#121 Deconstructing the ego, a new culture for humankind, and the shift from Homo Sapiens to Homo Spiritus, with Sophie McLean.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

0:05  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast. I'm Agi Keramidas. And my mission is to inspire you to rise up, grow, stand out and take action towards the next level of your life. I interview leaders influencers, entrepreneurs, authors, exceptional people who can and will inspire you to improve your life, Jr for two episodes each week, and make sure you subscribe to the podcast to get the episodes as soon as they are released. In today's show, I am delighted to speak with Sophie McLean. Sophie, you are an internationally renowned wisdom, teacher, author and speaker. If I said that you had an eventful life, it would be quite an understatement. You have been an helicopter pilots a teacher, a designer, a relief worker, a war refugee see your enter United Nations representative. As a wisdom teacher, you have spent decades working with 10s of 1000s of people worldwide examining and deconstructing the human network of beliefs, emotions and ego. Your mission is to contribute to the creation of a new culture for humankind, the shift from hobo homosapiens, to homeless period to as Dr. David Hawkins wrote, and Sophie, welcome to personal development mastery. I'm grateful to have you with me today.

1:37  
Maggie, I'm so happy to be with you get to know you. And I'm very much looking forward to our conversation.

1:43  
So my Sofia, friends born in Algeria, educated Morocco, and France, worked in the USA in the UK. So it's a privilege to tap into your wisdom as well. And also, even more importantly, be able to share that with the listener. So thanks for that.

2:08  
very welcome.

2:11  
I would like to start with your story. Sure you say that when you were 33, you had a profound, transformational experience that changed the direction of your life. So I would like you to give us some background and to realise how you became a

2:37  
wisdom teacher. Yeah, yes. Well, actually, it started before that the first gift I received Aggie was when I was 11, or 12. And I was in my garden in Casablanca, Morocco. And I was my family was on the terrace getting ready to sit down for dinner. And I was at the end of the garden in a moment moment of stillness and quiet and I was just watching them. And I had an epiphany, like a gift, you know, like a download, I didn't do anything for it, it I really hold it as a gift. And I got a few inside. The first one was that I was being brought up in a cocoon, very protected. And that was not a reflection of the world, that in the matter, you're playing on our Earth, there was a lot of suffering inequalities, there was a lot of joy. There was many, many, many different things that I had no idea about. So that was the first insight you know, and when you live under 12 you think that your communities the world, right? So suddenly, I thought, oh, I've got to go out in the world and just discover everything. And then the next message I got was an all of it is an illusion. And I actually saw it, I actually experienced it all as a theatre playback. So I run to my parents. Really, it is not real. They gave me my nickname, the crazy one. And my nickname is today. We've met up but I really thought I was using it right? And then the strange thing I got was that I had a mission and I must recognise it. Now. I didn't understand that I just what what am I supposed to do? How can I recognise it? I didn't quite understand. Okay. So then I went on growing up and and I had a lot of tragedy between the age of 15 and 28. I was raped. Then I fell in love. I got pregnant. I lost the And then my husband died. All that in 10 years, right? So needless to say, I promptly forgot all the messages I got. And I went diving into despair and suffering. And for five years, or four years, I suffered, I suffered, and I can you know, I'm Mediterranean, I can suffer. It's all our drama, right? And, and I remember the day I was 32 years old, where I said, I was in Oxford, England, and I said, you myself, I was in front of a mirror. It's one of those moments of truth in life. And I said to myself, alright, you either put an end to your life, which was not an option for me, suicide is not an option. I would never do that to people around me, or you go back to life. But being a vegetable, No, that doesn't work. So I packed my bag. Let the house I used to live in with my husband left my job, left everything and went around the world. And I went round the world, the Grand Canyon in the US then Tahiti, the New Zealand across the South Pacific and got shipwrecked on the standard. I went to Chile, Argentina, I mean, I went around the world, and I landed back in Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles, I met someone from Casablanca, who introduced me to a master. And he provided for me.

6:40  
The biggest

6:43  
epiphany is the simplest, right? I was crying and back in despair, but everything that happened, and he said to me, what is the meaning? You're attached to your husband's death? I said, Well, I'm doomed. I'm doomed. And it's not only my husband says, he looked at everything that happened to me, I must be dude. And he said to me, is that your meaning? Or do you think that's the truth, and he never stopped, until I finally understood that I am doomed was a story I was making up the fact that my husband died didn't mean that God didn't love me or that I did something bad in a previous life or that my husband didn't love me know, my husband died meant my husband died. It doesn't mean anything else. And when I realised that the source of all my suffering was in what I was saying, about what happened in that moment, I, it was, I think, the last time I suffered in my life, I got that suffering was optional. It depends on the story attached to what is happening. And it was so good again, it was so delicious to capture back the illusion and the insight I had when I was 12. And to be able to grieve my husband without suffering, just with pain. I mean, pain is bad enough, you don't need suffering on top of that, that I wanted to give it to everybody. So I threw myself into study and philosophy and ontology and Buddhism and Hinduism and Tantric Yoga, I mean, everything that I could to be able to give it to other people. That's my story.

8:45  
Okay, I will have many questions coming from that. You said there was something that I enjoyed very much what you were saying about the pain and the suffering, which many people think it's the same thing can I remember that phrase that pain is inevitable in life, but suffering is optional. And you said it very well. It's the story we repeat to ourselves and identify it. It's the event itself is objective. It has no meaning apart from what we give to it.

9:25  
That's really it again, you see the earth when there is an earthquake, the earth doesn't suffer. When you see a dog with three legs, you never hear a dog saying Oh, my life is over. Get me a therapist. Now the dog runs as fast as he can to keep up with the other one but it's it doesn't make it mean anything that he loves to make. But human beings Oh my we can make up any story. Yeah,

9:59  
yeah. I I would like you to tell us a bit more about this latter part of your of your journey into into spirituality. Tell me a bit more about your realisations or maybe if they were there any transformational moments?

10:19  
Yeah. So then, as of 33 hours threw myself into really studying what it is to be a human being and what the ego is, right? Because people have a very strange idea about what the ego is. I think it's being arrogant or being a jerk, but not at all the ego is everything you identify with, which is not who you are. So anything outside of yourself, that's ego. And its vast, right? Okay, so I threw myself in that for 15 years worth an enormous amount travelled the world led to about 80,000 people and, and I love doing it, right. I led seminars, it was great. And there was something missing. There was something I didn't have time to, to inquire and I knew there was something missing, and I knew it was my connection to the divine. And so I in 2009, I stopped and I said, No, I you know, 2009 I was 49. I just said, Okay, yeah, I have to, I have to follow these these temples, right. So I, I just went, I stopped working again for six or seven years. And I again, travelled the world went to the Amazon forest, I went to spend two weeks with the Dalai Lama in Ladakh, I went to India to combat mela for two months, I met guru shamans, I had the most extraordinary experience, other bodies experience I even tried Ayahuasca had the most extraordinary gift again, messages. And, and because I had done this training before on, on understanding what the ego is, I can have spiritual experience, mystical experience. Yes, life experience. I mean, really, I had the Justice extraordinary, but I don't get addicted to them because I don't add any meaning to them. So so when I have one of those spiritual experiences for me more like getting the gift of having a map, I know what's possible, I know what's possible in the spiritual because I now have an experience. And then when I come back in my body, I still have to be responsible for being in the material life, but now I know what's possible. So so it gives me a kind of map to let go of everything. That is not what I have experienced the danger of those experiences that they feel so good, that I think many people get addicted to that, right. And then life is about having an experience. But for me, that's not what life is about. It's not about having those experiences about being gifted this experience so that you can elevate yourself inside of your body on the material plane with otherwise become a monk or a nun, right? I mean that but it was 15 I promise you it was really tempting to go in a cave on the heel of the Himalaya and not talk to anybody and spend my life into this kind of marvellous, nothingness and exquisite love, but this is not my mission.

14:03  
Let me ask you something, you said something earlier and I insure someone wounded probably someone else I have wondered as well. You said that the ego is anything outside of yourself. So someone would wander so who is one side and who is the other what is if my outside of myself? How is myself outside of myself? So I would like to, to explore your your, your, you know, take of this. Yeah, question.

14:40  
So let me create it for you. Right. So there is you could simply three dimension, I'm going to make it simple and a bit. A bit. Too simple, maybe right, but it's easily it's easier that way. So there is a divine. The Divine, for me is the context of it. All right, and the divine It's not only there it's outside of language side of time and space I mean you can talk about the divine it's a total mystery. I the best description I get about the divine is like a breath it breezes out and it creates breezes in and it's the creation disappears. Alright, let you can talk about it, you can only talk of what is not the divine, okay? So that the divine in the context of it also at one point, not in time, but the divine breezy that and create what I call the quantum field or the spiritual field and that's where also outside of time outside of the five senses no language, this is the dimension of the souls, spiritual being, everything that is nonlinear, not materialised, you know, difficult to talk about much easier to have an experience of your soul than it is of the Divine. And then at one point, the soul incarnates in the body. And we are on earth and there is the whole earth school to go through. Now who we really are, is our soul. incarnated in a body. You know, 85% I think Deepak Chopra said 85% of the world population, we believe we have a soul, and nobody talks about it. Did anybody talk to you about your solid school? No. Right? But this is who we really are this. So this kind of instance, and it's quite easy to have an experience of it. When you for the people listening on this call if you close your eyes just for 30 seconds, and you let yourself look at your life from the moment you're born to now and look at everything you did and all the people you married divorced, remarried, children work, travelling. I mean, it is so busy family money, cars, animals, passion, more work, right? It's busy, busy, busy, busy, it always moves and it's very noisy. Now in the background of this life, there is a presence that they never changes Neva alters right in the background. That's who you are. All the noise in the front is just life. Who and you know, this is why again, I'm 60 year old right and I have now the look of a six year old woman and the body of a 60 year old woman and sometimes I look at myself in the mirror saying who said I've never changed my body's changing but not me. So so if you identify with your body then you are going to suffer if you think you are your body you're going to suffer that's the ego if you think you are the amount of money you have if you think you are the nationality you are if you think you are your gender if you think you are your car your title at work, being a wife, a mother has been able to sing you identify that is a human construct is the ego now, you I know that and the secret to be free is to know that we do need an ego to go through life in the material world but it's very different than unconscious ego. Automatic ego is no awareness. Like it will be like you really believe your your body or conscious ego, which is you know, it's a story you creating like I was not born a wisdom teacher. I made up I made up the title and this is not who I am. This is the conscious ego I have created for myself to be able to say to answer when people ask me what do you do? And I say okay, but wisdom teacher, but I know it's not true. Therefore I'm free. You see, in two years time, if I can't be a wisdom teacher anymore, I will not suffer, I will create another ego. That's that's that that is what I mean.

19:37  
It's a great way to describe it. Thank you for that. I like to use the phrase that the presence that never changes and I think that speaks beyond just a intellect. So that's great. Can I ask you something you were saying about the people that who really believe they are their body they have completely identified With very How can these people start shifting? Is it a matter of not the right timing for them yet? Or is it the understanding that there is a different level to life a spiritual level? Is it only for some?

20:23  
Oh, don't think so. Again, let me let me think about your questions we did you know that in Buddhism, they say that the source of all suffering is that human being did not know the perfection, they are, right. So the people that are not seeking to remember who they really are, is because they really don't know and that I, you know, with all the people I worked with all this resistance, this mistake of, of identifying with something external to yourself, it really is the source of the source of it is ignorance, if people knew what was possible, nobody will stop, right? So it's just they literally don't know. And they don't know, they don't know. Okay, so that's one thing. So how do you make a difference, right, so it always starts with you. Because, you know, this word self development is one sometimes a bad vibe. But for me, I don't call it self development. I call it collective fulfilment. Because if I'm somebody that operates in the space of love, Wherever I am, and whoever I am with, I will bring the space of love, not for myself for everybody, right? So these internal work that we do, and more and more people do is not self centeredness, and selfishness. And the Dalai Lama said it beautifully. He said, You seek enlightenment for yourself, you school. And if you seek enlightenment for others, then you're wise, right. So it's quality, fulfilment. So that's the person you need to deal with yourself, you are responsible for yourself, nobody's going to take care of you, you need to remember who you really are, and then you will be a useful human being, then I see it, at the moment, I am in France, because my father passed a few weeks ago, and I'm with my mother and sister, and we spend a lot of time together and you know, how you neighbour profits in your own family, right. And still the crazy ones in my family, I have a huge following and all that, but at home, in my family, I have the crazy one, that during this time of sorrow, they look at me and they see that I have failed, but I don't suffer, I am totally aligned, I can cry and and go through the pain and then come out on the other side and they deal with the suffering. You know, you lose somebody I should have done that I should have done that. And you add some guilt to it and you regret and, and but they intrigued because I am aligned. So my mother and my sister can chew me little by little. And ZTE, by little they started to listen to the the distinction between pain and suffering and all that. And you know, it's been just a few weeks, and I it people I ate absolutely delicious. My mother, my 83 year old mother that has lost or has been of 67 years is not suffering was fine, but she's not suffering. So you see, this is how to do with people that are that don't know what's possible, right? That you need to literally wait until there is a window of opening. And if you listen, you will get it and know how open the window is. Don't go like that write you how much you can take. And that is how we make a difference.

24:18  
I get it. That's great. Thank you. And there was something that you said about the the self development as a testament, you know, the negative connotations that there are sometimes with it and I like very much what you said about collective fulfilment. And I remember a few years ago, I was always thinking of personal development as something for me because I took the word personal, literally and it was at some point that something clicked and I realised that my personal development is not for me because I'm not you know, individual and part of that Collective so if if I call, then everyone in my radio show will benefit from that show. It's a collective indeed. Which is a great way to look at it.

25:14  
Yeah, yeah. And you know, when we say a personal development, first of all, it's like personality character, that that is the ego, everybody has constructed a character, as it was from a very young age, right? A personality, you can call it or you can call it an ego. And if you believe that character is real, and the truth, then you will work on the character, but the more you work on the character, the more the character will be there. And that's why I think self development has a bad vibe, because people are like a dog chasing their tails. Why find you analyse and fix and improve and change the ego, but the only thing you need to do with the ego is, see what it is and then do not do any work on it. Stop putting energy on it, stop.

26:18  
Tell me, Sophie, I'm thinking again, about the ego what you were saying earlier, and I would like to explore more your thoughts on how can one start to understand more the nature of fago and how they can deal with it, I wouldn't necessarily use the word transcend, because of what it means. But, you know, someone that wants to do more work that realises that someone like myself, for example, that I have more SaLuSa intellectual understanding of the stock rather than, you know, actual experiencing of the topic. Yeah.

27:03  
All right, I tell you why. It's a difficult question. Okay. Because it's very difficult for me, I just, this is a difficult part in my podcast, okay. So, I, I have studied with so many people, and I really can see without any arrogance that I know the ego, I am an expert in the dismantling of the ego. So I have created courses. That's why I say it's difficult because now I'm going to talk about my courses, I am sure Aggie that there is many other ways to to let go of the ego because to distinguish your automatic ego, because people do it, okay. So that, you know, there is a from hypnosis, to meditation to I mean, the books to read philosophy, I mean, there is many, but here's what I like about mine. It's in five months, you have free from your automatic ego, because I know the design of what it is to be a human being. So it's pragmatic. It's fast, and I can give it to you on this podcast, if you want it. It's actually quite simple. There is four pillars to the ego, four main ones. There is many other things, but there is four things that you need to get to start being liberated. The First, you need to imagine your life like if it was a theatre play. Okay, what do you need for theatre play, you need a main character. That's you. Okay? You need a supporting cast. That's the main character relationship to the supporting cast. By the way, the main character of the play never gets fired. But the supporting cast you can fire Okay, so now you have the actors, the main character and the supporting cast, then you need a script. So it's your relationship to the circumstances of life. If you look at your life, you will see that you attract the same kind of circumstances over and over and over again. Everybody has a different script. And then there is the the city that like the whole space, you give your play, like the genre, right? So for me, I had a tragic, a tragedy of Greek tragedy now that I'm talking to a Greek man, right? I was, I mean, Oh, God, you name it. I had it right. But some people have a romantic comedy. Somebody can have a street and somebody can have an intellectual kind of film, movie or a play. Right. So those four things when you examine your life and you find That, how did you create the character you identify with? How did you create your relationship to the supporting cast? How did you create your relationship to the circumstances of life that you attract often the same way? And what is the genre of your life? And where did you put it together? When you get those four things, Aggie, your life is transformed. Because your awareness has elevated to a whole new level.

30:32  
That's fascinating and wonderful in how what's depth one can go once they start to, you know, explore this, under this point of view of everything being like, a play, or a Yeah, I think that's what's Yes, that's, I'm kind of trying to think about it myself. Now, while I'm spiritual, that's

31:01  
where I have design, you know, I'm so committed to create a new culture for humankind that actually have designed a 21 day free email course, it's free, and you get my book for free audiobook. And the whole book is a construction of the ego. So all, I mean, I'll send you the leaky link, if you don't have it, it's called the call of the soul. And when you do this course, again, I want to say it, it's free, though you get it, you receive 21 email, and you will understand the construction of the ego. That's why I gave it away for free, I have now 1000s of people that have done it, I just put it out in January, I'm very excited about it. It's very powerful. And so if you want to know more about the Go, go and get that

32:00  
free, I will put the link in the show notes as well for people to check it out. I would like also to speak about your mission, what I believe very briefly said in the introduction there the new culture for humankind, which is something that I'm personally very fascinated about, especially at this era that we live in, in where things seem to be going through a very dark direction, if we put our attention there so I would like to ask you first of all, where do you see humanity going? Or where would you like to see humanity going?

32:50  
I I think we live in the most fascinating time. I think it's the best time to be alive. And I'll tell you why. Okay, because there is a shift from homosapiens to homeless pages. So that homeless beauties is from David Hawkins and we don't want to take credit from it. But it was so perfect. I said overtime so if you look at the homosapiens Aggie that's the reign of the ego right so at one point long, long, long ago, when we lived in caves, we had to learn how to survive because the human being like the old the animal kingdom don't have an internal energy system we have to look outside of ourselves for food for water, we had to learn to survive the animals we had to learn to survive the weather. And we did how I know that is we still around some species didn't learn they're not here anymore, okay. So, that was what the survival system was about the survival system that we now call the ego and then at one point and obviously I do not know when the things we call survival shifted to the ontology called survival ontology is the art and science of being it's what it is to be a human being so human beings started the virus surviving each other surviving their story surviving the meaning surviving an illusion. And it gives us so much I mean, we put a man on the moon equal MC square otter progress in medicine, science technology to me, like all that was to survive, survive to survive, great. I mean, look at there is less poor people now than there was before Right, okay. But like everything in the evolution, right, it comes a time where the, the worm has to become a butterfly, right? So the worm gets into the cocoon. I don't know what happens in the cocoon, but I hear that the worm actually literally becomes all gooey like mud and everything dissolves. I mean that, that must not be pleasant for the worm. Okay. But what comes out is a butterfly. Okay, well, I think we in the cocoon, as a human being, you see any birth happens always, inside of pain. I mean, they ask any woman giving birth, naturally, it's not just a walk in the park, right. So I actually think that the reign of the ego is coming to an end, you either going to see you render to it and get connected to the spiritual also, it will be like, Holy Spirit to see using your five senses. last, last, this connection to the soul and to the spiritual, that gives you plenty power, guidance and tuition. You can see that Holy Spirit is that plus the five senses that's exquisit. Or you're going to raise this, then try to hold on to what you have and not want to change and look at the past. And then you're going to suffer. But I tell you what, you can resist or you want the reasons or resisting evolution. You can resist evolution, you know? Oh, yeah. So I tell my students stop resisting surrender and elevate yourself. Yeah, that's what I that's why I say, you know, I hope I see it during my lifetime. I don't know, if I will. But what is happening now, especially since the pandemic, you know, I've moved on my courses on online, obviously. So now I have a world wide range of people that are suddenly coming to me saying, okay, where do I start, write, edit, and babysit under grandparent of people using it for something else, because this pandemic is like the university to us. Go to your bedroom, and think about what you've done. So that's how, that's how I view it. Yeah.

37:42  
What would you like I asked earlier, but I would like I will insist, because I want to see something. How do you envision this to? To go? The new the new? The new patch of Yes.

37:59  
Well, right now in our world, and I live in the US, right, so it's the priorities money success, making it a survival force, you know, it's a little bit of exceeding frenzy on each other. I mean, you know, it's really now the homosapiens is not pretty right. It really is quite early. So a homeless pierogis Aggie, somebody that just has, you know, the when you care babies is caring, everybody's included. They receive you ask for each other, instead of against each other. The new culture for humankind people have surrendered to the universal law of integrity right there is this universal law. That is the law of workability perfect equilibrium, you always reap what you sow. right there that's it right. So most people are trying to mess with that universal law. enough so if you like somebody that is on earth and say, okay, there is the law of gravity on Earth, but I don't like it. I should be able to fly. It's not fair that I if I jump I fall on my bed. spending an entire life resisting the law of gravity will be I mean, I have never met somebody that will do that. Right. But, you know, most human being resists the universal law, universal it's not even matter you know, have you reap what you sow, sow a new culture for humankind will be the surrendering to that beautiful universal law that is a perfect equilibrium and Harmony in the World. It will be cohesiveness You know, there is a working together a togetherness, gratitude will be the most sought after experience, you know, when you're in gratitude, it's you are grateful when you have an unexpected gift, right? Something you didn't plan or something you didn't expect. And suddenly you have it and it's delicious. And when you're in gratitude, there is a rising of joy. And for me I give that is a possibility of world peace. Because when you enjoy an ingratitude, you're not going to go and kill someone. So so in this new culture, for humankind, there is gratitude and joy naturally arising that really allows for the kindness and the harmony that we all yearn for so much. And then lastly, what I see that the people like you that do podcast on consciousness and thinking consciously and inquiring, the people like me that do the same. And fortunately, there is so many of us would become, like, we look at bankers or lawyers, now, you know, that will be the professor or teacher, you know, at school will be also into, like, remembering who you really are, and being true to who you really are, will be one of the main attention of everybody. So that's how I dream this new culture for humans.

41:45  
It's great. And I have, I also think of a bright humanity ahead, rather than, you know, George Orwell style, humanity that is kind of presented and I've been hearing and been involved actually, with terms like new words, and moving from the head to the heart and the aboon to philosophy and all those things that are of collectiveness and togetherness, and thinks that up to now, you were saying very right earlier about the survival mode and the the hope of Sapiens that does not serve very much anymore. It has proven that it's what we can see what's going on around us and how the manatees

42:41  
Yeah. Now, the other side of it again, right, as David Hawkins is one of my biggest teacher, but he said to somebody that we're saying, okay, we have to save the world, then he said, Why do you have to save the world? This is a school where you have to learn that there is two energy that allows you to innovate there is or the suffering or there is love, right there kinetic energy, they move you from one place to the next. So if you do not use love to elevate yourself towards who you really are, and the divine, the other option is suffering. So why do you want to stop the suffering? Maybe those people need suffering, nobody suffers and maybe they won't be able to elevate themselves. So I was laughing. I think he was also half joking when he said it, but also got it I said, You know, I guess if we blow ourselves up, because we now have the means to do it. If we don't go to homeless charities. It doesn't mean anything.

43:47  
Well, it's all of it is an illusion, as you said. It's It's incredible. Sofia, I also wanted to ask you about if you could describe a bit about your book, I be honest with you, I haven't read it, but I read you know, the description and the the approach of it, and it actually made me want to read it. So can you please share with me what it is about?

44:21  
So, alright, I'll tell you the truth. So I am I, I went on this spiritual quest, if you remember, we're sharing a message and then and then I arrived, my family's in the south of France. And I arrived back and then you know, I thought, okay, what's next? And I need to do in my life. I'm always being in action. It's very different for me, right? I listen for what wants to happen. And then once I get an intuition or I'm guided, then I step into it and I'm fully in action, right, but I don't score something. So I was there listening for what wanted to happen. It was clear that I needed to give away what I had learned in the last 30 years. So I had never written a book in my life. But it was great right in the south of France to write a book that was not the hardest mission to fulfil. So I started writing and writing and writing and writing. And I felt very exposed. Because first I started writing philosophically, I'm trained as a philosopher and all that. And I gave it to read to about 20 people that came back with a long face saying to me, we didn't understand a word. I don't know what your book is about. It's just right. So I thought, Okay, back to the drawing board. So I understood that you write a book that made a difference, I had to put myself in it. So then I started writing a biography. And I tell you, I don't know if you ever written a book about yourself, but you feel totally naked. And I'm used to share about myself, right? I really, I'm used to it when they're on paper, the whole of my life. So I, I conceived of a little trick. So I put a hero in that I called griya, which is really everything about me in my life. And then I put a narrator that is asking great questions. But I put the narrator as a French person. So that also that my readers will be a bit misled in thinking that I'm the narrator and not griya. See, thanks. So that gave me a bit of privacy. I thought nobody will know it's my life, but it didn't work. So really, it is an autobiography, it everything in the book has really happened. I have not made up anything about the book, except the role of the narrator. So for my students use it for distinguishing what the ego is I use it in my cautious because, you know, I am a teacher, a teacher, for me is a very sacred space. I only teach what I have personally experienced. If I have not experienced it, I will not give you my view of my my my account, because I haven't experienced it. So. Yep. Base man, my life in that book.

47:32  
Thank you, you reminded me of that story with Gandhi in the boy who was eating

47:36  
sugar when you said Oh, yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, I met Gandhi is one of my heroes, right? I just have something with this man. And I have so much respect, or

47:57  
Sophie, that, you know, there are so many different directions that this conversation can go and now you see me sometimes I am not entirely sure of where to go next. So sometimes with with people like you, it's, it's it's challenging to guide the conversation in a way that, you know, there is some cohesion, and we're not jumping randomly from topic to topic, which I was about to many times. So that's why I'm trying, you know, to maintain like a flow if possible. And I wanted just to one last comment, we mentioned that before, rarely mentioned that before, but somehow feel compelled to ask for a little bit more about it. And that was the differentiation between pain and suffering. And you mentioned it during the time that you're, you said about that window of opportunity that presents and you're speaking about your mother's show. Would you share a little bit more about this pain versus suffering?

49:13  
Yeah, I can actually create it the ego versus the salt. That's right. Yeah. So that we stay inside of what we're talking about. Thank you. So, so inside, when you are if you imagine a context, like a realm or world, that's the word of the ego, where you look externally outside of yourself, for everything, natural for, for love, or job, for happiness for everything, you look outside of yourself. And then there is a context or realm or a world where you're aligned with your soul and you know that you are your soul and that's where you get your power from, and you know you are already love you already are divine so you don't need to look anywhere for it you just need to be able to express it. Okay, so those two different worlds so inside of the ego world you look outside for happiness for example, right so you'll be happy if you have a new cars, you lose weight, if you find a partner, if you have enough money that will make you happy, but as the material world and all the world is in constant movement, and constant motion, and constantly changes, you can see your happiness goes up and down, up and down, up and down. So if you Nelson Mandela, and you are stuck for 28 years in nine square metre jail, you are not going to be happy because you external circumstances are terrible, you being tortured every week and you can't move. But then Nelson Mandela walks out of his jail and he's in pure joy. Right? He wasn't happy to be in prisons, but he had access to joy, right. So joy and turn all connected to the divine way beyond anything material or anything external. So you can see that language. That is what we use to express ourself in the world needs to be very specific, because one language you speak of Joy takes you to the divine you speak of happiness takes you to the ego. You speak of pain, you are in the divine, you speak of suffering, the outside circumstances, running the show, so long bridge, the more awareness you bring to your word. And to the world it creates, the more liberated you will be any make sense. Aggie right. The lawyers have their own language. Doctors have their own language, philosophers have their own language. Well, if you want to be a homeless peerages, you have to learn the language. So it's not what people say to me, oh, it's semantics. You always reap what you sow. So you know, my husband died 32 years ago, I tell you, I can talk about my husband. And if I let go and watch a picture of him or share something about him, I will have the sadness and the pain come right up. But for me, I was committed love, you know, I wish I could touch him again and smell him and just have one more, that will be delicious, right? So I ride the waves, and he disappears. But I don't go to suffering, my life is over. I'll never find somebody that I love as much as him. I don't do. I don't add that suffering is not for me. I don't like suffering. I've done my fair share.

53:14  
And you said about the language. And I wanted to add to this, that language does not only involve language or use with others. It's the language that we say to ourselves, but first of all, more even more importantly, they are internal language.

53:34  
Yes, I was thought that's language, right. But it's a world of language, right? mathematic is a language music is a language. So anything we we use to create an experience in the material world is language. So it's very important to bring your awareness but especially to words. You know, this is why communication between human being is difficult, right? Because we get we very casual with our language.

54:08  
Yes. That's a big topic in itself. So about the language and yeah, where it where it leads to. Actually, I wanted to ask again, just came to me it was not sorry, I didn't think of it at all. When we say language, do you think that different languages affect this process? I mean, I am great. Your friends, we're talking in English. Does it matter at all in this sense that we're talking about or that it's not?

54:44  
Your Yes, he does. You know, I travel SCG a lot of countries right. And the language you speak gives you your culture. So for example, French people, right. So the French language you need three sentences in French to say One sentence in English because the the language of the scratch is filled with Boise and any language of the lovers and of beauty. I mean, if you want to have a quality of life and tenderness and sadness, beauty and love, just go to France, because that's the culture. Now, if you want to produce results, or do business or go to war, or even be more pragmatic, you know, like, create new things, then English is really good. If you want to go to war, do not go to the French culture do not, right, that's not good. So there is on top of everything else, I get that we need to be responsible for the financial impact of where we are brought up. So why do I leave, for example, in the United States, there is a lot of things that don't work in the United States. But there is one thing that I haven't found anywhere else, you go to the United States, and you tell them, I want you to do that, and they say You go girl, possible, then they will love pushing out the limits and trying new things. Everything is possible. And just this is a reason I'm in the United States, nothing else. Because I have not found it anywhere else where they resist energy for innovation. It's a fantastic, which I don't find, for example, in France, in France, they attach to the past and to the beauty, I know you can do that. This is not how you do that. I just mentioned I love the French people, and I love France and I love being with my family, I can't live in France.

56:59  
I can relate in different levels to what you said, having lived Greece like 11 years ago, and maybe I have this cultural element of philosophy because of my Greek language running in the background. I do enjoy. I do enjoy English very much. And it has, you know, replaced in internally the my language. Yeah, but I'm always curious about these things. Because not everyone speaks more than one language. But jority of people only speak one language. And I think it gives you some advantages to be able to think and express yourself in a different language.

57:45  
Oh, it's amazing. When I learned English, I was 20. And my life is immediately right. It's absolutely amazing. In fact, the more vocabulary you have, the bigger the possibility for your life. My my husband was South African and he created a trust before he died where he he created schools for orphaned children. And I said but why do you create schools? Why don't you give them money to do something else he said, because the most important is the language, the more vocabulary this little one will have the more they will be able to create their life and he was right. This is the language is what allows us to create life right? And you know, there is no coincidence is that you and I are in foreign countries, being a foreigner somewhere alive you to break free from the ties of the culture because you not only separate from your own country a little bit. But on top of that nobody can understand where you come from, in the new country you in so it gives you an enormous amount of freedom. I love being a foreigner. It's absolutely delicious. Right? And then the other thing is, I have the best of both worlds. I go between the US and France. All right. They just life sorting itself out.

59:11  
That's great. Yeah, I didn't think that I will be asking you about language. But there we go. So fair would like to also ask you some quickfire questions, which I always ask. The first one I always ask you've actually answered the day earlier about the collective fulfilment that personal development is so I asked something else if you could know and what you know now if you could meet your 18 year old self, would you give her some advice? Would you give her one piece of advice?

59:54  
Um, yes, yes, definitely. What I will say is to render Surrender and learn what faith is faith in the universe dancing was a symphony of life. But this was my biggest, most difficult lesson for me. I like to control and I'm strong, and I tried to forcing and the day I started to entering my entire life open. So understanding what rendering is it's not submitting, it's not giving up your free will. Yeah, I will say work on one thing she rendering.

1:00:33  
That's great. And let's say you had a magic wand, and you could change something in the world as it is today. What would you change?

1:00:47  
Wow. I don't think I will, I would make the deconstructing this deconstructing the ego, necessary subject at school?

1:01:06  
That would really change things wouldn't. Yeah. And I'm always want to give to the listener, some actionable items in the podcast, because I really believe that we're in an era where there is abundance of knowledge. So we can hardly add more knowledge to what it is. And I liked very much the wisdom words that you use rather than knowledge. So instead of all that, I prefer to give action because action is what actually will make the change. show what actionable item would you give to the listener, something they can pick from this conversation? and implement it in their life?

1:01:57  
Well, asking themselves one question, put it on their wall and everywhere. At the end of my life, when I look back at my life, what kind of human being would have been proud to have been? What kind of human being? Do I want to be the one that destroys down complaints, or the one that contributes and elevate the global consciousness? Right? Even if it's rigid the people around you? So that's the main question that, amazingly enough, most people don't ask themselves, like, if we don't have a choice, now we do have a choice. What type of human being will you be proud of having been during this life? And go out and learn to be that? And you know, what I did when I was young is that I, I told you, I adore Gandhi, I, I modelled myself on Gandhi, when I didn't know what to do in life when I didn't know how to deal with circumstances of what what would Gandhi do. And I still do it to these things. So that's what I would give my the listener.

1:03:14  
That's great. Thank you. It's very useful to to ask the question, first of all, and yeah, the answer will come. There are so many things really, that we talked about, and there are a million more things that we could have. But was there anything that you were really hoping that would talk a lot today and completely skipped us?

1:03:43  
I, I just I just want to say one thing, thank you for giving me the opportunity is that the biggest suffering for all human beings is that at one point, we disconnect, from who we really are, and we're a young writer, and when that happens around the age of one or two, we forget that we are divine. So then the suffering starts because there is this yearning inside of all of us to we, you know, we still want to be great, we still want to be nice all the time, we still want to be loving, and still want to just be a great human being and and we judge ourselves and we have opinion about ourselves that we then put on other people you know, it's it's, it's like this, this yearning to be better than what we are. And I just want to say, when you please have compassion for yourself, everybody wait starts is by bringing love to yourself. You know, one of my Masters said to me, this earth school is really the toughest school there is. You only come back if you're a very advanced soul because it is so up call. So just to have compassion, I think it is necessary. Out of 80,000 people, I lead to raggy. I've never met a bad person. I only met people that did bad things. But they were not bad. So that's, that's just what I would like people. Let's just be nice to yourself.

1:05:27  
Yeah, we all, many of us need this reminder from time to time about self compassion. How can people connect with you and find out more? You mentioned the call of the short course, which I'm going to put the links. Where else would you direct people?

1:05:49  
I would go in and check out my website. It's my name's Sophie mcclain.com. So it's easy to find. And on my website, I've put as much as I can, right. So there is the courses I gave, there is a free courses, the book there is as much as I can put, and then you can even, you know, make an appointment with me. So my website will be replaced. And that's

1:06:18  
great.

1:06:19  
Thank you.

1:06:21  
Thank you very much for this really intriguing conversation. And as I was saying earlier, there are so many more things we could talk about, but I am grateful to be able to get all this today. Any last parting words from you?

1:06:42  
Are you going to read my book? Aggie?

1:06:45  
Yes.

1:06:48  
All right. Well, I am so happy we had that conversation. I'm really delighted to meet you. And I really thank you. I listen to some of your podcast and I just absolutely adore your kindness and your hearing. And thank you for being so great with all of us.

1:07:08  
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and rate it on Apple podcasts. And also share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from it. If you want to find out more about what I do and gain access to exclusive content, join my facebook group but for development mastery. The link is in the show notes or you can simply type B dot L y slash PDM group and until next time, stand out don't fit in

Transcribed by https://otter.ai