>> Jeniffer: Hey there. I'm Jennifer Thompson.
>> Chad: And I'm Chad Thompson.
>> Jeniffer: And this is the premise where we get to the
story behind the storyteller. This is our
sixth season, folks. Six seasons.
It's so excitingiting.
>> Chad: Can you believe it?
>> Jeniffer: We've got a really amazing season lined up for
you, so let's dive in.
Deborah Rudel lives in San Diego, where she is a
college professor and participates in her city's
vibrant writing community. She is a graduate of
Hayous Writers Workshop and the Certificate in Memoir
Writing program at San Diego Writers Inc. Her work
has been published in the International Memoir Writers
Association's anthology Shaking the Tree. I
didn't see that one coming. Debeorah lives with her
black cat in a tiny house built in
1906 by a retired sea
captain. Well, that's appropriate, isn't it?
Who carves a sailing ship into the front door.
Grit and Grace, the transformation of a Ship and
Soul is her first book. Deborah, thank you so much. And
welcome to the premise.
>> Deborah: It's an honor.
>> Jeniffer: You know, this book was so fun to read because we know
each other. We were in a writing workshop together and
gosh, how long have we known each other? Like maybe seven,
eight, nine years?
>> Deborah: 2016, 2017.
>> Jeniffer: I think that'I. Think that's about right. Yeah.
So congratulations, number one, on, on the writing
and the publishing of this wonderful memoir. And
I'm excited to dive in.
Before we do that, let's talk a little bit
about Grit and Grace. The title,
it's such a compelling title. And I'm just curious
how you came to. Was it easy? Did
you, like, have a lot of different options or where did the title
come from?
>> Deborah: The title was actually my working title.
My original working title was the Elixir
Project.
>> Jeniffer: That was the name of the boat. Your sailboat.
>> Deborah: That's right. And early on,
someone mentioned to me that the Elixir project didn't
mean anything. That wasn't a very good title.
So I switched it to Grit and
Glue because I thought
that was the most fitting. Those were the most
fitting two words to use. And it
wasn't until I was publishing and my
publisher was speaking to me. And, I had wanted to put
grit, glue and Grace, but it was too
hard to say all those cheese.
>> Jeniffer: Say that three times fast. Yeah.
>> Deborah: So I wanted Grace in there
because, yes, there was lots of sanding, there was
lots of grit, inside of
having to deal with different things, but also
the grace that allowed me to get through the
whole part of my life that I, that I speak
about there was a lot of I even
magic, you know, that I, wouldn't have probably
survived if there wasn't somebody watching out for me.
>> Jeniffer: Wow. And the book starts out in a moment
where there's definitely someone looking out for
you. So I want you to take us to that moment.
But I think before we do that, we should tell our listeners what
this book is about. So it's really kind of two stories in
one. You'
I want to say fixing, but that's just not
the right word. There's this thing that Chad always says. If
you completely replace everything on a boat,
is it still the same boat? Right.
>> Chad: The ship of Theseus.
>> Jeniffer: Exactly. So you literally
replaced everything on this boat. So we're
weaving through this process and then this incredible journey on the
sailboat with your family. But at the same time, we're going back
and forth between that story and the story of joining
Nicolt, your spiritual journey. And
this book really is about. It is about grit. It is
about grace, you know, in sharing this incredible
journey of just the seeking that you're.
You're going through this entire time as you're bringing us
through these. These two. So
I want you to take us to the beginning of the book, but I'm going toa
hold on that.
How did you know that these two stories needed to be
told together? You know, as opposed to, like, writing the
story about just the boat and writing just the
story about the experience with the cult and the seeking the
spiritual side? What made you decide to put them together?
>> Deborah: I'd have to go back a little bit because
I didn't decide that that wasn't a
decision early on. As a matter
of fact, when we were building the boat, I
was taking pictures and documenting
the befores and afters, to make
articles for Wooden Boat magazine. So they were technical
articles, and that was why I had so
many photographs of this whole project.
And then when
I joined San Diego Writers, Inc.
I met with someone and
she said to me, is this a
photojournal or is this
an actual story? Do you have a story to tell?
And at that point, my heart started beating really fast because
I realized I was going toa have to tell the truth. And if I told the
truth, then that would mean I would have to actually write a
story. And I didn't really
see all that entailed. I just knew it made my heart beat
faster and my hands get a little bit sweaty.
So then she introduced me to Marnie, and I went to the
memoir classes. And it was in the memoir
Classes where I was writing about sandpaper
and different kinds of paint and what size, drift bolts,
ettera, etc. And my writing group, their
eyes would glaze over and they would say, but,
Debbie, where were you? What were you feeling? What were you
thinking? About what? What's your story?
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, I remember that.
>> Deborah: You do? Yeah, yeah. And I was
like, well, what do you mean? You know, I
was, you know, in a cult. And you were like, what?
>> Jeniffer: What?
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Wait, wait, wait, back up.
>> Chad: I led with that.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah.
>> Deborah: to me, it was just sort of, like, ordinary. But I
realized by watching all of your faces that that
probably wasn't so ordinary in.
So I would have to credit my writing group
for pulling those bits out
that part of the story. And then actually,
the whole technical aspect kind of faded into the
background and became footnotes. And then it became
like a glossary at the end of the book.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Deborah: So the book really did transform and go through
its own metamorphosis.
>> Jeniffer: And your subtitle, you know, the Transformation
of a Ship and a Soul. I mean, it really.
That. It's pretty beautiful that you have these two
things that are happening
simultaneously as we read the book. Obviously not
in real life, but really, you are going through
transformation. You. Both of these. It's kind of
a perfect fit, interestingly. And coming to
that conclusion was there that moment you were like,
oh, my God. Okay, I see.
I see how these fit.
>> Deborah: I don't know if it was a single moment. I think
it grew. It kind of grew and evolved
also. However, what
grew and evolved was my understanding
of how much my soul changed
As I wrote, I had more
epiphanies, more understanding, more realizations
of, wow, okay. And I was
able to integrate and put into place more of the
things that happened inside.
>> Jeniffer: Interesting. Isn't that amazing? I think
that's true when we're writing memoir and we're going back and
placing ourself not just in that memory,
but, like, the emotions of the memory, you know, and
we're experiencing it all over again. And we do. We have these
epiphanies like, oh, that's probably why I behave that
way and why I did that. And we come to this greater
understanding.
>> Deborah: Yeah. And. And in. In my case,
while I was building the boat, I was
part of the time in a funk a little
bit, because it wasn't really my dream
until partway through and I write about
that. It was my husband's dream,
and I just thought it was a crazy
scheme and a waste of money and time.
>> Jeniffer: He did A lot of scheming.
>> Deborah: A lot. Yeah. Ah, there was a lot
there. However, as
time went on and then as I started writing about it,
I started to realize just how much,
I was actually thinking about things and growing
and learning and as I said, integrating.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Wow.
Okay, so let's go to the beginning of the book. There's a scene.
I'm just gonna let you describe it. Tell us what's happening in the beginning of the book.
The opening scene.
>> Deborah: And this is the opening scene because I think this
was the strongest moment
in my life to date of when I was really
up against life and death.
So when I started writing,
this is the moment that came to me
to start writing. So I'm
in the middle of the. Well, not the middle. I'm five
days north of Kauai.
It's the middle of the night, I'm in a gale. So
there's really high winds. High winds
don't just blow. They also make noise.
A lot, A lot of noise.
So you can't talk, you can't hear
anyone. And
the motion of the boat is so strong that
you have to be hanging on. You can't walk, you
can't stand, you have to be hanging on and tied
on. So it's very
physically extreme.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, sounds like it.
>> Deborah: And when you're on watch while there was somebody else on
deck, they were sleeping in the cockpit.
I was the one on watch. And so you're
alone in the dark
and you don't want to wake somebody up for no reason.
Like you're terrified, so you're going toa wake someone up.
It wasn't like that. It was like learning
seeing my terror, using all my
spiritual tools to calm down,
breathing, self talk,
relaxing, faith in something bigger than
me. All these things. Nothing worked. I was
terrified.
And my mind was
really starting to think about really terrible
things like drowning.
>> Jeniffer: Sure.
>> Deborah: And at that time then I
had, what I call like a vision.
So I didn't really see
anything, but I sensed things on the rail.
And to me those were
angels and they were just
laughing and having a good time. And I was like,
what? It was such a
change of a vibe that they were putting
out and yet I was terrified.
But, there was a distraction there. And
also the part of my mind that knows about psychology
knows that people in life threatening situations
have things happen to them. Their
mind does things to help them get through those tough
times. So I was aware of that even at the time.
Wow. And yet I was like, well, whatever, it's going to
take, you know. Thank you.
And these beings on the rails were just
laughing and assuring me that
the elements were just frolicking. There was nothing
malicious or malevolent about
this storm. These waves,
this incredible wind, the noise.
It was just the elements playing.
And if you look at it as playing instead of,
you know, oh my gosh, something's out to kill me.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Deborah: It's a very different. A very different
feeling. So that was how. That
was the beginning of the book. Was that
the question you were asking?
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely, yeah. This moment where you take us, I mean,
it's. It's like life or death in this moment.
Like we're in it and. But then you
manage to calm your mind and reading it, it's
like you see something on the rail and we're not sure if you
actually see it. You tell us they're not really there, but
you see them. So you know, we're, we're with
you. And then it, it passes.
>> Jeniffer: And everything calms and you're on your way.
Yeah.
>> Deborah: Dawn comes.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: We forget when we're in. No matter what it is in
life, whether you're feeling sick or you're in bad
pain, or the world is coming
to some kind of a crisis.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: We, always think, oh, this is forever. We forget that.
Things change.
>> Jeniffer: This too shall pass.
>> Deborah: This too shall pass. And the morning came. So it
got lighter. So you could see the wind died
down. So I could hear a little bit
more than just the roar of the wind in
the rigging. Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Now there's another moment. I don't want to linger too much
on the boat, but there's some spooky things. I don't know if
that's the right word, but there's some things that happen in the book. And one
of them, is that Toashh is literally
tossed out of the sailboat.
And I want you to describe the boat. Like I keep saying boat and I don't think that's
like a fair word. So I want you to
tell us what it's like. But. So he's in another gale.
He's literally tossed out
into the storm.
>> Deborah: Ye.
>> Jeniffer: And then what happens?
>> Deborah: And, for this one, I'm onlynna say what I
heard because I was trying to catch sleep.
No.
>> Jeniffer: So you were down below.
>> Deborah: I was below. And we had three hour
watches. So you had three hours to shut your
eyes. So you did what you could in those three hours and
then you're back deck or whatever was needed
next. And
I came up from My trying to sleep,
and my son and my husband
were in the cockpit, and
before I could even say hello, you know, like, good
morning. What's the weather doing today?
My son was all excited. Mom,
you should have seen it. Tasha
washed overboard. Like, he was so excited to
tell me. And my husband, who
was really, really quite seasick, he was,
like, really out of it. He'd been sick for almost
three weeks, so dehydrated. A
lot of weight loss. He can hardly
talk like that, kind of seasick. And
he. He says, we promised
we weren't gonna tell her. He
didn't want you to know because they. Well, he knew
I'd be pretty upset, and I was. I was pretty
upset.
>> Jeniffer: But he was tossed back in by a
wave. Is my understanding is that he, like,
was tossed out and then literally tossed back in
with the next wave. He wasn't rescued.
>> Deborah: So let me. Let me go back a little bit to this storm
to help help your listeners understand,
understand this picture. So
it's hard to put in words if you haven't been at sea,
but the waves are very large.
Like, our spreaders
were, you know, 50ft high. The
masts were 65ft tall.
So when the boat is on a heel, it's on a
slant. When I look to my
left side, the wall of water
was higher than my masts.
>> Jeniffer: Wow. Okay.
>> Deborah: And when I'm looking up there, remember, this is in a
gale. It's daylight. The sun
is shining, but it's also cloudy, and
the wind is blowing big,
big masses of foam off
the tops of the waves. And the
sunlight is shining through that, and there's
rainbows everywhere.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my God, it sounds amazing.
>> Deborah: And remember, you can't hear anything because
it's so loud.
And so I looked up to my
left, and the dolphins were jumping out of the
wave above my head, jumping
back into the wave and then going under
elixir and coming out
the bottom. So elixir is in the middle of this face.
That's massive.
>> Jeniffer: Are you sideways?
>> Deborah: we're, in a way. We're at an angle.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Okay. Okay.
>> Deborah: We're at an angle. And when
you're. When you're doing that, you. I mean, it's
just so big. Your brain is, like, fried.
You just can't believe you're there and you're just getting
through each moment because any moment
could be your last for real.
>> Jeniffer: Wow.
>> Deborah: So anyways, what happened with that wave was the
top of one of those waves came straight down
into the cockpit. So it filled the
cockpit and washed him Out.
so we're all tied on. So he had a tether.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: So he was hanging from his tether over the
rail and his feet were above
the water because remember, you're sideways on this
face.
>> Jeniffer: Oh my God.
>> Deborah: And Gavin tried to grab his
jacket and pull him, but he was too
heavy.
>> Jeniffer: Sure.
>> Deborah: Even though Gavin was 15 and man sized,
it was just, you know, dead weight
hanging on a rope. But then the, the next
wave came and the water came up from the
bottom, picked him up and threw him back in the
cockpit.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, God.
>> Deborah: So does that give you a better idea of what that was like?
>> Jeniffer: Well, it does. I didn't realize he was tethered.
Oh, I imagined him like out
there in the ocean and then all of a sudden the ocean's like, no, you can go
back now and like him just being. But you know, this is my
ignorance of not..ing sailboats.
>> Deborah: No. As soon as you leave the dock, you put a tether
on and the only time it's off is when you're below decks.
>> Jeniffer: Got it.
>> Deborah: Sunshine, flat sea, stormy
sea, doesn't matter.
>> Jeniffer: And before this, you'd never done sailine or
how'you been sailing?
>> Deborah: We'd been practicing sailing around the Hawaiian Islands.
>> Jeniffer: But before that, before you got the elixir.
>> Deborah: Sailed a couple of times on Kootenay Lake,
which is a, 90 mile long lake.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah, that was it.
>> Deborah: In little boats, you know, 25ft
long. Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: So Tash decides, well, okay, we're gonna buy the sailboat.
And it's, it's a fixer upper, baby. We're just
gonna go do this thing for six months. For six
months, and then sail around the world.
So you, you get to the.
>> Chad: Makes sense.
>> Jeniffer: Right, Right. As anyone would do. Tash is a very
interesting character because he takes on. This isn't the
first time he'd done something like this. There was the homestead
that you describe cleaning this place. That was like
almost better to burn it to the ground. Same with the
elixir. Almost better to just burn the thing to the ground, like. But
for him, it was like a challenge. And being
in a challenge kept him alive and
excited.
>> Deborah: Yes.
>> Jeniffer: Which also probably explains how you ended up in a
cult.
>> Deborah: Maybe.
>> Chad: That was a hell of a segue.
>> Jeniffer: Well, I mean, explain yourself. Yeah, right.
What do you mean by that? It was exciting. It was different.
It felt like something bigger than him.
And I think that's, you know, and he was a dentist, like, so
he's in this very, like. I guess
this is probably really unfair to all of our dental
listeners. But, a mundane profession, you know, where you.
You're helping people and you're doing the same thing every day and reaching into
people's mouths. And he just needed more excitement in his
life. Whether that was completely
revamping, ah, an old homestead and making it livable
again. And then once it was, he's like, okay, well, now let's go do something else.
>> Chad: I mean, most dentists take up photography.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, right. Or hunting, I don't know.
>> Chad: Or blues guitar.
>> Jeniffer: W. Now that's oddly specific, Chad.
>> Chad: Well, that's like the guitar circles. Like,
the blues dentist is kind of. Kind of the guy who
goes out and buys the most expensive, Gibson.
>> Jeniffer: Or whatever I've heard Harley's too. A lot of Dennists
ride Harley's. Okay, so maybe there's something about Dennis
that, like, their're adventures. I don't know. But TSH
was absolutely an adventurer.
>> Deborah: Yes. And. And
I forget what the name is. When you're.
When you go off and do your own thing and you just.
You're rebellious a little bit. I don't know if it's maverick
or, There's a word for that. I
don't know what it is. But yeah, he just likes to.
He sees something and he'll go for it. And he's still doing
that.
>> Chad: That's called no impulse control.
>> Jeniffer: Maybe so I canate. Maybe so.
So there's so many things I want to ask you. I
don't even know where to begin. Let's
talk about the spooky things that I. That I mentioned earlier, because I think
that kind of leads us into some things. So there's a moment
in the story where
he says he's going to India, he's following
a particular guru, and correct me if I use the wrong
terminology.
>> Deborah: That's correct.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. And you're like, I don't want to do that.
So you decide. Also an adventure,
listeners. I'm gonna do my own thing. So how old
is Gavin at the time, too?
>> Deborah: He's two.
>> Jeniffer: He's two years old. Okay, and you decide to go to.
So tell us, like, what made you tell
a story of how you decided to go on this adventure?
>> Deborah: Well, he wasnn to go and find his teacher and
his guru in India with Rajnesh in
Puna. And Rajnesh was
too radical for me.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: I thought that that was too radical. So I was going to have my
own teacher. M. So I had a
dream, and in the dream
I was told that I did have a teacher
and that I Needed to spin the globe.
So I spun the globe and where my finger landed, I
would go there and I would meet my teacher.
So I spun the globe and it landed in
Belize and San
Pedro Key, which is in those
days. There you could get there by float plan, like a
small one, like, you know, a
Cessna. There was no big planes there.
>> Jeniffer: People weren't going there all the time.
>> Deborah: No, there was no streets, There was a couple of rooming
houses. There was no English
spoken there. there was a few sort
of stores. They were people in their basement had a
few groceries or things,
but there wasn't even any stores or.
Yeah, it was, it was very,
rudimentary.
>> Jeniffer: And tell us what year this is.
>> Deborah: This is
1979.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Okay. So you pick up your two year
old son and you go to Belize and then you take
this Cessna to the small key.
>> Deborah: M.
>> Jeniffer: And then what happens?
>> Deborah: Well, I didn't realize it, but it was a
holiday thing going on there. And lucky
for me that I met these fishermen
guys that used to meet every year in San
Pedro and one of their party
hadn't been able to make it for the trip. So there
was an empty place in the Cessna and
then there was an empty hotel room. It's not
really hotel. a room and a rooming house.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, wow.
>> Deborah: Okay. So, if I hadn't run into them, I would not have
had a place to stay because in those days there was
no Internet. You couldn't arrange things
ahead of time. Yeah, yeah. So
I was, that was huge. to me, that
was, visible. And I knew it at the
time that I was being guided and I was
being told to go here and do this and look, I'm taking
care of you.
>> Jeniffer: Nice.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's time to
go. You have, it's time to go and you can't
leave because planes have been
grounded. And so you have one more day and
you're on the beach and you close your eyes and you
have a vision. Tell us what it is.
>> Deborah: It was kind of like that. I. I was
doing my rebirthing meditations
most days when I could, I'd set Gavin up with
his Legos on his bed, his little cot in our
room, and I would lay down and do my
breathing exercises. And
this day I did that. And now remember, I've been
there for six weeks and I've been expecting to
meet my guru teacher and I haven't
met anyone. And I'm thinking, well, I
guess just being here is my teacher and this is
it. So Anyways, I go into my meditation and
while I'm in my meditation, I actually
astral travel to India. And I'd
never done that before. I didn't have any
experience of it. But I was all
of a sudden in India and I've never been to India, I'd
never been to Puna. I didn't
know about the ashram or anything. I see
Tosh, I see his girlfriend.
>> Jeniffer: Which is a little upsetting because.
>> Deborah: Well, except for that's what's odd about when I
was in that meditation.
>> Jeniffer: And they're not married at this point. Listeners just so you
know, their boyfriend and girlfriend living together.
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Okay, go on.
>> Deborah: I, think because when you're in that state, it's not your
personality. So any kind of personality or
attachments that you have. This is just my thinking about it.
I don't really know about astral traveling,
but you're just open and
observing and paying attention to what's
happening. So I was observing. He
was very happy. She was very happy. I knew her name,
I knew she was German. I knew all kinds of
things. I saw what they were wearing.
>> Jeniffer: and all the people in the.
>> Deborah: All the people in the ashram. And while I'm
there, I catch eyes
with Bhagwan and
have like a darshan with him.
>> Jeniffer: What is a darshan?
>> Deborah: That's like. Do you know what shaktipa
is?
>> Jeniffer: Nope.
>> Deborah: There. Those are sort of
Hindi words for some of the energy
transference that happens between
people that have healing powers or spiritual
people or there are moments that are
very powerful. Energetic, energetically.
So. He was looking across the room. I caught
his eyes and I went into.
I had a moment,
well, another in hi word like a satori.
>> Jeniffer: Or like an enlightenment almost.
>> Deborah: Well, I didn't get enlightened, but I had like,
I was in this space of having,
just feeling amazing and connected with
everything and feeling so much love. And then
the, the other thing that happens is that your eyes
run because your emotions are all connected and
it's, it's the love in your heart
sort of. You're just overwhelmed with love.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. You describe it as like this complete
and all encompassing feeling of peace.
>> Jeniffer: And you're looking into the eyes of this person
and of course you're in Belize and he's in India
and aren't the opposite each other on the globe. Is that
right?
>> Deborah: When I, when I got home from that trip, I looked at the
globe again and, and it looked like
if I put a needle through a globe
From Belize and San
Pedro Key, specifically, it would come out
exactly in Puna,
which is like.
>> Jeniffer: Okay, okay.
>> Deborah: I thought that was. Wow. Okay.
There's. There's many things we don't understand, but
as we are learning more about quantum physics and
we're learning more about the energy
fields on the earth, like we're measuring all this, the geologists,
the scientists are all over it. these things
do have explanations, but my brain didn't know
them. It just knew that this is what was happening. And
I didn't really even have words.
>> Jeniffer: But you felt it.
>> Deborah: I felt it. And I felt it so strongly that
there was no doubt.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: You know, I couldn't doubt myself.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Well, and then you get back to the farm
and Tasha's back, and you tell him what you saw,
and he's like, yeah, my girlfriend's name was Anna.
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, she's German. And yes, those are the clothes we were wearing.
And yes, that's what it looked like.
Was that a surprise to you or did you know? You
already knew?
>> Deborah: I knew, but I have to say that it was
validating.
>> Jeniffer: Sure. Yeah.
>> Deborah: You know, and the other thing was that I had written it all down in my
journal at the time.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: So when I saw him, you know, six weeks
later, however long it was, because again, we didn't
have phone calls, we didn't have cell phones,
email. You don't see anyone for that
long. And, I was able to show my journal
in and say,
okay, yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Here'S what I saw. Now, you know, curiously, you
decided to stay with him despite the fact that, you
know, he had a girlfriend. And
why?
>> Deborah: Well, in Pona, there's. This is. One of the
reasons I didn't want to be with Rajesh was because he's
very open with relationships.
>> Jeniffer: so tell people what col. We're talking about the
Rajesh, the full name of it and where it was.
>> Deborah: So I was in Rajnesh Purham
in Oregon, which is in
central Oregon, near Bend.
and we had a ranch there, and we
turned it into a city, and there was 10,000 people
there. We was the full infrastructure.
Airport, airplanes, road
system, all the electricity,
the sewage, power, water,
everything was. Was set up for.
>> Jeniffer: For a big city, which is incredible.
And every. You started with nothing. You started with.
>> Deborah: Right. Dirt ranch. Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, it was a ranch. Okay. So there was a building. Okay. And some fences
there.
>> Deborah: There was a barn.
>> Jeniffer: This is a well known cult. There was a Netflix show
about it.
>> Deborah: There is.
>> Jeniffer: I forget the name of it.
>> Deborah: Wild Terr. Wild. Wild Country.
>> Jeniffer: Yes. Wild, Wild country, which Chad and I both saw.
Well, you know, well, before, I knew I was going to be interviewing
you. This was several years ago. We saw,
>> Chad: And I'd known about them years prior.
I. You know, I'd run across them on podcasts
and m. Discussion about it,
so. And really, all I can remember at this point is,
like, the highlights are
poisoning a salad bar.
>> Deborah: Right.
>> Jeniffer: M. And then it was a sex
cult.
>> Chad: And the Rolls Royces.
>> Jeniffer: And the Rolls Royces.
>> Chad: Yeah, all the Rolls Royces. And,
the fact that they brought in homeless people to take over
the city council.
>> Jeniffer: That's right. To vote. Right?
>> Deborah: Vote.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Which was pretty clever.
yeah.
>> Chad: That's like the weirdest form of gerrymandering, but, yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Right, Right. Hey, it works. So
you were not necessarily enamored with him right away
because of, you know, you'd heard about the open
sexuality and.
>> Deborah: Yeah, I liked my relationship. I didn't want to
share.
>> Jeniffer: M. Right. Yeah.
>> Deborah: And I knew that if I was involved with that, that
that was one of the ideas I had about life
that I would have to be
flexible about.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And. And that was. That was hard for me.
>> Jeniffer: And you were flexible.
And so I think what's really fascinated about the
book, you know, and reading it, is all these
decisions you made to
go to the cult or go to Rajesh. What.
What is the proper name to call it? Rajesh.
>> Deborah: Rajesh Puram.
>> Jeniffer: Rajesh Puram. In Oregon.
>> Deborah: In Oregon.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: Which was only, like, 600 miles from
the farm that you had mentioned earlier.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Now, before we go to the cult and before we go to Rajesh
Param. Let's go back to Canada.
>> Deborah: Okay.
>> Jeniffer: Because you and I have a connection.
>> Deborah: Okay.
>> Jeniffer: Kind. There's a couple connections that you and I have, actually,
and one of them is Ainsworth, Hot
Springs.
>> Deborah: Okay.
>> Jeniffer: So as a child, I was probably seven, which would have made
it 1977. We would go
to Ainsworth all the time. And it's one of
my favorite memories as a child.
>> Deborah: I had no idea.
>> Jeniffer: Right. I know. I couldn't wait to tell you.
>> Chad: Do you remember meeting any dentists there?
>> Jeniffer: Right. I know we should have, because my dad
would travel to Mexico to get his dental work done at the time.
And here we're living. We lived about 45 minutes
from the Canadian border and, you know, up in
the Pacific Northwest in Washington State, and sometimes
northern Idaho. We kind of went back and forth, and dad had
bought property up in Canada near Ainsworth. I've
got some great photos. I'll have to show you if I can find
them. And Ainsworth was
like this incredible place where there was
a pool, a public pool, and
these caves where the hot springs were
and there were no lights back in the 70s.
When was the last time you went to Ainsworth?
>> Deborah: Last year.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, my gosh. Okay. I really want to go. It's so different
now.
>> Deborah: Like, it's like 10 miles from my
family cottage where I go every summer.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: To be with my mom.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: And it's just down the road. So on rainy days
in the summertime, we go there.
>> Jeniffer: How different is it now?
>> Deborah: It's pretty different. It's actually been taken over
by first nations peoples.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: And has a new name, which I. It's
really long, so I
can't. I can't say the name in the proper
language. But, it's. Yeah, it's different.
They keep the pool very nice, very nicely.
The water's clear now. It used to be cloudy. You
couldn't see through the water in the pool.
>> Jeniffer: Totally. Yeah.
>> Deborah: In the caves there are lights,
but the caves are pretty much the same.
>> Jeniffer: Wow. I have to go back.
>> Deborah: You have to step very carefully so you don't
trip.
>> Jeniffer: It's very slippery.
>> Deborah: These caves are shaped like a U, so you go
in one end, right. And around, and
there's all this. Stalactites are coming down
from the roof, but they keep them trimmed off so you don't bang your
head m. And you can
see all the mineral deposits as they come down the sides
of the cave.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And the water is up to your waist when you walk through
this place. So. And that water is
cloudy, so you can't. And it's dark, so you
can't see to. If you're gonna trip over
somebody's feet.
>> Jeniffer: Which you do often. Yeah, yeah.
>> Deborah: Or bumpy bits in the bottom of
the. Of the roadway there.
>> Jeniffer: And why were you there? So you would travel from
the farm to Ainsworth and you were doing some
meditation. There was something that you were doing.
>> Deborah: In the 70s, there was someone named Leonard
Orrr who was from Northern California, and he
taught rebirthing. M. Leonard or
has since left his body. He's not with us anymore.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: But he taught this
breathing practice, which in. When I researched
it, it's a form of.
In the ancient traditions,
Pranaya Yoga. So learning to use your
breath to have
journeys, to find out more about yourself,
to prepare your body and your
cells to be at a higher vibration. There.
There's a lot. There's a lot to this whole
science of the Breath. So
in the late 70s we
were, we took courses with him and he
came up to Canada
and gave these courses. So, my husband and I
and some of our like minded friends
all got together and would do these retreats
to do breathing. So the first one was at Ainsworth
because we had the hot water, we could breathe in the water and
we could breathe dry, which would be in the
hotel rooms. And then later on we
did the retreats at the farm.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
And this brings me to our third really
spooky thing that happens in the book where
you. It's sort of like a, hypnotic
state when you, when you're doing this
breath work. Right. And Tosh is guiding
you and you find yourself
in pyramids.
>> Deborah: Okay, so I'mn toa go back a
little bit.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: Yeah, we did the rebirthing and then,
a lot of our. We were working in dentistry at
this time. And at this time
in dentistry a lot of people wanted alternative
things.
>> Jeniffer: And you were his dental assistant just to.
>> Deborah: And I ran his dental office.
>> Jeniffer: O yeah, yeah.
>> Deborah: So people didn't want necessarily
to have anesthetic or they
wanted some kind of relaxation technique
before we worked on them rather than taking Prozac.
>> Jeniffer: That's so cool. We need that
today.
>> Deborah: Yes. And he trained, he did, professional training
and hypnosis.
So we were, we had the hypnosis, but
we had done the rebirthing.
So one of the things. It wasn't
rebirthing exactly, it was actually
hypnosis and it was regressions.
And we did that not
for a sensational thing. Oh, I was this one.
I, it was more like,
what is it in my past life that is
affecting this life and holding me back
from my full potential? What is it?
Is there something I need to know or you can show
me that would help me in this
lifetime? So that was the intention
going into these regressions. They were, they
were done, very mindfully.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, yeah.
>> Deborah: So, yes, I ended up doing my first
regression and I ended up, a very long time
ago and my body was in a
pyramid and my body was
mummified.
>> Jeniffer: And describe that like you could. Was it like you were
seeing the scene, you were seeing yourself there or you
in the mummified body.
>> Deborah: And how, how it is in a regression, how it was for
me anyways, is I was
there. I was there. And the
brain, and I'm speaking, but my brain
can only describe it. It can't
decide what it is. Like for example, when he said,
look at your feet, and I said, I don't have any
feet. And that didn't make sense to
him.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Deborah: And, and he said, well, look, what are your legs look
like? And I said, black sticks.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: So I couldn't, I didn't know I was a mommy
like thatew that later.
Yeah, I had to be and hang out there. And the other
thing was I wasn't actually in that mummified body. I
was hanging out beside it.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: But staying that pyramid because
that was my belief in that
lifetime. And what I learned from
this too is that beliefs are so
strong that
I wasnna stay with that body until that body
came back to life. That was the
belief 4,000 years
ago of, the people
that were in the priesthood and
the people that were, you
know, they were well enough known and rich enough
and to be mummified. Yeah, yeah.
>> Jeniffer: It's like our cryogenics in the futures.
So. And did you go and do some research about
that, you know, the priests and priestesses of that
time to kind of see
or did you already know about this? Because I had no idea.
>> Deborah: No, I, I didn't.
I knew just from ancient history
class, you know, and in Canada we do
take, the ancient history a little
bit. And I didn't know
that, you know, that what the training, like I
had been trained as a priestess,
you know, in ancient. I was actually Greek
and then had been sent to
Egypt. And I didn't know about
any of that yet. Ah, that was something I
discovered as I was exploring that life.
But the most important thing really was
that belief systems are so strong that
you will. It's amazing what you'll do just to stick
to your belief systems. M so in
this lifetime, how I've used that is seeing how, you
know, we're conditioned certain ways and
we don't even realize we have that conditioning.
Yeah, you know, it'it's. Like that story
about the fish swimming in the ocean. Do
you know that story? There's
fish swimming along and one fish looks over at
the other two fish over there and he says, so
how's the water? And the other two fish
look at him and say, what's water?
It's so all around us, our conditioning that we
don't really know. We, can't separate it from who we
think we are.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Deborah: So that experience was huge
lesson in, in, in that and how we
get very attached to these beliefs and
we don't know what they are. We have no idea.
>> Jeniffer: Did it feel like an epiphany at the time, like when you finally understood
it?
>> Deborah: It did and it, it, it was very, very
humbling to see because, you know, you think you're
somebody. And in that
lifetime I was somebody. I was someone very
important. And yet I had this
belief that was so crippling and held
me in that place for a
long, long time.
>> Jeniffer: And I sort of. The way I, when I was reading it,
it was almost like part of you, your light
was still back in that pyramid
and wasn't allowing you
to move forward in the way you're supposed to. You're meant
to because of that past life experience
and now you were able to release it. Do I have that
right?
>> Deborah: I hadn't thought of it exactly that way. So.
Thank you. Thank you. That
there is an element of that that's absolutely true.
>> Deborah: Yes. Very good insight.
>> Jeniffer: You had to go back and rescue yourself almost so that this
life you can have more insight.
>> Deborah: Yes, yes.
>> Jeniffer: This book is really about seeking, you know,
spiritually in so many ways. You're
looking for more
meaning. And, and I think the way you describe it in the
book often is, you know, there's got to be something more
than these material needs that we cling
on to, you know, in Canada
and I think worldwide. But you know, especially
specifically Americans and Canadians. I think,
like we live in a time where if I have a big house and I have
the sailboat and I have all the things, I've made it
and now that gives meaning to my life. And you knew,
it seems like inherently you knew that that was empty
and you, you were looking for something more.
>> Deborah: That's right. And I think
some, some kids are born like this
and, and I, I was born like by
7i, as the oldest of.
And my home life
in one way was the exact, you
know, perfect life from the 50s and 60s
M. But in another way,
you know, I didn't like it. People didn't tell the
truth. People did weird things that, you
know, like I love you and yet they were spanking me.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: You know, like, that's not the love. Like I knew
that.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Deborah: And, and so I was, I was very much
questioning, like, what the heck, you
know, this place is not peachy.
>> Jeniffer: There's got to be something more.
>> Deborah: There has to be something more. But I also had the influence of my
grandmother. So my
grandmother was a yoga teacher in the
60s, which was very unusual.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. A white woman.
>> Deborah: A white woman. And she,
influenced me by giving me reading materials and
talking to me. So the books, one of the biggest books,
the biggest influence was Edgar Casey's book
Actually, it's Gina Soneira's book about Edgar
Casey. M. My father's house has
many mansions. And in that
book, I learned about reincarnation.
I learned about karma. I learned about
souls and the energy, body,
things that are bigger than what you
can see and touch and taste.
>> Jeniffer: And in your book, you talk about. I believe, if I have
this right, that you felt like you needed to be like
Jesus.
>> Deborah: I absolutely did.
>> Jeniffer: Where did that come from?
>> Deborah: As a.
in my. The way I grew up was with the
United Church of Canada. So it was a
Protestant denomination of
Christianity, and
in that denomination,
we had to go to Sunday school. But there was no personal
connections, really. It was pretty
intellectual, I'd say, compared, to Catholic
Church, which has got all kinds of
icons and things you can. Figures
and personalities you can relate to.
so I went to Sunday school. I learned about
Jesus, and then when I learned about reincarnation,
I thought, well, I don't want to come back
here 5,000 more times. You know, I want to be done with
this place. This place sucks.
And. And Jesus was. You know, he was
the guy.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: Right.
>> Jeniffer: Right. Yeah.
>> Deborah: So, yeah, I did have to
go through a whole thing of the difference between
being like Jesus,
being Jesus, and being
myself. And that took. Has taken me a
lifetime.
>> Jeniffer: Sure.
>> Deborah: Basically, yeah.
>> Jeniffer: So we're back at the farm. You've just returned from
Belize. Toash has returned from India.
You now understand that you know where your
guru is. And then Tash gets an invitation
to join
Rajneesh in Oregon. And he says,
okay, I will come. And to be a dentist,
join the city. And he says, I'll come if I can bring my girlfriend. Because
at the time, you're still. You're still not married. Then they say,
sure. And so you decide to go on this
journey. You get there, and the
first thing they do is separate you.
>> Deborah: Yes.
>> Jeniffer: And yet you stayed. why?
>> Deborah: Well, first of all, from what I. We just talked
about a bit ago, having a very strong
desire to do everything I can in this
lifetime, to wake up as much as I possibly can.
>> Jeniffer: Because you were seeking. You knew there was something more.
>> Deborah: I knew there was something more. And I knew that if I just
stayed in what I'd been born
into, I would be
still swimming in the water that I couldn't see.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: So by putting myself in a different
situation, in a different ocean,
a kibbutz ocean, which is
where the men have the place that they live, the women
live in another section, and then the children are in
another section, and that. It. Life
is not set up like it is in our world
here, where we have our individual nuclear families and
we go to the job every day and we deal with our own
money and we make all these decisions.
It was set up very differently.
>> Jeniffer: And you really must have had a lot of faith
in the establishment that you were part of. And you describe
it as like, we're changing the world like
this. We're doing something that's going to change
humanity forever and make it
better. And what really was your
goal? Were you hoping that the rest of the world would.
Would feel this love and this. I don't
know if you were seeking enlightenment, but it felt like it.
And you know, you and Tosh both say at one point,
like, we're doing this forever. This isn't just
we're gonna do this for a couple years, but this is forever for
us.
>> Deborah: Yeah, it was forever. It was totally
forever. And. And yeah, very
altruistic. That was part of the 60s and
70s.
>> Jeniffer: Hm.
>> Deborah: To want to break out of
whatever the establishment in air
quotes was at the time. To
live more than just this,
narrow little life for me and mine. And.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And, and see the world bigger. We already were
knowing. We read Future Shock. We
already knew that things weren't sustainable back
then.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And we wanted to actually put
our, our life where our mouth
was and say, okay, we're gonna try a different way
to live. We're gonna live in a place
that's growing the food that
is taking care of the land, that isn't using
poisons and things, that are
bad for our bodies and for the earth.
We want to live in a place where people are
helping each other, supporting each other rather than being
in competition. We want to live where
we're, supporting each other's inner growth.
We're all aware of each other's spirit
and wanting to
encourage that expression,
the expression of the soul. Not just,
oh, I have a bigger car than you, because none of us had a
car.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah. Well, you literally like gave up your lives and
invested in the community.
>> Chad: One of you had a car.
>> Jeniffer: One of you did have a car. Ra.
>> Chad: One of them had a lot of cars.
>> Deborah: One of them. Yes, but one had a lot of
cars.
>> Jeniffer: But Guan.
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: There's a moment and we all have seen photographs.
Anyone who's familiar with Rajesh Param. Am I saying
that right?
>> Deborah: Yes.
>> Jeniffer: Okay. Where he. Everyone waits on the side
of the road and there's 10,000 people here. When you're
there. 10,000 people. I can't even
imagine the energy
that you must have felt in that group of people who were
all thinking similar, similarly, you know. And
here he comes in his Rolls Royce,
which to me shouts,
what the hell? Why is he driving the most
expensive car he can possibly find? You
know what I mean? Like the opposite of, like, getting away from materialism.
And yet he's embodying that. But you didn't see that. No one
else did. You saw love and peace
and. And something way
bigger and something more.
I was. As a child, I grew up in the
Pentecostal Church. So I have
absolutely experienced what it's like to be in a
community where there is an energy that you cannot
describe. That it's bigger than you. You can feel
it. And I think we are getting answers to that
through quantum physics, actually.
Interestingly. And when you were describing
standing on the side of the road and seeing him for the first time,
I mean, tell us, take our readers to that
moment. Because it felt like you were, like,
vibrating four feet off the ground.
You were so happy. You felt nothing
but joy and peace and excitement
and talk. Bring us to that moment.
>> Deborah: No, you're doing really well.
>> Jeniffer: Stop.
>> Deborah: It was like that. And I'm glad you've had that.
So that in one way, it's difficult to
put into words. In another
way, there's many things in
this world. Like, for example, if you go to a big cathedral
and hear a pipe organ play.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, we did music too. Totally.
>> Deborah: Going to a rock concert and there's
50,000 people. And they're
all in that music. In that song with
those performers, there's something that
happens to the group energy that
is transportive totally. And the
ecstasy is one of the things that they're doing a lot of
study in neuroscience now. What that
ecstasy does to your brain chemistry.
And by changing the brain chemistry, it
changes how your brain actually works. Your
frontal brain, your lobes, your temporal. All of those
things have different things
that work together to put you into that
ecstasy.
>> Jeniffer: Have you heard of Tom Campbell?
>> Deborah: I don't know.
>> Jeniffer: So he wrote, A. He's a physicist. He worked at
NASA. He was recently on Joe Rogan, actually.
>> Deborah: Okay.
>> Jeniffer: Talking about quantum physics. And he has a book called the
Theory of Everything that I'm
just going toa read here. That poses. Our reality
is a virtual simulation where consciousness is
fundamental and reality is created by
information with experiments designed to
test these hypotheses. It's
pretty fascinating stuff. And
I haven't read the book yet, I'll be honest, but I'm fascinating
by Tom Campbell. And this idea
of Quantum physics and how it explains,
like, there's so much we don't understand about the universe, and
yet you and I have both experienced something that is
so beyond us that, you know,
there's something more. It doesn't. Doesn't matter if it sounds
ridiculous to other people. And I know it sounds ridiculous to
Chad, because sometimes he looks at me like,
you, my wife is crazy. And
you don't say crazy. He's not that dismissive. But. But yeah,
like, to experience him, like you
said, like a rock concert. So many people in
a room and that energy. And I know you felt it.
And I don't want to actually give too much away of the book because I
want people to read it and, you know,
experience this with you. But, like, at what point did you
feel like this isn't what
I signed up for, like it was starting to break down?
>> Deborah: I would say that even if there were little
warning signs, I had
to go into denial because I had so much at stake.
>> Jeniffer: You had a lot invested.
>> Deborah: I had a lot invested. However,
when Sheila left and then
Bhaguan left,
both in the middle of the night, a month or two
apart. And this was in 1985, so
I'd already been there for four years.
That rocked everybody. So we
had an instant wake up call.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: So even if we'd been putting stuff kind of in the back
burner and. Oh, it's not that. Whatever.
We had to wake up. We had to say, okay,
this community is no longer happening.
Now, if the National Guard hadn't come and
invaded us and, shut
everything down, like all our money and all of our,
corporations and stuff were all frozen,
locked. so we couldn't do
anything. We couldn't just stay there without the
leadership.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: Anyways, so it really was literally shut
down.
>> Jeniffer: But do you think you could have, like, if the National Guard hadn't shown
up and Sheila and Bu. Buhwan.
>> Jeniffer: If they had left, you think you could have, like, stayed
and continued the dream?
>> Deborah: I think that there would have been some people who
would. And it would have kind of petered along.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: However, the main reason we were
all there was to be with an enlightened master.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And by having a common thing that you're looking
at that brings people together and keeps
the unity.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Deborah: So that you can get things done without a lot
of different factions all fighting and
arguing and deciding whose idea
is better, which is. Yeah,
we have a great example of that right now in our world.
>> Jeniffer: Yes, we do.
>> Deborah: And. And we also. And this has been going on for quite a
few years realizing, you know, even in our government,
that things, when people are all
having such polarized ideas, nothing
can happen. Things just stay
still. And not only that, infrastructure
falls by the wayside 100%. So,
so this is just a fact of, of how
communities work, how populations work,
how the world works.
>> Jeniffer: And Sheila was really thrown under the bus. She was
blamed for everything.
>> Deborah: She was. And, and Sheila was not a
saint. I'll make that clear,
however, by
using blame. And, and I do talk about this in
the story that as spiritual
seekers, our goal is our
freedom. And if you have any part of
yourself that is looking
to blame something or someone
else for any part of your life, no matter how
small or insignificant you might think it is,
you are in bondage. You
will not find your freedom. And if
freedom is your goal, then you want to find those
little areas where you're blaming. So it looked very
proper to just say, oh yeah, this is
Sheila. It's all Sheila's fault.
However, then what about
me? I'm just going toa talk about myself. What about
me? My goal for my
personal freedom. I chose to
be here. I chose to be part of this
experiment. I chose
to, take Bhagwana as my
master and follow his
teachings. And this is where
I am now. What would I like
to see going forward? You know, what's the
next step?
And as long as I'm thinking, oh, someone else did something,
I'm off the rails as far as my own responsibility
goes.
>> Jeniffer: And a lot of people, you know, friends of yours, continued
to follow Bhagwan.
>> Deborah: And to this day do.
>> Jeniffer: Wow.
>> Deborah: Yes.
>> Jeniffer: And Bwan was sent, he fled to India.
But he was never actually spent any time in prison, right?
>> Deborah: He did.
>> Jeniffer: Oh, he did.
>> Deborah: They arrested him on that eastern seaboard and then
they put him in prisons and he was
transferred from prison to prison to prison and then
eventually deported.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: yeah.
>> Jeniffer: What, what do you think went wrong with him?
He, he did such a good job. I mean, clearly there was
a connection. I mean, you saw in
his eyes and felt him from across the
globe. He, he had 10,000 people
following him and would literally and did
literally give up everything, including their
children.
>> Jeniffer: So he had this power, like, what do
you think happened?
>> Deborah: And, and that's another
sort of avenue or roadway that I,
I try not to spend it at first. I
spent a lot of time there.
>> Jeniffer: Trying to figure it out.
>> Deborah: Trying to figure it out. But that's his path.
>> Jeniffer: Okay.
>> Deborah: That's his path. Fair and from my side. What I
see is that as a spiritual teacher, he
fulfilled his. His role.
His role for me. Go ahead.
>> Jeniffer: Do you separate his spiritual side, the
enlightened side of him, and his
human side? Maybe the side that, like, can't help
himself.
>> Deborah: Where I am sitting now, I can see that there's two
sides. At that time, he was just
on a pedestal. He was enlightened. He knew
everything. remember, back
then, we saw the world very differently.
We have a lot more understanding just generally,
everyone.
>> Jeniffer: Right, right.
>> Deborah: You know, and an example of that is blame.
We all know that word. We all know
that we don't want to do that, you know, that we want
to find a way, a different way. In the
70s, we didn't know that word. There was
no such thing. The word was there, but it was,
like, very,
hardcore. Like, you kicked
that table, you put that denintt there. It
was material, not the
energetic kind of ramifications of blame.
But now everybody knows that. There's books about it,
there's courses about it, there's taking
responsibility, all of that. But back then,
our development wasn't.
Wasn't there yet. We. We didn't have that
understanding. And we forget that because
we've been ye on the path. We've
evolved a lot.
>> Jeniffer: Boy. Yeah. Right. And thinking of how much
has changed since the 70s to now is pretty
incredible.
>> Deborah: And knowing that, you know, the energetic world is different than the
physical world. M. You know, just.
It was just kind of all a big mush. When I
think back to my 70s self.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: And that was one of the things that was very hard for me to
learn to sort of differentiate
and navigate.
>> Jeniffer: Was there a point where you were at risk of losing
your. I almost want to call it
this innocence,
the seeking to find
true meaning. Did you ever feel like you were
at risk of becoming a
pessimist?
>> Deborah: You know, like, oh, my gosh, I totally did lose
it.
>> Jeniffer: You did?
>> Deborah: I did lose it. When we left the ranch, I had
to weear off anything
spiritual.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: Anytime my brain wanted to say, oh, God'll take care of
that, or, have that nice, warm, fuzzy
feeling that there was something bigger than me. I had to stop
myself. It was like cutting myself
off from a heroin drip.
>> Jeniffer: Wow. Wow.
>> Deborah: And that's what it was to me. And this is
another thing that happens to a lot of spiritual people.
It's another form of a drug.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah.
>> Deborah: Because it kind of. You don't have to kind of deal with some
hard issues. You don't have to deal with your own
self. You can kind of put it off and say, oh, that's
spiritual. But you're avoiding a
whole big mess of stuff.
>> Jeniffer: Right.
>> Deborah: so it really was very important. And
that's why I think Bagwan was successful in
being my master, because he kicked me out of the nest.
Hard, cold, strong,
you know, like real cold turkey.
>> Jeniffer: What do you mean kicked you out of the nest?
>> Deborah: Well, I couldn't be part of the commune anymore. I couldn't be
part of the group anyore.
>> Jeniffer: At the end of the ranch, yeah.
>> Deborah: I was on my own. I had to find another way.
>> Jeniffer: You were all kicked out of the nest?
>> Deborah: We were all kicked out, yeah. Some people, some
people make. Made another nest just in a
different place.
>> Jeniffer: Right? Yeah.
>> Deborah: So very, very important to
really, look at,
look at your spirituality, look at what your beliefs
are and don't have
any, you know, like, what did they call
them? Sacred cows.
>> Jeniffer: Yeaheah. I love using that.
>> Deborah: Be willing to just, you know,
question everything. Don't have anything that if people
talk about it, that they'all of a sudden say, oh, you can't
talk about that. That's special, you know, like, well, then that
means you better look there.
>> Jeniffer: Yeah, right. But you did come back
to spirituality. I mean, I consider you a very spiritual
person. Do you think rebuilding
the ship was part of that journey to
find a different kind of
spirituality and how you looked at life?
>> Deborah: I do, I do. And. And
I think that having those four years and having the
nature around me, I was, you know, in
Kauai, which is a healing island,
historically,
was really, really
important for me. And where I
live now, in this house, I live now also
very important for me. I've got wildness and
trees all around me.
>> Jeniffer: Do you live on a canyon?
>> Deborah: It's not a canyon, but it' it's an
undeveloped property with, you know, it's
pretty overgrown.
>> Jeniffer: It's a great area.
>> Deborah: Yeah.
>> Jeniffer: Here in San Diego, we have a lot of canyons and a lot of
nature that, you know, you wouldn't think that in the city.
>> Deborah: No. Yeah, it's a blessing.
>> Jeniffer: It s a blessing in writing the book. I know it
was incredibly healing for you because we've already talked about
that.
But what do you want people to get out of it, Readers
to get out of this journey that you took.
>> Deborah: I would really like for people
to know that
any dreams that they've had, no matter how crazy
or insane or how much other people are
saying, don't ever do that, or you can never do that
m that they don't listen to that,
follow your heart. If you have something you really
want to do, you do it.
And even if it's just a little step at a time,
do it. And know that things happen
that make it possible that you could never have thought up
for yourself.
>> Jeniffer: Right? Yeah.
>> Deborah: And I think that's important. And the second one is about
freedom, what we were just talking about
really. If you want your freedom and not
everybody has this burning desire and that's
okay. But if you do have that
desire, take the time and the energy
to go into self
introspection, to,
to expose yourself to
different ways of thinking and put
yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable.
>> Jeniffer: I love.
>> Deborah: So that you'll grow a little bit and,
and really find the areas where
you're holding back and that you are
bound to ideas, thinking,
belief, lifestyles that aren't, aren't
serving you.
>> Jeniffer: Absolutely. That's beautiful. That's really
beautiful. You said something earlier
when you realize that maybe there was a story that you needed
to tell and your heart started to beat faster and
it's like your body knew, oh, this is going to be
uncomfortable, but we're gonna do it
anyway.
>> Jeniffer: That's awesome. I always tell my clients, you know,
there's magic just past the threshold of your comfort
zone. Just past that threshold.
There's something special there. And if we can push ourselves just a little
bit, we might be delighted at what we find.
And you've done that your whole life. You
know, you've been like, okay, we're,
we're gonna do this and I'm going to put everything I have into
it. And that's, that's really,
that's really cool.
>> Deborah: Including publishing a book. I just have.
>> Jeniffer: Including that, yes.
>> Deborah: That this last year being on the publishing train has really
pushed me beyond all kinds of
comfort zones, I bet. Including
speaking in a podcast or
having my picture up places or.
>> Jeniffer: Which is beautiful. I love your headshot. It's really pretty.
>> Deborah: Thank you. Thank you.
>> Jeniffer: Speaking of. Well, in your recording, your audiobook right now too, in your
voice.
>> Deborah: I am.
>> Jeniffer: Which I'm really excited. I think that's going to be fantastic.
I mean, this is such a personal story, I can't imagine anyone else
reading it. So I know you're pushing
yourself because I know how hard it is to read an audiobook
well. And I want to tell our listeners that you got to go to Deborah's
website because there's so many photos that she said in the beginning
you were documenting this, rebuilding this
boat. And so you have. And
I Remember, I didn't know that. So when I was looking at the website, I
was like, this is incredible. It's like you're documenting it.
Well, you literally were. So that makes sense.
>> Deborah: I was.
>> Jeniffer: Well, thank you so much for joining us today and being on the
premise. I really appreciate it.
>> Deborah: Thank you for having me and thank you for your questions.
They were very thoughtful,
introspective, pulling things out,
uncomfortable a little bit that we're
stretching, you know, ye. And finding words to
say things that are, a little.
We don't really have words in our vocabulary for some of
the things and pushing the envelope there.
So thank you.
>> Jeniffer: Well, thank you. Thank you for being open to
it. It, you know, the. Everything in
this book is, is pretty incredible, you know, and so when, our
readers read it, you're going to be like,
oh, my God. The things you've experienced and
the ways you've pushed yourself are pretty
intense, enlightening for sure. And I
hope it does encourage people to push themselves a little bit. I
think that's really, really, really
beautiful. Well, listeners, you can
learn more about Deborah Rudell on her
website at do deborahruudel.com.
we have how to spell that in the show notes. You can follow her
on Facebook and Instagram.
Debah Rudell Author, this has
been another episode of the Premise. You can visit
us online@the premisepod.com
and subscribe and rate or review the Premise
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Grace or follow me on Facebook at Jennifer
Thompson Consulting until next week. Thanks
for listening. Goodbye. Bye.