Greg Voisen
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth, everybody. I was basically just saying to Richard that, I don't know if this is 957 or what it is, but it's been 15 years. Richard and I had a great pre interview call and talked about some of the old masters in the Mill Valley area. George Leonard and Dan Millman and all the cool people that I've just been so blessed to me. And now Richard stras airy heckler, is that right that I get the right the middle then part, throaty strobe sees there very Italian, okay,

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
like pizza, just think pizza Stroke, stroke TSE

Greg Voisen
heckler. And you can find him at his same website, which is stroke TSE institute.com, which is a great website for you to learn more about him about what we're going to be talking about, which is his book called embodying the mystery, somatic wisdom for emotional, energetic and spiritual awakening. And for all of you, there's what the book looks like. And we are going to put a link to Amazon for that. We'll also put a link to the website as well. So Richard, I always like to let our guests know a bit about you. Richard, PhD is the founder of Strozzi Institute. He spent over four decades researching, developing and teaching Cymatics to business leaders, executives, managers, teams, from Fortune 500 companies, NGOs, technology, startups, nonprofits, and US government military. He was named one of the top 50 executive coaches in the art practice of leadership coaching, and in profiles and coaching. He's the co-founder of the Mid East Akito project ma P, which brings together Palestinians and Israelis through the practice of Aikido Boy, that's got to be interesting. Richard's the author of eight books, including the leadership dojo, in search of the warrior spirit, the anatomy of change, holding the center and the art for somatic coaching, embodying skillful action, wisdom and compassion, from 2002 to 2007, was the adviser to NATO and the Supreme Allied combatant commander of the European forces there, and formerly the national security advisors, got a PhD in psychology? And is a seventh-degree black belt in martial arts of Akito. Isn't that as high as you can go? Or is there nine?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
There's not there's nine. That's what I thought.

Greg Voisen
I thought, yeah, that thought there was nine. It's interesting how I don't know where I remember that from, but I did. Well, this book for everybody is filled with stories. It's filled with questions. And the questions are contemplative in nature. I love that about that. Because in every chapter, you'll see them weaved through the chapters. And for that, if you only bought this book just for the questions, you'd be that it would be great because it would really get you thinking about your life. Richard, in your introduction to the book, you write about your grandmother's teachings, on the nature of spirit, and it had this profound effect on you. Your grandmother sounds like a fascinating woman, especially doing the which was the readings that she did sound like a very spiritual woman. Can you speak with us about your early teachings and how you said in the book, that having you were being pulled to was within you? I thought that was a great statement. Also something taught by your grandmother.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yes, this was the grandmother on my mother's side, my matriarchal grandmother, who came to the US at about 14 or 15 was a few coins in her pocket with her sister made it to Montana, where there was a growing sweeties community there. And she always had spiritual slash mystical leanings. And so when I first started remembering her, I would know that she read poems, she read tea leaves, to the Swedish community, and she did seances. So every Friday night in this very small apartment we lived in with my mother and my grandmother. My father was out at sea as a Navy Warrant Officer, and we'd sit around a table with a candle flickering, and she would put her hands on the table as the rest of the pen. Intense would, and there would be these yes or no questions. And the table would knock once for no and twice for yes. And so I'm sitting there, and I'm just part of it. And what was remarkable for me in it was that it wasn't like anything special. It was kind of like listening to a two-way radio or some communication to somebody you couldn't see. In this case, they were dead. And you were talking to them. And it really opened up for me, Greg, this notion that in how I assimilated in my eight-year-old mind was that there's, there's another world that maybe we can't see, but it's just as robust and as vital, and informative. And wise, is where we're living now maybe even wiser. And you know, we would leave, they would have Swedish bread svenska Bulla in coffee. And while everybody else in the world watch the Jackie Gleason show, we did seances.

Greg Voisen
Well, I'll tell you though, seances open up your mind and your consciousness to a different world. And thank God for your grandmother, because she was a blessing to you, you can see that by all the work that you're doing and had a huge influence because you tell more stories about here in this book, not just that one. But that was a great one. And one of them I'm going to talk to you about now is this one that you had, you know, in in you say life fastened to death, you tell a very compelling stories, one in which you and your friends, you're out, you know, some of your friends, you found this dog was a yellow dog, or remember, in the woods that had passed, and you didn't see any trauma with the dog, you didn't see where it had been beaten, you didn't see any of that. And the second use, the second was in the same realm of stories where it is about the birth of a calf, on the ranch in Montana, where the heifer died and the cat calf lived. And again, this is about the death of an animal. And I remember your mom saying, no, don't touch it, you're gonna get germs. And your grandmother having a completely different perspective. What did you learn about transformation of life to death from both experiences? So early in life? I mean, I think many of us as young kids had stuff like that and animal dies, or cat or dog that we have dies. And maybe we don't give it this kind of deep focus in Sans, but you seem to have as a result of your upbringing. So talk with us if you would about it, because they were great stories.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yeah, the I'll fill you fill everybody in a little bit more about the story with a dog because you know, there was nothing untoward about it. Like you said, it didn't look like it was beaten nor wasn't old. And it was recently dead because there was no food certification. But there was an I was immediately fascinated by gee, it looks like a dog. It has all the elements of a dog. But something's missing. Now, my young buddy some through pebbles at it, some poked it with a stick, and all I could think of it all I could really think of, and I can't tell you why. But what was missing? Went home, told my mother and grandmother about it. Like you said, my mother immediately went into a germ story. You might catch a disease. Yeah. But you promised me you won't go back. And my grandmother said to me, when I asked what was that that was missing, and she said its spirit was missing. I said, what is spirit and she said, spirit is everywhere. It's in the world, and it's within us. And it totally captured my imagination. I did go back the next day and padded it and pet it all good. And I went back successive days. And what I began to see was that it was being colonized by all these spiders and insects and these little things that were like black wiggly apostrophes and pretty soon to begin to capitulate into the stream that we it was lying in crows it takes its eyes out. And so I began to witness this thing called transformation. And up close, it's it really did have a smell. But it started to fasten itself with this notion of my grandmother said, spirit. Spirit is everywhere. Spirit is life. And at the same time, this form or this shape, began to capitulate back into the ground. Till, you know, a week later, I'd go back, and it was almost indistinguishable from the sand in the water. And everything that came and had his way with it. No, I,

Greg Voisen
I, obviously scientists would say the decomposition of the body in your case, your grandmother was giving you a different perspective about the spirit of this dark spirit of, you know, even the calf, you know, that that that lived in the heifer that died on the farm when it was pulled out, right?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yeah, eight years later, I met the family ranch in Montana. This is the family ranch on the Italian side, my father's family, and I'm helping. There's this calf that's having a hard time being birth. My uncle, sonny, we tied it with ropes. I pulled on it with the horse that I was on, that the calf came out, the mother the heifer died, and it was lying there and the calf's on wobbly legs, there's blood on the hard pan, the dogs are starting to look, lick the blood. And I looked over at my Uncle Sonny, who is a rancher, a strong, tough man. And he held up his both hands empty. And he said, Ah, shit. Now, I knew that a lot of animals had passed by his own hand. And by nature, it wasn't the first time he saw that. But it just struck him in some kind of a way. You know, so he pulled out a Pall Mall,

Greg Voisen
I don't even know he said, he was a little teary eyed.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Well, we had this moment where we wiped it down. And then we made contact the said shit again. And we made eye contact. And I could tell he was in a state of emotion. Yeah. And the only emotion I'd ever seen a grown man make was anger. And he was he was a man's man, unquote. And he had this emotion in his eyes. And I was drawn towards it. And he saw that right away, he pulled away and he embodied in that moment, what men of my generation, his generation learned was that you don't share your emotions with another man. Yeah, we pulled the calf we pulled the heifer away. So it has the vultures and the coyotes or wolves that have its way with it. And you know, just like a sharp Splinter under my fingernail, I remembered the dog that happened eight years previously. And to me, it was like, this moment as an adult, I would say, as I named that chapter, life fastened to death. And how immediately linked there were, they were linked together. And now I think about how the Chinese don't say yin and yang. They say yin yang. And we say living and dying, but it's really living dying. And that produced in me, you know, this immediate kind of attraction in intrigue about what is spirit? What does it mean to be in a human body? What happens when the human body capitulates and leaves like all these animal bodies I was seen, and it became a through a through thread. In my investigations around what does it mean to be in the human body?

Greg Voisen
Yeah, it certainly was. Your world was opened up very young. You know, a lot of people don't start reflecting on this until they're in their 60s, because they're seeing their, you know, finitude could be not that far away. Right. Whereas you at a very young age, got exposed to this and you referred to Baba, as you referred to her your grandmother. You know, you said she emigrated from Switzerland, she told stories about how she would hold the Seon seances and psychic readings for the Swedish community, which you talked about. You've you frequented these seances. How do you think that this early experience of actually being there and hearing the knocking on the table? I'm assuming you actually heard the knocking on the table from the dead. Correct. And, and how do you think that those early experiences influenced who you have become today?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Primary primarily, a well, let me just say, at the starting point, what it did is that it produced in me a deep curiosity about what is this animating principle we call life. And also a deep curiosity about what happens after death. Because we're also talking to people that are gone. And, and they're in a different form of some kind. And this animating principle became a place of focus for me in my meditation in my practice of martial arts, and Aikido, where they're all based in really what we would call chi, or Qi. And that became like, a, really a magnetic pole, magnetic pole towards me. And that poured into my work, you know, as a somatic coach, as a somatic therapist, as a teacher? And also, how do I get ready to be even more alive? How to, if I go, if I form by spirit, what else will that add to my life?

Greg Voisen
You know, you've been able to make a livelihood out of something, you know, given our ages, that back then, when you started on this, it wasn't that common. You know, you've you were, I'm not going to say a rebel. But you certainly were a change maker, you were bringing things to light that a lot of people weren't aware of. And I'm sure they were afraid of many people, you know, dancing in this world for the first time, they have to get their feet wet. And you know, you, you speak about your friend, and you tell the story about your earache, and fever. And you state that the Eric became a cornerstone for the practice of using difficult situations, to cultivate an awakened state. Can you speak with the listeners about your experience and how this helped you become one with your awakened state? I remember reading this story about you walking home from school and then having this kind of like, I don't want to say out of body experience, but this headache, earache, lying down, and I remember reading the story, and I'm going Wow, I wonder what was going on with him. And it went on for what sounded like in the book a couple of days, right. So speak with us about it. And you know, had this brings you to this awakened state because you said you were able to overcome the pain from it, you said the pain was excruciating. But that you were able to transmute that pain.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
The Trent the pain was excruciating. And it felt like a dagger right in the middle of my head. It lasted over time, because there was some kind of flu or bacteria, or virus in there. But as I was walking home, there was nobody at home. And it was just me. And I'm, I'm in my young age, trying to, uh, how do I manage this? What, what the hell is this anyway. And I think because of the influence of my grandmother, where I will skip back to this one, there was some conversation around or table about, there's a heaven and there's a hill, and she said, no heaven, and hell is inside of you. You make that what an extraordinary thing to hear from somebody that I totally respected, maybe didn't understand. But when she said, it’s inside of you, and it's not like a place where there's all this fire and brimstone, but there's my actions will produce that. Anyway, that sent me inside of myself. And I found this place inside of myself, that could call myself I don't know, if I transcended the pain, but it had a different effect on me. It was like a place inside myself. I will call like, the Sufis will call that they will say this connection to the divine is the divine friend. So I use that word, this yar. But this it was like, somewhere a space, a relationship that actually gave me tranquility and peace, to a certain extent during this pain

Greg Voisen
Is it was a fascinating story? I, you know, again, for my listeners, reading the book and listening this and you're reading the stories is a big part of this and I want to compliment you on telling stories and weaving them through there, and how you came to that awakened state, because you were able to, I'm gonna call it transmute that pain.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Right? Right.

Greg Voisen
Yeah. And that's it, you say you found something within you. I know yesterday I did a podcast on entering the mind about doujin meditation with a guy. And I know that's a certain lineage and practice of Tibetan Buddhism, that not everybody practices. But again, it, it emphasizes to me what I don't want to call it, I'm going to say power we actually have over our bodies. And obviously, of being a master of Aikido. That's another one. Now, in the chapter embodying the practice, you talked about being bullied at 12 years old in school, and you were in pain, you were afraid. You go on to state that without hesitation, that the path of Akito and meditation helped you heal your rage that was kind of through the line from generation to generation of men in your family. So you're saying that it's there? What happened to you to heal the rage? And what role did Akito and meditation play in healing that rage? Because you it's not like you weren't upset with these other little kids that were bullying you? And you certainly had the ability to attack them. And I'm sure some point, but

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
well, you know what? We moved. We moved every once a year, sometimes twice a year. Yeah, your

Greg Voisen
dad was in the military. So you guys moved on?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yeah, went all over all over. And every time I was at a new place, it was a whole new school, new routes to get there. And you know, there would be tops and cap calls, which I could handle but if I was pushed, I would push back. Or I was shoved I would shove back. You know, I my mother accused me of being a bully. But mostly, I was like, I was quick to anger. And that I was I was afraid. So I that's what I did. But I say I was afraid. No, you didn't do that. No, it was times. And so she said, God, what am I going to do with you? And she picked me up at school where I bloodied some kids nose and I had a torn shirt and I had to go home, and the vice principal said put him in judo. She freaked out said he's going to learn how to fight more. And he says No, he'll learn discipline. I went to this big Quonset hut Navy Quonset hut, badminton going on boxing going on, wrestling's going on volleyball, and so forth. And there's this knot of men with these uniforms, throwing each other down, getting up smiling and throwing the other guy down. And it looked like poetry to me. I never once thought, oh, now be able to beat up Billy. I thought as a grown up, I look back and I go that's poetry. And you know, I trained in it. And all of a sudden, the pushes and shoves stopped. I don't think anybody knew I was doing Judo or doing combative, martial art. But it must have been some way that I was walking differently. Or if they if they pushed me. There was a way that I stood up to them and in my presence seemed to neutralize that aggression. And then I went through karate and went through jujitsu. And then I found Aikido 50 years ago this year, and I fell in love again. That was that was in the island of kawaii and I've been doing Aikido ever since I teach Aikido. The headquarters Aikido headquarters in Japan awarded me the rank of xi Han which means master teacher which I'm, I'm feel humble about and proud of, and I still have a teacher. And those things taught me the possibility of neutralizing somebody's aggression as to neutralizing who they were.

Greg Voisen
Well, Aikido and I think a lot of my listeners know, but some might not know, it's when the energy is being pushed to you. You allow them energy to kind of flow through so the way you move the people is to move the people kind of to your side I've practiced a little bit so you let that forceful energy and you move with it. You don't move against it. Kind of move with it and you in essence in the end, you kind of burn your opponent out if that's the way you talk about it. But it is a whole energy when you say you carried yourself, I think differently. I think you've carried yourself with a newfound energy because when you it, maybe the word is wrong, but I'll say, but when you kind of take in all that energy from a teacher and a master, and you say you went back to school and you didn't get bullied anymore, I think it's because they recognized that it was a new person embodied in that body. And that's what happens. And you were encouraged to play sports and practice martial arts from an early age, you mentioned that these activities made you electric with purpose the way you say it. And you discovered a deep longing to find out what you're capable of. How did you do these acts? How did these activities lead to the doorway to more spacious consciousness? That's the chapter on spacious consciousness. Because, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, you went to Mexico, and you competed in some games and, you know, pre-Olympic, you call it pre-Olympic Games. But you had some really, really good teachers along the way.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
I think that I could, I could speak about these two things. One is that you mentioned is 1966, I ran on the US team for the pre-Olympic meet and the Central American Games. And we were at altitude or 1000 feet, humid, and doing a lot of races. I was just young are like 21. And I've been asked for autographs and been interviewed down there. Because I was going toe to toe with our Mexican champion. And at one semifinal is the 200 meters. I'm running it. And all of a sudden, I'm seeing myself run. Yeah, I'm seeing myself run. And now I'm, I think many of the readers might be familiar with out of body experiences. That was brand new for me. And I was shocked. And when I went, Oh, my God, boom, I'm back in my body. I'd won that he people came over to me. And I saw that they didn't see me have that experience. And there really wasn't anybody to articulate that to my grandmother by that time and passed. All the she crossed my mind, I said I should talk to her about this. But in that moment, it opened up this, this notion of, oh, I'm out of this body, and I'm really kind of in a new body. I'm out of this shape of living in another shape of living. Where it's really started to confirm even more deeply these things around watch the seances, for example. And then in an aikido moment, my teacher, my sensei was demonstrating me for a certain technique, he threw me very fast, very hard. And it had a spiral fracture in my arm. And I was in the middle of that fall. And all of a sudden, I was up in the corner of the room watching it all again. Shocking, huh, came back to my body tried to do something realize I couldn't realize that this arm was broken. But again, I had this opening into these other domains of consciousness.

Greg Voisen
Well, and I think when you were doing the writing, the way you wrote it in the book West, it was almost like you had endless energy. Right? So you, you in essence, had an out of body experience kept going one year heat, right? I don't know, did you? When did you win the pre gold medal for the Olympic? When you were down there, or now what actually happened?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
We I won the 200 meters tide in the tide in the 100 meters. And our relay team won.

Greg Voisen
Oh, my goodness. Well, great success story. And, you know, again, it leads the readers to understand these this out of body experience. You know, a lot of people have that, like, you know, that they get hit by a car, they drowned or they do whatever. And they have these moments when they're being revived and they've gone to the other side, and they come back, right? And call it the other side, if you will call it whatever you want to call it. But those out of body experiences are very real. And when you look at the accounts of them, it's like people were not in pain. So it's like well, I left my body and I saw the doctors working on me over the table. You know, your lots of that kind of stuff. You had a great teacher in your mid 20s Professor la la ta. I hope I got that right. li ta li Lita, Utah. On a great story about the lessons he was teaching you regarding relaxing and giving up and relinquishing. Can you tell the story and what you ultimately learned? Considering it took you some time to come to the realization about the teachings? It wasn't like immediately, you know, this guy pulled your arm. I even remember the whole quote. And you're like, well, I could tell that he was, could do something really nasty to me if he needed to right. That was part of it. And he was getting something across, but it took you so long. I think it wasn't eight years in between before you came to this realization of what he was trying to teach you.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Professor Li ta was an exemplary martial artist. And I got him to come over to Mill Valley and we trained with some other people in Pacquiao, Chinese boxing and Tai Chi Chuan. And then I would go to the San Francisco and train with him in a park with mostly other Chinese. And once you know, he, he pulled me aside was working with me, he was a little bit more stern with me that time. And at one point, he I couldn't do the technique on him and he pulled me aside and he said, Listen, I want to tell you something, I want to tell you a story. I want you to listen carefully looked at me really deeply. I was a little bit concerned because you know, sometimes he would do that then sweep my feet from under me or do a pressure point. And he started to tell me a story about a Chinese painter, calligrapher, philosopher, in the sixth century, named Buddha Shi, Yi out, and he said, at one point, the emperor asked him to do a calligraphy from all his travels. The legend goes, he went to one end of the wall outside the emperor’s residence, and drew forest, in mountains and streams and rivers, in succession, in succession, almost like he did it easily. In the very end, he drew a picture of a grotto or a wave. This is This is Mr. Lili Todd telling me this. And he said, when he drew that, he disappeared, he disappeared into the Grotto. And then he says to me, do you understand? And I felt terrible about what I said, I don't understand exactly. And he's that he held up as a figure. And he says, Listen, he disappeared in there. And he left but his art remained. He says, do you understand now? You said no. I said, no, I don't. And he kind of looked at me like a, like a teacher would look at kind of a dense student. And I thought he was disappointed. But then he patted me on the shoulders, and he said, well then relax these. And he patted me, my lower abdomen. And he said, and breathe from here, which, by the way, was good advice. And I do it to my students, and I still do it. But what I, over time, what I began to see and realize from studying in philosophy and meditation, and taking some psychotropic plants, was that he said, What Doug had said, was to be on a path Dogan, the Chinese, Japanese and monkeying the 13th century, to be on a path is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, to forget the self is to be one with all things. And that was like, oh, that's what happened to me, in Mexico City. That's what happened to me. When I was taking some peyote or psilocybin mushrooms. That's what happened to me in deep meditation. And I went, oh, I can see these Signposts on a path and you didn't get me right away. No, I'm, I'm not fully cooked. I'm still practicing and curious and doing all that. But how do we, as we would say, in the West, let go of your ego. Well, it's

Greg Voisen
it the story that your master teacher taught you was a good one. And the fact that you came to the realization on your own journey on your own time, gave it much more significant meaning. And sometimes those things need to bask for a while they need to sit there for a while and US ruminate on them. We don't always get them right away. And I think for our readers and our listeners, it's okay and think the Buddha always said, you know, question what anyone ever gives you to read or study and come up with your own understanding of that, right? And, and I think that is kind of where you are, you came up with your out of body experience and understanding of what it was. And that's what he was trying to get you to understand. Now, you speak about the incident of your life that you made this story with, you know, we talked about Mexico City, and this pre-Olympics. But I think one of the questions we didn't answer from that is you had that out of body experience. But if you could speak about the experience as it relates to the listeners, on states of consciousness, parallel universes, and the singularity of a unified field, because now we're getting quite a bit deeper than just your experience, we're talking about the, let's call it the science or the quantum physics behind the experience, which I was talking about this yesterday. Time is a construct that we've made up. If everything is always happening in at the same time, in one, let's call it universe, obviously, most people can't put their head around that. And I know that David Boehm, he actually taught for a while at Berkeley, right. But he really had a lot of influence from England is where he kind of ultimately ended up. But bones teachings really are about, you know, we label things we try and put it into categories. We do things because the construct we're trying to make up. And then when you start to talk about the states to conscious parallel universes in singularity of the unified field, it's a hard thing for people to grasp. Richard, how would you, in your estimation, explain that to this listening audience?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Well, I would say, and I think you referred to it is that I had these experiences, that opened up a domain in which there's something more than just my understanding, or the way that I manufacturing reality, there's something bigger than that. It also, what also happened to me is that I was introduced some just exemplary teachers, all the way from my grandmother, to my spiritual teacher, to some somatic teachers that were had these very powerful presences that I kept thinking, whatever they were doing, I'm really interested in who they are, like, often said, about my capital at a teacher, that if I, he was a dishwasher, and I met him, I would be washing dishes, because that was the form was capital letter. But all of those things basically opened up this notion that there's more, there's more than my purse, my optic, there's more than my identity myself, and what I'm looking at, and then through, in all of these teachers that I had, their discourse was based in this is what we're why we're here are for sake of what this is what we're looking for. Now we have to practice. So basically, I've been in like many number of people, 50 years of practicing Aikido more than more years than martial arts totally, and in meditation. And it's through those experience those practices, that has opened me to, and more receptive to the possibility of these other domains, which I would call divine or sacred.

Greg Voisen
Well, you know, when I talked with George linear and last time, we talked about it, we talked about the ITP, integrative transformative practice, is that correct? And, you know, for those listeners out there that want to learn more about a practice that could lead to this. And I think you said your dojo is still hosting the ITP. Is that correct?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yes.

Greg Voisen
Yes. In in Murrin.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yes.

Greg Voisen
So I encourage you to go to Richard's website, because there's a lot there. You can learn. You can also go to Petaluma, and take classes, you can do all kinds of things he's got. It's a very robust website. And there's lots of offerings. There's a big staff and facility. It's not just Richard and that's the great thing is once Richard leaves the fiscal plain, there's gonna be lots of people to carry on behind him here. You state that the embodied practice of moving the attention from thinking to feeling reside in a cellular medium in bone and, and body skin and electrical impulses and driven by muscles to behave and act in the world? Not from the conceptual knowledge of the disembodied mind? How does the power to direct our attention, have the power to shape our brains firing patterns? Because this is what you were kind of addressing in this part of the book?

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Yes. So first of all, that I would hold that we have in the sight of the spiritual longing that we may have, or this transformative longing that we may have. We hold it as an idea, we read about it, there's distinctions. And then it's an idea. It's a concept. It's a start. But most people, many people stay there. What we claim and Cymatics. In the work that I do, we say, you need to move your attention from the thinking self, to the feeling self. That doesn't mean I'm having a feeling or emotion. It means contacting that core animating energy that enlivens us what we call spirit. So that when you contact spirit, it means then this thing that's always interested me, like, I didn't want to go to a cave or a monastery. I didn't want to run a big company. But how do I embody that mystery? While I'm in the world while I'm raising children, doing the dishes, and all of that it requires capturing the attention and then directing it. Energy, life follows attention. Choice follows awareness. The more aware we are more choice we are more choice we have, the more we direct our attention to places that's where the energy is. So if we go to this shape, this is the doorway to life. We are able to contact more directly in a meet immediately, this notion that was calling spirit

Greg Voisen
are key. Well, in this process, you know, I know there's this practice somatic breathing. Right? And a lot of people practice that at your institute. Tell us a little bit. And then in the summary of this, my questions here, little bit about the Institute and what you do. And then secondly, you know, the book is filled with these reflective questions, to get the reader to shift from thinking to being one with their internal powers. How would you want to leave our listeners today regarding this embodiment of these untapped power? And also what the Institute does? So it's like a two-part question.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Really, this notion that if we move our attention inside of ourselves, we begin to see that there's an intelligence or a wisdom there, that is actually 3 billion years old is coming from the sea, and to land in we've evolved to this. And there's an inherent wisdom there, there's an inherent compassion there. And there's an inherent capacity for skillful action there. So that we can get the distinction by reading a book or hearing somebody, but we can go inside of ourselves and become and become more receptive to those things that are already extent, within ourself, that really goes against the stream of what our consumer oriented materialistic world is about, that we're going to find better this or better, that are more youth or lifelong, this for these things out side of us. Now, some of those things are good for sure. I'm not saying they're, they're not or even critical, reasonable, rational thinking is, but we've atrophied the capacity for our conscience intuition, for our spirit or soul, if you will. So that's really what our work is about, that getting inside of this shape, we call it the soma, or the shape of our livingness. In feeling, getting in contact with that core energy starts to make us much more receptive to the wisdom that is much bigger than the personality and a compassion that's much bigger than the personality as well as we then act more skillfully in the world. And that's what we teach at the institute. You know, we, we have, our mission is to help leaders assist leaders in embodying pragmatic wisdom, grounded compassion, and skillful action. Leaders could be you're leading your own life, you're in a transition, you're making choices inside this transition. And maybe you lead the team, you lead the PTA, you lead a family, you lead a huge corporation, or you lead a battalion of men and women, for example. So leader is, when we say leader, we mean every individual. It's just not, it's not a role. It's a way of being to be in charge of your own life. We also do programs around trauma, healing, trauma, resilience, Cymatics. And I have been really fortunate to have tremendous teachers in bodywork. And we have a form of bodywork called somatic bodywork, that allows the body to become more free, and more healed. So we're are more receptive to these inherent capacities. Love more love, greater contact, greater coordination, greater reciprocity with others,

Greg Voisen
where you know, your institute has been around for a long time. I think I was reading like in the 60s 1970,

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
we formally began

Greg Voisen
Since 1970. So formally, and you've done this for a fortune 500 companies, you've done it for nonprofits, you've done it for government, military, you've had hundreds and hundreds of people through this probably 1000s of people 1000s and 1000s of people, and I want to encourage my listeners to do go check out the website, and I will put it up for you right now. s t r o ZZ institute.com. That's where you want to go Also, this book will have a link to the book on Amazon. It's been a pleasure having you on Richard and just kind of talking about your books, your stories, your life, I think that is meaningful to our listeners is anything and the fact that they can go out and in this case, embodying the mystery. That's what it is. Somatic wisdom for emotional, energetic and spiritual awakening. I also will put links to some of Richard's other books as well. So you can check those out to now mistake to you and thank you for hanging out with me for 45 minutes and telling your stories and letting us just get an insight into you and the work that you're doing.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Thank you. Great. Yeah, It's been a pleasure.