It’s a Muscle

or The Right Tribe

The following is an automated transcript from episode 130, with intuitive coach Sasha Lipskaia.

 

Tom Gentry: Sasha

 

Sasha Lipskaia: Tom

 

TG: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. So, I sent you, you know, did the deal that I do with people to get this going, the interview process and sent you the link for my calendar. And then you messaged me saying that you booked it. And I look at my calendar and it’s like two weeks away.

And I thought, man, I don’t want to wait that long to talk to Sasha. So yeah. So, I’m really happy to have you here and happy to have met you on Clubhouse. And we’re recording this on Clubhouse, and we have at least one listener now, which is awesome. Thank you. So, tell me about you. Where are you from?

 

Sasha: First of all, thank you for sharing that you wanted to speak to me earlier than two weeks. And I, you know, it was also very excited that can we do this tomorrow? Yeah, absolutely. And I was like, and all these things. So, this just shows me that my calendar is very full, uh, which is good. Um, and I am very excited to be here, here today.

And what about me? What about me? Where am I from? Well, I’m, you know, I, I have to say I’m from everywhere right now because I used to I’m from Russia. It’s just easier and simpler to me because I always identified as Russian. However, I was born in Bogota, so my father was Colombian. My mom is Russian, and they met when he was doing his PhD in economics in Moscow.

And so, yes, it’s a wild story. And he, so they met, he, he married her, and they moved to Columbia and there I was. And a few years later, she, well actually sooner, a couple of years into their marriage, she recognized that it wasn’t working, and she just left and went back to Moscow with me. So that’s where I spent the first 10 years of my life.

Uh, no, not 10, even eight, I would say. And then we moved to Israel when I was eight and a half. My stepfather who, who raised me is who I consider to be my dad and my mom and myself. We moved to Israel in 94. So, we actually left right? When the, you know, the Paris Troika was booming, and it was really starting to become a little bit dangerous to be in Moscow.

Things were going, the pooch happened. I don’t know if you remember that the tanks came out. It was just, you know, it was a, it was a coop the top. And my, my, my stepfather was in the country watching TV and Swan Lake was on every channel. And he was like, something has got happening right now. And then my mom happened to be in Moscow, and she did not notice any tanks.

That’s her, that’s her path. By the way, she seems to be completely immune to any drama, could be in the middle of a revolution. And she won’t know, I am the same way, by the way. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a gift. And sometimes it’s, it can be a little bit annoying to other people, but, um, she, he decided we have to leave.

You know, we have a young daughter, we can’t really, I don’t want to stay in this, in this city, in this country. So, we had an opportunity to move to Israel because Israel opened up its doors to anybody of Jewish descent, which my stepfather was, and my grandfather was Jewish. We moved. And my father being, um, this is my stepdad.

I’m referring to an artist. It was an incredible time because the three years it was spent in Israel, he actually really, really developed a presence as an artist. We had a gallery, uh, it was very successful. He already was a very successful artist in Russia. So, he left a very significant career, and he was able to reinvent himself in Israel as, as a majority of his work was painting at that time.

And sketching and spaz tells end three years in my parents being ambitious and wanting to create more, decided to explore free world and the American dream. And so, they chose to come to Canada. And it was, again, a very interesting experience because I did not have the experience of being a refugee or trying to.

Come here with a struggle. It was really easy. We were invited to come, you know, they went for an interview and Canada said it would be a gift for us to have you please come. You know, you have a very interesting body of work. You would be a wonderful addition to our country. So, we came and there, there, there starts my Canadian chapter.

Right. So, I haven’t been in Canada where I’m now ever since.

 

TG: At what age did you come to Canada?

 

Sasha: I was 12. When we came here, I was 12. I just turned 12. So, my, you know, the most significant kind of teenage, crazy, trying to find out who you are and who you’re not all of that happened in that moment. And so, we came to Quebec, we chose to come to Quebec, to Montreal because it seemed to be the most eclectic and kind of, you know, European flare.

And we, we thought there’d be more opportunities for an artist here, which did not turn out to be the case at all. And it was also really interesting because I had to learn French and English and, you know, it was a very, very different experience than I would have found had I gone to any other part of Canada, but I’m very, very lucky, you know, in that sense of being able to learn both English and French and to be in a place that is very different and yet, you know, very Western, very American.

So, yeah. So, I have been here ever since. So, it’s been now I’m turning 36, this July and a couple of months, I was going to say it a couple of years and a couple of months, uh, which means that I would be here. Yeah. It’s going to be 24 years on July 30th.

 

TG: July 30th.

 

Sasha: Yes. Yes. Three days after my birthday, we moved.

 

TG: Yeah. So, so it was your birthday, July 27th.

 

Sasha: Exactly. Yeah. That’s my dad’s

 

TG: birthday. Really it is. Yeah. Oh my God.

 

Sasha: That’s wild. Yeah. I know something aboutyour dad. 

 

TG: 1926.

 

Sasha: Oh my God. 

 

TG: Yeah. What do you know about my dad?

 

Sasha: Well, I remember your mom saying that he wasn’t a big speaker and what gives you like, you know, you said I would, I would have loved to interview him.

I wish I had interviewed him on a podcast. And he said, well, he wasn’t a big talker, but when he talked, you listened. And in that moment, Tom, I thought I should talk less.

TG: Oh, come on.

Sasha: I say this tongue in cheek. I obviously, you know, but it’s true, right. There are people who, they don’t say a lot, but when they speak, they really.

Right. You know, not to say that you and I don’t, but because they speak so little and because they have so much to say, when they do say something, it’s like, the value is as if they spoken for an hour, you know, it just like, boom. So, I’m very, almost inspired that you, you know, you got to experience that in your, in your parents.

Like, I don’t know what it’s like to be around someone like that, who doesn’t say much, but when they say something it’s like,

 

TG: wow. Yeah, yeah. Well, I got to experience lots of different things with my family being the youngest of eight, there were all different types of people. Yeah.

 

Sasha: Wow. Tom, that’s wild to me.

I’m an only child. So that is wild to me.

 

TG: Well, yeah, it’s uh, it, it was different. My nearest sibling in age is six years older than I am. So, in some ways I kind of was. And only child and they all were kind of like extensions of my parents because there are so many of us and we, my mom and I talked about this in the episode a little bit.

Um, you know, she, she jokingly mentioned that my oldest sister Mary would say that she raised me or us and, and yeah, I mean, they did a lot. I mean, by the time I came around, I was six years. I’m sure they were like, oh God, I thought we were done with this. And then half of them were teenagers. And another kid that they, you know, my mom already at eight, so they definitely had to pitch in and help anyway.

So, one of the first episodes that I did is with a friend of mine who was also a student of the course. So, I got to know her, her name is Mimi language. And she is an abstract expressionist painter from Quebec and is a painter of some notoriety there. From what I understand, I mean, she, she says she has paintings in Canadian embassies all over the world.

Wow. And she studied, she talks about this guy named Frere, Jerome, who, and must be the university there that in Montreal who, you know, he’s a Catholic priest and an expression as painter who taught her. And she actually had a meditation school there loud. Yeah. So, you have to go back and listen to that one.

She is, she’s one of these people that you can just see the love in her eyes, and she just emits this light. Yeah. So, I was definitely attracted to her immediately. And she’s really, it was the interview that I did with her that was kind of integral and figuring out what to do with this podcast because, you know, I write, and I interviewed her to write about her and then one day it hit me.

I had all this resistance to writing it and it hit me. I don’t want to write it. I want to speak it. So that’s how we shifted gears. And that’s how I decided what to do with this. So anyway, yeah. Yes. It just, you know, it was just like, I was there and now this is a good place to transition into. You’re an intuitive coach, because that was totally intuition.

Absolutely. Yes. And it works.

 

Sasha: And you tell me you not intuitive. No. But you said you want to develop your and your intuition is very strong.

 

TG: Yeah. Well, but I think we have to train ourselves to pay attention. Yeah.

 

Sasha: Yes, absolutely. It’s a muscle. Yeah.

 

TG: So how did you get, so you’re, you’re, you’re an artist, right?

Yes. You come by it easy because your mom was, what did she do, engineer?

 

Sasha: No, she’s not, no. So, she actually, she was a chemist, uh, like chemistry professor actually, uh, by trade. Right. That’s what, that was what she studied. But she, I, I say, yes, she’s an artist. And she spent most of her life managing my father.

So, she was the CEO slash sales and marketing communications and operations director for his brand, essentially. Um, which requires a lot of artistry. And, uh, she’s a brilliant, also absolutely brilliant, um, visual artists. She makes jewelry, which is beautiful. She she’s got a lot of gifts. She’s also, if she wanted to be, she would have been an incredible coach, um, and probably an incredible healer, but she’s yeah.

You know what she’s just, she flows. She is. Does that make sense? She just is. So, I feel like she didn’t, she didn’t actually miss out on anything. You know, we say sometimes our parents, you know, didn’t get to do this, but we do. I would say that’s true about my grandma and my grand great grandmother, but my mom, she had all these options, and she keeps telling me that she didn’t have the bravery and the intuition to follow them.

Like I do. I, however, believe that she intuitively felt that what was really needed is for her to support the people around her and to create with them. So, with my stepfather, for example, and now with me, she’s extremely supportive and really influences how I, how I do what I do and what I do, although she doesn’t probably know that, but she does.

 

TG: So hopefully she’ll listen. Be validated in that way.

 

Sasha: Yeah. Yeah. So, you asked me about intuition and intuitive coaching. Yes, I did. How do I, well, so the what’s the question? Well,

 

TG: how do you arrive at that? I, you know, plenty of people become coaches and it’s easy for me to understand why someone would want to coach, but how do you specifically arrive at that?

 

Sasha: So, you know, it’s, again, it’s, it’s a gift of your intuition leading. I never aspired to call myself an intuitive life coach. Um, it is something that I walked into, and I recognize that’s what I was doing. It’s one of the things that I was doing. So, coaching to me for example, is a tool. It’s not a pro, like I don’t identify as a coach.

It’s one of the things I do. Um, it’s again, it’s an actual tool in conversation, right? Coaching is a way of showing someone their potential. It’s an, it’s a way of interviewing, right? Um, and the way that I became an intuitive professional, intuitive life coach, and I recognize it was a legitimate thing. Was that I followed my intuition.

I over year ago, decided to commit fully to building my online business and my brand after many years of trying different things, going to grad school, studying different modalities and never really committing to coaching and feeling a little bit dissatisfied with the quality of education I got as a coach.

Although I didn’t know that at the time I wasn’t feeling as confident as I, as I wanted to feel. And then, uh, all, I think it’s been actually exactly a year. I was on this online webinar where I was listening to a business coach, uh, pretty much pitched their program. And I was there by virtue of following my intuition.

I got an email from somebody I’d been following on social media that I really, I liked her. I liked her energy, you know, and that’s why I was on her list. It wasn’t because I really wanted to buy from her. I liked her energy and she seemed very kind and open. And so, she shared this coach was going to speak and I went for a walk and thought, you know, my intuition, I could feel as like just listening.

There’s something there. So, I listened in, and I was interested in what he was sharing. And he brought on a lot of his clients to share how brilliant he is. Right. Which is a beautiful marketing way of marketing yourself. And it worked really well. I was very sold on his approach and the success that he’s had with his clients.

And one of his clients was Heather Ellis Shea, who started well, she created, and now he’s running the Atlanta intuitive coaching academy where I now work. And she shared the success she’s had working with him. Both about him, right? She wasn’t speaking about herself. I felt so drawn to her and her energy and what she was really communicating, which is the power of intuitive living, the importance of spiritual development.

Although she wasn’t necessarily saying that I could read that in her presence, and I felt instantaneously home. I was like, oh, these are the conversations I want to have. These are the people I want to study with. And from right, this is the kind of coaching that I believe in. I just didn’t know it existed.

And so, I found her website and I recognized she was running this, you know, yearlong coaching certification program for intuitive, intuitive coaching, which was science-based, you know, she’s got a lot of research. She’s also a clinically trained psychotherapist. So, she brought in a lot of different pieces that I didn’t have.

And one of the things, TG, by the way, I’ve always wanted to be, was a psychotherapist. I decided against it because I didn’t want to come from that clinical perspective, you know, and she pretty much reimagined the whole scenario and brought the best of client-centric therapy into coaching. Anyways, I saw the curriculum and I thought, oh no, I know all this stuff.

I’m already really we’ll train. I just need the business. And so, I might, tuition was following her, but in that moment I was like, I’m not, this is not what I need to do right now. So, I went and hired the guy who she worked with, whose webinar I was on and enrolled in his business program. He was my third business coach, like four months.

And, uh, when I commit to something, I go all in. So, so I went. And I worked with him and halfway through the program, I realized again, that, that wasn’t what I needed. You know, it wasn’t that I was lacking marketing skills. I have a background in marketing and sales. It wasn’t that I was lacking business savvy.

I was not with the right tribe. Right. I wasn’t with the right energy. And I wasn’t developing my skills in a way that I could. And I knew that. And so, I was on Instagram one day and she commented on a picture of mine and she said something of like, oh, you look so strong. And I immediately remembered that moment that I first heard my intuitive voice.

This is Claire audience. Right. I literally heard follow her. And I went again on her website, and I thought, you know, I think I’m ready to explore this relationship. So, we talked, we, you know, we, we scheduled a call together. We talked and I said, Heather, this makes no sense to me. I don’t know why I would enroll in a year-long coaching certification.

She’s like, well, I’m not going anywhere. You know, if you ever want to it’s here, you know, but I she’s like Sasha, I think what you need is a home. And I said, yes, exactly. That’s what I’ve always needed. And I enrolled a week later, I just decided to, again, spend some, spend some time with my intuition and ask why this was being asked of me.

And my intuition told me, and this is quite literal. It said, you need to discover parts of yourself that haven’t been called out and you need to teach her. And this is your teacher. So, whatever she does, whether she’s running a kosher certification or a business, it doesn’t matter. You need to be in the presence of somebody who can teach you whatever it is that you need to know so that you can be more of who you are.

That’s what I heard. And that’s what I got. And it’s exactly what I got. Yeah. I call now my, you know, I call myself an intuitive life coach because that is what the certification offers. And it really is that because I got a rigorous education in how to, first of all, listen, right. Not just get these random hits of intuition and visions that I’ve had my whole life, but understand how they actually happen, what to do with them, how to train them.

And how to share the most importantly, this is what I was looking for, how to apply them in session as a professional coach in a really like rigorous coaching relationship with a client and how to then facilitate their transformation and using my and their intuition. And that has changed the game for me as a coach.

First of all, right, I became extremely inspired and excited about the work I was doing on a level I never have before. My confidence just went through the roof because I’ve always been doing that but didn’t know how I was doing it. And now I knew how, and I knew how to explain it to my clients. I knew how to share with them, how they can train their intuition.

And I also demystified it, you know, for myself and for other people. And I am somebody who loves science and research. I’m a geek. So, for me to be able to really connect it to quantum physics and research. You know, it’s been around for years, we just don’t talk about it and really, really celebrate how my whole life, the things I’ve done.

The reason I am, where I am is really truly because of my intuition. What’s interesting to me, TG, is that I never thought of that. Like I never, I never actually said I’m so intuitive. I follow my, I just did it. I was talking to my mom like a couple of months ago and I was sharing with her, you know how this past year I’ve really taken a huge leap of faith.

And I, you know, invested in myself and my work heavily without necessarily having the rationale behind it. I just trusted. And I did, and I grew exponentially both in my practice, but also in my financial abundance. Like I just, I created something out of nothing I feels and in heart it was hard. Right. It was very scary, but I just did it right.

It works. Right. And my mom said, well, you have something. And I thought it was courage. But what you have is the ability to really trust her intuition. You have your whole life, and it’s incredible. She’s like, it’s incredible. And I, I heard her say that and I thought, isn’t that funny? How I call myself an intuitive coach?

Now it’s part of what I do. I teach intuitive coaching. I work in an intuitive coaching training certification; I believe in it like nothing else. And I never actually thought of myself as somebody who was an I’d never even occurred to me because it was so natural, but it’s something that other people see as a gift.

Right. And is different. And I just finally was becoming aware of it recently with you as well. People don’t think of it as something that they have, they think of, if it’s some kind of out worldly, you know, gift that you have. And I am here to say that. And this is what we do in that mana every single human being is intuitive.

It’s our first language. We start communicating on an intuitive, energetic level in utero, but we just don’t actually learn how to then right. Train harness, honor, develop and use our intuition. So that muscle atrophies, quite frankly, and then some people are lucky to have it more developed than others.

It’s like musical talent, right? Some people are more, more, just more gifted than others and some aren’t, but you can, you absolutely can develop it and grow it and apply it. And especially in entrepreneurship and business and any kind of healing work or coaching work or teaching work, it is essential to consider it as the driver and the foundation of your work, because it just, it just up levels everything you do.

 

TG: So, do you know anything about the 12 steps,

 

Sasha: the 12-step program?

 

TG: Yeah, yeah,

 

Sasha: not too much, but I do, I do a little bit.

 

TG: Well, this is really where for me, intuition came in because although they use the word, God, it’s God of your understanding, the universe, whatever you do or don’t believe about it. But the 12 steps are really about relationships.

You know, your relationship with yourself, with others and with a power greater than yourself. So, I’m just pulling out books as I’m listening to you because being from this world, I mean, this is what it is. This is kind of the goal of the 12 steps is to be the person you’re talking about. So, step 11.

Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out in the literature, it goes into greater detail, and it talks about developing this vital sixth sense. You know, just a little brief history lesson on alcoholics anonymous, the way, the way the 12 steps came about is that it is the direct experience of the first hundred people who got sober in AA.

These were the calm, this was the common thread through all of it, the combined experience of these people. And then the book came from that. But you know, so a key part of that was developing your intuition and living. By that being the driving force that guide you through life. So yeah, you know, one of the things about the 12 steps is it’s like, you can get as much or as little out of it as you’re willing to put into it.

And so, a lot of people get the benefit of long-term abstinence, but they don’t avail themselves of the intuition part as deeply as they could. Right.

 

Sasha: Right.

 

TG: And you know, I’m better at that sometimes than others, but it’s just a, you know what you’re talking about, I came at it from a completely different angle, you know, and this is how people in my world live.

It’s ran. It’s awesome. It is like so cool.

 

Sasha: I agree. It’s exactly cool. That’s w it’s just awesome. It’s awesome. It’s awesome. Because it allows us to recognize that we really do, like, we really do have everything within us that we’ll ever need to live a life of not only purpose and contribution to this world, but joy, thriving, prosperity, deep connection to other beings.

It’s all there within us. We have a GPS guiding us right to the right person, to the right moment, to the right conversation. It gives us tools and it gives us signs and it gives us confirmation and also steers us away when we’re not in alignment, it’s all there. Right? The more I go down this path and, you know, honestly intuitive work and consider taking myself seriously.

Right. Coach and whatever you want to call it. Entrepreneur has allowed me to not be attached to anything, you know, in a way that I never have before, because I took my work very seriously. I allowed myself to also not take the title or identity that came with it very seriously. Does that make sense? It’s almost like I can do the work anywhere and in any house.

So, tomorrow everything ends. I don’t know. I lose everything so to speak. I know, I know that it would have happened for me to step into something that God needs me to do. The universities need to do. And I will, by following my intuition, understand what it is and create that. So, I have full trust and because of that, I really don’t care.

About what anyone thinks or says, or my human cell phone of course cares. I like the likes. I like the comments I want you to know. And I I’m entertained by that part of me. And it’s beautiful and it’s, you know, it’s human and I’ll share that all day, every day. And a part of me is like, oh, isn’t that funny?

Who cares? Right. Who cares? What you do, your human self does. And do you actually care? And then there, there is a voice in my, in my heart. I think it’s in my heart. And I think you have it to where I really, truly, I don’t care. And it’s not because I don’t care about what other people feel. It’s because I know that other people’s truth also doesn’t care.

Their truth. Doesn’t care about what I say or what I do. Whether I triggered them, upset them, what I’m good or bad or whatever. Their truth only wants me to be honest. And so, if in that moment, I am honest. Whether or not, you know, a year from now is going to be true or not, but in that moment, it’s true.

Then the, then that he can’t be bad for anyone. It can’t be wrong for this world. And if it’s upsetting to someone and they express it, then that is an actual gift to me and to them. Right. It’s an invitation for me to see, well, could I do this better? Could I be kinder? Could I be more open? It’s an invitation for them to also ask, why am I upset?

Why do I not like her? Right. Why is she, whatever? So, every single thing is a gift then. So how could I care if any reaction is a gift, right? And it’s, and if it comes from truth, great. And if it comes from a little bit of lie, well, then the gift is you. Weren’t quite honest in that moment. Can you be more honest next time?

You know, and that is a gift, right? So, it’s like, you can’t, it’s just. All of it is good in the sense of powerfully needed by your soul to express itself. Not good. I’m enjoying myself every, every single moment of this day. Right? Some days I don’t enjoy every single moment. And the moments I don’t enjoy are the most profoundly stimulating.

So, I, and I feel you, I love that you said that the more, I just don’t care, and I feel so empowered by saying that

 

TG: indifference is what it is. It’s indifference.

 

Sasha: So, I’m, I don’t think I’m indifferent. Like I really do. I’m very sensitive. Like I really do feel very highly connected to what people experience.

And I take everything very personally in the first few moments. So deeply TG, which is why it’s ironic that I do this. And I say, I don’t care because it’s the hardest thing for me to do. I care so deeply that the only way I could not is not indifference because it’s just, it’s not, I can’t be indifferent.

I am not attached to what it means, because it doesn’t actually mean anything unless I choose the meaning. Right. So, it’s, I’m not attached to what it means until I choose the meaning that will empower me. So, there’s the questions like, how can I. Offer myself and other people, a meaning that will empower me in them.

TG: So, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is a course in miracles because you know, I listen to you say this stuff and I’m like, well, that’s in like, probably less than,

yeah. This chair doesn’t mean anything. That table doesn’t mean anything. Yeah. And I’m trying to think of what it was initially that I noticed about you. I just thought, man, she’s got it into the course and uh, and I asked you about it. So, so for me, that came in. I don’t know, I guess about five years ago, but being in this world of addiction, addiction, treatment counseling, and helping doing all that stuff.

One of the things dot that I connected over the years is that all the people who I really, really respected, I started to see that at some point in their adult lives, they were a student of the course. And so, you know, when I connected that, I remember thinking, I don’t know, it was probably 15 years ago.

Now that someday I’m going to have the opportunity to get into that. And I want to do that. And so, somebody approached me. About four years ago and, um, invited me to, you know, it was a meeting at someone’s home that happened once a week at the time. And man, I just felt enveloped in love immediately. It was the kind of thing where there was a short lecture.

We’d do a little bit of the reading. There was someone there who was a teacher who would kind of interpret things. Cause if you don’t know anything about that book, it’s really dense. Like if you think this conversation Sasha and I are having as deep and imagine that like times three and a book, the length of the Bible, it’s really tense.

So, you need, I think I need other people to talk through it with the lessons. Was so attractive to me. And immediately it helped me in my personal relationships because, you know, I started to see that I was projecting my past onto the present. And you know, a lot of what I was experiencing in interpersonal relationships was really just in my imagination.

 

Sasha: Yes. Your imagination of the past. Yeah,

 

TG: yeah, yeah. And then, but the thing is, it’s like Ben and I teach the guys I work with, I don’t get into the course stuff, but I teach them this concept. If you have in your head that I’m an asshole, how are you going to treat me? You’re going to treat me like I’m an asshole.

And then how am I going to act? I’m going to act like an asshole. So, we create our own reality. We really do create our own reality. So where did the course come in for?

 

Sasha: You know, it’s interesting. Um, I, how could it not be, but I have, so I’ve always, I’ve heard about it many times throughout my life. I’ve always been as seek yet.

I don’t want to say I was a seeker. I was never a seeker, but I was always a student of spiritual development and not personal development, but really spiritual development. I was always attracted to, um, you know, the Bible and biblical texts and the thought energy and psychology and you, and, you know, just explorations of human psyche and the human soul.

And I had never really wanted to read the course or study the course. I obviously knew of Marianne Williamson. I knew of the, you know, the kind of the human beings who made it, uh, popular, so to speak and really admire their work. But every time I heard of it, I thought, well, yes, I understand that I feel bad.

I don’t need to study it. And my, so this summer. I had been deeply immersed again in work and going back to a lot of the things that I’ve found helpful, just because I was developing work for my clients, and I was connecting it to more popular. I want to call it self-help but self-development. Right. And the course kept popping out.

Right. Because that totally obviously refers to it quite a lot. Yeah. It’s like, man, I really need to read it. I want to read it. I don’t need to, but I want to know. I want to know. And like the course says, you, it is optional, right? It’s optional when you take it, but you will.

 

TG: And I, so I would, as a

 

Sasha: required course and only, you know, when it’s required, but when it is, you will take it.

And so, I knew that intuitively right. And I was like, okay, I think it’s time for me to explore this. And I had the time, the space to do that. I went and actually listened to on audible return. Uh, and thought, okay. Yes, definitely. Yes. It’s time for me to take the course. And at the same time, you know, listening to Marianne Williamson, I thought the reason why I never was drawn to taking it is because I didn’t feel the need to, and I still don’t.

I, I was, I really have been very fortunate in the sense that my life path, whatever my soul chose, whatever my karmic destiny, if you want to believe in any of our past lives, I do feel like from the very young age I was aware, and I’ve always been aware that I am worthy. That I am whole, that I can do anything I want.

And as in what I want to create, right. That I am loved. I always knew that. And so, I didn’t have the experience of trying to right. Understand how to solve and kind of salvage relationships in my life or get myself out of a very deep hole or whatever it was that people do experience. Right. I really deep, deep, deep, deep, deep down dive.

I did never have that, but I did have experiences of depression and I knew what it was like to lose sense of your purpose. Right. And so, I thought very on purpose and very connected. It was like, this is a perfect time for me to take the course because I don’t need it. And I know in this moment, I, I’m only here to learn because I am, I want to be in reverence to the work I wanted, you know, bow down to the work, have more.

More words right around what it is that I know to be true. I want to have more awareness of how to explain it to others and also more tools, right. To work with other people. So incidentally, I was talking to my mom about it, and she said, well, we have it. It’s like, oh, she goes, yeah, I’ll bring it to you.

And so, she, she never took it, but we had it in our house. Um, and she brought me the, the, the course. Right. And she left. And I have been going through it and I’ll be very honest. I haven’t gone through the whole course yet. I’ve been taking it, you know? Well,

 

TG: I don’t know that you ever really go

 

Sasha: right. But you know, it actually does ask you to diligently do the lesson.

Yeah. The lessons. But every time I pick it up, I like right now before our conversation, I was like, I want to open it up to wherever it will open. Right. And I have it in front of me right now. And I want to say there, there is one thing, right. I just opened it up and this is how I’d go through the course.

I open up the book and I see something like this to think like, God is to share a certainty of what you are and to create like him is to share the perfect love he shares with you. And that is. I just take that, and I sit with it and I, and I trust that that will lead me to whatever I need to come to that day.

And to me reading the course, TG, I feel like that’s the only book in my life that I’ve read that. Every single thing I read, I’m both challenging it sometimes, right. Because it is immersed in the Bible and there is a very, like very specific way. It talks about healing. Right. And I like to kind of almost challenge what it says sometimes.

And then I find a way to see it from God’s eyes, right. In the way that it was channeled. And I feel like everything I read in this book; I wrote it. That’s what it feels like. I wrote it and I’m reading my own work and I’m remembering what I wrote, what I said, what I shared. And it’s the most comforting, beautiful.

Oh, inspiring experience when you’re, when I’m there just connecting to this work. I know that I don’t need or want anything I’m complete, I’m complete and what a gift it is to have that awareness. If anything, that’s why we need to read the book because to actually hold your hands and feel your own divinity reflected back to you and connecting to it is there is no higher level of bliss or satisfaction of joy to me.

TG: Well, and the other part, you know, love is to be shared. So, to me, that’s why I go to this. Hmm. Hmm. I mean, well, it’s, uh, it’s disciplined too. It’s the practice of doing it. Yeah. And making it a priority in my life, but also I loved people, you know, and I’m, it’s almost like I relate to what you’re saying about, it feels like you wrote it.

I thought of it that way, but what I have always recognized is unlike every other, let’s say religion related experience I’ve ever had in my life, like at a church, or, you know, at some point there are things that are said that are like, oh, I don’t know, man. I don’t buy that. Or that sounds, that sounds kind of dark or mean, or, you know, that doesn’t sound like, I don’t think of God that way, you know, and where I grew up in this very Catholic home.

Okay. And just didn’t buy all of it. We’ll always have believed in God, but I just didn’t buy all of it. Was a revelation to me, for someone to tell me, you know, what you believe is enough. It’s okay. That you decided, I agree. That’s who you are and it’s valid. And, but the thing about the course, I mean, there’s never anything I’ve heard read, studied that struck me that way.

Like, yeah. I don’t know. I mean, maybe I didn’t understand it yet. Maybe I needed to talk through it with somebody and get it, you know, like what does this really mean? But none of it ever felt like, um, dark or harsh it’s

 

Sasha: love, absolutely love.

 

TG: And it feels

 

Sasha: like home. Yes.

 

TG: It’s like, well, this is what I have always been looking for.

And I’ve heard well, a number of different people say that

 

Sasha: it’s great. It is. It’s awesome. That’s the way it’s just awesome. It’s awesome. There is no judgment. There is no, there is no exclusion. It really is what you said. It’s home. If you’re willing to come home to yourself, you will come home. That’s it?

Because you already are. There is nothing else you need to do again. It’s the intuitive life, right? It’s knowing that it’s within you to simply say yes, but you have to see. Yes. And you have to accept, accept, and fully, fully open up to whatever comes after you say yes.

 

TG: You know, and, uh, I was in therapy. I, you know, my therapist who is a psychotherapist and she is, um, psychoanalytically trained and she is, uh, the teacher of the course. I mean, like you name it, she’s got it. And, uh, I met her because she hosts a class and a few years had gone by I’ve. I’m a big believer in therapy and, uh, have always known, you know, there’s more digging to do.

And, uh, a few years went by where I was kind of keeping my eyes open for the right therapist, but knew I wanted somebody different and listening to her and talking about the concepts in the course, it just clicked. Like she she’ll get me. Like she’ll really understand. And I was right. Uh, and she, honestly, this podcast, wouldn’t, there’s so much in my life that has changed as a result of just that relationship.

And there was a time at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, one of the things that was happening was, you know, I wasn’t seeing my son and because of all this, you know, and, and it was scary. And, and I was talking to her about my fears and, you know, and she said that nothing real can be threatened.

 

Sasha: Yeah.

 

TG: And it was just the light bulb went off here. Right? So, and if you don’t know anything about the course, it’s summed up in three lines at, before the book even starts, nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists here in lies. The peace of God. And basically, it’s saying love is all there is.

And you know, if we really take the time to think about it and really, really contemplate

 

Sasha: it, it’s true. Absolutely. I’m I want to cry right now because this is exactly it. Nothing real can be threatened, nothing, nothing. And also you are nothing, right? Like you are nothing and everything. All at the same time.

So, you choose what you are in this moment. If something is threatening you, you are nothing. And if something right, and it’s, so you get to create whatever you, like, you said, whatever you want in this moment from God’s will not from I’m trying to feel better, or I’m trying simply how can I find my home and my love?

What, what am I in this moment? Right? What is it that I want to be in this moment? And, you know, I had this head just now talk it, listening to you. Um, nothing real can be threatened. There is only love, and there is nothing to look for. But, but, but the remembering of that, right? If you, if you are, that’s it all, the only thing to find in this world is the remembrance of what you are.

 

TG: One of the things that I like to say to people. Um, you know, because if you’re really going to help people change their lives at some point, you know, if you’re not talking about self-love, you’re not helping. Right. That’s, it’s really, that’s what it is. And, um, one of the things that I’ve learned from this experience is, you know, that person who you are just absolutely head over heels for so deeply in love.

It’s just overpowering, energizing top of the world sort of feeling, and it’s so big and powerful.

The other person didn’t give you that you already had it inside you. They’re not doing it. They’re not giving it to you. You already have it. So, give yourself that. That’s uh, it’s true.

 

Sasha: I

 

TG: mean, yeah, a lot of us love somebody so much who, you know, it wasn’t them. I mean, it’s obvious it wasn’t them, but it’s we have it.

We have it inside of us already. So, we, like you said, remembering it coming back to it.

 

Sasha: Isn’t as good. How good is this? Like, who cares? Right? Here’s about like anything really? Isn’t this, the only thing we want to talk about, like, it’s just like the most interesting thing, how we can say the same thing over and over again. And it never stops being interesting and fascinating because that’s what we’re here for.

All of us. Want to remember who we are. So why not just go there? I mean, some people need a certain kind of pathway to, to feel safe, getting there because their environment, their, you know, their home doesn’t support that. But if you are there and you want to just stay there, I feel like we have a duty sometimes to come out of it and talk about other things.

But this really, this what you just said, love and home and remembering you can never get enough of the truth. Right. And that is really the truth of what we are. We are home always. We are love always and there really isn’t anything else everything else is created so that we can experience that. So the

 

TG: contrast, right, you are so stuck in the dream, living in the dream of, of reality, instead of the reality, we’re talking about that it’s hard to, I mean, it all sounds crazy,

 

Sasha: right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The more, the more crazy, it sounds, the more true it is often. Um, and it’s very calm, right? I’m not talking about. Like some people do. I don’t have any specific, you know, oh, I had this really deep transformational awakening experience where I, you know, I had a journey and a vision and somebody came to me and like, I, some people do, I I’ve never had that, but what I, what you and I just shared when I, when I sit with myself and I just ask, who am I, what am I?

And I hear immediately, you, you are, God, that to me is all like ever was looking for. Right. And then what I get to do is to get to go and eat some steak and do some sales calls and, you know, go for a walk and lift some weights. And all of that is God. And I know that. And so that’s what, to me, living an intuitive life and a life, you know, as a student of a course in miracles or whatever it is that I’m connected to, to me to be able to actually be in this human form and carry that without making it.

A dramatic story or something epic or something that makes me special. Right? That’s the complete opposite of what the course actually teaches to me. That is everything. Just to be able to say the more connected I am to this, to this core course, but the core teaching of the course, which is that all is God trying to learn about itself.

 

TG: We are all connected to each other. There is no difference. There’s no separation. No,

 

Sasha: no. It’s all one trying to get to know itself. Through form through contrast, through gain, through suffering through drama. Right. But you get to choose what it is that your soul needs to experience this love. Right. I’m kind of done with the drama.

I mean, I don’t know, but I have a feeling that I did not choose to come here to experience a lot of drama and that’s okay. Right. I’m not drawn to it, but some people are, and that’s their path. But the, the most profound thing that we all came here to do is again, to fall in love with that, which we are.

So, you fall in love with yourself by virtue of whatever you’re here to experience as a human, be a dramatic or not epic or not simple or complicated. It’s always finding the one masquerading in the mix. And then being very satisfied in the end being like, well, and I did some good stuff with it too. It was cool.

I didn’t do something really cool with that. I’m happy with that.

 

TG: So now you’ve mentioned steak a couple times. You mentioned steak here and you mentioned I have to

 

Sasha: do I have to, because I love it. I just find it really funny cause people don’t assume that when they talk about spirituality or vegetarian or vegan or whatever, the reason I say that is because I like to ruffle people’s feathers, but also because it’s true.

Uh, and finally, because I really want to be as human as possible in the fact that I want to talk about steak and money and the course of the miracles and Ecker totally. And my dad’s work and my love for my mother and my coaching and admonish academy, all of it. I want to talk about all of it from the same.

I don’t want to comfort to mentalize parts of myself or other people as this is divine. This is not, this is this. All of it is God. And that’s why I bring it in because it’s something that I, I considered to be kind of a yes, different, I guess, to, to me to just see that in other people also, when they share their stories to notice, when I judge them right.

When I say, oh, well, this person is different from me because they believe in this, and I don’t. Right. And then I ask myself, well, who is the one saying they believe in this, and I don’t right. Who is the one noticing that there is an I in a day? So, the more opportunities I have for myself and for other people to see that we really truly do create an identity and we do.

Either have fun with it or we get to suffer because of it. And so, I want to have fun with it. So, I wanted you, that’s why I brought in state. Cause it’s funny.

 

TG: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, so, so ribeye, how do you like it? How do you like it prepared? Rare.

 

Sasha: Very rare. Very rare. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I also could have said, you know, I really like peanut butter, but that’s just me.

 

TG: Once I, once I could convince myself to eat.

 

Sasha: They’re special.

 

TG: They are, but you gotta know how to do it. And you get, you know, I mean, it’s a whole thing, but it’s very decadent. It’s one of those meals that I just love to love to have, you know?

 

Sasha: Absolutely. And that’s God, too, right? We are, we get to enjoy and understand that we are also the oysters and the ribeye, like when I have my steak, right.

Oysters or whatever it is that I’m doing, I get to choose how I’m doing it. Right. Am I doing it from a place of I’m honoring this life and I’m taking its energy and I know it’s all one, right? I’m transferring literally in that moment, the life of this being, or this oyster into my body and I get to make it into a ritual and something beautiful and honor it.

And I get to see the magic in being here. That my body needs sustenance. It needs to eat that actually, you know, when I go and wash my hands, that experiences could also be divine. I don’t think of it that way often, but I could.

 

TG: Right. Right. Well, and that’s one of the things that I think is really important that life is sacred and, and our job in relation to that is to recognize it and treat it as such.

And so like, part of my morning thing is, you know, I light a candle and I might light a stick of incense or maybe a little Sage or, you know, just something to recognize that this is sacred and that’s it, you know? It’s yeah. So, what else would you like to say to the listeners? If there’s one message you could impart, what would it be?

 

Sasha: Love yourself? Love yourself, love the true self within you. That’s it. And that implies learn, learn them, learn the true self within you. Learn about them. Get deeply curious about what and who they are, and then allow yourself to love them so that you can listen to what they have to say, because that really encompasses everything.

We talked about intuitive living, allowing ourselves to be whole allowing right ourselves to accept the slabs gifts, uh, prosperous experiences being in this world and not have it. Right. All of the things, all of it comes from. Learn to love the true self within you. You know, there is a movie, um, called a constant gardener.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. I know

 

TG: of it, but I haven’t.

 

Sasha: Um, so I remember seeing it in the theaters. It was a while ago. Um, I guess it came out maybe over 15 years ago. I saw it and I really love it. It’s a great film. I haven’t seen it since, so it’d be interesting. It’d be interesting to see it again.

Um, I remember being struck by this moment in the film where the, you know, the, one of the protagonists is, uh, is this young journalist who trying to, uh, write about some corruption happening in Africa and she wants to go there. And she is, she’s trying to convince this, this man who is the protagonist, uh, to take her with him because he’s going there on, uh, on a business trip and he could offer her this opportunity.

And they ended up having a romantic relationship and she says to him, um, she says to him, marry me. And he’s this has, I, I don’t know you. And she says, learn to me. And that, that was a moment where I still remembered I have shivers right now because it doesn’t matter how I, whether I paraphrase it correctly or not, there is my human self-doubting itself, but learn me like, how can I love you?

Right? How can I marry you? How can I trust you? If I don’t know you? And she says, learn me. You can learn me. She says, you can learn me. And I think that’s. That’s it. It’s when you say, how can I trust this? Right? How can I love this? I’ve done so many wrong things. I never do anything wrong. I can’t amount to anything.

I can’t do what I love. I can’t do what I want. I will fail. Who am I? Right? Who am I not to? That’s of course the miracles. Right. Well, how learn to love me, learn me. Get deeply curious, because you, can’t not love this, which you are when you, when you see it, when you hear it, when you learn it, you can’t not, and it is our job.

Absolutely. It’s our full responsibility to say, I will. I will listen. I will sit here like a student every single day and I will do what is being asked from that place. And I will see the magic, right? And the miracle that comes out of this relationship with my true self, so that I can actually trust it even more going forward.

And that’s what we talked about because the opportunity to test your love and trust will appear again and again. And it’s not a test to make you fail, but it is a challenge to see how deep and committed you are to your truth, right? It’s an invitation to see how deep your faith is in that, which you are.

And so, love yourself, learn, learn who it is inside of you that loves you. Well,

 

TG: you know, it sounds, um, so sort of ephemeral, you know, get to know yourself. I remember feeling like, well, this is good too good for TG to get to know TG, like people say and stuff like that to me. Yeah. But what, how do I do that?

And one of the things I’ve learned is that a really good place to start is with what you want. Absolutely. That is where to start. What do I want really true heart’s desire stuff? And then that will lead you to who you really are.

 

Sasha: That is exactly it. It’s the carrot stick, right? And to your heart desires, being very unapologetic about it, right.

Being very radically honest and not judgmental and not attached to what it means again to other people, right. Or what it means to get it or not get it simply the desire. That’s how you manifest anything, right? Yes. The manifestation is very real because anything you truly desire already exists, but for you to connect to it, you need to acknowledge it on.

And really know what it is like really, like you said, be very clear. We’re so terrified of actually being clear about what it is that we want, because that implies getting to know who you are. That’s the next step, right? Well, who is the one, right, right? How’s that? Who is that one? Right? Cause she’s the one or he’s the one that you want this thing.

So, who is this? And they only want us to be happy. Right? The only one is to be incredibly powerful. The only one is to create change in this world. They want us to feel and thrive. Like the prosperous beings that we already are. So, the invitation there is to no longer, nope at all, right. Be, be complacent in staying in that mindset, which is a mindset and a soul set of, I’m not worthy.

I’m not enough. I can’t. Because as soon as you connect to what you want, if you just said that divine soul desire. You know, in that moment, when you see it in your heart and your mind creates an image around it, you know, you are worthy. It will scare you, but you will know. And that’s what people don’t want because he has then the next step available to you, which is you no longer can create excuses about why.

 

TG: Right, right, right. It’s a scary thing. A scary thing

 

Sasha: you need to become. Right. Who do you need to become to actually have it? It is most likely someone that you don’t think you, you could like a minute ago. Right? So, like now in this moment, in this moment, it’s not a minute ago. It’s now. So, what now, then, now what?

No, what? And then the fun begins. Then you hire a coach writer or a therapist or you go, you go to town, you just go like, okay. I have no

 

TG: excuses tribe. Yes.

 

Sasha: Yeah,

 

TG: well, and another way that you can find your, who am I drawn to? That’s another, that’s another way to help. So, listen, I could just go on and on forever talking to you and I’m excited to have met you, but all right.

So, the younger Sasha, when was the time when she needed some support, advice, whatever. And when would she have needed that most in what would you go back and say to her

 

Sasha: younger Sasha phone home, TG, do you know? I have, I have to say, I want to say when I was, you know, between the ages of 13 and. Yeah, like 26, 27, although yeah. Yeah. That’s a long span. And I say, this is because during that time, I really do feel like I connected to a very, very human experience of almost kind of forgetting what I was.

I knew very well what I was until the age of like 14. And then I started doubting it. Right. Like most people do, but I, the reason I say that is because I actually don’t think I would, I would say anything to myself as in Sasha, you know, ages 13 to 26, it’s all going to be okay. It’s like, no, no, I wouldn’t say that.

What I would say is Sasha doesn’t actually need any adviser support. And the reason I say that is because I honestly do. Remember, like, remember and know that my whole life, I never felt like I was alone or that I needed saving or that I needed somebody to help me. I felt guided and loved and supported my whole life and the deepest, the darkest and the things that I would say, you know, from a human perspective.

I wish I would’ve done that. I wish I would’ve done that. I wish I wouldn’t have led this depressive moment happened or I would have said something else or done. No, because in every part of it, I always felt loved and supported. And that, to me, just, I don’t get to say I wish, or I would say Sasha, you should know this because I always knew.

I always knew. I can’t pretend like I didn’t. So, any part of me that. Like she was failing or, you know, when she chose there, certain things that I now look back at and I talk about this, it’s a human experience. You know, there are parts that were very dark, and I like, man, I gave up on myself or I didn’t commit to this path that I wanted to write, or I was scared to own, to own up to my purpose.

Right. And be honest with myself there, all these things happen to me. And still in every single experience, I knew that he was divinely orchestrated for me to learn what I needed to learn because something greater was coming. And I right now feel that I’m in that part of my life, where I get to actually.

Harvest all of that work, you know? So, I would not say anything, but just, you know, you know, it Sasha, you just know it. You don’t, I need to tell you. Yeah. Wow.

 

TG: Well, no one’s ever answered it like that before. I love it. So well, this has been great. I, uh, I’m so glad we met, and you know, I mean, you’re just my people, you’re

 

Sasha: my people too.

I’m so honestly, TG, I, I, I heard you today on the one thing, sharing that, you know, when, when women say to men something nice, you must believe them. Um, I want to say that it’s been a privilege. It’s been a gift to have my first podcast interview with you because I. Really respect the work. You do all of it, your, your creative work, your counseling work.

I just feel like you were literally walking, walking the talk, walking that authenticity path and to have you make me feel seen and consider what I have to say important and play with me in the past couple hours has been such a joy and you really are my people, and this is home. So, thank you.

 

TG: Thank you.