The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry with the mission of addressing fundamental problems in our food and healthcare system. Our concerns with our healthcare system can be drawn back to issues in our food system as far back as soil health. Our principles are simple: eat real foods, buy locally, and cook your own meals.
When you listen to our podcast, you will hear stories and conversations from people working on the fringes of the food and healthcare system to address the major crises overshadowing modern society: how do we become healthy again?
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Full erin YT video
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[00:00:00] The truth is, people eat because they're spiritually starved. We don't know what makes us joyful.
This is properly engineered.
living In a society where you are constantly seeking outwards instead of turning inwards.
this idea of freedom. How much of it comes from the choices we make around really, like, just nutrition?
It comes back to the science of true nourishment. thanks for having me. I'm really happy to be here. Yeah, thank you so much for coming
yeah. Well, I overheard you guys talking. John's just been, he's been such a supporter of us from day one. He's just such a good dude. Male beings. You're lucky. I am. Or blessed. Yeah, I thank God every day.
Yeah. I really do. He's also beautiful and hairy. And he's an amazing father. Mm. Mm. And I manifested him and I pray all beings really experience a love like this. It's so, when you have a supportive presence in your life, you can do, I [00:01:00] mean, nothing can stop you. Yeah. Nothing can stop you. No, no pun intended.
Yeah. When you say you manifested him, do you mean that you were like consciously thinking about the type of characteristics that you wanted in a male partner? Manifestation is a life altering practice. And I, it's so much more than that. It is, I moved into ceremony regularly to call in John, and it's something that I educate on often.
It's a practice called Snapshot Manifestation. It's chapter six of the book. And it's more, it's feeling states. So I teach manifestation by connecting to feeling states. These are unique codes. So it's working with metaphors. Maybe it's song lyrics, visuals, symbols. It's Sitting in the feeling as if you already have it, and then connecting to that feeling daily.
And then the most important thing is taking a line to action. So if you're calling in your highest beloved and you're not dating, or asking for introductions, or putting yourself in situations where you're going to meet new people, then something has to shift. Hmm. [00:02:00] That's incredible. So what, what compelled you to start writing the book?
Like getting into actually sharing what you've been practicing and learning yourself. It's exactly what we talked about even moments earlier and we were troubleshooting all of this, but we have a responsibility, right? When you learn the practices to help you heal like extreme things, which I know Brett you moved through.
Yes. Like I healed in my anxiety this feeling of Also something we were talking to, of wanting more. Like, it's so taboo to want more. The first three words in my book are, I wanted more. And I want to give permission slip to people to pursue their highest possible timeline, which means to listen to that curiosity, to follow what feels alive for you, and to heal anxiety, depression, compulsive, negative thought patterns.
I learned these things using Eastern ritual and Western psychology. And I felt a responsibility to share it, an urgency to [00:03:00] share it. So that's the, that's the core of the book. And also, writing is so sacred. Words create revolutions. They are the difference between taking and integrating a new idea or action.
It's a gift. I don't take it for granted to be a book in somebody's lap or a voice in somebody's ear offering wisdom and guidance. So words are the most important. Yeah, books are, it's like you almost take it for granted because there's so many books out now, but it's really a cheat code because like with your book.
You're taking years and years of experience and you're distilling it down into your life's work and however many pages it is and then, you know, readers like Harry and myself can digest that and absorb all those learnings that have taken you like years and years and decades to kind of integrate and put together.
Absolutely. Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, have the book with you, revisit it. The best way to work with my book, it's uh, [00:04:00] they call it like a prescriptive nonfiction. So it's a guidebook with a little bit of memoir. A lot of practical tools, a lot of, um, spiritual rituals, a lot of psychological frameworks.
Take what resonates, leave what doesn't, but pick it up every couple months and revisit it, because you're supposed to grow. And one of my most favorite spiritual practices, which I actually share near the end of the book, is, um, one that really resonates today. I reserve the right to change my mind. And as we are on this self development path, as we're continuously biohacking ourselves, which I know is something you guys talk about all the time.
You are also going to change. Your hormones are going to shift. You're going to have certain life experiences that are going to force you to grow up. I mean, the rite of passage I just went through from being a single woman, nomad, and then engaged, married, living in Austin, having a baby, now I'm a mother.
I see the world. I think of, like, I was so intense [00:05:00] on certain themes in my life and I reserve the right to change my mind and I feel quite differently about a lot of different things in my life. right now. And it's a big permission slip for everyone. How has your ability to teach what you already knew improved or changed since you wrote the book?
That's such a good question. I teach a lot about embodiment and authenticity. So I always share from the headspace that I'm in on that given day. And Um, if I'm moving into, let's say for example, I educate a lot on the science of happiness and it's a profound framework. I've studied my master's at Columbia.
I studied with Dr. Dan Tomasula, who's one of the greatest educators in hopefulness and I took his positive psychology course and I educate on this framework called the PERMA model, which will increase happiness in your [00:06:00] life. It will if you follow it. It's really quite profound. It's also clinical science backed by a ton of research.
And, uh, everything that I share with the world appeals to both like the left and right side of the brain, so I'm down to be extremely woo woo and spiritual, and then I'll always give you the research should you desire it, should you need it. If I'm educating on the PERMA model, Uh, months ago, for example, when I'm a new mom, I'm like leaking milk, I'm not sleeping, I like don't know which way is, is up, like a little bit disconnected from reality when you're that fatigued and you're that deep in that postpartum world.
I'm going to educate on the framework from that, from that space of just calling. calling it what it is. Like, this is who I am. This is how I'm showing up this day. Here's how you can integrate the framework. This is how I'm working with it today. And it's going to be quite different when I'm in a thong bikini in Nosara, Costa Rica, like dancing in the morning, embodying these practices in a different way, [00:07:00] really feeling the perma model framework.
So it just comes back to authenticity and embodiment. Yeah, I think this book is so important because it makes me think about, I remember hearing this, this Bob Proctor, um, interview, it's probably like 30 years ago. And I think the quote he said was that if we exercise our minds the way that we exercise our muscles, it would be the equivalent of like wagging your little finger back and forth.
And I think that's so true how, like, we spend so much time biohacking, like you said, or researching the perfect diet or the perfect exercise routine or this or that, but, like, how much time do we actually spend consciously dissecting our mind and working on happiness and these frameworks and these principles?
Like, I, I think about with, with your daughter, like, if I ever had a child, the most important thing I would want to teach them is how to master their own mindset at a really young age. So the fact that. You actually wrote this playbook for people is so valuable. Right, you are definitely going to have children.
Yeah, hopefully a lot of them. You came into this world to be a father. [00:08:00] Thank you. You're having children. I'm excited for you. Um, on the 4th of July I made a post instead of focusing on being more productive or biohacked, how can you become more free? Because that's the core of what everybody desires.
Freedom to not meticulously overthink what you're gonna have for lunch. Freedom to not be so anxious before showing up for a first date. Freedom to not feel insecure day in and day out at your job, whatever that job may be. Freedom to just be your most authentic self in alignment, fully embodied. And we're not educated on that.
I do think it's important to have a meditation practice. To have a relaxed nervous system. I find that to be incredibly essential and people overlook that all the time because it's not that interesting or sexy to just get quiet and be in your own energy. And yeah, that's typically where I would start focusing on freedom instead of the biohacking or the productivity.
Was there a point in your life [00:09:00] where you didn't feel like you were tapping into that freedom? Um, as much as you could have been? I was a sorority girl. Which is so Trapped. So crazy. It's, I look at pictures on Facebook. You know how Facebook reminds you The memories. Your memories 13 years ago. And it's, we all dressed in business casual to go to the bars wearing like 10 inch heels.
So much black makeup. All our hair is like, sticks straight but like teased in the back with a little bit of a bump. Wait, you're telling me that's not freedom? It's not freedom. I mean, just, we what? What, you drank six days a week? Yeah. Right? We're all like pumped up on birth control and eating cafeteria food.
Like, I, it's, it's insane to me to think about the person that I was in college that so many people still are so stuck in that paradigm. Mm. John and I talk about this all, all the time. Just, that's not, that's not That's just, we would totally choose again, right? And I'm grateful for the version of myself.
So [00:10:00] as a sorority girl in that life and very in it, this is when my anxiety really shook up for me. And it spoke to me in a way that was so raw because it was my own voice. And I think this is so common is when we talk about, I'm not talking about the inner critic like that inner asshole. It's we have this inner wisdom voice.
Maybe people call it God. I call it the inner guru. It's our own voice and it's just whispering over and over and over again. This isn't what you intended. Like this isn't what you agreed to when you decided to reincarnate right now, this time around, this isn't the life that you wanted. And I had that over and over and over again, but it manifests as anxiety.
This is so common for so many people. It will manifest as depression. It will manifest as a crisis, a panic attack, cystic acne, Crohn's, like it will manifest in many different ways. Uh, and that's just the first glimpse of a spiritual awakening. [00:11:00] It's the first glimpse of something has to shift. What's going to shift.
Brought me to my knees. So devastated. Found yoga found breath work. This is the amazing thing about the modern day world. You can open up Spotify You can open up YouTube You can just get curious about something and you'll have a million videos on how to embody the practices. So There's no excuses anymore.
If you're curious about something take action on it Yeah, would you say the inner guru is like equivalent to a gut instinct? Yeah A gut instinct is another way to call intuition. The inner guru, it's your most authentic self. So, yes, it can be embodied in that way as well. Yes, it's another way to internalize it.
Yeah, because part of why I'm asking that is, and I think the three of us feel this, and probably a lot of our audience, is like when you, When you do start to nourish yourself with the right foods and you get sunlight in the morning and you sleep properly, [00:12:00] you really are able to tap into that inner guru in a different way and really listen to that voice.
And I think even if you are not metabolically healthy, I think you can still feel it, but the confidence to actually like act in alignment with that inner guru, I don't think you'll have that confidence. Like you might recognize it. But you might not have the courage to act on it, which is where I was.
And it feels so good just to be able to, like, actually listen and do the unsafe thing and just go in alignment with that. Do you want to belong or do you want to be authentic? And to choose authenticity takes radical, deep, life altering courage. And that's what it comes down to. Do you have courage to be a little bit different?
Do you have courage to speak different ideas out into the world? And that requires being made up of the good things, which, yes, it, it does come back to diet. I do think, I do think you can overcome a bad diet with healthy mindset. [00:13:00] However, it's so much easier if you are made up of the good things. Your cells are constantly recharging with what you eat.
So it's almost like a fast track to a better life. It's eating very well.
I was legitimately just about to ask that question. I was interested to get both of you guys to take, like, this idea of freedom. How much of it actually comes from the choices we make around diet and lifestyle to some point, but really, like, just nutrition?
Freedom to overcome your cravings. Freedom to overcome emotional eating. And it comes back to the science of true nourishment. And when we think of nourishment, we think of Dietician, like we think of diet and like how you're going to properly nourish yourself with macros and carbs and protein and veggies, et cetera, fermented food.
Nourishment is so much more than that. It is spiritual nourishment. It is connecting to a higher power as you understand it. It is being engaged in tasks that make you feel really alive. It's having a supportive community. [00:14:00] So it's meaning and relationship and gratitude going out of your way to have positive emotions and positive experiences.
The way that I like to think about nourishment, because the truth is, people eat because they're spiritually starved. People overeat because we are undernourished. We don't know what makes us joyful. We don't know what makes us happy. And this is, this is properly engineered. We, like, living in a society where you are constantly seeking outwards instead of turning inwards.
Because when you turn inwards When you have this strong inter guru connection, you are powerful, you are dangerous, you're gonna make different decisions, you're gonna act on your own belief systems, and that's threatening to the larger, the larger world, the larger culture that we operate in. The science of nourishment, for anybody who's listening, thinking, oh my god, Erin, I'm so disconnected, I don't remember the last time I was happy, and this is a lot of people, I don't remember the last time I was properly stimulated.
So many people are under stimulated. So what I [00:15:00] like to say is use the past to inform the present. So think about a moment in the past where you were deeply fulfilled, where you maybe forgot to eat because you were so immersed in activity, where you were laughing without thinking, is there food in my teeth, where you were joyful and fully present in that moment.
What were you doing? Were you with a specific person? Were you hiking out in nature? Were you eating an amazing meal? Were you painting? Were you creative? Were you reading? What was the thing that you were doing? And then implement, implement that immediately into your present. And so that's like the roadmap to living a more nourished life.
And then you're not going to overeat. It really, it becomes this cycle because you're not trying to fill yourself up because you're already full. Hmm. Yeah. It reminds me of like, So Harry and I we recently got our our office a couple months ago And so Harry's been getting the backyard like really dialed in to just be able to host a couple some really nice events out there So there's been [00:16:00] like two dinners in particular where Harry's working the grill.
He's doing scrolling 60 plus steaks I'm seasoning all the steaks, you know, you're getting people seltzers You're making sure all the guests are happy and stuff like that And we've said to we almost love the feeling of like, you know We like the night will go by and we won't even eat like everyone else will eat, but it's so fun just being present and just make it like catering to make sure everyone else is having an amazing experience too.
Cause you're just so locked in and you're so present. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds incredible. And it's an, it's an interesting dichotomy to what you're saying too, because I do feel like when you're starting at zero, at least for me, when I was trying to heal from UC, having like, I don't want to say rigid, but just like a set of guidelines of like, I'm going to eat single ingredient, real foods, God foods.
I'm going to cook my meals. I'm going to do these things repeatedly for months at end. It feels really good to stay in those guidelines. But then I also see people that almost take that like to a degree of almost neuroticism where it's like, Oh my God, if I eat seed oils, once I'm going to die. Or if I drink tap water, I'm going to die.
Where [00:17:00] I, I actually love being on a really good path, but then going on vacation or having a pizza or having something that's not technically within that framework, but enjoying those foods with people that I love and care about and then getting some sunlight afterwards and I feel amazing afterwards too.
It's like a dichotomy, right? Huge point. Absolutely. For example, we want to take Eden swimming. Chlorine is detrimental to our health. But I want to enjoy the moment. I want to go swimming, so we're going to do it anyways. And this is also freedom. So what I like to think is you take the practices seriously, but you don't take yourself so seriously.
So you take the diet seriously, but you don't take yourself so seriously. If you're going to enjoy a moment. For example, I had a book launch event at book people a couple of weeks ago and somebody asked me if five minutes of meditating is enough as a way to almost integrate the practice. And I was so close to saying, yeah, if you're a beginner, yeah, five minutes of meditation, go for it.
But that's, [00:18:00] I really had to stop myself because if you want to have this everlasting, deep, profound connection to yourself and a higher power as you understand it to guide you, if you want to have these spiritual epiphanies, if you want to be connected to your inner guru, don't be afraid to double your devotion.
Show up for the full 10, 18 minutes, like really give yourself time to dive into it. So it is, it is that balance of live your life, but honor what you know feels best for you and take time to dive deep into something to reap the benefits. There's seasons for everything. It's such a good point. Um, you know, Brett and I run a men's group on Tuesday and we talk a lot about just spiritual practices, prayer time, getting into scripture.
And the question is always around like, how do you pray? And it's like, do I just like pray for a minute? Like what are the guidelines here? And the real answer is like exactly what you just said. It's like the devotional is up to you. Like you [00:19:00] are spending the time. However much you want to get out of it is going to be how much you put into it.
If you want to really like find that peace, find that, like, Really centeredness and connection with God, like, you're gonna need to sit there and pray for longer, um, or read more scripture, like, it's kind of the answer, um, and, you know, meditation is similar, where finding that silent place, it's, you know, you need to do it for longer.
And the goal, if there is a proper way to kind of work towards something, is your life becomes a prayer. Right, so in Judaism, similar to all organized religion, you wake up in the morning and you thank God for waking up. Like all organized religion, there are so many practices of washing your hands or washing your feet before moving into sacred practice.
We do this anyways after using the washroom. And then there's always a prayer around mealtime. So it's another time to check in, check into your breath, breathe deeply. Then you move throughout the day and maybe every time you hit a yellow light, you like say something you're grateful for and you check [00:20:00] back in.
Maybe you read a couple pages of prayer before you go to bed at night or you say the Shema or some other prayer before closing your eyes at the end of the day. It becomes a daily devotional where life isn't just about you getting through. Life is about your devotion to God. And Thanks for bringing that up because in the beginning it's going to look like a set amount of time of reading the sacred book that most resonates with you and I encourage everyone to read within and outside of the religion you grew up in.
They're very similar and explore that deeply and completely and then the hope is to integrate it so fully that the measure of spiritual alignment is how quickly can you come back to God when you are in panic. or when you are in reactivity. How quickly can you come back to your center? And people need to remember that because we are giving, we are living in a time where there's [00:21:00] this spiritual hierarchy and essentially it's a lot of people just missing, missing the point.
And I don't claim to be a fully healed person. That's not my pathway. I'm always safe in my truth. But if you look at our current climate or even the war going on, there's multiple around the world and how you are speaking about it and like properly assessing what is right and what is wrong and checking your own, uh, racism, your own discomfort.
This all comes back to how deeply are you devoting yourself to God. So even this upcoming election, Biden or Trump, vote for God and vote for God. And just trust that in that vote, like in that devotion, it's going to lead to ideally a higher possible outcome. When we talk about mindset, I find there's so many, there's so many people that they just become [00:22:00] so overwhelmed with these macro level issues that we really don't have much control over.
And I really understand that. I think, I think the statistic is that, I think if you watch Like four, I think it's just four minutes of conventional news. You're 12 times more likely to say that you had a crappy day. So you think about a lot of these people that are like watching the news or they're doom scrolling on social media.
Um, and they just get stuck and just so worried about these macro level issues. Like how, how, how do you balance these macro level issues versus like the things that you actually have control over and like being a great wife and being a good, a great mom and you know, the things that really matter. Mm.
Very loaded. It's very loaded, hey.
The most authentic way to respond is Oh my god, it's so devastating. Like, it's so devastating, the things that I'm seeing on social media is, uh, I know. Jew very well aware of the Israeli Palestinian [00:23:00] conflict and the extreme misinformation that people are spreading and how absolutely devastating it is to see spiritual elitism for people essentially supporting an Iranian proxy regime, that if anyone took just like a second to get curious and properly educate themselves, it would be so obvious to, uh, about what's going on in Israel and Gaza and especially, um, everything.
that people are sharing online. So, from a very human standpoint, so devastating, greatly affected me, my family, my friends in all over the states, and especially in Israel. So devastating. Affected my labor and pregnancy. I was in labor for 40 hours. Uh, and you really need God, like, during that time. So Eden was born in November, month before was October 7th, and it's really hard to believe in God when A terrorist attack happens on, on, like, to your family, and the world supports the terrorist.[00:24:00]
So that's life altering, that's devastating. And still, we are living in a time where people are choosing to be educated by Instagram graphics as opposed to Facebook. Just, like, really thinking critically about what is happening on the other side of the world that likely doesn't affect them, right? So it's, uh, typically a liberal movement hopping onto a fad, not realizing that it's greatly affecting people.
So, in a very human way, I'm so deeply devastated and affected by it and I try really hard to stay properly informed without diving into it too much because I trust that I'll show up. in the way that God intended me to. Now, if I'm going to zoom out and, like, speak from this, in the most spiritual, uh, tapping into, like, an enlightened conversation around it, it ends up becoming noise of how separate and how separate we believe we are and how we all try to drop back into, I'm the bigger [00:25:00] victim.
No, I'm the bigger victim, and going back and forth. However, at the end of the day, knowledge is always power. Even in spiritual practice, even when it comes to sacred devotionals, the most knowledgeable knowledgeable person in the room, it doesn't mean they're the loudest because the loudest person is, is definitely not the person that's always right.
But the most knowledgeable person in the room is also safe in their truth. And when it comes to truth, there's no, there's what's God, God is truth. So, Those are the ways that I like to sit in it and I'll just reiterate like sometimes the loudest person in the room, oftentimes the loudest person in the room, why are you so loud?
You have to kind of question it a little bit. Yes. Is there anything that you do on a daily basis? You talked about meditation, but Anything that kind of pulls you back to center, like when you're describing just [00:26:00] like feeling disgruntled about some news overseas and just like negative media stuff, like, is there other things that you do on a practical basis?
Yeah, I wouldn't say disgruntled. I would say like, merely, um,
Like dying on the inside about some of these things, like hurt, devastated. Um, What do I come back into is, like, like, Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism. Kabbalah says that miracles happen through people. So how did the Holocaust happen, right? If there's God, how did the Holocaust happen? Any genocide in the world, right?
And how did that happen? And where was God during these moments? And it's an important question to ask because it means that you're asking the right questions. but even what we know with all organized religion is all of us have agency. So every single person [00:27:00] is the miracle. So for a miracle to occur, it has to come through typically a human physical being.
So I pray for a miracle and I trust that it will always come. I trust that it will always come and it's usually through a person. Yeah, it's, it's a really interesting point because I think when you hear about like war and genocide, and we've talked about this at our church Thrive too, I think there's this tendency to be like, God turned his back on us or this situation.
And my perspective is maybe he didn't turn his back, but maybe Satan is also just like alive and well too. Yeah. Right? Like that's the, the polarity. There's amazing good and there's also amazing, horrific evil as well. Yeah, I don't even, I don't invite that in ever. Yeah, so the dark entity or energies, like there's no opportunity for that to even come into the space.
It's always coming back to the light and it's always [00:28:00] coming back to God. So yeah, absolutely. Dichotomy. Yeah, like there's just that, it's just, it's polarity. But we almost forget about that polarity, right? It's like people don't want to believe that. Like Satan is real or evil is real or like they're just they're there's good and there's evil and that's what it is I don't think God is turning his back on you I don't know and it's also the belief to riff with you for a little bit that this is heaven and hell Like, right?
This is, like, for some of us, and we have days of heaven, and for some of us we have days of hell, we could go, right now, to, uh, downtown Austin, and we could probably be seeing some people that are living day in and day out in their hell, and then you could see somebody maybe living day in and day out in their heaven, so you kind of get to decide, and it's all happening right now in real time.
Mm. Have you thought about how you're gonna go about teaching Eden some of these? spiritual and faith components of your life that you've gotten so much value out of? It all comes back to language. So we're heading to Costa Rica and the hope is to get [00:29:00] her getting Spanish, integrating Spanish right away.
She'll definitely live in Israel at some point, so she'll have Hebrew right away. John's fluent in Hebrew and John and I are decent in Spanish and we pick up on it quite quickly. But language is the most incredible You get to connect to a culture in their own native tongue. So it's something I'm always continuously working on.
And at the core, I hope she's deeply spiritual, I hope she connects to her deceased relatives, I hope she hugs a tree when she's feeling down, I hope she chooses to eat a nourishing meal even if, despite being in a unhealthy headspace, I hope she prays regularly to divine as she understands it and it doesn't need to look the same way that I see it or the way that John sees it and it's so essential for Mental health and well being for young adults and children to be spiritual and to have connection to spiritual Spirituality as they understand it whether that's talking to [00:30:00] animals or to their grandparents because so many babe like young kids can have these deep conversations with Grandparents with older adults that not even our generation will take the time connecting with older adults or speaking to trees or butterflies or insects and playing like my niece is two and a half years old and she, we have the cicadas really, really bad in Chicago and she loves playing with the cicadas and like me and my sister in law are like, ew, ew, like put it down.
She loves it. It's, it's energy to her. It's a way for her to connect spiritually. So those are probably the ways that we're going to start. It's going to be so cool just to see her grow up. Yeah. World schooling. Yeah. You're, you make such a good point. I, I almost forgot about this. Like just how intuitive children are and how many things we have figured out when we're children.
Like the desire to want to go outside and play and hug a tree and talk to animals and talk to your elders. Like, why are we not, like, it [00:31:00] makes like you should be talking to people that are generations older than you. That's where all the knowledge comes from. Like that's where all the wisdom comes from.
Absolutely. And that's how you pass down the wisdom as well. It's basically like we have it, a lot of, we have a lot of things figured out when we're children, like intuitively.
Yeah. And then it's almost like society beats, Oh, you're encouraged to forget. Yeah. Like beats, beats it out of us. You have to like re, you almost have to relearn. And that's the school system. I think there's, John and I talk about this all the time, and my friend Hannah Frankman has a whole podcast talking about different ways that you can school differently.
I think when you're younger, like kindergarten, first, second, third grade, that was like the Oregon Trail. We read Harry Potter. Like, there were some, like, really cool things. There was show and tell. I got to bring cupcakes to school once. Of course, I'm never going to let Eden have sprinkles. You know, things like this.
Yeah. But then since John and I travel so much and especially like I spent my 20s living on the other side of the world, there are so many different ways to educate. Is it [00:32:00] necessary to be in the school system and something I, whenever I, especially early postpartum Eden's, uh, you know, she's already eight months now and it's so different being her mom now.
But early on when I would talk about being exhausted or how challenging postpartum was, I would get comments on social media. Don't worry. She's going to go to school soon and then you're going to have your life back. Schools become the babysitter. Yeah. Right? Yes. And that, was that the intention? And it's a very Freudian model.
So Freud said we, if we are left to our own devices, if we are just left without unscheduled programming, we are going to like kill each other. That's like the Freudian model. So Freud said. We have to work and we have to be in school, and that's why school exists. Do you, you will not homeschool or you will homeschool?
Um, I don't necessarily see myself being the one, like, sitting home [00:33:00] and educate, like, I don't know. I think John would be really into it. I think Montessori has a really incredible model. I think, um, Nature school is also an incredible model. There's so many interesting pods out there. There is pod homeschooling as well.
And then there's also world schooling, which we're most interested in. So What's that? It's traveling the world. Oh, I like that. And being with five to ten different families with kids of the same age. And maybe traveling where, you know, The kids participate in a local school or traveling with tutors and teachers.
So that's something that John and I will likely build at some point. There's other models out there. Eden's a little too young for it. Yeah. And, um, I'm just not in that season right now. We'll see, but that's something that John and I are really curious about creating, especially being in Austin. People are hungry for a model like that.
Oh, totally. I [00:34:00] mean, there's a lot of these alternative schoolings in Austin that just seem It's amazing. Like, the pathway to better education for kids. It's incredible. Yeah. And that's a benefit to you and John getting out of Chicago and coming to a place like Austin is you've, you've created that flexibility for yourself for whenever the time is right for, for Eden to start to go to school, you have multiple different options too.
And that's freedom. That, that is true freedom too. Yeah. But some of the homeschooled kids that we've met are so ahead of the curve, like Carlisle, who's one of the women that, that works on our team. She's 27. And her mom homeschooled her, you know, 20 plus years ago. So she was like well ahead of the curve she's like carlisle so dialed in for her age too and so many of the other homeschool kids because She was learning like truly important things at a young age Yeah, and you can learn at the speed that you're intended to learn at so if you're excelling in something You can go, you know two to three grades ahead And if you're struggling at something you just like take more time to learn it and not feel like you're like in this [00:35:00] box So, yeah, I think that the homeschooling, the homeschooled people that I've met in Austin have all been A plus, like, exceptional people.
So, yeah, it's interesting. And I feel like the, growing up, like, my connotation around homeschooling was always, like, Yeah. They're, like, there's something weird or off with it, but it's really cool and I'm encouraged that it's becoming more popular for people to actually take that education into their own hands.
Isn't it, like, the things that we thought were weird as kids are, like, actually the cool things now? Totally. Totally. It's so true. I wrote a tweet a couple weeks ago and I said Does your child have ADD or did you just feed them Pop Tarts and make them sit through biology class? Yeah, right because you think about all these children that are labeled as like you heard all the time are like having special needs or They think they're slow or something like that.
And really they're just not interested in the topics at all And then once they graduate and they figure out what they're supposed to be doing, they go all in on that thing and become incredibly successful. Yeah. And it's even our friends, it's even people our age getting, like thinking that a [00:36:00] diagnosis is going to be the answer to their problem when in reality maybe you just hate your job.
Yeah. Totally. Maybe you should just be an entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah. Build your own thing. That uncertainty is scary for a lot of people though. Yes, but if we're on the topic of true freedom, it all comes back to entrepreneurship. Yeah. Yes. That's, that's just, that's, we all used to be entrepreneurs. We would barter and trade potatoes for spinach, for almonds, for cow meat.
That's our lineage, everyone, every single person, all the time, everywhere. And it's another pathway to get more of what you want. It's another permission slip to pursue that highest possible timeline. It requires gusto, so it can always start as a side project. I'm best known for the Align Coaching Certification, which is my nine month program where you become a certified meditation teacher and spiritual psychology coach.
And I call it like an Ivy League level certification because I'm really infusing it with so much that I learned at Columbia, but it's Eastern Ritual [00:37:00] and Western Psychology meditation in depth meditation teacher training. And what I love so much about it First of all, half of the students in my program are nurses, which I think is so interesting.
So a lot of nurses are just so burnt out from the pandemic. I mean, it's 2024 and we're still talking about this. And a lot of health coaches, lawyers, social workers, therapists. And it's the idea, stay at your job where you feel comfortable and start building something on the side. Slowly slowly Increase your courage around it.
Maybe you can call it confidence. It always always comes back to courage increase your courage around it and then trust Trust because so often we think that we need to have everything figured out when you really just need to follow what feels alive For you and what you're curious about. Mm hmm. I have such an interesting relationship with entrepreneurship because I naturally feel like I Romanticize it and I'm like everyone should do it.
But then in reality, it's so much of what you're [00:38:00] talking about where people are at different stages different timelines with Really just like their emotional capacity to be like i'm done with this job and i'm gonna go try something for myself but Entrepreneurship is a tool to improve yourself and get what you want out of life is unmatched and I just go back and think what The way I thought when I had a corporate job versus the way I think now is so different.
And I truly feel like, you know, I'm the one in control laying the bricks of, you know, planting the seeds of the future. Um, and before I was like, uh, I feel like I'm kind of just like showing up and they're just like giving me a paste of, and I'm out the door. So it's, it's a totally different experience.
But, um, I do feel like entrepreneurship at any level. Even if it's a side hustle is huge and it can spark that flame. Even if it takes some time. And if anyone's listening to [00:39:00] this and they're thinking, I don't really want to be an entrepreneur. The other pathway is keep your job for a little bit longer and then quit and move to a cheaper country because that is the greatest luxury of being an American where you can move to an incredible, amazing, exotic, beautiful part of the world and never get tired of ever work again.
Like you can move to Bali right now, eat the most life giving food ever, go to yoga and your CrossFit gym and have these beautiful sunsets on the beach and spiritual awakenings and all these lovers or go with your family. You're spending 10 bucks a day, 15 bucks a day, and you have a gorgeous villa. So it's the art of possibility.
It's knowing that there's multiple ways. People don't know that. They think that there's just one way. It's Go to college, get a job, stay in the job, maybe switch jobs to get a higher salary at another company with a bigger title. Do that until you retire and then travel when you [00:40:00] retire only to get to retirement and you're too tired or you're sick or you're lonely.
Yeah. Go ahead. I was just going to say, it's a sad path. Yeah. Not, not being able to tap into the freedom that, you know, has been afforded to us and being able to go, you know, for a little bit, like, I had the opportunity to live in Amsterdam for a little bit. It was through a corporate job, but just being able to get outside of the U.
S. and live somewhere else, it was such an unlock for me. So, I feel like just being able to take advantage of that, um, is huge. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I think this conversation, it's so valuable, and I would imagine That the course that you offer just like Understanding. I think it's so important to understand your risk tolerance, too Yeah, or like someone like harry.
I think his superpower is like this power of applied faith So we play off each other really well because before mafia was even a figment of our imagination He just recognized like private equity is not it for me He quit his job and like moved out to austin and just trusted that it [00:41:00] was going to happen where I was more of like I want that like I want to be able to like touch what we're doing and know that it's real and make money from it Before i'm ready to quit my job, too But I think it's important to really like understand what your risk tolerance is, too and austin is Austin is an interesting city where I do also think that there is this tendency to kind of like Shit on the corporate job where also if you if you're not ready to make that switch You get that nice consistent paycheck while you're building some confidence on that side hustle And then when the time is right, you can go all in on that side hustle and make it the real thing too But I think just like like you're saying doing that that deep work to understand what your risk tolerance is because for me even though I felt unfulfilled in my corporate job, I got to a point where I was You Grateful that I could make good money not putting in a ton of hours But just starting to build towards mafia and recording podcasts and writing blog posts and twitter posts That kind of like scratched that dopamine itch of just creation for the first time in my life And then it led to everything that we're doing now too, [00:42:00] but everyone's path and tolerance for risk is just different Yes, and level of courage that people are willing to take you're so right.
There's so many people out there that have that corporate job where they do have the spare time to build something on the side. Either way, everybody needs a creativity outlet. Some place where they are sharing what they're passionate about and speaking to that as well. My best friend, she has a corporate job and she, in her free time, writes song lyrics and music and posts about it on TikTok and it's so fulfilling to her and it's so inspiring to me and I love to see it.
So it absolutely is that marriage of both. Something that you said to me that you wanted to talk about on this podcast was mindset. Yes. Because I love how you both play off each other when it comes to mindset and obviously I have this with John where he supports me, cheers me on deeply and completely and I do that for him in a very different way.
So we, we support each other in a very different way than how we show up for one another. And I like to talk about [00:43:00] mindset sometimes as it relates to just you with yourself because not everybody is going to have that best friend or that romantic partner that's going to cheer them on in that way. So it does come to having an intimate relationship, a positive, loving voice within that you can rely on because at the end of the day, when you have you and you can fall back on self, that is, it's more than resiliency.
It's trust. It's courage. It's, it's the muscle that we really want to keep working. Yeah. Because as much time as you spend with John, you're talking to yourself a lot. You're spending way more time with yourself than you're spending with John. So like if he's not there for whatever reason, it's like you have to be able to positively reinforce yourself and make yourself your own best friend versus your worst enemy.
Worst enemy, which I've been my own worst enemy multiple times. And it also feels amazing when you can overcome that. And you really do feel like you're advocating for yourself, like that mental alchemy. I had a whole life before John. I lived in silent ashrams before John. I had lovers around the world before [00:44:00] John.
I danced with shaman in the Israeli desert before John. I, I lived this whole life and I think it's so important to say this because this is something that I've realized has been really unique. My parents are amazing. My family is amazing. And they love me, but they didn't get it. But I believed in me. I supported me.
I cheered myself on. And it's something that I developed through spiritual practice. Something I developed through meditation, active meditation. So, yes, of course, having this amazing partner, having this amazing best friend, having this community that's going to cheer you on. However, if you can first source from self, that is going to get you significantly further.
You also speak to a really interesting point that I think about all the time. You know when you go to a funeral and people talk about how they were an amazing wife, mother. friend, teacher, like whatever they [00:45:00] were. I always think about how before I was a wife, I had this whole life. Before I was a mother, I had this whole life yet.
Now I'm perceived as a mother and it's just a very interesting new group that you walk into and it happens on its own, but you don't notice, you don't notice it until like you embody it until you go through it. So interesting. Yeah, I feel like as you get older you start to realize that just the concept of phases of life is just very real, um, and you almost do just live multiple different lives within one.
Yeah. Yeah, like I, my mom didn't exist before me, but she did. Yeah. She really shed this amazing life, and then I came along. Yeah. How do you talk to yourself? Oh, that is so sweet. Um. Um, I talk to myself as if I'm sitting [00:46:00] down with a very dear friend that I trust and have faith in and I'll sometimes, especially if I have a hard decision to make, and I write about this in the book as well, I'll sit with my inner child and sometimes my inner child is, you know, three, four, five years old.
Sometimes it's my inner sorority girl that like really needed the version Um, and then I also sit with my wise woman archetype. So who I am when I'm 80 years old that has lived this life, fully gray hair. I sit with her as well, especially when it comes to decision making. But typically day in and day out, I treat myself as if, like kind of how I talk to my, I have a younger sister who just got married.
She's not that little anymore. And I talk to myself similar to how I talk to her. Very gently, very loving. Uh, I'm not hard on myself and I think that's really important for people to hear. I'm very, I hold [00:47:00] myself to an extremely high standard just because I know what I'm capable of but I am infinitely kind.
The truth is though, I always essentially eat well, right? I, I think maybe when I was a sorority girl I would say, uh, Erin, you ate like shit, why would you do that? But now I'm at a point in my life where I just always eat well. There's no That's just how I choose to embody my life or if I'm gonna show up and work I'm only gonna show up in my most authentic form.
That doesn't mean that I'm my happiest self That doesn't mean I'm my most energized self. I've cried in front of my clients I think it's so important to just show up as authentic as possible because there is your truth. There is God. There is your power so Yeah, I'm very kind to myself and I think there's medicine in that how gentle can you be and that You Kind of leads to success How do you balance the high expectations for yourself and being kind for yourself?
That's so hard. That's so hard [00:48:00] Yeah, I don't struggle with that Yeah, I trust the timing of my life Kind of like what we were talking about, how when you met your girlfriend, if you would have met her any other time, it wouldn't have been the right time. When I met John, John was in a relationship for a very long time before that.
I was on and off with someone for a very long time before that. It would have never worked out until that exact moment in time. And that's also how I feel, like even my book, I was telling you how it took two and a half years start to finish, even though it only took me two and a half months to write it.
I've been wanting to write this book. For you, I started in college and then I started, I kept writing when I was living in Israel and I kept writing when I was living in India. I kept coming back into it and this was already a decade and a half ago. But I needed to be who I am now to really birth this book into the world.
And I trust that the book is the best possible version it could be [00:49:00] because I wrote it in the version of who I am right now. So the mantra that I work with is I trust the timing of my life. And I allow myself to relax into that. There's medicine there. You trust the timing of your life. I trust the timing of my life.
I think it's a really encouraging message because I do think that there are a lot of people that think if I'm a high achiever I must be very self critical and what you're saying is that I have very high standards but I'm also, you're very good and gentle to yourself and encouraging too. Yeah, and also, you do not know better than God.
So if you have this incredibly high standard for yourself, maybe it's a very specific goal to get a specific media presence or maybe it is to be in a relationship like you love this one person and you really want to be with this one person and you're willing to like you want to be with them so badly and you can't figure out why it's not working out, you do not know better than God.
And that's it. That's [00:50:00] that's like Yeah. With a bottom line. Yeah. So, it doesn't, if you have this super high goal, if you are super high achieving, you can allow yourself to relax into the mantra, I trust the timing of my life and I do not know better than God. Mm. I love that. What, um, what do you think is the most important chapter in your book?
Because they're all important. I could tell you my favorite. Yeah, what's your favorite? What's your favorite chapter? I mean, chapter six is my most vulnerable, like, I just tell the story of John and I, and how all my past relationships really led me to John, how how the exact manifestation practice and the ceremony I moved into to call him in.
In this specific manifestation practice, it's called snapshot manifestation, but it's one of the only manifestation practices where you can call in multiple things at once. And I think so often we talk about law of attraction, we talk about manifestation, it's like this one specific thing, but it's feelings, it's embodiment, and so that can mean multiple things at once.
So, I love Chapter 6. I have a whole [00:51:00] chapter dedicated to procrastination and perfectionism, which is just something I learned from working with clients for the, since 2016, that so many people, this comes back to holding ourselves to this really ridiculous standard. Perfectionism, procrastination, it's just one that people really need to read and internalize to live a more freedom filled lifestyle.
So I love that chapter as well. And, I mean, I've, yeah, there's a lot that I really love. I talk a lot about cycle syncing and feminine embodiment and menstruation rituals and tantric, uh, sexual practices. I talk about signs of happiness. I talk about emotional intelligence, like huge buzzwords and, and integrating it in Eastern ritual and Western psychology.
It really, I'm very proud of it. So I just hope people digest it in a way that feels good to them. Can you unpack the perfectionist and procrastination chapter in two minutes? As brief a [00:52:00] synopsis as you can. The reason we procrastinate is because we want to avoid the feeling of what we are going to feel when we do the thing.
So we push it off, we push it off, we push it off. Some of us thrive on the drama. That's okay. I'm sometimes like that. Like you thrive on like the quick deadline. Uh, it's like when you buy now, it's like the people that buy on black Friday. Procrastination is avoiding the unpleasant feeling and then showing up for like the drive of it all.
So it's like the person that if you have a test in a week, you study the night before. I wasn't really that person. I'm not really a procrastinator. I take care of my future self. So that's like the big research behind procrastination and then I have a lot of rituals that I recommend like soul time which is daily devotional where you show up.
Connected to the highest dream. I kind of need to unpack it a different day because it's attached to the Law of Massive Aligned Action. But you think about what the highest dream is for you. So for example, if [00:53:00] it's to be with your beloved, then your soul time might be 10 minutes a day, non negotiable amount of time.
You are bearing your heart to God as you understand it. And you show up for 10 minutes on the dating app. You show up for 10 minutes asking for introductions. You show up for 10 minutes at a networking event. For me, being an author that was showing up and writing every single day, so procrastination is daily aligned to action.
No matter what, you have to take yourself, like, take the practice seriously. Don't take yourself so seriously, so give yourself, uh, like an honesty in that practice. And then perfectionism is something that's learned, it's like as a kid, and it's so hard not to do it. Like, Eden rolls over and I'm like, good job, you're, you're so amazing, look at you rolling over.
And that's okay, right? But it's When you, I was really athletic, similar to you guys, I was an athlete. So if I ran the fastest mile and somebody said good job and then a year later I get second place, I'm not going to feel [00:54:00] great about that. So perfectionism really is learned, but perfectionism, it's not real.
So, so often for women, it's the use of makeup or like covering up a, covering up in some way. Perfectionism is perpetually making sure that we have this nice aesthetic on the outside, like a polished Instagram profile. all. Uh, but it doesn't exist. And I think that's the most important thing for people to internalize, that there's no such thing as perfect.
It's actually, it's not even interesting anymore. When you think about the people that you admire, it's because they show up likely authentically or in some way, uh, that inspires you. But it's just knowing that even if you think somebody is perfect You've never walked in their shoes and they're moving like they're moving through something that you know, nothing about That's well said especially the procrastination piece I've never thought that about that before like the the pain of whether you procrastinate or not There's pain associated with both sides, right?
But it's so [00:55:00] fascinating how we tend to go towards the pain of procrastination Procrastination, which is way worse. So we all know that feeling of like knowing there's these like one to two things in the back of your mind that you need to do that you're not doing. And it sits at, sits with you. It eats at you versus like, if I literally just go to my computer and start doing it, the second I start attempting to do that work, the anxiety immediately goes to what goes away the second I start working.
So it's like, why do we gravitate towards one versus the other? It's so interesting. And then the slow living movement had a lot to say on this. It's actually, and if you are procrastinating, put on a podcast to listen to as you're doing your chores. If you have work to do, put on beautiful music. Like there's ways to move through these things to make it enjoyable.
Go on a walk while you're on a call that you're kind of dreading. So there's other ways that you can implement to, Enjoy the moment, the present moment more. Yes. Like if you don't want to do laundry, throw in a little podcast while you're doing laundry. Such a good life hack to want to do stuff [00:56:00] like that. Yeah, I was just, I was going to ask, so you finished the book, where do you go from here? What's, what are the next steps? What do you have envisioned for the next few years? This first book, it's the stories I've been sharing for the last decade, and just in the process of writing it and getting it out into the world, so much more has happened.
So, Uh, what is next is I'm on a book tour and I'm gonna be touring all throughout the States and hopefully, uh, Europe and Europe as well. So if anyone's listening to this, please DM me on Instagram and let me know you want me to come to your city. I will. I will come to your city. It's my greatest joy to drink a warm beverage and talk to people about these rituals and these words.
And so the book tour is next and And after that, it's just encouraging people to implement these practices in a way that feels in alignment with them, which, if that means the Align Coaching Certification, then getting to work with people is the best. But also I have retreats all around the [00:57:00] world launching very soon.
And then of course, getting back into writing, but that's going to be a little bit from now. I'm still, uh, I'm still like recovering from new mamahood and getting a book out into the world and everything. Yeah, it's so interesting like the polarity of like becoming a mom that identity shift now being an author to like you did all this deep work and now it's time to go into like promotion connection mode too.
Yeah, nothing teaches you how I like you can stretch time. It really time is a suggestion like even this podcast together. We've really been able to dive into so much in such a short period of time. Yes. And There was a while there where Eden was only taking like 25 minute naps, but in those 25 minutes I would post on social media, I would clean the whole kitchen, I would do a yoga routine, I would connect with John, like I would get everything done in those 25 minutes.
Now she's sleeping for 90, which is life giving. [00:58:00] And, uh, it was such a huge learning curve. Such, like, biggest learning curve of my life, this initiation. Mm. But there's so much coming now that the book is out into the world people are integrating the practices I just want my readers to connect with me because it's me on my social media.
It's me and my Instagram DMS So I just want to hear how people are digesting the material and how I can continue supporting Because it really it's I wrote it from a place of passion and service. So I hope it serves And now it's the fun part too, like that feeling of like holding that physical copy and then going to these book signings and connecting with people and hearing about their experiences.
Like that's what it's all about too, is like doing the difficult work so you can create something that will add value to people's lives too. Yeah. It's such a, it's such an amazing book though. It's such important work and we'll link to it all in the show notes. I, I truly hope that who, who's ever listening to this podcast, like, Make the effort to buy the book because I promise it will positively impact your life And [00:59:00] um, we're just so excited to see the next phase of your life and go on this great tour Thank you so much.
Yes, and I read the audio. So if you want to dive into the practices, yeah You can get it on audible and the best way to connect with me is on instagram at aaron r doppelt erin Our D O P P E L T. My website, erinracheldoppelt. com. And, uh, yeah, when this comes out, the aligned coaching certification is total, it's enrolling.
Let me know you listen to this podcast and I'll give you early action pricing and bonuses and all the good stuff. Amazing. This is so great. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.