Ready for your best life? davidji shares his 5 secrets!

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:20

Welcome to the Shadow and the Light podcast with internationally renowned meditation teacher, davidji.

davidji: 0:27

And heart healer and psychotherapist Elizabeth Winkler, as we guide you through our unique fusion of ancient wisdom and modern psychology.

Elizabeth Winkler: 0:36

Get ready to awaken your true essence, heal your wounds and transform your shadow into the light is here to remove all our demons and to bring new life.

Music: 0:54

The light is here to remove all our demons and to bring new life. The shadow and the light.

davidji: 1:06

Hi, davidji. Oh, hello there, Elizabeth. You know we get so many emails from people who reach out to us and say they want access to the things that we teach others. Elizabeth, as you know, is a world-renowned therapist and healer. I do spiritual and life coaching and train and certify people to become meditation teachers. Once in a while we’ll have a little event in some place, whether that’s Dublin or India or Mexico or in the sweet spot of the universe Carlsbad, california.

davidji: 1:46

But we’ve gotten so many requests to talk about some of the coaching techniques that I share and so many of the therapy techniques, and you do remember that powerful episode and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, go back to that episode where Elizabeth actually don’t know what I’m talking about. Go back to that episode where Elizabeth actually guided me through some deep, powerful, cathartic therapy which could only be described as miraculous. But I figured I would share with you some of the core coaching techniques that I have shared with my clients over the years and some of the really powerful steps that people can just take to start moving their life in a direction that helps them heal a little bit more easily, gain clarity in certain aspects of their life and step into their highest power. Hopefully, this will help you find your next gear. That’s a tough one. That’s a tough one.

davidji: 2:47

Sometimes we’re stuck and stuck and stuck and we just don’t have the right clarity of the moment to see. And then sometimes, as I said, it’s that divine conversion of message, messenger and timing. And so if you’re here right now, I believe we have the message for you and I believe perhaps in this moment we just might be the messengers, a trusted source of that message, and this is our little window to actually connect and help you transform. Remember, we transform the world by transforming ourselves. This is where it happens. So are you ready, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Winkler: 3:29

Sure.

davidji: 3:30

Okay, I’m ready.

davidji: 3:31

Yeah, so one of the things that I share consistently with people is this concept of taking a snapshot of where you are right now. Sometimes we are so focused on all these external things in the world, and sometimes we’re so focused on the past and the future, and there’s just no way that we can move thoughtfully or mindfully into the future unless we can own the present and abide in the present, and so that’s really a conversation that you can have with yourself of where am I right now? We know there’s that deep question who am I? And then there’s the second question where am I? Where am I in my life? Where am I in all the various arcs of my life? Where am I in the five realms of my life the physical, the emotional, the material, the relationship and the spiritual aspects of my life? And so one of the great tools that I suggest to really help you understand where are you right now is to make a list of the five to seven people who take up the most amount of room in your head. Now, maybe these are people that you interact with, maybe these are people you hang out with, maybe these are people you live with, maybe these are people that you are related to, and maybe in some instances, these are people who you just invite into your head and you keep them there. They’re living there rent-free Now. These may be nourishing people and it’s great to keep those people in your head. They may have passed to another realm of existence, but if they’re sending you messages of love and joy and inspiration, you stay there. You keep that going. Maybe it’s your God or your source of worship, or we could pick so many different things in your life regarding what this is, but why don’t we do that? Right now? I say five to seven, but you could at least start the process. Obviously not if you’re driving, and perhaps not if you’re chopping something, but if you otherwise have a pen and a piece of paper, maybe writing down who are the five people who really consume the most energy, take up the most space, who are living in my head. Remember, we let people into our heads that we would never let into our homes, and so this is an opportunity to just assess who am I spending my time with? And again, maybe it’s on Zoom, maybe it’s on social media, maybe it’s on a chat, maybe it’s in person and maybe it’s just in your mind If you wake up and think about somebody all day long, and if you go to sleep and you’re still thinking about that person, they’re taking up a lot of space, you’re putting a lot of attention on them, and so I invite you right now who are those people? Who are those five to seven? Because this is the nature of your entire relationship with people on this planet right now Snapshot of the moment.

davidji: 6:36

The next thing that you might want to step to is what are the five to seven places that you spend your time in? So one of them, Elizabeth, is this podcast studio here at the Film Hub in Southern California. We’re just about 40 miles north of Mexico here and eight miles from the ocean. This certainly is a sweet spot of the universe. We’re about three miles from the mountains. Here, that warm desert air is coming in, that cool ocean breeze coming in. I’m about 115 miles south of where you live right now. So this is a place that we spend time in, but we also spend time wherever our locations are, for our Zoom calls right With me. It’s either in my office here at the film hub or it’s in my backyard, my tree house.

davidji: 7:26

I spend a lot of time in those places. Sometimes it’s seven, eight hours a day, and I know you do as well, so it’s not just oh, I’m on Zoom. It’s like where are you sitting during all that stuff? So where are you spending your time? Is it perhaps in airports? Is it perhaps on airplane seats? Is it perhaps on this couch or this chair?

davidji: 7:47

You know I spend a lot of time watching TV. You know I’m a big streamer just got to say big streamer out there and so I spend at least I try to commit at least three hours a day to watching TV or streaming services. It’s a very important thing in my life. I learn a lot about life and about myself and about other people that I would otherwise not necessarily be hanging out with, so I would include some of those people as those people I’m hanging out with.

davidji: 8:15

I spent a lot of time last few months in this particular streaming service and I was watching Colin Farrell in Sugar, and I was watching Ben Mendelsohn and Juliette Binoche in the New Look, which is about Paris during the era when Coco Chanel and Christian Dior were in their most creative zones. They were being occupied by the Nazis during that period of time so powerful, and there was a lot of Nazi collaboration going in there and there was a lot of Nazi sympathizing going on in that show and of course I started with that show very highly judgmental. How could Coco Chanel be transgressing and collaborating? And then suddenly you realize, hmm, what would we do to survive just one more day to feed our family? So easy to point fingers and tell other people that their behaviors are wrong and to judge other people. But it really caused some powerful, powerful self-reflections for me and deeper, deeper insights into judgment of other people’s behaviors and actions. Both of those were like 10 episodes each an hour or so. That was like 20 hours of my life where I was sitting on the couch and those were people I was hanging out with. They were filling my head and I continuously thought about them. Every time I see an ad for Chanel in some newspaper or magazine, it still sparks inside of me this inner dialogue. So who are you hanging out with and where are you spending your time?

davidji: 10:01

And the third question that I ask people to put a little attention on the five to seven activities you spend the most time doing. Again, this is all about attention. Where attention goes, energy flows. What are you spending your time doing? Are you on social media. Are you taking walks? Are you working out at the gym? Are you reading? Are you watching TV or streaming something on your device? Are you playing games on your device? Where’s your attention? What are you doing? Are you in service to somebody else? Are you taking care of yourself? What are you doing? Are, and so who’s in your head? Where are you spending your time and what are you doing?

davidji: 10:52

That’s your life. You could draw a mind map of that, draw a little circle and put those things inside each of those bubbles and then determine okay, these are the three bubbles of my life. These are the people, the places and the activities that currently make up my life. Now, if you love your life right now, rock on. You keep leaning hard into that. But if there are aspects of your life, certainly within the five realms the physical, the emotional, the material, the relationship and the spiritual or, if you want to break that up even further into, if there are categories of your life that don’t feel nourishing to you, that’s when you drop a person or a place or an activity and bring in something new, or make the commitment to bring in something new in one of those categories, what do you think, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Winkler: 11:48

I love it. I think this is so important because we can’t shift something that we don’t see, and often we’re not paying any attention to these things that we do. We’re mindlessly just moving through our lives, and I just did a version of this earlier this week. We had an eclipse, new moon, and I took the time to pause pause which I typically do. At a new moon, full moon, new moons we have an opportunity to plant seeds of intention, and full moons we have an opportunity to release. Let go look at what’s coming to light, what’s ready to release in our lives. So, anyway, I looked at what you’re talking about and some of the things that I really wanted to shift.

Elizabeth Winkler: 12:31

I wanted to spend more time in nature. I wanted to spend less time on my device, walking outside with my dog or with my son or both, without phones, because I was spending a lot of time on my phone, spending a lot of time caught up in that. And I have clients. I mean TikTok, I’m not bashing TikTok, I’m just saying I have a lot of clients that can’t get off TikTok. I have couples who are talking about their partner, who can’t get off TikTok, and then I have a lot of teenagers. I have parents talking to me about their kids on TikTok and it’s firing, it’s wiring this addictive part of our brain and they know what they’re doing. The algorithm is working.

davidji: 13:13

That’s one of the things about social media, whether you find it good or not. And social media is great. It keeps us connected.

Elizabeth Winkler: 13:19

I agree with you it depends on how you use it, and a lot of people feel disconnected from it, so I think that we can use this conversation as a way to create connection through it, potentially.

davidji: 13:31

The original design was to connect us and addict us, and the follow through of that is that they learned how to gamify it. So, whether it’s TikTok or Instagram, whatever the platform is, they have psychiatrists and psychologists and neurological researchers on teams to help figure out how do we raise the dopamine level here and just give a little bit of a splash and then pull it back. And this is all through the curated feed that you see, if Elizabeth and I were sitting right next to each other and started on the same homepage and just started scrolling, we would very, very quickly be looking at very, very different images, videos and conversations because of everything we’ve ever clicked or liked or visited or had an opinion on in the past. So we have to understand one thing this is being curated. Your life experience is being curated, sometimes very effectively yeah, no, and you can look at your.

Elizabeth Winkler: 14:32

One thing that I often say to people is look at your explore page on instagram. That’s what you pay attention to, you want to like. It’s like you’re right down seven things, five to seven things. You can also look at your explore page. What’s on there? Is it dogs and spiritual quotes, that’s like, or is it games and shopping or whatever it is? I mean, take a look. That’s like an inventory of what you’ve been paying attention to and that’s what you’re going to be fed and so you can start to look at. Is this what I want to be ingesting? I think it’s important because we are so influenced. Obviously, they’re called influencers, right, and this is affecting how we see our lives and how we’re comparing ourselves against others, which is not the greatest thing. Obviously, it’s stealing us from our own self and our own truth and not allowing us to be the abundance of who we naturally are.

davidji: 15:25

I had to open my Explorer page. This is the kind of stuff it’s showing me. It’s a lotus flower on a pond that says no mud, no lotus, so they know how to get me. We’re in these modes. One of the things that we have not talked about yet, but like one of the true benefits of meditation, it’s an unplug from your dopamine receptors. Think of how we move through the world.

davidji: 15:51

Typically, if we’re engaged in some type of social media or platform that’s curating a life for us, we are being shown images that are designed to keep elevating our dopamine hits to calm us down. And then give us a spike to calm us down. Then give us a spike to calm us down. Then give us a spike. Then we become addicted to that and it’s very, very effective. There’s a way for us to counter it. We can just stop, put your phone down just for five minutes, close your eyes and meditate, or just turn, face a blank wall and stare at the wall. This will take your dopamine receptors down. It’s sending a message to your brain okay, nothing to see here, let’s relax. What that means is the next time you want to entertain yourself, you won’t need such a surge of dopamine to feel good. You might not have to get online and watch puppy videos, which is something that I’ll often do because it makes my heart sing. You could just look at your dog and get that same level of dopamine even less dopamine but you’ll feel more satisfied from doing that.

davidji: 17:11

Seven with these people, places and activities. But this has provided powerful shift in my life and for those that I work with, and we do it consistently. We do this on a quarterly basis. Some people do it on a monthly basis, because this is how your life can go off the rails Ever suddenly find yourself.

davidji: 17:23

How did I end up with these people as the people in my life? I want people who are rooting for me. I want people who are in my front row. I want people who are cheerleaders. I want people rooting for my success. How did I end up with such catty people, or people who are throwing shade, or people who are living more shadow than light with right? That’s why we named this the shadow and the light. It’s the part of you that you express, but you’re afraid to show it to anybody, and this is an opportunity for us to go. Why am I afraid to authentically express who I am with this group of people who I spend so much time with. I’m either going to change the way I think and feel, or I’m going to shift the people that I’m with.

Elizabeth Winkler: 18:03

Okay, so you have to go back and explain, because it’s such a great teaching of your teaching of who’s in your front row.

davidji: 18:10

Right. So imagine yourself on a stage right now, right? You’re on a stage in a theater, you could look back and everyone in that theater has come to see your world premiere. Maybe it’s a ballet or an opera or a reading or a spoken word or singing. You know. Here you are, you’re on the stage of your life and everyone in the theater are all the people in your life.

davidji: 18:33

And as you look across the theater, suddenly your eyes go down into the front row. These are people who paid up to be as close to you as possible. These are people who’ve made a commitment and as you look down at them, they all have bouquets of flowers in their arms because they want to celebrate you. They’re all on their feet, giving you a standing ovation. It’s a great, great moment. You know these are all people rooting for you.

davidji: 18:57

Remember the people in your front row, and we typically have between five and seven of them. Maybe a few more If you’re in a 12-step or a recovery program or if you’re a realtor, you probably have 25. But otherwise, most people have between five to seven people who are out there actively rooting for you. Just because you’re related to someone doesn’t mean they’re rooting for you. It’s an important thing to just remember. So, as you look down at your front row, these are people who are rooting for you to succeed. They may not agree with you on many, many things in life. Their belief systems may be different, maybe their favorite musicians, maybe the teams they root for, maybe even their religion is different, but they’re rooting for you to succeed. Maybe they voted for different politicians than you do, maybe they have a different vision of the world, but they want you to succeed. They’re happy. They’re never jealous when you’re thriving. They always feel great when you’re in win mode. And as you look across all of them, you’ll notice hey, there’s like a couple of people in the front row. They don’t have any flowers, they’re not on their feet, they’re just sitting there. They’re waiting for the next act. They’re just taking up space in your front row. We’ve got several of them in our life. It’s okay.

davidji: 20:16

At some point you’ll admit it but you have let some people in. Maybe they’re energy vampires. And remember the official rule of vampires. I’ve seen enough vampire movies to know this, and you probably have too. They can’t enter your home unless you invite them in. They’re not like zombies Zombies if the door’s open. They’re coming in Vampires. The door can be open, but they don’t enter unless you invite them in.

davidji: 20:41

These are people in your front row who are sitting there. Maybe they got their tickets comped. They didn’t even pay for them. They have no flowers. They’re not applauding you, they’re just waiting for you to end so they can, like, see the act that’s after you. Well, guess what? They’re not worthy of front row. These are people that maybe you want to move back a few rows. Maybe there are people there you mistakenly have allowed into your front row and should be moved out of the theater to another theater. You have to make that call, but certainly they’re not front row material. So front row is who’s out there? Everyone’s got them. These could be people who have passed to other realms. These could be people who you grew up with and you’ve lost contact with, but you know deep in their heart they’re rooting for you to succeed. So that’s a great thing. Who’s in your front row asking that question right now? Yes, and your pets and animals can be in that front row as well.

Elizabeth Winkler: 21:37

I always like to just pause and think about this from time to time, like who’s in my front row at this time, you know? And then another question that you’ve said to me at least, or I think in a teaching, is are you in their front row? So, to reflect on these people who are there for you, who are always cheering you on, am I in their front row, right?

davidji: 22:00

right, and you don’t have to be, but this is an opportunity to go. Oh, I’m taking that one for granted.

Elizabeth Winkler: 22:06

Someone’s out there really rooting hard for me and I’m not paying any attention to their life at all and then also going into the five realms, because people might not know, you really quickly move through the five realms and this is something I always do at the beginning of the year or when I’m planting. Intention is to look at the five realms and to really break it down. I think when people are feeling out of sorts and they’re like I don’t know, I don’t know what kind of change I need to make or whatever the five realms are so stabilizing, to helping people with that. So there’s the physical, which includes the physical realm.

davidji: 22:42

And why would we need the five realms? It can act as a filtering lens so that we’re not overwhelmed. If we’d say what’s working in your life, what’s not, it’s too big, it’s too much. But when we can then divide our life into the physical, the emotional, the material, the relationship and the spiritual, then suddenly it’s like oh, it’s more graspable.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:07

Right, but let’s break it down. Physical includes food. What you?

davidji: 23:12

eat. Physical is your sleep, your diet, your physical activity, your sex life, your sex life, your physical body, whether that’s like oh, I got achy knees. Elizabeth has this special roller that she brought down, since we’re sitting here a lot in our podcast room and she’s using that roller on her lower back and she’s using it on her spine, and even when she’s not, she’s sort of like squeezing her hands into it. The thing is literally the size of a softball, except it’s tubular. If a softball could be compressed and then made squishy, it would be that.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:48

It’s in my front row.

davidji: 23:49

It’s in her front row. It’s in her front row and she’s in its front row because she was trying to get me to like oh my God, this is the greatest thing in the world. So suddenly we realized these are the things that-.

Elizabeth Winkler: 23:58

I spent a lot of time with it, right, exactly.

davidji: 24:01

The roller. It drove here. Does that count? It drove here, it does, it does.

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:06

It does Okay, so we have physical.

davidji: 24:08

The physical. So think about, this could be your teeth, this could be your hair. And again, this is where you ask yourself, as you assess all these different components of your life, how satisfied am I with this and how much attention am I placing on this?

Elizabeth Winkler: 24:22

It’s also your sleep. I don’t know if we named it, yeah, because I mean this is a really important one. Because people come to me and they’re feeling out of sorts and I’m like, okay, let’s look at your physical realm, like how’s your hydration, how’s your sleep? You know, if we’re not dealing with that level, that’s like base level, right, your diet, all of these sorts of things, what you’re eating, what you’re drinking, you know what you’re not drinking, what you’re not eating, right, and how much sleep you’re getting and how good your sleep is, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s the physical.

davidji: 24:58

Yeah, and this includes all physical self-care. So are you getting a massage? I was watching these surfing videos. There’s this restaurant that I go to and they just play loops of surfing videos LTH and Oceanside. Don’t know if you’ve been there. Shut up, shut up. So I don’t know if you’ve been there. Shout out.

davidji: 25:11

Suddenly I’m watching this guy come through the tube and he’s got so much. His whole face has zinc oxide on it and so clearly this is a guy who spends I don’t know nine, 10 hours a day in the water, in the sun, and looked pretty kooky. And yeah, not necessarily, you know we would not consider, ooh, what an attractive look. Guess what this guy not gonna get skin cancer on his face. This guy is like there’s a certain self-care element. So these are things that other people might find disturbing, but we know they’re so nourishing and protective for ourselves, whether that’s you taking supplements, whether that’s you getting a massage, whether that’s you just stretching every once in a while or squeezing yourself into a really, really tight ball and then going and making the weirdest possible noise as you release whatever that tightened up energy. So that’s the physical realm. Then the emotional realm. This is so intense. How do we respond to the world around us.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:11

Reactivity.

davidji: 26:12

That is exactly it. That’s exactly it, and we had a whole episode on this equanimity concept. And are we responding proportionately to the world coming into us as we flow out?

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:26

Probably not Hysterical historical.

davidji: 26:30

Yes, do tell.

Elizabeth Winkler: 26:33

If it’s hysterical, it’s historical meaning. The bigger your reaction, the deeper your material probably is, so your reactivity might be.

davidji: 26:43

I love the way she just casually says the deeper your material might be, if it’s hysterical, it’s historical means that so many of these etchings, samskaras, wounds of our lives happened, you know, through our history, probably through an earlier age than we might even acknowledge. And when someone says mentions something or says something and you’re like so outraged or so offended or so deeply wounded, oh, it’s not this moment.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:14

Right Road rage is the perfect example. You know, someone cuts you off in traffic and you react they didn’t see you. I’m not seen, you know, or I’ve been rejected or whatever it is, and I’m not putting any of that down. I’m just saying it’s time to maybe take a look at that if you would like to have a nicer experience on the planet.

davidji: 27:35

That’s what this all comes down to. This is not a judgment of who anyone is, but these are things that hold us back. We’re all here. Wouldn’t you like to enjoy it a little bit more? Now, some people say, no, I need to be in extreme pain, because that’s where I get all my creativity from.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:50

Which is a belief system.

davidji: 27:51

Oh right, right, which is another.

Elizabeth Winkler: 27:53

Limitation.

davidji: 27:54

I’ve convinced myself of that one, but we can liberate ourselves through this process. Another lens is that emotional lens. So this is how we walk through the world in terms of our triggers and our components and what our response or reactivity mechanisms are. The third category is the material world. Now we think of that as cashola. It’s all about cash, it’s all about finance.

davidji: 28:21

Certainly it can be your retirement or your nest egg or your savings, or the fluidity of which you can access your money. It’s also your abundance consciousness. How do you see the world? And I’ll just ask you to ask yourself this one question Is the pie big and getting bigger, or is there only one slice left and you need to elbow your way in there to grab it? And depending on how you respond to that question shows pretty much what your orientation to life is how you do one thing is how you do many things.

davidji: 29:00

So certainly that component is a very, very powerful component and I think as we start to experience oh, can I have a more abundance mindset versus a poverty consciousness we start to expand a little bit more, because we start to receive more of the world, we realize it’s big, there’s a lot. Let me even open my arms and my heart and my mind even wider to receive it. So this concept of material realm when you look through the world, through this lens of the material realm, you can look at all their stuff, all your possessions, all your positions, everything you’re trying to protect right now that you have, whether it’s your car or some statue in the corner or a crystal that you have.

Elizabeth Winkler: 29:47

Something breaking, losing something losing something, right?

davidji: 29:53

I mean, think of all the things we’ve acquired that we then spend the rest of our life trying to protect or preserve or make sure it doesn’t get taken from us. It’s tough, it’s interesting and, again, this is not a commentary on right or wrong. This is a lens for you to look through life. You will find your own epiphanies, you will find your own aha moments from these, but, yes, this is a powerful tool just to help us filter all that stuff that’s in our lives, which brings us to the fourth one, the fourth realm of your life, which is our relationships. Number one, of course, the relationship you have with yourself. Next, your core relationships, the people that you either live with or are most intimate with, then the next and then the next. You can just keep drawing concentric circles further out and further out and further out, and ultimately it’s like the relationship you have with the planet, the relationship you have with your animals or the animals of the planet, the relationship you have with your genre or your community or the collective that you consider yourself a part of. And so relationships, and there’s only a few things we can do with relationships. We can birth them, we can nourish them, we can try to shift them when they’ve gone off the rails. We can try to refine them when they’ve gone off the rails. But even if we’ve let somebody go, the concept of closure is a little challenging, because we still have relationships with people who are no longer in our life Because, as Einstein said, energy cannot be created nor destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. We still have relationships with our exes, even if we’ve said goodbye to them. We still have relationships with those who we’ve loved in this life, who have left this earth realm and gone to some place else. So I think the concept of closure is overrated. It’s just the nature of the relationship changes. So even if we end a relationship, does it really end? Can it really end?

davidji: 31:52

I remember I made such peace with someone who I had hurt many, many, many years ago. I did fire ceremonies and baptisms and rebirths and forgiveness and wrote letters and, you know, did it all and my heart was clear. I felt good about it. And then, like one day, in the middle of meditation, suddenly she popped into my head and I was like, oh my God, she popped into my head and I viewed that as an opportunity. Okay, she popped into my head Shall I go back to? Oh, I should have cleaned this up, expecting her to like vanish into the ether, or shall I embrace her? And I thought, you know what? She didn’t pop into my head to trigger me. Maybe she popped into my head to say that we were okay. I don’t know. But I embraced her metaphorically in that moment.

Elizabeth Winkler: 32:41

Well, everything brings you to this moment. When I got a divorce, I wanted to help people divorce in a more mindful way, to do the untethering, the inner divorce. People get divorced on paper but then they hate their exes for the rest of their lives, so they’re still really married because they’re still in that argument with their relationship, right. But you can do the untethering, the inner work of letting go of these relationships, and then it becomes something different is what I feel, like you’re saying. It becomes something that brought you to where you are and then you can be grateful for the maybe, marriage and divorce, because it brought you to where you are and if you use that energy to grow, that’s what you did. You done all this work on it and it brought you to where you are and it evolved you, and so you can bow to it and say thank you.

davidji: 33:31

You know, Elizabeth, you have had a certain amount of loss, that you have used and channeled and redirected that energy into, and expanded it into, great acts and great life decisions and helping literally thousands of people Every single month. You’re helping thousands of people go through various healings and processes and it’s not always the case. You know, some people, their view of that heartbreak, just won’t let them get to a place of realizing or feeling that like wow, this is the defining moment responsible for every great act I’ve done since then, and it’s a perspective shift and I think it’s the fifth realm, the spiritual realm. It’s not even a relationship thing, it’s a deeper thing, because you and I have had this conversation and we’ve talked about it in several podcasts as well that this was the most amazing thing that ever happened.

Elizabeth Winkler: 34:40

Purpose. Purpose meaning Maybe the challenges of our lives are here to help us create something from it. I certainly did that with my divorce and you know I didn’t know that that would happen. I’ll just speak to it. I mean, I remember leaving a lawyer’s office and feeling worse. This is my lawyer.

Elizabeth Winkler: 35:05

I felt fear and more fear and more, just negative. I can’t even explain how it made me feel in my body and I’m like I can’t do this. I can’t, I cannot, I can’t do this, I can’t do this this way. I have to do it differently. And fear is the loudest voice in the room when it comes to divorce. So I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta figure out a way to do this. I’m going to do it myself and then maybe I’ll help some other people.

Elizabeth Winkler: 35:31

So it was from pain, it was from a very negative experience, unpleasant experience that I was having and, by the way, the lawyer was trying to help me. A lawyer’s job is to think the worst of the other experience, to defend you. That’s their job. I’m not putting any lawyer down. That is their job. But it doesn’t create the compassion and connection and freedom that you actually want when you’re releasing yourself from a relationship. You want to be free. That’s what you’re seeking truly, and if you continue to be in that realm of hate and fear, which it really creates so easily, you’re not free. And so, yeah, you can create purpose and meaning in the spiritual realm through these challenges that we all go through.

davidji: 36:23

Yeah.

Elizabeth Winkler: 36:25

Yeah, so the spiritual realm.

davidji: 36:26

Spiritual realm. So then suddenly we realize that in the spiritual realm, is our connection to God or the divine, or with your higher power, or whatever your highest perception of existence is, which may be your highest self? It’s everything that has to do with these deeper, deeper dives into the soul, into who you are and purpose and meaning, and the answer to the question why am I here in this moment? And this is the permanent soul in a realm of impermanence, so many of these different aspects. Suddenly we realize this is so expansive. And so to look at our lives through these realms again where am I thriving? Where’s my attention? What do I wish was different? Where am I struggling? This allows us again, snapshot of the moment. Just one more tool, and I think if you can use so many of these tools as awareness tools because that’s what we’re all trying to do, we’re just trying to shine a little light on some darkness If we can do this on a more consistent basis, we’re going to suddenly have greater joy and greater grace and greater ease in life.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:38

And to know that those things that aren’t working in your life. You’re not getting rid of anything, you’re using it. People always say I want to get rid of this. Well, that’s called resistance. It’s not going to work. What you resist persists. You’re not getting rid of it.

Elizabeth Winkler: 37:53

That’s the mud, that’s the fertile soil for your seed. So, whatever isn’t working, okay, let’s get with it. Let’s be with it, let’s allow it. Let’s look at the pain there, let’s look at the fear there, let’s look at that and breathe with it and see that it’s there. Maybe you’re noticing that from bringing your awareness to these realms or these people or these places or these activities and looking at, okay, this isn’t working, okay, I can accept that. Now allow yourself to sit in that. When you sit in the mud, you know no mud, no Lotus, which maybe you want to explain what that means, but it’s about a lotus cannot be born. A lotus is born through the mud, and so these dark places of our lives are actually the places that we birth beautiful things, and my story of the divorce is that my divorce created a lot of light for myself, my kids, my ex. We were able to create love through our divorce, and then I took that out to others and continue to. That’s just one little example.

davidji: 39:00

Yeah, sometimes we just have to walk through the muck to get to whatever. Did you ever do that Ever? Like, step into the ocean or a sea and there’s so much seaweed and you have to stride through the seaweed, the sargassum, and then suddenly you get to the other side of it and you’re in clear, beautiful, perfect water. Perhaps you haven’t experienced that and don’t know what I’m talking about, because Elizabeth’s looking at me going like and she’s a surfer. So you’d think, oh, she’s walked through lots of that, but I don’t know that. She’s surfed in sargassum seas and I have swam in Sargassum seas, not surfed in them. I’ve only surfed in Maui and here.

davidji: 39:39

When I suddenly look at these different aspects of my life through all these various tools, I encourage you to replay this episode and share this with the people in your life, because these are powerful tools for helping you make better decisions in your life. This is a chance to hold up the mirror. Allow you to say oh, this is what I’m doing. Again, there’s no judgment here. It’s like oh, this is what I’m doing.

davidji: 40:02

I was wondering why this was happening in my life. Oh, because I spend so much time over here. Or I was wondering why I don’t feel good when I go out with those five people because there’s that one person who throws shade on me the whole time. I need to adjust that. This is where we start to make the teeniest little shifts. Again, you don’t need to blow up your life, you could just make these little shifts, little adjustments, little course corrections, and then suddenly you’ll realize, oh, I think I sort of like where I am right now and I know I’ve dominated a lot of this conversation, but this was an opportunity for me to share to everyone, because I get so many questions about, like, what in the world do I even talk about with people when I guide them through or mentor them through or help them move from where they are to where they’d like to be? These are the steps we take in that journey, and now it would be time for our living the light.

Elizabeth Winkler: 41:04

What is it for you? These are your laser. I love your coaching. I think it’s incredible. It always kind of wakes me up in a way that I didn’t realize. I’m like okay, I’ll look at the five realms, and if I take pen to paper and I really look at this, I always discover something. So what’s your takeaway?

davidji: 41:22

Well, today’s takeaway is I’m whispering lovingly to you, it’s an invitation Hold up the mirror, you. It’s an invitation. Hold up the mirror Today. Just hold up the mirror and don’t be judgmental about what you see. If you think everything’s okay, rock on. And if you hold up the mirror and you’re like I don’t really like that component.

davidji: 41:52

Well then, this is where we don’t let go of anything other than our attachment to a limitation, but this is where we can suddenly learn so much about ourselves. But that first step holding up the mirror. My name is davidji. I’m here with the transformational goddess of alchemy and healing, the amazing Elizabeth Winkler. This is the Shadow and the hidden pathways of the heart.

Music: 42:33

And that secret place. That is where I find my start the light. If you’re gone, then we’ll go to the deep to take me to you. The light, the shadow and the light. There’s hope out in the rock bottom. You hold it as you’re holding me, but don’t rush past this moment. The darkness can become a friend. Love will come by your side and you’ll shine brighter than a million suns A million suns. You went through hell, but now you’re in the light. It is here to remove all your fears and to bring new sight. The light, the light In a night that will go to the deep To take you to new heights. The shadow and the light has come because it loves us. The light has come because it loves us. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The light has come to set us free. The shadow comes to set us free. The shadow comes to set us free. The light is here to remove all our fears and to bring new life. The light, thank you.