Journey of Self-Discovery: Exploring The Enneagram's Psychospiritual Wisdom, Shielding Significance, And Transformative Decision-Making With Robyn McTague

Unknown: 00:00:05

Welcome back, everybody,

Alan Carroll: 00:00:07

to your next episode of the mindful U

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podcast. My name is Alan Carroll, I am your host, and

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today's guest. Today's guest is Robin. And Robin has an

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interesting story. And as most mindfulness, people seem to

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start from suffering, things didn't go well in their

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childhood, and they had a lot of ups and downs emotionally and

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mentally, which makes them feel that is there something else is

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there some way of reducing the suffering, it's just some way of

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experiencing more presence and joyfulness in my circumstances

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and activities, are there ways for me to be happier, mentally,

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physically and emotionally. And so that motivated Robin, to

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start her journey. And she describes one of the programs

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that she really got excited about. And she started to teach

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it. And it's a way of protecting yourself psychologically from

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all those influences outside yourself those blocks and those

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barriers. And she calls it a shielding a shielding system. So

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I'm excited to introduce you to Robin, and please welcome her to

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the mindful you podcast. Thank you very much.

Alan Carroll: 00:01:54

Robin, welcome to the mindful you podcast. Thank you, I'm

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excited to have the opportunity to speak with you. And for my

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audience, who I'd like you to introduce yourself to the

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audience, a little bit of your background, a little bit of how

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you were how you got on the mindfulness path, the

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mindfulness journey, the the transformation of consciousness,

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and then we'll move in, and maybe some of the things that

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you're doing now in order to develop those those muscles, for

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yourself and for and for the world. So we'll start with just

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a little bit of your background, Robin.

Robyn McTague: 00:02:30

Sure. Well, I came from one of those families

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that was dysfunctional with capital D. She was, yeah, she

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was suicidal, I first time, I remember I was four years old.

Robyn McTague: 00:02:47

And when she tried to kill herself, and my dad was an

Robyn McTague: 00:02:51

alcoholic, rageaholic abuser. And my way of dealing with it

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was to stay really quiet. I, you know, delved into books. My mom

Robyn McTague: 00:03:02

and I left when I was six, and we lived with other families. So

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I had exposure to lots of different settings of different

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people. And I was always curious, why did people do what

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they do? Like, and why are some people aware and other people

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aren't. And I remember having conversations with myself at a

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really young age around these things. So, you know, I went

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into psychology and counseling, I trained in conflict

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resolution. And then I had cancer breast cancer 23 years

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ago, this year. And that really opened up the can of worms of

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emotions, because that's the part I hadn't dealt with. I knew

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all these things intellectually. But I hadn't done that deeper

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work that I'd really pushed down to be able to function in the

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world. And so I spent six months on my sofa. And I just went deep

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into that feeling of, you know, being and that was really tough

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places where I wasn't allowed to be myself. I wasn't allowed to

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be curious. I wasn't allowed to do anything that I really

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wanted. You know, financially, I loved music. And I was so

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jealous of the other kids that learn to play piano or different

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things. And so, I really felt that I didn't get to be who I

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was. And so then with that cancer journey, I came out of

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those six months, I was coming back into the workplace. I

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worked in a large organization, over 1000 people, a lot of

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stressed out people we worked with people who are injured on

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the job. And I thought how can I be around all the stressed out

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people and I met a one woman at a wine cheese and tarot card

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reading party and she said I took a class where you get

Robyn McTague: 00:04:54

shields so you're not taking on other people's energy. And when

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I know something I noticed Something so I jumped in the

Robyn McTague: 00:05:01

next week. And I felt better in the first week, the course is

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four weeks, you get two energy shields, you get a grounding and

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a shielding system. And so I became a teacher of this. So now

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I teach adults and children the system. And I continue to grow

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in the energy system. And it's quite a unique system. So from

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there, I started to learn what was mine, and what was someone

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else's, as far as feelings and all of those different things.

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So I really started to get more in alignment, and connected to

Robyn McTague: 00:05:35

who I was, instead of always having to be the chameleon to

Robyn McTague: 00:05:39

fit in and feel safe. And through that, I started to get

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more independent, I got more tired of the bureaucracy, and

Robyn McTague: 00:05:50

then finally was able to leave early due to the number of years

Robyn McTague: 00:05:53

of service. And then I learned about the motivational map,

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which I love and the clarity that brought, I saw where those

Robyn McTague: 00:06:01

internal conflicts were. And it's partly based on the

Robyn McTague: 00:06:05

Enneagram. So I've been doing the really deep dive with the

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Enneagram work, which is a psycho spiritual system that

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helped me to really bring the spiritual and that humanity, the

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practical together to see that lens of the world, why I did

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things and to build more kindness and compassion for

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myself and other people. So that's kind of where I am today,

Robyn McTague: 00:06:34

where I'm working with the Enneagram, the motivational map,

Robyn McTague: 00:06:38

the meditation and healing system, I do some numerology as

Robyn McTague: 00:06:43

well. So it's interesting, all these number things that come

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into play, because there's so many universal laws, right. And

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this is something in the Enneagram we talk a lot about

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triads. And this number nine, that comes up, we have it with

Robyn McTague: 00:07:04

several of the systems I use, but it's universal law. And so

Robyn McTague: 00:07:09

all of these systems connect in certain ways. And I find that

Robyn McTague: 00:07:13

fascinating.

Alan Carroll: 00:07:16

Right, you could say that there's, everything is

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connected. With there's only one being one love one energy,

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though the perception is there's a you and me. And as you talk

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about the different techniques you're using, it sounds like you

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are discovering something, I'll call it beyond the ego, that

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there's a space of beingness that everybody shares a

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universal sense of beingness. And it's available to everybody.

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And matter of fact, it's already there. And all you got to do is

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get on your sofa for six months, and allow yourself to just get

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get lost. Dissolve the thoughts dissolve the thoughts. I you

Alan Carroll: 00:08:01

talked about shielding, you said it a few times. And it's I like

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that where I'm not sure what it means. But I like the idea of

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being able to protect yourself. And I the Word Shield means to

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me, you're protecting yourself. I'd like you just to talk a

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little bit about it because it has significance in your world.

Alan Carroll: 00:08:22

And it might have significance in the listeners world. Awesome.

Unknown: 00:08:27

Yeah, so the system that I teach, we actually as

Unknown: 00:08:30

teachers shift your vibration over the four weeks. And so when

Unknown: 00:08:35

we can shift that vibrational consciousness, we learned to

Unknown: 00:08:39

bring in the universal energy, we learned to bring up that

Unknown: 00:08:43

grounding energy. And so with that shield, then bring in a

Unknown: 00:08:49

shield of love. And so then we have an energetic boundary. So

Unknown: 00:08:55

then we can learn what's going on with me separate from other

Unknown: 00:08:59

people, because we're all energetic sponges. You know, I

Unknown: 00:09:03

get a little bit annoyed with all this empathetic stuff. I'm

Unknown: 00:09:07

an empath. Well, we all are to a certain degree. It's whether we

Unknown: 00:09:11

accept or I have that awareness about it. So we all have this

Unknown: 00:09:16

ability to say, wow, yeah, I'm really noticing that maybe I

Unknown: 00:09:25

going to a party or somewhere I feel great. Before I go, I get

Unknown: 00:09:30

there and all of a sudden, within 15 minutes, I'm not

Unknown: 00:09:33

feeling so good. But I think that's me. And as maybe someone

Unknown: 00:09:37

else I'm picking up. So the energy shield which is light and

Unknown: 00:09:41

love is a way to allow love in and keep the negativity out. And

Unknown: 00:09:48

even with the kids course, I draw a bubble. And then I have

Unknown: 00:09:52

the hearts coming through and then I have the arrows bouncing

Unknown: 00:09:56

off that little bubble that I showed them that they can Hang

Unknown: 00:10:00

up. So even with the kids, we do gentler increase in their

Unknown: 00:10:06

vibration. And it gives them this sense of I actually have

Unknown: 00:10:11

choice. And we've since seen kids stand up to bullies. And it

Unknown: 00:10:16

also brings in a better communication tool between the

Unknown: 00:10:21

parent and the child. So one of the parents has to come and they

Unknown: 00:10:24

learn the system. So, and it's the same with the adults is just

Unknown: 00:10:29

kind of a mini version. But it's ways to be able to build that

Unknown: 00:10:34

communication with ourselves, and then with others. So it's

Unknown: 00:10:38

like when I feel safe and energized, and not feeling

Unknown: 00:10:42

drained by other people, then I have so much more success in my

Unknown: 00:10:48

life, and that ability to know what's important to me.

Alan Carroll: 00:10:53

You mentioned, Robin, the word choice. And I

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find that most people don't have a choice. That choice involves

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observation. And most people can't, can observe because they

Alan Carroll: 00:11:12

can't let go of something which blocking, which is blocking them

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from, from responding. And so if you can't respond, then then you

Alan Carroll: 00:11:23

react to what's going on. And so when you talk about choice, to

Alan Carroll: 00:11:28

me, that's very, that's a very important level of awareness

Alan Carroll: 00:11:35

that most people don't have a choice, this is the way it is,

Alan Carroll: 00:11:39

you know, there's that immediate reaction to it. And is that what

Alan Carroll: 00:11:42

you're talking about when I'm talking about choice?

Unknown: 00:11:45

Yeah, it's learning the different ways. And so that

Unknown: 00:11:48

awareness, like you say, it's like, it can start very small,

Unknown: 00:11:52

just having, you know, some cliche things, they come from a

Unknown: 00:11:57

truthful place, like just having a breath. So when I trained to

Unknown: 00:12:01

conflict resolution, and we talked about anger, so many

Unknown: 00:12:07

people don't realize that they have choice before that

Unknown: 00:12:10

reaction, if they just take that moment, to start to notice

Unknown: 00:12:15

what's going on in their body. And so we learned to see our way

Unknown: 00:12:23

of having that come up, like I'm a real stomach person, for

Unknown: 00:12:26

example. So I'll feel that tension in the stomach rising,

Unknown: 00:12:31

and it's like, Oh, I feel that coming up. So can I let that

Unknown: 00:12:35

feeling come up and just wash through because one of the

Unknown: 00:12:39

things that I find people are afraid of, yes, if we go into

Unknown: 00:12:44

this emotional stew, or mix, I'm never gonna get out the other

Unknown: 00:12:48

side. And that was one of my fears. And I'm through so I can

Unknown: 00:12:52

attest, we can get through it. And if we allow the emotion to

Unknown: 00:12:57

come up, it usually lasts about 60 to 90 seconds. And so when we

Unknown: 00:13:02

can let that wash over, and have that breath, it's like, oh, I

Unknown: 00:13:09

can see I have choice when we're in stress. Breath is the only

Unknown: 00:13:13

thing we have any choice over. And so that's the biggest thing

Unknown: 00:13:18

is like, wow, now I can actually take a moment to say maybe I

Unknown: 00:13:22

need to get out of this situation, maybe I need to ask

Unknown: 00:13:25

for a timeout. If I'm in the workplace or something, maybe I

Unknown: 00:13:29

just need to go to the washroom and take a moment to settle

Unknown: 00:13:34

myself before I come back and not overreact, and maybe put my

Unknown: 00:13:39

job on the line. You know, we see this right people getting

Unknown: 00:13:42

angry, and it's like, I'm not taking this anymore. They're

Unknown: 00:13:45

gone. And then they're in survival mode. And what can we

Unknown: 00:13:49

learn? What can we do in survival mode, we can because

Unknown: 00:13:52

then the old part of the brain kicks in. And we don't have that

Unknown: 00:13:56

choice. So it's about learning what are my ways of noticing

Unknown: 00:14:03

that. And with the Enneagram system, we have a centering

Unknown: 00:14:07

practice. So I do that along with my meditation. So it's like

Unknown: 00:14:12

two minutes breathing into the belly center, two minutes into

Unknown: 00:14:15

the heart center, two minutes into the head center, and then a

Unknown: 00:14:19

minute, noticing that connection to all three. So when we can

Unknown: 00:14:25

center in all of our three centers, because we all have one

Unknown: 00:14:28

that we prefer, we can start to bring that in, and that not just

Unknown: 00:14:33

come from that one place. Ooh, it's

Alan Carroll: 00:14:36

nice. It's nice. I like the idea of taking your

Alan Carroll: 00:14:42

attention and shifting it off of the thoughts the monkey mind

Alan Carroll: 00:14:47

that's going on inside your head and say okay, right now in this

Alan Carroll: 00:14:51

moment, I'm going to take two minutes and I'm going to focus

Alan Carroll: 00:14:55

on my my solar plexus like as I call it, my stomach area. Do

Alan Carroll: 00:15:00

interest, and then my heart, you said, my stomach, the heart,

Alan Carroll: 00:15:04

the, the head, and then and then how all three are connected,

Unknown: 00:15:09

free. Yeah, just noticing how they support each

Unknown: 00:15:12

other and noticing our preference. So often we have two

Unknown: 00:15:17

that we go between. So I might go ahead emotion, and I leave

Unknown: 00:15:21

out the body or you know, some other combination depending on

Unknown: 00:15:25

our type structure. But there's, there's a pattern to all of

Unknown: 00:15:29

this.

Alan Carroll: 00:15:32

And by shifting your attention from the thoughts

Alan Carroll: 00:15:35

into your body, in my experience, the body, the monkey

Alan Carroll: 00:15:43

mind, or the energy or the anxiety begins to settle, calm,

Alan Carroll: 00:15:52

less agitation, more clarity, no, everything seems to be. But

Alan Carroll: 00:16:00

the challenge for me and for other people probably is you

Alan Carroll: 00:16:05

have to be awake in order to observe what's going on in your

Alan Carroll: 00:16:11

body and your emotions and your mind. And my observation is, the

Alan Carroll: 00:16:15

ego is not awake, the ego is operating on automatic, it's it

Alan Carroll: 00:16:18

doesn't it doesn't have that have that luxury of letting go

Alan Carroll: 00:16:24

of my position, in order to relax my body, I will not let go

Alan Carroll: 00:16:28

of my position Robin, because I'm right, and you're wrong and

Alan Carroll: 00:16:31

you better. And so in the midst of the chaos, oh, I'm gonna

Alan Carroll: 00:16:36

relax now because then I'd have to, then I have to give up

Alan Carroll: 00:16:40

something that's real important to me. And I'm not willing to

Alan Carroll: 00:16:43

give that up. I'm gonna hold on to that. And I, I think you're

Alan Carroll: 00:16:47

talking about letting go of things and surrendering, and

Alan Carroll: 00:16:51

I'll call it I'll use the word giving up or letting go, is that

Alan Carroll: 00:16:53

true?

Unknown: 00:16:55

Yes. And I'd like to be very practical and remind people

Unknown: 00:17:00

that, you know, this is why we have to shower every day, we

Unknown: 00:17:04

forget ourselves again and again and again. So allowing that

Unknown: 00:17:08

shame to come up. And this is what stops us from creating

Unknown: 00:17:11

these better patterns for ourselves, like people who want

Unknown: 00:17:15

to do the centering practice every day or their meditation.

Unknown: 00:17:19

It's like, it's okay, this is part of what we do as humans,

Unknown: 00:17:24

but so often we make it wrong. It's like, well, I might as well

Unknown: 00:17:28

give up because I forgot a day. You know, we see this with

Unknown: 00:17:31

people and their eating plans and these healthier ways of

Unknown: 00:17:34

being they give it all up. But it's like, this is normal.

Unknown: 00:17:38

Let's, you know, forget it, and be okay with it. And allow these

Unknown: 00:17:45

feelings that are uncomfortable. So yeah, I feel some shame, I

Unknown: 00:17:49

promise to do something I didn't I promise that to myself. So am

Unknown: 00:17:54

I going to value myself enough to say it's okay? And let that

Unknown: 00:17:59

go that judgment of myself, right? We're our biggest

Unknown: 00:18:02

harshest critics. And it's like when we can bring that kindness

Unknown: 00:18:06

in and say, yeah, I forgot. And I can do it now. Or I can do it

Unknown: 00:18:12

again in the morning or, you know, maybe today I have a

Unknown: 00:18:17

schedule where I need to fit it in somewhere else. You know,

Unknown: 00:18:21

most people can find seven minutes. With the meditation

Unknown: 00:18:25

training, we ask for more upfront when we're first

Unknown: 00:18:28

building those new neural pathways. But the good news is,

Unknown: 00:18:32

right, neuroplasticity, we can learn at any age. And we need to

Unknown: 00:18:37

bring in that kindness and compassion. And let's just do

Unknown: 00:18:40

it. So I know. I see the results and other people. And this is

Unknown: 00:18:45

often how we see people coming into the meditation course their

Unknown: 00:18:48

friends take it, they notice that shift in them. And it's

Unknown: 00:18:52

like, yeah, I want that to soar, we can allow ourselves to do the

Unknown: 00:18:57

same old, same old, are we going to deal with the resistance?

Unknown: 00:19:01

Because that's the biggest piece we deal with, with the

Unknown: 00:19:05

meditation with people the resistance. And that's what

Unknown: 00:19:09

you're saying the ego rate?

Alan Carroll: 00:19:11

Right? The ego is, this shouldn't be whatever's

Alan Carroll: 00:19:16

going on. In my reality. This should not be I'm not allowing

Alan Carroll: 00:19:20

whatever's going on to be I'm judging it. And so that's I'm

Alan Carroll: 00:19:26

very much involved in understanding the resistance

Alan Carroll: 00:19:29

based on my own experience of resisting. Before we go, I just

Alan Carroll: 00:19:32

have to ask you to talk a little bit about dream coaching.

Alan Carroll: 00:19:36

Because I'm a psychologist, Guy and dreams are part of the game.

Alan Carroll: 00:19:40

And so coaching on dreams is pretty cool. So can you just

Alan Carroll: 00:19:44

talk a little bit about that before we before we complete?

Unknown: 00:19:48

Yeah, I love dreams. I have been doing a dream journal

Unknown: 00:19:51

my first year of college actually, even before I was I've

Unknown: 00:19:55

always been interested in the esoteric and the weird stuff. I

Unknown: 00:19:59

was Learning to astral travel when I was a teenager, and sure

Unknown: 00:20:04

all these things. And with a psychology background and a lot

Unknown: 00:20:08

of reading on young and universal,

Alan Carroll: 00:20:11

my goals Young as young as my Yeah.

Unknown: 00:20:15

And so in the meditation course, we have an

Unknown: 00:20:18

act of style. And we give you tools for remembering your

Unknown: 00:20:22

dreams and for dream interpretation, which is

Unknown: 00:20:24

amazing. And it's all on the archetype. And then the dream

Unknown: 00:20:29

coaching is what is that dream I want for myself. So it's a

Unknown: 00:20:33

process we go through to look at the different aspects of

Unknown: 00:20:38

bringing that dream in for ourselves. And because I've done

Unknown: 00:20:41

a lot of work with dreams, I can help you with the the alive ones

Unknown: 00:20:46

or the unconscious ones, and help you bring that out. So, you

Unknown: 00:20:51

know, it's maybe just learning to dream again, for some people

Unknown: 00:20:54

who have been stuck in this kind of pattern of just doing things

Unknown: 00:20:59

for everyone else, like I was stuck in and learning that.

Unknown: 00:21:04

Yeah, I'm important. I'm a value, and I'm going to bring

Unknown: 00:21:09

that dream for myself alive again.

Alan Carroll: 00:21:11

Wonderful. Robin, if people hear our conversation

Alan Carroll: 00:21:16

today, and they say, Wow, Robin has lots of cool stuff. How do I

Alan Carroll: 00:21:20

connect with Robin? What are some of the ways people can

Alan Carroll: 00:21:24

reach out to you and connect with you?

Unknown: 00:21:26

Sure. I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, and the website

Unknown: 00:21:33

because I'm in Canada is a life of choice.ca. When did there's a

Unknown: 00:21:41

couple of chapters of books on there, and also have a

Unknown: 00:21:46

meditation for relationships, I can give you the link to that

Unknown: 00:21:49

you can add to the show notes if you'd like.

Alan Carroll: 00:21:51

Perfect, perfect. Well, Rob, I want to thank you

Alan Carroll: 00:21:55

very much for being on the mindful you podcast, and sharing

Alan Carroll: 00:21:59

some of your wisdom and some of your experiences that you've

Alan Carroll: 00:22:04

experienced on your personal journey and you're sharing your

Alan Carroll: 00:22:07

personal journey was very, very nice. I want to thank you very

Alan Carroll: 00:22:09

much. And on behalf of my guest and the audience, I want to

Alan Carroll: 00:22:13

thank you for being on the mindful you podcast.

Unknown: 00:22:17

Thank you so much.