But even so that bring out more,

If I'm suffering,

So many people are probably worse off so many people.

Like I've got no illusions as to my privilege and where I stand in the whole wealth of this world.

Like the whole system is pretty crazy,

But I know that there are a good 80% of people less better off than me.

And so if I'm feeling a pinch,

Can you imagine the pinch they must be feeling?

So then it's like,

It moves me to go and see if I can help.

And,

And then in that movement towards helping you also start to unwind,

You open up again,

You connect,

You connect to like real.

And that to me is it's gold,

It's a golden opportunity in a way.

And that's why even if the whole world destroys and humanity goes down in a ball of flames,

In that last breath that you take,

You know,

You're going to be asked yourself,

Like,

Did I,

You know,

Try to open and bring and help and bring love and be love?

Or did I just get into that whole,

You know,

Without being too hard on yourself,

But like the whole greed,

The whole me,

Mine,

I got to have none,

Us and them,

All of that kind of stuff that really does create these boundaries,

Which are not serving.

It's obvious that they're not serving.

I think that's also this year has shown so many people.

So now that we see what are we going to do?

Great question.

Really good question.

Maybe a great question to actually close the podcast with.

Yeah,

That feels really good.

Is there anything that you,

Anything else that you want to add and,

And how do people connect with you in these times?

Well,

You can find me at my website is awakehumanbeing.

Com.

And on that website,

There are loads of dance practices and meditation and breathing and,

And practices that will just help support you in developing a bit of awareness and mindfulness and being able to look at what's going on in your life and move in a way in which you can process through things and also create from when you don't have anything to process to access your creativity and your creative side.

So practices to really support you.

So people can get me through through the website.

And my email address and contact details are there as well.

And I'm always happy for if someone wants to reach out and have a chat or ask any questions,

I'm always available and always up for a chat on this kind of stuff.

It's something that really I'm very moved by in my life.

It's really a driving force through most of my life of these questions.

Yeah,

You can feel it.

I love your wisdom and I'm really praying to the gods that arbitrary in March will happen to actually get to meet you in person.

And then of course,

Go into the Cederberg and have this incredible experience as well.

I really hope so.

Yeah.

Well,

That's the focus right now.

We'll see what life has in store.

Yeah,

We can only put out and ask and if it changes,

It changes.

Exactly.

We're open to change.

And yeah,

Exactly.

That's another one,

I guess,

Of the benefits of the gifts of this past,

As we said,

This past year,

Like being flexible,

Adaptable.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Make your plans,

But be prepared to change them.

Exactly.

And be easy with changing them.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Weddings,

Flights,

Retreats,

It's all like change,

Change,

Change.

Yeah.

Awesome.

Well,

Thank you,

Brian.

That has been a pleasure chatting with you today.

Thank you.

Thank you for your wisdom.

Thanks for having me on the show.

It's always a pleasure to be on and connect with you.

Yeah.

Well,

Speak very soon,

I'm sure.

Awesome.

Well,

Good luck there.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

That's it.

Thank you for listening.

So,

If you want to reach out and connect,

You can do that on Instagram at thetemple.

Love or you can email us at info at thetemple.

Love.

But for now,

Have a beautiful day.

Reviews

Wonderful talk with many useful insights- Thank you!!