11: How to change your death date by 15 years with Emily Fletcher

[00:00:00] Hi there. Welcome to the field better now, podcast. I’m your host, Jackie Balca. And if you’ve arrived here, no, there is something in here to spark yourself to create a bit of future in your health, in your current. In your relationships, both yourself. And for those around you, just one small action step at a time with so much love and gratitude to be your guide.

Let’s get started.

Jackie stress by design dampens, our sense of taste and smell, and touch and sight. Because if you think about it, that adrenaline and cortisol is helping you to prepare for a tiger attack. So your nerve endings, like dead, like nobody wants to feel the fangs is there piercing the juggler. [00:01:00] So it’s like it has an anesthetic effects numbing.

And so when you start to get rid of that stress, it’s like, you’re quite literally pulling the lens. There’s this beautiful line from the Vedas, which has the truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing. And what we’re doing when we meditate is that we’re, unclouded our lens. Hey everyone, Jackie backer here and today, my guest is none other than the incredible Emily Fletcher.

I love Emily. Not only is she an expert way performer, she’s the author of stress, less accomplish more. And the creator of Ziva online, a meditation practice that I use personally, I’m a student of Emily’s that has been completely transformational for me. We have the best chance. Science behind meditation.

Both of us are super nerdy. So we geek out on that. Everything from neuro-plasticity, why stress is making us stupid, sick and slow. I love this quote from Emily Albert Einstein’s brain. I love researching Albert Einstein’s brain. Doesn’t everybody. They say [00:02:00] critically about sexuality and how to enjoy the joy and practice enthusiastic gratitude to feel better.

Now, Emily is so fascinating, intelligent, warm, and so accompany. Stay tuned to find out why you will learn a lot from her as I did into welcome. Welcome, Emily. It’s such a privilege to have you on the show today. I am so excited to be here. We have so many friends in common and to find out you’ve done Ziva online.

We have so many of the same heroes. I think it’s going to be so. So fun. You have such wonderful energy. You know, I was prepping for this and just doing even more research because I’ve followed you for many years. And my partner in crime, my husband helps me with some of, they said, Hey, just came in this morning and said, she is phenomenal.

Like how lovely is Emily? And I said, her energy, you just radiate glow and warmth and, you know, kudos to you. Oh, thank you for saying that. I really, sometimes it’s [00:03:00] just a nice reminder. I’m coming out of a little bit of a dishwasher. Like I had a month, like said I had COVID my nanny got COVID. My executive assistant got COVID my head of marketing and it was just like, Bam, bam.

Bam. And I had a live event for 3000 people and the day that like both my right and left hands were out. And so, and I have a three-year-old son instead of, I was just in that like dishwasher for a minute. And I was like, okay. And I feel like I’m just like finding my way back to feeling like I’m in my body and myself.

And it was such a beautiful blessing because. Even a week, even two weeks, even like a 20% reduction when your baseline is like joy, ecstatic, joy, and enthusiastic gratitude to come off from that is like, whoa, I don’t like it. And then to come back, it makes me even more grateful. Right. It makes me even more grateful for all the tools that I’ve found.

All the teachers who have helped me and for the privilege, because it quite literally is a privilege. To have been able to practice these tools for 13 years. [00:04:00] And so thank you for being a mirror, you know, because sometimes when you feel like a hot mess, you’re like, oh right. I am doing great. You certainly are an angel.

And you’re, you have so many very special gifts that you share, so generously beyond what you would ever realize. So I am happy to reflect that back to you. I, I totally get COVID as well. It’s it’s been through our house as well, and I can reflect on what you just said. I hadn’t known the analogy about the dishwasher.

So I love that we have certainly been in the hot mess dishwasher on high heat of the water to spray it from every angle. Yes, it’s so interesting. Isn’t about that baseline because when you are unwell and operating it, Ivan do kinesiology muscle testing. So I was testing my husband yesterday and I could tell, you know, easy operating at 10%, 20%, 30%.

And he was offering. At 50% and he’s at day seven of COVID. So it was really interesting because that becomes you, you feel like, oh, this is my new normal, I forgotten how [00:05:00] good it feels to feel good. And to have that enthusiastic gratitude, which is where I’m at. And, and he’s not at the moment. So I’m like, don’t worry.

The heart coming it’s coming. And it’s such a delicate balance and requires such mastery to let yourself be where you are. Right. If you’re sick, just be sick. If you’re sad, just be sad. If you’re angry, be angry. And then what I’ve found is that the more you feel it and allow yourself to be in it, the faster you move through to the new now.

And yes, we have to have a level of discipline to make sure that our new now that our baseline is getting higher and higher and higher, the, we are evolving and. And creating more joy and more bliss versus what happens if we don’t engage in these practices, which is atrophy and harden and get smaller and smaller.

Yes, exactly. And then that’s like, I’m sick. I’m so sick. I’m still sick. So a great, so on that note, you such a, an accomplished meditation [00:06:00] teacher and I’m a student of yours through Ziva online. I want to talk about that, but let’s just ground everyone in what meditation is and what it’s not, let’s, let’s kick off there.

Cause I love how you explain the science of behind it. And what’s actually happening in your body and your brain. Yeah. So in this day and age, when you say the word meditation, what most people think of is like, well, which free app are you using? You know, are you using calm or Headspace? And, and there, there’s some really beautiful apps out there and I’m not here to be bashing them.

I think that they’ve been a beautiful gateway drug. And I think that it’s allowed so many people who are very skeptical to see like, oh, this thing can change my state. Oh, I can do this and feel better in the moment. Maybe I don’t need to have a shot of tequila. Maybe I don’t need to have as much wine.

And so it’s like, yes, yes. Thank you. But the challenge that I face is that what I teach is not, it’s not like what most of the apps are out there. They’re most of the apps and YouTube videos and drop-in studios are teaching what I would call mindfulness. Right? [00:07:00] Mindfulness is the art of bringing your awareness into the present.

Right. The art of bringing your awareness into the right now. And yes, that is powerful, especially when our attention is being pulled in a zillion different directions. But the thing about mindfulness is that it’s very good at healing, your stress and the now state change versus zero. And Ziva is a trifecta of mindfulness.

We use that as the appetizer, so mindfulness, meditation, and manifesting the three M’s. Okay. So we start with mindfulness. It’s a state change. It’s like giving your busy, busy monkey mind something to do. Right. We focus on something. We change our state in the now and then we transitioned into the beautiful main course, which is meditation.

And what I teach at Ziva is likely quite different than what most people have experienced. When they think about meditation, it’s actually giving your body rest. That’s five times deeper than sleep. 500% deeper than sleep. And so. When you’re doing that [00:08:00] metabolic rate decreases heart rates, those body temperature cools.

And so as you give your body this deep healing rest, yes, you’re healing your stress from the now, but the magic happens because with Ziva, you’re actually healing your stress from the past. Okay. And you’re de exciting your nervous system and your D excite something you created. When you create order in your body, then this lifetime of accumulated stresses that we all have in our cellular memory can start to come up and out.

And so the less stress we have in our body, the better able we are to perform at the top of our game. And I would argue that we meditate to get good at life, not to get good at meditation. So zebra is all about meditation for getting good at life. So we start with the mindfulness, we move into the delicious nap, like juicy Maine.

Of meditation. And then from that connected blissed out dopamine, serotonin, and out-state, then we move into manifesting and manifesting. I would define as consciously creating [00:09:00] a life you love, it’s you getting intentional about what you want? And, you know, you and I both love Abraham Hicks and they do an amazing job of talking about getting into that state, getting into the vortex, getting into that space of enthusiastic gratitude.

And that is all amazing. And it is important, necessary waking state work, but they also say you’re going to really help yourself in the meditating I’m in the manifesting. If you meditate first because the meditation is like a, it’s like a record scratch for the brain, right? If you, for decades have been running a script of, I suck.

I suck. I suck. I’m going to dial in with cats, eating my face. I’m late. I’m late, I’m late. I don’t have enough. I don’t have enough money. I don’t have that, blah. It’s like, you gotta, you gotta record scratch that story before your brain is going to even believe that you deserve your dreams. Yeah. And so the meditation is like priming your brain and priming your body to plant the seeds of the manifestation.

So this is the Ziva technique, mindfulness meditation, and manifesting the three [00:10:00] M’s. And what I found after teaching 40,000 people, this, this technique is that the whole really is greater than the sum of its parts. And when you do all three together, it’s so much easier to commit to the practice because.

You start to see a return on your time investment, right? For it’s like 15 minutes invested, you get back hours in your day. And so when people say, I don’t have time to meditate, it’s like, well, you don’t have time to do meditation. That doesn’t work. Yes. Yes, nobody does. But everybody has time to invest if you’re getting an awesome ROI.

And I feel like that’s, my job is to explain the science behind why you’re getting this return on time. Invested. Yes. I so agree. And I love my caimans quote. I don’t have time not to meditate and I agree. And it’s interesting, isn’t it? I, as a student of, as one of your 40,000 students, um, pod teachers, Yeah.

Yeah. I love being the taste. That was a [00:11:00] great story for you, Emily, that I haven’t told you is that the manifestation component of that. So when I was going through the course was to visualize and really get. The feeling of where I was living at the time. And I, I have a very imprinted image of living on the beach as in like, I can, I’ve got a view of the water, something with like glass windows, so I can see the view.

It was all white. And this is a, this is a few years ago now. And a few months ago I was walking past a, a site that was about to be built. And I just looked at the site and I thought, gee, I really liked that it was on top of a heritage building and I’ve never, ever bought off the plan before. And I said to my husband, I really, I really, I don’t know what it is about that spot right there.

Completely forgetting about the experience that I’d had during my manifestation. Let’s invest in. Off the plan apartment. And so we went forward with it. And then about a week [00:12:00] later, I realized that it was the exact image of three years prior of what high had been visualizing in the manifestation phase of the 3m technique.

So it is just the most phenomenal story. And I’d completely forgotten about this white house with the glass. Full length, looking at the water. Wow. Good for you. Bravo. I love it. When people’s dreams come true. Yeah. You really are the architects of your experience. So, you know, what are you going to architect the life that you love or something different?

And a lot of people just simply. Taking the time to architect that they just aren’t taking the time to say, well, how much money would I love to make this year? How much sex do I want to be having in a month? Where’s my dream vacation. How much time do I want to be spending with my kids? And it’s like, because it’s so easy, life has coming.

So fast and we fall into this. I’ll be happy [00:13:00] when syndrome, we think if I could just complete all of XYZ, then I can bet I’ll be able to plan, then I’ll design, but it never works like that. It’d be like, well, let me just finish driving the car. And then I’ll put in the address into the GPS. It’s like, you have to start with the destination.

And it’s so funny. Every time I do a launch, like if we do a product or something is opening up. If I don’t like sit down. And really like, imagine like how many people I want in and like send out a signal to what kind of person, what I want them to get out of it. And if I’m not crystal clear on the number, the lunch never goes well.

And then when I’m crystal clear and I like put up the bat signal, then it’s like, it exceeds our expectations every time. And it’s such, and I’m like, why would I ever, I teach this stuff for a living right. I never forget it. Um, but we do don’t we, it was really, I was talking to our good friend, JJ, Virgin the other day, and she said to me, so, you know, what does success look like when you do this?

Like what, what would happen if you didn’t do it? What would happen if he [00:14:00] did? And I just, I was like silent. I’m like, I know this stuff. Like what, what did I have an answer for this? Of course I need to plan, like, what’s going to happen when I. Challenge out. And so you had to take, how many of us are just getting caught in other people’s busy work, right.

And it’s like, I’m already in my own busy work. I don’t want to get caught in somebody else’s busy work. If they don’t have a clear vision, you know, then they’re not going to be getting nature support. And then it becomes a waste of everybody’s time. It’s like more work and effort for not as much results.

And I’m interested in like, you know, MVP, let’s put, let’s put in the exact right amount of effort and energy to get a massive return on it. Yes exactly. I want to touch on something you said, which I really liked, which is out past trauma. My mum was telling me this incredible story. I’ll always remember it.

You know, I’ve been trying to encourage her to do more meditation and she is scared of it. She said, I tried meditation. I sat down and I was silent and I burst into [00:15:00] tears. Talk to me about what’s happening there for. So the thing, a lot of us think that stress is like in the now of like, oh, it’s just a mental phenomenon and it’s just happening out.

It’s out here, that’s happening to me. And then the stress goes away. Right? Like my job. My mother-in-law’s stressful. My kids are stressful. And then when that thing is over, then it will stop. But the reality is that every single time your body has ever launched into a fight or flight stress reaction, it’s left an imprint in your cells, right?

It’s left an open window on your brain computer. And by the time the average adult is 20 years old. We have about 10 million. Of those open windows on our brain computer. And so I went and then to owners survive, we have to minimize them, right. Because it’s like, well, we got to get through the day. And so many of us are just sitting on top of millions of open [00:16:00] windows, but they’re minimum.

And that’s stress, stress, stress, stress, stress. So it’s like millions of triggers, millions of these tabs. And so what meditation does is it’s like we’re going in and giving the body rest that it needs. And then it like maximizes the window. So you can click X and get rid of it, click X and get rid of it.

And so in that process of moving through it, it’s like things get highlighted for deletion. So a lot of people in the first few weeks will go through an emotional and physical detoxification. So. I’m not sure if that fully answers your question about your mom, but absolutely. Absolutely. And I, I love how you explained it and it makes me think of your awesome quote.

Stress is making us stupid, sick and slow. Talk to me more about that. Yeah. So it’s a hard truth. It’s stress is making us stupid, sick and slow. According to Harvard medical school, stress is responsible for 90, 90% of all doctor’s visits. Yes. Um, and when you look at. Uh, heart disease, [00:17:00] hypertension, chronic disease, auto-immune issues, gut issues.

I mean, all of these are exacerbated by stress. So it stands to reason that if you were to get the stress out of your body, that you would feel better, right. That you could, it’s like as many things that go haywire when your body is stressed or as many things that can come back into order when you start meditating and removing the stress from your nervous.

Yeah. Um, so the reason why stress is making a stupid, sick and slow, I think the best analogy here is just to think about why we get stressed in the beginning. And that’s, it was an evolutionary response to predatory attacks, right? It’s like we’re out in the woods. Tiger jumps out digestion floods with acid skin.

Acidic bladder and bowels evacuate immune system goes to the back burner, adrenaline and cortisol levels increase all useful. If your demands are tigers, not at all useful. If your demands are emails, podcasts released, X’s kids, you know, employees. [00:18:00] Now this fight or flight stress reaction has become maladaptive.

It is now disallowing us from performing at the top of our game. And then the more we go through life, the more stress we get, we just keep opening more and more and more windows. And then it’s like, that’s why we think of like, oh, we’re just, I’m just going to get sick and die. Like, we sort of have this thing of like, that’s what happens?

You get sick and die versus like, what if we change that paradigm to we evolve, we get better. We get healthier, we get stronger. We go into higher and higher states of consciousness until the body becomes irrelevant and we take it off. Like we would a beautiful suit versus what a lot of us are doing and just trashing this machine with shitty food and shitty thoughts and, you know, abusing the nervous system.

And then like, oh, I’m wondering why I’m getting cancer at 50. I’m wondering why I’m having breakdowns at 45. Why am I addicted to six different types of pills in my sixties? You know? And it’s like, this doesn’t have to be the way if we can remove the root cause if we can stop masking the symptoms and [00:19:00] start healing the root cause, which is stress.

Absolutely. And I think I, you know, I love what you said about acid and, you know, the defense mechanism of, of us, our skin becoming more acidic, you know, so we didn’t taste good to predators. So talk to us about the link between meditation and I love zebras my, my meditation of, of choice Dever online. So the mindfulness, meditation and manifestation.

The link between that and longevity. Hmm. Yeah. So when you start removing that stress in your body, a whole host of things happen, like when you quite literally change your, your brain chemistries, you’re getting rid of that adrenaline and cortisol. You’re flooding your brain with dopamine and serotonin.

You’re changing your alkalinity. You’re changing. So the acidity leads to inflammation and inflammation is the cause of most chronic diseases. But one thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that this thing can actually change your death date. It can actually reverse your chronological age. No, sorry, not [00:20:00] your car.

Your chronologically chronological age is how many candles you have on your birthday cake. Your biological age is how old your body. Yeah. And so this style of meditation has been scientifically proven to reverse your body age somewhere between eight to 15 years. Wow. Yeah. So, and the way they’re looking at that is skin and less tasty brain elasticity, memory sleep.

I forget the word, but some word that how fast you can fall asleep, sleep latency. So there’s a lot of different markers that go into that, but imagine reversing your body age between eight to 15 year olds. Yeah, right. And so that’s one side of this coin, but the other side of the coin is that stress, it weakens and shorten something called a telomere.

And it’s hell Amir is the casing at the end of your DNA strand. So if you think about a telomere, like the plastic casing at the end of your shoe, It’s like, if that thing gets frayed, then the shoelace starts to unravel. And the same is [00:21:00] true with our telomeres and our DNA. If stress is shortening and weakening that casing at the end of our DNA strand, if that starts to unravel, then our DMS.

To fray and unravel, and that can affect our body age and ultimately our, our death date. So the converse of that is when we start meditating, we start removing the stress from our body, increasing our resilience, increasing our bliss. We strengthen and lengthen those telomeres. So it’s like the DNA can stay vibrant and strong and intact for longer.

So it’s, I’m just creating some videos right now about like, Hey, Really quick, just do the math on how much money you’ve spent on facials, peels, Botox, fillers, peptides, collagen. I mean, from a lot of people, it’s 50 to a hundred, sometimes $200,000. And again, we’re then just masking the symptoms. It’s like the body is atrophying and aging and decaying because of the acidity and the stress.

And we’re trying as hard as we can to put that back together. And it’s like, well, what if we were to heal it from the inside? [00:22:00] What if we were to reverse that inside in our DNA. Oh yeah. And you start glowing because you’re meditating. Oh yeah. And you start becoming more joyous. Oh yeah. And you’re having better sex.

So it’s like, everything starts to radiate from the inside out. I absolutely love that. I love the analogy of that. Anyone that’s going to, I’ve got a 10 year old son, and I know your son’s almost for anyone that has an active boy, I think can conjure up that image of the frayed shoe from brand new school shoes.

It is pretty frustrating. So I want my shoelaces to be pristine and I want that. Plus you goes in the end of the shoelace to be nice and long. And, you know, I think just to know that. ’cause I love how, you know, you love noting out too. I think what people, if you think about the brain, what I love thinking about, you know, Albert Einstein, when they did an autopsy on him, I don’t know if you know this, this research, but they thought his brain would be heavier than other people’s because he was so smart.

And what they [00:23:00] found was that the Corpus callosum was actually thicker than the average person. I know that you’re fascinated by the Corpus callosum as well. And what happens with meditation? Talk to me more about that. I love that you’ve studied Albert Einstein’s brain. First of all,

that the Corpus callosum is the thin white strip that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain. And we’ve known for a long time that meditators have thicker Corpus callosum than non-meditators. And by the way, Albert Einstein, while he wasn’t practicing traditional meditation was very famous for taking 20 minutes.

Specifically when he couldn’t solve a problem, he would go and take a 20 minute nap, which by the way, is not long enough to fall into a full sleep state. You’re falling into that pre hypnagogic state, which is the exact same brain state that you access during Zebo, which I proved last week, I had a guy come over and hook my brain up to an EEG machine and I did three different layers of meditation.

I know, and he was like, oh, I didn’t tell him anything. And when I did finish diva, he was like, whoa, you were in a hypnagogic state that entire [00:24:00] time. And so that’s like basically where you are just before a nap. And so Einstein was basically like, oh, I know that if I shift my state, I’m accessing. Other realms beyond my intellect, beyond my left brain.

And then it would come back and solve the problems. So in, so doing, he was likely creating his own style of meditation. And so now we know that the longer you meditate, the thicker, your Corpus callosum. So we’ve sort of proven that it is causal and not correlated, but it’s not just people with fat corpuscle Muslims that want to meditate.

It actually is the meditation. That’s making it bigger. And a lot of people are like, oh, cool. Party trick, but why would I want a fat Corpus callosum? And it’s like, well, everyone should, because. It is quite literally the BR the bridge between your creative and critical mind. It is the bridge between your masculine and feminine is the bridge between the present moment and the past and future.

And so our left brain is in charge of, you know, critical problem solving past and future left brain math navigation language, right. Brain is [00:25:00] in charge of creativity, intuition, music downloads. Flow state. And so we really want these two pieces firing together. So the thicker, your Corpus callosum is the easier it is for you to come up with those downloads, even in the middle of a high demand, high intensity situation.

Think you can train that can’t you? So it’s just like a muscle. So talk to me about neuro-plasticity. So neuroplasticity is simply the brain’s ability to change itself. And we want that, like, we want the brain to be quite plastic. I’ve even recently been reading about the brain where they say, we want to think about the brain, almost like a vapor that it’s like that malleable, that it’s not even solid.

That it’s just like, and I was like, whoa, think about that. If your brain was a viscous vapor. Yeah. Even as a thought experiment, I think is cool because we think of it as like, well, this is my brain. Yeah. This is, and this is who I am and we’re, so we love the known, you know, we humans, we love other than [00:26:00] anything, we can just touch and feel.

But actually the brain is changing all the time. Every single time you learn something new, you’re increasing your neuroplasticity. Every single time you light up new sections of your brain. You’re increasing neuro-plasticity. And so the beautiful part about meditation is that you start to get addicted to the dopamine and serotonin just like you would, any other drug know you drink coffee every day for 20 years, you’re going to need more coffee to get the hit.

You do cocaine every day for 20 years, you’re going to be more and more cocaine to feel the impact. And the same is true. Well, it’s not totally the same with meditation because you don’t need more and more of it, but your body starts producing. More and more dopamine and serotonin more of that internal bliss, chemistry, so that you keep getting the hip.

And so even without adding time to your practice, the benefits are infect cumulative. So it’s like over time we want to be changing the brain. It’s like, we want to be wiring those, those neuropeptides for gratitude. [00:27:00] We want to be wiring those neuropeptides for our. You know, Joe Dispenza says, do you want your brain to be a record of your past or a map to your future?

And that, I mean, everyone should just like, write that on their mirror. Do you want your brain to be a record of your past or a map to your future? And that’s what Ziva gives you the opportunity to do is to like stop the incessant. Bullying that’s going on inside of most people’s brains access source, energy, flood your brain and body with this bliss chemistry, and then ask yourself the ridiculously simple and ridiculously profound question.

What would I love? Regulatory, what would I love right now? Love it puts you into spirit. It puts you into possibility. Love it, puts you into the present moment. What would I love right now? So it’s not, what should I get? Not what do I need? Not what do I want? Which is all lack, lack, lack, not what did I want 20 years ago?

Not what does this person need from me? What would I [00:28:00] love right now? And you start to practice that you’re rewiring those neuropeptides. They’re starting to increase your neuro-plasticity, but you’re not just changing the brain. Cause you know what, like heroin also changes your brain, but it’s not increasing the brain suppleness.

It’s not increasing the brain’s ability to adapt and learn new things. I love what you’ve said about what, what would I love right now? I mean, this whole show it’s called feel better now. Like, so what, you know, how can I get into the feeling of feeling better? And I think Pete, we’ve got it the wrong way round.

You know, we think when I, like, you talked about that concept of lack. When I get my dream job, when I get my dream partner, I’ll be happy. It’s like, well, if you can sit in. The love and sit in. What makes you feel good? Those things will come there in your vortex. And Emily I’ll tell you something really fascinating, which is just why I do what I do.

It’s the last three months we launched a quiz. It’s probably the largest quiz globally. That exists. It’s the 10 question. How’s your energy. Quiz. And it goes [00:29:00] deep into what I specialize in, which is everything from the emotional side to the functional medicine side. So what we found from this nearly 10,000 people who’ve been through this quiz now six out of 10 people do not report having a positive outlook and being grateful.

Daily six out of 10 people are not. Doing that. And I mean, this is a problem. This is, this is a big problem. Is, is these are people that are not experiencing love and joy and happiness, which is the way to get what you want. And these are people on your list in your world, which are already like preselected people who are interested in this.

If you were to do just like a cross section of the human population, my guess it’s like 9.5 out of 10 people are not. Practicing gratitude. That’s right. You know, and it was 0.3% of all the 10 questions, some to put you in a category, the category that we want you to be in is always thriving. [00:30:00] 0.3%. I can’t even say nine out of 10 because I have to say 9.7 out of 10 people are reporting.

Arriving. So, and I know that’s, you know, why you do what you do and why I do what I do, but how can we change this epidemic? Um, I mean, what I, when I started Ziva, my mission was to rebrand meditation as a performance. And I, and I just thought, well, we, people aren’t interested in that, and this is a different world, right?

Like this was 10, 13 years ago. So it was like, I had, I knew that I had to meet people where they were. And I knew that if I came out, speaking of like higher states of consciousness and energetic clearing, like I just, especially in New York city with my friends and family like that, just wasn’t going to resonate.

And so I very much, I spent a decade wrapping the very powerful medicine that is meditation inside of the candy coating of like, Hey, it’s going to make you more money and you’re going to have better sex. And that’s [00:31:00] true. Like that’s true. You change your state of consciousness. You’re going to be more productive.

Your. Pleasure your ability to feel pleasure will change your level of magnetism and attraction will change. And so I did that for about a decade and it’s an interesting time because the world is changing so quickly. And on one hand it feels like, well, the whole world has sort of faced a near death experience.

You know, whether or not your body was physically in danger, the level of fear and loneliness and separation. Talking about death and disease as much has been happening in the zeitgeists it’s like everyone has had a near-death experience. And what I find is that people go one of two directions when they face that they either like, turn their shit around.

Right. And they’re like, okay, like I just looked death in the face. And now I see every minute of every day that I have left in this body, on this planet as a precious gift, I don’t want to maximize it. And I want to do everything I can to optimize my health, my feeling. Or it [00:32:00] becomes like another layer of trauma on top of a lifetime of trauma and it gets easier.

It gets harder to crawl out of. So I think, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but you know, people talk about the K shaped economic recovery that’s happening. Meaning that like richer, getting richer and poor are getting poorer. So certainly that’s happening economically. But I heard a theory that that’s also happening spiritually.

So people who have been doing meditation and mindfulness and therapy and clearing and tapping and. But like they’re having these like quantum leaps into God consciousness and these are massive awakenings. And then people who have not been doing therapy, not meditating, not exercising, just drinking and eating cookies and bingeing on Netflix and watching the news.

It’s like the suicide rates are out of control. Depression rates are out of control. Anxiety’s out of control. And so the thoughts that I’ve been having lately is like, how do we motivate. Top of the K to like lift up the other part of the K. Yeah, because it’s not going to be [00:33:00] one person, our medical system, our healthcare system, our mental health care system is not equipped globally to handle the level of trauma that is currently happening.

Know, I think the whole planet has experienced some level of trauma over the past few years. And they say that one in four people who experienced trauma will have PTSD symptoms. We don’t have any infrastructure in place that could come even close to handling a fourth of the human population dealing with PTSD.

And so the, the ways that I’m thinking is like, how do we mobilize the people who are waking up and the people who are like on this path and that wants to help? How do we really equip them to lift up their communities? I completely agree. And you know, we’re all in this together. So we have to use, you know, our very special gifts to get into that spirit of contributing to the community in the way that we can.

I think, you know, Emily, you’re so accomplished and I don’t know, people know this about you, but you were an ex Broadway dancer. And [00:34:00] seemingly same story is as I did, you know, I thought I had the perfect job, you know, the perfect life, the perfect husband, but I, I wasn’t happy. And you know, if you look at your story, it’s a similar thing.

You had amazing, like you were on Broadway, like how you can’t even, even top that. Tell me about how. Felt to sit in a place where you realize that you weren’t happy, even though on the outside you had everything. What happened really soon? It was three weeks after my Broadway debut. It was the saddest sight ever been.

And, you know, I had been deep in the all be happy when syndrome, I mean, really. I mean, since fourth grade, I started studying voice and dance and acting at eight years old and then did it all day every day until I graduated from college and then moved to New York and got really lucky. I got my first show, like my second day there, but three weeks after my first Broadway show, it was like, oh, the thing I thought was going to make me happy.

Like here it was, I got it. [00:35:00] And then I was miserable because I realized that a pretty young age, I was more interested in the happiness of pursuit than I was the pursuit of happiness. And so it was like, I forgot to set another goal. So I just thought next show, next boyfriend, next year when the bank account.

And I did that for a decade. And then it wasn’t until my last show where I was just, I had a really intense job and the stress and anxiety led to like insomnia and going gray and getting sick and injured. And then I found this practice and it really changed everything. It cured my insomnia. On the first day I stopped going gray.

I didn’t get injured. I stopped, I didn’t get sick for eight and a half years. And so I was like, why is everyone not doing this left Broadway, went to India and then started a three-year training process to teach this. And to be honest, When I first went to India, I just thought I was going to deepen my own practice.

When I first started teaching, I thought it would be acute side job. Like when I wasn’t, you know, it was in between shows and then just bit by bit nature was making it more and more obvious, [00:36:00] like where she wanted to use me. And it was like the deeper I committed, the more like the more native nature support I got.

And so it’s been a really exciting ride. That is the most beautiful journey. Isn’t it? And I know where both Abraham Hicks lovers and I, she taught me that it’s the journey, enjoy the journey. It’s not about the destination in like, feel into the journey. And when I first found you through mark Hyman and did Ziva online, it was really a way to make me.

I think it was to make me more productive. I think I was, I was fascinated by your research around improving productivity and now, and maybe, you know, I’m 43 and I’m in a different life stage. And maybe it’s because I, uh, but I’ve really gone deep into living the experience, noticing the things around me.

I think I was in this day, I’d walk along and my children would point out. I’ll look at that or that wasn’t there yesterday. And I was like, wasn’t it. I was like, I was in some like, [00:37:00] just cloud of not being able to observe anything. And now I hear, I smell, I taste. So it’s completely different to the, the journey, like how I found you and then where I am now.

What are your thoughts? Stress by design dampens, our sense of taste and smell, and touch and sight. Because if you think about it, that adrenaline and cortisol is helping you to prepare for a tiger attack. So your nerve endings like dead and like nobody wants to feel the fangs is they’re piercing the jug.

So it’s like it, it has a D an anesthetic effects numbing you. Wow. And so when you start to get rid of that stress, it’s like, you’re quite literally pulling the lens. There’s this beautiful line from the Vedas, which has that the truth waits for eyes. Unclouded by longing in what we’re doing when we meditate is that we’re, unclouded our lens.

And that’s happening very viscerally and physically where you, your food tastes better. Sex feels better. My sense of smell [00:38:00] is like a bit of a problem. Actually, city I’m like a bloodhound. I can smell everything. And like, I don’t know, I should get one of those jobs. Being a small EA or something, but I mean, I can tell when people are sick from my nose, I can tell like a block away.

So one of your senses do very much get heightened. So my New York city smell is not the, I should be talking about the sex piece of it because it’s also your sense of touch, right? It’s like that gets more sensitive. And, and that can be really beautiful. And, and my son is the same, like he’s three and we rode the bus to school last week and he was like, you can do so many things on this bus.

You can stand up, you can sit down, you can look out the window. It’s going so fast. And I was like, yeah. And it reminded me of Abraham Hicks. He was like, you know how many times today can you feel satisfied? And like he’s, so he’s in such a state of wonder. He’s so satisfied by what is he is constantly giving thanks for what is, and if you can genuinely and [00:39:00] authentically get yourself into that state of enthusiastic gratitude for what is.

Which the meditation helps it extraordinarily because you’re getting out of fight or flight and your baseline level is dopamine and serotonin. Then it’s just a few clicks away into enthusiastic gratitude for what’s on the way. And so I think a lot of people are trying to put the vision board on top of.

The I suck. I suck, I suck narrative. And then it’s like, we don’t believe that we deserve our dreams and then it creates even more dissonance. And so it’s like, step one, we have to feel good now. Right. We have to get into the state right now and then plant the seeds for the design. Oh, I love it. And our children, I’m so passionate about our children.

They can teach us so much. I love watching my seven-year-old daughter Coco, and you know, if she’s doing a drawing and she’s, so in the moment, the colors that she’s choosing, you know, there might be five blues, but she chooses a specific blue. That’s got the, the texture that she [00:40:00] wants. It’s not the crown, it’s not the Sharpie.

It’s the, you know, the pencil for this and something else for the tree and something else for the person there’s so much we can learn. From our beautiful children that we’ve lost along the way. But if I was your daughter, what is one thing that would be really important for you to teach me? How old are you?

How old is this daughter? 14. Well you okay. Talking about sexuality, sacred sexuality. Absolutely great. I think if I had a 14 year old daughter, so side note, I’ve gotten sort of like a makeshift PhD in sacred sexuality in the past year and a half, two years, just like a bunch of witches and wizards have come into my life in very beautiful ways.

And I’ve gotten front row seats to massive transformations and some of the world’s best tantra teachers and pleasure teachers. And. And so it’s really, I mean, at 42 years old, I feel like I’m just now learning things. I wish that I had learned at 14 [00:41:00] and I think that I would want, I want every teenager to know, like, as they’re discovering their own sexuality and as they’re learning that with other people.

But there’s a whole world available. That’s not just in the physical and there’s a reason why everybody takes it so seriously. There’s a reason why everybody’s telling you not to do it. And there’s a reason why it freaks so many people out and yet, no, one’s talking about the beautiful, sacred side of it.

No one is talking about sex as a pathway to God. No one is talking about how ecstasy for tens of thousands of years. Dean as a purifying force. And so I think if I had a 14 year old daughter, it would just be reminding her that like, your pleasure is your own. The things that make you feel good are in fact sacred.

And I would teach her about slut-shaming and I would teach her about the double standards that exist in the world for people identify as men and people who identify as women and just everything and anything I could do to have her claim and continue to own her [00:42:00] own pleasure. Okay. Own sacredness and to continue to research what brings her joy and pleasure and not to give that away to anyone else that the given the way it sounds like I’m advocating for virginity and I’m not, it’s the not giving away of the power.

Right. You actually just like with blessing fulfillment, just like with happiness, you’re creating that internally. No one else can make you happy. Right. And similarly, it’s like, if you don’t understand what brings you pleasure, it’s going to be very hard for someone to teach that to someone else. And so I feel, as you can tell, I feel really passionately about this and because I hate that like most people’s education around sexuality is happening on YouPorn and porn hub.

And so it’s like, wait, there’s this whole other sacred playgrounds let’s start there. Yes. And then sure. If you want to watch porn later. Great. But let’s not let that be the introduction for most of the population. Yeah. And I love that you’re talking about [00:43:00] this and vocalizing it and making it more mainstream conversation because we need to empower parents to have these courageous.

Discussions with our children. And I, you know, I’ve always been a parent. That’s spoken to my children in an adult way, you know, adult concepts and they I’ve always done that. I’ve never had secret conversations and I’m really, I’m really proud of that. So, Planted that seed with me, Emily, because I haven’t got to that stage aware my children are old enough, but I love the fact that you’re drawing connection between sex and the sacred ceremonial aspect of it, and claiming your empowerment and being empowered.

Because I think we live in a world where there’s so much disempowerment, so loving and honoring your body. And your sexuality and being empowered. That’s beautiful. You know, it reminds me of, I’ve got a quote here except for so many questions that I’m not going to get time to ask you. Um, but your beautiful quote, your happiness does not lie on the other side [00:44:00] of any other place, personal thing.

It exists in one place in you and in one time, and that is now this just beautiful. I mean, it’s the truth. It’s here and now, and here and now, and here and now. And the thing is we’re, all of us have convinced ourselves and the advertising industry and everyone selling you, anything has given to you that you will be happy on the other side of blank.

And the reality. Always only ever here. It’s always only ever now. And if you don’t have the ability to access it right here right now, it’s not coming on the other side of the zero or the other side of a boyfriend or the other side of getting pregnant or the other side of a million followers on Instagram, because then you’re just going to want 2 million followers, you know?

So it’s like, the brain is always, it’s like, how do we find the satisfaction? How do we find the joy. In the pursuit and that is what meditation has done for me, because I was certainly, you know, I was knee deep in that and I had been, yes. Oh, same the conditioning. So Emily, what are you [00:45:00] personally like?

What, is there something you’re working on yourself? Like you’re personally, you might have felt some resistance or something that you’ve been struggling with. Anything you’re working on yourself now. Yeah, it’s a two things. One is physical integrity, meaning like I’m, I’m pretty excellent on the spiritual plane and emotional plane of like being in integrity, doing what I’m going to say, doing what I say I’m going to do, but on physical integrity and the way that shows up for me is.

Like, if I have to have a difficult conversation, like a conflict with someone, like I’ll know, I have to have it I’ll own my side of things. I’ll write the letter to my coach, but then like, I won’t send it to the person. And so I’m just working on that physical integrity. And I’m working on getting better at complex.

Cause like, just from my old wounding and my old stuff, I get really, like, it feels like I’m in like a life or death situation. It feels like full blown fight or flight, even if it’s as something as like, Hey, can you put the toilet [00:46:00] seat down? Like it’s it could be really a non-issue. And I will sometimes spin that into an issue.

And so like reminding myself that I’m safe reminding myself, and this is my theme song is that conflict leads to greater intimacy, conflict leads to greater intimacy. And so I’m just reminding myself of that and then using. Coaching and coaches. Yes. Uh, I love that so much. I don’t think you’d be human. If conflict didn’t feel resistant, create resistance.

And so I love that you’ve shared your tools and tips. I got so much out of that. Two more questions for you, Emily. Tell me what is one tip you can share with me to feel better. Mm. Mm. Oh, I mean the obvious one is meditate, right? But that’s like a no brainer. I guess the one that would come in with be a symbol and one song dance party.

And then [00:47:00] you’re just moving that joy through yourselves. You could even hold the vision of what you’re wanting to create. You know, if you did it after your meditation, even jucier, but it’s a pretty foolproof way. You know, like if you really, you put on your favorite and you really rock it out. My son, the other night was asking for, he said, can we do a dance party?

And it was so funny. So fun. My daughter and I, the babysitter across the road, she was in a musical a couple of years ago where she was the lead. And she’s saying, Alicia keys, this girl is on fire. And so because of that, when she was over, we put it on, she’d play the piano and she’d sing. And so it’s something really special that coconut.

Do together, we just opened Spotify. This girl is on fire and it’s just a dance around the living room, singing it top of our lungs. And it’s you’re so right. It’s an instant pick me up. Isn’t it. I used to do it like in the first and like the beginning of the pandemic. And I was like, do them on Instagram.

Like I would go live and I would just do dance parties. And people [00:48:00] were just like, yes, because like we just needed a hit of joy next year. Yes, that is so good. I love it. The, want me to dance, Patty, thank you for sharing that. Emily, what adventure I, you embarking on next? My very accomplished friend. Yeah.

So it’s diving into this world of sacred sexuality and using. Pleasure as a manifesting tool. These, these concepts, again, are quite new to me, but there’s this whole world I’m developing this new thing called ecstatic prayer. So it’s like where you’re getting into, you’re getting yourself into these high states of bliss and ecstasy, and then holding the vision of your dream.

From these states of bliss and ecstasy and it required, it involves all of these things. We’re talking about movement clearing, purging, meditation, manifestation, and then adding on top of it, pleasure practices. So I’m just, I actually, this week I’m going to do my first seven day, like deep immersion wellbeing, workshopping and sharing this curriculum.

That’s been kind of swirling inside of me, but the first time I’ll get to [00:49:00] teach it live. And I’m really, really excited about. Oh, my goodness. That would be phenomenal. That’s in-person so good. Is that in New York? Miami, and so half Miami, half Austin. Ah, so good. I can’t wait to hear more about that. And Emily you’re so generous.

We’ll put the URL in the show. But if you go to zeba.com/podcast, you are gracious enough to host a free masterclass for everybody. So I can’t wait for people to do that, but a bubble, anyone that’s listening, I really absolutely loved my experience with Ziva online. You are an absolute angel for creating such a masterpiece.

So strategic, so scientifically, so evidence based that is transformational. So I think everyone needs to do the online as well. Is there anything else? One too. So it’s just, it’s people are just like, just let me in. I want to do the same thing. I would love to do the thing that Jackie did. I would just go to Ziva [00:50:00] meditation.com/online, if you want to enroll.

So it’s about 15 minutes a day for 15 days. And then, like you said, we’re gifting everyone, this beautiful masterclass. It’s three ways to reduce your. Overcome your anxiety and improve your sleep. And that is at Ziva meditation.com/podcast. Like it though. I think I got the URL, right. So I think you said zebra.com.

So just letting people know if that’ll pay the same for like a fitness company, a fitness equipment company. So Ziva meditation.com/online or slash podcast. Great. I’m an absolute gym. I have just so thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I could chat to you for hours. Actual specials, spirit in its human existence.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today. Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being such a beautiful mirror, Bravo on all the lives that you have changed, and it’s really a pleasure to meet you if you made it to the end of this episode, celebrate yourself because it means you are truly dedicated to [00:51:00] feeling better in your health, in your career, in your relationships.

And I am so proud of you. And if you want more. Feel better now. So tuning every Monday for new episodes and join our community on Instagram at Jackie batter for all the behind the scenes action and more. Hey, why don’t you sign up for a chance to have your question answered@fieldfitbitinstitute.com slash signup.

That’s feel better. institute.com/sign up. But most. Please keep reaching to feel better because the world needs you to feel good. So you can share that very special gift that only you have. So with that said, see you soon here’s to feeling better now,

Jackie Bowker