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"The human condition that we've all kind of grown up to know, we go through a caging process, we get put into cages, we're asked to color within the lines, follow the rules stick to a path—a plan. And with each part of our wild-ish nature that gets cut off, we essentially build one more bar around us." – Kelly Wilde
Deep dive conversations that celebrate self-experimentation and ask what it means to cultivate embodied wisdom.
Kelly Wilde
Definitely. So there are a few stories both in movies and in books that I loved in movies, I really loved the storyline of Matilda. I think I watched Matilda on repeat over and over again.
Jonny Miller
Let's did it. Yes.
Kelly Wilde
I always wanted to be able to make pancakes fly in the air. And then for books, I know I, my mom read to me a lot and no, I read a lot. I'm blanking on what all of them were, but I know Roald Dahl in his different poetry. Specifically, there's one poem called Hector the collector, which I was able to recite for many years. I wish I could do that now. And when I turned nine, Harry Potter came out. And that became basically a 10 year obsession.
Jonny Miller
with anything about the the storyline of Harry Potter, that kind of resonated with you, in particular, do you think?
Kelly Wilde
Yes, and it's interesting, because I've had some experiences lately that have brought me back into my Harry Potter World. And I think it was just this idea that there was something more out there. There is this other realm full of magic and crazy events, and just something, I guess, a deeper, richer existence, full of adventure all the time.
Jonny Miller
something beyond like the muggle world that our parents showed us. Like,
Kelly Wilde
yeah, I think around nine, you know, is when you're starting to get a dose of the muggle world a little bit more, your childhood whimsical mind is starting to get turned into some type of systematic, linear thinking. You've been in school for a few years, homework, rules, schedules. And it was the perfect time, I think, in my development for a series like that to come out to also anchor me in the imaginal realm for a little bit longer. Yeah. And I, I don't think it ever fully left me. So I'm very grateful, actually, to JK Rowling.
Jonny Miller
Nice, everyone to reread that series at some point, I am rereading it right now. Great. I'm halfway through the Sorcerer's Stone again. And what were what were the years that followed, like for you, what did you What do you study at college? And maybe what were some formative experiences, either in school or shortly after graduating that you think might have shaped who you are? Today?
Kelly Wilde
To really weighty question, I feel like it going back a little bit before graduating high school would be important. Since my high school years were really formative. And how I pursued studies, you know that I went to a performing and Fine Arts School, the Thomas charter school performing and Fine Arts Academy in Sacramento, California. And I was there from seventh to 12th grade. So 11 years old to 18. And it was a performing arts charter school. So you picked a major to go in, and I danced since I was three. So I was there essentially, as a dance, quote unquote, Major, which meant half of my studies were dedicated to dance and half of it was studied, dedicated to Educational Studies. So I grew up really committing myself to the path of dance and performing arts. And there was a large part of me that thought I would continue on and do that. And one of my earlier childhood dreams was to open my own tap dancing studio. That was my first form of dance that I started when I was three. And then as I got older, the visions, those ideas started to kind of crumble away and turn into other things. When I was 1516, I discovered my love for the digital arts. I took 2d and 3d animation classes and really loved being able to turn pixels into dancing objects on a screen and thought I was going to go to school in San Francisco, for 3d animation. And I had sights set on working for Pixar or dream work someday. And I went through, you know, 10th and 11th grade with that, as my as my new dream was to go to school and yeah, and kind of join the very early, exciting, new realm of CGI, and what was happening in the computer realm. You know, we had some of the first math books at my school and it was very exciting. But then, when it came down to actually applying to schools, my path changed abruptly when I learned that there was going to be no financial assistance from my family. And there was no college fund set up. And I was essentially asked to not even apply to for you for your universities. To just join a junior college, work part time and gradually get a degree, but not have school be the primary focus. And so yeah, my whole world actually turned upside down because I had committed myself so dedicated Lee to being a straight A student and getting top grades. And the college path was kind of the only idea on my map at the time, I didn't know of anyone else doing anything other than that. Obviously, there's a lot of other ways that you can pursue post high school years, which I learned later. So yeah, when I was 19, I went to just a junior college, one of the largest junior colleges in America, in Sacramento, California. And I just studied kind of whatever. In a way, I lost my path, I lost a sense of direction. And it was that lost of loss of direction by not going to university that actually shaped the majority of my entire adult life.
Jonny Miller
Wow. Well, I thought it'd be interesting for us to use the lens of what David white calls the three marriages, which is a book that we're both in love with. And he talks about the self work and relationship, and how we're invited to hold a conversation with each other as we explore our life and our story. How does that sound? Sounds great. Okay. So let's maybe start with your conversation with self. And something that I've always admired about you is this relentless commitment to seek out your own shadows and find your edges, whether it's through meditation retreats, or the more recent vision quest, or, or hosting nudity workshops. There's, there's this sense of just wanting to know yourself, that is I really respect. So first, you have a sense of what might be driving you in this path of self inquiry. Because there are lots of other people who would you know, enjoy coasting, and enjoy just being comfortable in life, what do you think there's something like fueling.
Kelly Wilde
So I think it's actually kind of goes back to that pivotal moment after high school when the idea of university was no longer an option. And at that point, life sort of became this blank slate. And I did get on autopilot for a brief period of time for maybe about a year, year and a half, where I just worked as a waitress and went to community college, dated a guy 10 years older than me, was drinking smoking pot, not really doing much at all with myself. And at a certain point, I saw the way my life was headed, early marriage, probably children at a young age, mortgage, maybe a two year degree, maybe a career that would feel fulfilling, but probably just a career that would pay the bills. And a voice inside of me, grew louder and louder. And it was just this knowing of this, isn't it? This isn't it. And I don't know what it is. But you're gonna go and find it. And so in a matter of months, I quit my jobs, and did my partnership. And I packed up everything in my little Nissan Sentra, drove across the country and moved to work at Walt Disney World. A college internship and it introduced me to, you know, 7000 other college age students from different backgrounds from all over the world. And I think it was that experience that just showed me, you know, one, on one hand being at Disney, which is the land of imagination, and to being around so many different cultures and ethnicities, and working in the hospitality industry that just really introduced me to the idea that there are many ways that life could go. And I think something about that road trip, gave me this early Explorer, and adventurer mindset. And that really started to unfold in the years afterward, when I eventually moved to Colorado and learned that I loved the outdoors and action sports and all of these different things. But and with my story, there's lots of twists and turns. I've lived in many different places. You know, to go back to one of your initial questions, I went to seven colleges, ultimately, I eventually did get a degree in Global Business Management, international business, and, you know, four or five certifications since then. So just this insatiable desire for information for new experiences, and at first I thought it was quest to, to find my thing. And every time I would go down a certain path, and I'd get a little bit down the way I'd eventually say, no, this, isn't it. And so I jumped into another lane. And I did that over and over and over again. And since nothing was really fulfilling me on a deeper level, I did have this identity crisis of where do I belong? And what am I supposed to do. And only now, you know, 13 years since graduating high school do I finally have the awareness to just say like, I'm an explorer of all of life's offerings. And my soul is here to truly experiment and taste a lot of different things. And I consider one of my gifts versatility. And in order to truly be versatile, you must experience a lot of things. So I'm just, I'm someone who needs to say yes to new opportunities, new excitements to follow the threads of what is alive in the moment. And I've learned to bring some structure to that. So that it actually does move my life in a more productive direction versus just wandering aimlessly. But the skill set of listening to that voice that is craving, something beyond coasting, more monotony, has become my ally. Yeah.
Jonny Miller
Beautiful. And it, it makes me think of when I first when I was graduating university, I saw a lot of my friends going into these jobs in the city and had a similar moment of like, seeing 10 years down the line. And just being terrified by following that path, and almost wanting to do everything in my power to go headlong in the opposite direction. Even though I didn't know what that direction was.
Kelly Wilde
I really resonate with that, because there was plenty of jobs that I would have, where I could look up the management chain, and see, you know, who was middle management, who was upper management. And even if I was a ground floor employee, and it could have been lucrative and lots of perks, or whatever golden handcuffs would come with the experience of going up the chain, I could put myself in their life. And I would oftentimes view their whole life holistically and say, how's their marriage? How's their health? how their friendships? Do they have any sort of balance with their passions and their hobbies? And most, probably every single time, I would look up and just say, like, hard, no, I don't want their life. So So why continue? So I would do the job to gather the skill sets. And once I, once I kind of hit a plateau and what my position could do, or what it could offer me, I would typically leave, it wouldn't be well, let me go to another position and learn other things. Because I had a tendency to learn multiple positions just by being in one, just by being in the proximity of other people doing their jobs. So it was not a popular employee. By having that, and I my resume became a mess. And, you know, at this point, I proudly believe I'm unemployable. And that's great.
Jonny Miller
Yeah. Yeah. And was there a time? Or do you think there was a point where that seeking in the external world whether it was for the perfect job or the perfect vacation? Do you think that seeking turned inwards at some point and the the almost sense of adventure and a sense of questing, you started looking inside? Or do you think that was always there to some degree?
Kelly Wilde
No, there was definitely a phase where the outer adventure turned into the inner adventure. And it's interesting, because there was a point where I almost launched a newsletter called the inner compass. And that was maybe around 2018. But I think it really started around. Yeah, 20 2016 2017. After I'd graduated college, it took me until I was 23, to graduate college. And afterward, I worked a string of different jobs, tried my hand at launching my own subscription box startup, which failed. And once that failed, it was my first real attempt to do anything on my own. And I thought I had all this ego because I had just won a series of business plan competitions in college and 160 $5,000. And had all these eyes on me. I were looking at me to be the next big entrepreneur that emerged from my university, and it was something they really prided themselves in. And so I felt this immense amount of pressure to be something and when I failed at that, and I had, I was in debt and I just had, like, the creative ideas had stopped. And my willpower just was done. And I really hit a rock bottom and entered into what what I now understand was a dark night of the soul and a couple years of on and off again, depression and it forced me to Overtime look inward. I didn't know that's what I was doing. But in the beginning, yeah, when the when the outside world isn't offering you answers, I think the only thing you have left to do is to sit with yourself at night before bed while it's dark, musing over the way your life has gone so far. And it begins the inner adventure.
Jonny Miller
That feels like a nice segue to the 10 day silent meditation retreat that we both attended in wahaca. Mexico last December. So I'm, I'm curious, if you think back, what were some of the questions that were alive for you when you went into this retreat? And what was the experience of meditating everyday for so many hours like, and and what emerged during the course of those 10 days?
Kelly Wilde
Yeah, I think there was just a curiosity of what the experience was going to be like, obviously, you had done a 10 day silent before, of upasana. And a lot of people that I have looked out over the last few years and respect in their inner journeys have all done something similar. So I had signed up for upasana, a few years prior, but then through several circumstances I wasn't able to attend. So it was on my radar to do one. And no particular questions. Aside from Can I do this without having a dedicated meditation practice books? And I sit here for this many hours throughout the day, and just be with myself? silent 10 days, what will happen? Those were kind of the big ones. Can I do this? And what will happen? And yeah, there was some, there was a lot of nerves, I think going into it a lot of nervousness. Partially because you and I, and our partnership had just gone through a little bit of a rift right before and there was a question of whether or not we were even going to stay together. You know, this was November of 2020. So we are in the heat of the pandemic, we were living in Mexico, which neither of us really found our thriving pace and our people and community and routine. And so it was a bit of a help me get helped me with clarity helped me know what to do, because I'm about to pull the eject button on the life that I'm currently living. And I if I do, I don't know what I'm going toward? Do I stay? And if I do, what is that going to ask me? What do I need to ask of the circumstances? And please help me find the strength and the clarity to know what's next.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, I mean, Wow, those are, those are some big questions. And what, what emerged for you towards the end of the, obviously I know some of this. It's valuable to share,
Kelly Wilde
of course. Yeah. So I mean, firstly, just sitting in meditation for six ish hours a day, and granted from what I know about, but personally, it's not nearly as difficult as Vipassana, but the style at this retreat center, but I had some really powerful meditation experiences. One day, I felt like I merged with all of consciousness and I became the ocean. And I connected with the consciousness of the trees and the plants. And it was really wonderful. And then all these other days, I was having just a lot of physical, energetic, discomfort, feeling tension, chronic tension in my body, I became hyper aware of the way my nervous system clutches on in certain ways, and feeling like my head became this helium balloon, and I was lifting from my chair and just really getting disoriented at times. But then also experiencing these teachings from re Daya and different spiritual traditions with poetry being read. And, you know, it's kind of lost because I'm new to this, quote, unquote, spiritual path. And I've never followed a particular discipline. At the time, I really didn't know much about Rumi, and cashmere shy was tradition, or, yeah, really, any of it. And so half of it felt like a foreign language. And near the end, and just sitting in silence for nine to 10 days helps you come into a place of stillness, and the whole week was focused on opening our hearts. And, you know, it's like cracking away at the walls around your heart. And then on that final day, reflecting and meditating on death, on our eventual mortality. And what was the what was the passage you read from her from your from
Jonny Miller
Ken Wilber? bracing, grit, I think
Kelly Wilde
Yeah, yeah, around being next to his wife on her deathbed as she's in her final stage of cancer. And she knows she's going, everybody knows she's going and just his words of reflection around that and really feeling like viscerally feeling for the first time ever, that I am truly going to die someday. And that my time here is limited. And it could be a month, a year, a couple decades, we don't know. And when our when our teacher had us reflect and contemplate, what would you do? If you knew you were going to die in one year from now? How would you live your life? If you truly knew that? And that's such a powerful question. And you can approach that question from the mind that that day, because of it being the 10th day, the answers truly came from the heart. And for me, it felt like, you know, being in the silent meditation hall, you just heard people like it was like popcorn, cracking and all that. And all the different corners of the room. There's like, 30 of us in the room. And you could just hear each person breaking down at their own interval with the weight of what that question was asking why, on the other side of the room, yeah, I'm on the women's side, on the left here on the man side on the right. And I just, you know, we're also not supposed to be looking at each other and making eye contact, but I'm looking straight at you. And I'm sobbing. And just the first two things that came to mind where I would do my best to heal my relationship with my family. And I would marry Johnny. And it just was this, I'm done. I'm done fucking around. Like, I'm ready to grow up. I'm ready to commit, I'm ready to stop playing some of the more adolescent games that I have been playing for a long time, not consciously. And I knew that commitment and spending quality time with the people I love. was the way I'd want to spend the last year of my life.
Jonny Miller
Well, yeah, I'm getting, I'm getting chills just remembering, remembering that weekend. And shortly afterwards, we actually both then went straight into the darkroom. I did attend HD and I needed a five day stint. And yeah, that whole experience led to proposing to you and getting married 12 days later. quite the adventure. Now we're sitting here seven months into, into the marriage. Yeah. Wow. So staying on the thing on this theme of self, I'd love to talk about the the Animus vision quest. And to give some context for listeners, I interviewed bill Plotkin about I think, four episodes previously. And he talks about why he believes these wilderness rites of passage are so needed. But I'd love to hear again, what were your what were your own personal motivations for signing up for this vision quest? And maybe you could paint pictures for paint a picture for listings a little bit like what was what was that like?
Kelly Wilde
Yeah, so a 10 day silent meditation retreat does not solve all of your life's existential problem. Spoiler,
anything it might brings more of them up?
Yeah, well, I've just been on this inner journey now for a handful of years. And without mentorship guidance, a clear direction of where to go truly a pathless path, as David white says, and really self navigated, self guided, which is great. It's given me the gift of resilience and creativity and curiosity when it comes to healing. But it's also been super lonely, and has took me taking me down some very strange places. I've exiled myself from different relationships. And yeah, it's like stumbling around in a dark room sometimes banging your shin in your head against walls. Which we did in the dark room. Yeah, yeah. And I just felt like, like, there was still big unknowns about who I actually am. And so I signed up for the quest. Only about a month prior that I actually get in. So about end of April, I signed up or I tried to get on the waitlist about a month prior to that, so sometime in March, and I found out about it. Yeah, early in the year 2021. And it was just this instant. Yes. I was also reading Bill's books, which you had nudged me several times. To pick up and read. And it's, you know, the perfect that experience when the perfect book lands on your lap at the perfect moment, and you need exactly what it's telling you. And you see your journey and your life reflected in the words so eloquently. And I just felt like I was staring at a framework that explained what I had been navigating and some of these bigger existential questions that I had been having. And questions like, Who am I? And what am I really here to do, and I believe deep down that I have a purpose, a unique purpose, and I just can't quite put my finger on it. And if I don't figure it out, I don't know what I'm gonna do. It literally was like, if I can't figure this out, I don't know what I'm gonna do, I have to figure this out, or at least get closer to smelling the truth. And something I've learned along the way is like, you'll never fully touch it. But it's like you're sniffing out the soul, you're sniffing out the truth. And so I signed up really, as a way to meet myself in the depths of a much more profound experience than, you know, a plant medicine journey over one day, or just a couple of days could give me something that would truly reshape my amateur, not amateur, but young ego, my juvenile ego, to be more mature. And when I read that, in Bill's book, in his latest book, the journey of soul initiation, how it's really about reshaping the ego to be an agent of soul, that I said, Yes. Because school did not give me the tools to become a mature and adult. My family didn't prepare me to be a mature adults, our society hasn't done that. And here, he was offering this very unique yet, which is felt like profound truth to me about how to actually grow up. And I had had a few experiences in 2020, where I really met the edges of my integrity, and was very much confronted with bad behavior on my part, and having to really look at that and own that catapulted me into this. another layer of my inner journey of saying, it's time to grow up. What does that mean? And I've come across, I think it's it can wilbers clean up, grow up,
Jonny Miller
wake up. Show up.
Kelly Wilde
Yeah. So you know, similar to that, but the languaging of that didn't really work for me. And Bill's model is rooted in, in the earth and in the wild, and I connect so deeply to the natural world. So it just felt like, like a hell yes, I made this experience. And then when I found found the quest that I ultimately got on in Utah, at the end of May, it was over my 32nd birthday. It was so perfectly placed between our trip in Mexico and our our move to Bali. And it just felt like if not now than when. So it was all put divinely in my path, I believe.
Jonny Miller
Yeah. Beautiful. And could you could you kind of share for listeners, what was some of the the practices or rituals or how did the guides lead you kind of into that place where you were ready for the the four day fast? What were some of the questions they were? They were asking? Right, yeah, so the
Kelly Wilde
preparation really begins before you're there. Something animist does very well is the preparation material that they give you, in their welcome emails. I think the document was called psycho spiritual preparation. And it was like 20 pages long, and it just had the most profound questions to ponder on different activities to engage in, that would really help you separate from your attachment to your past identity and your past life, the life that you are consciously saying, I'm willing to leave this now. And so the idea of going into the wilderness and as they say, crying for a vision, praying for a vision, of of the true you have the deeper self, of your mythopoetic identity and soul. In order to actually be gifted with those visions. You have to be ready to receive them because what they're going to ask of you is nothing short of everything. So you have to be both ready and willing to say goodbye to everything that you once knew to be true. So in those days and weeks of preparation, which a bit unfortunately, you know, we were in the midst of moving internationally and we're staying with friends and I wasn't able to accomplish it with the depth and level of presence. But I wish I could have. But I did my best. And I think I had been preparing for this type of experience for some time. And questions like, what chapter of your life is coming to an end? What do you think is being asked of you now or being birthed through you? How has life seasoned you to go in and cry for vision? And not just for yourself, but for your, for your people, for your whoever it is, you're here to serve? And if you don't know who that is, take a stab at it. Who do you think and it could be people, places, animals, the more than Earth community are the more than human community. And so yeah, by the time you actually get to the quest, you are primed, you're on the descent, as they call it, you're going down, you're going inward, I said goodbye to you. I said, I had a garage sale, I sold a lot of my things. I kind of said goodbye to my family, but not really because it was a hard conversation to engage in to tell them what I was actually doing. But internally, I was ready to come out with revelations that would, that could have completely altered the trajectory of my life. Whether that was moving somewhere radically new, or changing my name in crazy ways, entering into a new profession, I didn't know. So I just allowed myself to go on as a clean slate. So when we actually began the adventure, and arrived as a group, we start by unplugging ourselves from what we call middle world dialogue. So we're not talking about politics, we're not talking about our careers, we're starting to go by our soul names. If we didn't know what those were, we just chose names that weren't our actual given names. And we just started to detach ourselves from our past identities, and begin to connect with the deeper longings of the soul. What are those big questions that you're here to put out into the canyon. So you're not necessarily looking for answers, you're just giving your questions out, and receiving whatever comes back. And if nothing comes back, you receive that too. And so another part is, we are actively trying to change our state of consciousness, to go from our middle world consciousness of task oriented, right brain, you know, strategic thinking, to seeing the subtle signs of metaphor, myth, seeing images, connecting with dreams, the subtleties. So we're doing things like trance dance ceremony, dream work, council circles, wandering for hours by ourselves out on the land a whole bunch of really beautiful soul craft practices, as they're called. And if someone could just read soulcraft, or the journey of soul initiation, to, to learn a little bit more about what might be involved in the actual vision quest.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, beautiful. And, um, as you're saying, saying that, it makes me think they are practices that are like, specifically designed to just shift our attention from the right hemisphere stuff into our left hemisphere, and just be more receptive. And it's almost like a new way of experiencing the world, in some ways,
Kelly Wilde
completely. And I would say, it was incredibly humbling for me, because I had approached my healing and my path of self and identity. From a very practical, you know, framework, even even things that do alter my consciousness, say, going to sit with a shaman and do plant medicine. Like, it's still a kind of a tactical decision, right? Like, oh, I heard that this could achieve X, Y, and Z. So I'm gonna go do this now. And, and then at the end, I'm like, Okay, well, what happened? And how am I different? You know, very, like results oriented. And in the canyon, I'm so grateful because the other participants, my soul family, as they truly are. We had a spectrum of experience levels. So there were people who had already done a handful of quests, and they really became models for me to understand this process, because it's very nuanced, and it's very subtle, and I had not been accustomed to slowing down to the level of being able to notice subtleties. And so I actually feel like the whole time I was sort of this baby deer learning how to walk in the realm of soul. And just so confused, you know, for instance, we go out on a walk Under and someone comes back and says, I saw this rock and the rock looks like the woman from my dream. So I spoke to the rock and and then she sang back to me in the song. And then the bird flew overhead and landed on this branch, which looked like the snake and just like, and then it moved me to tears. And this is the poem that came through. And I would just be mouth open, like, just in awe, like, What do you mean, that was your experience? Like it sounds so mythical, and it really is you're entering into a mythic mindset. And myth has, it's only now starting to make sense to me. Here's a good way of describing it. I think up until the vision quest, most poetry did not make sense to me. I just felt like grammatically incorrect sentences on pages. Unless it was, you know, Hector, the collector and Rod ball, I understood Roald Dahl's poetry, but you give me like, really gay, or Rumi, or David white. And I and I don't understand it, right. And finally, in the, in the vision quest, because we, we read our guide read us a lot of poetry, I started to actually be able to feel the words and the resonance of them and what what it was asking of me and how it was reflecting deep longings within my soul. So the whole time was me kind of oscillating between the way my ego wanted to control the experience, and force its projections. And it's goal oriented, to do list on it, and then softening into a much deeper current. And so it really, I think, was just my first it was the appetizer, vision quest of my life, I needed to experience that to even have an understanding of what is being what is asking of me. I fully intend on doing another one in a couple of years. Yeah.
Jonny Miller
Wow, it makes me think of there's a line by David white, he says, His way of describing poetry is language that we have, which we have no defense. And it's like, if you are trying to figure out the meaning and understand it, as we were taught to do in school, then it doesn't really land. But it's like you have to be able to let it pass your defenses past the like, rational brain.
Kelly Wilde
And I think you have to sink deeper into your own experience, to see yourself in it. Otherwise, it is just words of disguise experience. But really, it's such a such a subtle mirror to our own experience, if we're willing to let it in letting those defenses down
Jonny Miller
completely. Yeah. And I think that reminds me of we've been both reading this book, the women who run with the wolves. And something I know, you've been thinking a lot about this, this idea of rewilding. And you've, you've even kind of created this, this framework, to think about the process going from from caged to feral to wild. And I wonder, could you speak to each of these stages, and maybe, as you just said, help listeners to relate to where they might be in that kind of framework in their own life.
Kelly Wilde
Definitely. And I want to connect it to what we were just talking about with the vision quest. Of course, everything's connected. Yeah, so at the, you know, not that there's a goal to the vision quest. But one of the hopes one of the prayers is that you leave with a better understanding of your mythopoetic identity, which comes to you in the form of symbolism, imagery, a feeling a felt sense, a dream, you know, it's not so direct. And on the very last day that we were there, I was gifted, it's truly a gift to be able to connect with these things. I was gifted the image of a very savage version of myself, this wild, Primal woman, dancing naked in the forest, naked, covered in mud. And there's, you know, some more things there. But she, it just felt like an aspect of my soul that needed to be expressed. So coming out of the canyon, you begin x exploring these images and like trying them on and letting them work on you. So going back and being with her and visiting her through imagination, journeys, and just having her in my mind's eye, and letting the world sort of show me what's next, the next step. And I had started reading women who run with the wolves while on a yoga retreat, just about two months prior. And that first chapter, my whole body He was electrified, as in as if it was just this deep reconnection with this idea of wild. And if anyone if no one's read that book like oh my gosh, men and women, all ages need to read that book. And I just really connected with there's a, there's a wild part of me that hasn't been expressed that I don't know what that means. So then going through the vision quest and connecting with savage daughter, as I've called her, I began reading the book again when coming out of the canyon, as well as a few other books around women really rooting down into themselves. So I read if women rose routed by Sharon Blackie and wild by J. Griffiths cuz there was also a whole thing around roots and the roots of trees and rooting down that came out that was really prevalent as a theme. And so connecting with these different books, and seeing my own journey reflected in the mythic stories that they were telling, both if women rose rooted, and women who run with the wolves tells a lot about fairy tales and myths. And I'm trying to understand the mythic language more and see myself reflected in it because it does feel like a pathway to self awareness and healing. And the way that Clarissa pinkola, esta is the author of women who run with the wolves the way she describes the different stages of a woman's wild, the sabotage of a woman's wild nature, the wild itself that's within her and what it what that means it's a cutting off from your creativity, from your sensuality, from your likeness, from your intuition, from your sensing of what is real, and what is right from your connection to the earth, from cycles, seasons, from truth. And it felt like the archetype of all archetypes in so many ways, like you unlock the wildish nature within you, and you connect with the healthy archetypal energies of everything. And I don't know if that's true. It's the way I'm interpreting it right now. And yeah, the way my mind works, I just started seeing these three distinct stages of my wild journey. Starting with being very wild as a little girl, we all begin wild. And I think that's the beauty of all of this wild is our natural, inherent nature. So we come in, and we're crazy. And we're connected to source and we're intuitive and asked for what we want. And we are Earthlings we are creatures, right. And then through conditioning, and society and family and
what it means to be human, I guess, at least the human condition that we've all kind of grown up to know, we go through a caging process, we get put into cages, we're asked to color within the lines, follow the rules stick to a plan, a path, a plan. And with each part of our wild ish nature that gets cut off, we essentially build one more bar around us. And over time, they become these invisible bars that that are unconscious, they get programmed into our nervous systems into our belief systems. We're not even we don't recognize that we're operating on them. It's the people like you talked about in the beginning, who are on autopilot who are coasting, I would argue that those people are in cages. They might be very cushy. like super, super lovely cages for them, they've got their needs met, they might have a lot of money, they might have luxuries, you know, but at the end of the day, is it really nourishing the deeper longings of the soul? And and the people who I who hit midlife crises and existential crises, or whatever ages, those come at, I think are having the awakening that they're living in some type of cage, both of their own creation and the creation of others. And that awakening that awareness that I'm in a cage, okay, I don't want to be in this cage. Okay, I don't know how to get out of this cage, but I'm going to start figuring it out. And I believe that is what initiates the inner journey of finding the path of self sovereignty, of really learning how we are the creators of our own destiny. And that's a road full of a lot of potholes and uncertainties. But anyone who's walked it for a long enough period of time will tell you that eventually, they find that sense of freedom from other people's rules, and they learn to navigate their own bars, I guess, through understanding the protectors that live within them, and the stored traumas and the unhelpful beliefs that kind of rule their lives. And then the more awareness that we have, the more freedom that we experienced, I think we become feral. So feral is the, you know, it's the zoo animal who finally gets let out of the zoo. It's the domesticated animal who runs away. I think using animals is a perfect metaphor for this. And what happens when a previously domesticated or caged animal all of a sudden is in the wild, they don't really know what they're doing. They're their intuition, their instinct may not be quite as intact, had they, they had grown up wild, you know, they might cause some problems, they don't know where to go, who their pack is, who they're who they can trust, how to fend for themselves. And so my feral years, I believe were the majority of my 20s I think I actually escaped the cage around 19. And but then I was feral for quite some time, and that feral was a dangerous place to be. Because I was both. I was like half domesticated and half wild, where I befriended people I shouldn't have took opportunities that weren't mine, my instincts were injured, I was taken advantage of I was in partnerships that were had certain levels of abuse in them. And I just found myself on different slippery slopes of not really being able to fend for myself correctly. And so I'm in this phase now where I'm consciously rewilding, which means I'm taking a look at those different aspects of my feral nature and the parts of me that might still be caged, and really tending to them from a more mature place, and proactively learning how I can be a mature member of the wild community. And I believe that wild is maturity. It is a generative, resourceful, collaborative, creative place. It's the path of eldership. It's the path of true adulthood. So if you read Bill's book, he talks a lot about true adulthood and true elderhood. And I think being wild is its inner sovereignty. And once you've achieved some semblance of inner sovereignty, it's inevitable that you're going to start caring for people other than yourself, you're going to look to the earth, you're going to look to the animals, you're going to look to the
less fortunate, and you're going to start doing your part to help. Because you're no longer a victim, you're no longer being attacked by an invisible enemy, you have the resources. And it's not necessarily a perfect linear line of first your cage, then you're feral, then you're wild. I think we dance between all of these. And there's going to be certain parts of you in one and certain parts of you. And another. I think, when you get to maybe true adulthood and true elderhood, like you're more or less in wild. And I think we probably spend a lot of time in the feral once we, I think a lot of people spend a lot of time in the cage. And then without the right that's why I'm just so passionate about there being mentorship in the healing space in the awakening space, because without it feral is dangerous to both the person and to those in their presence. their family, their friends, their loved ones. Yeah. Yeah,
Jonny Miller
yeah. I mean, I just think of like a feral Fox or an animal that's that's injured. Like, it's, it tends to be violent as well. Like, they'll, they'll bite, they'll attack they'll be angry because they've been hurt. And they'll
Kelly Wilde
Yeah, it's very mimimi I need to I need to feed, I need shelter, I need the things and I will take down whatever it takes for that to happen. So you know, they start learning that they need things and that they, they're resourceful that you start learning resourcefulness and resilience and positive qualities are truly developed in the feral stage. I just think that there's aspects of it that can be better handled with quality, support, mentorship and guidance. Yeah.
Jonny Miller
Beauty beautiful. So let's, let's move the conversation on to the second marriage of work, which I think is particularly interesting because so much of our identity and sense of self really is wrapped up in in our vocation. And I know that for me, this is something I've really wrestled with since letting go of the identity of being a startup co founder. That was one of my first kind of crises. And I remembered that when we first met here in Bali, you were working as a seed coach, and we actually gave a talk down the road. But what are some of the other kind of multifaceted jobs career directions or businesses that you flirted with? Please give us like a lay of the land. My reckless resume reckless
Unknown Speaker
reckless
Jonny Miller
lay on the table. Oh
Kelly Wilde
my gosh. Well, I think performance sleep coach is certainly up there as one of the more obscure random choices along the way. The first by the way, he fell in love with me at that talk. That was his first real interaction with me or seeing me in my in my Limelight and my powers
Jonny Miller
sleep with Kelly calm they may name behind you. That's
Kelly Wilde
the thing is I'm incredibly talented, that good branding. So I really just did it. So I could have a reason to have sleep with Kelly calm. Oh, so yeah, I've been in branding. I've been in marketing and copywriting. For many years. Communications is a is a natural skill set. For me, and I've dabbled in that realm, both for myself and for clients and marketing agencies, all sorts of different things. My initial introduction to the work world was food and beverage hospitality. My first job was at a New York style pizza pizzeria. Still, to this day, one of my favorite work experiences ever.
Jonny Miller
You have the scars to prove it.
Kelly Wilde
I still have the burn marks 16 miles 617 years ago when I stopped the burns, hope they never go away. Shout out to Burton if he's listening. And yeah, then I worked at Disney. I eventually made my way to the mountains of Colorado, I worked for a ski resort sold lift tickets worked as a high end concierge at very, very beautiful hotel properties, catering to Yeah, very high class. Humans on ski vacations. Had a great time doing it. I worked for a rafting company. I tried to become a raft guide when I was 21. And four days before I turned 21. I was in raft guide training, and I bashed out my two front teeth. So I ended up just becoming their office girl. Probably one of my biggest regrets is not finishing that training. I didn't need my teeth to raft. And yeah, and then my longest standing career and the one that has caused me probably the most existential growth was when I lived in the mountains of Nevada and California, I worked as an adult entertainer, as an exotic dancer, for private bachelor parties at Airbnb, luxury homes. And that was, as one could imagine, a very unique experience. I could write a whole book about that experience. I plan to put a performance together about it someday. Yeah, a lot learned in that phase. And then I also dabbled in the startup world, too, you know, and my college years I was, I was in the entrepreneurship community business plan competitions. I worked for an angel investment organization, reading business plans. I've looked at hundreds upon hundreds of business plans. I worked for a tech incubator helps try to help get new apps off the ground, inside sales, big online tech companies. And then several of my own startups freelance here and there. So whole smorgasbord.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I thought I'd done a lot of things, but I can keep put my reckless resume to shame. We both kind of talked at length about we're actually just talking about at lunch, about the gifts and and shadows of being like an interdisciplinary human with lots of multi potentially, I think, is the phrase Some people use. What have been some of the struggles or identity crises that you've experienced along the way and maybe more importantly, for listeners who can relate to this? How have you learned to integrate and avoid the sense of compartmentalization with different parts of your psyche?
Kelly Wilde
So the path of work, I think, has been my pathway to awakening. It has been riddled with existential questions since the beginning. When I was of age to begin working in high school, I didn't want to my mom said if you don't get a job, I'm going to apply to Wendy's which is a fast food chain and you will get a job there. And so within a few days, I got a job at this pizza place and and I loved it and but I I wasn't the one itching to work formally, I was not the kid with the lemonade stand, I was not mowing lawns, I just didn't care as much. And so then, you know, not going to university, which if you don't go straight to university, and you're not inherently entrepreneurial or resourceful in that way, or you don't have mentorship and that you kind of don't know what to do. So I worked at restaurants for a long time and just kind of kept following like weird internships and different, whatever was just sort of presented to me, I just would kind of take. And for a while that that worked until probably my mid 20s, when it just felt like I needed to be somebody. And when I graduated from university, top of my class, entrepreneur, I was dubbed Entrepreneur of the Year, at one point having never successfully launched anything. And someone gives you the title like Entrepreneur of the Year with an engraved metal, and you give a speech for young ego, right? Oh my gosh, what it does, and if you don't feel worthy of that, it actually crumbles, it crashes on you. So I had this outer persona that had been developed through school and through essentially just being a really good student. And our assignments were build a business plan, launch a fictional company, alright, well, you give me an assignment, I'm gonna, I'm gonna crush it. And so they just believed and made me believe that like, that was actually the path of entrepreneurship was being really good at doing assignments. You know. And when that wasn't what an entrepreneur actually does, it really crashed me, I really didn't know what to do. So I left thinking, I've got this. And then I just felt so ill equipped. And that turned, it essentially made me turn away from a lot of what the work that I had already done. To develop that persona, a lot of self worth issues of like, this, apparently isn't for me. I don't know who I am, you know, I didn't resonate with my degree, I just didn't resonate with any of the jobs that I had had. So really left with this boiling cauldron of confusion. And I just kept making choices out of fear. And then eventually, you know, money concerns lead you to do whatever you need to do. So that is what kept me in my job as a dancer for so long. So it was quick cash. But then that two became this compartmentalised identity. I was working full time at a PR agency, Monday through Friday, I was dancing on the weekends with an alter ego persona that nobody knew about. I was living two lives, two identities structured around the idea of work. So my psyche in my life was prime for a cracking open, one might say, and, and that's what happened and navigating the question of it's not even really about work is it's how do I want to spend my time on this earth, knowing that work is a huge component of that. And for me, as I shared earlier, this idea of purpose, the thing that led me to go to the vision quest that I'm here for a deeper purpose, is connected to work is connected to vocation, or as Bill Plotkin says, it's your delivery method of your mythopoetic identity. But I'm more concerned about knowing what my soul's purpose is, what my eco niche is, what my mythopoetic identity is. And from that place, I will have a clear idea of how to deliver those gifts out into the world. So I decided, I think a couple years ago, that everyone was doing it wrong.
Like to follow the golden handcuffs or to follow the accolades or the paychecks, or just the status or even the safety. You know, and I don't want to, I've been very unsafe with some of my decisions. I've put myself in very scary financial situations by not sticking to a routine work schedule by not staying in one place. So I cannot blame anybody for wanting the safety of a consistent career and job but there was just this part of me that could not stay in a job if it didn't feel connected to a deeper aspect of who I really am. And the only job that actually gave me a sense of that was dancing. It was the only job I actually felt like I had any semblance of true power. And like healthy power, you know, a power to express myself fully. So over the last few years Really the last year, it's been an exploration of how can I build myself a business or a brand or a way of earning income. That does not. sabotage the deeper longings of my soul doesn't build too strong of an invisible cage, and allows my identity and existence to be fluid along with it. And I haven't seen very many people do that. And so I've really had to go, I've had to both go deep within myself, and look in far off places of what other humans have done, take bits and pieces from what I like, here and there and stitch together, what I'm calling my soulful business model, my soulful business blueprint in order to stay radically true, and aligned with myself as I evolve. And I think what a lot of entrepreneurs can do, what's easy to do is just build yourself another cage that's difficult to escape from. And you've worked with a lot of founders, who, you know, more classic founders, founders of tech companies, employees and whatnot. And usually seems like they hit a point where they're like, how do I get the hell out of this thing that I've built?
Jonny Miller
Yeah, that often leads to burnout. And in many of them,
Kelly Wilde
right, and one of the questions that I asked myself coming out of the vision quest, was how do I build a life that I'm not afraid to go back to. Because a lot of people were leaving, and were terrified to go back to their lives. They were terrified to go back to their marriages, to their jobs, to the agreements and the contracts that they had made prior to the vision quest. And I said, Okay, this is not going to be my last vision quest, it's not going to be my last big journey in on probably just getting started. And so how do I design a life with and that includes commitments, marriage and work and maybe children someday, and homes and whatnot? How do I do this in a way that still fosters the freedom to evolve? And to connect even deeper on the soul level? Yeah, where I don't feel like I need to ever really pull the the escape hatch, right? You
Jonny Miller
know, right. And this, this sense that I get, like, it's almost like your identity has to expand, to be able to include all of these different facets within it. And you're no longer kind of saying, I am a startup fan, I am this and that. But you're, you're associated with, like you said, that mythopoetic identity, and all of the projects, the businesses, the things that you do become kind of delivery vehicles for that. And they'll change, they'll evolve, they'll mix but you kind of your identity isn't attached to them directly,
Kelly Wilde
completely some kind of? Yes. So I think viewing things as a project versus a business has been a good switch for me a healthy switch, because projects have end dates. That end date could be in 10 years from now. But it could also be in a couple months. And so really just getting clear on like, what is the project that lights me up right now, and running experiments? Because we don't truly know how something is going to feel or what is going to happen to us until we're in the experience. And I believe now I believe that building a business or brand launching projects is a spiritual experience. if you so choose, I think it is no matter what because nothing nothing really is compartmentalised. It might be in our own psyches. But it's nothing's actually compartmentalised. And the more I can accept that I'm learning about myself and I am evolving through the act of creation. And that's been a gift of reading books, like the artists way and women who run with the wolves is recognizing that creativity is our pure essence. It is lifeforce energy. And we are here as creative beings to birth new things whether you're a man or a woman, we're here to birth things right.
Jonny Miller
And I think also get curious about the blocks that are in the way as well right?
Kelly Wilde
To all yeah, that's that's the old me way to work would like start heading down a path to build a project and I would hit a bunch of blocks and then I would say, oh, clearly I'm not capable. I'm not worthy. This isn't for me, I'll just pivot and turn back around and go back to square one. So a lot of dead end projects because I didn't realize that I was actually just hitting my kind of upper limit beliefs and what I needed to then just do is stop slow down, do a little Bit of inner work, get curious, move forward. So it is a I think just like, what I imagined being a parent is like, you grow up and mature through the act of doing the thing. And I, and David talks about that in the three marriages, you don't truly grow up and mature until you're in the marriage. And so if we're talking about the the marriage to work, one must commit themselves to a path. And just like a marriage to a human, you're going to be confronted all the time. And you're gonna, and you're gonna, you're gonna sometimes want to pull the escape hatch, and you're gonna want to look for greener pastures, or you're gonna, you know, be just derailed in some way. So I think reading actually his words around work being a marriage in and of itself, and now being on this path of marriage with you. And really, what it comes down to is just working through commitment, problems, commitment fears. So now, I'm just so excited for what this path of work really is going to offer me bringing so many years of asking these bigger questions. Yeah, I don't see myself waking up at 55 looking around at my life and being so dissatisfied and having a midlife crisis, like, I think I might, that big crisis is more or less done, because now, you know, now there's just gonna be a little mini crisis all the time, and I know how to navigate them.
No, no, I look forward to them. I'm like, oh, bring it?
Jonny Miller
Well, well, that feels like a suitable point to talk about that third marriage, which is us. And as, as we mentioned, this is actually our 18 month anniversary since we first met. No, 31st officially kind of got together. Yeah, since the day we said, we Let's be monogamous and beat together. Yes. Okay. Thank you for clarification. So in some ways, we're kind of babies on that path as well. But I feel like it would be interesting for us to both reflect on some of what we've learned about ourselves and navigating some of these challenges together. So, yeah, we'll see how this goes. And do you want to start us off by sharing a little of what being in a conscious partnership means to you? Or maybe how your concept of it has changed over the years? And is that still shifting? Big Question?
Kelly Wilde
Well, I think the answer to that is really easy. It just means that I get the first bite of cacau. For you.
Jonny Miller
Interesting, yeah. And all as well, in the kingdom
Unknown Speaker
where I realized opening,
Jonny Miller
preaching dinnertime and that makes a rumbling.
Kelly Wilde
Yes, no. It's a beautiful question. And it's also funny, because just the term conscious partnership has probably only been on my radar for about maybe a year and a half. So like, how is that definition evolved? It's been a very short period of time to even have that definition to say partnership. Well, relationships. Yeah, God, what would it have been like to have the words conscious partnership in my awareness when I was much younger? Wow. So yeah, my ideas of partnership, you know, we we initially pick up on the partnership, formulas that we learned from, you know, primarily our caretakers. So our parents and what their partnership arrangement was like, and my parents separated when I was five, it was a pretty messy divorce. They did not communicate well with each other for almost my entire adolescent years. Through my 20s there's a lot of resentment, a lot of anger, a lot of bitterness, and I didn't have my dad around. So I didn't grow up with very strong masculine influences. And that impacted me in a lot of really big ways. I think in when I started becoming interested in in guys and boys, and I realized, Oh, I'm I'm pretty in boys are interested in me, and I have some hypnotic power over them as this woman with breasts and a big smile and a bubbly personality. I just let myself feel a sense of purpose within that path. So I became a habitual dater and I loved the attention of guys and I went from partnership to partnership or at the time, I Use the word relationship, boyfriend, a boyfriend, and many of them were unconscious, they were just going with the flow, not actively co creating something that was meaningful not checking in with one another, not really navigating the obstacles of life with awareness. And that's just a, I think, a reflection of my own state of consciousness in them, you know, I didn't consider myself an awakened person in those. So naturally, it was just kind of a sleepy, part conscious partnership, unconscious partnership, I would guess I would say that said, I've dated also some amazing men. And they helped introduce me to some of the activities and lifestyles that are still to this day, a big part of who I am the outdoors, action sports. And there's gifts from every single partnership, every single one. And something that was profound is right before we got married, I actually emailed most of my ex partners, thanking them for the role that they had played in my life for me, very bold, and three out of four were very positive responses. One was not. And that's okay, because it wasn't really about the response, it was more about me, in my soul evolution, needing to express gratitude to the people in my life who had really helped shape me. And I believe that the something my 200 hour yoga teacher taught me or shared, was, the reason for any one thing is everything. The reason for any one thing is everything. So the reason that I'm with you, and I'm married you is everything. And that means there's a whole lot of things to be grateful for. And as a partner, I had to be very grateful for all of my past partnerships. And there was a lot of reasons to do so I didn't have to have to do it, but it was genuine. And so that I think was just a big breakthrough. And seeing this woven thread of connection between every love every romance every fling every long term, short term relationship that I had engaged with, to make my way to you, where we could really dive in and create something that was actively a conscious partnership. But our journey to get there has also been an adventure. Because my level of self awareness, I can only speak to my own experience. But my level of self awareness, when we first got together was, I think just a fraction of what it is today. And what I hope is a micro fraction of what it will be in 10 2030 years from now.
And so 18 months ago, I was still very much in my wild are like the feral stage, kind of the crazed feral. And this last year and a half has been just like the waves of an ocean hitting you while you're trying to paddle out to serve something that we are trying to get me to do. But it's just like it was just like one thing after another after another, just like humbling, like smack in the face, smack in the face, and not always painfully so. But just like, oh, here's that thing that I do. Oh, here's that thing that I do. And I think you and I did something very skillful. And that was seeking outside help. And outside reflection early on. Yeah. So we've been together for 18 months. And we've already worked with two coaches, one of whom was so skillful at helping to reflect back the the unique constitutions that we were both bringing to the table, our attachment theories, our traumas, our childhoods, our backgrounds, and really help us understand what it is that's what these two nervous systems are trying to bring to life together. Right. And the exploration of that has been, I think, a huge shift in our ability to interact, empathize, have compassion for and consciously communicate through the hurdles.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And this is something I think about just before we started, we hit record, thinking about some of the things that we learned from these two therapists and coaches that we've worked with. And I remember right at the outset, we we began working with this lady who helped us get clear on what our vision for partnership was, and you know what it even meant to us and she she had this idea of viewing The relationship is almost like a third entity in itself that has its own needs and desires. And I think that's, that's an idea that's definitely stuck with us. And then, as you mentioned, earlier this year, we found this wonderful psychotherapist, who has been kind of looking at our attachment styles, the ways that we show up in conflict. And for me, I know that I historically have either shut down, or I will, I will, like bypass any feelings of anger and just get straight to try and fix something or whatever the solution is. And I think we've both been learning how to show up, and how to express whatever our truth is, in that moment, without it needing to be different or without blaming the other person. So is that is there anything that stands out as being something that you've learned about yourself from the process of working in couples therapy, or any of the sessions that stand out? Or any other thoughts that come to mind? Oh, it's very juicy. It's
Unknown Speaker
very juicy.
Jonny Miller
What comes up?
Kelly Wilde
Oh, goodness. Well, I mean, just to be super transparent, one of my patterns has been to want to leave when things get hard when I'm confronted with the reality of what, what just when I'm confronted, you know, and it has been easier in my life to make someone outside of myself the enemy, or to seek greener pastures. This kind of grass is always greener, on the other side has been a consistent theme in career in partnership. And in couples, in our in our couples therapy. There was one moment where I was very guess, just very overwhelmed by this idea that I needed to spend time alone. It that I needed to go find myself on my own. And what I was so appreciative about our therapist, and you was being able to receive that and hold it and not make it wrong. And let me get curious about it. And no one had ever invited me to get curious about this thing that I staunchly believed was right. But most people just got mad, or you know, freaked out. And so this idea of conscious communication, of being able to hold a whole spectrum of experiences and truths and not say that when you're wrong, because that doesn't line up with the way I feel. And say like, okay, cool, that's the way you feel. Let's explore it. It's so simple. Once you learn these skills, it's so simple. And yeah, being able to really get curious about why do I feel this need to flee and be on my own. And recognizing, through our conversation, it happened in the midst of our conversation, this epiphany of like, Oh, my gosh, I don't feel safe, to fully be my, the vastness of who I am the full spectrum of who I am, within a container of partnership, as in as if partnership was this limiting function in my life that was holding me back. And I needed to go beyond my own. So I could go, feel and express the fullness of me in whatever ways that is. You know, whether it's anger or sexiness or bigness or loudness, or quietness or crazy feminine woowoo ness, you know, I had this vision of joining a cult of women in the Nordic countries and learning Swedish shamanism and like spending a couple months in the forest, like, naked, and just like learning, demonic transforming, I still want to do that I should do that. I absolutely want to do that. And it's just this acknowledgement that you are beautiful at reflecting back to me of like, great, if that's a part of you, I love it too. And I want you to be that permission to be all of you. And it was this paradigm shifting idea of like, permission to be all of me and to be in partnership. So not this either or mentality but this Yes. And and then I think both of us explicitly giving the other person permission to be the fullness of them. And if they don't even know what that is to explore it. And for us to create moments where we get to experiment with that and entice different things out of one another, which keeps the partnership more fresh, keeps it alive, it keeps it dynamic. It's a win win. And something that you know, maybe you can speak more to about is this idea that partnership is also a path to awakening, which I think you picked up from Robert Augustus masters.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, well, what comes to mind for me is I think the gifts that came out of that process, and if you're exploring of how to be you're fulfilled within partnership, I think there was a point where we almost like, we redefined what partnership meant to us and kind of made the commitment that it would always be in kind of service to our, like, the highest part of ourselves and to our souls and to what we felt called to do. And if that meant spending, you know, long periods of time apart, or whatever that looked like, that was, that was the decisions that we had to make. Because if we started making decisions just to make things work with the partnership together, it would, you know, build and build up resentment and just cause all of these really bad downstream effects. I think that was a real gift that came out of that. And yeah, I mean, I think all of these. Carla, the puppy, we're looking at this just saying, hello. I think the the, the process of all of these three marriages is they're all they're all mirrors, right. Like the way that we show up in work teaches us about ourselves, and the way that we share it with each other, it's like mirrors to these parts of ourselves that we, we struggled to see otherwise. And so we need, I think intimacy is probably the most efficient vehicle for like surfacing our own shit, or insecurities, our own shadows, the ways of out of integrity, because no one else is, I don't think anyone else on the planet knows you, as well, as it knows me as wise as Ed. And vice versa. Um, yeah. And so that's, yeah, that's kind of what comes up to me
Kelly Wilde
completely. And I think it's just part of this path of maturing to be able to see it that way. Before it felt like if I, if all of a sudden you're triggering a whole bunch of things out of me, then you know, it's your fault, or, or can't possibly be me. And it's that just younger idea of the enemies outside. And if anything, we are just inviting one another to really know ourselves in such deeper ways. And I think both of us have matured, and expanded our perspectives of what's even possible as individuals, by expanding our awareness of what's possible in partnership. And it's just this constant conversation. Yeah. And feedback loop. And I think another important part that the world up to know, is this idea of sitting on the same side of the table. You know, it's when we were having some of those bigger hurdles, we were sitting on opposite sides of the table. You know, like, like, lawyers, here's my terms. And here's your term, right?
Jonny Miller
You're trying to be right, we're trying to trying
Kelly Wilde
to be right, when we are like trying to find compromise, and even that word doesn't necessarily make anyone feel good. And it's like, how can we sit on the same side of the table and lay it all out on the table? Like, here's everything, and sometimes, truths that just need to be spoken. And once they're spoken, once they get to be released, on deeper truth has room to blossom to bloom, right? It's like whatever's whatever. What is that saying? Like, the thing is not the thing. Right? You know, it's so much deeper than that. But in order to even get there, it's like, it's like paleontology, not paleontology, archaeology. Yeah, you gotta get through all the dirt and dust on the top to finally, like, get to the real gems, and very grateful that you've coined yourself as the curious human guy, because this idea of curiosity is just absolutely essential. Let's just get curious about what's here. And what's happening.
Jonny Miller
Yeah, totally. Um, is there anything else that you think might be worth mentioning in the context of us? Or things that you think we're still learning?
Kelly Wilde
Oh, well, I hope we never stopped learning. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's just different seasons. I think now we're, you know, we're here in Bali. And there was still a question of, are we really staying here? And if so, what does that look like? And what commitments are we making as a partnership? Now that we're, you know, looking down the path of maybe building a home or buying buying a home? Maybe someday starting a family just like asking these bigger questions, and if, if so, who do we need to become to really do those things in the way that we aspire to do? I think what we're, that's a good question. I think what we're really learning is how to Truly co create a life that is expansive and spacious enough for, like the bigness of who we both are both as individuals, and that collective third, that third partnership. And much like, you know, there's the middle world mind. And then there's like that lower level, that deeper level of consciousness that can hold a much larger poetic story. How do we also not get too wrapped up in like the task list and the day to day and the logistics, we're experts at logistics, you know, we can move across continents together and pack up, yeah, pack up all of our belongings in a tiny truck and move across the country. And we can do these things. And I think we're both realizing like, we're retired of that. It doesn't do it, you know, it's a necessary step. But now let's sink into a deeper story. And what is the larger myth of most of this union? And while a bat just flew into our living room, so if that's not a sign of something, I don't know what it is. And I think we're expressing that through, you know, we're both stepping into our artistry. We're singing, we're dancing, we are expressing and really fun, vibrant ways, maybe not publicly yet, but we're doing it with one another. And there's this sense of safety to just explore our edges. And I know we're just getting started with that, and it feels really juicy.
Jonny Miller
Yes, there's a musical instruments accumulating in the corner. I wonder how large that collection is gonna get? Yeah, that's beautifully. But I think there's something else that comes to mind for me, which is, I feel like, we've also one of the things that a therapist encouraged us to do was to set kind of intentional containers for checking in once a week. And I think this process of having a semi weekly check in to really dig deeper under the surface of what's going on, I think, is really surface. And it's I think it's helped to kind of address any of the underlying questions or issues that either of us have, before they become some kind of like, big eruption.
Kelly Wilde
Yeah. And we can I mean, we can share our format for that, too. It's, you start with gratitudes? What are we grateful for? And then do overs? What are some of the things that took place last week that we ourselves would do over? So we're, like, it's an integrity cleanse on our part, and then grievances? What are the things that maybe the other person has done, and we communicate it in a nonviolent communication format, ideally, so that we're not, we're not being mean, we're not berating the other person. And we're finding co creative solutions. And this is a format that we learned while living within community at the experience house in Guatemala, where 23 of us needed to come together and learn how to actually live cohesively. So we've learned some very good skills on how to consciously communicate our needs, our desires. And sometimes you don't know until you're actually in the midst of sharing it. And then you're like, it's that somatic self awareness, which is something our therapist helped us do is, you know, as you're explaining it, and you realize the thing is not the thing, and all of a sudden, there's an emotional wave coming up, and you want to cry, or there's heat and you're jittery, or there's anxiety, and just owning that, and allowing that to come into the space because it too, has a role. And to respect the emotion that's here. And then just through the expression of that, we get to find out what the real thing is. And then both of us every time are like, wow,
Jonny Miller
that was cool. And see that guy
Kelly Wilde
didn't see that coming in. Wow, that was cool. And every single time we end up, way more connected, more intimate. It always ends so beautifully. And if we forget to do these weekly check ins, that's when like, the bigger
Jonny Miller
position
Kelly Wilde
when we get really far into our busy egoic meaning me mind, I'm focused on my desires, my business mind needs, my productivity, and we just sort of forget to do it. So these check ins are just a reminder of like, Hey, we're here as a union, and there's a third how's that third doing?
Jonny Miller
Yeah, beautiful. Okay, so, zooming, zooming the lens a bit. I'd like to play a little game where I will say four or five words or phrases, and then you just share whatever comes to mind in the context of these three marriages. How sure I'm nervous. Okay, phrase number one. I'm on to myself,
Kelly Wilde
Oh, my favorite saying? Yeah, so what that brings up is this ninja like self awareness that I'm trying to cultivate. Where when I catch myself, quote unquote, doing the things that I do, the the old behaviors, the patterns, the ways of self sabotage the ways of victim mindset, yeah, however, I'm like stepping back into the unhealthy feral or the caged. And if I can have that ninja level awareness to catch myself either in the action or shortly thereafter, I love to use that thing. I'm onto myself. And then I choose a more conscious way of being
Jonny Miller
with liberty, commitment.
Kelly Wilde
The thing that used to terrify me and make me run as far as possible, but now this really exciting new anyone has a challenge, but like just this new, exciting frontier to explore across all facets of life.
Jonny Miller
Remember, forget Remember, the human experience and the title of Johnny Miller's poetry book, lengthening constraints. Trust in the slipstream.
Kelly Wilde
How does one go with the flow of life? And to actually, like really contemplate that phrase. So instead of trying to swim against the stream against the current, how is the trajectory of your life naturally guiding you? And I think sometimes, when we are living from a more egoic place of like my desires, my wanting to control in and form the world to fit what I want. We're out of that slipstream. And when we can sink back into our awareness, and really just go with the tide. That's when things are fluid flowing. serendipities take place, you can actually access genuine gratitude and love. I think that's where the real the real like juice and gem of life is. Otherwise it's it's a struggle, you get tired. It's like a turtle trying to swim against the slipstream, and a turtle would never be able to make it the vast distances that it travels if it weren't for the slipstream.
Jonny Miller
pathless path. This is
Kelly Wilde
the way that I am exploring life. I think walking the path of soul. That deeper current those deeper longings is inherently a pathless path. because no two people can really walk the same soul path because we're all here to learn our own individual lessons, create our own individual creations. And we can take inspiration, guidance, mentorship from others. But truly, the path we walk is a path of our own making. And until you take the next step, you don't really know what it's going to be.
Jonny Miller
Like feels like a nice segue to ask what what creative projects are really alive for you right now? Or maybe more importantly, what is what is the role of, of soul in your life on this path, this path?
Kelly Wilde
Well, I have never not been an Idea Factory. My whole life, all life. And so I'm now really lit up by asking the question how can I create co create a life and a life of projects, beautiful, creative projects, in alignment with soul in a co creative conversation with soul. And to help me do that my current initiative, which is something that I will be inviting other people to join me on, is merging. Basically the left brain and the right brain. So actually creating a, I guess you could call it a, like a filtration system, a productivity system, an organizational system for the insights of soul and remembering who I really am. So I've done so much in our work over the last few years and I've looked to a lot of different philosophies and methodologies to really uncover myself you know, obviously vision question, but clocking to work, but it's not the whole story. And I don't have the whole story yet. But human design, Gene keys, astrology, different types of psychedelic experiences, dreamwork working with my dreams, peace mining my own life experience for the gold nuggets, my core wounds, my longings, everything, even like my jealousies and other people in my envy and seeing those as representative representative signs of what I longed for what I desire, in the way that the Muse in my life is showing up. So at this point, I have chicken scratch notes, I have PDFs, I have screenshots I have it's a, it's a mess of all of this knowing. And it's really hard to have it all in the front lines, you know, it's you lose it. So I think it's, the more you know about yourself, the more there is to forget. And I'm currently working on creating a living, breathing system, using our favorite productivity app notion that will allow me to capture these lessons, reflect on them, let them evolve and change alongside with me, and become a tool to gauge my own creative ideas against a filtration system to know what is it that I actually should work on? And how can I stay true to myself and soul in the creation and development process of it. So I'm still finding ways to actually explain this. But the way I see it, and the way that it's helping me is everything from the way I communicate of who I am, and about myself, the stories I tell kind of my personal brand. I want it to be rooted in it from a deeper place. So I'm merging my background in branding, marketing, PR communications with my soulful self explorations, and hopefully creating something that will be sustainably helpful for both myself and others. And yeah, I'm in the process of building it for myself right now. And I'll be inviting a small cohort of people to join me on this quest sometime this year. Yeah,
Jonny Miller
amazing. And it's it feels so I mean, it's, it's a something that I would like to go through myself. But I think so many people that do work this kind of entrepreneurial path, or maybe they're teaching or coaching online, it's so easy to fall into the trap of the frameworks and the courses. And it really can feel like you're kind of selling out and you lose sight of the reason that you were inspired to start the thing in the first place. And I feel like if, if one were looking or looking at a dashboard, or seeing reminders of like, the reasons why you were lit up by this thing to begin with, and what you're really exploring, I think that like that burnout would be mitigated to some degree down the line or that or the exit will be crisis, or they're like, what the hell am I doing with my life?
Kelly Wilde
Yeah, I think it could offer more opportunities for self reflection. So if micro pivots need to come in, you could do that, instead of waiting for some massive breakdown and some big pivot later on. It can help you just create a more holistic life, you know, so you're not compartment, it's essentially a tool to help with help with our natural tendency to compartmentalize aspects of us. And those of us on the soul, or the spiritual path or the healing path, self awareness, personal growth, whatever you want to call it, we're learning very quick, we're learning a lot about ourselves, you know, very quickly. And these bumps in consciousness, these levels up in consciousness doesn't necessarily mean that it's a new habit and how you actually perform tasks or how you approach projects. And so it's like, cool, I can go have this big experience, connect with my mythopoetic identity in the savage wild dancing girl of the forest. And then I can easily just go back to my computer and do and build a business the same way I was taught by someone three years ago, right? Like that, that that doesn't feel truthful to the path of soul. And yeah, this hot, like, I need help in being on to myself. Yeah, and my wise self, when I build this from a place of my higher self, and I can like catalog all this information. It'll help me refer back to those those different aspects that carried wisdom in the moment, but it's not like I'm connected with my mythopoetic identity Monday through Friday and like, it's just it's not happening. As much as I can't wait for that to me my life one day, perhaps, perhaps, but it feels like a distant goal at the moment. So yeah, there's there's that and Obviously, you've rubbed off on me, and have been a positive influence. And so I'll also be launching my own podcast here pretty soon.
Jonny Miller
Hmm, not exciting. So, on that note, where is the best place for listeners to find you online to read your poetry to pre subscribe to this podcast and learn more about the course?
Kelly Wilde
Yes. So everything right now is in construction. But by the time this podcast goes live, they can go to Soul of kelly.com. And that will be the headquarters for all the things you need. You can also visit me on Instagram, Kelly, wild x Oh, wild with an E. And they can also just send me a WhatsApp or a message or come to Bali and come hang out
Jonny Miller
decom if you can, yeah, and those links will be in the show notes as well. So, as you probably guessed, I'd like to close with these words from real K. Try to love the questions themselves, and live them now. Perhaps you will then gradually without noticing it. Live your way into the answer. With that in mind, what is the question that you feel like you're living? And what question might you'd like to leave our listeners with?
Kelly Wilde
The question that I feel like I'm stemming into is how can I live at the limits of my longings? which asks me to get clear on what my longings even are? What is it that I truly desire? And how can I go to the extremes of really feeling this? Because I think that's where a likenesses in what I would ask listeners. What is soul asking of you right now. Just to offer a bit of bodied practice to get there is sit back and whatever chair you're sitting in. And bring your awareness to the back of your body in the back of your eyes. Most of the time we spend our lives leaning forward with our energy forward, more penetrating into the world. We're looking through the front of our eyes, see if you can soften to look through the back of your eyes. And when you do, you might be able to take in more of your surroundings more of your experience and you'll access a deeper current. You spend enough time there you'll touch what feels like a deep river inside of you. And that's where your sole answers lie. See if you can spend some time there.
Jonny Miller
Right We will wrap the show with that and thank you so much. Thank you Johnny. Let's get some dinner. You