Ladies and gents. Gentlemen, I hope your day is going beautiful. I hope you realize it's about to get a little bit better. I hope the birds are singing and the sun is shining. We've got an incredible show back for you today. It is, of course, the first Tuesday of the month, so that means that we have the incredible Reverend Dr. Jessica Rochester. She is the Mahadrina and president of the Sioux de Montreal, a Santo Daime ayahuasca church that she founded in 1997 in Montreal, Canada. She's a transpersonal counselor. She trained in the work of Dr. Roberto Asagioli and trained with Dr. Stanislav Graf. She also worked with Health Canada from 2000 until 2017 to achieve a Section 56 exemption to import and serve the Santo Daime sacrament. She's an ordained interfaith minister with a doctorate in divinity. From 1986 to 2018, she has been a workshop leader, teacher, and in private practice. She is the author of two incredible books of Ayahuasca Awakening, A Guide to Self-Discovery, Self-Mastery, Self-Care, Volumes 1 and 2. She continues to lecture on consciousness, non-ordinary states of consciousness, self-discovery, spiritual development, health and well-being, and personal transformation. And she's on a mission to inspire and empower those who seek the adventure of self-discovery, those who hope to awaken consciousness, to rediscover authenticity, to find meaning in everyday life and cultivate deep connections with oneself, with others, and with nature. And if you have been following along on this podcast, you will know that we are on the circle of wholeness number five. Our relationship has been going on a few years now, which is beautiful. I love it. And I feel like I get to walk away inspired and inspired. and ready to face the day whenever I speak to you. So thank you for all you're doing and thank you for being here today. How are you? Well, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to join you. And, you know, we have fun together, at least on my side, it's fun. And that's maybe an important place to start, which is, you know, how can we find fun? You know, they were going to be talking about, you know, we've been walking around We've been walking through the books, you know, talking about various and sundry things. And we did kind of one volume one last year and we started into a volume two. And the circle of wholeness is a diagram that I drew for students like a couple of decades ago now, which I really wanted them to understand that there's so many influences in our life. And there's so many aspects to our life where we can bring our consciousness, our awareness, we can bring our wisdom. we can find wisdom and it's how we interact and all of the different things that play a role and that we have choices and decisions in. Okay. Now sometimes those choices like only gives us a small little choice. Okay. And sometimes it gives us a whole buffet table. And so, and today we're talking about, so we've been working our way around the circle and today we're talking about meaningful work and, and creative activities. Okay. Now, just about everybody works. There's some things that through the years in different cultures that are considered to be important work. And yet I just want to blow that one away in a nanosecond. Okay. Because all work is honorable. Okay. No, I mean, unless it's criminal. Okay. Let's not go there. All right. But ordinary average work. Okay. Everything has its place in I need the dull Canada linesmen who go and fix the widget on the pole, okay? We need, well, I'm in Quebec. We need Hydro Quebec. So when I turn the tap, we get water. We need the mechanics to fix our cars. We need the bus drivers to drive the buses. We need all of these people. They are important people in the way that life moves. And I think that somehow in Western civilization, We've lost track of that. And we've made some professions and some work, you know, it's like the Hindu caste system. I mean, that's what it's been. There's the Brahmins and there's everyone else descending right down to the untouchables. Okay. And we've, that's been recreated here in Western civilization. Anyone who wants to argue that we haven't, it's going to have to find me some good evidence of it. Okay. Because if you look, it's everywhere. where there's a kind of a self-importance that comes with. Now, of course, we want to honor education and training and apprenticeship and all of those things, but everything has its place. I'm sorry, but a university professor can't actually do its job if the lights and the electricity isn't working. And so we need to, how can we get to a place of respecting and honoring, you know, that work in itself is honorable. You know, I was raised post-war, Second World War. I'm not that old. In the First World War, I'd be an antique with people frothing me up if I was still here. And we were taught how important what we called the trades were, the trades. And they are almost non-existent here. The people who have manufacturing, they can't find people to repair the machines. They can't find them, okay? And so, yes, there's a transition into everything computerized and everything automized and all of those things too. But there's still a lot of things that people have to do and they need to be trained how to do it. And a lot of the skills that people used to have have just fallen away because people don't value them. Everybody wants to be a TikTok star. You know, give me a break. I don't want to be rude to anybody out there who's a TikTok star, but give me a break. If that's your aspiration, for me, the bar's pretty low, you know. And so, So that's the first thing to shift is how we view everybody's work. Can we say thank you? Can we have gratitude, everyday gratitude, you know, to the person who's taking the tickets on the train and the person who's, you know, the chef in the kitchen and not just a chef at a fancy restaurant, you know. We're talking about people who are, yes, they're flipping burgers in the back, you know. And so how can we have honour and respect to Honorable work, that work that's done with good attention and with good heart is meaningful. And so that's the quality that we can bring. We bring respect. We bring gratitude. And we see the meaningfulness in everyday work. And we need to do that for ourselves and maybe each to that further on. What do you think? Yeah, it's a great point. I often wonder where this groundswell of shame comes from. It seems like that we have decided that some things are shameful and it seems ingrained in our society where someone wants to be a TikTok star because they want to have the ability to live a life that's shown to them through the movies, through the magazines, through this unrealistic idea of what is possible. And you're not enough if you don't have that. And so I think that it starts with conditioning at a younger age. At some point in time, we've decided about unrealistic expectations and how we should achieve them on some level. And yes, so those are all good points, which is what are we taking responsibility for as far as how we're raising the next generation, how we're educating them, what we're teaching them is important. You know, are they are we teaching them what to respect? Are we are we teaching them? You know, I mean, when I was when my children were young, I did my best to tell them, find what has meaning inside of you. Find what you like doing. And then follow that. Both of my children change stream. And I think it was in there. I don't think it was CJEP. We have CJEP here. rather than whatever you guys have, you have a grade 13 or junior college or something, it's called CSUF two year programs. And that's fabulous, because what it does is it helps stream off the people who really aren't geared for university studying. Okay, you're not academic, then you shouldn't be pressed into university. And they, they, you know, they have this opportunity in CSUF to find out their skills and what they're interested in and what they're abilities are, and then to develop those strengths and those abilities. And so that through CSHAP connects to all the technical colleges and what we call the trades and those levels of trainings. So you can get all these trainings and certificates in various and sundry programs that will allow you to go out. I mean, you know, want to faint? I mean, the plumber comes in, he charges me more per hour than I used to charge in my private practice. The plumber charges more. So who's put their little nose in the air that one thing is more important than the other? I mean, it's kind of funny, isn't it? How we see things and we have this caste system, this social caste system in our head. And if it's there, how do we transform it into something that is more in alignment with authenticity in, let's call it, spirituality? that sense of the oneness that we all share, the sense of the connectedness that exists in the web of life, you know. And so it can be amusing, it can be scary, it can be worrying, all of these things that when we look at the attitudes that we're developing and that we are propagating into our children and, you know, that can be a heavy load to bear. And so, you know, What would our culture be like if parents helped each child see that there's something inside of them that they've arrived with in this lifetime and they might feel called to it quite young, but they also might change their mind along the way. And that would be perfectly okay. What I taught my children and teaching my young grandchildren is it's okay to change your mind. You know, what I said to my kids when they were, you know, in C-SHEP and then doing their undergrad and then going on to, you know, graduate in doctoral studies for my daughter and my son finished with all of his certificates and whatever it is, MBA and all those jazz things and accounting and finance, you know. And what I said to them, finish your semester. If you really don't like, you know, ABCs, Just finish your semester. Don't drop it because then you're going to carry that forward. Just finish the semester, get the best grades you can, and then change. And so it's strategically stepping, not just letting something dump and drop. So part of, I think, the kind of messaging that we can have is that learn how to be responsible and complete something. Complete it. you're never going to feel badly about completing something and doing the best you can. You're always going to look back on it and say, well, it's okay that I changed from that program to this program, and my marks were decent and okay, and I completed them, and so on and so forth, versus I didn't finish and I dropped them and I dumped out. I mean, that's not going to build self-confidence and self-esteem, is it? No, not at all. And so learning to have the discipline and the accountability to actually complete something, even if you don't particularly like it, you know, how many of us, you know, all of us, let's come back to work and our jobs and our careers. And, and I think every single, I've never met somebody who loved a hundred percent of their work. There's always some parts sometimes, you know, a common one would be paperwork, filling in forms or, doing paperwork or billing and what have you. So that would be a common one. And there's always a something. And so how do we do it with grace? Now, what do you do if 90% of your job, your work, you don't like? You got to make a change. Yes. Thank you. And you don't just dump out and sit on the couch watching Netflix, eating chips. and ordering, I don't know, all the places you just, you go on your phone and they bring you food. Don't do that. First of all, you test off your CV. You get advice from people whose opinion you respect and you trust. If necessary, you go to a counselor or a professional who will look at your CV and who will give you advice. But prepare your next step. Prepare your next step and prepare yourself for your next step. And take a good, long, hard look at yourself and say, is it me? Is it me that I'm taking a bad attitude to work every day? I'm arguing with my colleagues. I'm not pulling my end. Common one at work is people complain a lot, but they don't realize that they're not pulling their part. They're not doing their part. Have you noticed that? This probably is not going to be a very popular comment, but I feel I need to say it anyway. You know me. My daughter, when she was traveling, she was always bringing back fun things. She brought me back this wonderful little kind of satchel on the front that says, be careful when I say what I think. Oh, dear. Anyway, so have we noticed that there's, you know, we've talked about selfishness in the past, how there seems to be more of that in our culture and society. And is it just me or is there more laziness? I think it's more, I think that there, the laziness, it's an appearance of laziness, but it's a, it's more of a, a sense of defeatism. Like people aren't even trying because they're afraid that they'll never reach this destination. You know, it seems when I look at some of the younger generation who look at housing prices and are like, how can I afford a $700,000 home? Why even try? How can I have a family when it costs $100,000 a year to send my kid to a private school? How can I possibly do it? Point, point, point. What do they have to know? My kids went to public school. Okay. It's true. Okay. So here it all comes about what we stuck in our head about what we think we have to do to maintain this lifestyle that we imagine that we should be having, instead of saying, you know what, I'm willing to make decisions, you know, to look into, will my children get a good education at this? My kids did go to private school for, for secondary school and, and grateful that at the time my husband and then husband and I could, could afford it and it was still reasonable because of the schools we chose it's very different in the United States versus here in Canada and Quebec you know but there's always decisions I'm talking about I'm hearing what you're saying about a sense of defeat a sense of discouraged despair yeah there's a lot of that around but you know what that's a deep dark hole it is that you dug yourself I'm sorry I'm sorry. You know, people aren't going to like this one either. Uh-oh. Yeah, when you look and you say, I dug this one myself, then you can stop digging it. That's the power of accountability and self-responsibility. You know, the first part of book two is all about self-awareness, self-love, self-respect, and self-responsibility. And I think that what's really lacking in accountability vast measures is a sense of personal responsibility. Okay, we can all feel discouraged. We can look at nature and the climate and the 36 active armed conflicts and wars around the world and we can say, well, why bother finishing university or CGF or even high school? Well, yeah, because we need a bright, educated, healthy generation to carry forward That's why everyone do your part. Okay. Stop being self-indulgent. I'm sorry. I'm going to be really tough today. I don't know what I'm in, but anyway, it's yes. We can have a time. If we've had a loss, a grief, a tragedy, an accident, an illness or something. Yes. We must take care of that. We get the support that we need, but there has to be a certain point where we say, okay, kid, And to look at our lives and take responsibility for what is mine and what can I do and what are my choices, even if my only choice is to change my attitude. That's all within the realm of possibility. And so all of us can take a shovel and dig a hole and then climb in and complain. All of us can do that. But then we have to ask, like, what is that about? That's the quality of my life. Is that what I want for myself? Or do I want to climb out of the hole? Even if it takes support, good. Get support. Friends, family, professional groups, support groups. Get it. Do it. Read the books. Listen to the tapes. Do whatever you need to do. Get yourself in shape. Healthy in your mind, in your body. Kick yourself up. Keep going. This is your life. You know? So it's easy to become discouraged. Any of us can get discouraged. But again, there's a difference between having a difficult day, getting discouraged, taking some time to deal with it, dealing with it, and then you keep on going. So back to work. We're talking about work. And I said, is there laziness? And you said you thought that maybe what you were seeing more was a sense of discouragement and a feeling of defeat. And so, again, I say to that that, yes, we can all feel that. But do we pitch our tent there? Do we dig a hole there and live there? Or do we decide that we want something different for our life? And so we reach out. We ask for help. We get help. We do what we need to do and what we can do. Does that make sense, Joe? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like on some level, there's been a lack of leadership for young people to look towards. You know, when you look at politicians today or you look at large corporations, you look at the media. Can I beg you that we don't look at the politicians? Yeah, that's a good point. Well, there they are. How can you get away from them? They're like on everywhere. Like, just get out of here, you know? More harm than good. Yes. And the large corporations, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so easy to get discouraged. Right. But you know what? Does that change our life? Down in the dumps over high-level political doings. Thinking about that. You know, in the end, I don't know about you down in the United States. I get one vote. One. That's it. You know, you might as well just not look at it. Because when time comes to vote, make your decision. Vote the way your conscience tells you to. And then you have to move on. And you know what? Tend your own garden. Don't worry about the one way over there. Tend your own garden. You know, sweep your own path. Clean your own doorstep. You know, where's that gone to? Due to major changes in my life, as I may have mentioned in another podcast, I am now living in a condo and I'm on the 10th floor. So if I look at one side where I have a beautiful, huge balcony and I see trees and I see MDG and it's a big, huge park and there's no buildings in front of me and it's just all beautiful and the trees are all putting their leaves on because it's actually spring, you know. And so we're actually getting leaves on the trees now in May. But if I look at the others, not in my condo, but the front of the building, I'm on the back of the building. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bought on the front because it's looking over the street, okay, which is normal. And across the street, there's a very convenient shopping mall with the grocery store and the pharmacy. Okay, very, very convenient, okay? Just before I bought here, they put in a McDonald's. Now, there was never a problem with litter, apparently, before. The McDonald's came in. Now, I can't even tell you how much McDonald's litter there is on the street. So when I'm thinking of lazy, that's what I'm thinking of. In my mind, I'm seeing all this litter on the street. For me, that's laziness. Sorry, that's not discouraged. I had a difficult day at work, so I get to film on McDonald's litter on the street. That's not discouraged. That's not defeated, okay? Just lazy. I'm sorry. What else would you call it? I can't believe it. The wrappers and the cups and the, just in the bushes in the front of our beautiful building here and the poor doorman and the janitor and the superintendent are out there sweeping and cleaning up after all these people. Like explain that to me, explain it to me. I don't get it. You can't tell me that's people feeling discouraged and defeated. I want to try to make the case. I think that what you're seeing... Let's look at McDonald's. McDonald's is sort of a restaurant that probably doesn't care too much about the food they're serving. They seem to be more profit-oriented. And I think that you can't separate your product... from your labor, from the attitudes. I think if you provide something for somebody that doesn't come from a place of love and respect, that the people that it goes to don't have love and respect for themselves. If you look at someone who ate McDonald's every day, that person probably doesn't love and respect themselves that much. That's an echo of McDonald's on some level. And so they're probably gonna throw stuff on the ground. Personally, I have never had a meal from McDonald's. Of course, because you love yourself. Well, yes, but I mean, even when they first, first, first, first came out, like what, like 35 years ago or something? I don't remember. How long was it ago? 40 years? I don't remember. At least, yeah. Over a billion served. Natural foods. So a friend of mine said, oh, no, no, no, no. The kids will love it. Let's go. And I took one little nibble and I can't eat this. I can't eat this. I just, I'm sorry. I can't even put it back in its little box. I can't eat it, you know. So I agree with you that that goes on down the chain. And then we have to ask ourselves, why is this happening? Why is it happening? Let's try and bring it back to meaningful work and then I can do more about creative activities. Why is it happening that that are people, you know, I understand people might feel discouraged if they want to go up the ladder, if they want to get to the next round in their work. Lots of people are very happy where they are. No, I like my job. I don't want more stress. I like to be able to come in, do my job well, you know, punch out at the end of the day, go home and have my creative activities or go sing in the choir or go ride my bike or whatever it is, people to walk the dog, be with my kids. And some people, quite a good chunk people are just really happy having a good job but you know what about other people you know does it again is it it's for me it speaks of self-indulgence doesn't it doesn't it speak to laziness if you can't be bothered to make a simple meal a little bit more wholesome than whatever you're going to spend in mcdonald's yeah you should be able to care enough about yourself to make something delicious that you love? Something simple and nutritious. Do we have to love it? No, but we can like it. Love is so overrated. We can enjoy it. We can think I nourish my body. This is healthy for me. I'm nourishing my body. Go forward. What is it that is happening in our culture. You talked about part of the problem being, you know, and I agree 100% with you because I've spoken a lot about this, is that we don't have the rituals anymore. We don't have elders. We don't have elders who don't have rituals. And we're rituals in the human culture and the human species. We had rituals. We had rituals for the young children, for adolescents, for going into, you know, becoming an adult, male or female. We had initiations, we had all kinds of rituals in which the developing human had an opportunity to be counseled by the elders, to be in their group of people their age, going through these initiations together, discovering things, doing their vision quest or their walk about or their week in the forest or whatever it was. They were doing them. And I tried to replicate that with my children by sending them to camps that had like good kind of outdoor and kind of almost initiatory at a certain age. There's a little island, you know, you could basically wave to people on the island, but the kids have to go and tent and sleep overnight, you know, and things like that and go and carry the canoe. And so there's a little bit that you can find, you can find it in camps, you can find it in sports and sporting activities. you can find some of those ways to help, you know, help develop, you know, but parents who are allowing their kids to just sit in front of the screen all day. You know, my granddaughter is reaching the age where the mall is a big attraction. And so, you know, there, The older one is allowed to go with one parent goes and a couple of friends, you know, let them all alone. Yeah. Not at age 12. Thank you. And, and, and they told me kind of horror stories of, you know, some of these stores that are gearing themselves to the preteens. And she says, you know, grandma, there's kids in here. They're like nine years old, eight and nine years old. And they have eyes. on iPhone 15s, and they have money and credit cards, and they're scooping up all of these expensive adult products for, you know, because some of these, I won't name a particular store, but it's actually being, you know, it's kind of a sort of media investigation into how they're gearing their products to preteens. These are adult female products, technically. They're making a team line and they're being sold to eight-year-olds. What eight-year-old needs makeup? I'm sorry. And so there's this whole thing that's happening, but the parents are involved. They're giving them those phones and iPads and credit cards. Credit card. Mom's credit card. There you go. Is there something seriously wrong with this picture? Yeah. And so when it comes to how can, how can children growing up in that environment, all of a sudden they go from being a student and mom and dad pay for everything. Right. And, and now all of a sudden they're looking at, you know, a house costs X, Y, and Z. And, you know, you know, just buying your groceries every week is cost more post COVID and everything else. And they're looking at it and well, you know what, you have to get a job. They don't want to work because they're going to learn, what, $18 an hour? I mean, you're starting out if you're, you know. And so how do we support that change? How do we inspire ourselves, our families, our community? How do we inspire people to value work, to respect work, not to have these unrealistic, ridiculous ideas that we're feeding into our children about what they have to have to be happy. I think we have to move from a destination mindset to a process mindset. We need to change the way we see ourselves as, hey, we've reached this pinnacle that we've reached a destination. Instead, you're always in process. And that if you were to lose something, that just means you've chosen a fork on the path. It's a process. And maybe you graduated when you got fired from that job. Maybe you are changing who you are as an individual when you decide to have the courage to walk away from something you don't like to do. These are ideas that aren't so much taught as a step up or growth mindset. These are things that are looked at as, oh, you failed or you didn't do this right or you don't have that. I think we can teach that. Yes, we can teach that. And here we come to another big part of the problem of both. work because I'm going to scoop education in underneath that and what I hear from the educators and the teachers who are teaching you know I have colleagues of course at universities and things like that but I also have high school teachers and through the years I've had many clients who work in that I've had children grow up in the system now grandchildren growing up in the system and what's happening is that In the education system, the job that parents aren't doing, they're dumping on the teachers. And so the teachers in some schools are having a terrible problem with discipline because the children have not learned discipline at home. They're having a terrible problem with disrespect because children have not learned respect at home. Are we allowed to swear on this? Yeah, please go ahead. So I am shocked when I have a granddaughter who comes home and tells me that a boy in her age in her class told the teacher to fuck off. Whoa. Yes. Okay. And more stuff and more stuff along those lines. And I am horrified. You know, I can think back to my, you know, my school years. Boy, I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that, you know. I mean, a little roughhousing in the back of the room got you shot out, you know, into the hall. And if you weren't lucky, down in the principal's office. I mean, it was just very serious. Discipline was taken more seriously, you know. And so a lot of, you know, there isn't some parents, a percentage of the population is not teaching their children respect. Mm-hmm. They come back to work. If you're not teaching your children to respect the teachers, if you're not teaching your children to respect the discipline and the rules, what's going to happen to society 10 and 20 years from now? If we're not teaching those generations respect, respect the rules. If you don't understand the rules, ask questions. If the rules aren't fair, then ask more questions. That's That's what we should be teaching. You have the right to ask questions. You have the right, if you don't understand something, if you don't think something's fair, ask questions and take it to where you need to go if it doesn't feel like you understand or it's not clear or what have you. But that's the way to a better place. If we respect everyone's job, if we respect the teacher in the classroom, We will teach him with respect. If we respect the rules on the street, don't get me started about the parking lot across the street. I swear. You know, I live in Westmount. I used to talk about it's kind of an upper middle class area in Montreal. And we used to talk about Westmount attitude. Then I moved to Hampstead and I talked about Hampstead attitude. you know, they park in front of your driveway and you come out and say, excuse me, you're in front of my driveway. And they kind of say, I think you can get around me. Okay. Well, now I'm in another area, which borders onto another area. And I have a whole new level of being exposed to another kind of attitudes. People who, who stop on the cross on the pedestrian crosswalk. And when you knock on their window and say, excuse me, you're parked on the crosswalk or you stop on the crosswalk, do they say, oh, thank you for telling me. I'm so sorry. Do they say that? No. Come on. What do you think they say? Go around me. Or I'm sorry. Or maybe they don't say anything at all. Maybe one in 25 might say I'm sorry. I kept for a while, I kept track. A friend just gave me a rude face or swore at me or, you know, my personal favorites, the one who say, well, there's a car in front of me. I can't move ahead. Well, you shouldn't have gone there to begin with. And so I look at it and I think, okay, this is the lack of respect. This is the lack of discipline. It's just a big lack of something that it's our personal responsibility to put back in our lives. We can't complain about society unless we're doing our part. So whatever job all you listeners are in, what would your job be like if you Got up every morning and you thought, I'm going to bring the best of myself. I'm just going to bring the best of myself. I'm going to bring a good attitude. We have a saying in the Sampradayani, Mr. O'Neill said it, come to the works with a healthy mind full of hope. I think that's a great attitude. Go to work with a healthy mind full of hope. Bring the best of yourself. No matter what your colleague is doing, no matter what your boss says, you just do your best. healthy boundaries. Buddhism, right thought, right word, right action. Very simple stuff, not easy. You know? What would your work day look like if that's how you did it? More relaxed? More peaceful? More fun? Less stressful? More healthy? I don't know. The invitation is out there. Meaningful work. Now, We can also, if we're in an environment that is not particularly healthy, then what can we do? Well, we can bring healthy information to our boss and we can offer to help with it. Not just like complaining, but we can say, can we, you know, maybe change the color? Can we rearrange? Can we do? There's so many things that can happen in the workplace. If people bring a positive, supportive, energy to it just going and being bitter and complaining and everything and slouching around and then and that okay that doesn't usually bring good changes but sitting down and saying hey guys what would this what would this look like if we rearranged the office this way and brought in some plants and how about flexi hours you know so and so you want to go and drop off your kids at daycare every morning and that that's great but you shouldn't feel so stressed So how about if you start here and finish there? I mean, I think these kind of job sharing, so flexible hours, job sharing, more amenities at work that help people to feel. And if that means just, you know, making a tiny little galley kitchen and a microwave and a little fridge available so people can actually bring their lunch and put it there, you know, something healthy for them to eat. If it means being flexible with hours so that children can get their kids to daycare and or pick up after school or whatever it is that they need to do. And job sharing. There's so many things that positive things that can be done in the workplace to encourage people to bring their best each day. You know, get a group rate at the local gym and encourage people to go to lunchtime and do a I don't know, a dance class or something, you know. But companies can do and employers can do what they can do to help to create a really healthy workplace. But employees can help motivate by bringing a really good attitude and positive thinking towards what could cheer up this workplace. Maybe if we kept it more clean. Maybe if we kept it more tidy. Maybe if we worked a little bit better together. Maybe if we had whatever it is, fill in the blank. So everyone can look at their work and take a long, slow, deep breath and say, what's my part in this? And how can I upgrade me and possibly the environment, the workplace? Does this make sense? Yeah, I think there's a wonderful relationship between creativity and a meaningful environment. And you can bring creativity and make your environment meaningful. Yes. And now some jobs, they don't like you to have personal items. I mean, some jobs, they don't. They say, you know, don't bring your stuffed animals and don't, you know, and other jobs say, yeah, bring a plant and put up a photo and, And so you have to work with what you can work with. And each person can find their way forward with that, even if it means dusting off your CV and looking around and seeing what else is there out there. What else is there out there? And so, yes, work and creativity are very connected. Now, what is creativity? I believe my map. Oh, are you going to answer me? Okay. Go for it. I think creativity is the ability. I think we all have a sort of lens through which we see things different than everybody else. And if we can bring that perspective, like that's our own creative nature, the world, I think of origami when I think of creativity. And if you and I both do an origami frog, mine might have a little bit of a longer leg than yours, you know? So something along those lines. I have to confess that I do not know how to do origami, okay? But I can do jendai haiku. I take that on as a challenge. You do origami, I'll do haiku, okay? So... Big step back, looking at the larger picture, okay? So I believe that there is a divine creative force that exists in all things. So whether we are watching a spider weave a web or we are watching a bower bird create its bower, have you ever seen this? This is remarkable what they create. You need to watch more nature programs, okay? You know, this bird, flex all these bright, sparkly things and rearranges them and creates this beautiful twig structure that is basically a romantic bower to attract females. It's all completely decorated, okay? It's wonderful. There's a fish, I've forgotten the name of the fish, but it creates this kind of beautiful circular, you know, habitat that's going to invite the females in. and arranges all these shells around them in a beautiful pattern. This is a fish we're talking about, and a bird, and a spider, okay? So all of you artists out there who think that you've got it all, newsflash, okay? Everyone's got a little bit of it. So when we look and we say, okay, the divine creative force is in everything, everywhere, and some of it is in me. And if each of us open to this creative force that is within us, we will have our own unique expression of it. Now here's my take on it. And is that we have this creative force within us. It has its own expression that, you know, it's sort of like looking through a person, you know, if you turn it and turn it and the things move and you see all these beautiful different shapes and colors. The creative force is like that. It depends on the person that it goes through, okay? And so we have this, and we can learn how to develop based on our interests. And again, if we were in a different, when we were in more of a older cultures, the older people would look at the children and see, oh, that one's going to be a carver, and that one is going to sew and do needlework and beadwork and things like that and You know, that one's a warrior. And so they would look at the strengths to know of me, okay? And they would all be, you know, invited to sing or chant or dance as part of the community involvement. So the ability to use your voice and to move your body was part of community. We've lost that. So we have to go and create it. We have to find it, okay? We have to find the choir. We have to find the dance class we have to find the place where we can you know move together and sing together and share together or chant together or meditate together and pray together all those things that are natural to our own creative and spiritual self you know and so creativity is moving all the time through us and creativity somehow in our society it's become like the artist's own creativity No, I'm sorry. We all have some. So you can cook, and the creative force can be moving through you and how you cook. You don't have to be a chef at a fancy restaurant or be doing television, you know, Martha Stewart's and things like that. You can just cook for your family in a creative way. You can do gardening creatively. There's almost everything. You can arrange the clothes in your closet creatively, okay? You can arrange your home in a way that speaks to you. And so if we look at how do I nourish this, how do I nourish and give expression to this creative force within me? And how do I let it come into every aspect of my life? What would that look like? like your own fantastic spider web that attracts the, the, the people you want into your life, hopefully. Well, just, I don't know that way. It's not the power bird. Okay. So the spider is there to catch lunch and dinner and breakfast. Thank you very much. That's what he's doing. Okay. Where's lunch. So, I want to be careful what we drag. And forget about, you know, forget about anybody else. How about if we just say, this is my authenticity, and this is, you know, this is, and finding that balance of self and other, and self and other, and finding that flow and ebb and flow of, how much nurturing and creativity is ours that we just simply enjoy. And we do it because it gives us pleasure and then how much we share with others, you know, and how much we do with others. And so there's this kind of give and take and ebb and flow that happens. Do you think that there's an interesting, it seems to me there's an interesting relationship between creativity and time. It feels like creativity forces you to be in the now. Do you have any thoughts on that? I would agree with you 100% because it's hard to, I mean, sure, lots of people can multitask, but it won't, then you're not really just moving in the stream of consciousness with your creativity. You know, you're not really meditating if you're doing your shopping list or reviewing the argument that you had with your colleague or your teenage son. Right. That's not meditating, sorry. And so, yeah, be here now is a lot harder than it looks. It's a moment-by-moment effort. And you have to, everyone, please, you've got to keep a sense of humor. You have to. You won't survive if you don't. The sense of humor is what helps us to smile and say, oh, okay. Not being here now, so get back on it. Ah, creativity. What else does it connect to? I think it connects to our relationships, the way we live our lives. If we choose to be creative in the way we see the world, then we're choosing to be creative in our relationships. So you're saying that if we open to the creative force that is within us, that we're connected to, that everything is connected to, that we can allow that creativity to work in our relationships. How does that manifest? What would that look like? I think for me, it looks like seeing myself in other people. And sometimes you have to be really creative to do that. Like you have to be like, oh, this person's really upset. That reminds me of when I'm upset. Maybe, you know, and you begin to, and then there comes the sense of humor. It's like, oh, well, look at that. that. They're showing me the things I do wrong. Thank you for that. And all of a sudden you can laugh instead of being upset or feeling their anger wash over you. Instead, you can be like, oh, this is a lesson for me to learn right here. The creative kaleidoscope through which you can see things. I think that that speaks back to the idea of relationships and creativity and learning and speaking with the environment. Yes, totally agree 100%. And, you know, and What you're talking about, I think, is creativity and it's creativity with awareness. Yeah. Okay, we're back to self-awareness and awareness that we need to bring consciousness into everything. So what I think you're talking about is having self-awareness to work with the creative force in the moment with how we manage everyday life challenges. Right. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. You have to be creative to deal with the emotions that come at you. Because if you're not creative about it, then you're just seeing it not blind, but you're seeing it with blinders on. If you only see the blunt force of the emotion, you don't get the whole picture. And I think that you need to be creative. You need to understand that this force we call creation is creating you. It's shaping you. You can see these things that look like problems, that look like tragedies. Just try and pause and be aware for a moment and think, what else could this mean? And that forces the creative juices to flow and the imagination to move and the situation brightens up and the bird starts singing a little bit. And maybe it's not a happy song, but still the bird's singing right there. And maybe this thing that looks like a really bad thing is actually some goodness that comes from it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There's so many stories about what looks like a bad thing is a good thing and what looks like a good thing is a bad thing. And almost every culture has a version of those stories. And it is so. We can look back in our life and say, oh, that part was so hard. But you know what? Look at all the good things I learned from that. Look at the good things that happened because I worked with that with consciousness, because I did my best through that, because I let myself learn. And some lessons are hard and difficult, and it takes us a while. Yeah, it takes us a while to gain support in all the different ways that it can happen, and we can find it. And this ability to find meaning with awareness and work with creativity is what allows our moment-by-moment life to have a better quality. The moment when you realize you can use that shovel that you've been digging to be a ladder and climb out of the hole. We take what we've got, we work with it. That's right. We can only work with what arrives. With what arrives and who arrives. You know? That's all we've got. We don't have, you know, it's like the, was it Apollo 11, Apollo 13? I always forget, you know, where they had a, glitch in a system, and the scientists took a conference room and a table, and they put all the bits and parts, and they said, okay, well, all these bits and parts, we can manage to, we've got to build something from that. We don't have one extra bit to work with. It's just got to be those things. We can't say, well, if we had that, because we don't have it. And they managed to cobble something together that actually worked. allowed those good folks in the spacecraft to come back, you know? And so that's what life is, is you've only got what's on the table. And wishing and hoping, you know, and wishing and hoping within themselves are okay. But it can't be a lifestyle, you know? It can't be, it can't preempt taking healthy steps in a good direction. Yeah, I think that speaks volumes too. I love the idea of having your cards on the table or having your particular box of goods on the table and then realizing, okay, this is your box, but you can create something just as inspiring or more inspiring than anybody else with your box of goods. I'm like, that's the goal. You don't get to choose your box. Your box is given to you. And you get to make whatever you want though. And that's where the real freedom is, is that there's real inspiration there. And people from far tables can come and look at the thing that you made. And I think that that's where the idea of creativity and inspiration can really be drilled down to the individual's ability to look at themselves and that which is given to them in the environment and abundance. Yes. So, How do we open to this creative force? How do we allow it to give us, to enhance our awareness, to work with awareness and creativity, to bring meaning into our everyday life, to look with fresh eyes at our work and say, does this still have heart and soul meaning to me? Or am I stuck in a rut that I dug myself? You know? Because we can easily do that. We can dig a rut and then complain about the rut that we're in. But when we look and say, oh, wait a minute, yeah, I did dig that rut myself. And so I can change that. I can change it. And so positive, meaningful attitudes and ideas and creativity and bringing them into our workforce and bringing them into how we whether we're studying or building a career or changing a career or going back to school after years at home, maybe raising children or, you know, going back to school to study something. And now we're launching out into the, the eldest person who I supported to go back to school was 60 years old, a client many, many decades ago. And she said she, one of her regrets was, well, she, I'm going to university and I feel shame. But I've had all these years to go back. What stopped you? Decades to go back. And so we have a wonderful institute here where you can, I forget the word for it, but you can take a course but you don't have to write the exam. Of course, obviously, you don't kind of get a credit or certificate or anything, but they can contribute towards should you sign up. you know, to take credit courses, they can. And I said, well, why don't you just go to that institute and just take, or any institute and take a course, one course, and just see, do you like being in the classroom? Maybe you go and you find you don't even like it. You know, you will have spent all these decades mourning that you didn't do it and feeling insecure and inferior because you didn't do it and maybe you won't even like it. Well, funny thing was is she left it and she went on to get a degree and graduated. And how cool is that? That's really cool, right? So it's not too late. Nobody should sit around saying, oh, if I would have done this, I should have done that. I mean, some things, there's a cutoff. You're 40 years old, I think it's too late for medical school. There is a cutoff for medical school. And perhaps some other schools, there's a cutoff. You want to be an astronaut? No, you're 40? Probably not. so there are cutoffs and then there's a lack of natural talent you might be a you know a concert pianist but you don't like practicing scales probably not going to happen okay you know try another instrument and and have fun with it you know or choose another activity explore and so Just because you didn't do it in the past is not predictive. It does not mean you cannot do it in the future. And so I don't have a lot of patience for people who have this sad story about how they never did this and never did that. Go do it. Go do it. Do it and have fun. Bring all your creativity and your positivity and everything in it and have fun. You know, so it's never too late. Don't have those kind of regrets. If it's about career, work, studying, creativity, people who always said, well, you know, I always wanted to, I don't know, whatever it is, paint or something. There's lots of courses and lots of things to do. Go, learn, learn, enjoy, have fun, set yourself free. And if you find out, well, I didn't really like it after all, isn't that a joy that you found that you don't have to worry about not doing it anymore? And sometimes a career ends with an injury. For a period of time, I had quite a few clients who were from the National Ballet School. And, you know, they'd have an injury and they'd go, are they ever going to dance again? And so helping people understand, well, okay, but how could you dance in a way? Maybe this injury is going to stop you from going back on the stage. Maybe you're not going to be able to do that anymore. Then how else do you bring dance into your life? Do you want to choreograph? Do you want to work with small children? Teach children ballet? So there's looking at all the ways of how can I bring what I love if I genuinely can't do it anymore because of illness or injury or something, okay? And with athletes and some people, an injury can take you right out of a, hockey career, baseball career, dance career, you know. And so how do you adjust that so that you still have this thing that you love in your life, even if it's just volunteering for the kids' soccer because, you know, you become the coach. You know, you know all the rules. You know how to do it. Maybe you can't run anymore because of that knee thing. But, boy, you can teach them to run. You can teach them to kick the ball. And so you can bring joy back. into your work life and your activities and your creativity. If you're willing to take a long, slow, deep breath and step back and look at it from a much bigger perspective, it's so easy to narrow it all down and focus onto that tiny little box of misery that says, I can't do that. I didn't do that. Or I'm not good enough to do that. Or I should be doing that instead because that's more important. Well, that's such a tiny little thought form of misery, you know, and truly we don't want to live anymore. Right? Yeah. Such a, we wandered around today. I love it. I love it. We wandered around. Is there anything else that we can say about work and studies and career? Oh yeah, there's a few more things. Yeah. Never discount You know, what I said to my kids is, it's okay, you change streams. You know, you don't want to, you don't want to, my daughter loved her sports and her athletics, and she not only did the sport, but she'd end up coaching the kids first in high school, and then she'd go and coach, see Jeff, and, you know, and she, so she figured, natural, she figured, I'm going to, you know, go into a sports athlete training or whatever. She hated it. She was two years old. We've always said to her, you're going to be a lawyer. This girl could argue. Okay. She had a sense of justice inside of her, you know? Okay. So she became a lawyer and then she got, she did get her doctorate in law and then she, now she's a federal judge. Okay. And so it's like what we could see inside of her. I and my mother could see it since she was like two or three years old. It was like just jangling out of her, but we, I felt to give her the space in the room to follow the things that she's interested in. And so, you know, she did a year or so of stuff and it's like, finished not liking it, changing, changed into something else that she really did like much better, got her undergraduate degree and went, I'm going to go to law school. And there you go. You know, but every, oh, You know, everything, I taught her then, and everyone can learn from this, that nothing that you learn goes to waste. Everything that you learn is valuable and contributes to the well-being and the education in your life. So it doesn't matter if you switch streams or you drop out after one year and go back and start over to go into a completely different stream or study or something. You don't lose a year. The year's not lost. Lots of good experience and learning and teaching went in. It was valuable. And doesn't that almost speak to the idea that Sometimes I think the way I think I'll be thinking about a particular idea about my podcast and then some random thought will pop into my head. And I've learned that that is the next thought in the series of where I'm going. Instead of trying to fight that and be like, wait a minute, why am I thinking about my daughter going to school instead of this podcast? If you doesn't understand like that is the next step in getting to where you're going. So too is that with life, this thing that seems unexpected is the next step in the process. And when you embrace that, it's like, oh, this isn't some random thing. This is the next logical step, but I didn't know. And how could you know? But if once you begin understanding there's a bigger picture here, there's something bigger going on and you allow that stream to flow in that stream instead of fighting it, it really helps you to open up to the creativity. It helps you open up to the awareness. It helps you open up to the bigger plan that is unfolding in front of you, right? Does that seem accurate to you? Yes, it does. And a word of wisdom about that. Okay. Okay, it takes self-awareness and good inner judgment to be able to listen to the voice of intuition and to trust which is a distraction from that which is the next step. Because what I'm hearing is you're open-minded to be able to allow things to come in to check it out. Okay? versus some people who seem pulled by every whim okay they're like the helium balloon that lost okay every way the wind you know or the or the rowboat with no oars okay whichever the nerd's gonna take it it's gonna take it and so some people are like that and it doesn't even make sense what they're doing and their life doesn't make sense and it doesn't look like or feel like the next right step it just looks like a whole lot of diversions you know and a whole lot of scattered energy and a whole lot of incompleteness and so there's a lot of wisdom that is required to be able to recognize okay this is my intuition working now and this is something for me to pay attention to and allow and then act on and having the ability to recognize the next step when it's in front of us Versus being like a little butterfly. Oh, there's another flower. Oh, there's another. And so intuition, working with creativity, working with spirituality, working with awareness, you know, and this is the circle of wholeness. This is walking around and seeing that every aspect of our life is connected. It's the medicine circle. Everything in our life is connected. And whatever we do in one area of our life is going to filter around and affect everything in the rest of the circle of our life. Yes? Yeah. Yeah. I think it speaks volumes of the path, of the way you live your life. Yeah. Sometimes I wonder, and I think maybe perhaps you are uniquely qualified to answer this question with some of the work you've done with some incredible people, Stanislav Grof and Dr. Robert Asagioli. At times, in heightened states of awareness, you can have, you can live Entirely other lives and you can see the choices you've made and you can It defies the common idea of time that we live in today but there are different states of awareness where you can live out different lives based on different choices you've made and if you can find yourself in that situation, I really think it helps you understand your life when you come back to this time and You understand, hey, I don't have to be this person. I can be this person or I could be that person. And sometimes it's so difficult to break the conditioning. But in these altered states of consciousness, you can live these other lives and it can be done. People can get there and it can change their life if they can have some of these moments. Maybe you could speak to that a little bit because I think it can be life-transforming sometimes. I have to tell you what I'm grinning at. When you were saying, and I can be this person, I can be that person, all I could think of was the, I believe it's Oscar Wilde, which says, be yourself, everyone else is taken. That's such a beautiful quote. He's brilliant. A lot of his quotes are just amazing. Yeah, be yourself. And this is the self that you're being, and this is, you know, which is always... It's the awareness that's changing. So you spoke about non-ordinary states of consciousness. So it's not the us that's changing. It's our awareness and perception of ourselves in this reality that's changing. That's all that's changing. So you spoke about non-ordinary states of consciousness. Non-ordinary states of consciousness have the power to awaken us to this larger perception of who I am in reality. It helps us to have a larger perception of ourselves, our inner world, and the outer world. And non-ordinary states of consciousness, those who are interested in it, it's in my books, it's on many of my podcasts. It's the area that I've worked in most deeply for the last 40, 50 years, an area of fascination. We can be in a non-ordinary state of consciousness when we're meditating, when we're asleep. We're in a non-ordinary state of consciousness. And in the dream state, in a hypnotized state, and then there are entheogens, sacred plants and psychedelics that give a quicker, larger access to the non-ordinary state of consciousness. And yet, in the history of the human species, we have used non-ordinary states of consciousness either simply mediated through fasting, sensory deprivation, ritual ceremony, trans-singing, trans-dancing. You know, there's so many ways. Meditating, there's so many ways. Different initiations, you know. And then the sacred plants that have been used for millennia upon millennia to help people in divination and in community ritual and for healing. And so this is a very important part of being human, is learning how to manage ourselves and understand ourselves through self-awareness. And those people who feel called to work in non-ordinary states of consciousness, and that's a whole other different conversation. We've had a few of them happy in the future to have more, requires a different set of tools to work with, a different kind of education to be able to work in non-ordinary states of consciousness, a different level of ethics to work in non-ordinary states of consciousness. But for sure, you're right. Once that sense of self, which can happen spontaneously, happens spontaneously, it has for me. All my earlier experiences were spontaneous experiences, and still many of them are. And so for some of us, the veil is very thin between this reality and the other realities. And for other people, it's harder to access. And for other people, they're not interested. And that's all okay. And that's just all okay. It really is. We have to respect each person's karma. And each person has their destiny, their themselves, kind of understanding of their life choices and their life path, and how to navigate that path and that journey. I'm going full of time. Hi. It has been wonderful. It always is a joy to hang out with you and talk about things of mutual interest and have some laughs over things. And it's a joy. Thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. And before I let you go, would you be so kind as to remind people where they can find you, what you have coming up and what you're excited about? Anybody who's looking for the work that I do and the things that interest me, please go to my website, www.revdrjessicarochester, all lowercase, all one word, .com. And you will find lots of videos and audios. They're available free for educational purposes. You'll find lots of links to George's shows. And yes, absolutely. And I hope that people find these things of interest. Those of you who want to connect with me on social media, the only one I'm really active on is LinkedIn. And to all my colleagues and friends on LinkedIn, thank you for all the wonderful things that you post and for all the excellent work that you're doing. Well, that's what we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you all have a beautiful day. I hope you take some time to find your creative spark and you see how meaningful you are because everybody is and we need everybody to become the best version of themselves so that the world can be the best version of itself. And that's all we got for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you have a beautiful day. Aloha.