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The Smoke Trail, hosted by Smoke Wallin, is a journey into awakening consciousness, weaving authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests to unlock high performance and perfect health. Each episode delves into spirituality, leadership, and transformation, offering tools to transcend trauma and find your bliss along the way. It’s a reflective space for achieving peak potential and inner peace in a distraction-filled world.
Welcome to the Smoke Trail hosted by Smoke Wallin. Join Smoke on a unique journey of awakening consciousness, sharing authentic stories and deep discussions with inspiring guests. Explore spirituality, leadership and transformation tools to elevate your path.
Smoke:Great. Hi, Liv.
Liv:Hi. Hi, Smoke.
Smoke:Welcome to the Smoke Trail.
Liv:Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this.
Smoke:Yeah, I've been looking forward to our conversation since we first talked, and you and I have a now multi year friendship. I've had the opportunity to hang out with you and your husband, and we've done a bunch of things together through our YPO connection. And every time we've talked, it's been like, oh, wow. This is this unique, special person who is vibrating at a different level and is energetically aware, and we've just hit it off every time, so I thought this would be a wonderful way to be part of the first season and to just invite you to share with me and have a dialogue around spirituality, leadership, and things we've learned, and the intention and hope that some of our conversation can be helpful to others.
Liv:I love it. Yeah, let's dive in. I'm here to be of service. Let's do it.
Smoke:Awesome. Well, we've talked about a bunch of things and I think one of the really interesting things that you shared with me at one point is just your own personal journey. I wonder if you would maybe share a little of that. We could jump right in. I'm a big believer in we're not here to give a book report or to just talk about what's on our website or what someone can see us on LinkedIn, then let's have a conversation that's meaningful from the heart and see where it goes.
Smoke:So I don't have a specific agenda, but I you know, I shared some of my experiences as a child and some of the things I've gone through in my journey in terms of waking up and remembering things and then dealing with facing trauma that I experienced, and then kind of understanding it, and then getting to a point of forgiveness, and then kind of that whole alchemy, alchemical process of moving beyond the ego mind experience that I identified with at one point. And now I just look at it as, Oh, that was just another story. And I learned a lot along the way. Maybe you could comment on any of that or jump in or tell me a story.
Liv:Yeah, I'll tell you some stories. Okay, we'll do story time. So I think that I have learned how to read people really well, and most likely it was a trauma response at first. You know, sometimes our superpowers come from a need to be protecting ourselves in some way. So some people can read the stock markets and the numbers.
Liv:Some people can read the stars and I can read people really well. And I was always curious to know why that was. I think part of it was just innate, and I can tap into something that people are searching for. But I'll take you back a little bit. I grew up in a cultish environment, and there was a lot of manipulation, a lot of people controlling, a lot of people telling people how to live their lives and what to believe and how to believe.
Liv:And when you grow up in that environment, you could either go and swim in those waters and believe it too, or you are aware that maybe there's something that's not true in what you're experiencing. And for me, for some reason, I don't know why, I always had this feeling very young, remembering a sense of why do we keep coming back here to this room with these people? That was a question that was always in my mind, why do we keep doing this? Why are we here? Isn't there other things to do in this life, on this planet?
Liv:And then another memory of a question was, what are they looking for? They're looking for something. What is everybody here looking for? And now looking back on those questions, there seem like innocent questions, but they're quite interesting
Smoke:and quite
Liv:profound. And it was really people were searching for something outside of themselves, hoping that they can gain some sense of understanding, power, certainty, awakening, fulfillment, meaning. I was very young and felt like I was in a very unsafe environment at the time, so I disassociated most of the time. That was my coping mechanism, just checking out. I would hypnotize myself by holding a necklace, and I would spin it and watch it vibrate and literally check out just by doing that.
Liv:And it's interesting because fast forward in my 20s, I was also checking out through over exercising, through overworking, through essentially even through yoga and meditation, and everybody praised me for it. I got paid a lot of money to run up and down a mountain with athletes. You know, I got sponsored by lots of cool companies to wear sexy sports bras and outfits, you know. So it's a day it's dangerous. Addiction is so, so dangerous, and it's so sneaky.
Liv:And even the things that we pride ourselves on can sneak up on us, even spirituality.
Smoke:For sure. I want to talk about that, but I want to go back to that you're this young child, you knew something wasn't right, like something inside of you said, this doesn't make sense, all these adults doing this and it didn't make sense to you, you would check yourself out. How did you get out of that? How did you guys, how did you escape the cold? Did your family leave it?
Smoke:Did you escape it? Give us a little like on the escape, and how did you get escape velocity? If I suppose someone in a cold is probably unlikely to be watching this, but maybe someone has had some experience with it, or maybe they're trying to get out for some reason. What could you share on that?
Liv:Yeah, so I was born into it, so it was all I knew. And at age six, my parents decided to leave. So my father and my stepmom at the time. And it was quite courageous of them because when you're in that environment, it's actually your support system. It's Yeah.
Liv:Everything. All of your friends, you get pretty isolated pretty quickly. So family, friends, and they took us kids, all seven of us, and did their best to figure it out. And there was a lot of moving around. There was a lot of making, you know, just making enough money so that we can put some food on the table.
Liv:It was not easy. And I am so grateful that there was that awareness from both of them to say, This is not right. This is not feeling good. Let me listen to my intuition and exit left here.
Smoke:Just Was this one where because sometimes they're very protective, many cults, all different, you know, there's lots of different versions and varieties, I'm sure, but I've also, I'm aware of some of them, they're like, Well, if you try to leave, we're going to try to harm you. Was it one of those or was it easy to leave?
Liv:No, it wasn't easy to leave. And this is why it took such a courageous leap on their part. I was six, so it was pretty passive process. Know, I was just kind of getting hauled around, but the. There's there was a lot of people speaking negatively about the two of them and my family for a long time, probably even now it still exists, so I'm not going to say the name of it.
Liv:And it's very challenging because what I've seen happen in part of my own work is that when you grow up in that environment, are either you're in or you're out. You belong or you don't. And the world is not a friendly place, essentially. So everyone is a threat. Nobody can be trusted.
Smoke:So Yeah, you're at the perfect age. By the time you're sick, they say from the time we're baby to seven years old, we're in data state of our mind, which is basically you're absorbing everything around you without a filter. It's just going in. So, that had to affect you going forward when you talk about your 20s and being addicted to exercise and meditation and all that stuff, and you created a big success for yourself, but it was now, looking back, you can contextualize it and say, You know what? I was living out some of those things that were embedded.
Smoke:Is that how you tie them together?
Liv:Yeah. I think that we're all beings that have human desire. We have a desire to feel safe, and we have a desire to have love. And when one of those two things are under attack, we're going to try to control our environment or ourselves in some way. And so we're all operating under, am I safe?
Liv:Am I safe? Am I safe? Do I have enough love to be safe, to belong, to be validated? You know, all of that. So my operating system was I'm not safe because I grew up in an unsafe environment.
Liv:I was very loved. So I'm not I wasn't operating under a belonging issue. Like, do I belong? Do I not? That came out maybe later in life.
Liv:But the core wound was, am I safe? Like literally, physically, emotionally, psychically safe. And I didn't feel safe. Even within a quiet room by myself, I felt very scared of my emotions, very fearful of what what I would discover if I dig deep enough and or if I'm quiet enough. And I liked only certain emotions.
Liv:And so I wanted to be good. I wanted to be fine. I wanted to be okay. And it was balancing, like these are the good emotions, these are the bad emotions, and I want to just stay right here, and that's not how it works.
Smoke:Well, resonates perfectly with me because I have, it doesn't matter the story, the same situation, same un safeness, and I was a master at compartmentalization. So I could be the life of the party, I could be totally focused on business and entrepreneurship and success and compartmentalize and not ever go into the areas where I was uncomfortable. And, you know, if someone brought up an uncomfortable topic, I would find a really good way to get us to go get a cocktail at the bar or to go do something else and change the subject. I was always like that. Now it's the opposite.
Smoke:Now I'm like, well, tell me something real, tell me something that matters to you, tell me something that is bothering you, or is like, you know, I can hold space because I figured it out for me, but it took a long time.
Liv:Yeah, and now you're becoming what I call human medicine. I remember walking up to you at one of the YPO events, and I said, Oh, hi Smoke, you're different, what happened?
Smoke:Yeah, well, besides not drinking, which is two years next month since we quit, that certainly helped, but that was really just something that fell out of getting my own healing. It wasn't like, Oh, I need to go stop drinking. It was, Oh, I don't need a drink anymore because I'm not trying to cover things up that I didn't know even though what they were, but I then knew I was covering them up, I'm like, I don't need that anymore.
Liv:Yeah, and that's what happens, right? It's not really about making those Parts go away like don't drink or don't overexercise. That doesn't work. It only works for so long. You're just going to pick up another addiction.
Liv:So part of the process is about befriending these parts, getting curious, figuring out why they're around in the first place. How can I help you? What do you need? Why are you here? What are you protecting?
Liv:And that's the work that you've done. I mean, as survival, too. A lot of us had to do this work just so that we're not suffering anymore. And I think that when we're able to do that for ourselves, then we can be helpers to others. It doesn't help.
Liv:It turns out to be quite harmful if we try to help others before we're helping ourselves.
Smoke:Yeah, makes perfect sense to me, and I wonder if you'd comment on this. I've said this a couple times, but I really feel this energetically. It's not even a verbal thing, like, I get people now, they just start telling me things, right? It's like, blah, blah, blah, blah, I know you get that. Just start telling me things that are, well, I don't even know you and you're telling me this thing that is like, would be horrific.
Smoke:No one would want but I'm getting it like in the first moments. And I feel that it is their higher self knows that they're in communication with my higher self, and these are just my words, but the way I think about it, and they know, oh, that one's safe. You can talk to them. And it's nonverbal, it's not like, hey, tell me something. Yes, I'm not saying anything, I'm just sitting here being me.
Liv:Because we want presence. You have more capacity to what I call, so I call it human medicine. It is the highest form of medicine, than plant medicine or good food or anything, or like a drug that you can take. Human medicine is the highest form of medicine. And what it is is your frequency of presence and active love.
Liv:That's what it is. That's what they're attracted to, which is why they're like, wow, someone has the capacity to hold space and to see me, to love me regardless of what I'm saying. So I'm not going to be met with shame, blame, all of that, or an egotistical story about themselves to make themselves feel better about what I'm saying. There's an open holding. That is what everybody is looking for.
Liv:And so people are coming to you in a different way now without even you just stand there and then, Hi, smoke. And then, I'm getting a divorce and I really wanted to talk to you about it or whatever they're going to say, right?
Smoke:Yeah,
Liv:happening because you're actually able to be present with people and have 50%. How I describe it is. For those of us who are who are able to have 50% of their attention on themselves. I know what's going on in my body as a little nervous to, know, start on this recording and I was like, let me grab my stone, let me ground, make it my essential oils. Let me come back to why I'm even here in the first place.
Liv:So I have this 50% understanding about what's going on with myself, but I also have 50% on you. And being able to actually have this internal and external awareness at all times with people and even when we're alone, even with inanimate objects or walking down the streets and we're passing by whatever, a tree, a flower, That's actually a very important skill set to develop, and that is what I am noticing more and more and more even in you smoke. If I can say that that is why when I see you, I'm like, yes. Oh my gosh. Yes.
Liv:Yes. Yes. Because somehow you did something that a lot of people are, I think, desiring to do, but there is stickiness there. And this is this is a platform here where you're sharing that journey of how and and you're almost curious like I don't know what's going on. Everyone tells me all their secrets, right?
Liv:And I'm my hope even in this conversation is to say, let me tell you why it's happening.
Smoke:Yeah, I love that. I'm getting electric shocks up my back as you're saying that, so obviously something's resonating.
Liv:You're good with you, so when you're good with you, you can be okay with whatever it is that you hear from others, and that's powerful medicine.
Smoke:Yeah, it really is, and it's a beautiful thing. It's why I'm doing this podcast. People are like, What are you doing? Why do you want to bury your soul with other people? I'm like, Well, because I feel great, and I feel that don't, I have to give it back to other people.
Smoke:It's available to everyone, And it's just that we're separated from ourselves by the trauma, by the experiences, and by just not knowing. We don't have a great system in this society that recognizes inner peace and recognizes higher self, whatever format you want to say, this particular, our Western, fast moving, particularly American society, is really detached from that. It's available to everybody, but it's kind of not built into the system here. So I feel like there's both a systemic issue and then there's everybody's individual trauma and individual program. You don't have to have the level of trauma that maybe you had or I had to still have trauma.
Smoke:It doesn't all have to be like, you you had this extraordinary story that no one would ever believe after you told it. It can be little things, it can be lesser things, but it felt like trauma to you, and unless you clear it, unless you recognize it, you're going to have that hanging over your head, in your subconscious at least.
Liv:Yeah, and it takes a tremendous amount, I think, of what I'm hearing you say underneath what you're saying too, it's like a vulnerability. There's like an honesty and a transparency, and with that comes a lot of courage to just be vulnerable about something. And when you're what I call in the rush zone of life, just the by me zone. Okay, I gotta do it by me by me by me. I got to support my family.
Liv:I got to do this. I got to do that. And you're in that rush zone of life. You're not actually operating above the line of effectiveness. Even though you think you're really effective and maybe you're making money or maybe you're getting validation from something in the external capitalistic world, you're missing something beautiful, which is fulfillment, joy, happiness, connection to the divine, which is actually quite amazing to have every moment.
Liv:So that space, The reason why I'm so excited about this podcast even is when if you can be vulnerable, right? If you're showing vulnerability and you're doing it, you're giving other people permission to do it because of what you've done in your life because of the deals you've made and the people you have influence to, and we have to raise the level of consciousness on this planet. We have to do that. It is actually essential and this is a part of it. Everyone has to do your part and this is you doing yours And that's really amazing.
Liv:Just congratulations. It's very important.
Smoke:Thank you. I agree, like I think it's the most important thing, right? So that it is the most important thing on this planet. And what is that? Let's talk about that for a minute.
Smoke:So what is raising consciousness? Because I think sometimes the spiritual community or the consciousness community gets into their own little bubble of like anything else, like say, YPO is the same, everybody's got their little nomenclature, we talk in code, and I think it's off putting, or at least it's leaving people out if they don't understand it. So maybe let's spend a minute on that and kind of define it. How do you define consciousness? And I'll go too, it's a dialogue.
Smoke:I'd love to hear
Liv:your favorite Let's do this. Okay? This is like the most important topic of our time.
Smoke:Yes.
Liv:This is my belief. We have a huge opportunity right now because there is a wave of wakefulness, weeping over the planet, and people are opting in on this wave. Okay? So this wave is what I even call spiritual heartbeat. It's the name of the new book I have coming out.
Liv:It's actually the name that Divine gave me because the word God I was allergic to because of my upbringing, so Divine gave me another name to call it. So there's a spiritual heartbeat, okay? There's this innate wisdom, there's love, there's connectedness, there's this beautiful abundance that lives within each of us waiting to be awakened and expressed.
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:And we have these different levels of consciousness that we can tap into. It's a frequency, it's an energy, it's a wakefulness, we can call it. Like how awake are you and aware are you of how you are being in that moment and where you're living from. So we can say, To me, this is all happening to me in a victim mindset. I was born in a cult and for me and oh my God, and that was hard and that's why I'm depressed and I want to kill myself and oh my goodness, this is terrible.
Liv:That's a to me mindset. Okay? We do it all the time. Oh my gosh, I'm too late. I'm not going to be ready for the podcast on time.
Liv:Okay? To me, to me, to me. Yeah?
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:Then the next level of consciousness is called by me. So I call the to me the danger zone. Okay? Like, woah, danger, danger, danger, danger, danger. Okay.
Liv:Next state of consciousness is by me. Okay? This is what I call the rest zone. I gotta I gotta do this. I gotta do that.
Liv:I gotta make money. I gotta go to the grocery store. I gotta go pick that up. I have this meeting. I hope this person invests in this.
Liv:And I gotta get this done, and you're completely overwhelmed, you're a little impatient, anything can trip trip you up.
Smoke:I I lived in that buy me zone for a long time.
Liv:There it is, right? In the buy me, we're constantly being triggered and we're not using our triggers as a way for growth. We're saying, oh, that person pissed me off. Oh, this is my circumstance and I hate this. It's not meeting my preference.
Liv:I have to have everything meet my preference all the time for me to be okay. That's a very dangerous place to be because you can't control anything. Below the line of effectiveness, you're not actually setting yourself up or anybody up for success in a to me or by me state. So let's get above the line. The next state is called a for me state of consciousness.
Liv:So this is happening for me. Even this I'll give you a very example. Right before this, I was like, oh, I have a little anxiety coming up. Oh, it's for me. I just say, Oh, this is okay.
Liv:I'm going to accept Maybe that'll be helpful for me. Let me just go ahead and ground and use my tools and do what I do so that I can be present for this conversation. If I'm like, Oh my God, I'm present and I'm not going to be present. I'm not going to say the right thing. I'm not going to know what to say this month, and I'm in a by me and it all has to be me.
Liv:That's very challenging.
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:Because I'm human and I don't know what to say a lot of the time. Okay?
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah.
Liv:Go into the for me state of consciousness, you see every single thing, including the triggers, including the anxiety, including the stress, including the trauma as an opportunity to turn anything and everything into a opportunity, okay, a gift or an offering. Every single thing that comes no matter what.
Smoke:Opportunity, gift or offering. Yeah, I love that.
Liv:Every single time. Two more, okay? Next level is happening through me, and that is saying I am actually connected to something greater than me. There's a higher power, there's something magical, you don't have to understand it. It is helpful to name it something.
Liv:I call it spiritual heartbeat, or God, or universe, or energy, or flow state, the field, or whatever you want to call it. You can even think of it, especially if you're a female who's had a baby, you're pregnant and this thing is growing inside of you. This child is growing inside of you and you are very certain that you are not doing it. I did not grow Abby in my belly. I am very certain that me did not do that.
Liv:Okay? So even if you are thinking of it as science, okay, or processes, it's great. But being able to understand that there's something in you connected to something bigger than you is very huge and you have access to it. So divine energy comes to me through this angle, right in. It's happening through me.
Liv:Okay? You can call it your spirit team. My ancestors are on this side. I can always feel them. They're coming through me.
Liv:That is a powerful, powerful thing to be able to practice to tap into.
Smoke:Then last
Liv:but not least is an asthma state of consciousness. So you're recognising that it's actually you, it's as me. It's my unique way to translate through the Divine, through my unique gifts, through my mannerisms, through even my body and the way I look and how I do things and how I say things. It's as me. So these are the levels of consciousness people can call as me enlightenment or interconnectedness or oneness.
Liv:Okay?
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:So through me is being able to recognize that you have connection to this higher power, and you're wanting to cultivate that, to recognize that, like you said, everyone has access to it. So when we talk about consciousness, I know I'm saying this a lot to your question, but I can talk about this all day. It is the opportunity to be more awake to the true nature of self. It's actually not outside of us. It's actually already here to
Smoke:I love that. That's a That's a really nice frame. And I could subscribe to that fully. I think there's a lot of other more complicated frames that are describing the same thing that can be off putting at sometimes. Also, can be very useful in different situations.
Smoke:For me, as I went through this process, I became very interested in trying to understand what I experienced. So I was like, what just happened here? Like, didn't know the word alchemy. I didn't know really any, I wasn't spiritually connect, I was connected, but I wasn't spiritually knowledgeable. I wasn't trained in anything.
Smoke:So I went through the last few years of going deep on educating myself because the way my brain works, I wanted to understand what I was experiencing, what I was feeling, and I know that was two separate things, but they all come together, right? So I needed to answer some questions to do that. So for me, David Hawkins is my favorite go to frame because I just feel like he described the states of consciousness with his levels of consciousness chart and his explanations at a level that I have not seen anywhere else. I've read the Upanishads, I've read the Bhagavad Gita, I've read Buddha, I've read you name it, I've been digging into everything I can find. And for me, his frame helped a lot because I think he's the first actual enlightened being who also was trained as a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and had a practice, the largest practice in America for fifty years, and treated all these people clinically who had all these different ailments, and so he understood the ego and the mind really well from an academic standpoint, and he became enlightened, and he decided to write about it.
Smoke:So for me, his frame is great, but it matches up perfectly. You can totally see where, you know, certainly where your to me is all in the below 200s, it's all the negative emotions, you know, somewhere in the, as you're getting close to 200 and just above it where you're at neutrality or courage, you know, it's that next level of yours.
Liv:Right below the line of effectiveness there in his chart.
Smoke:Yep. And then, you know, all the way up into the top, up to just below 500 is going to be that you know, fourth bracket for you, which is is it for me? Is that was that the or am getting it mixed up?
Liv:So that so above right above the line?
Smoke:Yes.
Liv:Yeah. Right right above the line is the for me. So that, that's Alright,
Smoke:and then it goes For Me, and then what's next?
Liv:So after For Me, you go Through Me. Through Me and then As Me.
Smoke:Right, so Through Me is you're in that, I think, three four hundred level, his scale, which is very it's still in the Newtonian ego mind, but it's I can do it. It's I have the power to do this. I have all the tools and sciences with me and I can make anything happen. I can do anything. And then you get above that 500 level and you get into love and unconditional love and all the higher levels, and that's where you realize, yeah, it's not just me.
Smoke:Just an expression of the bigger picture of the whole thing, and I'm just that expression. It matches perfectly with the way I look at it, what I just went through probably lost half the people, but
Liv:I think you know that chart actually that you're describing, I use it a lot in my coaching practice that what the colorful chart there with that. He even has a line right in the middle there of what I'm saying around effectiveness. When you're below the line, you're actually not effective. And I think that's what a lot of CEOs, influencers, leaders get to actually understand in a different way. Because I I do think that now in our world that by me state of consciousness, that rush zone you said you lived in for for a long time, that is it actually did work.
Liv:It was a playbook that works.
Smoke:No. You It works if you're good and you're and you're you've got superpowers to get things done. You can you can achieve great things still in that state. But what we don't realize what I what I've come to realize is it's like pushing on a rope or the physical world we live in is the effect, it's not the cause of anything. So if we're putting all of our effort on the effect, if we're trying to make things happen in this realm, we're missing 99% of the power, which is at the energetic level.
Smoke:All of this stuff we're seeing is manifesting from that energetic level. So it's like we're seeing the result and we're pushing on the result instead of getting to the root that's creating everything.
Liv:Exactly. And that's the thing, we can all keep operating in this buy me state, right below the line of effectiveness, But this is what I know is the danger of that. We won't actually solve the bigger problems of our society and culture and world from that state. That and that's there's this is the opportunity to really step in and say, oh, I'm willing to raise my level of consciousness and work and operate and pay attention at a different level so that it's not just about me, it's actually in service through me. That shift if if we can if we can say, yeah, if people can say yes to that shift, and they can understand that what is good for for the collective is good for you too, that is going to be very helpful.
Liv:It's going be very
Smoke:It's the most important thing. The other thing I love what you said, and this is consistent with both those frames, is we're all doing our energetic part in whatever way we are to raise consciousness. And the thing that really strikes me is, as you raise your consciousness, which is simply an awareness of our true self, so it's not actually a thing, enlightenment, it's not actually the way I interpret it, this is just my view. It's not actually something that we're reaching for, that we're striving for, although it has felt like that from time to time. What I've come to do is, it's actually already there, it's peeling away the things that are in the way.
Smoke:And so, we peel those things away, we get exposed to that higher power within us, And that is so much more powerful than the human wrapping that we're in, that as we raise our consciousness, which is our awareness of this, of higher self, we are impacting everyone in the field at an accelerated rate. That Hawkins scale is a logarithmic scale, so if you understand math, you understand that every segment up is not one times, it's 10 times, 10 times, 10 times, whatever the number is. So, when you get up into the over 500s and you get up into the over 600, six hundred is historically, you know, classified as enlightenment, and once you get up above that, you're broadcasting a signal at such a high level to the world. It's literally impacting the entire field that we live in.
Liv:Exactly. That's it. And that tipping point is what I'm constantly on the lookout for, of people willing to say yes to that. And what we're talking about is okay, we're all swimming in waters. Okay, this is maybe the analogy we can use to make it more tangible.
Liv:And those waters can be quite toxic or they can be very nourishing. And we are deciding as a society as of now to just say we're cool with the dirty water and the toxic water that we're swimming in. Because at least I have a house. At least I can pay my mortgage. At least I have my retirement at least.
Liv:And we're in this scarcity mindset. And I get it. I mean, I I and I it's not a state that you it's a stagnant state. It's a choice every day to say I'm gonna be
Smoke:Oh, yeah.
Liv:Right? I'm gonna choose gratefulness. So this is not about judgment of like, oh, you know, smoke and I, we never fall below the line of effectiveness. No. No.
Liv:No. It's saying, can you be aware of when you fall below the line? And do you have the tools, the practice, the consistency, the environment that allows you to come back up? And right now, the danger is that the waters are so toxic that it's actually hard to do what you and I are doing every day. But when more people are doing it, it actually becomes so much easier.
Smoke:Yeah, everyone who does it, it paves the way for everyone else, and it makes it that much easier. It's a lot easier to become enlightened or awakened today than it ever was in history. It was a lot harder when the Buddha did it or when Jesus did it or when Krishna did it. I mean, it was way, way harder. It's much easier today.
Smoke:Is. I think what you said is really important and it's something that I've come to understand is, we're never always at one spot. So I think as we progress in our understanding of consciousness and our awareness, we can move our, call it center of gravity up, and our center of gravity moves up as we get rid of things, as we clear things, let go of things, are willing to drop judgment, you know, we move up and move up, and we can get to a higher level of wherever we were to some higher level. But it doesn't mean you're always at that level, it means you're going, we're humans, as you said, and we go in, we have experiences and we run into someone who's operating at a different level and threatens us. I had an example recently that I won't get into detail because I'm not going back there, but I have deep wounds from childhood that I have healed, and yet when I'm threatened, my immediate reaction is to lash out and to, well, I can do this and I can do that, and my mind went right to how I can win the situation.
Smoke:But I didn't do anything, just had this feeling, and I was like, okay, that's not a feeling I'm used to these days. It came back to me, right? And I meditated on it, when I went to bed, asked for help. Is important, we can all ask for help and it's available to us if we ask for it. So I asked for help and I said, What do I need to release?
Smoke:What do I need to know? Give me the grace of understanding to know what I need to learn from this experience so that I can be better and I can move on, and I'm choosing not to engage because I realized, and I woke up the next morning, I'm like, Okay, it's obvious, I don't engage, because I was going to respond, and I was going to Then I was like, Wait a minute, I don't need to engage in that. I don't need to As Jesus said, we don't need to fight evil, we need to avoid it. The Buddhist called all evil ignorance, and it's not that I don't I wish well on actually everyone, including the individual who caused this to happen to me. I actually sent them love and peace and forgiveness.
Smoke:I'm like, their trouble, they're still in that mode when they were willing to do the things that I recognized they did from childhood, and I'm like, they're still doing that. They're still in that mode, and I felt bad for them. I actually am like, oh, that's really sad, know, they're finish this life, most likely still in that, and they're gonna get to repeat whatever they need to repeat to learn this lesson again because that's where they are still. Fifty, sixty years later.
Liv:Do you find that you are in a space sometimes where you're wanting others to elevate with you? Like, there's this desire, like, okay, I did this. I want you to do it too. Is that something that's coming up?
Smoke:No, it's funny, I know what you're saying because I went through that. And now I'm, no, I really, I'm okay. Where I am is more, I notice better because I'm not judging, I'm just noticing where people are, and my sincere, where I go back to is, how can I be helpful to this person? And that doesn't mean they need to become enlightened.
Liv:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think that it's a gift to ourselves to be able to release that resentment, that judgment, that feeling of even feeling sorry for them, it's just the acceptance. That's what I'm really hearing you say. It's just like there's radical acceptance for where people And that radical living, as I call it, is essential to being able to stay above the line of effectiveness, essentially, or to be able to choose to expand your awareness and level of consciousness and elevate that.
Smoke:So that's a really important point, and I think where I have struggled over the last few years is as I have gotten to this level and I've gotten to a level of acceptance, and I'm like, look, I'm not here to change everyone. That being said, I said this when I was doing my whole forgiveness thing, forgiveness is not condoning. Forgiveness is just forgiveness. I forgive, I let it go, but it doesn't mean I condone behavior or it doesn't mean I support those behaviors. And so how do we think about when we encounter very service to self behavior, a very anti life behavior, the opposite of universal heart, is that what you called it?
Smoke:Cosmic self, cosmic energy? What do you call the universal universe and not using the word God.
Liv:Yeah, the field of consciousness, universal
Smoke:Field of consciousness, heart consciousness, the field of so whatever you want to call it, I'm okay with God because I didn't grow up in a God situation. There are people and entities who are in service in the opposite direction, so they're the opposite of service to God. They're in a very self-service or turning away from that. And while we can be in acceptance, it doesn't mean that we condone it, support it, or we don't have to accept harm to others, things that are happening in front of us, there's a point where you can't just observe. Maybe you can't, but if someone is being harmed in front of me physically, I'm not going to stand there and say, Oh, I accept it.
Smoke:That's not my DNA. I can't do that. Now, do I want to go get into fights defending people who are being attacked? No, I don't. But if something happens and I'm able to do something, it's in my power to prevent harm, I'm going to do it.
Liv:Yeah, okay, so you're talking, let me see if I can separate this because you're asking a really important question, There's almost, I think, two or three questions in here, which is like, if I see something happening that can act that is harmful, so we can only do two things. We're either helping or harming. We can't do both at the same time. So you got to pick one. So you're saying, hey, I think I'm helping now.
Liv:I see something that's harmful. I have the I might have the opportunity to step in, and I might be enraged. Right? You might be triggered by that, and there's anger that comes up. But anger is beautiful.
Liv:Anger anger when done usefully allows you to know where your boundary is and and where your value is, and then you can move from an empowered space and then act in support, right? So I think that, yes, we have some opportunities sometimes to do that, and that is fantastic because we're going to be a helper. There's another piece of this, though, that I do think that a lot of us tend to miss because it's the hard work of something. And if you I I I explain it like this to my clients. Let's imagine a track, and you have the lanes of a track.
Liv:Yeah? And now let's just, like, expand it up. So you have the inner lane up here, and then the bigger lane and the bigger lane and the bigger lane. Yeah? Okay.
Liv:So we're all walking around this track. Okay? We're just walking around. And as you elevate, you might be able to be more efficient, so you're not going the long way around anymore, you're kind of like up here. So you raise your level of consciousness, here you are on the track, doing all these cool things up here and you're having a good time.
Liv:Okay? So, what happens though is that we will pass by others taking the long route.
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:We're still on this track. And in that moment, we look and we see this person running very inefficiently. Here we are running with perfect form and we're like, Yeah, feel good. I feel good. I feel good.
Liv:And then you're looking like, What the heck is going on? What are they doing? They're not, they don't know how to run. And that trigger, that noticing like, what the heck are you doing over there? Is actually our opportunity to elevate again.
Liv:Judgment right there, what are you doing over there? Is actually not about the other person at all. It's actually about, okay. Wait. What is this bringing up?
Liv:Is it bringing up the fact that I used to run pretty shitty? Is it bringing up the fact that I am feeling helpless because I don't know how to help that person run? What is it actually bringing up for me in this moment? Because that trigger in that moment, watching somebody do life ineffectively, is actually our opportunity to keep going. And that is it's like when I see when I see that happening, I'm like, what are you what are they doing?
Liv:It's like instead of shining the spotlight on them, boom, right away, we can shine it on us to keep to keep learning from the inner disturbances that we are feeling inside. And I
Smoke:think we actually help them more by doing that than trying to intervene in some way.
Liv:Exactly. It's actually our opportunity, and that's the radical living. It's every time you want to turn your spotlight onto someone else, you flip it right back around and say, What is there for me to learn? Which is what you did that night. Done, is there for me to do?
Liv:What is here for me to learn?
Smoke:And that
Liv:is the radical living, which allows you to connect with your intuitive nature, then to be authentic, then to feel empowered, then to feel joyful, loving, and then connected to divine. That is the path that we're on with that wave of enlightenment.
Smoke:And that's incredibly hard, right? So I think back to this center of gravity, as we move up the tracks and we get into these higher tracks that are more efficient and better, we can see down below these very inefficient tracks. We've already accomplished this, we're already ahead of that. We can't really see the better ones because we're only at the level we are, so you always can see down below, but you can't see above. And I come to great humility, true, honest, genuine humility of knowing the more I get good at this, the more I know that there's all these higher levels and I'm not in them.
Smoke:So I have nothing but deference and understanding that there's more. There's always more, right? But we're gonna have moments as humans at any stage where we dip down and we fall and we're down, maybe for a minute we're down at a lower track where we're almost going to head down there, and then we the ability to kind of check ourselves. I get it through kind of taking a moment, pausing, meditating, sleeping on it. I'm like, I'm not going to do anything until I sleep on it.
Smoke:When I woke up, I'm like, Oh, it was really clear to me. Just let it go. Don't even engage. Don't even do anything. And that was great.
Smoke:But the older version of me, or maybe slightly not that long ago, would have had a harder time doing that. So, as we go and we become more aware, become more able to be present, it doesn't mean we're not going to have moments where there's challenges and dips and like, oh, wow. And we shouldn't be too hard on ourselves for having those moments of thinking a thought that like, Oh, that's not me, that's not the elevated me. Why did I have that bad thought back at someone? And I don't do that anymore, but then here I have the situation where it came up.
Smoke:I'm like, okay, well, there it is.
Liv:There it is, yeah. I think that judgment, that critic to ourselves, right? When we have done all this work and we feel like, oh, I've achieved some level of understanding about myself and the world and the spiritual laws of the universe. Okay, cool. I got it.
Liv:And then we come back down to this humanity. You know, our humanity will show up, but if we can see those moments as opportunities, right? So every trigger again is the for me state of mind. We can say, oh, this is happening for me. This is fantastic.
Liv:Let me go ahead and see why. I'm curious. I can't wait to know how this is gonna how what this is gonna turn out to be. And I think that part of why you said, you know, this is hard to do. Why it's hard to do is because People are not really wanting truth or honesty or commitment to that, and that is actually a choice somewhere along the way.
Liv:You need lots of people listening to this. If they listen to this podcast this far, have definitely already made the choice.
Smoke:Yeah, they're they're they're they're deep in it. If we if they've made it this far, they're deep. You're you're you're
Liv:you're in
Smoke:with us. Sorry, don't get now.
Liv:We're listening this far in the podcast. You you are already on the way and you've committed somewhere along the way to say yes to higher states of consciousness. And in that commitment, we do get to know it's going to be hard, but this is not about being perfect. We all are going to keep our humanity, even if we are saying enlightenment. In my mind, enlightenment is a choice.
Liv:Are you choosing enlightenment right now or are you not? Are you deciding and saying I'm willing to see this differently or not? That's just the question. You can just say, I'm willing to see this differently. Help me.
Liv:You'll be helped. It's that courage to say, I can't do this by myself. I'm having a hard time. I'm in my humanity. I'm in my small self.
Liv:Show me a better way. Show me something greater than me. You will always get an answer. You'll always elevate, you'll always keep going. That's the courage, it's just to do that.
Smoke:The other thing that helped in that situation was when I did my meditation and I was contemplating it, I realized the thing that was coming up was a younger version of me. So I basically specifically addressed a five year old version of me and probably a teenager version of me and probably an early 20s version of me in kindness and saying, you're right, and we're gonna do it this
Liv:way. And
Smoke:that seemed to make it all be fine, I had to address it, I had to acknowledge it, because the thing that was coming up wasn't the current version of smoke, because I'm definitely at a different level, but there's still those pieces of me that didn't go away, they're still there, they still exist, I remember everything perfectly.
Liv:And that's the thing too, I think that it's so beautiful that you're bringing up, is that the healing continues. This idea that like, oh, when I'm healed, then something like, you know, it's like when I'm all perfect, then I can something. Okay, then I'll have happiness or joy or then I'll start a podcast. Then
Smoke:it's a carrot and stick. You're keeping it away from you at all times if you do it that way, right? Exactly.
Liv:And that's because we were we were taught in this old playbook model that we were brought up in to focus on object referrals. So I need things out here to validate me. That's what we grew up with. It's like, oh, I got the job. Yay.
Liv:Then I can be happy. Or, oh, I got the investment and they like me. Oh, cool. So we're constantly in this object referral mode instead of learning how to do self referral. And that's the danger of the world that we're swimming in here a bit.
Smoke:I mean, keep going, I wrote a little card down and I want to share it because it resonated with what you're saying.
Liv:Yeah. When I'm working with clients who are I mean, a lot of them are such high achievers, it really is about seeing why they're struggling. And they're in the struggle because they're looking at the world and saying, validate me, validate me, validate me. But when you are constantly needing other things or an experience or some more, some more, some more, some more to validate who you are, it will never now you're a slave to that thing, and then you can't get I
Smoke:completely relate, Anne. So, I did my forum retreat the weekend before last, so we were up in Sedona here, and we had a couple resources, but one of the resources we did, we had a breathing person who did this incredible breathing exercise where we did a two hour breathing session that got everybody to a very heightened state. It was very interesting. I've done plant medicine, I've done other experiences, and this was like that in many ways. It was very tapping into a higher level.
Smoke:And when I got done with it, I wrote down much stuff. But I wrote on a card, I am. And then I wrote, this is the thing that was part of our exercise, but what does this bring up for you to remind you of this? And so I just got to this I am thing, and mine was complete, whole, no need, outside approval, not what you say, it's what you are.
Liv:There it is, right there.
Smoke:Right. So, it's exactly what you're saying. It was like, I'm already kind of in that place, but this was a really direct download saying, Dude, this is it. You're already there. It's
Liv:so beautiful. That is the self referral. That is the ability to practice being in alignment with that true authentic self, with that true nature, and not needing to rely on that external factors to dictate who we are. So I'll say to myself, I am perfect, whole and complete, ever changing, ever growing, ever evolving. Yes, more, please, thank you.
Liv:It's kind of like one of my prayers every day.
Smoke:Love it.
Liv:One of these things, it's like what you're saying to yourself, what you decide to believe about who you are and how you be is actually really important, and it's the opportunity to recognize when we fall asleep to that importance of what we're putting out there, that's dangerous. That's when we become a liability.
Smoke:Well, love that. Thing that I've gone through and I've learned, and I love your thoughts on this, so we have to grow up just as humans, from childlike behavior to some level of maturity of some kind. We have to grow up. We have to clean up and we have to wake up. So the waking up thing is optional, all this is optional, but it's what we're talking about with consciousness, but you can't hold a higher center of gravity in waking up in consciousness unless you clean up too.
Smoke:And what I mean by clean up is what's in your subconscious, what is your karmic energy that's surrounding you that you need to solve for? Because as you go up in levels of consciousness, these things will come up and you can't hold that level unless you've solved for those things. It'll keep knocking you back down. So when I think about clean up, I think about I reprogram my subconscious mind. Once I understood this, I was like, okay, so you're telling me that all this stuff I didn't know about was affecting my whole life.
Smoke:Now I know about it, now I've put awareness to it, but what else, what do I want in there? So I actually literally went into, I made a plan, I'm like, this is entrepreneurial self, know, like, okay, so you mean this drives everything, so I need to change this, not this. So I focused on what is the subconscious, which is where all the power is, and what do I want in it to manifest? So I just started listening to things that I wanted to be in it, and I started only watching things that I wanted to be in it. And I literally used to watch action movies and all kinds of things, and I stopped all violence when I realized that my subconscious didn't know the difference between a murder on TV and a murder in person, or all those negative emotions.
Smoke:Your subconscious doesn't know the difference. So what we put into it, where we have free will, in my opinion, I love your take on this, is what filters we put to what goes into us, into our subconscious. We don't really control, like what's in there is going to manifest things out, but we can control what goes in, in large measure.
Liv:Yeah, that's beautiful. I agree. I would say I agree mostly. I would say that, let me go back to say where I don't agree first, and then I'll say that. That So I think that when you're in a state of we'll call it the danger zone, the to me, okay, when you're in that state of patterns, trigger, critter brain, anger, fear, overwhelm, fight or flight, you're in that state of a younger version of you, like you said, right?
Smoke:Yeah. And
Liv:if things are keep keep coming at you, you can't recover fast enough to say, I'm not going to pick up my phone and zone out. I'm not going to be able to be effective. Because remember, we have to be above the line of effectiveness to be effective, to actually have choice. So part of what is really important to recognize is we have to first build the awareness of where am I operating from? Like, where where's my baseline?
Liv:Am I all am I pretty much living in the danger zone in the to me? And then if that's happening, I'm going to need a tremendous amount of support. I have to get people to maybe help me or God to help me, or I'm going to have to help myself, but I probably can't because I'm five right now, freaking out that I'm not
Smoke:Yeah, or you're entrained in a negative energy pattern that is literally, it's like a tractor field and force field that you can't break out on your own without help.
Liv:Exactly, and this is why we have to become human medicine for each other, So we can have places and spaces where we can actually be present for somebody's pain, right? Be present for them in that trigger, in that pattern, in that running poorly on the track, Right?
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:Whatever. So it's the opportunity to say, I see you, I get it, I love you. How can I help you? Do you want help? How can I help you?
Liv:And just actively loving that person and seeing them as equals in that moment is the best thing. And thankfully in my life, I had people like that because I lived in victim mode. I lived in my triggers and my critter brain. And am I safe? I'm not safe.
Liv:Am I safe? I'm not safe. Am I safe? Oh my god. My car park.
Liv:Oh my god. Oh my god. How am I gonna make money? Can I buy a sandwich? And when you're constantly in that state, you can't you have to disassociate through addictions, through scrolling, through watching toxic things, through gossip, through awful friendships.
Liv:You end up attracting what you're in, but when somebody comes along and looks at you and sees you as an equal when they're actually operating here, freedom. That's so beautiful. That is a gift that my mentors, the people in my life gave to me, so I could see myself in them and I'm saying, Oh, that's how I can move. That's how I can breathe. That's how I can hold myself.
Liv:That's how I can speak. And that was helpful. I couldn't have seen that unless they they were able to see me in what I call a horizontal relationship and not this vertical. I'm better than you kind of a thing. So Yeah.
Liv:We all have an opportunity to say, okay, let's understand where we're operating from. What where are we at? Because we're gonna need different things at certain times. Most of the people I work with, they teeter right right below the line, so they're kind of jumping up and down between a state of keeping up in the rest zone and a positive and powered state where they feel like, yes, I'm motivated. I'm inspired.
Liv:Mean, probably
Smoke:I mean, you have a lot of successful people that you work with, but they're like but they're successful in spite of, like, being right there at the teeter. They're
Liv:like, they keep going back and forth. They're just like, Buy me for me, buy me for me, buy me for me. Okay, they're right here. So that's usually where people come into my space. And when you're coming from that space, if that's where your baseline is, what you're saying is crucial, because you're teetering there, so you do have this choice to do something different, and when you are in that space, the first thing you want to do is what I call eliminate the deadweight.
Liv:You have to commit to eliminating the toxic things in your space. How much and also to, for example, you might be able to listen to more news than I'm able to listen to. You might be able to do more events and and speaking engagements in the day than I'm able to do. So it's also just honoring your sensitivity. Right?
Smoke:Yeah.
Liv:And seeing, look, I can't do more than two calls a day. Otherwise, I drop below the line of effectiveness, right? Because for my capacity, for whatever happened to me, you know?
Smoke:For sure. I had to learn to dial back what I was willing to do because I used to be able to go to things all the time. And now I'm like, okay, I have to pick my spots so that I'm really effective. And that means not saying yes to a lot of things that I would have said yes to in the past.
Liv:Right. And that's the that's the it's not really a trade off. It's actually a courageous choice to say, I'm going to pick the later but greater reward and trust in the universe that I will receive anyway. That is what what we get to be up to, right? To say, I don't actually overwork and overextend myself and then have to recover and numb out.
Liv:I can actually and that's what most of us are doing. We're overworking and then numbing, overworking and then numbing. And that pattern is not helpful to ourselves or anybody around us because we snap at our partner. We're being unkind to our neighbors. You know, we get triggered and we explode.
Liv:So that space is to recognize if I actually am honoring my sensitivity and I say this is actually how much I can do in the day. This is this is what I can the input this is how much input I actually can take and be honest with that. What happens is that you do end up eliminating some things. You say no way more than you say yes, right?
Smoke:For sure.
Liv:That's a that's a huge deal, and that is really hard to do when you're. You know, I got a kid going to private school and it costs $50,000 a year. You know she's in first grade, know. So I'm like, but shouldn't I be, you know? So we all get caught up in like, am I doing enough?
Liv:Do I need to keep pushing it? And anytime I go into that rush zone state, I just keep getting in trouble. So I know better now, but it does take an away a lot of awareness to say, hold on. What what is what am I actually up to right now? What's actually important and coming back to that over and over and over again so we can have the discipline to say I'm not going to watch that movie or I'm going to turn my phone off at, you know, 7PM and let me take two hours before bedtime to not look at a screen or whatever needs to happen to really honor yourself in whole different way.
Smoke:Yeah, that is so important, and I appreciate that. And then being intentional with the things we say yes to, whatever those are. In this case, this podcast is actually taking quite a bit of my time, more than I expected, and I'm happy in doing it. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Partly I wanted to do it, so I knew how to do it, and I didn't hire a bunch of people to do it for me, so I went through the pain of learning how to edit and do all that stuff, but also just, this is really important to me, and I was thinking about it for a while, and I was talking about it, I talked to some people, guests, who could be guests, and then they were asking me, When are we doing this?
Smoke:When are we doing this? And I was like, I don't really know what I want to do, I wasn't sure, and then I just, you know, finally I was like, Wait a minute, what am I doing here? I'm doing this, this is important, and it's now taking on a life to its own, which is fun, and I really appreciate you being a part of
Liv:It's so important. That's so huge. I love that you did that and just decided. It's like that commitment of saying, Okay, what's important? Is this worthy of my time?
Liv:Is this important to me or not? Okay. Yes, it is. And then I'm gonna go for it, and I'm not gonna change my mind. Right?
Liv:And it'll change. It won't have a life of its own, and we'll you figure it out. But it is just that that one foot in front of the other, even when we don't know what we're doing. And that's the trust, right? That's the faith in.
Liv:I don't have to know. I don't need to know what's going to actually happen. I just have to continue to trust my intuition and follow it, important. And I think that that is what I've seen that you're doing with this podcast and what my hope is that we can all just have examples of because it does allow other people to do it do that through the example of it being done. It's really quite one of the things that you're saying here before I know you probably have to wrap up soon is there's this there is this space in what we're talking about where there gets to be something bigger than ourselves that like this ripple effect that's created.
Liv:And where I see a lot, even myself, where we get tripped up as just a society is our definition of failure our definition of it not working out, and which stops us from taking that one intuitive step at a time. And part of what I, just this past year, reframe with my clients, I think I feel like we we kind of figured it all out together in a way, is to reframe failure as, oh, I just didn't see the ripple effect that I thought I was going to see, but there was. But that's none of my business. That's God's business. I'm going stay out of the way.
Liv:You can just recognize that even with this podcast, say you make 20 podcasts, and then you're like, I know I'm done now. And then people call that failure or something. That's not correct. It's actually we're not always going to know the ripple effect of something. But if we can say I'm going to take intuitive action, I'm just this feels right.
Liv:I know it's right, and I'm gonna just keep going and do this thing. That is our our our job. That's our only job.
Smoke:I read somewhere and it first didn't make sense to me, then I came to agreement with it, which is anything we give, if we're looking for acknowledgment or a response, then we're not really giving purely. So whatever we do, we give it our all. The true gift is just doing it. Is it nice? I got a note yesterday from someone responding to a poem I wrote yesterday about embracing your inner child.
Smoke:It was about what we just talked about a little while ago. Was a poem that came out of that experience and I just expressed it that way. This person, it brought up things for him clearly, and he wrote a whole letter to me about how he really appreciates me sharing it and all this stuff. So it felt great. I was like, oh, wow, that's really nice.
Smoke:I wrote that poem. I didn't write it for that letter, to get a letter back. I did write it because it was something that came out of me that I felt like I could capture in that essence of what we went through. I felt like I can capture it better in poetry than I can in a conversation. Energetically, it just makes sense to me.
Smoke:And I don't know why I it out there because I think it makes sense to me and it might help somebody. So every once in a while, it's nice to hear, oh, yeah, I'm human. I like hearing that, but I'm not doing it for that. And I agree, you just have to do it. I think that gets in the way of so many of us, even high performing people on the surface or people that are really successful, they hold back on things that maybe they think doesn't fit my persona.
Smoke:I started putting poetry out, and people were like, my kids were like, Dad, what are you doing? People are like, You're writing poetry and putting love poems out on LinkedIn. That makes like, what are you doing? I still think I'm the only one doing that. But I just got to where like, just this is something that is important, just doing it and you know.
Liv:And that's so I'm not I think is the courage that you know you're you're in this state of I can just do it. I I'm not needing the validation for it. I'm doing it of service. And there's a reciprocity that happens, which is so the paradox of life because when you actually do something out of service, you actually get back way more than you would have otherwise, which is so great. This is crazy to me because for so long I'm like, okay, I need this and I need that and I need this to feel safe and I need this to take care of myself.
Liv:I need, I need, I need, I need. And when I finally stopped doing that and I was saying, you know what? I'm gonna actually be an asset to everything I go into every single time. I'm gonna be an asset. I'm gonna be helpful.
Liv:I'm gonna be of service. I'm actually okay. I'm good. Perfect, whole and complete. Ever changing, ever evolving.
Liv:When I finally believed that and I was doing things of service, I actually receive so much every day. Even one conversation with a client, they think I'm helping them. I get so much and the reciprocity is insane.
Smoke:I'm not You think you're helping my show, or you think that, you know, I'm No, like you're helping me. This is actually It turns out that I learn and grow and get something out of all these conversations myself, and I would do it just for that, know, whether I ever put it out there or not.
Liv:Exactly. And that's the power of reciprocity, right? That's the power of actual true service. It's so powerful, yeah?
Smoke:Yeah, yeah. Well, Liv, I feel like we've barely scratched the surface, and yet we've gone really meaningfully deep on some things, and two thoughts, or one, is there anything else you'd like to share? And second, would you come back and do this again to share more later, but is there anything that you want to include in this discussion?
Liv:Yeah, I'll add in just for all the listeners here who stuck it out this long with us, and a reminder to myself, hopefully to you, is that we get to be really gracious with ourselves. We get to be really kind to ourselves and all parts of ourselves, even the parts that aren't sexy, aren't cool, aren't helping us out, and just really embrace all parts of ourselves and say, you know what? All is welcome. And we get to be really kind to ourselves. In that loving kindness, there's something beautiful that happens.
Liv:It's almost as if we have all of our best friends with us. These parts are like our buddies, even the small five year old who is scared, you know? When we can meet them where they're at and give them love and attention, they don't drag us back down. They elevate us back up. And I think that that is one of the things I continue to remind myself every morning, and probably the greatest achievements really of my life is just learning and practicing every day to be really kind and loving to every single part that shows up in the day.
Liv:And
Smoke:Yeah. I love that's beautiful. And and that five year old, not only does it not drag us down, that five year old had this beautiful, innocent way of looking at the world, and even with their, in my case, fears, insecurities and survival mode, was just this beautiful little creature that had this amazing outlook and wonder of the world and new divinity then really well. So it's not even a negative, it's a really, really positive too, to bring it back together.
Liv:Because we get to learn from all those parts, right? They have something beautiful to share. My first name is Amy, So my name is Amy Olivia Salvage was my given name, or Amy Olivia Joy Salvage. And I changed my name in college because I thought Amy couldn't cut it. Like she wasn't going to make it in this world because she was wanting to hug trees and talk to God and play in the dirt and not was was not interested in making money or succeeding in anything.
Liv:She was just hanging out. And I pushed her away for so long. Pushed her away for a long time saying, Okay, you're not going to cut it. We got to live. Olivia, she'll do it.
Liv:She'll step up. Right? And just not that long ago, ten years ago, I'm like, Oh, actually, I'm learning so much from her now. Actually my greatest teacher. I think having a daughter who's young, who's seven, and seeing myself in her, realizing, wow, I pushed her away for so long.
Liv:And actually, she's she's my greatest teacher. All of those parts have something really wonderful to share. And that's when we can pay attention and slow down enough to recognize that we actually have a lot of wisdom inside of us from all of these past selves, it becomes a lot easier to even get things done and show up for things that we need to show up for because life is sometimes painful and uncertain and not easy. It's not always easy. But if we can recognize that we don't have to have every circumstance and everything meet our preferences because we're already safe, we're already loved, we're already kind to ourselves, it just makes it a lot easier.
Liv:And that's my hope for everybody.
Smoke:Life is going to have ups and downs and pain and everything else. It doesn't have to have suffering though, right? That's really what you're talking about is like, fine, we're going to have things that go wrong and things that don't go exactly how we thought our preference was, it's how we react to it and it's a great place to be. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I so appreciate you being willing to share personally, for me, it was a great conversation, and I know it will resonate with the people that stuck around.
Smoke:You know, they stuck around for a reason, so however many that is, that's okay.
Liv:Thank you, Snow. This is a great platform. I'm so happy to be sharing a conversation with you, and yes, I will come back anytime you invite me, and we'll continue our conversations, I'm sure, off the screens as well.
Smoke:Awesome, thank you.