In this November 2023 episode of the "Three Wise Men Podcast," we dive deep into the realms of spirituality, community, and personal growth with our guest, Julie Cher. As the owner of Pure Pizza and co-founder of Big Love Yoga Barn, Julie shares her unique journey from grappling with religious constraints to embracing a holistic spiritual path. She reflects on her awakening and evolution, emphasizing the importance of community in fostering personal and collective growth.
Julie discusses the challenges and rewards of navigating her business and spiritual endeavors, highlighting how Big Love Yoga Barn has become a vibrant hub for diverse spiritual practices. From yoga and meditation to sound baths and ecstatic dance, the barn offers a sanctuary for exploration and connection.
Moreover, Julie opens up about her personal struggles and victories, revealing how her experiences have shaped her understanding of community. She defines it as a space where vulnerability is honored, and authentic connections thrive. The episode is a profound exploration of how spirituality and community intersect, offering insights and inspiration for anyone on a similar path of discovery.
@bigloveyogabarn
@thebarnoncentral
https://www.purepizzaclt.com
https://www.bigloveyogabarn.com
0:00 Community and Spiritual Awakening Through Yoga
9:52 Journey Into Yoga, God, and Community
18:46 From Reluctance to Community
25:48 Community and Growth
38:52 Embracing Uncertainty and Curiosity
In this November 2023 episode of the "Three Wise Men Podcast," we dive deep into the realms of spirituality, community, and personal growth with our guest, Julie Cher. As the owner of Pure Pizza and co-founder of Big Love Yoga Barn, Julie shares her unique journey from grappling with religious constraints to embracing a holistic spiritual path. She reflects on her awakening and evolution, emphasizing the importance of community in fostering personal and collective growth.
Julie discusses the challenges and rewards of navigating her business and spiritual endeavors, highlighting how Big Love Yoga Barn has become a vibrant hub for diverse spiritual practices. From yoga and meditation to sound baths and ecstatic dance, the barn offers a sanctuary for exploration and connection.
Moreover, Julie opens up about her personal struggles and victories, revealing how her experiences have shaped her understanding of community. She defines it as a space where vulnerability is honored, and authentic connections thrive. The episode is a profound exploration of how spirituality and community intersect, offering insights and inspiration for anyone on a similar path of discovery.
@bigloveyogabarn
@thebarnoncentral
https://www.purepizzaclt.com
https://www.bigloveyogabarn.com
0:00 Community and Spiritual Awakening Through Yoga
9:52 Journey Into Yoga, God, and Community
18:46 From Reluctance to Community
25:48 Community and Growth
38:52 Embracing Uncertainty and Curiosity
Three wise men still figuring out podcasts.
Speaker 2:Three wise men still figuring out podcasts.
Speaker 1:Here we are again.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, because I, so I want to get this right as we start. So our guest today is Julie Ghazi, and do you prefer to go by Ghazi, because I know I've seen another last name? That's actually my middling. Okay.
Speaker 3:Is.
Speaker 2:Cher.
Speaker 3:I was born in the 70s and my mom and dad loved Sonny and Cher and so that became my middle name and she's just. I'm proud of it. I love it.
Speaker 2:She's iconic.
Speaker 3:She's badass.
Speaker 2:As well you should be.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, so that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I keep Ghazi, because my daughter's last name is Ghazi and I always thought I would change it whenever she graduated high school, and then I don't know it. Just it's a connection piece with her.
Speaker 2:So totally An important connection that's fantastic.
Speaker 3:If she ever decides to change her last name, then at that point in time then I'll change my last name, yeah.
Speaker 2:So officially it's Julie Cher Ghazi. Yeah, okay, owner of Pure Pizza. Yes, also owner, if not co-founder, of the non-for-profit Big Love Yoga Barn.
Speaker 3:Co-founder. Yeah, it's a community run, community started community birthing experience, and so we decided that no one wanted to be the owner of such a beautiful creation, and so we're. Yeah, so I'm a founding board member.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay. Which leads us, I think, kind of why we're here today, is your involvement in community. That's that's how I know you, that's how I experience you, that's where many, if not all, of our discussions usually lead in some form or fashion in regards to community, yeah, and the importance of it, and you know all the things that are that are going on. So I think what better way to jump into conversation, yeah, and I guess I think how did you? Why did Big Love Yoga Barn call to you?
Speaker 3:It was. I was in a transition space in my life. I started Kali yoga on 36th Street in 2019. And then it was 11 11 2019 and then COVID hit just a few months later. So I had both locations of Pure Pizza navigating COVID and all of the disruptions and the changes and employees and and we had just started the studio and I don't know. I we kind of navigated through the, the initial part of it and and it it was made clear to me that I needed to transition out of the ownership of for-profit wellness and that was hard, that was really hard. I was not happy with it.
Speaker 1:Can you explain for-profit wellness, like what that was? Yeah?
Speaker 3:I mean for-profit wellness would be around yoga studios, gyms, anywhere that it's not under either 501c3 or some type of not-for-profit, and it was just made clear to me that it was. I did not want to be in that space, and so I had gone to Alaska in September of 2020 and I was out in the wilderness and it was just a very powerful download and I was. I wasn't happy about it. I wrestled with that download a lot and I surrendered to it. So I came back and started to transition into selling that for-profit business and then, at the same time, jason Kierce walked into the restaurant and I I'm not at the restaurant a lot. I curated my role so that I could do it wherever. You know, handling things that were outside of the day-to-day operations, and so I just happened to be there this day. Jason walks in and says, hey, it's gonna. So this is now like October and he says I've been doing my yoga classes outside. What are you doing with the barn?
Speaker 3:And see, the barn, from 2015 to 2020, was used as a farmers market a weekly farmers market. We had a Saturday, and Sunday was the vegan market. Then it was also used for a lot of community events. You know we've had poet laureates, and they are. We've done birthday parties, you know, rehearsal dinners, things along that line.
Speaker 3:But it was dead, completely dead, and I tried to get out of the lease with my landlord and he was like no, so here, I was just paying for it and it was. There was no activity happening. So I was like, yes, jason, please use it, come inside and use it. And he is such an artist that then he said could I paint? And I was like whatever you want, it's your palette. And so it started to come alive the first time I walked in and he and Kristen Stevens had did the sacred geometry on the floor. I walked in. It was like I thought I was levitating. I was like what is happening in here? So beautiful. And then he said there are other teachers that want to teach in here. And I said, well, let's just get some liability agreements in place. And and then it just continued to grow and grow and and then on November 11th of 2021, 2021 Kali was having her second year anniversary and it was the same weekend that the barn was having her one year anniversary. So it was just very Divinely orchestrated.
Speaker 4:We still involved with Kali at that time, so when did you part ways?
Speaker 3:in February of 2021?
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah, so when everything became official, so it was just a really beautiful experience.
Speaker 3:So, so, seeing the barn to start to evolve into this thing, that none of us were trying to Brand it or, you know, dictate what was happening it just became a space that I Don't know about, you guys, but I feel like so many people are really starting to come online with their gifts, and so this just became a space that people could come into and offer their gifts to the public In a way that we've been donation based, kind of flipped the model of the for-profit. So, instead of the you know, the barn collecting all of the payments from students and what have you, and then trickling it down to the teachers, the teachers collect all of their own Payments from the students and then they make a donation to the barn. So we inverted the model to really keep the money in the hands of the healers and they had creative, you know authority to bring in what they wanted. How have they wanted? So it wasn't trying to dictate this is the brand and this is how you need to stick within that.
Speaker 3:So drum circles and ecstatic dance and so many different types of yoga and sound baths, and so it's just. It's been an experience.
Speaker 1:That goes back to the community stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean bring the community in and allowing the community to grow and yeah, so that's when we decided to turn it into a 501 C3, because and then it'd be a community board, community led, community driven, and so yeah, so here we are sounds like the barn had its own plan.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you just been following the guidance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, even with the farmers market. You know it. That sprouted up because there was a woman that I knew named Pat Farrell that lived in the neighborhood and you know she's grew up on farms and just the love of dirt you know and and who she is.
Speaker 3:And she was the one that said you know, this is a blank slate, like we could. We could do farmers market in here. And I was like, alright, pat, see what you can do and. And then it's so. I feel like the barn is a portal. The barn does what she wants to do.
Speaker 1:I have a question. So, before growing before all this stuff, where did your journey start with? Like in the yoga and the spiritual you're awakening like that?
Speaker 3:That's a good question. I Think I've always been on my own Curated path of a spiritual awakening. I I grew up in the south with A family that Was very much into your religion and I say I'm a recovering southern Baptist and so growing up it never sat with me. Just the rules and the the, the ideas and the beliefs, and anytime I tried to question then it was, oh, you don't, that's the inherent word, god, you don't ask questions about this.
Speaker 3:And so I I had to break away from that at a young age and I kind of went on my own sojourn and somehow ended up in Europe for about five years and away from, you know, like the Family, belief systems, and and then things just started happening. You know, I realized at a young age that I don't think that I'm special, and at a young age I realized that my powers of manifesting are, yeah, they're real, yeah, so a lot of things just have happened along the way that I I know were not of me, and but then with yoga it came online when I was pregnant, because there wasn't a lot the more pregnant I became and there wasn't a lot of physical movement working out things that I could do. So that kind of started that journey Into that, into that space 2000?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, you know it just as, as yoga has become more, there's a sweet period of time where yoga had not been hijacked by you know the powers of the powers of me and you know, a lot of it now has kind of moved into Fitness yoga, yeah, and I think that it's beautiful as an entry point into experience in yoga and, yeah, I, I, I see that there is a resurgence again of moving away from that kind of, you know, fitness space as a workout and moving it back into the mind-body spirit experience.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah. Well, said a couple things for anyone listening or viewing. When you alluded to the God aspect, just for clarity, because some people might be like, okay, so did she, you know. And when she stepped away from the Southern Baptist or experienced there, they might not have the concept of, because I, in knowing you, have found you to be someone of God's source, universe, creator. However, you understand what that means and you apply that in the wholeness of life, the oneness, ie your tie to community. So it's not kind of a rejection of that, it's what it truly means, which I think most people miss the boat From a structured and a programmed standpoint, if that makes not to put words in your mouth.
Speaker 3:No, I've said this before like religion in the sense that I grew up with, was more about we're going to tell you what God is, and there was little room for the experience of God. So it was a very head heady, you know, type of, and then you've got to follow the rules and fit into this box so that God will love me, and that just was like. So I went on a big journey of can I say, the effort.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can say it.
Speaker 3:I remember well, I was introduced to.
Speaker 2:I was introduced to.
Speaker 3:Waterside Church, and that was the first time that I was able to go in and start to question God, and I remember saying to Matt O'Neill, one of the co-passers there, I was like I fucking hate God and he's like who? All right, good, we got a place to start. And so to really start to acknowledge the resentment that I had of this being that I was like this can't be what it is, and so finally giving myself permission to start to explore the experience of God has opened up my world into that and now it makes sense on the experiences that I was having as a child. You know this relationship with my own desires and speaking into the universe. This is what I want in the universe, being like well, here you go, right, not because I'm a good person or I follow the rules or I fit into the narrative, it was just.
Speaker 3:It came from a place of my innermost, my soul, speaking and speaking that desire then into you know, the ether and the universe always responded, and so now I have, you know, books of experiences that no one can take away from me, it's undeniable right. So that to me is is God, is God is.
Speaker 1:And you were following your own rules.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is not what we're taught to do.
Speaker 4:Right, you had to find God on your own terms, you know, on your own unique relationship.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:It reminds me of the story of Siddhartha. You guys ever read that book? I don't know, Well, you should read it. It's really good.
Speaker 4:But basically, you know, he grew up but he was in this kingdom basically, where they had always amazing teachers and everything. They taught him all. He had the greatest of teachers, you know, they taught him all the stuff. But he was like, in a nutshell, he needed to leave and go out into the world and have his experiences and make his mistakes and, do you know, go out into experiential life to learn firsthand all these things, rather than being just taught them from books or teachers and all these things. And it's a little different, I mean because but just like having somebody tell you here all the rules, which takes all the curiosity out of everything, and curiosity I feel like that's like the gateway to experiencing God, like being curious and wonder and awe. I mean that's like the road to discovery and everything is so interesting.
Speaker 4:We were saying that before about, like, don't question anything, you know, and these are the rules. It's like literally just cuts off our connection to God. It does, you know. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2:And it starts typically at such a young age with intent.
Speaker 4:You know, when you look at it it's like oh, that's intention, because it shuts you down, let alone starts creating traumas early on and I do think you know I mean to the people most of the time who are doing that, have the best of intentions, to they're not trying to do that. You know they think they're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:But there's also that judgment that's always lingering in that too as well, and I'm sure they're doing it because they grew up the same way.
Speaker 4:They're passing along with the same condition.
Speaker 3:And they're scared of what?
Speaker 4:might happen if they do question. You know like you're told to get a go to hell and you know it's like ruling by their fear, really, you know, which is also not really God in my experience.
Speaker 3:Well, paul Smith. Paul R Smith wrote a book. He's become such a beautiful mentor of mine over the years, but he wrote a book called Intercal Christianity and he tracks human evolution with that of our relationship, ideas, culturally, as God, and it came alive. For me, this, what you were talking about, is this very tribal instinct I've got to fit inside the group because it's unsafe if I'm outside of that. So we conform into you, know what the group think, group consciousness is, and to start to see that and to be able to allow myself to break away from that into the experience, going into the wilderness basically.
Speaker 2:Which is a scary space, right, because?
Speaker 3:you're charting paths that are unknown in your own experience. And then, well, what happens when I have this profound experience but I have no one to talk to about it? Do that happen? Is it real? And so now to see the community really coming together. I can talk about weird shit all day long and people are like, yes, me too, you know, and so to be in community now to share. That is yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so my question, though, is to know if I can have a conversation with somebody, is to ask them if they believe in UFOs. So then you know you can go deep, right, right, it's a great start.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think we all have our little like drops that we do in regards to okay, can I really have a conversation with this person? And so you drop something that is like, oh, okay, yes, I can, or automatically, okay, this is a yeah.
Speaker 4:Or even if they don't believe in you, a foes. I mean, are they willing to be curious with it? Right, it's a really good one. Oh no, right, do you have an open mind or a closed mind?
Speaker 3:Yeah, this morning I was just gonna close my mouth, but then I was just gonna yeah, it's an easy entry point For sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you're talking to the person that's, you know, talking about football or whatever it is, you just go into the UFOs and break up the conversation.
Speaker 2:Have you ever seen a?
Speaker 1:UFO in a game. Yeah exactly that's what I'm doing?
Speaker 2:So because and to kind of tie a little bit of this together, would I hear, when I hear your, where you've been, and then what you've discovered about yourself, and then your involvement in community. And as I met you, based on the conversations that I've had with you, it's very clear to me that you are and Jeff, you alluded to this as well you're a heart based individual, like that's where a lot of your manifestation comes from. In regards to intention, which I would say is a direct time correlation, to quote, unquote, god that we've been talking about, yeah, and when you look at opportunities to serve, in most instances those involve community. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Again, not to put words into it. No, no, yeah, I would say that and you know, when I moved to Charlotte I did not want to come here. I visited once and 99, my parents had. My parents had moved here in the early 90s and I would come in to visit and I would okay, where are you coming? From Georgia.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I come and visit in college. And I just was like could not wait to get out of here every time that I came home for holidays. And then I came back from, moved back from Europe and was here for just a short moment and then left and went right back to Atlanta. And then all of a sudden my job was like we've got this great opportunity for you. We're gonna move you to Charlotte. I was like, no, so here I come back again.
Speaker 3:So I got back here in 99 officially and then thinking I'm only gonna be here for a few months, I cannot wait to get out of here, and picking the next city I was gonna go to. And then I ended up getting pregnant unexpectedly and I was like, okay, don't know what to do here. And that was definitely a very spiritual experience because I had, on one hand, I couldn't. It was a very lonely time because I couldn't tell my family what happened, because, although I totally support a woman's choice to do what needs to be done in relationship with her and the father here, I was in my own situation like whoa, I don't know what to do, and so I couldn't talk to my parents about it because it would be an immediate oh, you're keeping it. And then yet the father and his family were like, no, you're not keeping it. So I'm sitting between the polarity of two extreme decisions.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:And had no one to talk to you, because in 99, we didn't have Facebook or Instagram or texting or any of that, and my friends are all in Atlanta. I'd only been here just a couple of months, and so I was sitting one day and I was looking out the window and I was like I don't know what to do, and this very profound moment of a voice that was clearly outside of my own body said very clearly she's going to be okay, and at that moment it felt like something was wrapping like a warm blanket around me and I said I don't know what that was, but I'm not going to deny it.
Speaker 3:And so I got up and I said, okay, I'm gonna keep it. And so she has turned out to be the greatest gift of my entire life. She just turned 23 and she's one of the most amazing humans and it was so precious because that message allowed me to parent her from a place of not being in fear and to say, in the end, she's gonna be okay. She's gonna go through hard times but she's gonna be okay, and she's one of the most resilient goddesses I've ever met in my whole life.
Speaker 3:So here I was, anchored in Charlotte, in this place that I did not want to be. But now I'm here and one of the things that I noticed was just the lack of community. It was such a what church do you go to and who are you married to, kind of in the early 2000s, and here I was a single mom and I wasn't going to church, so I was very much like outside the fray. So it just is seen that, yeah, over time my life has migrated into. My desire of community is now manifesting itself into creating community, which is like whoa, that's kind of cool. I never saw that coming.
Speaker 1:So you're a certified yoga teacher?
Speaker 3:No, no, I'm a certified meditation teacher. I do EFT.
Speaker 1:Okay, EFT time.
Speaker 3:Yes, but no. I assisted yoga for a long time at Yoga One, so it wasn't to teach, it was more to be of the assist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's awesome. Do you teach any classes or do you have any? No, do you do the EFT tap and do you teach anything with that? Do you have workshops?
Speaker 3:No, I don't. What are the?
Speaker 1:ones.
Speaker 3:I should ask no, I do. If people come to me, I do. I don't put myself out there. And as I'm in this process of transitioning the location of the barn and the restaurant over to the plaza, yeah, the divine and I, I'm really uncomfortable even saying it.
Speaker 3:But we have an agreement that wants to be located that I'll come onto the schedule at the barn, which is like totally terrifying. Yeah, that's awesome, and but you know what, with you being a DJ, what has come up is is to host either a weekly or monthly church on Sundays.
Speaker 2:Ecstatic.
Speaker 3:Dance. Church Nice yeah, so that's really what's coming up.
Speaker 1:Awesome, that's fantastic. Yeah, I'm down with that.
Speaker 4:Are you able to share where on the plaza?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's right next to Tip Top. There's about a half acre. Right next to Tip Top there's a current Jamaican restaurant.
Speaker 2:That's on it.
Speaker 3:So I bought that property. Okay, and Kevin, the restaurant owner, who's not the building owner, but the restaurant owner we're going to be co-branding, so he owns the Jamaican place.
Speaker 4:He owns the Jamaican place, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's a place in Jamaica that I've been going to for a long time 2007, I think and it's Treasure Beach. It is. It's this tiny little fishing village, farming area on the southwest corner of the island, so it's about three hours from Montego Bay, three hours from Kingston, and it is farming and fishing, and there are no hotels, there's only just a couple of restaurants and somehow or another. I stumbled onto it a long time ago and that space is actually, it felt for a long time it felt more like home than Charlotte did.
Speaker 3:So, I have a lot of friends that are down there. It's a beautiful community, very heart-led community, and there's a place there called Jack's Brex and it is the dopest pizza restaurant and they also serve traditional Jamaican food and it's a very community-oriented like. I can't remember if it's Tuesday or Thursday night, but it's movie night, so all the town comes out, they have a stage, they have all these reggae bands that come and play, so it is just like it's part of the heartbeat of the community. There's only about 2,500 people that live there, so that's what I saw when that's the inspiration.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so then I was able to share that with Kevin and he's like Yama, you know so. And then I told him about the barn and showed him all like a bunch of videos and all the really cool stuff, and he's like that's coming here and I was like that's the plan and he's like I'm totally in. It just becomes this. You know I've talked about this before that as we're watching this augmented reality, you know, try to replace the human experience and bring us into the world of AI and we're losing the ability to just be humans with other humans, not y'all Like that's why.
Speaker 3:I love how the community has sprouted in Charlotte so much, but this just becomes a place where it's real people, you know, just doing real human stuff that computers can't do with you.
Speaker 1:There's going to be more of a need, especially when we're talking about AI and all that. There's going to be more of a need of that community and there's going to be more of a need of that person doing something, not just the computer doing it Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4:So the restaurant's moving too. Yeah, same location. Yeah, is the decision making Did. Your making place is going to be there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he's moving into a food truck. So we've got it designed as like the. There's no indoor seating, so everything will be like in the sort of indoor, outdoor, year-round usage. Part of that is that they ever tried to shut us down like they did with COVID. It's like I think we're outside yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, kind of like a bread which is the only soul type thing, the only soul.
Speaker 3:Or good year, good year.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That's where I went with your sister for dinner the other night. We saw it there for like five hours. It was amazing, oh nice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was so good. I love that whole vibe. It reminds me of like I feel like I'm in Costa Rica or something like Jamaica, yeah. It feels, like another, it's transported.
Speaker 3:Exactly, that's exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah, excited, it's pretty scary at times. This is the first time I've not had a business partner. That is the first time I've not been in a romantic relationship. You know, not had that partner in the experience of some kind. So it feels very vulnerable and exposed a lot during this and you know, as you were talking about the divine masculine, feminine medicine, this was very I chose to come down this path and it's been very much an integration of my own divine, masculine and feminine that if I had a partner. So this is, yeah, it's kind of locking things into place in a way that I'm like, oh, I love this and this is so scary.
Speaker 1:That's where the most growth happens, though.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is. It's a lot of growth.
Speaker 2:It's so true.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is there. If somebody wanted to look into whether you know, doing a class or sharing modality or just participating in Big Love Yoga Barn, what would be the easiest way for them to find?
Speaker 3:Do that On the website bigloveyogabarncom. Yeah, there's forms that you can fill out and send in. And yeah, right now we have about 20, we have like three more classes we're adding on in September. So you know close to 25 classes a week of various meditation.
Speaker 2:It's really like I mean, when we talk about the evolution and the growth and I mean again, this all coincides and coordinates with the time that we're in, from when I originally went to Big Love to what it's become like. We're talking about some severe growth like big time exponentially, because to hear that is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3:It is. Yeah, we're adding on a class next month that is for BIPOC educators. So a woman that I met with just a couple of days ago I told her it was a highlight of my week meeting her. You know, if there's anybody that you're looking to interview, like she is just she's amazing and so, yeah, bringing in just soundbath and healing to help support the educators as they're supporting students. You know deep stretch classes that we have. I mean it's just continuing to grow in ways that you know. People are migrating, people are finding it. We don't have to look for anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. That's fantastic. How many people can it hold?
Speaker 3:49. 49. Oh according to fire code, yeah, For anyone listening.
Speaker 2:Bipoc educator. Can you give a little summary of BIPOC?
Speaker 3:Yeah, bipoc is Black Indigenous People of Color. Yeah, thank you Thank you, yeah, so they're different. You know we have, you know, women's circles. You know the men's liberation group will host a bunch of events there. So it's just. I love it because if you're new into a spiritual awakening it can be a little daunting to try to figure out, like one who do I talk to about this, and then how do I go and experience things, and then who do I trust? In this space Because there are a lot of unhealed healers out there.
Speaker 3:I mean, let's be honest, you know a lot of like people that are like. I just figured out something, though Let me heal you, and it's like whoa.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That integrate for a little while you know see how it shows up in your life.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there's a lot of them, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and so so it can be, you can kind of start to. It's difficult to kind of figure out the path you know of where do I go, so I love the fact that this is this is just a spot where you can go onto the calendar and look and see. Well, this speaks to me. Okay, got intuitive. What is intuitive yoga? Right, what is acro yoga?
Speaker 3:What is what is a sound healing and just be able to be curious without having to make a commitment to some, you know, $120 a month membership or things that you don't have to say Absolutely.
Speaker 3:You just don't, you just don't you just don't like dabble in things and kind of start to experience like what sits with you, because some you know for me, I know in my own spiritual practices like what I gravitate towards but that may not be what you know for you. So like to have that kind of offering of so many different flavors of healing and community is fun. That's great.
Speaker 4:That's beautiful. So I'm curious, something I feel like I want to ask everyone of our guests from now on but if you, when you think of community like, what does that mean to you? Like, and not just what comes to your heart?
Speaker 3:Great question. Yeah, that's a good question Right off the bat. It is a place for me personally that I can drop into and feel at home. You know that I can drop into and show up with parts of me that maybe they don't want to be seen, and be willing to be seen, be willing to see others. I love being in a community where things get kind of gritty, you know, and they get a little like and maybe our old way of being is just a, you know, like we move apart or, you know, I need to talk about that person so I can get validation on my feelings Like those are the old ways of being like where we can actually come together and be like.
Speaker 3:I am so upset with you right now and I love you so much that I don't want to lose this connection. So how do we, how do we maneuver through this? And the power of that is so profound, of holding sacred those that are within the community and knowing that our Disruption could really blow things up and affect people that are not part of this. And so the coming together, like we heal the parts of us that need to be healed and we move into a different, you know, relationship with one another and to be like, wow, this is like nothing I've ever experienced before. So and that's what it feels for me Is that.
Speaker 3:And when I'm in my weakest points, you know I'm willing to be seen and that I don't have to be. I'm Julie, I'm a business owner and you know, look at me and my strength and power. It's like, no, I'm just like on the floor crying and I'm just like I need you right now, you know, and I can have a friend come over and I can just be like so, fall apart and they're just loving on me in a way that I'm just like, wow, this is, this is like nothing I've ever even knew existed. It's extremely powerful, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we'll, we'll take our turns, you know, in the one to support and help out, and yeah, in the mess sometimes and yeah, being able to honor everything that comes up with life is Crazy yeah it's beautiful, I'll be in it together, right. It's beautiful too. It's freaking, pure magic.
Speaker 3:And it's super challenging. It is really challenging because you know the hardest patterns you know become so ingrained that the Momentum to try to move out of a pattern like when every cell in your body is like no, this is how we did think you're like, but I don't want to be. I don't want to do that working anymore.
Speaker 3:How do I, how do I create new pathways in my limbic system that allow me to To experience the magic? And that was one of the things that you said earlier about. You know, the more more Religious experience like it takes away the ability to experience magic. And I've had someone say to me once they're, like you, over spiritualize everything. And I was like, okay, I mean, but Either I'm a spiritual being or I'm not right. And if I'm not a spiritual being, then what kind of world is that?
Speaker 3:I don't, I don't want to be in that belief system. So if I am a spiritual being, then how is everything not spiritual? Yeah, and so it allows me then to see the magic on a daily basis. And that allows me to drop into a level of gratitude of like, did that just happen right, there's a nice time quote something.
Speaker 4:Just going to ways to look at the world and life either as if nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle. Which way do you want to live?
Speaker 2:To right well, the the correlation, the time, spirituality to science and science, spirituality and again, wherever you know, whoever you are, whoever's listening what you know, you, whatever your belief, I and I just actually share this last name with someone it I see One proving the other out and vice versa, like that just happening more and more. It was beautiful just to hear you talk about being a spiritual person in your spirituality and what that means to you and how you want to live in that, and I'm was as you, I'm thinking it, as you said, einstein, and I'm like so you know, for anyone science based out there, you know the correlation, energy, just think energy. And then you start to think about the entanglement, the quantum entanglement, and how that's literally what we're doing and how this and stuff like this is happening more and more and more in the essence of true science is Curiosity, you know, and questioning, questioning, questioning, you know the same thing.
Speaker 4:That's the road to spiritual experience, to is that curiosity, you know? And because I think sometimes people get this thing about science. It's like, no, these are the rules, see them once again, it goes back to them. Was the religious type thing where it's like these are this is science, don't question it, it's like no, it's meant to be questioned.
Speaker 4:I think that's the whole thing you know, and that's so they're. If you approach them in that way, they yeah, like you're saying Chris, they're 20, they they show you the same things from different languages, basically.
Speaker 2:There's a modality for everyone.
Speaker 3:No, I just. I have always believed that science is just simply trying to figure out what mother nature already is right, I mean you know Right, like cycles of Day and night and our rotation in the solar system. All of that existed before we started to apply Measurements to it you know, gravity existed before we named it gravity right.
Speaker 3:So now we just get to name it in a way that we can Give context to our experience. But you're right, like we're constantly trying to figure that out, I'm, like mother nature, just sure he is and we're just trying to understand her. So to me it's the same thing. Science and spirituality, non-dualism is.
Speaker 1:We're just on a floating rock in space. We're all in our space suits.
Speaker 3:Sometimes I wonder if we're just like nothing more than like a little molecule and like some big plasma. You know ocean, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I love the fact that we don't have it figured out and we get to question and we get to experience and we get to Explore, and having it all figured out To me is kind of boring.
Speaker 4:There's something so beautiful in that. I don't know like it's kind of scary because you know our, you know we want to know. You know parts of us are ego, whatever you want to call it. You know the parts wants some certainty about knowing. You know we want to hold on to it because it feels safe, even though it's an illusion, right. But that, I don't know, is like pregnant with possibility. You know it's just like, I don't know like in the all of a sudden the whole World opens up and you can start to see things you never saw before from not knowing.
Speaker 3:You know it's an amazing space but we've started to Imply too much on the knowing you know, putting too much on credentials and the knowledge and getting fixated on that space as if you know, the knowing holds some type of power, where I think the power is in the curiosity of being able to say let's figure it out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think it's just really that, in the essence of that needing to know the credentials, need all these things is like it's a fear you know something to hold on to. It's like a life raft or something like that to me Okay now I understand something you know it's like makes us the rest of the feel better, you know, but it's like our smaller self. You know, they're always there we need an element of that to navigate the world. So it's an important part of what we are, but it isn't At all the totality.
Speaker 3:Yeah.