I was trying to free myself and help people free themselves through therapy, but we will never be free without a free money. This white elephant in the room was missing in all this therapy and alignment stuff I'm trying to do. We need to align with money. That was for me, the last piece coming together

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Orange Hatter. Before we dive into my conversation with our guest today, I want to share with you a very exciting project, the Orange Hatter Women's Retreat. The mission of this retreat is to create a nurturing sanctuary where women in the Bitcoin space can connect with each other, recharge batteries, find grounding, and form deep friendships so that you don't feel so isolated where you are sharing the potential of Bitcoin with the world while keeping an eye on the fiat system. This retreat is going to be absolutely amazing. I am partnering with the Yucatan Project in Mexico. The details will be rolled out later this week. Keep an eye out on Twitter at Orange Hatter Pod. I'll give out more information as they are finalized. Spaces are very limited, and they're going to fill up fast. So sign up for it when the registration and I will see you in Mexico. And now we're going to. Continue with our podcast. Here is my conversation with our wonderful guests today. Hey, Gillian, thank you so much for coming to Orange Hatter. I'm so glad you're here and I can't wait to dive into your stories.

So thank you for having me.

Let's start by just giving us a little bit of your background.

many, many years ago, 55 years ago, I was born in Malaysia. I was raised there till I, till I was 13 and my parents sent me to Singapore to study because they have a better educational system. It was in English, not MLA, so I was there for my, uh, secondary school, we call it, under the English system. But then I, I went to college in the States because I wanted to study film. And there wasn't film in Asia or in England. but I didn't tell my parents I was going to study film. They wouldn't have allowed me at that time. so I did go to New York, all by myself. really looking forward to finding the America. I thought I knew from the cinema, from the films that I saw growing up, but I didn't find it. And most of the films at that time were set in California anyway. I thought about going to California or even Boston for film school, but then somehow something asked me to go to New York. So I went to New York, the toughest place at that time. But I think New York really helped to, toughen me up in a way. In many ways, you know, my own security, safety, I started learning Chinese when I was there in Chinatown because NYU is very close. It's still very close to Chinatown I was, basically ethnically Chinese, but I never grew up learning or speaking. I spoke some Cantonese, you know, like home Cantonese, my family's Hakka. So they spoke to us, my grandparents spoke to us in Hakka, but we would answer in Cantonese. So I met some people in Hong Kong in the film industry and became good friends with them. And that gave me this. This whole dream that I was trying was nurturing at that time is that I want to live in Hong Kong. I want to be in the film industry, you know, I want to be with these people I see on TV all the time. so I went to film school and then started studying Chinese in Cantonese, actually reading Chinese characters in Cantonese so that I could read scripts in Hong Kong. So when I graduated, went to Hong Kong, worked for two years. on one of the films where I was working and filming in Spain, two events, live events took place that just got my attention and said, you have to pay attention to these. I was 21 at that time. I graduated early, you know, kind of typical Chinese. Let's finish your education as fast as possible, save money and start working. So at 21, when I was abroad in, Spain, working on a film, two events took place that made me really have to think about myself. And it was about coming out actually, as a lesbian at that time, but it was so frightening. It was 35, how many? Yeah. No. Yeah. 35 years ago, that I needed to take time off. So I quit. The film, the only way I could take time off without telling my parents immediately coming out would be this is too scary at that time. I thought I needed to go back to school. So I went for a master's degree, and I thought I had three cities to choose from London, New York, or San Francisco. And I chose New York again. I wasn't into Europe at that time. So just the States and New York, because there was somebody that I had liked there before. So there was some connections. So I went back to New York and I got into a good school because that's the only way that I could have convinced my parents to sponsor me for a master's degree, you know, I had to be in an Ivy league, so I got into Columbia and I did that program that was very well recognized and then moved to Japan. I majored in, what we call East Asian languages and cultures and majored in Japan, but that's because I had nothing I wanted to study, but I wanted to find out. About my own identity, because the first time when I went to America, I thought, Oh, I'm so happy. I'm going to be in America. And then I'm like, I'm not American. I didn't resonate with any of my classmates, schoolmates that we had to make films together. 35 years ago, I was wanting to make. Films about, okay, coming to another country on my own. And what does this mean? And most of my classmates wanted to make films about car chases, sex, smoking, action movies. I, I didn't feel like I, I fit it. So when this chance came up to, to go take two years off, my life, uh, I thought, okay, I need to look into my life anyway. So I wanted to look more deeply into my, my identity. So I thought, you know, I'm Asian, I guess, but, I'm so, I only speak English. Well, I speak some, I can, I could only read in English at that time and some Malay, but Malay I didn't identify with. So I went to Japan and say, I want the Japanese are Asian. But they're so different. So I wanted to understand what it was to be Asian from their perspective. So I did my master's in that, went to live in Japan for a year, loved it, loved being learning about Japan and Japanese culture. There's so many things. I felt like the language, the culture gave me, how would I say, they kind of made real, some human experience that I would have had, but now there is a word for it. Now there is a group of people who lived around this concept. So it was really nice. I felt at home in many ways and yet totally, totally a foreigner in Japan. and then I met my first partner there and, uh, instead of settling down in Japan, she was, sent to teach Japanese in Thailand and then We left. So we went to Thailand and subsequently to the States, to Spain, and then came back to Japan. And that's one part of the story. At that time, because I always lived more for love than anything else. After leaving film, I studied, well, humanities, but I was always interested in food. You know, I think that's very Chinese. Food. And I always wanted to have a restaurant, a cafe, but somehow it never happened. And when we moved, when we moved to Thailand, I started, that was when computers, I always loved the Mac ever since I saw one. So I use the Mac. 30 years ago when I was doing graduate school. And then just before, well, when, when I went to Thailand, so I was, I had a Mac, I brought it with me and I just went deep into it. The internet was just starting at that time. So I bought books and books and books of manuals and I read from first page to the last page and I taught myself and then whatever I didn't know, I found a BBS, you know, a bulletin board system. At that time, I learned how to connect to the internet. I met all these. Men usually, and I'm like, sit next to them just to hope to ask a question that I didn't understand. And I was very lucky. I've met people who are very generous and very sincere. So I learned a lot. And then I kind of created my own job. Where my, my partner was working and I, I, uh, helping them, put their network together and put them, create a website for them. So I was learning every day and being paid to learn. And I was so excited at, like, every day I would spend more than 10 hours, 15 hours just learning and putting things together. And so when we left and went to San Francisco, I was actually got a job at that time and one of those new, technology companies. But, my ex partner didn't find a job there. And We went to New York and we found, we both found jobs in New York, me, again in technology, and she in writing and editing that gave us, work visas in the States. And that's why we went back to New York to work. But then I had a little bit too much of New York by that time, that was my third day. And then again, this energy from within when, when change, it's almost like that when the transits on your astrological chart come, there's almost like these energies are bubbling and you know that you need to go through some transformation. And then I thought I need to go, I need to leave and I want to go back to, I want to go to Spain, you know, cause I had filmed in Spain before, after my first degree, we went to film in Spain. And why? Because in Spain, I didn't know the language. I didn't, you know, I didn't know the culture. I've never been to Europe at that time. And I felt like, I could, I could kind of reset, like I could feel like nothing. I know nothing here. I'm not tied to anything. I don't have to play by any rules. Now I can feel what I actually feel inside. That was the first taste of, of Spain. And then now I'm wanting to deepen. So I wanted to go back to Spain. So we went, we went, but at that time, the internet was still just, you know, like when we, when I started the internet, there were only like three pages, three websites in the world that I kept going to, no others. So at that time still, We didn't have the World Wide Web like we have it today and my partner being Japanese and, and Spain at that time was, you know, like living in another time, there was all Asians and Chinese and. And you being made fun of sometimes still. And so she wanted, you know, again, pressure from, from Japan, parents, Japanese parents think that Japanese women had to get settled one way or another into a job or into a marriage by age 30. And we were just at 30 at that time. So then we decided to go back cause she wanted to go back. So I went back to Japan and that's the first part.

And that's just the first part. I can't believe it. I mean, so much has happened.

Yeah, that I was, I was 30 then. Now I'm 55.

Yeah, so we'll dig into the next 25 years in a minute, but I just want to, I just want to ask some follow up questions. So you left home when you were 13

Yes. Yes.

and you were basically independent.

Basically I was sent to boarding school the first year. Yeah, but tough. Boarding school in Singapore.

I'm sure. I'm sure there are stories there. moving around so much like going to Malaysia, to Singapore, to New York, to Japan, to Spain, to Japan, to Spain, again you have to stay so flexible and almost chameleon like. to adapt to your environment. Talk to us a little bit about that. That must have been a personal struggle or was it just very easy? In your story about adapting to the internet in those early, early days when people were, a lot of people were questioning if it was a real thing to begin with and you were already deep diving. Yeah. Walk us through your, your mindset.

Okay. So it's an interesting question. Never thought about that. the first, well, I had some difficulties, like, you know, trauma growing up at home. So in some ways leaving home was It was a double edged sword for me at that time, because I was just doing better at school, I had good friends, I didn't want to leave, but yet, leaving home or leaving my family would have given me some freedom from some breathing space, I felt, and I, I do believe somehow in timing, and I do believe in things happening, um, in a way that is Not accidental, or we can think of it as okay, it happened and therefore a certain energy is in place and then I might ride that energy. So it depends on how we want to look at it. But a year before my parents sent me away at 13, I met some adults, I was kind of always precocious, and some adults that were actors and actresses in Hong Kong, who's videotapes I grew up with, watching these series and I got along very well with one of them who was 10 years older and she was like a big sister to me. I was a little sister to her. And because I was always looking for some other, some other, I don't know, someone to love me, I guess, you know, who cared for me, who saw me. Who gave me time and attention. I, then when I did well in school, my parents, rewarded me with whatever I wanted. And I said, I wanted a trip to Hong Kong by myself and stayed with this friend of mine. So I spent a whole month there and I was exposed entirely to the film industry, film and TV industry. I was with adults all the time. I felt I was like one of them. And I, from that time, I always thought I want to go back. To Hong Kong. So I think and then since then, you know, after that Hong Kong, let's say I went to school in in New York and immediately the people that came to my mind, strangely enough, like, even though I had trauma at home with All that. it's always some overseas Chinese of family that helped me You know, so in Hong Kong, I had these Chinese friends, Hong Kong friends, they always like open their arms to me and like, okay, I want to go. So I think most of it. I was looking for connection. I was looking for love, right? Love in the bigger sense. And then and I was always looking for, uh, to learn also that I'm always very curious, wanting to learn, of course, not just everything things that I I'm interested in. So I didn't think about in terms of flexibility, but I think even, in school in Singapore being sent to boarding school. There are so many rules. That I had to learn to live with those rules and not be depressed or angry, or even if I were angry, I couldn't express them. Who, to whom could I express? I just had to find the best way possible. To live through that situation and still be well, so I think that probably trained me some and also growing up, I think, in the Chinese family, whether it's extended family, and there's lots of drama going on, like the book. family, you know, jia, like ba jing, every, all the family stories is your world. You have 20, 30 cousins, I don't know, 20 aunts and uncles and stuff. And to navigate that, I think was also complex. And I think that could have been part of it. And then this other desire to always make connection, and also recognized, how People were, I guess I felt gratitude and appreciation for those people who helped me and that Further helped me to connect with people, you know, so it was always a lot about people, like even in Chinatown in New York when I was studying there, I would go down and I go to school, Chinese school, my old teacher that always buy a bun and tea to bring to him and I became friends with the people at the bakery, and I became friends with people at the Chinese, you know, uh, what do you call those? Roast meat? Restaurants and stuff like that. So I think that was it. I think mostly I had I didn't think that before but now in retrospect, I always had a very rich inner life in a way, like I had a lot of my life was within, and then without was, how do I survive, how do I have connection, but I think the thing that always Pushed me forward was this inquiry inside, you know, because I thought it was because of the of the trauma I had because you needed to somehow deal with the trauma and make them sit and make it sit okay in yourself. Right. and then about technology and this, I don't know, I don't know why these things happen, but I remember clearly when I was 12, just before I left Malaysia. I remember I drew something like a video player before I actually saw one. So sometimes, you get these things, downloads or whatever it is. I remember that. So strangely enough, I remember that. And then I was just fascinated by beauty, by how, how beautiful the Apple computer was compared to the ugly computers I saw around sitting and I never was drawn to it. Never. And then I saw this film, not even a popular film when I was studying in Singapore about how a computer was responding to you like what we have in AI today. And I was so excited about it. I don't know. It's like, wow, it's a different world. So when the internet came about. And trying to put things together now. I know, because now I know myself better. I like to solve problems. I like to troubleshoot. Like, how do you put these? How do you make things work? And it was totally, uh, the internet was like that at that time. How do you make the modem work? Just how, how, how, how, how the whole time.

I think that's really fascinating that you simultaneously feel power, not lifting you up, but almost like pushing you forward and you have the internal energy and you have the inquiry mindset and the combination of those three things brought you to these just very interesting experiences. And that's just the first part of your life. So let's jump into the next 25 years. Give us a What did you do after that?

what did I do? So after we got back to Japan. I was again in new place. What am I going to do for work again? Oh, should I have a cafe? Like I love that, but I didn't. My partner was working for a Japanese company that dealt with, Writing and manuals and all that for technology companies. And she was an editor. And then one of their, um, again, I think all these things just are meant to be, well, were meant to be one of the writers, uh, had, I don't know what happened to him, but he couldn't. Turn out for work. So they were desperately looking for someone. And since I have some technology background and I know both languages, Japanese and English, they asked me to try it out. So I did one manual and then they loved it. And then I just continue. Eventually we both became independent, we started our own company became contractors right to them. for quite a few years, I was, excited because it was, uh, mobile phones were just coming on, the smaller ones, Sony was picking it, so I was writing the manuals, translating some, and then those that were not translated, that were to be written, I got to meet all the engineers. I go to Epson to meet them and find out about the this commercial, printer or, copier that they're going to come out with and learn about the functions and how do you express this in a clear way. so I guess those qualities I already have that of curiosity of wanting to solve problems were always there. I guess I always like technology somehow without even knowing it. And then. We made pretty good money at that time. Imagine today, you wouldn't, right? You have automatic translation, but even though Japanese is very hard to translate. but after a few years, I thought, okay, now I have like 30. One or two, something like that, or three, no, 34 by that time. It was like, okay, I've done the thing that I'm supposed to do. I grow up, I go to school, I do well in school, you come out, you get a job, you make sure you can support yourself, you find a partner, you know, and that, okay, I've proven myself. And then, but what now? I, I don't feel like I'm elated, like I like part of my work, but I don't like other parts of it. And all this energy I put into it, how many people actually read the manual? So I thought, my life, why am I putting my life energy? And again, this was another one of those turning points. And then when you're at those turning points, at least in my case, messages come. So someone, I, I was also at that time. Doing some things in the gym. I hated the gym actually, but I went anyway, because there's not enough, parks and all that to do things outside And then I started weight lifting, and then I thought, Oh, this doesn't feel right. I don't know how to use and somehow when I do a squat, my thigh started to hurt. And then that's all coinciding during this period. And my cousin, who's a doctor mentioned Pilates, my ex partner's friend mentioned Rolfing. And somehow I knew I had to look up and I looked up, I read the page and I'm like, this is what I need to do. So when the timing is right for me, always in my life has always been like a message of voice. I just know I have to do it. I don't go very deep. I just read a little bit. That's it. That's the right thing to do. I have to. So it was hard at that time to give up a good business and tell my parents, you know, even at early stages, much more easy for me. 30s, I guess culturally, maybe it's a cultural thing. I'm still kind of concerned about what my parents thought and how they would react. but I, I followed my heart anyway, and I gave up all of that. Went to Boulder, Colorado to study Pilates, rolfing, all at the same time, totally different from what I had done before. I had lots of. Body image issues, growing up as a girl, but, I didn't deal with them, and I know how you just deal with them by denying and then saying, Well, I'm just going to do well in school to make up for it. Right. So, but it came a time when I thought I really need to look at this. Because I cannot live a full or authentic life. So, that starts that, journey. I also had stiff shoulders because I was at the computer so many hours a day. My little finger on the left side started to, send a kind of numbness up my arm into my neck. And I didn't know what to do. And it's not something like the doctors would say, Okay, this is what you need to do. You know. So, I look for the solution elsewhere. So Ralphine being a structural integration, being a physical modality, you know, you start to feel like, okay, things are changing in you. Pilates was the hardest for me training to be an instructor because I have to, within a year, a year and a half. do all those things that you need to do on top of teaching and learning the anatomy or what goes with it and movement and all that to be able to perform all of those things yourself and it was a very good school and they're very strict and they keep up the standards so And it was physical. It wasn't mental. It was something that had to be manifested in the body. Yeah. So a year and a half, I did that lots of yoga and, rolfing school. And then after that, I still felt like there were parts of deeper parts of myself None of these things touched. It was deep inside my neck. I could feel it. Headaches deep inside of me. Some tension deep inside of me. And then of course I was looking and the thing came. It was cranial sacral therapy. So I spent another two years studying cranial sacral therapy and that got deeper. So I guess I was peeling layers. I was peeling layers to myself, meaning I'm getting to know myself better now. but even after that, I still, I kind of felt, okay, now I feel more, uh, readier. I felt readier to meet clients because clients come and you don't know who they're going to be, right? And how they're going to react to you. But then at that moment, I met one of the most important teachers of my life. Kind of by accident. Again, no accidents. I was doing craniosacral therapy. that was put together by someone called Franklin Sills, and he was visiting from England in to Boulder to teach a cranial course. And the wife was coming so I only knew her as the wife Franklin's wife, and she was going to teach a three day workshop called coalescence of compassion. And. My teacher, I asked my teacher in Boulder, I said, um, should I do this work? How, what is this workshop about? He said, well, she's fantastic. You should do it. But then I was really attracted to these words, coalescence of compassion. So I did do the workshop three days. I sat there just crying. Yeah, it was like, it wasn't that kind of, it wasn't like that. It wasn't sobbing was I was seated there present and tears just rolled down and I understood it as. a resonance, a strong resonance when you hear truth that you don't hear normally. And you see this person in there in front of you and you can see something you never saw. It's a kind of presence. It's a kind of being able to hold the field and to be with the 20 over of us. there in that workshop in a way that I had never seen, never experienced. And it moved me so much. So I thought, I want to study with this person. And I thought I could do something that's related to cranial, but that course didn't run. And the only thing she was doing was a master's in psychotherapy, in Buddhist psychotherapy. And I'm like, Psychotherapy? No! I don't want to study psychotherapy. Two years! And on top of that, another year of, clinical practice or something. I thought about it. I was still hoping, looking for courses, but there wasn't. And then one or two weeks later, I thought, Oh, if Maura, her name is Maura Sills. If Maura is going to teach a singing class, I would go. So why wouldn't I go for psychotherapy or whatever it is? So I said, okay, I'll go. I decided I applied and I went. And this course was in England, in Devon. So another two years plus another year of practice. To write my dissertation and it was the most important thing I did, I think, at the timing to, you know, when I've done a lot of things and this needed to come into my life to integrate everything. And only after that experience, because it wasn't just a learning, a mental learning, it was all about embodiment. It was really living the things that you would read about the experience. It was only after that course that I felt, okay, now I'm ready to meet anyone in my practice, you know, that I felt I would be able to handle in a sincere, truthful, responsible way that met my standards of being a therapist. And then that would. That would be another part of my life because after that, I was still in Japan because I went to England and came back to Japan, traveling many times in the year. And then, I separated from my first partner. And then the third, I would say the third part would start. I was 40. When, when was it? I was 42.

Wow. I'm just mesmerized by your stories. I it's absolutely incredible that you followed the leading, like you, you say when the timing is right and you get a download and you have instruction and you would just go, even though it's taking you from one country to another and from one discipline to another, and then to. Change your course because you were moved by a teacher. I think that's absolutely fascinating It makes me want to sit in that room with you and just be able to feel that because I've heard people Describe experiences like that. I haven't personally experienced and I I wish I could because I'm very fascinated by the whole Concept of health and when like you were saying you had to peel off layers because we build them up when we're growing up, right? So you're you're self protecting and for you to really find What's inside you got it and it takes time too Like what you described that you had all these journeys that brought you different places in order to kind of shed the layers So now I just can't wait to hear what happens next. So keep going.

You're talking about layers. I just remembered about this. I'm not very good in Chinese Mandarin, but, you know, Chan, which is Zen Buddhism actually started in China, right? It's just made known by Japanese Zen Buddhism. So there is a very famous. Poem written by a Zen scholar or zen practitioner, where the core, the, the core part is the one that is usually, um, quoted and it, I think you might know. It says, and then, which is like the three of consciousness. So the first one, the third one, which is in English, if I were to translate, right, it would be like, you look at the mountain, it's a mountain, you look at the water, it's water, because water in Chinese usually represents lake, ocean, whatever. And then the second stage would be you look at the mountain, it's not a mountain, you look at water, it's not water. And then the third stage, you look at mountain, it's a mountain, then you look at water, it's water. So the first and the third stage, they look so similar, but it's a totally different reality. Yeah. So that was, that's fascinating, peeling those layers. Like we think when, whenever we think of something that we, we don't like now, we always think, Oh, we should go back to the thing, how the past was. It wasn't like that. It's not like that. You know, it's not like, Oh, if only I were a child again. If only we could be innocent like that. No, you cannot. It's not the place to go. It's the other direction. It's a different kind of innocence, you know. And that's beautiful. I want that. The thing that I want the most is actually a conscious death that I choose to go. And that for me would be the ultimate, uh, reaching of myself

What do you mean conscious death?

Meaning, like, I know it's time and I am there with myself. I would imagine I'm probably lying down. I probably wouldn't be seated and die like those, uh, abbots of the past, but, probably be lying down and I'm very, very, very conscious, very aware, very present. And I choose to leave my body. I've had those experiences. I felt like During this third part of my life, after the separation, I was at that time actually in a relationship with someone, who's married, thinking that she would be leaving the relationship. That's the impression I got, but it didn't happen. And then it got drawn out and was very painful for me because it was antithetical to everything I found, I cherished in life. Openness, honesty. You know, uh, just feeling totally free in what you're doing. And that pushed me to, and because of the nature of that relationship, it pushed me to go deeper. And I wouldn't have if I didn't. But because there are two times in my life I felt like, you know, like you felt, you feel like you're totally without, energy that you just have to, you don't have agency anymore, almost. Like, you just need to survive. The first was a very interesting experience in, Buddhist psychotherapy school where we sit together. And because I just don't know how to tell you, I don't think this is a very common experience where, the teachers were so skillful to, because a lot of things need to be allowed to come onto the surface, right? And then that's when you have a chance to resolve it. Just like the economy, you know, so, but the people holding that space for that to happen is what makes a difference to on top of the players, of course, but there was this experience when I was in a circle with that group in school, but I felt I was decimated into like little pieces like I disappeared. You know, it's a very interesting experience to not be so solid, to not be like, you know, like you say, we have learned, we learn to survive. Right. And usually there's a bit of solidity in that survival and that beingness. And then the second time was, when in this relationship, I had a difficult time when that person just cut off contact with me when she was sick. And that was too much for me to handle. And I felt like I wasn't, I just lost all my energy. I couldn't, that was like a big hole that no matter what energy came out. It would just drain and that kind of state was the only reason I guess why you would just do whatever someone that you trust will tell you and that someone was one of my ex classmate from the Buddhist psychotherapy training. And she said, Hey, you know, maybe you should see this astrologer. I said, okay, and I went online, I saw the astrologer, and then that astrologer then mentioned some things. It's not even important anymore what she, what we talked about, but again, you know, these messages come, and there were two things she mentioned that made me, okay, I gotta look up more. She told me about, star seeds, and she told me about Bashar. Do you know Bashar?

I don't know But sure, but I have heard of starseeds

so Bashar is a extraterrestrial entity that's channeled, has been channeled for 40 years now by a filmmaker, actually, in Los Angeles. And his teachings for me, they're just perfect. They just speak directly to me. They're very clear. There's nothing, no cult, no religion, no nothing, just more like, quantum physics and just another way of looking at the same thing, just change your perspective, same thing, and it's totally different. So, from there, I was more exposed to, I started listening to his things on YouTube, you know, just trying to recover. And then the thing from the starseeds led me to Dolores Cannon. She's passed since. that time, but she's written books and books about hypnotherapy and how she would encounter, you know, about Dolores. Yeah. And she would encounter these, what she calls a subconscious that is a larger presence that would then she would be talking to and getting all this information. So it started me on this kind of more, areas where in life, maybe given my, tendency towards, I don't know, I guess practicality I may not have dived into, but I did. And then through Bashar. I went to swim with the dolphins. I went to swim with the whales. And then I, I was also teaching rolfing. but then I met somebody, uh, while I was teaching that told me about ayahuasca. Actually, the second time I heard about ayahuasca, the first time was when I was in rolfing school and I visited Brazil, but it didn't speak to me at that time. But then this second time, I thought, oh, it's time. And then I asked and it was in Peru. So during those few years, I was intensely doing all these kinds of things. I went to all kinds of, Bruce Lipton, you probably have heard of. The biology of belief. I did the psych K thing that he recommended. It just went everywhere. And I did shamanic studies. went to Esalen, did a lot of other things, tapping, all kinds of things. And, five rhythms, which I love also. Have you, do you know about five rhythms? It's a, it's a kind of dance where you, you really can transform through it. Yeah. So, It just totally now opened my life to something else, but I thought they were all necessary to make my life more well rounded and fuller. And during one of these classes, the Site K class that Bruce Lipton, recommended. Where was I? I don't remember. Somewhere in the States. iT was during that time I had done a death and dying workshop in the shamanic studies. Where you could, go and help those people who had not moved on. To move on and then right after that I did this workshop and this workshop is about reprogramming yourself and I was very much into being deep into myself, and I already know how to go into get into the cranial state by that time, so that those few nights when I was doing the course at night, I would feel like I could feel like my, I could will my a a energy to leave my body. And I had done some, hypnosis work too. And in the hypnosis, sometimes you can also feel that kind of leaving. So then I, I could, I felt like, wow, I can will myself. So I start to learn to how, how can I fall asleep in a different way? How do I, so those things. And when I felt, okay, there is a way where I can, and in one of the hypnosis, I was Leaving my body when I died in that life, because this is, Michael Newton's work on, hypnosis and what is it called? I forget now journey of souls. I think the book about what you're learning as a soul. So the hypnosis always brings you to your death. So in that death, I, I could literally feel my energy, leave my body. It was very embodied. So I remember all of this. I put things together and during those few nights, I felt like I could actually leave and come back, leave and come back. Not, not far. I'm not those that you go astral traveling and come back. No, it was really real here. Like I would go up to up, maybe up to the ceiling. I'm like, Oh, my hand. Is it going to go through the ceiling? Things like that, but it was very real. So that's what I like to do. When I know it's time.

very, very fascinating. I think we're going to have to do a bonus episode to dive deeper because, I just think that this area is very mysterious. And a lot of people probably have a great misunderstanding of the experiences you're talking about. So we'll do a deep dive on that in a, in a different episode. But so, okay, so I feel like your life has prepped you to the point where you're going to encounter Bitcoin.

Totally. Totally. It

talk about that.

So, actually, it was a third encounter that I listened. Because that was when I wanted something. I needed something. But I remember the first time, because I'm so into computers. Many years ago, probably in 2011 or 10, I don't know. Somebody asked me, hey, do you want to do this mining thing? I said, what? Like, what do I have to do? I said, Oh, you have to turn, keep your Mac book on the whole time. I said the whole time. No, no, I'm not going to, it's going to kill my, my book, my Mac book. I thought, so I didn't do it. And then the second time I was already a therapist and someone asked if I would take Bitcoin for therapy. And I, I mean, for rolfing or something. And I said, no. because I'm like, what? Bitcoin, what am I going to do with it? I don't, it's too much trouble. And then the third time was when I, it was very late. It was 2020. I wasn't, I was living in Lisbon then and the pandemic started. I. moved with my partner, my current partner to, after six months in Lisbon, I said, no, we need nature. We moved to live in Bali for a year. During that time, I was thinking something's not right. What's going to happen? Like something's just not, I've been asking like, Hey, where should, which bank should I put my money into? Because, this money thing is not small. It's not a small matter in a Chinese family. It's central. And I always pushed back on investments, you know, things my parents, my family, my sisters were interested in. It never felt right to me. And every time I try to do something, I would fail. So I said, no more. And then I thought, never, I just keep my money in the bank. Right. I didn't know about inflation. I mean, I did, but I didn't know everything at that time. So I thought. Nothing. And I can't just invest into any fund or any company because I don't agree with the things they're doing. So I'm like, what do I do with my money? Just leave it there in a term deposit. And I let that happen for like 20 years. I was once rich and then I wasn't anymore. And then I was like. What do I do? Which bank should I put my money in? It's going to collapse. So then I asked a friend who was more into these things and he mentioned Bitcoin. This time it was different. Bitcoin. That's it. It's like when I heard Pilates, Rolfing, or when I met Maura. And then I just, he sent me two videos. They're not even the best videos, like Raoul Paul, not the right person for Bitcoin, but it didn't matter. I just listened. I'm like, this is it. This is it. And I started, I know nothing because I had stopped being in technology for a long time going into these alternative medicine or therapies. And I just had to start from scratch. So every day, every day in Bali, while I was gardening, I was listening to podcasts nonstop, so many holes, so many holes, but immediately I thought this is the right thing to do. And immediately I bought some, my friend held my hand and showed me how to use Kraken. And then. It was December in 2020, and then the price was just going up like crazy. But then I thought, I have to do that to get my money out. And because I've lived in so many countries, I had bank accounts in so many countries, and the more I wanted to take out, the more difficult I realized it was going to be. They wouldn't give me my money. It's like, what? Like, why do you ask all these questions when I'm going to do? So, but I was able to, and I was very lucky. I just put everything into it. Everything. Because that's the only way I felt I didn't have to worry about what's going to happen. and I didn't know when it was going to happen and it felt so right that with this money we can finally be free. So I was trying to free myself and help people free themselves through therapy, but we will never be free without a free money. And I was like this white elephant in the room was missing in all this therapy and alignment stuff I'm trying to do. We need to align with money. And so that was actually for me, the last piece coming together, although probably money is the first piece of many people, but it's like it had to come last for me. And like, this is it. This is the final alignment needs to be made. We cannot write the Buddha was able to do it. But how many people can be Buddha He had to go through all he lived in a time of manipulated money. Even though he had it, but it's still he was worried about concerned about other people, and he was looking for a way within right to find happiness and peace and equanimity in that world. And he found it right and he taught us he gave us the teachings. But imagine if we didn't, if that money part was taken care of, how much easier, how much, well, not necessarily that we would do it anyway, because it's still a choice. Because I actually did, I gave a presentation this year in a small Bitcoin conference retreat in the Philippines, in Boracay Island. And I did one on Bitcoin and spirituality and So I took the teaching, The Four Noble Truths, the Buddha's teaching, where the fourth truth is the Eightfold Path, the Noble Eightfold Path. And if you look at all the Noble Eightfold Path, Bitcoin, or sound money like Bitcoin, can help you really more easily achieve, Five of them. But the last three are out. We need to want to beat that. We need to go into meditation. We need to want to go deeper into ourselves beyond money. What money can help of sound money can help. So for me, telling people about Bitcoin, helping people understand, helping people use it self custody. That's my thing. I really want to help people do that. It's the same as for me giving a session. Of alignment. How do you find your body? How do you find a line in yourself where your physical body your emotions your thoughts and your spirit are one and at peace So what do we need to do? So there's the same for me. It's the same

I have never heard of Bitcoin described in that way. That is the final alignment. So I want to dig deeper about that because I love the way you explain it in terms of spirituality. Because, I think in America, there's an of anxiety, So many people are on antidepressants and whatever else they're doing to cope with anxiety. And we keep treating the symptom of anxiety. But like you said, what is the core? Anxiety doesn't come from nowhere. It's not just that we. We tend to worry. We worry for a reason. That's a reaction that our body is having to something in the environment. So talk to us a little bit more about that. It is so fascinating to hear you talk.

Well like you're saying Anxiety just take me. I feel like i'm pretty lucky I'm, not born into a lot of wealth But I was never wanting of anything. My parents gave me what I needed, maybe even more. And I have my whole body. I don't, I'm not missing anything. So, but even then, I know I, I earned some money. I didn't do bad things with my money, but I don't know how to protect it. I had anxiety, of course, because we don't know what life is going to cost tomorrow. Tomorrow, meaning 10 years later, 20 years later. And it's just the opposite, right? When we are older, we want to not worry about things like this. And in this society that we live in, where the money is totally manipulated, it's the opposite. You have to worry the older you get. When, when we are not, we should not be thinking about such things. And I, I think of that as just, even though not all anxieties come from money, but a lot of it is related. You, you just trace where the anxiety goes. Like it's like following the money, you actually get to money. Right. what I try to do in my therapy sessions. Is to, like, I want to find the fastest way, right? The easiest, most efficient. The things, the thing that makes sense the most. Something that you can start doing immediately. And what is that? Well, anxiety and all sorts of inner discomforts, uh, physical as well. They come from a place where we feel a lack of resource. Whether it's inner resources or outer resources. And the inner resource is, we forget that we live in gravity, but we live in gravity. Everything lives in gravity on earth and nobody really yet understand what, understands what gravity is. They're still changing their, definitions of gravity now, but it is a universal force, let's say, and I can call it the God force is acting upon us all the time. And if we are not aligned with gravity, when we're seated, standing, walking, running, whatever, we're fighting with it the whole time, are we not? Just like a plant that's not getting direct sun, it needs to go sideways, and now all the parts that are not supported, not straight, let's say, not stacked, it's fighting with gravity. And that's why those trees usually tend to be very skinny, because most of the energy is used in also staying upright. If we can align our body with gravity, there is a place, not just the physical, you know, how we put ourselves in poses. I don't mean that alignment, because that is a fake alignment. You can do that, but then you're not going to feel good inside. But the one where you feel good inside, you can actually, uh, you can feel that, uh, dropping, where you're not holding yourself up. That is the alignment with gravity. And when you, when you're in that place, not all of us can go because of the patterns that we've, we've lived all our lives. And if you're, if your pattern is very strong or you're, some things are really out of alignment, you might not be able to stand in that place, but you can get closer, but let's say you get to roughly a good place, you will feel that you're. Your whole relationship to yourself and to the outside changes. And that is when I, one thing I would call a resource, that is internal and external. Because external, because there is gravity acting on you, and if you find where gravity is, you can stand effortlessly. But if you don't, then you're fighting with it though. And imagine if I'm sitting like that, right? I can be very engaged with you in my mind. But I cannot integrate my body, but most people are not thinking about it. And then what is coming out of me cannot come out from all my cells. I can't be speaking to you with my whole body present, agreeing with what I'm saying. I need to, because I'm sensing my body, my body needs to agree with me. Otherwise I will feel like I'm lying. So all of that.

Such an interesting way to think about life. I'm thinking of it in application to myself and my kids and my husband and everybody I know, I wish they teach this kind of stuff in school. We were talking before about homeschooling and I just feel like we've done such a disservice. To our kids when we don't teach them how to build up from inside first We are so quick to throw knowledge at them we just want to fill them up with our wisdom and our experiences but the true strength comes from inside,

Yeah. And the funny thing is that children actually know that place. It's the education that takes them out of that place. At least the education that we've known so far.

yeah I feel like that's another bonus episode. we need to do Okay

send you some photos of what alignment looks like. You see it because it's something we know and we recognize. It's not something new you have to learn. It's almost like, Oh, of course. It's like that. Me sitting there is like, of course, you know, in that workshop of the three days where I was crying kind of like that. And I feel like Bitcoin is there in that alignment, but I haven't found people in the community, to speak to about about this, how, because the, I guess Bitcoin is still so new. We are still all fighting just for people to understand it, understand what the economy is, and, learn how to use it, not to be afraid of it, things like that. So, lots of developers working on it, Noster, all of that. So I totally understand, but I would love to have some conversation or sharing around. This other alignment that I feel that Bitcoin has, because, if we don't do, let's say of the, the noble eightfold path, if we don't do those three that money doesn't touch, we will not live the whole, let's say, teaching the truth for me, the ability to come into what they call the four, immeasurables, the feeling of love and compassion and sympathetic joy and equanimity. These things, money can't bring you, it can help you. It can help you go there, but unless you decide to do that work, we don't go there. So for me, Hey, we have Bitcoin. How come not everyone's going there? Because if you have no Bitcoin, I understand we have so many problems to deal with so much suffering in the world, but Bitcoin can help alleviate all of that and let us move further, in our evolution.

okay. So what would you say to women who are sitting on the fence, they've heard about Bitcoin, they're somewhat skeptical, they're not going to invest a whole lot of time into researching it like you did listening to podcasts hour after hour, until they're at least somewhat convinced it's a thing they should pursue. What would you say to them?

Actually, for me, especially for women, my current partner, Paola, now she actually has a group, a meetup group in Lisbon for women to help give that space for them to ask the questions that they have and stuff. But I think especially for women, it's so empowering. I started out being like, Oh, okay. I'm going to first identify as being a feminist, but it's like, wow, it's so empowering. And, it's empowering not only because you will your own money, your custody, your own money, but to know, to be part of this. Evolution of life. This is the next step. So then if you learn about it, you're ready for what's coming, even if it's not Bitcoin. Let's say if there's something better, it would be some of the thing, right? But we'll be going in that direction. But the thing is Because I'm a therapist, I always think this, whatever we have discomforts about, because if you're not interested at all, you will not be on the fence, right? You're, you're not there. But if you're on the fence, something is making you uncomfortable. Look into the discomfort. Our discomforts are always trying to tell us something about us. And it's usually a limitation. It's something in our belief systems. It's something in our history. It's something in the way we think. Because why would you not go and find out more, right? Only after you find out more you make a decision. But if there is resistance, resistance is trying to tell us something. It's kind of like what they say in permaculture, right? The answer is in the problem. So for me, I will always take every opportunity in life, whether it's money related or whatever, that pops up and says, okay, I find myself uncomfortable here, what is it? I want to look more deeply and that's another empowerment because the only thing we learn in life is ourselves more of ourselves, because we only learn about how we feel about things, how we react to things. So the more you learn about yourself, the more resourced you are. So I think definitely look at it that way, instead of it's Bitcoin. I believe in it or not. I'm skeptical or not this and that, because then we're externalizing everything. And we don't see the gem in the message, which is about knowing us ourselves.

Thanks for joining us today If the discussion with our guests resonated with you and you would like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. The meetup link is in the show notes. Also, if there are women in your life whom you think would both enjoy and benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them. Until next time, bye!