One day I sent a ballsy request for a podcast guest to Mallen Baker from the UK. Mallen had a very large channel built up on youtube called Dangerously Reasonable. It was  ballsy because his audience was substantially larger than mine but I really felt called to reach out to him because I was just so intrigued with his content after listening to him on the Triggernometry podcast. His ideas about climate change were in fact……dangerously reasonable. Mallen had common sense ideas. Dangerous ideas because those are seen as inconvenient these days.  And that’s the type of content I aim to create on Sense Making. Common sense, reasonable ideas that cancel culture is trying to squash. 

 

I thought I was going into interview Mallen… but instead Mallen interviewed ME thoroughly before agreeing to be on Sense Making as any professional would. He caught me off guard to be honest. Mallen had done a deep dive into my website, my instagram and most of my materials. He asked me, “So what does coaching, yoga and your podcast have to do with one another? Where are you going with your show and how does this all tie together?” 

 

And here’s my answer…

 

It’s all about awareness and it’s all a conversation. All three of these ways of working involve getting to know ourselves deeply and learning how to integrate all of our parts. I can work with people on the level of the body or the mind or with their role in society but you cannot separate any of these parts and each level builds on the previous. Most people are stuck on level one, the body. They try to skip this and go straight to their goals or their thoughts on society however if we are not grounded in our bodies, if we are not paying attention to the fact that we are sick or in pain and are not taking care of our bodies…..we are not taking care of our minds. If we’re not taking care of our minds, we certainly can’t start pointing fingers at society from a place of integrity. There’s a conversation that needs to happen on every level. Us with our bodies, us with our minds, and us with other people. You could throw spirit in there too but for now let’s focus on these three floors.

 

The body is ground zero. When we learn to pay attention to the subtle yearnings and calls of the body we fine tune our focus. Yoga is actually all about the mind but the body is the material we have to work with. Through practices like yoga we start a conversation with the body. We start to tap into things like intuition, energy, and presence. When we take very good care of our bodies we create motivation, mental clarity and deep healing in our lives. It’s a practice of awareness and the conversation helps us develop our daily rituals needed to keep ourselves truly healthy. 

 

Coaching is a conversation. It’s where I help clients become more aware of their thinking, their stories, their words and their way of BEING. We discover through conversation the ways in which they hold themselves back from life. Where they resist life. Where they resist change. Where they resist conscious action. Many people are unwilling to go here. We skip to the doing without ever asking why, or if it actually serves them. We neglect stopping to ask if our current actions are even working. Many are unwilling to have a conversation that shines light on the things that we might have to change. That the biggest, scariest, empowering and most liberating truth is WE are the only ones in our way. Not circumstance, or other people or our past……US.

 

How many are in bad marriages or surround themselves with friends that make them feel badly about themselves?

 

How many pursue university degrees in fields that they actually hate?

 

How many pursue material success at the demise of their physical, spiritual and relational wealth?

 

Businesses and people that are truly successful are able to integrate all of their parts. They are aligned, purposeful, balanced and values oriented. They are not just focused on efficiency of tasks and material success but are well balanced, aware, clear and joyful. They are in conversation with themselves, their customers, their employees, their values and their vision at all times.

 

When I coach someone, I get to contact the person on 4 levels:

 

Who are they being in this present moment? 

What historical forces have shaped them.

Who are they becoming?

Is their alignment of who they are in this present time and what they’re becoming? 

 

My podcast Sense Making is my way of having a conversation with society. This step cannot be taken if we haven’t deeply committed to integrating our other parts of self. I don’t believe we can point fingers at other people and systems if we aren’t even taking care of our bodies. Where’s the base level connection and awareness? In society we see a fragmented cycle of disconnection. Let’s look at our healthcare system for example….

 

We feel a pain in our body.

We go to the doctor for pharmaceutical pain relief which gives temporary relief.

We re-live a past trauma or continue to engage in our maladaptive lifestyle choices

We experience more pain.

We get more pharmaceuticals or surgery to address the symptom but not the cause.

We get frustrated and start pointing fingers at everyone else around us. 

 

We neglected to ask the right questions in this example. We never had the right conversation. We weren’t aware of the following questions:

 

Are you really paying attention to your body and the lifestyle choices that led you to this pain?

 

What past experiences may be contributing to this pain and when did this really start?

 

Where are you trying to go, what are your goals in addressing this pain (is the goal to remedy the cause or remedy the symptom with pain management from pharmaceuticals)?

 

What is your intuition telling you? What subtle signs are you ignoring? 

 

Where are you in your way? Where can you take bold responsibility for your actions instead of outsourcing your power by becoming a victim of circumstance? 

 

Is it working? Is what you’re currently doing actually working? Be honest.

 

Who are you BEING? Are you taking pills to be healthier but are filled with rage, regret, blame and anxiety? Embodiment is the practice of bringing your way of BEING into your healing. 

 

We think we can change the world but most can’t even feel or intuit their own feelings or thoughts. If more people worked on awareness of self and were integrated in this way we wouldn’t have violence, war, separation between have and have-nots, moral decline of society and absence of spiritual connection. My goal in coaching, in teaching yoga and for this podcast is to help people create:

 

Intuitive wisdom 

Skillful action 

Integration and alignment 

 

This creates people who are self healing, life long learners who are innovative problem solvers. We do this by understanding the value of awareness and internal conversation. Understanding the interconnectedness of self with self, self with spirit, self with other, and self with our environment. We learn to adapt and evolve towards a more awake consciousness. We practice embodiment (who are we BEING) through action, thought and skill because at the end of the day we are our daily practices. Awareness and conversations foster compassion, growth and evolution of healthy selves and communities. These are the principles I teach in yoga, in my work with coaching clients and in my podcast. These principles benefit all individuals and create integrated humans capable of not only handling the world….but create individuals who are able to create a better one.

 

The world that I’m witnessing is not this and it’s what’s led to my great awakening. This world is one in which we are constantly pulled towards division, separation and distraction. People that are disintegrated are easier to control. The desire to divide and disintegrate people reflects this growing trend of moral and societal decline. The last two years were no exception. We’ve been asked to ignore our intuition and our thinking. We’ve been pushed to separate our actions from our knowing. We’ve been divided and disintegrated on every level and even as I write this I can feel the very real energy and reality of this. My work aims to help people integrate their parts and dive back into conversation and awareness. To help people put their sense and feeling above their desire to “fit in” or fall in line with directives. The integrated individual is whole, incredibly powerful and most importantly… happy. They’re guided by principles and values over directives and they can create massive shifts in this world. The simplicity of the work is the best part. We all benefit from the constant practice of awareness and keeping the door to conversation open at all times. 

 

Perhaps my answer to Mallen Baker wasn’t quite this long….but he got the point in my summary and lucky for me he was open to having a big and honest conversation. Those are the kinds of people you will continue to hear on Sense Making.

 

With grace and grit, 

Karla Joy Treadway