Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Well, Dalton, welcome to the Smoke Trail. Thanks, brother. It's great to be here. My only my only regret, and it's not a big one, is that we were planning to do this in person. Mhmm.
Smoke:And I was gonna be in Denver. We were gonna go out to your favorite spot in the park and and do this, and my plans changed a little bit. So I'm doing it from Sedona. You're in Denver.
Dalton:Mhmm. Absolutely, my friend. Yeah. It worked out as exact exactly as it should, I imagine.
Smoke:Exactly. Well, let's let's start out with just let's get a little background. I mean, tell me your your your story. Like, what's your origin story? How did you and I met doing meditate well, first, we met at a plant medicine ceremony Mhmm.
Smoke:In Asheville with some dear friends that we share, and and that was awesome. And then we stayed in touch. We gotten together in Denver, and you had this meditation group that you were doing, I think, with I I forget which group it was in, but you were doing, like, monthly gatherings Mhmm. Which were really cool. You had lots of great resources.
Smoke:But what got you into all this? Like, what is this journey for for Dalton? How did Dalton, you know, eyes open up to the experience you're experiencing and what you're what you're doing today?
Dalton:Absolutely. You know, I always love getting the chance to answer this question because the story's a little bit different each time. So we'll see what it is today. Yeah. So I grew up outside of Toronto in Canada and was in a family that we had a lot of fun.
Dalton:We didn't necessarily have a spiritual system, and there was, like any other family's complexities, stresses, traumas, and conflict all throughout that period of time. And I found myself expressing a lot of good boy traits. Like, I was a pretty clinical people pleaser as a kid. And I like to joke that I I won the good boy Olympics because I was a straight passing, affluent white guy who ended up playing lacrosse at Harvard. It was like pretty much as cookie cutter as I could have gotten, and I loved being a lacrosse player.
Dalton:I loved being a part of a team, and there's a lot of wisdom I gained from that path. However, I learned this tricky challenge of when you're trying to please the passions and interests of other people. You don't really know who you are and what you stand for. So when my parents got divorced and my beloved grandmother died right before college, I had this really delicious existential crisis. Like, I found myself utterly lost and rudderless with what I believed in, who I wanted to be.
Dalton:And I was lucky because I did end up at Harvard and that's just a magnificent school with some of the most nerdy passionate humans on the planet who are there to help me figure out this question. And I could take whatever classes I wanted, I could explore whatever topics excited me. And that led me really quickly to Eastern philosophy, existential philosophy, the wisdom cultures. Like, I got really excited as I I know you have on your journey as well about all the different ways humans have tried to make sense of this human experience. Layered into that, I also ended up becoming an art major.
Dalton:Both my parents were artists, and it was something that had inspired me from a young age. And, you know, this is this is a topic we'll return to, but I really love words. So I'm gonna take a moment just to be really specific about that word inspiration. Yeah. Because the etymology is fantastic.
Dalton:It comes from the Latin, which means literally breathe the divine into something. And I had tastes of that, like nature inspired me. I spent a lot of times in the woods as a sensitive kid who got overwhelmed easily. The forest was one of my favorite teachers in Ontario, some of the best in the nation, in my opinion. And then I was also inspired by art and the question of, like, oh, like, what does it mean to ask questions with an unbiased answer?
Dalton:Like, what does it mean to explore something where there isn't a a product or a sale at the end of it, but instead just exploring for exploration sake.
Smoke:Mhmm.
Dalton:And I ended up going down that road, leaving the cross, getting really passionate about, like, the friend groups I was developing. I was finding myself in these really eclectic, artistic, creative circles that, again, inspired me deeply because it was people who wanted to grow and change. And that was a theme that would, like, keep caring, like that authentic belief that we are not perfected in any way.
Smoke:Mhmm. And
Dalton:that it's a a fun adventure to explore, to grow, to change, to become something different instead of Yeah. The childhood kind of ecosystem I was in was afraid of change. It was more of a conservative upbringing that was very resistant to new ideas as a culture.
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:And from here, I ended up in creative direction. So I I ended up going and again, there's like a lot of good boy syndrome in this because not only was I creative director, but I went after, like, the sexiest possible version of that for me, which was I was the creative director of a startup serving ultra high net worth individual. So it's like a billionaire's holistic wealth that's still around to today. Yeah. Art three sixty.
Dalton:And, of course, because there was that kind of trauma based decision making, I wasn't super happy there in the long run. It wasn't fully what I was seeking, but it allowed me to also invest time and money into spirituality because I was running their spiritual programming for those four years. And that gave me the resources and access Yeah. From, like,
Smoke:platform. Yeah. Totally.
Dalton:Spectacular teachers. I traveled the world doing medicine work, and it's all it's all funded, which was just amazing for a young man to get that level of care and support. And from there, I ended up starting my own meditation retreat business, which is where I really discovered the meaning of the word dharma. Another theme though come up is this idea that, like, I love the Sanskrit definition back towards of, like, uphold. Like, dharma means to uphold this divine purpose that you have.
Dalton:And the dual meaning being that if you uphold it, the world upholds you. And you have this feeling of like abundance with ease and excitement. And the meditation business didn't work out, which was my mini MBA. I got to learn all the extremely challenging teachings of like when a great product meet meets the market, it doesn't mean it's by default going to succeed. Even though we believed in what we did, we didn't make the moves needed for a business to survive.
Dalton:And to kind of land now where where I am now, I ended up then meeting this guy, Jean Pierre LeBlanc, who's my mentor and friend and has been running a coaching business for the last twenty odd years. And I very quickly ended up joining him on that mission because it was some of the most practical spirituality I'd encountered. And one of the things I saw, especially serving billionaires for four years, there's some really beautiful people. But trauma interrupts life. Like, these were pretty traumatized individuals, and you could see how there is the desire to do good, but there was a lot of layers of complexity between the intentions and the impact.
Dalton:And my big kind of, like, kick in life is to find the people who want to be really specific about that impact and have the level of emotional and physical and mental health to be able to really do big, brave things. So I kinda leave Yeah. Because we'll talk more about the coaching.
Smoke:Well, I think that's well, it's beautiful. And and I think, you know, look, every all humans this birth school is is built around trauma and experiences. Right? So we can learn. So everybody has it some degree.
Smoke:Absolutely. You know, I run-in those circles as well, and, you know, I've been around a lot of very successful people, whether whether it was YPO or it's family office stuff.
Dalton:And Mhmm.
Smoke:Same same crowd, a lot of overlap. Tiger twenty one, that whole group.
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:And and, you know, the those are my my friends. Those are my, like, the people I grew up in business around doing stuff. You know? Lots of success, lots of abundance, lots of incredible opportunities, and also lots of trauma. And so, like, that's where I was kinda, like, I was I'm riffing off of your trauma statement, which is I don't I I don't wanna say, you know, ultra successful people have more trauma than someone else.
Smoke:That that's not what I'm saying. But I do think that there's a trauma there's a trauma element to a lot of people who create a lot of success.
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:And and it's like, it's the response to the trauma can go in different directions, and one of those directions is ultra success. Yeah. What do you think about that?
Dalton:Do you know? I actually would almost take it even further and say that intensity is traumatizing. Like Yeah. That there actually is a direct correlation between how hard you've pushed yourself in in life and how much trauma you have. I gained a lot of gifts from the the years of playing like, I I got the chance to play team Canada lacrosse and got to get in these really intense competitive environments.
Dalton:And one of the hardest lessons I've learned in my life, because I was deemed athletically ineligible in my sophomore year of college. So everything had built up towards this, like, dream of being a star lacrosse player. And I got to live that for a few years, but it got cut short. Of course, looking back was such a gift from the universe because
Smoke:I know
Dalton:the Harvard student for three years, and I had the nerdiest best time of my life. However, what I hadn't appreciated, the wisdom I wasn't carrying was that as intensity increases, so does recovery and healing. It must. And in sports, it's really like, it there's a harsh light. It's like my body stopped working because I kept scaling up the amount of intensity that I was putting it through, and you could capture this as like small trauma in the body because like running around and being whacked with a stick is a very small level of physical trauma.
Dalton:Sure. And that kind of open mind about the trauma definition. And what I missed was spending an equal or more amount of time healing. And when I look at the business world, I think that there's a higher concentration of kind of, like, trauma reactive people in the higher success spaces because that's a really hard thing to balance. It's really difficult to keep up with the trauma that's accruing when we're doing something really intense and really exciting.
Smoke:Yeah. I and that that makes that resonates with me a lot. And and so there's trauma that that propels people to do whatever they think they need to do in this human form. And in some cases, that, you know, that means, you know, overachieving or, you know, doing things to try to shape your world that you didn't like, right, as a child. And and also, the act of doing that is trauma itself, is what I heard from you.
Smoke:Right? Like, it's so it's both. It's a it's a like so that is what that's the spark that got someone to go, alright. I'm gonna go do this, and and then doing it is doing hard things. Right?
Smoke:It's like, you know, why do we do hard things? Because actually, hard things develop character, develop who you are, and that's how we learn.
Dalton:Yeah. Like, I pray I pray for a life of drama, as funny as that sounds. Like, I pray that I keep diving into the full storm of life and having the courage to to heal, to continue healing, to continue seeking. But here's the thing, and this is like one of the reasons I love the style of coach I'm doing coaching I am sharing right now, which is alchemy coaching. Yep.
Dalton:Is the idea of what's possible when we see trauma through the lens of alchemical transformation. And we have this kind of story we like using of it's a metaphor. And the idea is that when we're we're born, we're kinda placed on this boat out in the ocean. And the boat has a propeller. It's moving forward.
Dalton:But it also has a bunch of ropes cascading into the water. And when we're first there, this is our entire universe. So we just assume that, like, boats have ropes that go underwater behind the boat. But if we're lucky, it's an older person who will get us to stop the boat and pull up pull on one of those ropes. And the rope is our kind of trauma in this case.
Dalton:Yeah. And if we stop the boat and pull up the rope, usually, we start with the one that looks the friendliest and easiest to pull up. We discover that it's not an anchor at the end of that rope, but actually a propeller that really easily goes on the back of our boat. So what I wanna capture here is that when we feel, we're not just removing, but we're also adding. Like that very thing that traumatized us becomes a really powerful gift.
Dalton:I wanna be clear here that I don't think there's any value to intentional suffering, but suffering will happen in a human experience. Yeah. And we can alchemize that pain, that trauma into a really powerful gift. So it becomes like the greatest parts of ourselves are usually Yeah. Easily traced back to our challenges.
Smoke:That that makes so much sense. And so put it, you know, in a But I just heard in a different frame, which is in my understanding, which is all experiences or trauma where you we call it trauma because it was an energy that we couldn't process at the time. Mhmm. It gets stuck. You know, I call them emotional energy hairballs stuck inside somewhere.
Smoke:Right? They're they're in our energetic body. And that the intensity of that energy can be quite high, and it's stuck in you. And it's only when you as in pulling up the rope to examine and find, oh, there's a propeller here, that you examine that shadow, that deep trauma that you experience, and then you allow that energy to flow through you Mhmm. And actually process.
Smoke:That energy doesn't go away. It reenters your system, but now in a very positive way, which is like the propeller being another propeller adding to the boat.
Dalton:Exactly. And I would add, like, if we're talking intergenerational trauma, you can imagine, like, the biggest rustiest chain. If you've ever tried to pick up one of those where it shreds your hands to pieces, and you might even need a tetanus shot after. So it's it's humbling the challenge of pulling it up. But there's two details I wanna kinda add to this metaphor, which one, us humans do this funny thing that after we pull up a handful of the the chains and ropes, we often say, oh, I'm moving fast enough.
Dalton:And Yeah. We say like, oh, I'm not gonna pull up anymore. I don't deserve to go faster. Why humans do this? It actually doesn't really matter the why.
Dalton:It's just a self compassion to have because it's a tendency we seem to keep doing as humans is like
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:Slowing down and stopping the inner work for some story of I'm already good enough or I don't deserve more.
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:The other layer to this, which I think is the most important part of this metaphor, is what motivates us on this boat. Because when we have these heavy anchors behind us, our tendency is to move away from what we don't want. Like that kind of intensity of the body leads to aversion, which is an expression of scarcity of like, I wanna run away from that thing. Now, let's imagine we're we're boating in this great vast ocean, and we're only ever looking backwards at we what we don't want, our destination is completely random. And this is something I really saw with the high wealth crowd is that there's a lot of people who are quite unhappy with where they ended up.
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:I have
Dalton:a lot of empathy for it because I think it's driven by trauma. Like, trauma interrupts life and dreams. So we end up where we don't wanna be, and then we're questioning, like, how did I like, why am I here? And the the truth is is we're looking backwards the whole time. And the invitation that I love within this work is like, can we have the bravery to set it a waypoint?
Dalton:Like, can we look into the distance and be like, that island over there, miles and miles and miles away, looks like Utopia. I wanna get there, and I wanna excitedly move closer to that to that rather than further away from what I don't want. And the more acres we pull up, the the easier it is to make that type of decision.
Smoke:Yeah. The easier it is to set that waypoint from a place of stillness, from a place of un of knowingness that you're not just going to a waypoint because you're trying to run from something or change your circumstances, get away from trauma, you know, get successful so you can escape the, you know, childhood, which, you know, I I I can speak to. But, you know, all those things from home. But but it's like, okay. So but if you're in a place of, you know, of some sort of equanimity, some sort of calmness where you're open and receptive, those waypoints will materialize.
Smoke:Yeah. So it's not it's not your ego mind saying, well, I wanna go here's a flag I'm gonna put down, here's my goal. That's not exactly what you're saying.
Dalton:It's Too much.
Smoke:A knowingness arises of what that directionally should be, and then I can put my energy into manifesting that.
Dalton:So I'd almost like, yes, and you could reframe goals as prayers here, I think, quite a fact. And for some people listening, this won't resonate, so just, like, replace it back with the goals because some religious language can be triggering. But for me, I love the the term prayer. Because, you know, one of the the great jokes the great cosmic joke of the universe is the greatest danger of goals of prayers is that they come true. Like Yeah.
Smoke:The the the Garth Brooks song, sometimes I thank god for unanswered prayers.
Dalton:Exactly. Like, they are incredibly dangerous things. And to your point, if we're making a goal or a prayer from a place of trauma, we're gonna be pretty disappointed by the destination. Like, we're gonna when we receive it, we're gonna learn a lot, and we're gonna gain more wisdom about where we don't wanna go or what is an unwise goal. But I'd actually say that one of the arts of living is to get to a point where your prayers are clear and in alignment with spirit.
Dalton:Like that idea of, like, feeling a greater intuition. And this could be, like, I work a lot with clients on setting their desired legacy. And the instinct when we talk about trauma is that the legacy is to break the chains of intergenerational trauma. That's a subtle way of looking backwards. Versus asking the question of, like, what would it permit if my family healed?
Dalton:So for me, like, my desired legacy is a family who embodies ease and enthusiasm. Because those are the things that I believe my trauma has made the most challenging. Yeah. And I think that if prayers have that quality of, like, beauty and abundance and alignment with the flows of the universe, I think the universe gets excited. Like, I think it gets giddy at the idea of one of its daughters or sons reaching that level of alignment with their life.
Smoke:Yeah. And and I'm sure we could talk at length about it, but, know, I I'm I I always like what's it called Neville Goddard and a lot of his teachings, which, you know, I I really love the new thought wave of thinkers, and, you know, it was it was really a a spiritual system that was applied to kind of the the real world. There's so many great thinkers in it. But it the whole thing of, like, how do you manifest? Mhmm.
Smoke:It's really you know, I could turn it and use your term and say, how do I pray? Yeah. And if we man we if we pray that something is always out there, it's a stick and a carrot is stick, and this this the carrot is always the length of the stick.
Dalton:It's
Smoke:always away from you. Yeah. And so for manifestation, for prayer, it's it's putting ourself in the vibration of what it it's what it's like to be with that prayer being met.
Dalton:That's beautiful.
Smoke:It draws it to you instead of you trying to seek it.
Dalton:Mhmm. Oh, I love that. And what's for you? Like, within that work, how do you work with the trauma in the present moment? What's your own kind of personal approach to meeting the parts of yourself that may wanna make some prayers that come from scarcity as us Yeah.
Smoke:No. For sure. This is an evolution. Right? It's like it's it's it's constantly evolving for me.
Smoke:Mhmm. I think when you and I met, I was I was in the first year of my awakening of of what I call this era of my awakening. And what I did for most of that first you know, I think I I think we did our ceremony in April, and I did my first plant medicine ceremony with Yvonne up in British Columbia in August. So from August to April, I did a lot of work Mhmm. Which included, you know, bringing back all these memories that were shut off.
Smoke:Mhmm. Specific traumas, you know, I do I did a lot of plant medicine work on my own, which I don't recommend people do, unless you're really called to it, because, you know, you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna touch the the third rail a few times if you're you're on your own, and and it can be quite scary. Mhmm. But that was my that was my path. I had to do that.
Smoke:So once I once I figured out, oh, I I don't remember these things, I I was drawn to, well, what what else don't I remember? Like, I I just went there. I just like, I was like, I'm gonna pull on that that that anchor, that that chain that is, you know, barnacles and leading. It didn't matter. Like, I was just like, I I gotta know.
Smoke:I gotta know. Yeah. So
Dalton:love to ask you a question within that. Yeah. It was such a beautiful ceremony. It it set a cultural desire of mine because the group that came together that we're speaking to, everybody really wanted to grow and change and and have the courage to face their wounds.
Smoke:Yep.
Dalton:One narrative I often hear in people who haven't done this work yet, and are kind of arriving to it around a similar age as you, is this idea that it's like an evil bottle of champagne. Like, that they don't wanna open the cap because they fear being overwhelmed by what arises.
Smoke:Yep.
Dalton:Which I think you and I share the belief that that there is a delusion in there because it's always worthwhile to open it up. But what would There's
Smoke:a truth and a delusion. Right? Yeah. So the truth is, it will feel like everything is collapsing. That the world is ending.
Smoke:Like, when you when you you tap into the these darker, darker, real things
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:It can feel like the whole thing is falling apart. Mhmm. And it's so great to do it because the veil is lifted as as that as that as you experience it, as you come to be able to sit with that energy, process it, it empowers you, like, a thousand times over. So, like, what's on the other side of that fear is incredible elation, incredible joy, pure love, and but you cannot reach it without going through it.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:And and that's not to say that everybody has to remember every specific thing. Like, for me, I was a special case. Like, I actually had to remember. Yeah. I had to go and figure out what happened.
Smoke:Mhmm. I had pedophile grandfather, and grandmother was in on it, and all all kinds of, like, trauma, a lot like, a whole bunch. It's not what this is about, but it's that experience of uncovering it, getting to a point of, like, woah. That oh, I blocked all this out. I'm, like, remembering, and then getting to a point of forgiveness.
Smoke:And no one told me to forgive. I just that came to me that, you know, it was a higher calling and said that you had to forgive. And I spent a lot of time doing activities and work to get there.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:But then getting to the realization that there's nothing to forgive, which is a whole different chapter. Right?
Dalton:So And, you know, like, within this, there's a a core philosophy that we carry in our coaching, which is it's never too late to have a happy childhood. Yeah. And I loved how you captured that because part of this is that on the other side of the storm, so a lot of happy memories too. Like, you get to unlock the parts of your childhood that were magical and wonderful without having these kind of, like, ghosts in your system that are, like, giving that physical feeling of, like, oh, something was wrong, or something was wrong with me, or something got broken in the process. And I'm a huge fan of Gabor Mate, and I loved when he said, the beautiful thing about healing is you get to a point where there's no longer anything to forgive because you realize you weren't broken by it.
Dalton:Like, it never ruined you.
Smoke:So guy Gabor, I like I really like his work too. My partner Rob my business partner Rob, they were trying to work to try to help their kids, their teenage kids, combined family, and there was some a lot of trauma in these kids' early life. And they got referred to and had a meeting with Godbor. Oh. And and so they had this meeting, and he basically said, yeah.
Smoke:Your kids need this work, but first, you guys need to do the
Dalton:work. Mhmm.
Smoke:And so he turned he turned the lens to them, the the mother of the children and and my friend Rob. And he said, here's who you need to go see. Mhmm. And he basically referred them to Yvonne and Lana, who were you know, Yvonne is one of my teachers and this amazing amazing being. And they sent them to them.
Smoke:He said, I send the people with the biggest trauma to these guys. Mhmm. Now, Levon and Lana are, like, amazing beings, but they're really specifically focused on helping people uncover their shadow stuff, their trauma. They're very good with plant medicine. They understand that realm, and they really help you get to that, right, if you want to.
Smoke:And that's how I met them. But anyway, so Gabor Mate, I I I love his his work. I think it's it's great. But it, like, when he has, like, really tough cases, he sends them to Avan.
Dalton:That's incredible. Because you feel like and I love this. I would actually note something that came up on my heart that meant so much to me. So I just got married very recently. Congratulations.
Dalton:One of my favorite ceremonies ever. It was so magical just to have, like, this this community pouring love and confidence and care and support. And one of the great gifts, I wanna celebrate my mother for a moment here who's who's lived a very challenging life and, like, humans has carried a lot of trauma. And her prayer was that she wanted to fully feel the love of the wedding, even with her ex husband there, my dad, and, like, some family drama and stress and, like, these different layers that could have distracted her. Because, again, trauma interrupts lives and dreams.
Dalton:You can go to one of the most beautiful places you could imagine and not appreciate it if the trauma is unaddressed in the body. Yep. So for her, actually did a month of daily IFS therapy building up to the wedding. A month.
Smoke:Wow. That's awesome.
Dalton:And you should have seen the radiance and, like, the divine matriarchal energy energy that she was able to bring even to a stressful scenario. And it was really inspiring to me because I had to carry less as her son. Yep. Because she was taking care of it. Like, she took care of trauma that I would have felt in my body so that I could have a greater day, so that she could have a greater day, so that we can look back on this wedding and feel so much love and appreciation.
Dalton:And to me, that's like, I think if you love your kids, like, you wanna give them a gift, heal. Take care
Smoke:of yourselves.
Dalton:And we can always do that for each other in such a sweet way.
Smoke:Well, humans are the medicine for each other. Mhmm. And they're also the poison for each other. So whether you're healed or you're healing, or you're stuck, frozen Yeah. Those states will impact your entire world around you.
Dalton:Mhmm. You
Smoke:know? And it's like,
Dalton:for that call to if you don't have a championship support team or you don't perceive that you do, and I'm talking inner work, so a coach, a therapist, a guide, a shaman, like somebody who is working with you on your inner landscape.
Smoke:Yep.
Dalton:A doctor you love, a dentist you love. Like like, having the right people in your world to support you makes you innately more powerful, more impactful, more more, like, abundant as a human. And that's Mhmm. We can't do this alone. Like, if you're Yeah.
Dalton:Into this and think that you don't need support, this is just a loving invitation to say, we always do, no matter how awake Yeah. Matter how expanded we may feel.
Smoke:And that can come from lots of sources. It can come from reading Meister Ehrichardt's. I have the three volume set of all of his sermons. Yeah. And I I I'll usually read one or two at night.
Smoke:Just, you know, just read through. They're pretty short. Mhmm. But they're always a transmission. Yep.
Smoke:And so in that way, Maestro Easeful is one of my teachers. Mhmm.
Dalton:He's an advocate for for you and your journey.
Smoke:Yeah. And same goes for many, you know, many of this, you know, the great ancient spiritual texts, but also someone like David Hawkins. Yeah. Who, you know, I, you know, I I'm a I guess you call me a fanboy, but like, I I probably have listened to, read those books more than anyone else you know. Mhmm.
Smoke:It's it's a, you know, it's a common thing for me to go to sleep with the Audible on, and one of those books, and then I'll wake up, and this happens to Anitra too. We I wake up right
Dalton:in
Smoke:the moment when I hear something that is, like, I'm supposed to hear. I'm supposed to be aware of. Mhmm. And I'll hear that little piece, and I'll fall back asleep. Mhmm.
Smoke:But it's a it's a transmission.
Dalton:Yeah. And I I love that. One of the things that I often find delight in supporting clients on is discovering your elders. Because in every wisdom culture, there is a commitment to a line of of wisdom or knowledge. And there's a real importance to it because we can't build off of something until we understand it intensely, intimately, and not just, like, intellectually, but we're actually starting to actualize, realize, embody those teachings.
Dalton:Yeah. Because then we get the freedom to challenge and discern and evolve and think of how to make them better. But I think one of the challenges I see is in this western culture of like this cornucopia of options. People could dip their toes into like hundreds of different teachers. And a small, but I think really important wisdom here is, if you're uncertain, seek a system or a teacher that is older.
Smoke:Yeah. To
Dalton:find somebody who has lived a longer life, who has taught more, who has shared more, and that you have so much confidence in them. And in in this time, I know there's like there's a lot of heartbreaking moments where there's different kind of exposures of unbecoming aspects of different teachers.
Smoke:Well, that's why we use muscle testing or similar process. Because what what Hawkins, you know, taught so well and articulated in in such a way that I need it, like, for the the thinking mind that I have. Mhmm. I needed that frame
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:To unpack it. Right? I it was it was just a really important part.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:But, you know, testing, are they integris? Mhmm. So you don't wanna devote your energy and time to a teacher who is on integris.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:You have to be very
Dalton:delicate with your mind and soul, and what you're absorbing.
Smoke:Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, so for instance, if you typically put on Netflix or some other entertainment, most of that material is gonna be very low integrity. You know, some some of it will be above 200, but a lot of it will be below. And you could test movies.
Smoke:You can test books. Motivate. I love
Dalton:I'm the humans are not pure. They have very specific agendas for very specific outcomes that benefit them and not you.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. And and and that goes for teachers and and, you know, I love one of Hawkins' things is like, hey, some point, take all of your spiritual books in your library and test them all and put them in two piles. Yeah. Below 200, above 200.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:And you'll be you'll be surprised that, you know, 50% of the spiritual books are are below 200, which is not integris, which is they they're taking away from you if you're reading them.
Dalton:Yeah. And the thing to be humble about, like, charlatans are remarkably powerful, and they are their own first victim. Like, the people who are geniusly manipulative are manipulating themselves. So there's like it it can be really difficult when you're dealing with somebody who has world class charisma.
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:If we were to talk to Tom Cruise right now, we'd have no idea who he was because he's an excellent actor. And, like, there's a sense that he's not who he presents as, but he's one of the best presenters in the world. So how could you ever, like, just directly read and be able to track what's happening with that person? Like
Smoke:I think we saw a a pure moment of his when he jumped on the couch about and ranted about vaccines.
Dalton:Exactly. Like, there's this
Smoke:Way out of his time, and everybody thought he was crazy. Yeah.
Dalton:And then he hid that again, and he's like, I hope I hope he's good. I I have no idea. And the the thing is, for me, back to that aspect of are you moving away, or are you moving towards? It is so easy and it's part of the rage machine to get mad, to get upset, to focus on all the people you don't respect. Yeah.
Dalton:But how much more fun would it be if we spent our lives adoring the people that we do respect? And for me, like, my my top three elders, I would say, are Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Tara Brach. I have sat with their teachings for a decade now. And the deeper I go
Smoke:And and and thanks to you, I got to meet Tara because we did that meditation group Yeah. And she led us. That was really cool.
Dalton:Oh, it was like, one of the coolest moments for me. Was Yeah. Holding in my giddiness the whole time. But that's a great example where, in the preparation of that event, I got to ask her like a single question of my own, because it was all focused on providing the service to the community. Yeah.
Dalton:And that question changed my life. Like, it was during the start of the, like, Israel Palestine conflict, and I have a best friend who's Palestinian, and I was feeling so confused on what to do. Like, I was feeling his grief. I was feeling trauma. I was feeling scared for my friend.
Dalton:And I went to her and I said, Tara, like, what do I do? Like, how do I sit with this in a compassionate way? Like, do I get angry? Do I become an activist? Like like, how do I channel this?
Dalton:And what she said was so simple, and I'll share it now, which was she's like, you're not going through the trauma. He is. Don't expect somebody who's actively in trauma to start healing. That is unfair. You have to let them get traumatized first and not try to control it.
Dalton:But what you can do is not get upset yourself. You can be an oasis of ease and calm and groundedness. It's not denying what they're experiencing, but it's not letting yourself be a victim because you think you should be a victim.
Smoke:Well, it's exact it's exactly the teaching that's beautiful. It's exactly the teaching that I kind of got to Mhmm. Which is, you know, a lot of us, you know, humans have you know, there's empathy that happens. There's caring about others. Yeah.
Smoke:We all have it at some age, at some, you know, at different levels, but and it can get buried because of our own trauma. But when you're a presence for someone who is suffering or for some event, some world event that's happening, right, that, you know, anything, family trauma, world trauma, all the anything in between. If we chase that person's state of being because we're empathetic Yeah. And we care It's like ruinous. We lower our vibration we roll our vibration to their level.
Smoke:Yeah. Which keeps them in the trauma. Mhmm. It actually it it serves to hold that space of trauma. Yep.
Smoke:If we can stay in our own, you know, beingness and be present for them, dropping judgment, dropping, you know, the thing just being there, being that energy field, which I think I'm just saying in different words what you just said, but Exactly. What Tara said to you, then that's how humans are the medicine for each other. That's the healing that so you can help heal them, but you help heal them by holding your own space and your own level of of of vibration.
Dalton:Yeah. And, like, Thich Nhat Hanh talks about compassionate listening, which is listening with the only purpose being to listen so they may suffer less. Yep. And what I'm hearing and kinda reflecting here is, like, when we are in that state of true compassion, we're actually in a really like, if you looked at the nervous system, you're most likely right in a centered homeostasis range. When you look at the heart, it's probably open, and you're feeling feelings of love, which when we go into the trauma, when we go into the upset with them, we're not our hearts closed, our, like Yeah.
Dalton:Spine is tight, like, all of those systems of love. And I don't think we have to look much further than, like, flowers to to get this teaching from wisdom. Like, if I was upset and I was walking through a park and all the flowers wilted, that wouldn't be a gift. Like, that would actually be quite horrific. Whereas, when I am in that state, I wanna see the beauty of the flower to help remind me.
Dalton:Like, to help, like, kind of re like, guide me back home to the present moment where I can see that, like, while life is, I I do hold a Buddhist belief. I think suffering's inevitable. I don't think it's to be glorified, but I think this human experience is hard. Like, we joke in our work of if the easy way is already hard enough. And if you find somebody who's found the easy way, please tell us.
Dalton:We'd love to meet them. And we have yet to have a single person. When they really sit back with it, like these assumption of, oh, that person has it so easy. If you get to know them, there's a whole different type of suffering that's probably present. Like, even the nepo child who has the
Smoke:huge Yeah.
Dalton:Cut front. I've gotten to work with some of those people, and they have a whole different kind of stress.
Smoke:Oh, yeah. No. There's a there's a whole there's a whole different level of guilt built in with
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:You know, capacity and all this, like so it's like, you know, they question themselves, their identity, and
Dalton:an alcoholic. Like, you might see their life, and they're glamorously partying every day. But I've had my own troubles with alcoholism, and it is a miserable state. It's physically Yeah.
Smoke:I I I used alcohol for decades as my my escape, and it was you know, Lana told me this. She's like, don't regret it. She's like, it helped you it helped you manage your the pain and the things you couldn't deal with. Yeah. It was a part of your mechanism to do that.
Smoke:I'm like, yeah, I guess that's right. Like, I don't have to look back and say, oh, I regret all that. You know, I I drank a lot. I actually quit drinking at the ceremony in Asheville. Mhmm.
Smoke:And, you know, I think two and a half years later, I reintroduced, you know, a little wine here and there with dinner and stuff, but I I basically had two and a half years of after four decades of, you know, heavy drinking. Yeah. And and but but it was it was just part of that process. Right? And yeah.
Smoke:So I I think I think the so what I just heard from what Tara told you that and I said in my own words, but I think it's very, very true. And and it's no one gets healed by you matching their level.
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:And you can't heal anyone else, but by holding your space Mhmm. You show them their higher their their inner self, and you show them that there's a way through that. Mhmm. And so it's not you're not telling them, you're just Yeah. You're showing it.
Dalton:And you're listening. The simplest, one guiding principle that I carry right now is half the words, twice the presence. Like, when we get anxious, we humans often have a tendency to try to fill the air, to fix things, to solve, to figure out. When honestly, often what we need is just a brother or sister to acknowledge our pain, to validate our, like, innate enoughness, and to be with us in it because it takes time. Like, my friend will be working through trauma for years because that is the nature of such a large scale trauma.
Dalton:But here's the thing is, for something like that, we all are. Like, we are like, there's a spiritual idea of, like, we're all one, which can be seen on the spiritual ones, but it can also be seen on as on the scientific lens of the earth is like one big organism. Mhmm. And what's happening over in The Middle East is like an infection in the cosmic body's knee or something like that.
Smoke:Yep.
Dalton:And we're all carrying the grief of those those things. Like war, I think one of the just simplest greatest problems with it is it's too traumatizing for the collective to ever be good. Like, it creates way too many cycles of violence. In our coaching work, we work with a lot of indigenous reciprocity charities in Canada. Yep.
Dalton:And that's a humbling space to be working in because they're working through generations of trauma that has come all the way up to the recent past. Yeah. Question is it's like
Smoke:Of course of course, a lot of the and I'd be interested in your your your lens on this, but like, yeah, I because I have Native American in me, so I I can I have some of that lineage? But the the lack of recognition that we are sovereign beings Mhmm. Disempowers many groups. So, yes, there's groups all over the world, different with different lineages. They came into that that lineage to help process some of that trauma.
Smoke:Yeah. And I think some of the modern thinking around not taking responsibility for your own life, the life you're in
Dalton:Yeah.
Smoke:Is a counter to processing it. Right? So if if if it becomes a look at us, poor me, I'm of this race, of this lineage, and we've been abused because hundreds of years ago, my ancestors were slaves. Mhmm. Well, you know, from another lens, the ones that were slaves were actually saved because most of the people that were not taken as slaves were murdered.
Smoke:Mhmm. And, you know, if you could look back in human history, slavery was everywhere in the world. It was not like, it's not a it's not a one there's not one group that didn't do it. I got like, they all did it at some point. Right?
Smoke:Anyway, so I think it's just an know, it's a fascinating thing that, you know, we are here to process our own things, but also the collective things at whatever level we're called to do. And you don't do that without taking your own sovereign responsibility.
Dalton:Yeah. And this kinda comes back to the base of it where if you are trying to help somebody else to fix yourself, like, because you think something's wrong and, like, you need to sacrifice in order to be worthy. Like, we see this in white guilt where people Yep. Feel ashamed of their ancestors. And instead of letting that inspire them to move towards love, it becomes the victim cycle of, like, moving away from guilt or moving away from fear.
Dalton:And in its worst cases, I see this expresses absolute denial. A denial of suffering, which is always bad. Like, we need to look these things in the face. We need to look at the holocaust. We need to look at in, like, the residential schools across North America, and have the bravery to do the inner work to not take it personally, to not let it become the story of I'm not enough, which is the tendency of the scarcity ego.
Dalton:Whereas on the other hand, to see it all as perfect, but with a lot of nuance to it, because I think that can be an easy way to kind of box it up and put it away of like, oh, that was karmic. That was exactly as it was supposed to be. But you could also make the argument, and I heard this in an old Ram Dass talk recently when somebody was asking him a similar question, is that the suffering of another human may be the perfect design to activate your compassion. Yeah. Like, this like, even though you must accept that it's how things are and that you can't save anybody, you could also see it as, oh, it's perfect.
Dalton:It's how things are that along the path, this was designed to break my heart open. Yep. Not break it into a space of guilt. And this is a really tricky inner alchemy because to give an unconditional gift, it feels amazing. And it's always defined by love, joy, and peace.
Dalton:Mhmm. Doing something because you have a myth that you are broken and need to be, like, need to prove your worth. And as somebody who studied ethics at a liberal arts college like Harvard, and actually did do a service trip in Kenya, I struggled with this for a couple years really intensely. I ended up becoming a vegetarian, and years later, this wonderful witchy woman would shatter my world because she was able to find she was a Vedic astrologer. She was able to find the nugget inside that didn't believe it was worthy of the energy of animals because I had internalized too many of these.
Dalton:Like, I also studied Tibetan history really intense in college and Yeah. In Tibet in 2017. Life changing. But I felt this weight of, like, seeing an open air prison state like Tibet, seeing the suffering of Kibera, which is the largest urban slum outside of Nairobi. And I somehow assumed that I must be, like, responsible and got into the mellow drama of, like, like, I am, as like a straight passing white male, I'm the enemy.
Dalton:I don't deserve like cow meat. And I don't and I actually dropped down to a hundred and sixty pounds. I'm currently two hundred pounds. I'm like six one, pretty big Scottish guy. And I was killing myself because I didn't see myself as worthy.
Dalton:Until that woman looked me in the eyes, and she was like, Dalton, like anybody else, we need your energy. Like, we need you to be nourished. We need you to be passionate because the world needs you. Like, you were Yeah. Here for a reason.
Dalton:And if your body needs meat, you need to eat it so that we can have the blessing of you. Yeah. And in a day, after four years of vegetarianism, I started eating meat again. Yeah. And shifted the story of, like, okay, what if I move towards being an inspiring man?
Dalton:Like, what if I aspire to be somebody like to funny, it's hot on my mind right now, but I love John Cena. I think that guy is a ray of sunshine and abundance. And if you're ever looking for, like, an inspiration for divine masculinity, Listen to that guy talk about the work he does for, like, underprivileged people and
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:Work he does even just any job he's ever done, he does it with dignity, passion, inspiration, and has fought to be generous every day of his life. And I think that's really Beautiful.
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we we need as many examples like that as we can find in this Yeah. Troubled but perfect world.
Dalton:Yeah. And tell me, who's inspiring you right now? Like, who to you is modeling, and let's focus on the divine masculine side of things? Like, what man is really showing up in a way that inspires you to be better?
Smoke:Well, you know, for me, I go to the teachers that have inspired me a lot. Right? So someone like David Hawkins and his body of work, you know, I I've I've I've gone down the deep Christian contemplative practices. I really, really love James Finley Yeah. And his work.
Smoke:He's got some beautiful things out there. Got into Merton, and his teachings, and, you know, that whole story. I was I've last night, I was listening to Miranda McPherson.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:And she's got a beautiful Way of Grace, and another one on Sounds True, and that's a transmission. Yep. And so I'm not answering your question directly. It's I know that humanity is completely flawed, and it's the way it's supposed to be Mhmm. Because that's how would we learn if school wasn't difficult?
Smoke:How would we learn if, you know I was a wrestler at Cornell. Harvard was my stepping stone school. I'll tell you that story separately, or or we have time, but it's a funny joke. I got kicked out of Cornell. I went I went to Harvard night school, got a three five, got back into Cornell, and finished.
Smoke:So that's that's That's a I'll I'll get into more detail when we have time. But Yeah. But the, you know, what formed the human character that I became was in large measure doing hard things. And the and in particular, you know, I would say both Boy Scouts and getting becoming an Eagle Scout and wrestling, and then wrestling at college, wrestling at Cornell was, you know, life changing because it's those aren't easy things. Yeah.
Smoke:For different reasons. But Mhmm. Both of those things were hard. That's how you learn. So earth school is designed to be quite difficult for a higher being to come to terms with and to experience, but that's how that's how spirit learns.
Smoke:Like, you you couldn't do it unless we had these filters that so we didn't know, oh, everything's gonna be fine. We have to go through this and experience it and process it, and then we can go, oh, everything's gonna be fine. But Mhmm. You you can't skip the the actual processing part.
Dalton:Right? And and this is where, like, I think our most controversial belief at The Alchemy Network is that true abundance is easeful. Because, like, I agree with everything you said, and I think that Earth School is teaching us that hard isn't the point. Yeah. Like, that hard is actually one of the teachers to guide us.
Smoke:Guilty. By the way, guilty as charged. My lens, because of the trauma I experienced, is, oh, that's necessary. Maybe it's not necessary. And I just, you know, had to experience it because I was one of those souls that had, you know, a hard head and needed to be beat the shit out of a bunch of times to actually, like, you know, it took me fifty years to get to awakening moment.
Smoke:Right? Because of whatever resistance. And, you know, I I had a certain view of, like, what's right, what's wrong. I you know, childhood pedophilia, all this stuff that you go you can look back and go, well, I don't know how a kid could not be traumatized going through that. Right?
Smoke:So, like, unequivocally, everyone has trauma. Yeah. But the things that I know I experienced are like or, you know, they're at the higher end of the of the scale. Why? Mhmm.
Smoke:Because obviously, I chose to go to a situation where I would have to wake up. Yep. And I don't think I, like, planned it on it taking fifty five years or something, but but, you know, but but that was the level of I that I needed, that level of, like, trauma and resistance to get to a point where I can, you know, be be whole.
Dalton:Right. And I think we're in an age of, like, the spiritual warrior. Like, with the different kind of feelings of strain and stress in the zeitgeist right now.
Smoke:Yep.
Dalton:I think the calling is for warriorship. Like, it's it's not a time monks. So the universe is giving all of these complex pathways where and, like, this is this is where I love working with people, is the ones who've made it really far in the path, like, have done a lot of sincere work and have woken up to compassion, woken up to, like, concepts of unity, have some sort of stability in their relationships and their self. And what I've noticed is across the board, it's not like you get to that point and then you kick your feet up and meditate for the rest of your days. Yeah.
Dalton:No. If anything, the intensity meter is turned up because you're more embodied to more of the universe, and things get into this place. And that's where me and my team so one thing to note is like, you know this, and the listeners can probably tell. I'm 29. Like, I haven't lived that long in this earth school.
Dalton:So one of the blessings I have is I work with a seven year old who to give him credit where credit's due, I think one of the most inspiring parts of him is he look like looks like he's like 45. You would never guess that Jon Block was 70. But it allows me to serve Like, people within we work with such impressive leaders that, of course, have lived more. Like, I can't I can't give people advice on how to parent. I haven't had kids yet.
Dalton:But I could work with a coach who has, and we work as like a triad with the we have this other woman, Rachel Hayek, who's utterly incredible. And we get the chance to support people on their journey, but as a collective, where we're only talking to the things we we know. And, like, for me, the thing that I'm like, that Earth School has provided me is, I've spent the last decade asking the question of, what is, like, authentic creativity? Like, what does it mean to express in a way that transforms the world? And to be real clear here, like, transformation, Brannett Brown says one of the most misunderstood words.
Dalton:She says, transformation is not present if grief isn't present. Because transformation implies the forever changing, the loss of some aspect of self community. Like, it it's painful Yeah. In nature. But I love being around people who want to do that hard work, who have the bravery Yeah.
Dalton:They like, let's sit down and get into the most uncomfortable part of my personality and figure out how we can have it serve clearly and not continue interrupting these big dreams that most people hold for the world.
Smoke:Yeah. I think that's a that's a really good point. And I and I think this process goes through these it's like a it's like a sine curve, but it's going up. Right? So it's like, you're gonna go in these waves.
Smoke:And Yep. At some point on the down part of the curve, it's gonna feel like you went backwards. Mhmm. But you're actually, you know, much further along, but, know, you're now ready to process whatever that next layer is. Yeah.
Smoke:I think there's a well, I don't know if it's a danger. I think there's a trap that that what I've observed in as I've become much more engaged in the spiritual community and this work is that it's always like, it's constantly about how do I process my trauma? How do I process my trauma? Yeah. And and and I think what happens is you get to a certain level where you've processed it, and you just have to let it sit.
Smoke:In some point, something else will come up, and it will unravel that next layer Mhmm. When it's the right time. But to be focused on how do I live, not how do I process everything. Right? So it's it's that looking back from the boat versus looking forward.
Smoke:Right? It's great.
Dalton:Like, encapsulation of the moment in which we love working with people. Because it is moving from, okay, I've focused on healing, and the thing is there's always more healing. That's just a truth. And you should always Yeah. Have some passive focus on healing even in the seasons when you're in it focusing on expansion because it's like brushing your teeth.
Dalton:It's taking care of the body, making sure that you're not having things build up too much. But Yeah. Three of the core things we help people uncover is their vision, their purpose, and their desired legacy. Because we think those are three amazing north stars for different reasons, and the words get used a lot. So I'll give quick definitions to to how we use them.
Dalton:So vision statement is a dream for one hundred to four hundred years in the future. Like, something that is so far beyond your lifespan. Like, for me, my vision statement is is as simple as a utopian society. Because since I was a little kid, I dreamt of this possibility of a world that was just like the Garden of Eden, women and children were safe. We were got to enjoy the abundance of this planet together.
Smoke:Well, Dalton, I was there with you because I I I I have specific memories. I would go to that place. I would we lived in when I was at, like, seven years old, you know, five between five and seven years old, we lived in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is right outside of New York. And, you know, Hoboken is now a fancy suburb, but it was kind of a tough little town back then, seventies. New York was tough.
Smoke:Yeah. Was like, you know, it was a rough and tumble place. Yeah. And and they had a lot of problems. And I just remember, like, watching the garbage and, you know, the the lack of care.
Smoke:And as a as a seven year old, I was like, why are they like this? Why and I would I asked. I would you know, I go on these journeys, I would go to this beautiful city of, like, white light and and and plants. It was just like it was like this it was Eden, I guess. It was it was where I'm from.
Dalton:And you can feel it then somatically where it's like when you connect to that. Like Yeah. If you were to reflect daily on a utopian future, you'd get really excited about working towards something that's greater than your lifetime. So that's kinda like one component of it is to accept that we are creating gifts for our great grandkids or great descendants of all kinds. And that is a noble thing.
Dalton:Like, it's a it's something really beautiful to have an aspiration that will outlive you. The second then is your purpose, which is the dharma statement to some degree of like, how do your gifts, strengths, traumas, everything, how do they come together to make you perfectly designed to do something that will lead towards that vision? So kind of nest inside of like so for me, that is to amplify compassionate leaders. Through it all the, like, little twists and turns, I've realized that at this point of time, that's what it's all been leading towards, the creative direction, even the lacrosse. And with that, the last note that I'll add is the third one, which is the legacy statement.
Dalton:And this is the within your lifetime, what is the most significant impact that you wanna have? This for some could be like changing society, but for a lot, like, how you're seen by your family. Like, my grandmother, my utopia was my Scottish family that had this epic matriarch. And for her, her legacy is that she loved 60 grandkids the same. I don't know how she did it because I had some absolute, like, troublemaker cousins.
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:We were like low income Scottish family in Ontario, but she loved them the same. And her legacy is that that love has probably impacted a million people because she sincerely loved kids in a society that said you needed to perform to be loved. And there she Yeah. A complete rebel saying, I'm gonna love them all exactly the same.
Smoke:Yeah. It's beautiful. I did the what's it called? It's I'm drawing a blank with this machine that basically this doctor created in Vegas. You probably have heard of it, but it's it's not Ricky.
Smoke:It's like the
Dalton:The Russia.
Smoke:Russia. Alright. So so Rob has one at his house, and then I went when I was in Vegas, I went and met with doctor Jerry, and we had and he's been on the podcast, by the way.
Dalton:That's awesome.
Smoke:And I had a whole, you know, download. But the thing I got when I did it at Rob's house, because he, you know, he bought these things are not cheap, and he bought he has one. And so I did, like, an hour and a half session on it. And I got this I got this I got a download. My download was I'm a globetrotting leader leader of leaders bringing God's love and light to the world.
Smoke:Yeah. That's not how I talk. So that's that's not like that's not like a smoke thought. But it's like, that that statement came to me, and I wrote it down. Mhmm.
Smoke:And it's been like, okay. Well, I guess that's that was my thing. So And you know,
Dalton:I would love to offer one of the little tools that we love using with this. May I? Just like a lot
Smoke:of Please.
Dalton:Absolutely. We love internal family systems, part works. This idea that we can navigate our inner psyche by seeing it as different, like, often Yeah. Personality points that grew at the age of the trauma. So we have, like, 13 Yeah.
Dalton:Seven year olds, 20 year olds, all sorts of ages inside of us.
Smoke:It's great. It's a great it's a great system. I I'm a big fan. I'm I'm
Dalton:Can't recommend it more.
Smoke:Has helped deep on it.
Dalton:Believe. And the idea is is that statement coming to you from your higher self. The great kind of branding, inner branding activity that we have is how do we make it so simple that we can enroll every part of ourselves? One of the things we see is we believe that these younger parts, when they don't understand the more advanced spiritual language. It's like a 13 year old.
Dalton:If I if I went to them and said, hey, my my purpose is to elevate the consciousness of humanity, They'd laugh. A little kid could not take that seriously because they couldn't comprehend what like, all the layers that are in that statement. But if I were to say, I'm here to make all children feel safe. Yeah. The language is really clear.
Dalton:And the more specific it is, we're I'm not only enrolling the parts of myself to get excited, but the parts of other people. Because you see, like, when a purpose is really clear and really powerful, like, paint the lines between stress and disease and suffering and trauma. Yep. It's really inspiring and it's really clear. Like, after he released the myth of normal, he's become just the go to person to talk about trauma as the source of illness.
Dalton:Yeah. Now, his purpose is getting delivered by us right now. Like, we are literally sitting here doing his dharma for him. Yeah. And hopefully, the listeners are who don't know him are curious now to to check him out.
Dalton:So that would be my invitation that if we were in like a coaching dynamic, I would be delighted to work with you on like, how can that phrase carry the same message, but reach an eight year old?
Smoke:Yeah. I love that. I I I often, you know, with AI, there's so much capability. It's amazing. And and it's like, back to your, you know, pick a lane or pick a a tradition that resonates with you.
Smoke:But, like, we have access to all of them now. Yeah. So, like, I've gone deep on literally, like, most of the traditions. Yep. And that doesn't mean I'm an expert in, like, Kabbalahism or or the Zohar or, you know, this or that.
Smoke:But I know enough about them where I got the essence of the teachings. Mhmm. And so by like, my process has been, okay. I'm gonna I'm gonna use all of them. I'm gonna use the best of the best.
Smoke:And whatever resonates with me, I'm gonna keep using. So I go I bounce around from Christian mysticism to, you know, contemplate a prayer to Hawkins and that little bit more of a psychological, you know, intellectual frame to Siri Abundance and, you know, embodying, you know, in in the divine life. And by but for me, like, by doing that, like, that was just my the way I did it. Right? Like, it's not right or wrong.
Smoke:It's like, I think it's perfectly great if you go deep on one tradition, because it they have these are technologies. Whether it's meditation or it's contemplative state, it's all these things are these are technologies that have been developed by these traditions for thousands of years. Mhmm. And they work. Mhmm.
Smoke:And you we can we have our we have this menu of choices. And if as long as you're picking from Entegris sources, they're they're additive. They're not, like, counseling each other out. I think they're know, you can How
Dalton:lucky are we? Like, our
Smoke:Oh, it's it's incredible. Mean, because, like, you know, we were we if we were in Meister Ehrkhart's day Yeah. You know, living in, you know, what is now Germany and some little village, maybe we got the Franciscan teaching and we got we got into that track. Yeah. And more likely, we were left on our own.
Smoke:You know? Or if we lived in, you know, you know, a Buddhist country, we got the had an aptitude. We got sucked into that tradition.
Dalton:Mhmm.
Smoke:And now it's like it's almost like the the challenge is the noise is so much. So you can you can dabble in too many things. But I think if you're disciplined, and you and you're you're curating for yourself, you can you can you'll be able access everything. It's so great.
Dalton:Yeah. And here's here's the invitation I would I would layer onto that is, like, dream big. Like, know that each person like, what you do might feel small, but it's the utmost importance that you do it, as Gandhi said. And we have the chance to change the world in our lifetime. And I think the risk is to go too broad, to, like, not since not have that sincerity.
Dalton:But here's the thing is I'm not the type of person to say, you gotta do this path. Like, even our coaching, we work with all religions, all paths, all kind. Because we're a framework, not a method. Like, we're here to offer tools to amplify whatever it is you're already practicing and to add that kind of like practical magic component of strategy. However, rather than being stuck in one lineage, I think you can pick your track of how you hope to change the world.
Dalton:And there's this old it's like ancient truism that says, if you haven't found your purpose, keep looking. If you have found your purpose, keep looking. And the idea is is that we will always get deeper. Like, that's the hope is that we get to know ourselves better and better and better and better, and we look back and we think our old purpose statements are so, like, juvenile in comparison because we needed to grow to see. And if we keep growing, we keep seeing clearer.
Dalton:And if you have a sense of like how you wanna change the world, how you wanna change your life, how you wanna change yourself, how you wanna change your family, then you could have, in this day and age, the most incredible experiments you could ever fathom. You could get on the phone with a teacher in Nepal. You could do just pure AI research into some of the best books ever written, and it is phenomenal. Yeah. The only thing that I'll always layer in, and this is kind of like my own biased call to action, is we need to keep investing in the teachers.
Dalton:Like, if you're listening to this, and you're, like, on AI by yourself, yes, that is valuable, but I do think there's something noble in feeding the global economy of supporting the people who are carrying these teachings. Because to sit down with somebody who, like, my my mentor, Jean Pierre, is a lifelong enneagram expert. So it's actually our other coach, Rachel. Fascinating system. Like Mhmm.
Dalton:Hundreds of thousands of people have added wisdom and and ideas to it, and it's built up over the last century and arguably longer. There's all sorts of spooky fun history that you can get into on the Enneagram itself.
Smoke:Yeah. Well, that that might be another episode where we can get into that. I think it's fun. It's like it's like I think I'm at three, but I can't remember. Was at three seven or something.
Dalton:Yeah. Work with the Enneagram every day in this coaching because it's a great way to parse out the personality versus the soul, and great to have that wisdom as a system. Big fan. But the thing that I'll share for today's call is that I think I know the Enneagram. Because I I am, like, I've studied it for a year.
Dalton:I've read the textbooks, and I can be very confident with my use of it. It takes a five minute conversation with Jean Pierre to remind me how naive we can be on our learning path. To sit with somebody who knows in a he studied it for forty years versus my one year. And it's like, I'll be like, oh, that person definitely seems like a three. And he's like, oh, well, a three looks like a social seven if you miss these tiny little like, there's so many nuances to it.
Dalton:Yep. That by bringing what you've learned to somebody who has a full body of knowledge, Oh, it's so good. It's worth your money. It's worth your time. And make sure that we, like our children, also have access to in person or virtual teachers, which I think is
Smoke:Yeah. Agreed. Totally. Totally. But test them.
Dalton:Test them.
Smoke:Make sure they're above 200. They don't have to be the highest level, but they need to be integris. Otherwise Absolutely. You're going down the wrong path. I mean, that's one of the fascinating things when Hawkins measured the chapters, the books of the Bible.
Smoke:Yeah. And if you if you take Revelation out, the current version of the Bible, the Saint James or whatever the the one of the modern versions, you take Revelation out, it jumps from, like, 600 to eight fifty. Yeah. Because Revelation was non integris. And John John, who wrote that, was non integris, and it got in inserted into the collaborative book that became
Dalton:the empire's Bible. Presence in the Bible. Correct?
Smoke:Yeah. Yeah. And so, like and if you look and if you look at, like, some of the craziness out of Christianity comes from, like, citing revelation. And it's and it's a non integris book within. Same with the Old Testament.
Smoke:There there's lots of great stories and parallel parables, but, really, Genesis, parables, and Proverbs are the three integris books of the whole old one. Yeah. And so you think about that. Like, those three are high integrity, but, like, the rest of it is a bunch of, like, human ego projection on what God would do.
Dalton:Yeah. And here's the thing is, like, along with the the testing method you have, what I would offer to people listening as a technique to try to, like, figure out how you relate to these people, is to have a journaling practice where you write down let's say, if you're looking for a male teacher, a female teacher, like, having a clear image in your mind for what energies you're seeking and why, and to journal about what makes an inspiring man or woman or how whatever you're seeking. And to create a list from a really calm place, and maybe even also explore like the parallels of like what's not inspiring, because there's usually a thin line between them. And then challenge yourself to actually hold your teachers to that standard. It is so easy, and I've done this many times along the path and learned the hard way.
Dalton:Of seeing an a red flag and not wanting to see it. Yep. And one of the ones that you can look at that's consistent is, how's their relationship with their family, their children, their partner? You can often find those cracks in these amazing, inspiring teachers. And you dig under the surface and their kids don't talk to them.
Dalton:That is a massive red flag that there is paradoxical aspects of their personality. Or if they're in a unhappy marriage. That that is not an inspiring thing to see and to see how they Yeah.
Smoke:And and to to to just have the your perception wide enough to notice that stuff and not be sucked up into the glamour of whoever that teacher is or coach or whatever it is. Yeah. I think it's it's like the accountant who can't do his own books or the Yeah. Or, you know, or the, you know, like, it's the the coach who doesn't eat healthy, but he's coaching everybody. You know, it's like, it's the non integris aspect of these, and to have the ability to at least, you know, see that.
Smoke:And and recognizing that we're all humans in this human form, you know, spirit in this human form, and that comes with flaws. So it's not to be holier than thou, like, oh, I'm better than them. It's I I can see that they they they have these issues, so I I shouldn't let all of their transmission go into me because they haven't cleared their own shit.
Dalton:And that's the discernment that I think applies to every teacher because they're all human. That's like the the basis of us is that humans are paradoxical. It's like in med school, they say, 50% of what we teach you is wrong. We just don't know which half yet.
Smoke:Yeah.
Dalton:And to always carry that, like, awareness that your teacher, your mentor has flaws that makes them human. And here's the thing that kinda started me on this path of the word inspiration was, John Pierre said to me one day, we're sitting around, he was like, we only work with people who inspire us. And for a moment, I was like, oh, is there, like, is that like an ego stance? That's an honest question. He's like, no.
Dalton:It's like, the heart of inspiration is there's nothing more inspiring than somebody who wants to grow. So if somebody is coming into us considering us for coaches, and it's not coming from that place of, like, like, I'm willing to face the challenge. I'm willing to grow. I want to be better. That's inspiring.
Dalton:There's nothing inspiring about somebody who says, I'm perfect. I have no more Yeah. Like, that's that's just not interesting or and like, that that's one of the ways I fell in love with Ram Dass. Is he's a super flawed guy. And he does a stunning job of modeling the humanness of of naming it.
Dalton:Yeah. Saying, like like, he he famously said, in the forty years of inner work I've done, I haven't cured a single neurosis. But I happen to be aware of a lot more of them now, and they used to be like gremlins that take me over. Now they're just little Smooths. Like, they're just little ghosts that show up.
Dalton:And having the humility to say that, like, we're not perfect. Yeah. Love coaching people because they inspire me to be better. Like, to get to work with people in their inner world. It's like every single session of coming out of it being like, oh, what a great idea.
Smoke:Like, what Yeah. It changes you. It changes you Yeah. In in the process. That that that is such a important teaching, I think.
Smoke:And, you know, to to to be able to recognize that the more I know, the less I know.
Dalton:Yeah. Embrace it. It's so fun.
Smoke:It's like that's like, okay. Well, that's the point of it. The point of it is to recognize, like, oh, I'm what am I gonna learn today? What am I gonna learn this moment? But what I what I what am I supposed to observe here?
Smoke:And that's coming from a place of tremendous amount of work Mhmm. To get to that open mind of, like, beginner's mind of, like, what do I not know now? What what do I need? What's next?
Dalton:Yeah. And having that excitement, like, I love the concept that this weekend, you could read a book, you could meet a person, you could see a piece of nature that changes the next ten years of your life. Yeah. You just never know. Like, on the hard days, I love reminding myself of like, you could meet the the most inspiring, exciting person tomorrow.
Dalton:Like, today might feel hard. It could even happen today. You never know. We just have to be open to the magic, and excited, and and have the courage to continually return to the storm of life, no matter how intense it feels. How do wanna close off this delicious
Smoke:we obviously, this is the beginning of a conversation. Yeah. And we are gonna continue this because I I think we have lots of new things to dig into.
Dalton:We don't really need to end here.
Smoke:We just we just got, like I feel like this is the introductory episode, so we're gonna if you're game, I'm I'm gonna
Dalton:have I'm so gamey. Back, and
Smoke:maybe I'll have maybe I'll get Mati and you to do it together with me, because it that'd be a fun conversation. That'd be
Dalton:really fun. And my prayer is that we end up in person somewhere for
Smoke:Oh, yeah. We will. We will. I I I was but for a I won't get into it, but I I literally was gonna Anita just got to Denver now. So I was gonna be with you, but I just decided I don't need to go to Dave Matthews this weekend.
Smoke:She's going to both shows. I love I love Dave, but it's like, I'm, you know, I've got I'm I'm just gonna I'm here in my in my my Zen garden called Sedona, and I've got our puppy, and I've got work to do on my book and other things. Right? So, like, I'm just gonna focus.
Dalton:I will.
Smoke:So, anyway, so so how do we wrap? Why don't how about just share I'll share it in the show notes, but, like, how do we get in touch with you and your work now? And and then and then I'll ask you one question at the end.
Dalton:Perfect. Yeah. So if you're interested in the the tone and the style of philosophy I was sharing, go check out our website. It's the alchemynetwork.com. We we aim to share as many answers as we can there, and there's a clear pathway to reach out.
Dalton:In terms of who, if you are currently feeling really inspired and aiming to do big things, but you don't have a support team, have a conversation with us. Even just one. Who knows? Maybe there'll be great alignment and we work together. Maybe we don't and it's just a lovely conversation.
Dalton:But have the bravery to reach out. It's always worth exploring because even if we're not the right coaches for us, I promise you a conversation will get you closer to the right support person for whatever you're moving through.
Smoke:And and the the right teacher I I I heard this early, and I was like, yeah, maybe. But now I believe it fully, which is the right teacher will appear at the right time. So Exactly. At one point for me, it was like picking up the Hawkins book. Another point, it was like going deep into the Kabbalah, and then, like, another was going it was doing Miranda McPherson, and then it was, you know, Hibble, and then it was, you know, I did all these different ones.
Smoke:And and also, I went to Greg Braden. He he'd be a live person who I I I think highly of. I went to his retreat here in Sedona. And so we had four days of incredible transmission from Greg and his team, and and it was just a it was just a beautiful experience. And I I was literally last minute.
Smoke:I was kind of a skeptic, and I was like, yeah. You know, I'm gonna this. And Mhmm. It was beautiful. But the right teacher will come up at the right time, but you have to, you know, look at you have to be open in looking at them and engaging, and then it will resonate or not.
Dalton:Absolutely. So, yeah, if you're feeling that that tingle of curiosity, reach out. We'll explore.
Smoke:Awesome. Alright. And then I'll leave you with one one question. What is the single greatest thing you're looking forward to right at this moment? You
Dalton:know, I'm I'm looking forward to the next chance I have to lay on my back under a tree. That is one of my favorite things in the world. And this call just kinda reminded me of those simple beauties, and it has me me fantasizing about just being present and enjoying the cascade of light.
Smoke:You might just have to go right to where we were gonna do our session to your favorite meditation place in the park and go do that.
Dalton:It's a there's a couple stone pear trees that are just so magical. So I'm gonna I'm gonna take this as as a must do activity. I appreciate it. And I'm so
Smoke:Beautiful. Thanks for for joining me. This has been a lot of fun. And like like I said, we have way more things to talk about than we got to, but it's a pleasure to to spend some time with you.
Dalton:Yeah. It's a great way to kick kick things off, and I I look forward to the adventure ahead, brother. Thank you. Alright. Giving each of my best.