Joya: 0:00

You are listening to we Woke Up Like this and I am your host, rev Joya. This is a show dedicated to embodied spiritual awakening, and we love to talk about the messy magic of living a soul-led life. A true spiritual awakening is not all unicorns and rainbows, and on this show, we are not afraid to talk about it. Your awakened frequency is the frequency that will change the world. Enjoy the show. Xavier, I am so excited to have you on this week's episode of we Woke Up Like this, so thank you for joining me, and we were going to do this a while ago and we didn't, and I know that all things are in divine time, so it actually is divine timing. I'm so excited that you're here today.

Xavier: 0:46

I am so excited as well. Yeah, it's been an interesting, I would say, year preparing for this time, specifically for me, so I'm excited to be here and definitely it's divine timing. Divine timing there's way more spaciousness within me at the moment than there were when we were supposed to record, so that's awesome.

Joya: 1:09

Yeah, I would say the same is also true for me and where I've moved on my own journey of the inner soul, how it's changing and unfolding and showing up in life. So I'm just yeah, it's perfect.

Xavier: 1:22

That's awesome.

Joya: 1:23

So let me ask you, as an awakened man and actually moving beyond awakening, like I realize, I don't know, I don't know.

Xavier: 1:32

You know, that's a lot, that's a lot you're putting on my shoulders right now. Awakened man, um, I don't know. Awakening, awakening, that feels um less pressure.

Joya: 1:45

I feel like, okay, so I love that. And I feel like it's like once I had this realization, just this morning actually, that I journeyed about, journaled about, and I think it's perfect for this right here, and it was. You know, once you awaken, now you have to get dressed, and so I feel like you're awake, but I feel like I'm awake. I feel like you're awake, but maybe we're in the process of simultaneously getting dressed in our soul while undressing all of the masks and everything that was there before.

Xavier: 2:13

Oh yeah, that resonates 100 percent. You know, and, and I feel like you know, in the process of getting dressed, there are many outfits that we try it's like is this working, is this fitting me today, or is it fitting me? It's like I don't think the dressing and the undressing stops after you awaken. So that's a great analogy. Thank you for that.

Joya: 2:38

Yeah, you're welcome, and it does feel like that. It's like simultaneously dressing and undressing at the same time. It's like living in this paradox that, when you're a soulful person, seems to arise.

Xavier: 2:51

Yeah, I mean I think there is no definition of God that excludes paradox, because I haven't found one yet that I mean, if it doesn't include a paradox, at the very least at this point in my own personal understanding, then sometimes I have a sense that it might exclude some other aspects of our consciousness to a certain degree, the um of our consciousness to a certain degree. It's like when you, when you go beyond the one, beyond the unity, and you descend from there because that absolute kind of one god-like essence and you're attempting to really connect with that divinity from our human understanding, I have a sense that it must include a paradox to a certain degree. It's like opposites, and I feel like we are learning how to find how to allow these opposites to dance together and how that is willing to impact the way we navigate and create life as human beings. I've been fascinated by topics like this.

Joya: 4:04

Yeah, me too and it's, and I love you know we're going to get into your book because I love your social media and the things that you talk about anyway, and how the it's the fracture, it's the rupture within that opens to the light, and I love that you called it Scars of Gold, which made me instantly think of Kintsugi the light, and I love that you called it.

Xavier: 4:26

Scars of.

Joya: 4:26

Gold, which made me instantly think of Kintsugi.

Xavier: 4:30

So of course, care about your book and your title and where the inspiration for that came from. It's really beautiful. Yeah, I mean, the inspiration for the book started. The knowing that a book wanted to be written started, I would say, a little before it was around that time that I it was a time of emergence for me. I was already in this line of work, but I was going through, I was clearing a whole lot of unfinished business around that time and it had started way before that.

Xavier: 5:01

But in 2020, the, the realization that came was all these things that I was fearing so much the, the fears of alienation, getting alienated from family of origin, from people that you can get so attached to, um, humiliation, ridicule, persecution and all these different things. I had navigated them and I emerged from them and there was a certain degree of serenity that was there and the thought form that was present in my head was I wish I failed them sooner. And I was like this was the title that I wanted to give the book back then. I wish I failed them sooner. All these societal, cultural, even some spiritual shoulds that I was imposing on myself that I should be here, I should have done that, I should, I should, I should. I just wish I had failed them sooner. And then it evolved from there.

Xavier: 6:04

These early years of the process of writing, there was quite a bit of imposter syndrome going on about the identity of an author, which it was extremely foreign to me. I was like this is a guy who, in 2010, he was convinced that he was going to be a PhD in economics and in 2013, you know, he entered the program and one year later dropped out and he had built all this identity around being quote unquote, this academic and all of that. So I never saw myself even being pulled to write something in the spiritual field. So I had to navigate all of that. I also had to navigate becoming a dad three times, three years in a row, like 2019, 2020, 2021. In 2021, I wake up I'm a dad of three. So writing the book with all of that was just. It took a backseat, just took a backseat and the next title came and it was the Dark Night of the Ego, which to me was. I never really resonated with the title Dark Night of the Soul, because to me, the soul knows no dark nights.

Joya: 7:25

And you know what I'm the same way, and I've always called it the dark night of the ego too, and you're the first person I've ever heard say it that way.

Xavier: 7:32

Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Like I was like that's bogus. The soul has no dark nights. You know, it's actually the brightest night of the soul because finally there is a crack and the soul is able to say hello, you forgot about me. So I was like, yeah, I need to write more about this dark night of the ego and maybe that's going to be the title Ended up not being the title Turned out to be maybe a chapter, maybe.

Xavier: 8:02

I have a few sections in the book around it and time went by and I mean I realized back then that I needed to de-shame a lot the work, that I was doing, a great deal of it, and there was a shift in identity that was going on and part of my practice was all the different topics that I'm bringing in the book. I'm going to write about them out loud on my social media like a madman and I don't care if I'm. I care. You know that's not true to say that I don't care if I don't make sense. I do care. I do care if people are going to receive it. I do care if it's going to resonate with people. I do care if it's going to shift people's perspectives, but I don't want to again commit that. I call it the real original sin. People don't like when I use that terminology because it sounds a little religious, but I'm that kind of writer I like to use things that drive their meaning and to me, the original sin is self-abandonment. I do not want to continue to contribute to that quote-unquote original sin. So I don't want to abandon the voice within me that craves to be expressed. And the first form of self-abandonment to me is not repressing or pain. It is actually repressing or brightness, or true nature or first nature. So I was like no, I'm not participating. It's going to be challenging, it's going to be extremely vulnerable, intimate, but I'm going to speak about these things, I'm going to write them out loud and soon enough, I started embodying more and more of that writer identity and it was that turning point.

Xavier: 9:48

The title of the book came very spontaneously in 2023. I had Hay House reaching out and they said, well, there's definitely a book here to be written. And that was the fourth I think the third or fourth publisher that had reached out back then. And I really have a sense that the frequency you choose to emit, because back then it was a conscious, devotional practice that everything I would. I'm going to put in a book, I'm going to write it out loud. I'm not going to save it for like later or like, keep the masterpieces for sure.

Xavier: 10:26

There are some practices in the book that are not on my social media channel and everything but the core concepts. I was like no, I'm not gonna save it for when the time comes, like I don't know, 10 years down the road, I'm just gonna write about it and put it out there. And I feel like people started tapping into it, like the fact that between 2021 and 2023, I had just in that time I had three publishers reaching out. I was like and when Hay House reached, I was like okay, my friend, you have to sit your ass down and get your shit together, start devoting yourself to the practice. And yeah, that's how the book really started.

Joya: 11:06

I love that. So many things that you just said, setting that intention out there of I'm just going to share my gold, right, like I'm just going to share my light and start letting that be what I'm emitting, what's coming from me. There's so many people out there that talk about the problem and I'm of the belief. If you go searching for healing, you're going to find never-ending things to heal. If you're seeking for something, you're going to find never-ending things to seek. And it's really about arriving. And I love that you talked about self-abandonment, because that, for me, is everything that I teach and talk about too, because it's all about and you're exactly right, and my theory of it is I call it the ow, the original wound that happened that taught us that it's not safe to be our light, it's not safe to shine our light and be who we are, and, worse than that, we make an inner agreement with ourself that says this part of me is wrong, and we're the ones who do it, we're the ones who make that agreement. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Xavier: 12:04

Yeah, I mean, that's very real on so many levels. I think the most protected aspect of who we are is our brightness. We protect that fiercely. It is more intimate than the naked body. I've always, I often tell people if you think showing your naked body on a stage is vulnerable, if you think that's vulnerable, you know, to expressing things that are really meaningful to you, your brightness, the ideas that are so meaningful, the ideas that it feel like it's purely channeled from the most intimate aspect of you. Oh, that is damn scary. It is damn scary and sometimes, when we haven't built the emotional capacity, the spiritual stamina to be able to hold that level of like exposure, it's an inner exposure.

Xavier: 13:25

I'm using a lot of symbolism that has to that comes from from religion. But you see this, this cross position where your hands are open, the heart is wide open, it's like that's the feeling of ultimate openness and I feel I often say your light is your cross. It's that thing that wants to open you up like this and have your heart completely unguarded. And damn it. That is vulnerability at its finest for me, and that is what it is demanding of us. It is demanding that we go sometimes into the shadow to purge, to do that detox, to remove everything that is keeping us from embracing that posture like heart wide open. So when people often tell me, oh, I'm willing to serve, I just like, geez, what are you talking about? Are you sure you know what you're asking? Because now you're going to go through the process of being undone, so yeah, yes, 100%.

Joya: 14:22

And I don't know if you know or not, but what broke my heart so open and I had a feeling of a threshold coming and I feel like when we're doing this work, it's always about more and more alignment, and I know like when you ask for patience, it's going to show up in every red light and every slow driver and every line at the grocery store that shows up as the opposite in this world, because we live in a paradox to learn how to do it Right.

Joya: 14:48

And so it was through my son's death in February that I'm sorry, oh gosh, thank you that the day before on Instagram, I had posted that grace descends upon the heart that has been broken open, and I had received a message in my meditation it's time to get reacquainted with grief and I thought it was about the past, like you know, healing traumas and all of those things, but no, it was the crossing of my son and in that experience of this that I'm still going through, I call it mystical grief.

Joya: 15:24

Experience of this that I'm still going through, I call it mystical grief because it really broke my heart so wide open, so wide open that even you know, I will find myself in posturing like how you said, like opening your arms, like that, and because I'll find that sometimes in grief. And I look at other people who are in grief and I can tell when people are in grief because it's almost like the shoulders start to close up like a flower protecting the heart, and so it's like this conscious practice to open the posture of the body because physiologically it opens the heart. But you're so right that in doing spiritual work and not saying people who are listening that something like this will be demanded of you as your initiation. It was mine and I know that's what it was, but there is, like you said, like you said, xavier, that in the saying I want to serve. It's like what are you saying? You're going to be undone in order to show up to serve, like from that pure hearted place of love and light that you truly are from?

Xavier: 16:24

that pure hearted place of love and light that you truly are. Yeah, yeah, I call it the divine undoing and I love in your, you know, in what you shared. You call it mystical grief because, you know, I often feel like people often talk about grief and like processing grief and my, my little experience of grief is there's a form of grief that you don't process. It processes you and it requires that you almost abandon your heart to it, and I experience it as a squeeze. You know that's how I experience it. It's like squeezes your heart from I don't know um, almost emotional toxins. If I, if there were, if, um, we could use that as a word. But there is such a great degree of surrender in the practice, surrender in the journey and just allowing so many To me how I relate to it. It's like there's this divine intelligence within you. The very moment you say I want to reestablish a healthy relationship with my brightness, it starts to kick in 100% and it starts to I want to say scan that channel of light and everything that has been clogging that pipe. It will bring that up and it will say okay, I need you to handle this and I need you to handle this and I need you to handle this. That's my experience of it. That includes the shadow, and you mentioned something around. You know we have a tendency to kind of go dig for issues and dig for problems and all of that. In my experience, you don't even need to chase anything. They will come flying in your face. When it's time for resolution, when it's time for integration, they will come flying in your face and in so doing, when you really just trust that, you avoid one big trap when it comes to the practice of integration or shadow integration. It is the shadow of shadow work.

Xavier: 18:30

I often call it brokenitis, where we are always looking for the next broken thing to fix Instead of building a deep relationship with the very fabric of your psyche. The analogy that I love to give to people and all my work is built upon this. It is to imagine that there is some sort of psychological, emotional, spiritual fabric it is all at one, it carries all these different dimensions that has been holding all the fragments. That fabric, almost like an energetic lattice that has been holding all the fragments, because whatever you repress and that includes your light it doesn't go away. It is held somewhere within you or around you. It is held by that field.

Xavier: 19:23

So the illusion of brokenness is usually is when we relate to ourselves from the the lens of fragmentation. But if you really um start to attune to that spiritual connective tissue that is holding it all and that your only job is to create, to become very intimate with that connective tissue, you're going to start realizing oh, it has been connecting it all all along. Everything is actually one. But I've just been narrow. My consciousness has been fragmented, meaning I've learned how to relate to all of who I am only from fragments. And when I defragment my ability to relate to, to all that I am, when I start building an intimate relationship with that very fabric of me, the fragmentation dissolves. Fabric of me, the fragmentation dissolves. You know this. As I'm saying that, I'm aware that maybe I am using a lot of conceptual language, but you know it also has a very, very practical application in the way you relate to yourself, the way you relate to life in general.

Joya: 20:39

So yeah, Well, I think all mystical intelligence gets to the point where we don't rely on the logic anymore and we move into that those conceptual frameworks and metaphors, and you know what it's like this? I mean, even Yeshua spoke that way and he was the master who figured out how to embody all of his light, right? So it's like he taught us how to do that, and it is by showing up fully for ourselves and going into what's arising right now. I mean, you don't need to go digging in the past when it's revealing itself right now.

Xavier: 21:12

Yeah.

Joya: 21:13

Yeah.

Xavier: 21:13

Yeah, I love it.

Joya: 21:14

And I do believe that we are absolutely 100% wired and created to awaken and we do operate from our fragmented self and being in touch with my son on the other side, which I believe is a frequency that we tune ourselves to that frequency, the more coherent we are in our soul embodiment, the more we're in touch with everything as a frequency. And he said that from the other side. He said mom, oh, he called me momulous, so he said momulous, people have to wake up in the game and let your soul live your life. And, like when we get to the other side, people tend to think like we're going to leave this body, exit the body and boom, we're in this huge, wonderful, glorious reality. But we leave with the same consciousness that we have here, and so it's really to defrag ourself and expand our consciousness while we're here, which is love, and I think that this is probably the hardest training ground in the universe to do that in yeah, I definitely think that this is the place where I don't know that God essence decided.

Xavier: 22:24

I'm going to remind myself what it feels like to be in the human body and to remember love. It's like this collective study group that we have going on right now, where we are put in some circumstances where your assignment is what does it look like to remember love right here, in this moment, and the the way I relate, for example, to most of our practices, I see it as a dissension of love, like an, an invitation to descend love at the maybe you, we might at the most dense levels of matter, if I'm going to put it that way, because for the longest time, we've seen the journey of ascension as reaching, you know, a higher spiritual ground, and yes, there is a component of that, you know, reaching for that broader, expanded um awareness. But the more I practice, you know I want to say practical expansion I have a sense that there's this backward journey of dissension, which is am I willing to meet matter, especially the matter, even the matter that says I will not be alchemized, dear alchemist, I will not be, you're not. Even the one that says you're not gonna turn me into gold, dear alchemist. Even the pain, that says I am so stubborn that I'm gonna navigate with you for a big chunk of your life, regardless of how awakened you think you are. It's like can you? Can you unleash love there as well? Um, there is this stubborn maybe. Maybe it's all. I'm only relating to it from my level of awareness, which is okay. But I find that sometimes our 3d experience has some sort of like whore, uh, matter, like a core kind of density that is looking at us and I think about it as the divine counterpart, looking at us and saying I am not about you know, I'm not here to be bright, like you're not going to transmute me, you're not going to alchemize me. I am the part of you that is grounding you in your humanness. Are you willing to love me too? Show me how you can. You know and it's a very humbling practice to be in your it doesn't matter how many books you read, how many journeys you take, how connected you are there is this core human aspect that is saying I need your love right here, not so that your love changes me, but so that your love so that it opens you even more fully and to kind of make it a little bit more practical.

Xavier: 25:21

Sometimes, when I navigate some predicaments, I love to invite people some predicaments that are very, very challenging. It doesn't matter. It could be my body having some form of like issue, it could be, I don't know a pattern that seems to be reoccurring. It could be something that I want, and I can feel a little bit of the lusting energy which is essentially a part of me that says I am unsafe if this thing doesn't unfold the way I want it to unfold. I like to bring myself in this corner where I'm like what if it did not unfold the way you want it to unfold and there's nothing you could do? What then? What would would that mean? What would happen? Can I meet these possibilities and can I let myself open there?

Xavier: 26:09

What if this ailment in my body wanted to stay with me for the for the next 10 years or for the next 20 years?

Xavier: 26:20

Would I stay in that space of like divine frustration where I want to amputate a part of myself or my body? Or can I descend love here? What if this thing that I'm working on or this book that I'm putting out in the world, turns out to be a glorious disaster, for some reason that I don't know, and I've put so much heart and soul in there and everything inside of me, just like no, why would you even ponder that perspective? And I'm like no, no, just wait a second. Could I love myself right there too? And if I'm able to come up with the answer, a real yes, not like that would be fine, you know, but a real kind of like welcoming the friction inside of me and being like that'd be okay, this can suck rio royally and I'll be okay. There is inevitably this feeling of like. I feel like love descends and acceptance descends and there is more light in my body. I To me, that's what more light in the body sometimes translates into. I immediately feel lighter.

Joya: 27:29

So yeah, I love that. I agree with you so much that it is all about the acceptance, the loving. Can you love that too? And I know that when I went and was thrown into the basement of my being when my son passed, that I was first enraged at God because I've been so obedient and been a lifelong mystic, and then I'm like what the hell? But then, instantly it was. Can I love this experience too, as part of the human journey?

Joya: 28:01

And then, in that loving and turning toward, I came face to face with that core, that exact core, and I love how you articulated that so much. This core of our being, that's like I will not be transmuted. I am alive, I am real. This core of I am what's real. I am real, I am here, I am real and facing my son's death and then turning inward and going, I'm going to die too. This me won't be here and that sitting with that in my ego, I can tell you was there are no words to describe the levels of terror that I experienced inside of myself.

Joya: 28:40

And while I was experiencing that terror inside of myself, I was doing this in meditation, my eyes closed, just being in the terror of it and just welcoming it, welcoming the experience, saying this is the ultimate of our human journey.

Joya: 28:54

This is the culmination of it, right here, this volcanic explosion, where the light that's descended into the living clay vessel of being that I am will now reascend back to where it came from, back into the ethers, and it's, you know, sitting in that and loving that too, and then coming to a place in that that now it's like, as I came into it and said, okay, radical acceptance, radical love for my humanity and my silliness of getting irritated at the guy getting on the freeway going 30 miles an hour, that I laugh, that I still get annoyed at that, right, it's like, oh gosh, like some human in showing up and in shining the light and living how I want to live and doing what I want to do. That's in alignment with the soul, calling not what my ego wants to do, but what my soul is like. I want you to go on a solo pilgrimage to Ireland and go walking across the burn by yourself.

Xavier: 29:57

I'm like, okay so I'm going to go do that.

Joya: 29:58

That's so awesome so it's just listening right and that that level of cultivating that trust in our life to guide our humanity.

Xavier: 30:06

Yeah, I mean, there is something so amazing that you shared in this experience of, like I am going to sit with the terror, the level of trust in the fabric of your psyche that you need to have to say I'm going to sit with this terror and almost kind of let it have its way with me for a second and we're just going to hang out for a second. I'm going to, I'm actually going to invite it in. It's like the level of trust with, like you might say with God, and that that that applies to, but I see it as a level. So we have such a great degree of addiction to our regulation tools. You know and, by the way, I'm not dissing nervous system regulation and all these different things but we can get so attached to our practices to the degree where, as soon as some disturbance hits the system whether it's pain, grief, loss we just want to bring it to baseline right away. And it's normal, it's human. But what you are reflecting there is you had to make peace with this the thought of I'm gonna sit with this terror for as long as it's here. I'm'm going to be with it. That is that.

Xavier: 31:32

I see that as a skill and I am so happy that you mentioned the fearlessness after, because to me, that is what true fearlessness means. It's like I have built the capacity to be intimate with fear without shutting my heart down. It's like I've built this capacity to be intimate with fear without shutting my heart down. It's like I've built this capacity to be intimate with fear without shutting my heart down. Fear can be here, but I will not allow it to shut this core down. To me, that's fearlessness. It doesn't mean turning off your capacity to feel fear.

Xavier: 32:04

No, I don't even know what that feels like. If you really want to stay in your body, I don't know what that feels like and, yeah, want to stay in your, in your body. I don't know what that feels like and, um, yeah, there is something about what you mentioned. Part of me wanted to ask you a question about it. You know, um, I, I I don't know if that's okay, of course you, you mentioned the, the divine frustration, or the frustration at God, like being angry at God, and part of me wonders how did you resolve that? Because it is such a huge part of our journey, at times when it feels like life gives you a cosmic slap in the face, and it can be really challenging to just move through it.

Joya: 32:53

Yeah, honestly, I didn't resolve it, it resolved me. And when I had that, because I had been so obedient up to that point in, you know, stopping doing the things that were self-sabotaging, stopping relationships that I knew were not healthy, like all these things I had just I had saw in my own practice, watched my path just get narrower and narrower and narrower, more in alignment with what was that inner conflict of self-betrayal, right Between what I want inside, what's asking me, and what I'm doing in the world. And that conflict was getting narrower and narrower. So when my son died and I knew a threshold was coming, I could feel it, I knew there was an initiation coming toward me.

Joya: 33:38

And then it was that I did scream at the top of my lungs and my I mean it was like probably the most blood curdling scream I've ever screamed.

Joya: 33:47

That came from every cell in my body and I screamed at God, I hate you.

Joya: 33:53

I was so mad. And then, right when I was finished with the and I did it until every breath left my body, like there was no breath left. It was almost like a death breath that I exhaled air that had probably been stagnant in me for a long time and in that, when I took a breath, been stagnant in me for a long time and in that, when I took a breath, I just suddenly felt my heart completely be covered with what I can only describe as it felt like a warm honey of peace melted over my heart and it was like it was grace and I was like it's grace descending. It's that feeling of grace and I feel like that complete surrender. It's the surrender right, it's the surrender even in the angst, like surrendering even to that feeling that then invites the, because we're in that swing, we're in that paradox of the ascending and the descending. That in that cry, in that honor, in that truth at that moment, that it was even in this, you are so held, you are so loved.

Xavier: 35:02

Yeah, I love that so much, you know, because there is this huge, huge thought form that we have. I often call it the myth of the good devotee. It's like if I am good, if I am good, everything, everything, nothing bad should happen, quote unquote. And there is usually that divine disillusionment that unfolds when you're like I've been doing my freaking best to be good, I've been committing to my practices, I've listened to my intuition, in the best of my ability, I've tried to be a good human. You know, I answered the calls, the calling and all of that. And it's almost like feeling betrayed by the divine and feeling betrayed by God. And even though at that moment by the divine and feeling betrayed by God, and even though at that moment we can tell that, yeah, there is more truth, there's a higher truth, but the pain that usually gets you in that moment it just feels like hey, I haven't deserved quote unquote this, why is it happening? Type thing. Yeah, I see you there.

Joya: 36:09

And it wasn't. You know, it's not harmful, it's a part of life, it's as natural to life as birth and in fact Weston told me death is not the end, it's a birth to another level, it's a continuation. This is like just a well, he says it's a pit stop on a game of life where we're now experiencing ourselves in very slow matter. And I'm like you know, when you have those dreams, when you're trying to fight with somebody and you're like and you can't move, I'm like he's like that's what life is like for the soul and the body. It's like slow motion.

Xavier: 36:59

Yeah, I would even go as far as saying that feeling of like divine betrayal. It's like almost like God betrayed you. I feel like it's a necessary step for the self-liberation that we are looking for. It's like, to a certain degree I see it when I usually do it it's like expecting of the divine to be daddy. It's like if I, you know, that imprint is, so the sky daddy.

Joya: 37:30

Yeah, it's just like geez know that imprint is so the sky daddy, just yeah, it's just like, jeez, what's wrong with you?

Xavier: 37:35

you know, daddy, it's like I showed up. Well, I did my part, you didn't do yours. What the fuck is going on here? Yeah, um, so yeah, I've.

Xavier: 37:45

I find that fascinating and I I often even talk about the five D's. We often talk about five D, you know, going to the fifth dimension and all of that. And I like to talk about the five D's of. I want the initiation, if I'm going to put it that way.

Xavier: 38:10

I feel like there's an equivalent five D, like different portals that we go through, like the darker 5D and the first one, it, you know, it is disillusionment. For me, it's like, usually the thing that will awaken us the most, they have to break an illusion. Yes, so they disillusion us. They're like boom cosmic, slap in the face First D, are you willing to take it in us? They're like boom cosmic, slap in the face first d, are you willing to take it in?

Xavier: 38:34

And where there's the how would I call it the, the cognitive dissonance that is coming up, you know it's like are you, am I willing to really embrace this? And then after that, there's usually another one that comes in, which is, you know a form of disbelief. Really. It's like did that just happen? Did it, did it, did this really happen? It's like, how could this happen? Like it doesn't make sense.

Xavier: 39:00

And the the disbelief part as well can be very challenging to just sit with. Um, and you know disbelief, doubt, yeah for sure. It's like we question our reality. It's like, is that real? And then there is another, there's another d, I think this one, I um, I like to think of it as dread, and that dread is, you know, that fear that can sometimes take on when you start realizing, okay, I was really holding on to an illusion and I was really holding on to an illusion here.

Xavier: 39:42

Another one that comes up is, I think, death. I'm wondering if I would put death at the last one, but there is inevitably the journey of the death of an identity. It's like the identity that was believing in the illusion can no longer be the one that you carry on the other side of the illusion. So, yeah, I feel like there's this kind of different layers of working with disbelief, working with dread, working with doubt, working with disillusionment, working with a metaphorical death, and through all of this we awaken more fully into, kind of, who we came here to be maybe the next iteration. So yeah, in your journey of emerging from the grief, I kind of sense that from you.

Joya: 40:33

Yeah, thank you, and it has definitely been a dismembering. I'm like I'd have that in there too After the death. It's the dismembering of everything that you thought you were, thought mattered, thought was important, and then now it's just like this I don't know, in the rebuild I have a beautiful structure that my son gave me from the other side that gives a structure, but also it's a structure for flow that I just I'll ask for something, and that afternoon there it is, and it's just kind of like wow. And I always just say, wow, thanks, thank you.

Xavier: 41:17

Yeah.

Joya: 41:17

You know, but then also not expecting and not being attached to that either, Knowing that in this realm that we're in of matter, it's like I see it now as like being a 3D playground that I'm like, it's like a big 3D printer that I'm like. What? Do I want to create.

Xavier: 41:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and even tasting, trusting sorry, the distasteful meaning, the experiences, like trusting that even what doesn't taste right, even what is coming up with, the frequency of challenges and contrast, it's also part of that divine flow, because we often create this adversarial relationship with everything that I don't know tastes a little bit sour, you know, on the journey, and I often like to say there's an alchemical form of gratitude that is way removed from bypassing anything.

Xavier: 42:09

It's not bypassing by any means and it's the gratitude that we have the hardest time tapping into. It's like when something challenging unfolds, like finding it within ourselves to say I am grateful for this. It's so counterintuitive. But to really feel and even accessing that it's so counterintuitive. But to really feel and and even accessing that it's so counterintuitive because why? I mean the ego is raging um, everything is flaring up. But to find it within ourselves, to be in the receptive mode for things that are even challenging, it's like part of that flow that you tap it, you you're tapping into and that you're talking about, and I think it's a skill that we get to really build.

Joya: 42:56

Yeah, and I honestly in my heart, I have so much gratitude for the tremendous capacity that I hold within me now, the gifts I've received from my son's early departure from this planet, and I wish he was still here. I wish I didn't have to have all of this. I wish I was still in my mindset of where's my 3D, my 5D reward for being such a good human in the 3D realm. You know that ignorance that I used to have is no longer a part of me and for that I'm eternally grateful. Oh my gosh, yeah, and it's just more and more that opens in this journey and I love the. You know, this conversation that I've had with you and listening to the universe that is you and your experiences and how you are experiencing your reality and your unfoldment in it as light, has just been such a beautiful conversation. My heart is so grateful for this.

Xavier: 43:54

Yeah, I'm so grateful for that as well. You know, I feel like to a certain degree, life almost wants to jade you a little bit. It's like we have often, as spiritual seekers, a little bit of naivete, as in the way we engage life. It's like if I, if I just cross all the dots, then everything good, only everything, only the good stuff shouldn't fold. Um, so, yeah, um, and I think this the way I have seen that extend in, because I talk a lot about the shadow and usually people have this adverse relationship with the shadow and for people who might listen to this conversation and not be very clear about what the shadow is, it's just the storehouse of everything you've disowned within you. About what the shadow is, it's just the storehouse of everything you've disowned within you Pain, even the light that feels scary, the power that feels. You know, the light that feels too bright, like way too bright to embrace, or the patterns that you try to hide and repress within yourself. So I often like to offer this thought to people Think about your shadow as the dark face of your higher self, like the dark twin. It's like God choosing to descend in this. You know your soul choosing to descend in this world of duality had to split. You know, I offer that as a metaphor. Imagine that he just had to split. It's like one aspect that you call higher self, another aspect that you call higher self, another aspect that you call shadow self, but they are actually maybe twins, if you want to see them that way, but truly one in the same. And um. I often like to tell people this is one of the most benevolent aspects of your psyche. If you really want to have a um, I want to say a healthy relationship to it, it is not here to mess up your life. It is here to give you what you need to reconcile with so that you can lean into the next step.

Xavier: 46:01

And I'll often like to tell people hey, think about when you were young. There were all these patterns and all these traits that were when you were young. There were all these patterns and all these traits that were not really accepted around you. And your shadow just said well, I'm going to hold it for you. You don't know how to handle this yet I'm going to hold it for you. You went through pain and trauma. Your shadow said give me that pain so that you can function in this world. I'm going to hold it for you. Your light was causing you to be bullied or humiliated or ridiculed and whatever, and it was too painful. Your shadow said give it to me, I'll hold it for you. I'll hold it for you Anything else that was like a disturbance to your capacity to operate in this world. Your shadow said I'll hold it for you. Just give it to me so that you can operate here. I don't know, I fail to see how this is.

Joya: 46:54

I agree with you. It's such a creative system that we have in us that you know and I only recently realized this I went to a. I just won a speaking competition, but I went to a training before that was called Soul Speaks from the Stage. Doing it with started unexpectedly saying what she saw in me. She was actually the event photographer and so she was sharing what she saw in me without my permission and without me. And so I'm noticing, I'm witnessing inside of myself my reaction, and so when it was my turn to reflect back to her, I said my instant reaction was I wanted to look away from you, I wanted to hide, and I said so.

Joya: 47:37

I was asking myself what's inside of that? I'm asking my shadow, because my shadow is going. Oh no, we have to hide. We have to hide and I realized I was like I am a seer and I can see people. I could see their light, I could see who they are and I can see their wounds, and so my light has learned that's not safe. So I learned to show up with and mirror them before they even know I'm doing it. It's very unconscious, and I meet their needs before they even speak them, and in that way I give so that I can control how other people are seeing me. And I said and you took that from me. But I said, but I said but in that I realized that shadow and that's how, that's how sneaky and subtle and tricky that that shadow works. But it's like, okay, I'm going to use your gift because it's who you are, but I'm going to use it to not be seen.

Xavier: 48:33

Yeah, yeah, I love it so much. I find it so fascinating. You know emotional outbursts or emotional discomfort, and because it speaks that way, we are usually under the impression I am under attack and therefore we have the knee-jerk reactions. And when we learn how to just romance the reactions and go beneath the reactions, there is something really amazing that happens. It's like it actually wants to have a conversation with you. You know, it's like it is emerging and it is all dressed up. You know, in the way we learn how to dress it up and as it emerges we're like holy shit, what is this thing? And let me try to get it to go away.

Xavier: 49:44

But when you sit with it, I found the most, yeah, the highest degrees of benevolence in there. I often call it like a hidden benevolence or dark benevolence. It's just that part of you that is saying these are the places within yourself where more love is needed, or more of your presence is needed, more of your acceptance is needed, or just more of your curiosity is needed curiosity, yeah yeah these are the places within you where more of that is needed.

Xavier: 50:14

Can you sit here with me so that we learn how to I don't't know to see each other, so that you may eventually find another way to meet this need? You know that doesn't require you, I don't know finding a way of meeting the need that is not distorted. You know it's like. Can you like? I need you to meet me here so that, from your broadened awareness, we are able to find a new way to meet this need. And I've I've seen, without um I was going to use an absolute now, but I've seen in most cases, um, that shadow will emerge. These triggers emerge only when your consciousness has expanded enough to find a new way of addressing a conflict that you only knew how to address in a distorted fashion and like without a doubt. That has been my experience, and even though I'm using strong language, I say without a doubt, but this is continuously my experience.

Joya: 51:17

I second that it's been mine as well.

Xavier: 51:20

Yeah.

Joya: 51:20

Yeah, and that curiosity you know like, instead of when you notice the reaction that's happening, to get curious about it. And I love that. I've always loved and have shared that reactor. The word reactor and the word reaction have the exact same letters as creator and creation. So I always say a reactor is a creator who got all mixed up and so it's to go inside of that feeling, just like you said, with curiosity turning toward, and I loved your definition of fearlessness. It was so beautiful and I'm going to let you have the final words. I know we've gone. We could probably talk all day. This is such a wonderful conversation, but anything else you'd like to share before we go?

Xavier: 51:58

yeah, I mean the. The main invitation would be, um, you know to, to really invite people to rewire the ways they relate to their darkness. We like to, especially as spiritual seekers. We like to put us to see ourselves above darkness first. Um, we there.

Xavier: 52:18

There's some of that spiritual arrogance where we often say no, I don't have this or that within me, and I'm usually like what, are you kidding me? We are made of the same cloth and it's like we often have shadow ways, shadow benefits, ways. We get our needs met and we leverage our own shadow to get our needs met. And the moment you are humble enough to just say okay, when there's a reaction, when you notice the reactor inside of you to ask yourself what need I believe I can only meet through this reaction, what need do I believe I can only meet through this reaction and really lean in there, that's how you start mining the gold.

Xavier: 53:11

That's how you start mining that level of self-liberation that you've been craving. So the core teaching has always been are you willing to be intimate with all that you are, especially what is unbecoming? You know, being intimate with our brightness is beautiful, but being intimate with what is unbecoming is that's a true mark of character in my opinion. So yeah, that's what I've been attempting to practice, to show, to teach, to transmit to my children, to write in the book Scars of Gold, and yeah.

Joya: 53:48

Your children are so blessed to have you for a father and for creating a next generation of children who will be so emotionally intelligent, which I think is what high spirituality actually is is high emotional intelligence.

Xavier: 54:01

Thank you. Well, I hope they are. I hope I'm not going to fuck them up too bad. No, you won't.

Joya: 54:06

I know, although my sister said, it doesn't matter what you do, your kids will need therapy because of you.

Xavier: 54:11

Yeah, I've made peace with that, I've made peace with that, I know me too.

Joya: 54:16

Yeah, oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much, and I will have links to your website and your book, certainly down below in the show notes, so everybody can go and read this amazing book and reach out to you if they feel called. You do coaching and things like that, correct yeah?

Xavier: 54:32

yeah, yeah. Well, it's been my ultimate pleasure. Joya, Thank you so much for having me.

Joya: 54:38

Might. Well, it's been my ultimate pleasure, Joya, Thank you so much for having me Might as well, Thank you. Thank you for listening to we Woke Up Like this. Your likes, comments, subscribes and reviews are deeply appreciated. If you're interested in being on the show, please send an email to podcast at vibologycom. And until next time, remember your authentic frequency is the frequency that will change the world.