This week on the podcast, I had an illuminating discussion with spiritual healer John Jacob Mubarak – a spiritual advisor with a heart for integrating soulful practices into everyday life.
Our deep dive was enlightening, revealing how to pour into the causes we’re passionate about without draining our own spirit.
Key Takeaways:
Embracing nature and holistic practices like plant medicine isn’t just about healing—it’s about unlocking a deeper understanding of who we are. It’s a call to nurture our inner selves with the same vigor we use to champion our causes.
We explored the impact of our pasts and the “I must” mentality that often fuels us, highlighting the power of crafting new, life-affirming stories for ourselves. It’s a journey to discovering our true “why” and embracing it fully.
Trusting in the grand journey of life, whether that’s through the universe, a higher power, or something else entirely, empowers us to persevere. Adopting an abundance mindset reveals a beautiful truth: serving others actually fills our cup.
Feeling the burnout? This episode is your gentle nudge to take a step back, breathe, and realign with what truly matters.
🎧 Tune in for a dose of soulful wisdom and a reminder that self-care and service go hand in hand.
Episode Transcript
RHEA 00:00
Hey, folks, Rhea Wong here once again with Nonprofit Lowdown. Today is a very important topic. It is about healing the wounded healer, and I want to provide a little bit of context for this. So today, my guest is Agape certified spiritual advisor, John Jacob Mubarak, and he and I met because I. Back in August, went on a spiritual retreat in Costa Rica, and it was incredible.
JJ was one of the teachers in residence, and I feel like I really experienced a spiritual breakthrough. I’ll get more into the details on a later podcast, but I wanted to invite my friend JJ on the pod today to talk about some concepts that are a little bit more spiritual in nature, but I think are very important as we think about nonprofit folks and the way that they show up in the world.
So JJ, welcome to the show.
JJ 01:23
Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here.
RHEA 01:25
I am so glad to have you here. So J. j. is an all around awesome person. We’re going to have a lot of fun today. But before we jump into it, J. j., tell us a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself on this journey as a spiritual advisor.
I don’t think that’s the sort of thing that kids fill out in the, I want to be when I grow up form.
JJ 01:41
Totally was not on my radar. in 2008, I was in L. A. I had moved to L. A. And a friend of mine said, Hey, there’s this place called Agape.
You really should check it out. And it’s Agape International Spiritual Center, Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith is the founder and spiritual director. And it’s like the coolest church you’ve ever been to because it’s not a church. And I walked in and I heard this man speak and it activated all of these seeds that my mom had really planted all my life.
My mom was like, super mystical. She was very Catholic, but very mystical. And I was like, mom, whatever. My mom’s crazy. And then I, something activated in me when I went to adopt me and I went, Oh, my God, my mom actually knew what she was talking about this school. And so this started a real journey within me.
And I became a licensed spiritual practitioner or spiritual therapist or spiritual advisor. My university degree is in rhetoric and composition, and as I was finishing my boards and orals in California at Agape, I got a call to come to Arrhythmia come check this place out as, to work there. I like immediately got taken to Costa Rica and believe me, I was thinking, I’m going to get an office, put out a shingle, start seeing clients.
I was the director of sales at a yacht company at the time. So I was like, how do I transition from sales and a fairly comfortable life to, seeing clients? So I was like, how many clients you have to see, how much you have to charge, in order to make this happen. Spirit always has a million different ways to deliver us our good, money more than we think.
And so I thought it was getting an office and seeing clients, and then out of the blue, a call came, and I came to this spiritual retreat center in Costa Rica, And working at an ayahuasca retreat center was again, not on my radar. And here I found myself with an opportunity to see thousands of people and it really deepened my own spiritual practice.
And then I was able to incorporate plant medicine as another sacred sacred way to connect with the divine and to heal.
RHEA 03:41
that’s great. So I just want to kick the doors down. So back in August, and I haven’t talked about this. At all, but I’m going to talk about it more is I did do plant medicine over the week that I was at arrhythmia, four days.
It felt like the four days basically was like 10 years of therapy, and I healed a lot of stuff within me in my childhood, the traumas, and I was just really thinking about the fact that, I have been in the nonprofit sector my whole life. You’re also in the healing and helping sector and I just, it occurred to me that we see in these kinds of sectors, people who have such.
Passion for the work who are really doing so much to help others and yet really Are burning themselves out, right? That they’re really coming from a place of give give, give, and not receiving. Can you tell us a little bit more about that stuff that you’ve seen either through your own work or through working with thousands of people?
JJ 04:32
Yes. So much of the beauty of plant medicine is that it helps us to make connections that we wouldn’t have normally made. And we all know the things that we do to cope in life. We all know oh, my God, I’m a perfectionist. Oh, my God. I’m an over giver. Oh, my God. I have no boundaries.
Oh, I’m codependent or. Oh I I’m a workaholic, whatever that thing is. We know that. But there’s something that happened. earlier in our lives that had us believe that we needed to do that in order to be safe, be loved, be enough, and feel like we belong. These core woundings. And so how is it that people find themselves in these beautiful , modalities of healing and giving and yet it’s never enough and I can’t save enough people.
I can’t do enough work. There’s just so much to do and we get burnout. , so what I’ve seen is typically there’s A dissociation that happens. To us early in life and it comes from you know What we’re going to talk about today is it’s like talking about kid that kicking the doors down is the wounded healer Like there’s something in us that says I’ve got to this is an unconscious pattern I’ve got to do this in order to be enough like if I can save these people if I can make a difference in the world if I can Do some good then I’ll feel okay.
I’ll feel all right about myself. It’s not a conscious thought pattern. And this is the pattern that causes burnout because there’s this I have to do it. Yeah. And if and no one else can, or no one else is seeing it, no one else is paying attention. And it’s like this call the fundamental pieces, our activity doesn’t have to change.
There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing. It’s our come from it’s what’s the underlying motivation.
RHEA 06:16
it’s almost like we have to go back to go forward because we talk about this disassociation that happens.
And I’m imagining this has to do with inner child work and trauma. So what does this disassociation that happens and does it always have to be, this dramatic, traumatic thing that happens or like what? What is this dissociation that occurs and when does it occur typically?
JJ 06:38
Great question. No, it doesn’t have to be what we would consider traumatic, right?
In fact, trauma isn’t what happened. Trauma is the story that we tell ourselves about what happened. and the dissociation is, Something happens early and it sounds so cheesy like inner child work. Are you kidding me? Like It’s the classic like what’s your relationship like with your mother? You’re like, oh my god, really like but it’s the truth.
That’s the cliches are true They’re there for a reason because they’re fricking true. So all of us, no matter what, have something that happens to us in childhood and we say the way that we were being at that time didn’t make us safe didn’t make us feel like we belonged or loved or feel enough.
And it does not have to be, abuse or molestation or abandonment. I had a client in his sixties, successful doctor. Came to me because he was feeling a just generalized anxiety and like life was good life was successful, but not enough, he’s a healer doctor and just not satisfied and feeling a general like anxiety and we did some inner child work.
In this case, we did breath work and typically. We set an intention. So the intention was for clarity around this anxiety. And we did some breath work and breath work implant medicine do the same thing. They allow the default mode network of the brain to be quieted. And the default mode among other things suppresses memory.
And it’s not hidden memory Oh my God, I didn’t know I was molested, but just there’s you make a connection to a memory. That you might have always had, you just don’t know why do I remember that thing? Why is that thing from when I was five always in my head? So this guy, we did the breathwork and I said, how was that?
He goes, oh, it was great. Did any memories come up? He goes, yeah, but I don’t know if it has anything to do with this. I go, tell me the memory. He goes well, Came home from school and my mom wasn’t home and I made tomato soup and I, you know how you like turn the heat up to high and the tomato soup like bubbles over, my mom came home and the tomato soup is bubbling all over the stove, and I was like, okay, like I’m waiting for the, and then she beat the crap out of me or something, you know, and he goes, I go, what happened?
My mom was perfect. She like came in, she goes, Oh, honey. Let me show you how to do that. We cleaned up the stove and she showed me how to make tomato soup. It’s okay, how did that make you feel? And he’s like,
I felt embarrassed. Like I should have known, like I should have known better. And he made a connection to that. To this generalized anxiety he’s felt in his life I, there’s something I should know that I don’t know and it spurred him to, great success. It spurred him to be inquisitive.
It spurred him to become a doctor and all those things are good. Who you end up being in life because of that event isn’t bad, but the underlying energy of something’s wrong. I should have known better. Something’s wrong. We disconnect from that. And this is what breathwork and plant medicine do.
It helps us take these narratives. So he made a narrative. There’s something wrong. I should know something that I don’t know. And I’m bad. I’m not enough. And that’s causing generalized anxiety. He was able to see that memory and then restore it in a more affirmative narrative. Oh, it was okay. he had a new story about that.
My mom was loving and everything was okay. And I was just a kid and I was learning.
RHEA 09:52
that’s so beautiful. And it just makes me think that there’s so many people out in the world who are running on, I almost want to say like dirty energy, right? That they’re doing things, especially here in New York City.
We have people who are striving so hard, more power, more money, more status more, more, more helping more people. And it might actually be coming from a place of, wounds versus a place of being healed. So how do we go about reclaiming the narrative? I love that reframe for us.
JJ 10:23
This is the true act of sovereignty, Jordan Hall is a philosopher at Harvard, I believe, just dropping some, names at Harvard, where I never attended and he has a really interesting idea about sovereignty, he says sovereignty is threefold, the first is that you can place your mind where you want to place it, you can place your thoughts, you can think about what you want to think about, no more rumination, Thoughts that just run us.
Second aspect of sovereignty is creating affirmative narratives for the inevitable circumstances and conditions of life. And the third aspect of sovereignty is putting those narratives into action. So like doing something about it. So how do we reclaim that? Awareness is the first piece, anytime where Wanting something more than what we currently have more money, a better job, a better relationship to be more spiritual, whatever it is.
There’s a fundamental mechanism that’s indicative of this dissociation, and that mechanism is right now isn’t enough, like something’s not enough right now. And it makes us futurize like some fantasy about the future or nostalgic for some, past that was better, but right now isn’t enough, whatever it is, and that if then thinking is a key indicator of.
A dissociation, and so how do we begin to reclaim that narrative? Plant Medicine, Breathwork are a great way to do that. We can also do it
by bringing our awareness to what that aspect is. What is that part of me that feels Like this isn’t enough Oh my God, I’ve got to make more money or I need to be more spiritual because I don’t feel like there’s any meaning to life right now. And it just feels absolutely hopeless and helpless.
All right. So there’s a part of you that feels hopeless and helpless. And that’s just a fractured part of you. And we’re like, what we always do is I don’t want to feel that way. I got to do these things in order to not feel that it’s a very subconscious and quick thing. Bringing our awareness to it and then accepting that part of us like, Oh, there’s my, I call it, put a Buddha on it.
There’s like Buddha isn’t some guy that lived 2, 500 years ago and is smarter than either of us ever be Buddha. It means awakened consciousness or awareness. So when we put our awareness on it, there’s not one part of what we’re experiencing or feeling that isn’t worthy of love and acceptance, it’s hard to accept the parts that we don’t like.
I don’t like that. Feeling of inadequacy. I don’t like that feeling of hopelessness. I want to do all these things to stop that. So when we go, oh, there’s my little hopeless Buddha there’s that part of me that feels hopeless and I want to just accept it accept that that part of me needs more love.
It needs more love, not less. And so as I accept that part, there’s a healing, there’s a re membering, a re collecting. And and it’s actually the way we begin to unwind that tightly wound pattern that’s kept us stuck. Like I just can’t, like, how many of us feel stuck? There’s this thing I’ve been working on, I never get over it.
And we think that by trying to get out of it, forgetting that part, pushing it aside and forging forward that we’re going to get out of it. And we also think conversely that accepting what’s so accepting the present moment as it is and how I’m feeling is Thanks. Resigning to the current condition, but actually the acceptance of it is the only way to unwind it.
It’s an irony. Yeah.
RHEA 13:50
Let’s put this more into, to a, for example, cause I think this could help folks. So for example, I know, and I’ll speak for myself, for many years I was in the education space and I, and I did it, there was almost like a sense of, Rage and injustice at the system, how is it that all of these kids who are so smart, don’t get an opportunity.
And I felt like the anger really fueled me forward. Like it, it got me to get stuff done right at the same time. It was also burning me out. I think I struggle and I can hear folks listening to the podcast struggling now, which is If I accept that this is how it is, am I just accepting injustice in the world?
Am I accepting that some people will get less? Am I accepting that The bad things that are gonna happen and I can’t do anything about it.
JJ 14:37
Let me just pause for a moment and connect with that question. It’s a great question. So
the rage and the injustice, the righteous indignation. Is it also an acceptable emotion? Oh, there’s my righteously indignant Buddha. And I have success, a part of me that wants to be loved and accepted like that’s because there’s a party that’s, indignant about things that happened to you, and how unfair it is.
And so there’s another component to this. I’m a spiritual therapist, right? So I use all of the modalities of psychology. But with a spiritual underpinning. So I get to play the ultimate trump card like, and then there’s God. Then there’s this infinite intelligence. That’s everywhere present. That is always seeking its own fulfillment, always seeking homeostasis, always seeking order, balance, and harmony, and uses everything to achieve that.
So at some point. I have to trust in Providence. God is a triggering word. I’m not talking about some man in the sky that’s pulling the strings. I’m talking about an infinite consciousness that is extemporal, that is outside of time and space. It’s eternal and it is within this consciousness that everything is unfolding, omni active.
It’s omni active, omnipresent, omnipotent, all powerful, omniscient, all knowing. And so I have to trust that everything is unfolding in divine perfection. Yeah, but, okay, that, this, how is the war in Gaza divine perfection? How are, how is the, the, the school to prison pipeline? How is that divine perfection? This is an expanded awareness to say, there’s my part to do and what’s in front of me and I’m doing, I’m being of service to, that, which is in front of me to do that, which is mine to do.
And then I have to trust and know and hold the vision, a higher vision. Of a world that works for everyone, of a world where everyone gets education, of a world where there is no war. It’s impossible to conceive of that, but we have to hold that vision and do what’s in front of us. But there’s something else. , an example of how something really awful, how the spirit uses even the worst things to create love, beauty, harmony, balance, and order. So I love the easiest story at the tip of my fingers is the story of the founder of Rhythmia, who in essence was molested as a child, suppressed that memory and became a real honest asshole in life.
Super successful businessman, but hurt everybody ever knew, cheater, liar, was like a real negative dude, right? Screwed over everyone he ever met. And his pain and suffering led him to plant medicine, which caused him to have an insight around what happened to get clarity and start this retreat center where over 16, 000 people have come.
So spirit will use the most abhorrent thing for good. So this is where I have to step into spiritual principle and know everything is working together for good. Didn’t say that everything was good, but everything’s working together for good. The war in Gaza, the war in the Congo, the war in Sudan, the war in Ukraine.
How is this good? These children are having school and bomb shelters or losing their homes and losing their family. How is that good? We don’t know. Spirit has more ways to deliver us good than there are stars in the sky or drops of water in the ocean. And we have to be attentive to that. and be open to be a space for that to emerge.
And we do that by doing our own work within us and doing the work that’s in front of us to do if we’re called to be healers.
RHEA 18:14
Yeah. As you’re talking, I really, the word that’s coming to me is just trust, right? The trust in the universe and trust in something bigger than myself, the trust that everything is going to be okay.
And it can be really hard to trust. We’ll call it, we can call it faith, we can call it trust, but. To not be reactive in the moment because you think the sky is falling and everything is going to shit is a really hard thing.
JJ 18:36
Really hard. I look to luminaries who are examples of this.
And it’s hard. Last night, I was listening to, catching up on the news at the end of the day, just checking in and what’s going on in politics in the United States. Oh, what’s good. What’s going on in Gaza? Oh, started to feel that. Hopelessness helpless. Oh my God, the world, the wheels are falling off at the hinges and I had to bring myself back
And there are places in each of our listeners lives where they can trust where they trusted any spiritual principle must be proved in nature because nature is a reflection of the spiritual world as above. So below as within. So without, so I’m saying everything’s working together for good. I have to be able to prove it in nature.
As well, because we can see that the earth if we stopped if humans were taken off the planet right now, the earth would heal itself and the earth will heal itself the earth will it might not be in human time might be millions and millions or a billion years, but it’ll heal itself.
There will be order. There will be balance. It will be harmony. We can look at our own lives. Where I was able to trust. We can even look in the rhythms of life. Every winter has a spring. Every dark night has a dawn. Every storm has a sunny day. the seed requires darkness in order to be birthed into the light.
We can see it everywhere. These cycles in nature. So I can begin to trust and have faith in the rhythms of life and see It’s always changed. We’ve always made it through. Something’s always brought us through now. Let’s look to luminaries who on a large global scale made that impact.
And Nelson Mandela is one of those individuals for me who what’s seeming with seemingly insurmountable apartheid, 27 years in prison, breaking rocks, being beaten tortured. The story of Mandela is one of the stories he tells, and actually, I want to honor Reverend Michael. I heard this story through Reverend Michael at Agape, was when Mandela was in prison, they would break rocks.
That was one of his jobs, was to just crack rocks, and they’d have a big rock, and then these little rocks, and when the guards weren’t looking, he and his buddies would break Would take the small rocks like chalk on a bigger rock and map out the government. They wanted to see. We were in charge.
We have a reconciliation and we do this and we’d have, they were like holding a vision of what they wanted to see in independent of circumstance and condition and in that. Can you imagine the fortitude? Because it would be impossible to see any possibility from the small cell at Robben Island that he was in and that see that the mechanisms of apartheid to fall.
They held that vision. And someone has to hold the vision. Someone has to think of a world where there is no war. Someone has to think of a world where kids have enough and everybody has enough to eat, even though it seems impossible. And then we do our work.
RHEA 21:29
Yeah. Actually, as you were talking, I was thinking about Vitor Frankl. And man’s search for meaning and the fact that we can withstand the most terrible conditions if we have a sense of purpose and faith of something bigger than ourselves. Yes. we talked about breath work and plant medicine as a way to reclaim and I think this term self love or like self care has gotten very cliche, right?
Oh, I need some self care but I do think that. there’s something real about taking the time to heal yourself, taking the time to think about your needs. And I think a lot of folks, particularly in the healing and caring professions, feel guilty about that, right? Feel Oh, I, I don’t, I’m not deserving of that.
Or I feel that’s not something that I should be doing when there’s so much suffering in the world. So how do we help folks to take the time to heal themselves in order for them to be of service to the world?
JJ 22:20
That’s a great question. So we were talking earlier about this dissociation, right? And if you’re dissociated, you’re not connected to your feelings.
You’re really not aware of what you want, what you need, what you desire and what you deserve. so that’s the first piece. is being connected to what do I need right now? And then the idea that the second, disaffirming narrative is that it’s a zero sum game. If I take some good for me, I’m taking away from another spiritual principle is there’s only one good.
That my good is your good and your good is my good and it’s necessary for me to receive some good so that I can continue to give good. One of my favorite definitions of love is from M. Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled, which is one of the first spiritual self help books, right?
It’s a great book. And in it, this is sort of a combination of a lot of different chapters, and I put together this definition of love from his book, and it’s love is. The extension of oneself for the genuine care and nurturing of your own and then another’s spiritual, mental, and physical well being.
So if we break that down, what is the extension of myself? It’s moving beyond my egoic boundaries, moving beyond where I feel safe or my comfort zones in some areas, right? To care for my own spiritual, mental, and physical well being. So that I can then care for another spiritual mental and physical well being and this is real love in preparing for our talk this morning last night.
I yesterday was an amazing day, but it was a full day of Clients from 7 in the morning until 6 at night and there was a little bit of a break and I worked out and then there was a meeting in there too and just by the end of the day I want to put a seed here that it’s, that, that.
That service versus fixing and helping. That’s another distinction for this. But at the end of the day, this is a practical example. At the end of the day, an old friend that I hadn’t talked to in a long time from Agape reached out. I know he’s suffering, working through addiction and he reached out for prayer.
And I was just like sitting down to dinner and I was like, just done. And he calls. And he had texted earlier and said, I’m looking for prayer. And I’m like, I can’t. And then, Oh my God, somebody needs prayer. You can’t reach for you. Spare. No, you don’t. So I just took a breath. I need to eat.
I need to take a minute. I texted him. Can I call you in 30 minutes? I ate and I felt better. And then I was able to give him a call and just say a prayer. That was what was needed. The part about fixing and helping versus service. So there’s an important distinction. When we’re the wounded healer, we’re looking to fix and help, right?
And the spiritual principle is there’s nothing to fix. There’s nothing wrong. Everything is unfolding in divine perfection. Everything is working together for good. So I don’t have to fix and helping and fixing come from a actual superiority idea. Like I have something that you need and it’s in it’s an inequality.
That’s what People actually feel that, right? And it’s also I’m doing it. I’m the one I, and it’s all on me. And that’s where it’s, we are finite beings and it’s exhaustible. And it’s exhausting when I’m of service. It’s the wholeness in me, my connected connection with myself, knowing what I want, knowing what I need, knowing what I desire, knowing what I deserve, knowing that it is not I, but the spirit within that does the work, right?
I just get to be the FedEx guy, right? Then I’m being of service to something that is emerging and there’s the wholeness in you or the wholeness in that guy that called me. And there’s nothing for me to fix. There’s nothing broken about him. He’s reaching out for prayer. Okay. So I can connect with myself.
How can I serve? Okay. Be prayer is being of service. I can pray. What do I need? I need to eat. I need to chill for a minute. It’s been back to back. Okay. And it’s not me, right? I can lean into spirit and that’s the other key piece, right? Is the wounded healer is. I’ve, it’s like Atlas, the world is on my shoulders and it’s all on me and it’s actually an egoic, right?
So extension of oneself is moving beyond my egoic boundaries. Of it being just me and realizing that there’s a spirit within that does the work. And when I’m aligned with that, I have a lot more energy.
RHEA 26:46
that is so beautiful. It’s resonating personally because I’m really struggling with being the fixer.
Oh, I can fix, I can fix this whole situation, right? It is. It’s exhausting. And I think something that you said when we last spoke was about everyone’s Royal Road, that everyone gets to be on their own journey. Their own road. And who am I to insist that your road is different than it is. Everyone does their own.
JJ 27:11
I’m sorry. No, go ahead. I’m like, Oh yeah, that’s a great, I forgot about that. That’s actually a quote from Carl Young and it actually is perfect for this whole conversation because young is talking about acceptance. talk, he was writing a letter to clergy and he basically was like, look, we’re in the same profession.
We want to help people, and he says, acceptance is the only thing that heals. judgment or condemnation never heal. And he said, if I have a patient that’s in his egoic structures and egotistical and self centered, and I can’t as a doctor say, you’re just an egotistical bastard and and you need to get over it.
That’s condemnation and judgment. And at the same time as the therapist, I can’t encourage that. What do I do? He said, I have to accept my patient exactly where he’s at. And then young says, and then trust in God that we’re all on our own royal road leading to that indwelling place of peace.
and connection. So as the healer, when I see homelessness, when I see devastation and destruction or hunger or migration, any of these things that just rip our hearts open, let it crack your heart open. Be in that. My favorite prayer is God is in the midst. It’s when I see something and I can’t do anything about it.
God is in the midst. God is right there. There is this intelligence that is working tirelessly always and uses everything for good. We might not be able to see it right now. It’s all everything always works out because There is only good. We think there’s good and evil, and there are these things that we experience as good and evil, but evil is just the absence of something.
It is not a thing in and of itself. It has no power. There’s only one power, and that is the infinite intelligence of God. How can I say that? Quantum physics tells us that you can never get to absolute zero, that no matter how cold it gets, you There’s this thing hot. I can touch something hot, I can touch something cold.
Follow me on this. I can touch something cold. There’s hot and cold, right? But no matter how cold it gets, there’s still a filament on the qu of quantum movement. There’s still movement. And if there’s movement, there’s heat. It can never get, there’s, you can never get to just cold. It’s just more or less heat.
So cold is not a thing in and of itself. It’s the absence of heat. Light is a thing. Darkness is an absence of something. Evil is an absence of something. So there are these things. There’s light and dark. There’s hot and cold. There’s good and evil in this realm. And what’s in back of it all is just good.
And so we, as the healer, then see that’s the royal road. This is the royal road. What can I do? What can I do if the guy I don’t like gets elected? Because both sides feel that it’s dire. If the other guy gets elected, we’re going to hell. Both sides feel that way, right? So what do I do? My guy doesn’t get in, right?
I can’t do anything about that. I have to do what’s in front of me, do what I’m called to do, do my inner work. Know that it’s the wolf that we feed, right? I’m going to place my awareness on the unfolding good. I’m going to keep a vision of a world where everybody has enough, where we can communicate in a civil manner and there’s freedom and liberation and creativity and excellence.
And I’m going to continue to do my daily practice, keep myself centered and balanced, do what’s in front of me and know that as cheesy as it sounds. God’s got this.
RHEA 30:46
Yeah, I love that. Okay. There’s a whole other topic. I want to get into I don’t think we have the time So we’re gonna have to kind of you come back.
I want to talk about money because often Especially in the nonprofit world We have a lot of narratives about money and how it’s dirty and bad and people who have it and must have done bad things to get it and You’re you know, you’re a bad person if you have more than Enough, more than your fair share, according to whom, I don’t know.
but I don’t think we have time for that, but it is something I just want to put a pin in as a preview to folks.
JJ 31:14
Yay! I’m working on that too, right? Our narratives about money and the root of all evil and excess, and yet the nature of the universe is prosperous and abundant.
The nature, there’s more leaves than I can count more like nature is prosperous and we’re part of nature. And if there’s really a belief in oneness, then there’s no distinction between service and prosperity.
RHEA 31:43
That’s a whole other thing. That’s a whole other topic. And as you were talking, I just wanted to share one thing.
So when I was in ceremony, this thought came to me and the thought was, who made you God’s little hallway monitor? And I started laughing because this is like my entire arc of my life you should do this. And where’s your hall pass? And do you have permission to go to the bathroom? I think all of us need to give ourselves a fire ourselves from being God’s hallway little hallway monitor.
JJ 32:13
but the thing that’s a great thing that you just said, because the other side of it is there’s some action, but we want to take action from inspiration, not action from I’ve got to fix this.
I’ve got to, there’s something wrong. Let me, it’s like from the wounded place from the lack from limitation, or is it. Yeah. I’m whole and complete. I know and trust that everything is unfolding in divine perfection. Now from this place, what am I being called to do?
What do I now? And I have a great little exercise that I just I think it really works. I imagine that you’re ISIS or Osiris or Zeus or one of those gods, right? That can do anything as access to, changing things, right? You can do anything you want. So you have everything you want. You have access to everything.
So you imagine yourself as that. And now from that, what do you want to do? What do you want to create from there? Not from, okay, either I need more money or I need better relationship or I need to fix myself or I need to fix the school system or I need to fix the war machine or, okay, you’re a God snap of your fingers is done.
Now, what’s your heart calling for you to create? What do you want to create from there? That’s the inspired action.
RHEA 33:28
Okay. I know we have to wrap up, but I want you to speak briefly. I know you have a retreat coming up, so folks are listening. Tell us a little bit more. If we’re like JJ, I want more of what this is.
I want to. Coming to Costa Rica. We’ll get into it. So tell us a little bit more about the retreat. When is it? And I’ll make sure to put all the info in the show notes for folks who are interested.
JJ 33:47
Yay. Okay. So the retreat is April 28th. It is in Costa Rica and it’s at a place called the jungle gayborhood.
So it’s a queer retreat. So GBTQI plus retreat. I’m super excited because we all have these fundamental disassociations and then from a queer perspective, there’s like a little extra layer, of not being enough, not being included, needing to hide, needing to protect or shield something.
And there’s just nothing more healing than being in doing plant medicine for me with a group of queer men. And queer shaman, because I don’t normally find that there’s not a lot of queer shaman out there. So we’re going to be working with what Chuma or San Pedro and psilocybin. So it’s not an ayahuasca retreat.
It’s a different sort of retreat, but there’s breath work and it’s gorgeous. There’s waterfalls and rivers everywhere. And there’s yoga and Kundalini and breath work and meditation and journaling and lots of free time. so from the information is in the show notes, or you can go to thejunglegayborhood. com, and there’s information on remembering wholeness. The retreat is called Remembering Wholeness.
RHEA 34:54
I love that. Okay, so all of the queer men out there listening to this and I know, I know y’all are out there listening. Sign up, get more of this. JJ, it’s been a pleasure as always.
I want to make sure that your information is in the show notes as well for folks who might want to do work with you or learn more about what you’re doing in the world.
JJ 35:11
Thank you. Yes. I would love that. And thank you. We love you. And so I love you too.
RHEA 35:17
Thank you, friend. All right. Take care, everyone. Have a good week and have a beautiful, relaxing whole day.
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