Best Way to Elevate Consciousness: Silence & Primordial Sound Mantras

0:00:00 - Will
Karen. 

0:00:01 - Karen
Yes. 

0:00:02 - Will
Would you like profound peace of mind? Yes, well, how about boundless joy? 

0:00:08 - Karen
Oh, definitely yes. 

0:00:09 - Will
Well then, I guess an abundance of success, time and energy might not be so shabby either. I will take it all Well, today, what do you say? We talk about how to find all of that. 

0:00:19 - Karen
Sounds like a great idea. 

0:00:21 - Will
I agree. So on this episode we're going to embark on a transformational journey like no other, where we'll learn all about the life-changing magic that comes from just shutting up and sitting Yep. Today we're talking about and finding silence as a way to make changes in our life, to help us find the peace we want, and we're going to learn all about the power of the primordial sound mantra. Welcome to the Skeptic Benefici-tions. My name is Will. 

0:00:49 - Karen
And I'm Karen. 

0:00:49 - Will
And, unlike Mulder and Scully, we both want to believe. So we've embarked on a journey of discovery. 

0:00:54 - Karen
We've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world. 

0:00:57 - Will
We've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I even joined a coven of witches. 

0:01:02 - Karen
And wait, you joined a coven. 

0:01:04 - Will
Yep, all in the interest of finding something, anything that will prove that there's something beyond this physical. 

0:01:10 - Karen
Three-dimensional world we all live in. 

0:01:11 - Will
This is the Skeptic Metaphysicians. Hey there. 

0:01:22 - Karen
I'm Will, I'm Karen. 

0:01:24 - Will
And this week we are blessed to have a transformational lifestyle and leadership coach, yeda Stancila, with us. Yeda is passionate about developing and delivering programs for individuals and teams that are seeking sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of daily life in order to achieve inner peace, enhance their well-being and achieve their full potential in all areas of their life. We are thrilled to welcome Yeda to the show. Yeda, thanks for joining us today. 

0:01:51 - Yedda
Hi, how are you Good to be here. 

0:01:53 - Will
We are thrilled to have you on. I hope that everything I just said didn't put you on the spot. Now we're expecting a lot. 

0:02:00 - Yedda
Well, I don't know about you on your listeners, but I'm really hoping she shows up. 

0:02:06 - Will
All right, Silence huh. 

0:02:08 - Karen
Yes. 

0:02:10 - Yedda
Sometimes I wonder if my ex has been ever listened in on these shows, because he would be like, really, yeah, let's have her talk about silence. Well, I'm the last person on the planet that would ever promote silence. If you knew the pre-breakdown Yeda, I mean the absolute last person. So for all of the listeners out there, there is hope If you are going. There's no way. I am never, ever going to be someone that practices silence. I actually spoke the exact same words and now I do not know how I would live my life without the ability to, in my language, shut up and sit and go within and talk about what's going on inside of me before I throw and project that on everybody else. 

0:02:54 - Karen
Okay, so I have a question about silence. 

0:02:56 - Will
Just one. 

0:02:57 - Karen
Well, I have a plethora, but I'm going to start with one. So when you're talking about silence, do you mean simply speaking, or just every kind of silence? Because we'll can sit there on the couch and be perfectly quiet while he's playing games and whatever on his cell phone. 

0:03:12 - Yedda
Yeah, so this is a great point. Thank you for bringing that up, karen. And so there actually have two things I want to say about that. So, first of all, between the genders, between male and female, the way our brains are wired Okay, this is a really important tip here. What happens for us as women? We are like a ball of twine. Everything is connected. We're always thinking and problem solving, and if the car is getting low on gas, it's already connected to who's going to pick the kids up from school, because now I might be late. Because the men have what's called a box system. They pull a box out and they're in a box. And so, guys this is great Guys have what's called a nothing box. Did you know that? That will that you have a nothing box where you can literally think about nothing while you're doing something. 

0:03:56 - Will
I've been told many things, but maybe not. I've been called nothing box a lot. 

0:04:00 - Yedda
Yes, you have the ability to sit and do something and you might be thinking literally about nothing, which maybe feels like silence. So there is a very different way around the processing of the brain. And so, karen, this is a great point. So it's not just about genders. I'm talking about the silence and stillness of shutting up and going within, closing my eyes and disengaging from all distractions in the outer world. I mean complete and utter silence, and I would actually add to that silence is in, for me, also adds an element of stillness. So can you evolve in? Silence takes different forms where you're walking and you're in contemplation and you're in prayer, and there's lots of ways of being silent. But my definition of silence for shutting up and sitting is going within and removing all distractions and taking all of that brain power and putting it on self regulation and checking in with what's going on, with my thoughts, my feelings. And then what behaviors am I potentially wanting to then act on, based upon how I think and feel? 

0:05:01 - Karen
And how different is that from meditation? 

0:05:03 - Yedda
Yeah, that's a great question, and it's why I wrote my book, because I was really curious about what's. Is meditation the same thing as mindfulness and I? We use these words interchangeably. So I thought, well, are they? The truth is they're not. 

And so, in meditation, when we go within and this is what I learned was in meditation, it has very much of a Hindu philosophy. And so, with meditation, what we're trying to do is move up the levels of consciousness, up into unity, consciousness which energetically flows this way. And then mindfulness is more about bringing that, that divine energy, back down into an embodying and coming back home to who we are in a physical sense, and that allows us to show up and pay attention on purpose, with loving kindness. And so, as I was learning all of this, I was like, ok, well, am I meditating? Lifting up in my mindful, dropping it? What am I doing? And then, in meditation, there's hundreds of different forms, and so it got really overwhelming for me, and that's how the language for me I arrived at shutting up and sitting down, Literally, that's what. What happened? 

I went and met with a teacher and her work. I stole her business name. Her business was sit with Gina. She was referred to me and she was my first, I would say, spiritual teacher. When I went to sit with Gina. That's what she did. She said I sit with people and I'm like what does that mean? And I was coming off of years of therapy and years of energy work and integrative health and healing and you know all the rocks and crea I mean I was like all in on all the metaphysical, like I'm trying everything. I mean it was a smorgasbord buffet of does this work, does this work, does this work, does this work? And so when I went in and she said literally it was a room, it had two chairs and there was a window open and that was it. 

And when I walk in that room I just want to just profusely talk about the stories I want to tell her everything about my life and why this works and why this doesn't work, and what I know and what I don't know, and as soon as she could find a pause in my breath she goes. All really fascinating and quite interesting, but totally irrelevant. Are you ready to sit? Oh? 

0:07:03 - Will
boy. So you're tired like a nutshell Wrapped into irrelevance. 

0:07:08 - Karen
Wow. 

0:07:12 - Yedda
So then part of me was standing there looking at these two chairs and I said so what do you do? What do you mean? Sit? And she goes. You come in twice a month for an hour and you sit in this chair across from me and we sit in silence together, straight in. There was no like, let's try four minutes, let's try 14 minutes. It was an hour Again. 

Most people who know me don't think of me as the silent type, but I was so curious and she's like you sit across from me for an hour, you come in in silence, you leave in silence. And I said so you want me to pay you to sit in that chair right there and do nothing and say nothing and experience nothing and then leave and she goes. Yes, well, how does she are craziness? I was like okay, you know what? I got to try this because I've heard of a lot of crazy stuff and I've done a lot of crazy stuff. I mean the metaphysical world really laughs at me. I mean I've done a lot, I've never just tried shutting up and sitting and she goes it's up to you. So I sat and I left and I just kept coming back. 

Here's what was so intoxicating about this it was the greatest metaphysical experience I had ever had was going inside of me and I remember I used to have these questions with a lot of these spiritual teachers is well, how come you know source only talks to you, or how come God only gives you the message, or how come the angels only are working with you Will? Why can't they work with me? Why can't I have that? And so, as I started doing that, the shutting up and sitting like magic started happening. I would leave that room and then, over the next days and weeks, things would happen, and I didn't have the language then, but I was opening up to serving something greater than myself. 

So, karen, what you were talking about was, you know, it wasn't like it was a conscious intention, it just I came back home to me and while I was going within to cultivate loving kindness, I was also rising up and it just opened something that allowed this amazing thing to start happening, and it was just living this beautiful life of presence and I thought this is crazy town, but man, I'm going back. 

0:09:23 - Will
I've got two very important questions. 

0:09:24 - Karen
One is why didn't you just do that at home? Just come and sit at your home house. 

0:09:28 - Will
It'll be cheaper and you can do the same thing. 

0:09:30 - Yedda
Yeah, yeah. So you know what I paid for the accountability, because I can tell you one thing, I can sit now in my own home and I do have that discipline, but there's no way in the world. I went for two years and sat with her in silence, across from her. 

0:09:46 - Will
When I think of all the time that it yields, I can think of so many things I could do in that amount of time. 

0:09:54 - Yedda
Yeah. So you know, what I realized I was doing is I didn't have the discipline back then and I also didn't have the cognitive patterns and the behaviors and the habits. I mean I was learning to really clean house on the inside. I was learning to face old patterns, demons, parts of my ego that hadn't grown up, the parts that were hurting other people. I mean it was like Willy Wonka land in there. I mean it was straight up Technicolor. And what I realized was I was developing the habit of two things One was being able to be with my pain, and the second was identifying how I was creating suffering when I was not able to or didn't want to be with my pain. And that was a habitual pattern that took at least two years to even get some traction, to then take another eight years to keep building upon. 

0:10:45 - Will
Wow, that is a step. Wow, let's see a lot. 

0:10:47 - Karen
So were you making eye contact or do you have your eyes closed? I need to know more about the details. 

0:10:52 - Will
I can imagine making eye contact with others Do you talk about it afterwards. 

0:10:56 - Yedda
We would walk in and sit and then we would leave. That was it. Now there were times I would try to sneak it in and be like, hey, did you get your hair cut? Oh my God, I just love that shirt. And there might be just a few brief banterings. But the more we went, the deeper we went in, the more sacred it became, and so it was seductive to go. I would come running. 

I remember one of the very first sessions we had. I sat down and, the point being of doing this with someone will. I sat down and she was literally six feet across from me, and so, karen, I could sit Indian style, close my eyes like this, I could put my feet on the floor, I might do whatever I wanted. She would sit across from me with her eyes closed, and there were moments where I would feel this force that almost felt as if it was pushing me backwards out of my chair and as if I had been kind of pushed onto my back, and I was then looking up. The force was so strong, and so I remember learning eventually not to even ask questions, but at one point I did ask her what is happening? I mean, am I losing my mind. You know, I'm starting to think about like the force and Yoda and Luke Skywalker. 

I'm like, in all, like I don't know what happened, and we did talk about this one at one point and she said that's the power of presence and that's the power of connecting with this divine consciousness that we are all connected to. She goes I'm holding space for you and with you, and the power of sitting with somebody when we are in suffering or in deep pain or catharsis or wherever we are, was so. I mean, I was tethered to her. I could feel this energy, this spiritual connection to her that was expanding and radiating out from her, that was encompassing and holding me, that was allowing me to wake up and learn how to do that for myself. I could literally physically feel it and it was wildly intoxicating, incredibly disorienting, and then I would leave and go. I can't wait to go back. 

0:12:55 - Karen
Wow, that's amazing. 

0:12:57 - Will
In this thing. You have ADHD syndromes. 

0:13:00 - Yedda
You're looking at one, adhd, dyslexia, I mean, the list goes on. There are stuff that my brain should not be able to do, that it does the sitting practice you would have never, and I'm a high school dropout. I left school at 16 because I was like I can't even sit in classroom. I can't even listen to someone talk for an hour, much less go in and close my eyes for an hour. And I did, and it shocked me. So if I can do it, anybody can do it, and that's why the language I came up with when I started writing my book was shut up and sit. I thought this is language anybody can get, and I also think too you know, will you mentioned something there about the brain and all of that. 

I also think in our society, the reason why people are not really excited about silences is because it's a form of punishment. So we use silence to punish people, and for me, the language of shutting up and sitting down was a language of punishment. Shut up, go, sit down. You know, get out of here. We're inviting people into is oh, go with it. And it's so great in there, it's so loving, it's so kind, and I'm like no, it's not Sitting with my nose in the kitchen corner while my siblings are playing and everyone's watching the Disney movie, because I did something I wasn't supposed to do. 

That silence is a form of exclusion, not a way of including me back into my own inner world. So I think for a lot of us it is. We think we can't do it physically, but then I think, unconsciously, we have some patterns where we go. I don't know if I want to do it. I'm actually maybe even activating some old trauma and wounds that are not something I want to touch again. I've built a whole life to get away from that. Why would I go, running back into that inferno? 

0:14:35 - Will
So when you were sitting in silence, did your mind just start throwing up your blocks at you? Did it just start thinking about a thousand things at once? They talk about silencing the mind, but it's not as easy as just that. 

0:14:47 - Karen
But for the silence I can't not think. 

0:14:51 - Yedda
Well, in the beginning, because I was so curious and I was in this safe space and I was kind of like all right, well, let me see what you got, because I can tell you it's not going to work. I'm just here to prove you wrong and to prove me right. But it was the essence and energy of sitting with someone who was in a space, who held the vision for me that I really was and really am, that had this metaphysical power to soften and open me up. And so when I would leave those sessions, I was all in on this. I was Jackson Pollock. I was like what is meditation? What is mindfulness? How about habits? How about? I mean, I was in the seeking of knowledge at a level that I wanted to know why is this working? How does it work? I want to understand this more, I need to make some sense of it. And so, when we're in that space and I think one thing I came across, and so I'd go learn for two weeks and then come back in and sit and go deeper and deeper. 

Now, mind you, I had my own practice in between, on the days I wasn't with Gina, but the power of that moment was so incredible that I would just get these insights, and one that I got and I never heard this when we go within, when we shut up and we said it's not to stop thinking, you'll never, ever, ever stop the thinking process. But what you will do is you will put your attention on what you're thinking because you're sitting with it and so, as you put your awareness on what you're thinking, whatever you put your awareness on slows down. Now my language is oh, I'm aware I'm thinking about the light in front of me. Oh, I'm aware I'm thinking about the dog upstairs. I got to where I could be so aware of every thought that I slowed it down to the point that I got to choose the next thought. 

0:16:28 - Karen
It didn't choose me, and then you're actually listening to what you're thinking about. 

0:16:32 - Yedda
And I'm now creating what I want to think next, versus running on autopilot or a narrative or a script or something that somebody gave me from my childhood that I realized I don't want that. Yeah, you're being aware of being aware. So right now, as I'm talking to you and Karen, I could pull my awareness back and be aware of the entire experience. So the observer is what awareness is. And so you're right, we are not our thoughts. We have 60 to 70,000 thoughts a day and 90% of them are repeat from yesterday. 

If we haven't learned to do the work to go within and become aware of what am I thinking, think about that for a minute. So we never change our lives or go forward or create anything of value in the manifestation process if we aren't cultivating conscious awareness of what are the thoughts, and they're mental units of energy that have power. So if we didn't, we would just be these glowing blobs on the floor and that's kind of what led me into the primordial sound was of all the different things I had tried. I needed to understand what was happening, even though I knew there was magic here. I really just have an insatiable curiosity to go. What happened to me that hour in that chair for two years, that I could explain and that I couldn't explain. 

0:17:47 - Will
This is fascinating. You mentioned primordial sounds. When we come back from the short break, we're going to dive into primordial sound meditation, because I got a lot to say about it, because I've been doing it. You were gracious enough to get me one, so we're going to dive into primordial sound and come back. Yeah. 

0:18:11 - Karen
Welcome back to the Skeptical Benefiction. 

0:18:12 - Will
We are talking to Yedda Stanciluk, who is a leadership and lifestyle coach, and she's been talking to us about the power of silence, which she calls the most powerful metatysical modality she's ever tried, and she has tried a law, so that speaks volumes. Now, right before we left, you dropped a little nugget of integration, a little thing called the primordial sound, and I wanted diving to that further, deeper, because that's the thing that got my attention when I first started looking at your videos and things like that. 

Can you give us a quick breakdown of what a primordial sound watch or meditation is? 

0:18:51 - Yedda
Yeah. So I think the most important thing we have to talk about, you know, the first thing is what is a primordial sound? And a primordial sound is not man-made, so it's really easy to identify a primordial sound. A jackhammer is man-made, so that's not a primordial sound. The sound of rain, the sound of frogs at night, the sound of birds singing, that's a primordial sound. So we look at primordial sound and so the reason why we want to be in a primordial sound is it has a different energetic vibration. And so when we are sitting in a primordial sound space and I'm sitting in my room downstairs where I'm doing the interview, when I'm sitting here, I can hear the cars going by, I can hear people talking, I can also hear the sounds of nature. So that's how I want you to think is this man-made or is it not man-made? And the reason why primordial sound is so important is it has, it actually raises our vibration. 

So I was talking earlier about mindfulness and meditation. Mindfulness is embodying, coming back home into the heart space, loving kindness, you know, cultivating that self-awareness. And then the meditation is moving us up through the energetic levels of consciousness to the divine. And I firmly believe we need to do both, and so primordial sound meditation is a, and it's in Sanskrit, so it's based on the Vedantiks, it's thousands and thousands and thousands of years old in the Eastern philosophies. And so when you were born, at the moment you were born, so the exact time, place you know latitude, longitude you plug all that in into this Vedantic astrology and so you get a three-word mantra that matches the same vibrational kind of energetic pattern of where the universe was, the sound it was making at the exact moment you were born. 

0:20:46 - Will
And I wow. 

0:20:47 - Yedda
I mean like, so you know, again, having tried lots and lots and lots of different things, and so this one was, like you know, I went out and studied with Deepak Chopra. He personally invited me to come back to go deeper in to really understand this, and again I asked big questions, and so I would ask these questions. So what? So I went, I got my three my, my three words, and there are three words. Every primordial sound starts with om and it ends with namaha, and so this is some really cool stuff. 

The sound of om we all know that in yoga, if we've done yoga, if we've done meditation, everybody knows. And the sound om actually has three parts Ah oh, mm, ah oh, mm. And so those three sounds are the sound of, of the divine making itself known in the world. So that's what the Vedantics believe. So it's a very it's like the same. The name of God. Or if we were Jewish, you know, whatever the, the different names are, you know, in the Jewish tradition you used to in the Old Testament, you can even say God's name, because it was so powerful of a vibration. So this om is that same expression and that middle word is the exact energetic vibration of you when you came into physical form, from the spiritual into the physical. And then namaha is three phrases, that is, the divine coming in, expressing itself as as will, making itself known out into the world, but then folding its consciousness back on its expression as will, which is ultimately itself which is like a big infinity. 

0:22:15 - Will
You're starting to understand why I love this primordial sound stuff because it's powerful. Yeah, we have different levels. 

0:22:22 - Yedda
And so then, when I started looking at this kind of like seven layer of vibrational process that went out and folded back in on itself and came in, then started studying the seven chakra systems, and then what I realized and you've seen in my video it matches up. So we get this primordial sound, and so I'm sharing what it is, but when you actually get your own mantra, you don't say it out loud ever, you don't share it. It's as sacred as the breath, as when you were born, and so in the primordial sound you know tradition, if you will, the ritual you get this in a very sacred ceremony. Your teacher gives it to you once out loud and says it, and then you go in and use that as your mantra in your sitting practice, but you never, ever say it out loud again. It's not meant to be used as anything other than connecting back with the vibration the universe was making at the moment. Your, your soul, made itself known physically. 

Mantra, literally in Sanskrit, means mind focus. So for people just starting out, having a mantra is a really great idea. Some people, though, however, go well, I'm just going to do the mantra I love myself, I love myself, I love myself. And what happens when we use a mantra or a language that we already know. Man, do we give the ego some fire and then she's over there going. No, you don't, do you? Just know what you did yesterday? How about last night? Let me tell you. 

0:23:49 - Will
The next thing. 

0:23:50 - Yedda
I know I've got this dialogue going and I'm like that doesn't work either. So when and your ego is a very kind of rudimentary, childlike part of yourself would you take a 10 year old, eight year old, and let it go run and live its life as an adult? No, but most of us do, and so our ego is out there, running around, it's out of control. It might even reach a teenage level, but it's just making a mess. It's all about itself. It's so selfish, so self absorbed, because it's childlike. What do you do with a child when they're having a temper tantrum or throwing a fit? 

0:24:24 - Will
by the my screen. 

0:24:25 - Yedda
Yeah, by the my screen you distract them, you go, you're so great. They fall and scrape their knee and they're having a total fit and all of a sudden you're like, oh look, and then they stop everything and they're like, what? So? 

0:24:37 - Will
I did not expect to be right. 

0:24:41 - Yedda
When you give your mind, aka your ego, a mantra, guess what it does? Oh, we're going to put our attention on repeating that phrase. And so the parental, the higher self in you gets to come out. And you've now given this mind focus to this infantile, this juvenile part of yourself and said hey, can you just sit in the corner for 20 minutes and just focus on saying this mantra over and over again? And then what happens is this other part of us comes out, the true self, the expansive, the expressive, the connected to everything, and we start to see, oh, there's lots of different selves in here, but if I can give that part of focus, I can open up and I can receive really cool things, because now I'm really connected to my soul and that's what happens. So I'm curious, been doing it, what's the experience been like for you? 

0:25:33 - Will
So I know that was to tell anybody. 

0:25:36 - Yedda
Get tired of when they are mantra. 

0:25:37 - Will
I wouldn't know. It sounds kind of like play that funky music by boy he just did a lot of his lines. 

0:25:43 - Yedda
Yeah Well, you get into your rhythm, like you can do it to that. I don't care what rhythm you got, just do it. 

0:25:49 - Will
Right, and then I was my, okay, how can I do this? I'm not, I'm really bad with mantras, I'm, I'm in a seat every day, or almost every day, or twice a week, and for some reason, when they try to say a mantra, focus on mantra. I have a hard time relaxing enough to let things drop, so I wasn't expecting an awful lot. No-transcript. The first time I did it was exactly what. 

0:26:15 - Karen
I expected. 

0:26:15 - Will
Nothing. In fact, I think I might have just waited 45 minutes, or whatever it was. I was trying to get for the part that you guide us was help. But then when I keep trying to, okay, you're on your own here no trading mills. 

Here I found myself having a hard time. I was focusing on the logic and I couldn't relax myself enough. I felt like it was just sitting there saying I'm not sure. So I just got a thing. But then, starting with the second trade-on, my expectations were low. So I go. Okay, this obviously is not gonna work for me, but I want to give it a good go because we're talking yet up and I want to make sure that I give it a good shot. And some things were happening, even though it wasn't completely relaxed. To some weird, I got lost in the logic. Like I got lost where I became one with the words, like the words came over me and it became like this weird it's like the intrigue. 

0:27:09 - Yedda
It's almost like you, yes. 

It was like I didn't know where I started with it, and then it's so weird I know what it sounds like so please, please, but it's supposed to be weird because you're getting back into a vibrational resonation, with its resonance, with that moment that the universe sang the song that Will was now born, and so wouldn't it make sense that you would get lost in that, because it's so simple. 

I mean, we run around with these little lights and we keep talking to the divine and we're like but I want to know what's like to be the light? Well, what's it like to be the light? Well, you already are it, and so we have to have the contrast to experience that which we are, because that's the whole point of being human. So when we get into the spiritual and the metaphysical, it makes so much sense to go. Well, of course, you got lost and it's not weird. That's the true essence of who you are. When we forget and separate and pull back out and get all into this human crap, then we get all legalistic and logic, and so getting lost in it is awesome. 

0:28:11 - Will
It was very much like a remember Sergeant Dupers, like the Beals, like the whole psychedelic. It was like a psychedelic, but without the trip he wanted it, Like it was happy enough but it was. It was very strange. And then they became like this, a schoolhouse rock with a word, really big, like tall, and you're looking up at them and it was just the trick that it was, I would say. 

0:28:32 - Yedda
actually, the work that I've been doing and the work that you're talking about is you start to tap into the quantum field With that next, fourth and fifth dimension. That's there. We may not see it with our eyes, but that veil that divides us is, you know, it's this thick, it's right there and we have the capacity as human beings to sit, and when we sit we inhale, we open up. It's a slight movement at the top of the spine and at the bottom that the inhale breath moves those bones and the exhale pushes them back down and the actual act of inhaling and exhaling acts as a pump that pumps the cerebral spinal fluid up the spine around the head and back. So if you tagged one molecule, that little molecule makes a trip around twice in 24 hours. 

Here's what's really cool when you're sitting and you're meditating and you're in that space where you're focusing and you're letting your body breathe, and then you just inhale and hold and then you exhale and release, you put pressure on the pineal gland and that's the whole gateway into the quantum field. So when I was like what was happening I thought I was just sitting there the biology of what happens in your body and brain. When you get to the moment that you just said, it's like I just got lost. The chemicals that get released in your brain, the ability, the euphoria, the I mean your brain can actually create its own benzodiazepines. That is what Xanax is made of. You have that capacity biologically, but how many of us are shutting up and sitting long enough to even go in that world? It's all right here and we're running around like I don't know why I can't get the job I want to, I can't have the relationship. I don't know why I'm stressed out all the time. The magic's all in here and we don't do anything to cultivate it. 

0:30:18 - Will
I'm sure I can do that. See, I'll be back. 

0:30:22 - Yedda
Okay, good, I mean, I'm so glad you said this. See what happens then. What we do in the Western world is like well, if meditating for 10 minutes is good, I'm gonna do it for 10 days straight Because I'm getting the therapy that's better. 

That's right, and then Hino gets addicted and says, well, now I'm gonna be a meditator, and what happens is we enter into too much logic and now we make it a task and it's a thing to do. And so what I was gonna say earlier when you're like I was doing it for you like 45 minutes, and don't do it for 45 minutes, 20 minutes is your max, that's it, because you cannot treat silence and mindfulness and meditation like you treat anything else that you're trying to achieve. It is not anything to be achieved or done, it is something to experience and be, you just opened up my entire morning. 

Oh, I can't tell you to people that. I mean, they're like I read a book and then I do a prayer and then I write out this plan for the day, and then I write out my meditation, and then I do my meditation, then I have my mantra and then I have my and I'm like, oh my God, I'm exhausted. What if you stopped all of that? And all you did was just sit down for 20 minutes and ask yourself those four soul questions when? And did your mantra? When you're in that mantra space, that's all you're doing. And then, when you're done, you put an intention outed to the world, because the thought is the intention that goes out. The emotion is what calls it in to manifest. And then you get yourself in the vibrational emotional state, as if it's already here, and you go live your life. 

0:31:47 - Karen
And you will. I'm such a creature of habit, like everything has to be. He's very regimented. You know he's very scheduled. My schedule's off, forget the whole day is done. And it doesn't have to be that way. 

0:31:57 - Yedda
I mean, it depends on the group when we're in control, doesn't it? And being in control is one of the four ways that we avoid pain. We need their numb it away by, you know, shopping, drinking, you name it we either. Then the other is we get addicted to personal development, so we create all the to-do list and we read all the books and do all the activities and metaphysical can fall in there people. And then number three is we look at the story of pain and we write an even worse one, so we get out of the pain and then start imagining the worst pain. And then the last fourth one is we try to control it and we spend our lives in a massive state of stress because we think we can be the controller of the entire universe. And it's impossible. 

0:32:42 - Karen
And you set these goals or expectations for yourself. It's almost like you're setting yourself up to fail, because that's kind of what you're used to or you're comfortable with. 

0:32:50 - Yedda
Yeah, it's just a pattern. What's your practice? Like Karen, Do you have a practical silence and stillness? 

0:32:55 - Karen
It's not anything regular but I've not really had to like so meditating took me for a while to kind of really get into and really enjoy it, but I do. Will and I are a little bit different. He has to be entertained and you know we'll take these long road trips to Florida and you know, usually we're kind of looking at our phones or he's listening to podcasts. Sometimes I'm just sitting there if he's like how can you just sit there and it's fine. You know, you just kind of sit there and be. 

0:33:24 - Yedda
Yeah, you wouldn't want to go on a road trip with me, will, because when I get in the car I don't listen to anything anymore, I just pay attention to the sound of the tires. I practice my awareness of what's going on right in front of me and I'm just being in the moment, and so that some people have that more naturally than others, and that's okay. And my boyfriend loves it constantly. Kenny Chesney, he wants to listen to music every time we get in the car and sometimes I go, hey, do you mind if we just practice a few minutes of just kind of no noise, maybe just for a couple of minutes? It just helps my brain and the ADD in my brain loves silence and stillness. 

Now, because I literally do believe that I have rewired my brain after a decade of this, I have created new neural pathways. We know the science around this is absolutely proven. You know, to change a behavior, repetition works. Most people don't realize, though. Repetition is not 21 days. Repetition now is at least 267 days on research to change a behavioral pattern, and that's not a really severe one. So, will, how old are you? 

0:34:24 - Will
You're eight and a half years. You're eight and a half years. 

0:34:27 - Yedda
So think about the number of years it took to create the habits and patterns you have. They're not gonna go away in 20 minutes. It's not gonna go away in 267 days. You get years of laying this neural pathway. 

But what I love about silence is it gives me the ability to just go within and be this existential detective, and the more I do it, the more I can kind of look at. Well, what caused me pain? And before we started the show today, without the details, this situation arose and I found myself I could feel all of this welling up and all these narratives and all these stories and I stopped. Thankfully, I have this practice and I closed my eyes and I go. What is the pain point here? 

And ultimately, the pain point that I had to get in touch with was I'm not gonna get what I thought I was gonna get out of this arrangement. Can I be okay with walking away and just letting that be a lesson and not doing the 15 things that the ego is like? You need to do this, you need to do that. She was still there, and so I think when you're in this work, it's also important to remind the listeners and also for you Will. 

Our ego is always gonna be with us, this idea that the ego is the enemy or we have to kill the ego or silence the enemy. The more you do that, the larger the ego is coming at you. And you need to have a really strong ego to be able to shut up and sit down and go within. And the work is to integrate that ego back into helping you do the work, not keep you away from it. And so that was the next part that I learned was I would start talking to that part of myself that's like I don't wanna do this, I need this, or I wanna listen to that, or this is so hard or we needed it, and I would just say can you just shut up for a minute and as hard as you're working to tell me all the things that aren't working? Can you put your energy into keeping my ass on this cushion for just a couple more minutes? And then she would lean in and go. I can do that, because she just needs a job Like fully understand the importance of just being. 

0:36:28 - Will
I totally get it. I know and I'm no un-bad at it. That's why I understand. The interesting part was that, in the depths of my darkness, when I was at my absolute lowest, there was nothing I could do other than just sit. 

I wasn't interested in watching the shows I was interested in. I wasn't interested in playing the game that I used to play. I wasn't interested in reading the news. I wasn't interested in doing anything except just sitting and just being with the pain that I was feeling because I couldn't see a way out of it. 

0:37:04 - Yedda
Well, there is no way out of it. The worst quit in the world. The only way through it is through it. You love your way through it. You realize the shadow and the darkness is you. It's the parts of you you've hidden away, pushed away, packed away, told don't ever come out again. That's what the ego's job is and says don't ever show yourself again because if you do you're going to get hurt. So I'm going to take over Integrating those people and those parts of yourselves back together. It takes a lot of courage. That's where the ego can help you to open those doors back up and say can we work together, that liminal space, that darkness? To be able to go into that liminal darkness, that what they might call God's waiting room or just this divine space of nothingness, and realize I'm still here, is incredibly powerful. Because when we can touch that and sit with that, and then—I want to know about you all I'm a prolific dreamer and I dream all night, every night, in Technicolor, as real as we're talking right now. 

That's how I think. A lot of things come to me. I remember when I was doing this work, I had this Technicolor dream where I saw the most beautiful life, and it was just this absolute paradise. I took my hands and I picked them up. As I touched the image, it was almost like I was playing piano Now, I don't play any instruments. I started doing this on this screen, if you will of this image of a life. Every time I touched it, it would make a ripple and it would make the most beautiful sound and it would create something different. 

I remember in this dream, thinking we can create whatever we want. We are the creators here. But I had forgotten that because I'd kind of squashed into this painful, suffering space. But that's what came on the other side of the darkness was that's right there. We have to sit in order to find that. 

That's that liminal darkness that you think is never going to end. In the minute you think it's never going to end and you give up and you surrender. What happens? Everything changes. We're all on our own unique healing path and working with things we cannot see and cannot understand. But all I know is we're all doing the same journey, but it is wildly and uniquely different to each of us. For me, the last decade has been shutting up and sitting and going within and getting so radically aware of who I am that the best thing that happened at the end of all of this is I fell so in love with who I am that it was a game changer for me, because I stopped placing expectations on anyone and anything else out there to make me be anything other than who I was. 

0:39:40 - Karen
I really like how you say it's not a one size fits all thing. And well, to something you said earlier, I don't think you're terrible at it. I think you're actually very, very good at it. 

0:39:50 - Will
I'm sitting and doing nothing. 

0:39:51 - Karen
I'm sitting and doing nothing but having that connection, and whether it's through meditating or the true retreat you've done, you're really. I mean, you connect, and you connect deeply and much more quickly than I think. I think you're judging yourself, maybe based on stories you've heard of other people's experiences. 

0:40:08 - Will
Yeah, no, I can. I can if I allow myself to. But you're right, my expectations are we here, and when I don't hit that, that's really exploited. Sorry, go ahead. 

0:40:19 - Karen
But you're not really normal. Yeah, likely your experience is going to be very different from someone else's, so you might never hit here, you might hit over there. 

0:40:26 - Yedda
What I think is important for people who go within and practice any form of silence and stillness. The only thing that's different between me and anyone else who has not done the work of doing the silence and the sitting I just recover quicker. I still have expectations, I still have self judgments, I still have self value. I have all these things that float around because I still have an ego. The only thing that is different I am not more enlightened. I say this all the time. 

I don't believe any of us are enlightened until we all are, because we're all connected. So I would never run around and tell someone I'm enlightened, I'm healed, I'm better than I'm anything, Because when we already have it, we don't need to talk about it. One, two. When we get into this space of going within and just doing all of this work, what happens is we just allow ourselves to just be who we already are, and so this narrative and all these things that change it falls away, and so I'm not trying to attack anything or achieve anything anymore, because I'm just so in tune and in love with being it that it just feels good. Can you mention something a minute ago about going on a retreat. Karen said did you go on a retreat? 

0:41:34 - Will
I did yep. 

0:41:35 - Yedda
Yeah. So I did a seven day silent retreat. I had to for one of my certifications because I'm the person that's like, okay, well, if I'm going to learn about meditation and mindfulness, I want to go do a two year certification in each, because I need to know what I'm talking about. And it was really only for my benefit. I never I do not view myself as a meditation or mindfulness teacher and so I decide they say you're going to have to do a two week meditation. 

I mean a one week silent meditation. Now I've done a weekend, you know, and I'm very into aesthetics. So when I talk about a retreat, you know I go to a nice place, nice food, nice, you know scenery, and I've done a couple and I'm like I've done two days, I can do seven. And so the people who are teaching it, they're doing like some kind of seven day silent retreat and it's like I had a campground, like I don't even know what state I tuned out when I heard campground and so I was like, oh, I don't think I can make that work with my work schedule. I'm going to have to find something different. 

So, I send in an email and I'm like, you know, I just I have 1700 people in this course. I'm like I just I have some work stuff. I just can't do it this summer. Is there any way I could be given a special permission to find another seven day silent retreat and go and cleanse that? Yeah, so see, so already, ego, ego. And so they're like, well, if you could find one. And so I start searching and I find this fabulous place in Denver and it's an Oshrom. It's outside of Denver, like two hours, and the teachers are teaching the mindfulness based stress reduction seven day silent retreat. And I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's all me. Stress reduction, mindfulness based. You know, oshrom. Like check, check, check up, first class to Denver. Yep, they're going to pick me up. I literally no lie you all. 

I get off the plane, I have my little to me luggage, everything's like on point, I've got the cutest little hiking clothes because I'm going to be out in the mountain and I'm going within and I've got it all figured out. And we get on this little van or bus or whatever and we just keep going for two hours and we get there and it's muddy, it's been snowing, and he, like is at the top of the hill and he's like this long walk through the mud and snow to get down to the lodge and I'm like, if I give you an extra 20 bucks, do you think you just go a little bit further? I mean, this is so. I get there and the point of telling you the story is I'm thinking I'm just here to check a box, I got to get this certification done. I get there, I get all checked in and I go into this beautiful it's just this gorgeous. It looks like something in like Asia, this beautiful room that overlooks this garden. You know, they got a little meditation cushions are all set around, the teachers are in the front, there's a gong and I'm like, yeah, this is good. And so I go to sit down and this is where metaphysics comes in and, yes, I'm going somewhere with this story. 

So there's like 30 cushions and I'm always the person that takes the back left seat, so I'm all the way in the back in the left and I can see everything that's going on and I'm by the door, just my trauma wiring. So I'm like, okay, got my spot. And in walks the brunette version of Brad Pitt and he comes behind me. It comes to the right of me, takes his cushion and goes to the other side of me. Now he's the far left, he's on my left now and I'm like what is this you do? And then I look at him and I'm like, oh my God, he is so gorgeous. And then I start I'm like oh really funny, great talking to the angels. I'm like so now I'm sitting for seven days in silence next to the hottest man on the planet and I can't talk to him. 

0:45:09 - Will
I'm sorry. 

0:45:10 - Yedda
I was not there so you can, and so I was sitting there and I'm like you got to be kidding, this is a joke. I am in the most amazing place in the world and so my point in this was all of a sudden, I just start realizing all this is running and I'm like, okay, you got, you got a week of this. So I thought I was just going to zoom and zip right through the seven days and I thought we were had my pen, my journal, like I was going all in to like a seminar, and the guy in the front says turn to the person to your left and get to know them. You've got 10 minutes because this is the last time you will make eye contact with another human being speak, read, write anything for the next seven days. 

0:45:51 - Will
What's your point number? 

0:45:52 - Yedda
The fifth, yeah, yeah. Well, I just asked him, was he single? And he said no, and I'm like, okay, so we started this, this nice little dialogue. But here's my point was seven days of silence. I got into day three Well, actually, let me back up. The first night I went back to my room and I played Pavarotti's misery as loud as I could and open the windows to the desert and just, I mean, belted it out because I was like I got to get it out. I got to get it out. I come back the next morning, five am to 10 pm, six solid days. 

By day three, I was fantasizing about taking the gong stick and beating the instructor to like a bloody death. I mean, literally I went into the upside down world of stranger things in my own psyche. And then, when we get to the end of the week, we get a chance to engage with the instructor and I'm out of my mind. There's no Wi-Fi, there's no car, there's no. I mean I went all the way to the bottom and when we were done, and then, and then something beautiful just broke open. And so at the end he said does anybody want to share their thoughts? And I shared my thoughts. I said fantasies of like harming you. I mean I was all in on like beating you and fantasizing how he's going to get a ride out of here. 

And he said that's great. And I'm like, no, I'm judging myself. This is bad, I'm a bad person. And he said do you know the entire lesson that you learned this week? And I go what? And he goes it's the greatest lesson that all Americans need to learn. It is the lesson of boredom. And I went oh, and he goes. Now that you've done this for seven days, when you go home and sit for 20 minutes, it's going to feel like five seconds and what's going to happen is you've rewired this ability to be able to be bored. Nothing, because I was freaking out. What do you mean? I can't write. I've got to retain what I learned. And he goes trust your brain, if it's still there in a week and you need it, you'll recall it. 

And so when we get into self-judgment, when we go into all of these narratives, the value of doing silence and doing smart things, starting small, you all, but continually adding is we do build a new way of showing up. And I stopped judging myself and I started having the most wonderful dialogues and asking source questions in my practice in that seven days and I got answers that blew my mind. I would have never gotten there if I didn't go through that dark piece of me. That was like anger and rage. 

And the instructor told me, because I watched you unravel before my very eyes sitting on that cushion, I mean I would be like hey, I mean like a three year old and I'd be like throw my arms and crossing and I'm like waiting for the dong gong, whatever, and running out of the room and he goes. I watched your very psyche dissolve and come back together as something new in a matter of a week. So we can go into the you know the long meditation retreats if we want to, but I think it's a lot easier for us as human beings to just grab five minutes, 10 minutes and let that be enough. And if we cultivate enoughness and we're okay with being bored, we might find that there's actually something else underneath that we can touch and that we can live with and be with, because we're just addicted to distraction. 

0:49:12 - Will
Well now, if someone wanted to do silence or primordial sounds, tell him someone, get a mantra, because they're not going to hit it out. 

0:49:23 - Yedda
It is very, very, very science oriented. I need you know your name, your place of birth, the time, the date. You know latitude, longitude is figured out by the you know city, state and country. I plug all that into a very high level software system that's given to me through the Chopra Center and then I get back that mantra and then I send that to a client and so, yeah, so you have to work with a certified primordial sound instructor in order to get it. 

0:49:48 - Will
So if anyone's listening to this show right now, could they be judged? 

0:49:50 - Yedda
Okay, thank you. Yeah, it's all on my website. They can reach out and set up a little clarity call is what I call it, and then we just talk about what that looks like and, yeah, I love it. It's not something that I do as a meditation teacher, but I like the idea of educating people what it is and how it works, and so I don't sit with people and just do meditation. My brain is, like you know, the ADD brain, and sometimes I want to get into therapy and sometimes I want to get into coaching, and sometimes I want to get into mindset and sometimes I want to get into behaviors. So I don't want to be quiet all the time when I'm with clients, but I like being quiet when I'm with me. I'll leave the listeners with. 

What I learned in all of this work was the client is the moment. The client is the moment, and so, from a metaphysical perspective, if we can serve the moment and ask the moment what it wants, that's where all divine intelligence exists. I don't think we ever fall out of love. I don't think we it's all falling out of presence, and when we disconnect from a conscious, powerful, present moment, we disconnect from everything that's not seen and not heard, and you know, in this physical body that is communicating with us at all times. And so when I did this work with the Moment Institute, I remember the founder, david Drake, saying the moment is the client. You are here to ask the moment what it most wants and needs, not your own ego, not wills, not cairns, not even the listeners. What does the moment most want and need right now? 

And that's what I feel like I learned to do when I learned to shut up and sit. So any situation I'm in now, with clients or with family or friends, I pause and I just quietly ask what is the moment most want and need? And my spirit guides and then divine intelligence that's in and around all of us starts to come in, and then it's just a knowingness for me. You know, there's no audible, there's no. I just know and I know what that feels like. And I sit up three inches taller and I go, oh, okay, and then I will invite that into the space. And then people will say how did? How did you do that, how did you? And I'm like just just, you know, just had a feeling. I don't, it's just kind of new. Maybe that may be a good idea. 

But I didn't, it wasn't me, it was the magic of the moment working through me at a very profound metaphysical level and it just showed up as me. 

0:52:12 - Will
That's a beautiful way of looking at it. This has been wonderful. We're going to add all your links to our show notes, so if you want to get in contact, with yeah, all you need to do is go to wwwSkeletonModernPositioncom over episode page and you'll find all the links they lead in, so you could just click the link and you'll get connected with her. 

0:52:27 - Yedda
It's been a lot of fun to hang out and talk with you all and answer questions and share whatever wisdom is coming through me. That is experiencing itself as you, experiencing itself as me. Yeah, try that one on for a little bit, right. 

0:52:41 - Will
Yeah, that's one of the things that makes your mind just explode sometimes. Thank you so much for coming on sharing your wisdom with us, and a huge thank you to you. If you know someone who would benefit from hearing the message we're sharing on the show, do them and us a favor and share the show with them. It will help get the word out about us and it might just change someone's life for the better. Well, that's all for now. We will see you on the next episode of the Skeptic Manifestation. Until then, take care.