Becoming Your Warrior
Hosted by Emma Ritchie, ex-TV producer turned Mindset Coach, hypnotherapist and Founder of The Mindset Redesign, Becoming Your Warrior is a deep, soulful, and empowering podcast designed to help you step into the next chapter of your life with confidence, clarity, and self-love.
Through powerful mindset shifts, guided reflections, and honest conversations, Emma helps you break free from self-doubt, reconnect with your inner strength, and create a life that feels truly aligned. Whether navigating change, healing old wounds, or stepping into your fullest potential, this podcast is your safe space to explore, grow, and rise.
Each episode is filled with insightful wisdom, practical tools, and heart-led guidance to help you become the warrior of your own life—one who stands tall in self-worth, embraces change fearlessly and leads with love.
This is your invitation to step into your power. Your journey starts now. 💫
You can find out more about Emma at www.Emma-ritchie.com
Becoming Your Warrior
When Life Falls Apart, Your Greatest Evolution Begins - with Geoff Rupp
What happens when everything you've used to define yourself is suddenly stripped away? In this inspiring episode, Geoff Rupp shares his remarkable journey from television executive to spiritual guide after a life-altering double blow—cancer diagnosis followed by redundancy from his 20-year media career.
"I didn't know who I was when I wasn't Geoff Rupp TV guy," he reveals, taking us through the identity crisis that forced him to question everything. This turning point led Geoff on a transformative path to India, where he immersed himself in ancient wisdom traditions that would become his new purpose.
We explore the profound differences between various meditation techniques, with Geoff explaining how Vedic meditation uses "bija" (seed) mantras to transcend the thinking mind and release stress from the nervous system. He brilliantly articulates why our ego resists meditation—"it wants to stay in the driver's seat"—and how consistency in practice moves us beyond the "ever-repeating known" of our limited lives.
Perhaps most fascinating is our deep dive into Vedic astrology, which Geoff describes as the blueprint of our soul's journey. Unlike Western astrology, this ancient system examines the rising sign at birth to reveal our life purpose, karmic patterns, and optimal timing for major decisions. Through moving client stories, Geoff demonstrates how astrological understanding can heal family wounds and guide us toward our highest evolution.
The conversation culminates with Geoff's perspective on humanity's current awakening and the planetary alignments facilitating collective consciousness shifts. His message resonates with profound simplicity: by raising our individual consciousness through consistent spiritual practice, we create ripple effects that positively impact everyone around us.
Ready to discover ancient wisdom for modern transformation? Subscribe now and join our community of warriors awakening to their highest potential.
You can find Geoff's work at
www.geoffrupp.com
You can follow Emma at:
https://www.instagram.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.facebook.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.youtube.com/@emmaritchiebecomingyourwarrior
Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast. This is the place where you get to feel inspired and empowered to step into your very best life. Have you ever been thrown a curveball so big it completely reshapes your life? That is exactly what happened to a dear friend of mine, jeff Rupp, who is joining us on today's episode. Jeff and I have known each other for nearly 20 years, and about a decade ago Jeff was diagnosed with cancer and also made redundant from his 20 plus year career in television, and this was a huge turning point in his life, not only in his health, but also how he was living, led him down a path to go and study in India, and he now teaches other people how to heal themselves, how to come into alignment with their bodies, using Vedic meditation, himalayan breathwork and Vedic astrology. This is a two-parter. There is so much gold in here and I know you are just going to love Jeff's wisdom. Jeff, welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Emma. Thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:It's good to have you here. We have known each other a really long time. I think it's good to have you like. We have known each other a really long time, like eight. I think it's now what's? 2007? We met when we were working at network 10.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um so a long, long time ago um, so I was remembering you coming in when you first came in.
Speaker 1:Oh, really a little person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're in the newsroom. Right, you're in the news. Yeah, I was in the newsroom for a couple years.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's so long ago, now so long ago. But I guess I want to start off with a big question, which is what has been the biggest obstacle or challenge that you have faced in your life and how did you get through it?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say it was probably when I had a cancer diagnosis when I was 39. And also at that time, like being made redundant. And then, you know, six months later, so basically like in February, I finally had cancer, six months later I was made redundant. And then, you know, at that particular time in my life, I really felt that the sky was falling. You know, I didn't really know what was going to happen and I think that that my meditation practice and you know, those that I had at that particular time, was really what led me to where I was going, because I ended up doing Ayurvedic medicine and all that kind of stuff as well, which was really all part of Vedic meditation, or the Vedas, you know, with the Vedic knowledge that's all around, and it's really changed the course of my whole life yeah, it's incredible.
Speaker 1:I mean, that is for for most people, I think, just getting a cancer diagnosis is well and truly enough. But um, you know, I remember obviously that was when all the redundancies were happening as well. So I mean how you kind of said, like you felt like the sky was falling. What was that like for you at that time in your life when this double whammy got? Yeah, you know, I think it was hard.
Speaker 2:It was hard in the way that obviously I had, you know, my health that I had to look after, because up until that point I probably hadn't been that healthy. I wasn't managing a sports channel. Then, you know, I was head of sport for channel 10 and then I was, um, also, my dinners were canapes and beer most nights, you know, and going to events most weekends and sitting in a box seat and also, you know, alcohol and, you know, just not eating properly. Really, um, I think that it was actually more when I lost my job and my phone stopped ringing and no one cared who I was anymore because I couldn't get their sport on TV or, you know, even their program when I was in programming at Channel 10 and that stuff as well, I think that.
Speaker 2:I didn't quite realize that people only liked me for what I could do for them. And so, you know, when the email stopped and the phone stopped ringing and that kind of stuff, I started to wonder, like who am I? I didn't actually know who I was because I, up until that point in my life, I'd had a television career since I was, since I left school. So, you know, when you worked in tv, it was always considered to be, you know, even though we know from working behind the scenes, just like a normal job, like any job. Um, it has a glamour moments, um. But I think that that's was probably the biggest crux. It was like I didn't.
Speaker 2:I realized at that particular point in time that I did not know who I was when I wasn't Jeff Rupp TV guy, and so, yeah, and that was like a thing now, and I also was very, very mindful of the fact that I thought I do want to be Jeff Rupp cancer guy, right? That was the reason why, I think you might remember, around that time I didn't really tell very many people that I had cancer, like I didn't really. I literally told a small group of people and, um, and my parents, obviously, my family, they were new. But I didn't really tell anyone else because I didn't really want empathy and I also didn't really want for it to be something that was going to start defining who I was, and I don't. I mean, that was something I just didn't.
Speaker 2:Actually it wasn't. I did do it consciously, but it was also something that I just felt that I needed to do because I didn't want to make it into like a thing. It was like all of those things like combined together where it was like, but the first big part was really discovering who I was. That was probably the hardest part, because I really almost had to start again and go okay, well, if I'm not that person and it was interesting listening to my language actually because you, when people you know, you meet people all the time and then you forget that people go like oh what do you do?
Speaker 2:and we're all kind of defined by our job and I used I remember like hearing myself say oh, I used to work at channel 10 and I used and I did this and I used to do this, you know, and um, that's when it's very interesting to see, because that's when I was like I remember consciously thinking as well, I need to change my story, like I need need to work at what, who am I and what do I do? Because it doesn't really matter what the job is that I do, but it was very interesting that that was the thing that defined me and actually I suppose, having a very prominent role, it made that egoic part of my life stronger until it was taken away.
Speaker 1:And then I thought, yeah, yeah, I need to do something about that yeah, I really get that because it's like, even now, even though I'm, you know, really as far away from TV, I still do a little bit of wellness role. But it's. It's really interesting, that story, because I think when you say that you work in TV, people are automatically very fascinated in you, aren't they? It's kind of, you know, you kind of go, oh, like I produce TV shows and everyone's like, oh, which one you know? And it's like, and it's an easy conversation starter. So when you meet people, people are very interested in you. So I really understand that like separation from that. But so for you, it's kind of like you know, that egoicic thing and I understand this as well of even saying, oh well, I used to, you know, run sports channels. I mean, I guess, going through what we would now call that's a bit of an ego. Well, it's an ego death, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah and and so what was your process of going through that ego death, and what kind of tools or resources did you use to to move forward from that or be in the now, I should say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that it was definitely a meditation. I was lucky that I was already had Vedic meditation, which was like my meditation technique. I tried lots of other different techniques but that was something that when I was even head of sport, then I used to actually use it as my stress management technique, like I had gone and and learned it and it was something that I just did religiously every day and I you know cause I used to meditate on planes, cause I flew a lot and all that stuff. It just became this beautiful tool that I had in my life that I really felt helped me a lot. And so, um, when the job part of it got taken away, I almost like doubled down on the meditation part of it as well, because I realized, like, with all the knowledge that I had, you know about vedic meditation and vedic knowledge about, you know, happiness is within you and even the show I'm going to say access the ground is within you. Um, irony, um, you know, because it is that you get told all those things. But it was also about how do I tap into that bliss state, how do I do that stuff? And I really understood as well that I, I think, from you know, doing a few courses and like all that stuff as well, was understanding like, okay, I need to work out who I am at my core when I'm not anything else or what just makes me happy, and I think that that was like definitely part of it. Meditation was definitely a massive part for me of like, um, my life. I definitely doubled down on meditation during that particular period of my life, like I made sure I did my 20 minutes twice a day, but a lot of times I did you know there are other practices you can add on like I definitely doubled down because I found that that started to um tune me into myself and then, because I had the cancer as well, I I also did this whole protocol where I did like no alcohol, no dairy, no sugar, no meat.
Speaker 2:You know I was doing Bikram yoga every day when Bikram yoga was like a thing. But Bikram yoga was great because it was like, uh, you sweat. I love sweating when I was like working out, but it was also a sweat thing where I could taste my sweat every day and I knew like, oh, every morning I used to go at six o'clock and do a Bikram yoga class and I would always taste my sweat during the class. So I knew like, oh, is it sweet, which means I'm alkaline, or is it salty, which means I'm acidic? So if it was like salty, I'd go like, oh, I need to put more greens in me today or I need to be really mindful about what I'm putting into it was sweet. I thought like, oh, okay, I'm good today, so stuff like that, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I think that, because I did know alcohol and dairy and sugar and meat and all that stuff, during that particular time I was very clean, like you know, I think the cancer, having lost my job, doing all this like was almost like the perfect storm in a way of like something that was pushing me somewhere else. I needed to go and um, and it tuned me into myself. I think when you're like eating really clean and you're doing things like that as well, like your, my vibration, obviously that I understand. Now my energy levels were different. I was able to almost like intuitively, start to understand like, oh, this is the direction that I need to move in.
Speaker 2:So I think that it was more like we call it charm and aversion. When I'm teaching meditation now, like you know, do you follow charm what feels good or if something, if you're moving in a direction that feels not that good, then stop. And you know if you, my teacher hernando always says like you know, if you just change your course like one degree, you get a whole new destination you know if you're heading in a certain direction, like you know, change course, whole new destination.
Speaker 2:That's why we all have opportunities every day to make different choices in our life with what we're doing as well. You know, we can choose to be a victim, or choose to do certain things and see things in certain ways, or we can choose to take a different approach and see what happens.
Speaker 1:you know, like and I think that's the beautiful part of life- yeah, absolutely, and I think there's a really beautiful quote by a teacher that I've studied under, which is his name is Peter Krohn, and it's life will present you with the people and circumstances to show you where you're not free. And so it's just that you know life is going to happen and it's just about your involvement through it, like how you evolve through it and whether, yeah, just like you said, whether you're in that victim mindset or whether you can actually see that this is a mirror and what are you going to do with this? You know, what are you going to do with this lesson. So, what are you going to do with this lesson? So, um, so tell me a little bit about I mean, first of all, I just just you know, cause I know people will be interested. Obviously you're cancer free now, which is incredible, um, and your approach was you know, I know you, you used Ayurveda, but you also used Western medicine as well.
Speaker 1:What was the next stage of your journey from there, from the operation, from healing yourself? Where did that take you next?
Speaker 2:Well, it took me because I ended up going back into television. Like I took some time off. I was lucky that I'd been at Channel 10 for 10 years by that stage. So I got a redundancy package and stuff like that as well, which worked out in my favor, which was great. Got a redundancy package and stuff like that as well, which worked out in my favor, which was great. So it gave me time to be able to take a bit of time off. Like I said, I felt that sky was falling. But actually when you in hindsight, when you look back on it, you can go like, oh, that was a godsend that I actually was able to leave during that time and then concentrate just on my health. You know, and I ended up going to foxtel six months later, like when I went back and I was like head of the entertainment channels there I was looking after on demand as well.
Speaker 2:But I remember, like you know, when I first went back in there, I definitely had a different approach. It was very interesting, like I I wasn't looking at as something that was going to define me as well. I was definitely much more conscious of going like oh, this is just what I'm doing as a funding mechanism to, like you know, do my job and I and I still enjoyed it. I still enjoyed working in television. I still enjoy that stuff, but I didn't have the same. I realized there was the passion that was like inside of me. So I thought my only way out is out. And I had also because of my cancer journey with Ayurveda and meditation and I'd seen how to really change my life and I'd met so many other people whose lives that had changed. It was something that I thought I really wanted to move into the wellness space. But I definitely had a fear inside of me of going. Well, how do I leave 300 grand a year and go to like zero? Because that's literally what I had to do.
Speaker 2:So it was like, but, um, eventually the drive was like a little bit stronger, I suppose where I decided one day that, like I, a few things were happening at work as well, where it was very interesting, where, you know, I had some problems with some staff, and then I was having like problems with other managers and like, but it was almost like a way, where I was, I was awake enough to understand that like nature's trying to like push me out. This is happening because it hasn't happened before, and now all of a sudden it's happening, you know, but in a way it was like the shaking of the apple cart of like someone going like oh, you need to like do something. Like you're hanging. I was hanging on because I was like almost more afraid of like what happens after what I wasn't doing when I take a leap of faith and go like well, this is what happens. But then one day I'd had enough, actually, where I'm feeling like this is not serving me, and I feel stressed in my body because I was starting not to sleep properly at night and I was thinking like actually, I just need to get out because this is showing me that, like I promised myself I wasn't going to do this again and I so I left, I literally went in and I quit and they said if you do this, you'll burn every bridge.
Speaker 2:Like you know, I'll make sure you never work in television ever again. It was like a very heated thing and I actually said to them you know what I've decided. I don't want to do this anymore. So, like, burn up every bridge, blow it up, I don't care. Like I said, you all should be doing me a favor because, like, I don't actually want to do this anymore, so it doesn't matter. Like I've done everything I've wanted to do in television, plus like a hundred other things that I didn't even know I wanted to do. So I said, like it's okay, I feel like it was over, and I literally like left that job and a few months later, I was in India for five months, like studying to become a Vedic meditation teacher, because I knew that you know, when you do the Vedic meditation teacher training, it's like you know you do these things called rounds and you do like 14 hours of meditation a day over three months, and you know it's, um, a really intensive program.
Speaker 2:But, um, I remember at that time feeling like I didn't want to be anywhere else, but that was also, you know, me moving into a new space and I had to put a string in my bow. I thought, if I'm going to actually like start moving into that area which is what I wanted to be in that wellness, spiritual kind of like you know area then I had to create a modality that I could teach or do, something that was going to start opening the door or start pushing me in that direction so that I could start doing that. So I went and did that and then, you know, it's very interesting, like even just talking about taking a leap of faith as well. You know, in the vedic worldview of how we look at life, it's about, you know, nature likes it when you actually take a leap of faith and you do something. That's that's, you know, just trusting that everything's going to be fine and we actually get support from nature that we don't realize happens and we always overthink things go well, how am I going to get the money to be able to do whatever I need to do? And when I get back?
Speaker 2:And you know, and at that particular point of my life as well, I had other debts and I had other things and I literally used the money that I had left over to like make myself debt free, but it didn't leave like a lot of um money left in the bank. So the first test that I had to give myself was going like, okay, I I'm just going to go to India do this thing, even though my parents everyone's telling me, like, what are you doing? You're crazy. Like you know, you should be trying to get another job and I was getting offered things as well, like. But I was like, no, I'm going to go and do this. And, um, you know, I went to India. I did it not knowing what was coming on the at the other side, but I think that you know, we don't know where it's coming. But I feel like that's what we need to do in terms of like, taking leaps and understanding that nature is always going to support us, and that's what meditation gives you as well.
Speaker 2:It gives you that deep trust of going like okay, I just need to trust that it's going to be fun, because you know what, if we really zoom out and look at the big timeline of our lives, when we go through all the ups and downs that we've been through, it's always worked out we might've had tough times, but we've learned about ourselves. So you know, we're only here for one purpose anyway evolution. There's no other purpose. Evolution, expansion, yeah.
Speaker 1:Can we go? Can we go back? Cause that was.
Speaker 1:I mean so much and it's so funny, as you're telling that story like I'm reliving it, but from my perspective. Like I'm reliving it but from my perspective, like I remember you being like you're not going to hear from me for five months. I remember you driving your car up to your mom's. I remember you coming back and us all being like Jeff's back and you were like I'm up in, you know, the far north of Queensland driving down. So it's actually really sweet. It's like a little bit of a visit down memory lane. But can we just go back to I guess you know that decision to go to India and really just explaining, like what Vedic you know? We've talked about certain words that are obviously very specific to Indian culture, like Ayurveda. You know Vedic meditation, um, and also I know obviously you do Vedic astrology as well. So can you talk to me, I guess, about what is Vedic meditation and why did you want to go and study that for five months? What's the difference between that and say traditional or TM meditation?
Speaker 2:Well, with Vedic meditation, if we drum it all the way down, just do one to three things. Like you can normally put meditation into three buckets. There's like concentration techniques, where you might concentrate on your breath or a candle or something. And then there's contemplation techniques, which are guided meditations or, you know, thinking about things. And then there's transcending techniques, which is using a mantra, so Ved mantra. So Vedic meditation falls into the into the mantra side as a 5,000, over 5,000 year old technique. We use a mantra which is like a bija mantra. So bija means seed in Sanskrit. So you use a seed mantra.
Speaker 2:Um, you don't say them out loud, they're not things like I am love or that stuff. They're actually sounds which are vibrational matches to your physiology and to nature, kind of. You know that exists in dimensions of nature, and so it causes your mind, your egoic mind can't actually latch on to any meaning for that thing, so it causes it to go from active thinking mind down to this beautiful place of transcendence or that inner bliss state that resides in all of us. And you know the other two techniques. You know they've been lobbed in as meditation, but really they're mindfulness techniques. They're not really meditation. Like you know, people say that, oh, I meditate every day, but they listen to a guided meditation app, and there's nothing wrong with that as well. It's very good for rewiring your brain and it's very good for putting you into a relaxed state and giving you.
Speaker 2:But, at their mindfulness practices, like meditation, like transcendental meditation, meditation, vedic meditation, they all come from the same body of knowledge. You know the um, a transcending techniques. They use mantras, uh, and you know the uh. There's other different types of techniques as well, which also use like different mantras and things like that as well, like this suffer meditation, which is also what ananda does, but actually the mantras are the same. You know the mantras that we use are because everything, all knowledge, exists in consciousness. So you know the different rishis or the different teachers that came through, like my rishi maheshogi was the tm guy and you know that he was the one that died and then, like, pretty much, vedic meditation came from the TM side when my teacher, tom at the time, like you know, broke away and created Vedic meditation when TM became a trademark name. Now we have Vedic meditation, we have Transcendental Meditation and all that stuff as well.
Speaker 2:But it all comes from Mahavishya Mahesh Yogi, so it all stems from the same body of knowledge, you know, going from Guru Dev actually.
Speaker 1:So with Vedic meditation the mantra is like you know. You said that, you just say in your head. So it's not like an om, it's not like you know, it's specific to individuals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so mantras can come in different. So a lot of times we use japa mantras. So japa mantras are mantras that we say out loud. It's like om, om, namah, shivaya, like hari, om, all those types of like you know, hari, krishna, like all those kind of ones. You can say them out loud or you can actually say them internally, but they're not transcending technique mantras, right? So the bija mantras are a certain set of mantras that are designed basically, you know, they're actually sounds which are the essence of devas or, like you know different.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, we've got like shiva and shakti and ganesh and like all those kind of like deities that exist in the hindu tradition. Um, you know, and they're not like gods, but they're actually like beings that exist in other dimensions, you know, and if you actually really do certain practices, you can have the experience of that being. But also the sounds that come to them aren't actually the names of those gods either. They're actually the essence of what they represent, like, for example, yeah, yeah, like lakshmi is the goddess of abundance and sadhna swati is the goddess of knowledge and ganesha is the river obstacles and shiva is the destruction operator and also creation. So it's like you know this whole beautiful um thing.
Speaker 2:Like you know, some techniques teach you like, oh, they don't have any meaning. When you start releasing stress from the nervous system and you start understanding what this practice actually does, it starts to expand your awareness into, like so many different aspects where you don't realize that you're reacting to everything that's happening to you in your life instead of responding to everything that's happening to you in your life. Like it gives you this like much bigger sense of calm. You understand normally when things happen to you. You don't really sweat the small stuff so much anymore. Like you just kind of like have a much more ability. You don't really get as sick as much because you're you know, 90% of all disease comes from stress in the nervous system.
Speaker 2:When you're doing a daily practice which is releasing stress from the nervous system, like you're just a lot healthier. You also know what to put into your mouth, like when I was doing my cancer journey. If we can go back to that, like when I was doing my cancer journey, if we even go back to that, like when I was meditating a lot more, like I almost knew when I came out every day like what I had to eat. My body was actually craving certain things and I was going like, oh, today I need to eat more spinach and I need to eat like more.
Speaker 1:And because you were so tuned into it.
Speaker 1:You were like, oh, like, whereas normally you just like jump up, get in the rat race, jump in the car at 6, 30, throw whatever coffee and all that stuff in and not be in tune with your body, but because you're waking up with that practice can can you talk to me, because I think this is something that I go through and maybe other people experience as well like, just like you said, when you, when you're going, when you have that daily practice, when you wake up in the morning, you've got that 20 minutes of of meditation or whatever your, your practice is right, what is it?
Speaker 1:Do you think that makes people go into like that place of like resistance towards it? Like you know, if I said to somebody who's never done to meditation before and I was like, oh you know, like meditation's so great and these are the benefits like and I'm saying this for myself as well like there's periods in my life where I meditate every morning and those periods of my life are the happiest days of my life, but something will happen and I slide away from it and then it's almost like harder to get back on the train. What do you think that's about?
Speaker 2:I think that sometimes, like, meditation does make you feel good. So you going like, oh, this is really great. And then, when we're feeling good, we think that, oh, okay, it did its job, like this is where I am. And then, and then all of a sudden, like obviously the you know, because we build up, we're meditating, we're building up adaptation energy, so it's like, you know, we're getting rid of the stress of the nervous system.
Speaker 2:We might have a few things happen to us, but we've still got like a battery, like I like to think of it like a battery. So we've got this beautiful battery power, that kind of like is happening and you know. But when we stop meditating, the battery starts like going down in power. Then most of the times, then we hit this bit and we start reacting to life instead of responding to life again, and then we go like, oh, actually I was feeling better when I was meditating every day. So we do things like that. So I think that's why a consistent 20-minute twice-a-day practice is a perfect householder technique, because you're always continually filling up your battery so that you're not getting to that point again where you're doing it. It's not a tactic to help you get through a a certain period. It's like something that you do, like cleaning your teeth, you know, and if you do it every single day as a practice.
Speaker 2:When it's, then it's not a practice anymore, like, for me, meditation isn't something that I have to really think about. Like I get up in the morning, I like go to the bathroom, I have a drink of water and I literally sit on this couch, like pretty much in the corner where I'm sitting now, and I meditate there. You know, like that's the first thing I do, without do not pass go, do not look at my phone, do not do anything, just do that. You know, like that way there like sets me up. I go into this beautiful state. Because if you can do it in the morning when you first wake up as well, you can normally get back into that transcendent state quickly, because that mantra kind of drops you off in that space between waking and sleeping and sleeping and dreaming. So it's like in normal people who don't meditate, you pass through that slot within three seconds. But if you meditate, it's kind of dropping you off there. So your mind has this memory of like oh, I know this place. So if you don't distract yourself with anything when you first get up, you can normally go to that space pretty quickly. But you're doing it always sitting up on a chair so you're still conscious of the sounds and that are around you and stuff like that, but then you're not. Yeah, when you don't do it consistently, then it's just like anything like. It's like if you were a tennis player and you were a pro tennis player and then you just stopped training because, like, you just did tournaments but you didn't actually do the thing. It's the same thing. You just start losing it, so it's not anything.
Speaker 2:But if you can incorporate it into your daily routine like yesterday afternoon was another good example I had to go and do all the stuff in the morning. I was coming out, I had to do you know, I do astrology readings as well and I had to do this reading at like three o'clock but I was feeling like tired and I thought I don't like doing readings with people when I'm tired, so I feel a responsibility for that. But it was like two o'clock and I thought, oh, it's actually not till three, so that's great. So I went and sat down and I meditated for half an hour and then I came out of that and I was like you know, because that 20 minutes or half an hour that I did is equal to three to five hours of, like deep rest, you know.
Speaker 2:So it's always really good to do that, but you don't realize, like, how, how much, um, how this beautiful tool that you have in your tool belt, once you have it, can really help you, like navigate different parts of your life. You don't lay down and have a sleep or whatever. Like you just sit down and close your eyes and, you know, go inward and start tapping into that beautiful heart-centered awareness and it starts helping you in so many different areas of your life. That's why I really love it, because it really I watch it change people's lives every week.
Speaker 1:But yeah, it almost seems to me that it's kind of like when you're meditating, you're so tapped into source every day and that's why you feel good, right. You're just not in that resistance anymore. And when I've stopped, from my experience, I feel like it's like my ego is kind of like going Nat, stay over here, Like don't meditate, because you know this is where we stay. We stay in this world of the human experience, which is like scarcity and separation, and you know you've got limitations here. And it's so interesting, as soon as you meditate, it's just like this vibration lifts, lifts, like you just are open to way more possibilities.
Speaker 2:So well the egoic mind is. You know the egoic mind is designed. We need the egoic mind, you know. But the thing is we don't want him to be the driver, and the egoic mind is designed to keep us. It wants to stay safe, so it keeps us in the ever-repeating no one of life. That's how we kind of like describe it. We just love going around in a circle, like you know. We wake up, we go to work, we come home and cook dinner, we watch the block, we go back home Do you know what I mean? Like and then, yeah, then we go to sleep, and then on Tuesdays we do tennis, and then on like Fridays, we might go for a drink with our friends and just kind of live for the weekend.
Speaker 2:But when we're meditating the egoic mind gets disrupted. It doesn't like the fact that we meditate, because he starts to lose control and he starts getting moved to like the passenger seat of life. And but you know, when we're meditating regularly, even now, I still get it Like I still have that voice that goes like don't bother doing your practice today, you know, it's okay. You did an extra 10 minutes this morning, like don't bother doing the afternoon one, do you know I mean, but it's true, like it does come and like, but only because like it doesn't want to lose control. It wants to keep you in the ever repeating non, the safe, the thing that we consider safe. It's the same way of like taking leaps, like I did when I, like you know, went to go to learn to become a teacher and stuff like that. It's the same thing if we listen to that mind and if you really think about it.
Speaker 2:This is I had a conversation with someone about this yesterday. I was about, um, when someone goes like there's two people inside of me, and I was like, yeah, there's like two. Like who do you talk to when you're talking to yourself? Do you know what I mean? You're actually talking to your egoic mind, actually, that's what you're talking to.
Speaker 2:You know it's almost like your spirit or like someone, is like talking to, like your soul, is like talking to the other driver, and you've got to be able to say like wait, get out of that seat, that's my seat you know, and I think that um that's what happens. I feel like the egoic mind tricks you into thinking like, no, you don't need to do it because you're feeling really good now. But actually, if you consistently keep doing it, it just gets better yes, right, rather than always like going backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards, and backwards and forwards.
Speaker 1:It's like you just keep going forwards yeah, and I think the egoic mind is is, you know, that's with all the love and compassion and for it in the world, because it essentially is just a a collection of your experiences of life. So there's a lot of like inner child stuff in there as well, and so that's why it's like really important, I think, not to hate the ego and be like oh, I just want to kill my ego. It's like you can't. No one's going to kill their ego. Everyone's got an ego. Even the dalai lama has an ego. He has an identity right. So, um, but it's just um.
Speaker 1:It's just like even that voice when, when you like, say, you start like a meditation practice or you start like a health plan or you go to the gym, the reason that you will sabotage yourself is the ego. It's not any other reason it will be. Old stories are like you've hit your goal, okay, let's go and smash some pizza and fat coke. You know's like. The ego is like cool, we did it, okay, let's just, and that's all that happens. So whenever anyone says to me about sabotage or anything like that, I'm just like it's. There's just a story in your ego that is happening and you can I know from my own experience, like you can be in the driving seat when you are meditating and when you have that daily practice. And it's about, like not beating yourself up if you like miss the daily practice, like once or twice, but just recognizing if you let it go for too long, you will start to slip, you'll start to slide down and that's the ego that's getting you to slide back.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, yeah it yeah, trying to take control back and you're like no, you're not gonna win no, you're not get over here. Come on in the loving embrace, come over here, but as your soul, I'm just gonna cuddle you and then let's go where we're meant to be going so that's right.
Speaker 1:So we we touched a little bit on vedic astrology as well. So what, what is vedic astrology like? If I was coming to you and I was like jeff, you know, I've heard you do this vedic astrology thing, you know with a lot more respect, but what, what? How would you explain it to me?
Speaker 2:well, you know, that was the other thing as well. I was going to say, like you know, when I put that first string in my bow of like um, vedic meditation teacher, then I realized like, oh, I can't just do like one thing. Then I learned himalayan breath work with anand and did like my 200 hour yoga teacher training, all that stuff as well, using kriya and that stuff, and then I ended up I've always been interested in astrology, like from a really young age and then um, and I think that then I went and learned how to do vedic astrology. So with vedicic astrology, how it's different from Greek and Western astrology is that we look at what star sign was actually rising on the easternmost horizon when you were born, because that gives you a much bigger flavour of what your life is like. So it's like what sign was actually coming up on the horizon at the time that you were born. And if you look at Greek and Western astrology, it mainly looks at what sign your sun was in, not actually what sign was coming off. So that invading astrology is known as your rising sign or ascending sign, and that's the one that really determines your personality in this lifetime.
Speaker 2:Like I've had lots of people who've done like western astrology readings and I go like, oh, this is actually a rising sign. They go like, oh, I thought it was this. And you're like, oh, it's actually this. And then you tell them and go like, oh, that actually sounds much more like me. And um, you know, we're connected to the planets by the chakra system of the body, so like saturn's the root chakra, jupiter's the second chakra, mars is the third, venus is the heart, mercury's the throat, and then sun and moon. And there's also two other shadow planets in vedic astrology which are the north node and the south node of the moon, but they're known as rahu and k2.
Speaker 2:So the mythology goes that the short version is that when the gods were giving up the immortal nectar to live forever, um, this dragon stuck into the line and the dragon was like I want some of that and they're like you can't have any, you're a dragon. But as he was drinking the immortal nectar, they sliced him in half and so the head went to one end of the chart and the tail went to the other. So they always aspect each other in the chart, but the tail, which is k2, represents what past life karma you came into work on in this lifetime and the head represents expansion into what you're supposed to be doing. So if you don't work on what you came into work on, then sometimes you're always chasing something, never feeling satisfied because you're just a head with no body. But if you do work on what you came in to work on, then you can like ride the head of the dragon for like full expansion into your Dharma.
Speaker 1:Okay, I've got so many questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but with Vedic astrology it's like you really helped you understand. It's like the blueprint of your life. Wherever there's 12 houses, which are the 12 star signs, it really, wherever the planets are, in which house, which is which sign, determine, like how the energy of that particular planet's like going to play out in your life. And uh, and each house represents a different part of your life, like family you want into siblings, like korea, like mom, dad, you can see the whole life in there, and so you know it shows you the blueprint of, like what you're supposed to be doing for your life, like what energies you've played with, whether they're low value energies or high value energies, and then it's, and then the choices that you make in your life determine how the karma plays out. Are you choosing the high value? You're choosing the low value, and I think that you know, in vedic astrology as well, we also have nakshatras, which are like the little 27 little constellations that go around.
Speaker 2:So if anyone ever reads like my full moon posts on Instagram and stuff like that as well, like I talk about the nakshatra that the full moon is in, because that in each sign there's like two and a half nakshatras, so there's like other little tiny signs, like Sagittarius and you know, cancer and all that kind of stuff they're actually known as Bani and, like you know, revati and stuff like that same thing, like the archer or a lotus or like whatever, like just made in the stars, and and then we also have the data system, which is like, um, certain planets sit over your chart for certain periods of time, and so you might have jupiter for 16 years and saturn's 19 years and you have moons 10 years and stuff like that as well.
Speaker 2:But when they change signs like that's when something big shift happens, because it's normally moving to a different house, so a different house in your area of your life gets lit up. And that's the part that I really love the most. When I do, I kind of do it at the end of the reading, when I go to people, like what happened in june of 1994 and I was like oh my god, that's when I divorced my husband and, like you know well, that's when I had my first child, or that's when I moved to new york.
Speaker 2:You know, and then go, oh, yeah, then what happened in like you know, like 16 years after that, you know, like, when you oh, that's when I, you know, decided that I wanted to change my career and do something else. But it's because, like, and when you tell them the exact dates of, like when things happen, they'll go like, wow, you know, it really makes people like understand, um, understand that there's like, definitely you know, certain areas, like we all have, like, a certain path we're all here for, for evolution, but we're actually every single person that's alive and breathing also has a purpose we're all part of, like this one big beautiful living, breathing, you know, and and, uh, we all have to understand that we all have a purpose, like you know, and that, um, and this really helps you navigate.
Speaker 2:That that's what I really love. It's like this beautiful science that helps you really navigate your chart and I I'd probably do two or three readings a day most days, and it's been, um, something that I never thought that that would become, the thing that I was probably well known for, you know, like it was something that I was doing as part of a coaching program that I thought like, oh, when I coach someone, if I just look at their chart, they won't have to tell me what's wrong with them, because I'm already going to know. Yeah, and with astrology you can look at different periods of your life and there's like harder periods and bits when the apple cart gets shook and but a lot of times it's trying to move you like I'll give you an example like when I actually look at my chart, I was able to like, after I'd studied it, I was able to go back to go like, okay, well, what was happening when I had cancer and I lost my job and all?
Speaker 2:that stuff and I was going through this like seven and a half year period called sadasati. Sadasati means seven and a half, but it was actually like a time in my life when, when I see it happen on any person's life fact, most people who get readings from me are either in the beginning of that period, the middle of that period or the end of that period. Like that's the majority of it, because people are going like my life's been turned upside down.
Speaker 2:I need time to understand what's going on, and it's very interesting because when I look back at mine, I was going like, oh, that was actually right or happened right at the beginning of that seven and a half year period. And when you think about it, it was actually really almost like seven years from the time, like I had it, went through it like went back to work at Foxtel, went to India, did whatever, and then my life changed. And you know, and that's not going like oh, then I was like fully, it's almost like one book of my life closed. Like which was that book? And now I? It wasn't like a chapter, it was like a whole new version of like me and um and the person that I was meant to step into. But I had to have that whole experience to understand myself on this side of it. You know cause?
Speaker 2:I find that when I teach meditation, or if I even do reading, sometimes to help people understand things, I teach in story form. As you can tell, I'm Gemini ascendant, so I Mercury is my the Lord of my ascendant, so it's all about communication and talking. So sometimes I just can't shut up, but it's like, you know, um, yeah, that's part of the thing so, yeah, that's like in a nutshell, I suppose.
Speaker 1:So I mean just to just to sort of nut it all down, because there is, I mean it sounds like, and the way that I'm perceiving it is like when you look at somebody's chart, it's almost like you know you're looking at their sun, their moon, they're ascending, you know they're rising, and it's almost like that is the blueprint, it's almost like the crown of their head, right, that's coming through and that is the blueprint. And so, based upon your time of birth, your date of birth, obviously, whatever's going on with the planets at the time. Time of birth, your date of birth, obviously, whatever's going on with the planets at the time is that what?
Speaker 1:determines our karma. Do you think that in terms yeah, okay, so can we talk about time that we normally look at.
Speaker 2:Like you know, obviously we don't really know whether the nurse wrote it down on your first breath, but I mean with it, it's only within 51.30, yeah so it's like you know, we first breath to last breath, because obviously the first thing we do when we come into the spell is take a breath, and then the last thing we do is take a breath, and actually that's the time when we also disconnect from the mother as well as when we take our first breath, you know.
Speaker 2:So that's when we're like independent, the soul is like in the, and then you know, depending on where the planets are like, we definitely bring through karma from other lifetimes as well. You know, and so you can see, because that depends on what house K2 is in. So if we look at what house he's in, then we can go like, oh okay, like it might be about that. Sometimes, like, for example, if K2 is in the fifth house, fifth house is like children, like your children in this lifetime. So if k2s in the fifth house, fifth house is like children, like your children in this lifetime.
Speaker 2:So if this planet's in that house, like normally, if people haven't even had kids yet, I'm thinking like, oh, that person's gonna have two kids, gonna have a boy and a girl. Like, if they haven't, if I don't know anybody, someone's gonna go like do you have a boy and a girl? And they're like, yes, do you know what I mean? Like it's like that because you can see that. Or do you have two boys and um, but there's other things, like if k2 is in there, which is like the past life planet. A lot of times it means that you had lots of kids already in your previous lifetime and, uh, your dharma in this lifetime is actually maybe not to have children and and so if you want to have children, it's almost like a choice. But a lot of times when I'm finding people that are going through ivf, for example and things like that as well, like they have K2 in the fifth house. So if you want to have, children.
Speaker 1:They've had children in a previous lifetime?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that means like they've kind of been like had lots of children before, um, but a lot of times if they want to have children in this lifetime, you still can, because we have the power of choice. But the difference is is that you have to, you know, because some people will have it there, but they've had kids anyway. But if you look at like when they had them, it was actually when the transit of k2 was happening you can actually look during certain you know, because planets sit in our chart for a certain period of time and the other ones are always like moving around. So if you can find the window of opportunity of like when it is that you could pull through a child, then that's it.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times with people that have that, they're like people of the world, like they're like living in ashrams or they're like you know, they're like the world's their family and like it's very interesting Like you end up finding like a lot of people like that, or just sometimes it's just part of like, you know, the role of having children isn't really part of like what they're here for in this life, you know. But if they wanted to have that experience, they can have it. It's just all about finding the window and, you know, I definitely see lots of people on IVF, for example, who do that. But if they can see an astrologer, a lot of times it can help them a lot Because you can go like oh, actually you should try to do it during this window of time, you know, in this window of time you know, like I mean I don't it's not something that I advertise to do that, because I don't want that pressure before to help them who I've never been doing ivs where.
Speaker 2:Just try this window, like I don't know. Like you know you can just try anything. I mean like, but if you can have a look and go like well, you know what, this is actually the best window that you should try, I feel like you know why not try to line it up with you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, I'm actually really curious now because I've had my reading done and I'm obviously I don't have children, um, and biologically I yeah, I'm just turned 46, so I'm not really in that um arena of of going through that. But there's always this like little question in the back of my mind where I'm like, will I adopt? Well, I've always had this idea of being a mum, but I also think it could be a mum to many situation. You know, like I've got very maternal energy. I, you know, love taking care of people and maybe I'll just create something different. But I'm definitely going to look into that because, um, yeah, that'd just be interesting just to see if the adoption or other options are available. But, yeah, very interesting. I didn't realize you could see all that. And what do you find people come to you the most for for astrology readings? Is it because they're going through a heartbreak and they just want to know it's going to be okay?
Speaker 2:People definitely do it in relationships because they do relationship readings, or they go like when should I be looking if I'm going to get okay? Like people definitely do it in relationships because I do do relationship readings, or they go like when should I be looking if I'm gonna get into one again? Um, korea, definitely, you know. I kind of like have um and then and current transits is good, because I think most people now, like you know lots of people who've had a reading already definitely like to have another one. A lot of times when I do their first initial reading, I'll often do like I'll add on a bit of current transit stuff to go like okay, in the next six months. Like this is probably what you should be concentrating on, because I can give you remedies and all that stuff as well. Like we've got all mantras that all the planets have mantras. Like you know, there's different breathwork to activate the chakra system of the body, because we're connected to the planets by the chakra. So it's about how do we align our energy so that we can tap into the highest value of like what's coming in and uh. And I remember I had this one girl who would like I taught her to meditate a while ago and then she just got this reading. I don't really know much about her life, but I knew she had three kids and stuff and um, she came into the, she was in the room, in her room, and we were doing this reading but like halfway through I was telling her about, oh, you've got like Rahu in your house with the father. I was going like you know, it's like um. I said it looks like he left your life when you were two. And she's like, oh, yeah, he did leave when I was two. I said, but he's, I feel, to your life probably. I said he probably will come back. She's like, oh, he's trying to come back now. And I was like, oh, really. And she's like, yeah, like he's back in my life. She says, but I don't, um, I want nothing to do with him. And I was like why? And she's like, oh, because he left us and we were two.
Speaker 2:And I said, oh, but you've actually got this other thing where your mom was supposed to play birth roles in your life she has son in her house with in the fourth house, which is also the house of mother. I said like she's like that. So she was actually supposed to be the mother and the father, cause son also represents our father. And I said so she was supposed to actually play both roles in your life. And they said but I said your dad's like coming back into your life now because there's still something that's not finished actually. So, um, you know you can't just dismiss it. And she's going like, no, I don't want him in my life. He's trying to meet his grandchildren and all this kind of stuff. And I was going like how did you think I knew that he left when you were two. And she goes yes, how did you know that? And I was like, well, it's here, like it's in the chart. He wasn't supposed to be there and your mom was supposed to raise you and now he's supposed to come back. I said but you can't k a lot of times with people's relationships in their life, they forget that their parents are the first relationship that they have and that actually they're the ones who birthed you into this earth and created you and you chose them to be your parents, for whatever reason. And, um, you know, as long as we can see them in, that we don't have to be best friends with them, but as long as we can see them in a state of consciousness where we go like, oh, they just did, did what, how they knew best, and you know. But I still love them for bringing here all. Always think about everyone with love, because you want to take it into another lifetime to have to work it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so her mother was knocking on the door after a while because we'd been like an hour and a half, nearly two hours, like in this reading, and, um, because she needed to go out. But the daughter was like go away. I'm like you know, because we really went deep onto this whole thing, because she asked me a lot of questions about it and whatever. I feel like she had a really good understanding and I felt like I was breaking through, so I gave her more time and, um, she ended up leaving, that we left and she was happy. But two days later I got an email from the mother and the mother said I don't know who you are, but I just had to thank you because, um, I asked my daughter for your email because, like um, you know, I was knocking on the door. First of all, I wanted to apologize for being rude and trying to make her stop. She goes. But I was looking after the kids while she was having that reading with you and, um, I needed to go somewhere. She goes.
Speaker 2:But the person who went into that room and the person that came out of that room was a completely different person. She said because for the last like year since her father's been back in our lives, like he's been trying to come over to, like, meet his grandkids he's never met his grandchildren. And, um, yeah, we've been trying to do something, but she won't have a bar of it. She goes. But as soon as she came out of that room, she told me to call her father and ask him to come over for dinner that night. And he's already been over for dinner two nights in a row now and he's already met his grandchildren. And she said so. I just wanted to thank you for putting our family back together and I just really I'm just so grateful for, like, whatever you said. I don't even know what you said, or did I know, I don't care. I just wanted to say thank you to you for for for doing that for us yeah, so you know, I mean, it was just things like that.
Speaker 2:sometimes, if you can have an understanding of like. That's why I love that example, because I thought it gives you a beautiful understanding of how we need to look at what choices we make we need to look at, you know, things, people can change and things can happen and sometimes things come around. It is all about we make choices. Our choices determine how the karma plays out. You know, had she not had that reading, she might still not have anything with her dad because she was holding onto something that had happened when she was two years old. But actually what happened when she was two was supposed to happen so can I ask a question?
Speaker 1:so it's almost like and I please correct me on this but it's almost like that blueprint that we come in with. You know that time, the planets, everything, the way it's aligned, that's almost like what you're seeing is kind of I don't know if I want to call it fate, or it's like what you're seeing is kind of I don't know if I want to call it fate or it's the karma on it's, it's the fate on, you know, with the Dharma. Okay, so what is Dharma? Just explain Dharma.
Speaker 2:Dharma is like your life's purpose. It is like the life that you were meant to live, you know. So you can definitely see the ups and downs, you can see where the challenges are coming in, you can see the time periods when the challenges are coming in, and then you know, it's the choices that you make that determine how the karma plays out. Are you choosing a high value of that planet when that's transiting through that same thing, or are you choosing a low value of that planet, like you know? And so it's about if you know what the high value and low value is and you can go like, oh, I feel like this, I need to be reaching for that. But that's when, like, an integrated practice comes in, where, like meditation helps you tap into yourself.
Speaker 2:So you know, when you're making decisions about things that are you know, you need to have an integrated practice. It's not just one thing, like if you meditate, you have an astrological chart and then I teach, you know breath work and stuff like that as well, which is also about aligning the energy systems of the body as well. I feel like you know, I feel like if we have an integrated practice, then you can you use whatever modalities you need, like to be able to, like you know, understand your journey through time. We're just really journeying through time, you know. So it's like this beautiful thing, but it's like understanding yourself, like from all aspects, like really helps you to make better decisions in what you're doing yeah, absolutely, and I feel like I know we've spoken about this before.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like that macro. I feel what you do and what your work is and your gifts are is allowing people to see that macro level like that. You know, even in that example you just gave about that girl with her relationship with her, you know her dad. It's like you've allowed her to kind of see no, this is, this is the way your mom's life was meant to go, this is the way your dad's, he, was meant to leave.
Speaker 1:It's this macro level, on a human level, we're on, we're on the micro level, right? So this is where the blame game is, and like, and, and I'm, I'm, you know, obviously being really aware that there are some horrific things that some parents do and maybe that they don't deserve to be in your life, and I know you touched on that. But it's about, even if you can't love and honor them for who they are, it's about having that gratitude for the fact that, through them, you came to be here, and then this is where your life begins, right. But even in that experience, she got to understand that on a human level, on the micro level, she was angry towards her dad. She was in the human experience, the ego experience of having this anger and he's you know he left us all that hurt. But I think what you did is you allowed her to see the micro level, the overarching bigger picture, which is this is the way it was meant to be. What are you going to do with this?
Speaker 2:What's your choice?
Speaker 1:And I think this is the game of the human game or the soul game. It's kind of like the soul understands why all this is orchestrated and I feel that's what you're doing is allowing people to see that bigger soul energy picture. Um, but yeah, it's very hard. I mean, I I've been stuck in the human game for a very long time only only, even though I thought I was, I was like, yeah, I'm so connected to source, like all the time and I totally know what's going on, and then you just slip backwards sometimes. Well, in my experience, I you know, I slip out of it, I slip into the ego game and I sort of can feel myself going into that blame game. So it's like I think it's all part of it, though, but it into the ego game and I sort of can feel myself going into that blame game.
Speaker 2:So it's like I think it's all part of it, though, but it's all. When we do that, it's designed to teach us lessons. Yeah, the difference is is like we're really just consciousness, having an experience through a body. Right, we're not really when we, when we die, like we just drop the body and our consciousness actually remains, but it's actually like how much can you raise your state of consciousness so that you can really have the full experience of what is actually here? Yeah, hell is actually really like the ever-repeating known of life. How many lifetimes have you come back and gone around and around and around in a circle and like yeah, and not actually done any evolutionary process you know I
Speaker 2:feel like, if, like if you understand that you're only here for evolution and that your job really is to have a good life but also upgrade yourself as much as you can by doing practices and doing things. There's a reason why they've been around for thousands of years. If you read, potentially, yoga sutras or you read any of those types of books Yogananda's Autobiography of a yogi is a good book if you want to start on a book, start on that book the autobiography of a yogi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's called autobiography of yogis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yoga nanda is like. His story is amazing. You know, I reckon it's like I've given that book to so many people because I just feel like it's such an amazing way on an entry level into understanding, like, how life works and how we just need to be connected to ourselves, like we're all connected to each other anyway, you know. But it's like about how do you make sure that I'm the best version of myself, so that, yeah, we're all here to help and evolve and lift each other. You know, it's not about us against them and all that stuff. Like, I think, when you see all the things that happen, that's why I really love astrology like so much. Like I feel like it's been this thing where you, you know it's never wrong. That's what I find really interesting.
Speaker 2:Like I've never done anyone's chart Cause I have people. Just you know they, I'm just get me through Google, cause I was going how did you find me get me through Google? Cause I was going like, how did you find me? Like, oh, I just Google and I think, thanks, google and um. But it's like um, yeah, I don't know them. I've never met them before in my life. They literally come on a screen like this where I run, zoom and we like do it, and there was going oh my God, like I feel like you know me better than I know myself. You know, like, and it's just like it's never wrong, like that's the thing, like it's not, like I've never had one person out of like how many hundreds that I've done. They've gone. Like that's not me. Yeah, there was a girl like wow, that's like.
Speaker 2:That's like yeah, yeah, there's a girl like wow, that's like really mean you know you know, I think that, um, it really shows you that the reason why I love doing it is because a lot of times, people are comparing themselves to other people all the time, thinking that they need to be more like that person that they like, or you know their friend, for example.
Speaker 2:But actually, when you understand that like, oh, these are the energies that I brought into this lifetime to play with and these are the ones that I have to use and upgrade and these are the areas of my life that I need to maybe focus on and make sure that I'm choosing a high value, and when these particular things happen, then you realize like, oh, this is who I am, I can let go of, like, any attachment to trying to be somebody else and I can just be me and try to be the best version of me possible, because now you know what to reach for when you're feeling a certain way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, I think that's the other thing. I think people from my experience as well it's like who am I being like? Who is the essence of me and the essence of all, each and every single one of us, is love. Right, we all come from the same place, we are all one and we are everything like we. You know, I am everything, you are everything.
Speaker 1:Um, it's just this resistance of the human experience and life experiences. I always call it the fog. It kind of stops your light shining because you've got this fog in the way of like. You know, oh, I've got to be like this person, or why don't I have this? Or, you know, if I only had this I'd be happy, and all these kind things. We're just surrounded by this fog and the more work that we can do to clear it, the more that light gets to shine in my experience.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you I actually heard this the other day and I love it and I'd just love to get your opinion on it as well. And it was basically I was watching this YouTube video video and this guy was talking about consciousness, right, and he was explaining that when we breathe in, and I'm sort of tapping into your Vedic kind of your Himalayan breath work here. When we breathe in whatever this is here, we call it air, right in front of us. But if I held my nose like this and I didn't breathe for three or four minutes, right, I would lose consciousness. And so this guy was actually saying you would go unconscious if you stop breathing. So we call this thing air. But he was saying what if it's consciousness?
Speaker 1:yeah, I've never really heard it like that before, I know, and I just heard about it and I was like I'm just going to throw it out, because when we stop breathing we go unconscious. We cut ourself off from consciousness.
Speaker 2:What do you think about that? The first thing we do when we come into this world is take a breath and the last thing we do is take our last breath, right, yeah, and I think that that you know that's why we actually have, but it's coming back now with, like wim hof and people like that as well, where we are like connected to the breath. We have to understand that, like you know, different techniques and different things will give you access to different dimensions within yourself. Like that's what I was saying as well. When you when we're talking about the different deities and stuff like that like you can sit with a deity like I've done these 90 minute breathwork journeys or whatever where we invoke a different deity, and that deity sits with you the whole day, like you can see it when you've got your eyes closed, and stuff like that as well, you can definitely invoke states using your breath, and people do it all the time and I think that, you know, it's not so much about consciousness being the breath, but I feel like the breath.
Speaker 2:Pranayama is life force energy. So it is. You know, it's known as pranayama. So pranayama is life force energy and without it we're not alive. So I suppose, technically it is kind of consciousness, but we need to actually fill our body with pranayama, with prana so, um, you know, because prana is energy that moves upwards and apana is energy that moves downwards. So it's like, you know, it's always about how do we? Um, you know, if we're alive? That's why I said as well before, if we're alive and breathing, then we have a purpose. You know, like we're supposed to actually be here. We've got a purpose.
Speaker 1:There is a big awakening happening. I think there are a lot of people really starting to realise like just the egoic mind a lot more and starting to recognize those patterns in themselves and how that does pull you down. But I think all of like the practices that you offer I mean all of that I think is a massive opportunity for people to wake up. You know, it's a brilliant combination that you've got with the astrology, with the meditation and then with the breath work as well. It's like the full spectrum of here's your, here's the door to consciousness. Come on in. I've made it really easy for you.
Speaker 1:I feel like you know, I feel like for me.
Speaker 2:I'm someone. I don't teach something until I've kind of done it myself, and then I realized, like you know, a lot of times I go and do a practice or I do something and I think like, wow, this is actually really good, like this would be good to teach people. And you know what's happening in humanity right now. You can see, even like, for example, on March 30th is when we have six planets lining up in a row in one particular sign. It hasn't happened for a really long time.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? What's going to happen to us?
Speaker 2:we're also moving from, like you know, saturn's changing thing as well. He changes every two and a half years. He's moving on that same day that there's actually an eclipse. Um, it just means that there's like going to be some shift, like you can see at the moment, in humanity. Like the first shift really happened when all the planets were on one side in 2020, april.
Speaker 2:What happened, covid? Do you mean like so? It was like that was something that like affected humanity. I remember looking at that. We were looking at that as um, when we were studying stuff, like going like, oh, something's gonna happen around that time. I wonder what it's gonna be. And I remember, like if we were kind of into covid and going like, oh, this is what it is. But because we knew it was something that was happening in a current transit that was going to affect the world, it wasn't going to be something that's like just in the country, it was actually like affecting the world. So that was the first like kind of awakening event. You know that kind of like starts to happen. But that was where it really like showed people, like it showed to me. It showed people's state of consciousness, do you?
Speaker 2:know what I mean, like it really showed you, like how you responded or reacted to that particular situation. And, um, and I kind of looked at it with fascination because I'd already seen from the astrological point of view, I was kind of looking at going like, oh okay, like you know, that's what's happening and I just made myself available to do like group meditation. I did group meditation every night and you know all that kind of stuff as well, just to try to help people, you know, navigate that. And then this is like another shift that's kind of happening now, where I feel like, if you look at, you know, american politics is like a really good example of like you know, because a lot of times the consciousness state of the country is like by the leader.
Speaker 2:So you look at the leader and that's the consciousness state of the country, and I know that people in america go like, oh, my god, you can't say that. But actually, if you forget about Donald Trump, the person, you know what he's done and who he is like, forget about the person. You need to look at the energy of like what he's actually doing, like he's going in and like he's almost like causing sort of sussy in the world.
Speaker 2:He is shaking that place up, but actually what he's doing is is like bringing things to light so that they can be deleted or so that we can understand them, which is why he's released the JFK files. And while he's done that, like they've been hidden for so long. But why? Why can't we just know what happened Do?
Speaker 2:you know what I mean. Like as humanity, like we're all humans, like it's all part of it, affected our whole reality, like we still make movies about it and we still do whatever Like, why can't we just know, like, what happened and it's?
Speaker 2:like that with fascinating, with everything you know, like I just think that forget about the person. Like we can't look at the person, like that's, we've got to look at the energetic thing, or maybe just look at even how it's affecting humanity, where it is. Like it's causing us to look at all parts of our lives. It's causing us as individuals, but it's causing countries to look at each other. It's causing like everyone, like who else was going to come in there and be an agitator to do that? If you, the whole world's based on maintenance, creation, destruction. If we don't have, if we stay in maintenance, creation never happens at a maintenance, it only happens after destruction, the same way that a fire goes through a forest and the pods open, because they only open when there's like certain amount of heat and they haven't opened for 20 years or whatever it is. You know what I mean. So nature's built on that too, and so is whatever's happening right now, and so I think that humanity is going through a big turning point.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of the readings that I do for people lately, like you asked me, it just kind of came to me and was that? You know, people come to me saying like I feel saying, like I feel lost that's probably the theme of the last two months like everyone goes, like I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm here because I'm here with to see, because I feel lost, because everyone knows, and I feel like the energy that's coming into the planet now is actually waking people up. Like people are definitely waking up and their um, their consciousness states rising without them even really having to meditate or do stuff. But then they started to get drawn towards like oh, I need to meditate or I need to do something, and and they know that they're. It's almost like they also know that they have a purpose as well. Right, so they go.
Speaker 2:Well, I feel a bit lost. So I don't really know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. Like, I don't really like what I'm doing. I feel like I need to do this, but they're also scared to go take the leap. So that's what's like we'll learn to meditate. It helps you tap into your inner bliss state.
Speaker 2:Do some integrated practice like do this breath work? You know, I I give them remedies as well. Like to try to help them navigate through that period, and I think that you know that's definitely that's what's happening. We're waking up as humanity. I think you will find I you know it'd be good to look back on this later on in time, because I really feel like if we fast forward like 10 years in time and we see where humanity ends up with, like you know, whatever we'll probably look back on the Donald Trump years and go like, actually we needed him to do that. We might not like what he represented as a person, but actually what he did to agitate the world, to help us, like you know, to cause new creation that might happen after he leaves it's almost like he's come in.
Speaker 1:He's just pulling the root, the weeds up, but by the roots this time, and just like. What's this one for?
Speaker 2:like, oh, you've been doing that for like that, so like we're not dead anymore, chuck it away. You know, if you, it's never about other, and if you upgrade your own consciousness state and you just worry about yourself and you do that, you could always navigate any challenges with ease. That's actually the secret to life, actually you say that again if you upgrade your own consciousness state, so you do the practices and you do what you need to do.
Speaker 2:It helps you understand, like everything that ever happens in life, and by you doing that as well, it's sending a ripple out into the world as well.
Speaker 2:Like you, know, it's you know you're starting to affect. Imagine the's sending a ripple out into the world as well, like you know it's. You know you're starting to affect. Imagine the people that you come into into contact with, like during your life. Like you, lead by example, you upgrade your consciousness state and it starts to have a ripple effect through your family and through your friends and through, like whatever. And then more people learn to meditate and more people learn to connect with themselves, like that's what it's supposed to. That's what it's supposed to, that's what it's designed to do. You know like.
Speaker 2:So I feel like I feel, like these planetary shifts that are happening now are going to cause that to happen faster. Yeah, and you know, it's like people are wanting community again. I feel like after covid, when covid happened, everyone went online and everything was done online and everyone was happy to do everything online, whereas now I'm finding there's been a shift, especially this year and the end of last year people are like wanting community again, where they want to come together because, like now, they realize like I'm just online all the time, I'm always swiping, or I'm working from home or I'm doing whatever, and now they want like connection, because we are energetic beings and we need to have contact with each other to be able to, you know, live a good life there's so much there, jeff um.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:No, I knew it was going to be a big one, don't you worry, I'm like he's got a lot of wisdom, a lot of wisdom in there. You talked about individually, us raising our own individual consciousness and from there that being the ripple effect and that's all we right. So if we're watching the news or if we're consuming, you know, violent, whatever it's kind of like, what would you say? What advice would you give to people to work on themselves and to raise their own consciousness?
Speaker 2:You're not going to raise your consciousness state just by looking at a candle or, you know, doing guided meditations. You're going to do it by having a mantra based technique which takes you inward and being able to connect into yourself. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those other techniques, like they definitely have a purpose and a time. And it's great to be contemplative and it's good to do guided meditations and stuff, but I think that you know the baseline of what everyone needs to have before they do even breath work, and you know all that kind of stuff as well. Like, if you have a meditation technique, it's like the foundation of everything. If you can bookend your day with, like, meditation in the morning, meditation in the afternoon or evening, then whatever happens in between those times, it ends up becoming the one constant thing in your life. That never changes. Right? Our life is random and we're always having different experiences, different events. We think that we control our lives but all it takes is like we walk across the road and get hit by a bike or like you know, and it changes our whole day, kind of thing. We don't know what's going to happen. We think we know what's going to happen, but we actually don't know what's going to happen. All we're doing is living in the now. But it's like if we can bookend our day with going from active thinking mind down to that place of transcendence and tapping into that inner bliss state and releasing stress in the nervous system and that stuff that doesn't change. That's what really helps us, like, stay grounded, stay centered, stay, you know. You know we start acting out, we start activating our inner intuition, our third eye, and like that's really powerful practice.
Speaker 2:And I think that if you start with that baseline and then you start, you know, adding on other integrated practices at different times when you want to, you know, and sometimes I wake up in the morning and I've meditated and I think I don't want to do that breath work today. But you know, when I go, like no, I'm just going to sit down and do it, and you know it makes me, it aligns me and it makes me feel better and I think like thank God I did that. But there was a big voice in my head trying to make me not do it. Go have a coffee. Why don't you just go for a walk instead?
Speaker 2:Like you know, it's like all those things and it's just like, no, I'm going to actually connect into myself more deeper, you know, like, and I think that if we understand that, that we're in here for evolution, that if we can just upgrade ourselves, we don't even understand how much joy, how much bliss, we stopped looking externally for anything to make us happy, because we're already happy, and then anything that externally that makes us happy just makes us more happy. And yeah, and I think that that's it's the secret to life. Actually, it is the secret to life If we understand that we can just upgrade our you know um set of consciousness. It's not supposed to all be sunshine and rainbows. Everything is supposed to, everything is designed to push us, to make us better.
Speaker 2:You know, make us just actually all it is is a journey of self-discovery. It's like how do we discover more about ourselves, how do we discover more about what makes us tick like, what makes me happy, what makes you happy, like you know that stuff? How do we live in alignment with, like um, our dharma and you know, and have just the best possible life that we can have? We're always going to have challenges, because once we hit certain points, to actually get to the next point, you have to have you know.
Speaker 2:I asked anon once about you know going, like oh, is that, is there ever an end? Because you know he's obviously someone who's done like a lot of work. He's like no, that's the beautiful thing about consciousness, it doesn't ever stop, it's just continually evolving. He goes. But it's like if you're driving a car, if you think about driving a car, like it starts going up and you do whatever, but every now and then you need to pull over on the side of the road to have a little break. You know like and then, and then you pull back out again and you like keep going, you know, and you keep pulling in. And I thought it was like a really beautiful analogy, because sometimes we do feel like you know, like even said before about not meditating anymore, or you know, you stop for a while, you know it's like that same thing. We kind of get to that point of thinking like, oh yeah, like I'm here, like I've got it.
Speaker 1:I don't, I need to get back on the wagon, yeah, and then you're like I feel lost, I feel stuck, I feel like, what's going on?
Speaker 2:and then, yeah, just come back to the practice. Whenever anything happens, you start looking at it from a different perspective, because you go what am I supposed to be learning from this? Not like, why is this happening to me?
Speaker 1:it's like what am I supposed?
Speaker 2:to actually learn about myself from this? That's the question that changes inside your mind. Yeah, this is happening to me because it's trying to teach me something about myself or about what I do, and it's not about being a victim, because we're never a victim, actually. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can just add a personal, just a touch to that and just kind of say, like in my, you know, because of my Dharma and you know all the things that I've been through, you know, because of my dharma and you know all the things that I've been through, you know I've had a really interesting relationship with the masculine over the years. You know, my dad died when I was young, my mom remarried he wasn't like the greatest sort of stepfather and then you know, that kind of led me to seeking love and validation and stuff you know, from men and so I would attract in, you know, very narcissistic people. It was like a co-creation, right, I was an empath and I was the people pleaser and they were drawn to it. But for years, it's like when every relationship would end, I would just be like why does this keep happening to me? Like what am I doing wrong? Like what's wrong with me?
Speaker 1:You know, and I was in that victim mindset and I actually like realized and this is obviously said by doing a lot of work on this stuff but I can now look back on every single one of those men who was in my life, even though some of them I allowed them to do, you know, really hurt me. I can actually look back on all of them and just say thank you so much because my journey was about recognizing my own power, my own self-worth. Not finding it, it's already within us, but it was like my massive journey, I think has actually been loving myself so much that those kind of people don't even get near me now. But it's taken me to 46 to get there. I've had a few pullovers on that road. I've stopped for petrol and Pepsi Max on the way, and you know, polluted my body.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, that's the so I totally can see. Now from being older and looking back, I can see the macro journey of my life, the umbrella of my life, and one of the things that I, one of the quests and the journeys that I've been on, has been to recognize that I am worthy and I am love and I am enough.
Speaker 2:And I have a question for you then, would you change any of that?
Speaker 1:No, not one thing. Exactly, not one thing, even though at times it's been scary. You know it's been scary and I've been to some dark places. I would not change a thing, but I've been lucky, I've been blessed, like people have landed in my path who've been like, hey, what about this, hey, what about this, hey, what about this, hey, what about meditation? You know, and that's been a series of choices that I've made as well. Um, but yeah, sometimes with resistance, sometimes it's it's taken me longer than others, I think in some way, because there's been so much resistance to it. And now I understand that resistance is just ego and I'm not my ego. Um, I'm starting to make decisions a lot faster, like choices a lot faster, feeling into it, you know, being more present, more conscious with my decisions.
Speaker 1:So, yeah it's a big old journey, jeff, isn't it, my goodness?
Speaker 2:but it's part of the fun, is like I know yeah, in sanskrit there's a word called lila, which means the play of life. You know, we're, we're just actually actors on a stage.
Speaker 2:You know we're all playing our part in the play of life, like we're all just on a stage, like playing our character, you know, and it's like a beautiful way to like think about it. You know, we're just like having this beautiful experience through a body. That's why I feel like, you know, if we can look at life with wonder and awe and go like, wow, I'm alive, I'm like in a body, then it's like, then we understand when they say your body is your temple, because actually it is the temple that houses your consciousness. Because without the body we don't even the consciousness hasn't got anywhere to go and we can't actually have. We're a five sensory being and we can't actually have. We're a five sensory being.
Speaker 2:And another thing that I think about, that I remember my teacher said one time, was going like we don't even realize that we live in a world that's like magic. Like you know, we get a seed from a tree, we plant it in the ground, we water it, it grows, it produces mangoes and then we eat this juicy mango. Like it's just like magic from a seed that was like this big, that grew on the ground we take. Just like magic from a seed that was like this big, that grew on the ground. We take it for granted that a seed goes in the ground and produces fruit, but we forget that, like when you can look at life with the wonder of life and think like, oh, I can plant this seed in the ground and it's going to give me like a mango, you know, like a juicy, juicy mango, but not once, like for a really long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and so it's like really beautiful when you start looking at life to realize like, oh, it's all just perfectly designed, like nature's always pushing us where we need to go, if we can tune into ourselves. And you know, really, uh understand that it's all just part of the the road that we're on. And yeah, you know it's about making the right choices and then using tools that we have, like astrology. You know it's about making the right choices and then using tools that we have like astrology and like breath work and coaching and, like you know, all those different things where we tap into people who have like done a lot of the work to help us navigate it all with a bit more grace and ease. And that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's gorgeous. Where can people find you and what have you got coming up?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll give you some exclusives, because some stuff just happened yesterday. So I teach Vedic meditation in in Clevella at the moment, but I'm also about to start in Sydney.
Speaker 2:In Sydney. Yeah, sorry, and then. So it'll be like then moving it to Paddington, which is also like in Sydney. There's going to be like a old church which I'm going to actually start teaching, which will be really nice. I'll start that after Easter and then I'll also be running like a 90 minute Himalayan breath work journey there as well, like on Sundays as well, which will be really good the first Sunday of every month. And then I also teach in Newcastle, in New South Wales, as well. So, like I teach that the last weekend of every month, I teach Vedic meditation there. And then also I do normally two retreats every year. So I do an India retreat, which is coming up in October.
Speaker 2:This year. I'm going to go to Bhajanath, which is, like you know, there's a temple up there which most people go to. I'm just going to take a small group of people there to that one, because I'm going going to create I've created this new retreat that I'm starting in january next year and, um, it's actually going to be based on astrology, so it's about going to the different temples of the planets and things like that as well, and um, so that will be getting put up on my website soon. To do that. I teach breath work every sunday at body by burner in north bondi. I also like this weekend, for example, I'm doing an event in Newcastle, so I'm kind of always around, like you know, doing stuff. If people follow me on Instagram or um, go on my website, you'll normally always see like where I am. I'm someone that I just try to like spread, spread the love like to wherever.
Speaker 1:I can kind of get to. And if you want astrology readings, I do them online, so I did them from all over the world already, so you can just book a session through my website and yeah, amazing.
Speaker 2:And what is your website? Where can we find you? Jeff Rupp, just wwwjeffruppcom is my website.
Speaker 1:Amazing, Jeff. I feel like we could talk for another hour and a half. There's so much here.
Speaker 2:We're not the Joe Rogan podcast yet. No, we're not the Joe Rogan, we're not that Joe Rogan podcast.
Speaker 1:No, we're not the Joe Rogan, we're not that. So, um, but I will definitely bring you back on. There's so many more questions that I've got, but thank you so much for coming on today. It's so lovely to see you and, um, yeah, just hear more about your journey and where you're at, and you know, and thank you again.
Speaker 2:Just appreciate you and and want to thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love that our journeys have kind of like crossed over again like in a different way. It's like so beautiful yeah always thank you for you too, thank you for all that you're doing as well yeah, you're so welcome and I will see you very soon see you soon, all right.
Speaker 1:All right, lots of love.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening today, and if this episode helped or inspired you, just remember to share it to friends or family who could also use some inspiration. Today, we are all about sharing the love.
