Hello, wonderful humans.

Welcome back to We Are Already Free.

And this is an episode that's really for anyone who's struggling in these chaotic times, struggling to make sense of it all.

What is it all for?

What are we here for?

There's a lot going on out there right now, especially if you're plugged into news or if you're plugged into social media or if you're in one of the areas that this crazy, wild, challenging things are happening.

So this episode is really a way to support you if you are feeling overwhelmed by the chaos, if you're struggling with disconnection from yourself or from the world around you.

And you just need a place to come to, to sink into the peace of the present moment and to remember that you're okay, that it's all okay, that it's all within the great unfolding of everything, and that you're going to get through this, and we're all going to get through this.

And we are getting through.

And as much as there is darkness and pain and trauma in the world, there is also light and joy and dancing and celebration.

So in this episode we'll be explor that.

Worthiness, music, reflection, guiding us home to ourselves.

This is a brand new way of doing this podcast for anyone listening.

I'm actually recording this live as one straight take.

So this is currently on YouTube and I'm going live and we may have some people joining in live.

And so if you're listening to this as an audio file, I really am doing my best to keep it flowing for you and make sure that everything flows beautifully and perfectly.

So welcome to We Are Already Free.

And yeah, this podcast is for helping people like me, those misfits, weirdos, outsiders, people who are deeply empathetic and feeling, but have somehow got lost or stuck on the hamster wheel of society's madness and are now seeking and searching and open to a way of showing up that really works for us that is outside of this societal madness.

So, yeah, welcome to the space and it's really good to have you here.

The words we are already free.

What comes up for you?

Acceptance.

Change.

The shift in awareness.

Human beings are so powerful.

There's so much more.

Everything is love behind it.

Breaking the chains of your own mind.

That which remains.

Nature getting out of the matrix.

We're sitting on the treasure and it's already unlocked.

We are already free.

You're free.

You are a walking man.

I've always been free.

You are always free.

Free.

Already free.

We are already free.

Beautiful.

Well, we are already free and you are so welcome here.

It's an absolute pleasure.

Again, this is now being recorded as a live video which then gets shared as audio on all the podcast platforms.

I have some really rad guests coming up over the next few weeks, so be sure to connect with me on YouTube if you want to catch some of these live and be able to be involved in things like Q&As, etc, but for now, if you are one of those people who, like so many of us, has got stuff stuck in the doom doom scroll where your whole thing is like, oh, things are so bad out there and you try to check social media just to make it feel better, but then hours pass and you come out of the end of that feeling more like spun out and stressed out than ever.

If that is you, then I highly recommend and invite you to join my free 21 day dopamine detox Challenge.

We just had our first cohort of people go through it last year and they had some incredible results.

Truly amazing stuff, like reconnecting in with family members, reconnecting in with their creativity, writing poems, connecting into parts of themselves that they'd completely forgotten.

And some of these people were navigating really big challenges, really big chronic illnesses.

And even though those illnesses are still there, they have been able to meet them differently because they've stopped doom scrolling and they've stopped distracting and they're actually being present with it.

So if that resonates with you, then please do visit the show notes or the description below.

Or just go to Alreadyfree Academy.

Alreadyfree Academy.

But let's get on to the main part of the show.

So I think part of what inspired this episode today, this idea of coming home, finding worthiness within the chaos, is my own journey of homecoming.

And I don't know if you have ever done something like this, but I can speak for myself and say I've made some really, really silly mistakes in my life.

And those mistakes have often come out of my own ignorance or out of my unwillingness to be responsible for myself, to be responsible for my life, for who I am, for what I came here for.

And one of things that happened some years ago is that our family home that was in a little place called Scarborough on the tip of Africa, in South Africa.

That house was no longer working for my dad.

He was the only one living there.

It was a family home.

Our whole family had grown up there.

We'd all moved out.

And it's paradise, by the way, if you haven't heard of it.

You just Google Scarborough Cape Town, it'll blow your mind.

And my dad said to me he actually had turned our old home into a retreat center.

And he said, you know, this is ready to go, but I'm done.

I don't want to do this.

I, I, I'm, I want to move on.

I want a simple life, you know, do you want to, if you run it, then maybe we can keep it going.

And I said, no.

I was off gallivanting around the world, having a good time, backpacking and partying and chasing women and all those things.

And I said, no.

And so he sold it.

And then in my own work of coming into my own healing, it's funny, because I came full circle where now all I would love, all I want is to have a retreat center in paradise, helping people to reconnect with nature and go surfing and walk bare barefoot and eat good food and all those wonderful things.

And what's just happened in my own life is my wife Carly and I, after many, many years, have moved into the area very close to where I grew up.

So I have just come full circle, coming home, and, and then as that happens, I look out into the world and I see so much of a challenge, so much pain, so much loss, so much trauma.

And it's a very strange thing to be in a place of abundance and beauty and flow and joy while there is so much pain world.

But I don't think we ever get to escape that.

I don't think we ever get to avoid that.

This is life.

There will always be those who are in the place of beauty and flow and love and joy.

And there will always be those who are going through the valley of the shadow of death, who are going through the dark night of the soul.

And so really, the most important question here is, how do we face this?

How do we support ourselves and others in moving through this, whether we are the ones in the state of joy or in the place of challenge.

And I'd be curious to hear if you're watching this now, if you're listening to this audio, where are you right now in that journey?

You don't have to say anything.

Obviously, this is a podcast, but if you choose to, you could go to the Show Notes, find the link and send me a message, let us know.

I could read it out on a future episode.

We'd really love to just hear your story a little bit more.

What is it that is alive for you in your journey right now?

Where are you at on that great cycle of joy and pain and loss and everything in between as we dance the dance of life together.

So I think I'm also doing another experiment.

I'm experimenting a lot on this because this is a solo episode and I'm also sharing it live on YouTube.

What I would also like to do is share a song or two with you.

So I hope that this is of value to you.

I hope you enjoy it.

It is an experiment and I would love to hear your feedback.

But I'm going to share a song now and it's called Sway with Me.

And this is really a song about that.

Experience of that life will crack all of us open at some point.

At some point, every one of us will go through brutal, unimaginable, indescribable loss and pain.

Whether that is our dogs dying or our friend passing or losing everything we own or not getting the dreams fulfilled that we wanted to have fulfilled.

Whatever it is, whether it's a great or a small thing, we will be cracked open by life.

And this song is an acknowledgment of that, but it's also an acknowledgment of the joy of being in it all together.

It's Sway with Me, as in let's sway together to the song of life.

No matter whether you are laughing or crying or in celebration or in loss, I'm with you and I want to be with you.

This is.

I choose to be here and I'm grateful to be here.

So this is an offering to you and to all of us.

And may this be a blessing to you on your path.

Someday life will crack you open, overflow emotion and the dam flood waters will burst.

Don't flee the flood, it seeks the ocean.

Every motion is a sign of your beautiful thirst.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway, sway with me.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Your cracks are swollen, almost bursting.

You're concerned it's the worst thing Though you know only so will you grow your lonely pain A holy portal I can only chuckle.

Cause I know you are never alone.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

Sway, sway, sway with me.

There's nowhere else I'd rather be.

Listen A whisper in thunder with with love and wonder this says light is guiding you home.

Your cry igniting wildfire Burning brighter say goodbye and you are reborn Sway, sway, sway with me Sway, sway, sway with me Sway, sway, sway with me there's nowhere else I'd rather be Sway, sway, sway with me Sway, sway, sway with me Sway, sway, sway with me there's nowhere else I'd rather bathe.

I hope that sounds okay.

Like I said, this is an experiment.

So, yeah, if you're listening to this on the podcast platform, or you're listening to this live on YouTube or as a replay, I hope that that resonated with you.

It's a song.

You know, speaking of worthiness, which is a large part of what this episode is about, I have struggled so much with self worth in my life.

It's been such a crazy journey.

And it continues to be, although it's very different now.

I mean, I feel like a pretty much a different human to who I used to be.

Maybe more of who I really am.

I suppose that's the reality of it.

But part of the journey has been this sense of judging my creations, judging the things that come through me, judging the ways that I show up in the world.

And for example, this song you just heard was.

Came through about eight months after my dog Sassa had passed away.

I don't know if you're listening and you know the story, but she ran away and we searched for her for many days.

And it was a.

It was the most brutal loss.

I just cannot even describe the deaths of pain.

And about eight months later, this first line, this verse came through.

Someday life will crack you open Overflow emotion and the dam flood waters will burst don't flee the flood, it seeks the ocean Every motion is a sign of your beautiful thirst.

And I started writing this song and I wrote the.

I think I wrote the three verses.

And then I was like, this sucks.

No one's going to care about this.

This is weird.

It's too repetitive.

It's this, it's that.

And I had all these feelings of, like, unworthiness, of like, this isn't good enough.

And I left it and I actually forgot about it.

And it honestly took a few more deaths of our now aging dogs, the remaining dogs that were aging before.

After our dog Johnny had passed.

Suddenly this line just came back into my head, this absolute verse and the melody.

And I was like, wait, that was a song?

And I found it in my notes again and then carried on working on it and came with the chorus.

And it just.

Suddenly the whole thing became what it is.

And when I play it now, it's one of the most Beautiful things I could ever imagine creating in this life.

Like, it just.

It connects so deeply to what I care about, to this feeling of being able to be ourselves together, even in the depths of pain and of sadness and of loss.

And so really just acknowledging and feeling that and allowing that to come through.

So that's that one.

And I really wanted to talk around worthiness.

And that's kind of a good segue.

Well done, Nathan.

Good segue.

And the segue is this, that the word worship.

I don't know if you know this, but the original meaning of the word worship meant to be in a state of worthiness.

So practicing worthiness, basically.

And I'm personally not associated with any specific religion, but I do get a huge amount of value out of all the teachings that are wisdom, teachings that speak to something beyond the physical, something greater than ourselves.

And so it blew my mind when this idea of worship, which is something that I had thought of as like, making myself smaller than this divine thing so that I'm like, oh, I'm not worthy, to the opposite.

The original meaning of worship was to be in a state of worthiness.

I mean, even as I think of that now, I just get this total.

This, like, relief.

And I wonder if you're listening to this or watching this live.

How does that come up for you?

I will respond to comments later.

By the way, we'll do a little Q and A for those who are here live.

But I would just love to know, how does that land for you, this idea of worship being related to worthiness?

What does that mean?

In your own life, how have you treated your worship as a way to make yourself or to stay in that feeling of less than, that feeling of smallness and not enoughness, of, like, praying to something bigger than yourself, as if you aren't worthy, when actually praying can be a way to acknowledge your own worthiness, to remember your worth.

I mean, what a blessing.

What a gift to all of us.

So in these chaotic times, the question then becomes, how do I stay in my state of worthiness even when these really challenging things are happening either to me or to others?

And I've heard this said so many times, and I felt it at times, who am I to be happy?

Who am I to be joyful?

Who am I to celebrate or be worthy when so many are in so much pain?

And I would flip that, and I have flipped that, and I do.

And it's a practice.

It's an ongoing practice, but I would invite us all in this moment to flip that and say, Imagine if you yourself or me myself, imagine we are in the state of challenge.

Have I ever once thought, I hope that because I'm in this state of challenge, that everyone else feels terrible, too?

I mean, maybe I felt that when I was, like, really angry, and I just want everyone to know, like, how serious this is, and they should feel bad.

But really, if I know that someone I love is in a state of joy, even when I'm in a state of pain and challenge, that.

That helps me.

That helps me to.

To remember that there is joy and there is worthiness, and I can return to those states.

And so that's really the invitation I'd like to make here, is how can you.

How can we be in a state of worthiness, even if we are the one who's going through the challenge, or if we're the one who's in a state of flow and joy right now?

I think all those states are welcome.

And as we know, there's a big fire burning in the world right now.

There's a big fire burning in California.

And there are many other fires in the world.

Fires in our hearts, fires between people, fires between nations.

And the external fire is a representation and a reflection of the deep wounding that we're all going through.

But the reality is that fire is the most powerful transformational energy we know.

It's the thing that converts the matter into the spirit.

It converts the physical into the ephemeral, into the energetic.

And fire is the process that the phoenix uses to move from its old self, the what it was, what is no longer serving into the new self.

The egg, the rebirth.

So the Phoenix burns itself up, and in that burning is reborn.

And this feels like a perfect segue into a song called Fire, which I wrote when I was actually in California in 2010.

And I was in the fire, I tell you, I was burning.

I was lost in my life.

I was lost in my purpose.

I was lost in love, in relationships, in position.

I was lost in every way I could be.

And I was burning.

I was in so much pain.

I was so uncomfortable.

And the message of fire just kept coming to me until I finally realized, because I was taking care of a room where there was a stove that I was burning fire in every day to keep warm, because it was in Northern California in the mountains.

It was snowing.

And so every day, I would light the fire in the morning, keep it going, and then at night, it would burn down.

And the morning, I would clean out the ashes and put them outside.

And while I would do it, I would remember that these ashes would feed the trees that I was.

That would become the wood that I would then use for the fire.

And it was like this incredible cycle and I finally got the message that the fire is a transformation and there's no way around it.

But to sit and welcome and breathe into that process of transformation is when the change happens.

So this song is dedicated to all of us.

To you, to me, to anyone who is in the fire, to any of our beloved so who are in the fire, and to the transformational power of fire, the teacher of fire.

To honor that and thank you again for being here.

It's a real pleasure to share with you.

Two embers in the fire faced one another said to the other what are you doing here?

And although I question carefully your presence, I am so grateful for your company.

In this fire.

Until we're gone Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone when the flames have all burned down what will remain?

Wood, flames, embers burn to ash Throw the ash down let the trees grow again from trees you cut the wood.

That builds your fire so build your.

Fire and let it all burn down again until it's gone gone, gone, gone gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone when the flames have all burned down what will remain?

Sit, reflect, accept the heat you feel Although it burns you through in fire the flame you are is revealed this is your change now you're gone gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.

When the flames have all burned down.

Then you'll remain.

I would get a tickle in my throat right then.

So if you're listening to this on the podcast as an audio, I'd be so curious to hear if, especially if you're a regular listener, what do you think of this?

This is my general vibe is like raw, real and connected.

And hello as well to anyone who's joining this as a live video.

This is the first ever live video recording of the we are Already Free podcast which has been released.

We were on episode 70, I don't know, upper 70s at this point.

And so I decided it was time to make a change and we're moving it into a video live video recording and then it will go out as usual as an audio podcast in all the places.

So here we are and I would love to know your thoughts.

I'd kind of like to bring the.

The focus of this now into a very practical way that you yourself can reconnect with worthiness, that you can find worthiness within the chaos, that you can come home to yourself.

Because while my physical journey has brought me in full circle, as I was sharing earlier, where I'm now back in Coma Key, which is very close to where I grew up after having been away for many years, I also had to do that journey inside of myself and realize that home really is a place inside of myself.

And how do I.

How do you.

How do any of us remember that and return to that state of worthiness that is the core, the enoughness.

Often I find I hear people saying things like, you're more than enough, or it's more than enough.

And I realized for myself that I don't need anything to be more than enough.

More than enough is too much.

Not enough is not enough.

Enough is enough.

It truly is.

And so how do we return to a state of enoughness where there's not a striving for more or a feeling of overwhelm, of, oh, this is more than I needed.

This is too much.

How do we manifest that?

How do we nurture and nourish that inside of ourselves?

And I'd like to know, maybe you have methods and techniques that work for you.

How do you do that?

I find one of the simplest and quickest ways.

And this is kind of weird.

And maybe it's weird, but I am weird, so I'm okay with that.

In case you don't know, original meaning of the word weird was one who controls fate.

We'll leave that there for now.

But in my case, I find that if I.

When I imagine time and I imagine this thing that I'm going through, this experience, I'm having this feeling of doubt, this feeling of whatever it is, this challenging time in the world, in my life, is this going to matter in a thousand years?

It's almost definitely not.

Maybe it will.

Maybe it'll be something that I'm going through.

That's like, in a thousand years, they'll still be talking about this, going, whoa, man, that was crazy.

What about 10,000 years?

What about 100,000?

Or a million or even a billion years?

It's not going to matter.

But I combine this, and this is an important piece.

I combine with.

With the belief that I am a part of the divine unfolding of everything, so that this being, this awareness that is currently inhabiting the body of Nathan and the body of whoever you are out there in the world, this awareness continues.

So in a billion years, this awareness will still be here in the present moment, having the present moment experience of life.

And when I remember that and realized, you know, life always finds a way.

Life always finds a way to come through.

So whether there's nuclear holocaust, whether this entire civilization dissolves into dust in a second, life will find a way, life will return in ways that we can't even imagine.

It's like, you know, when the dinosaurs went extinct, life didn't go, oh, let's just make dinosaurs again.

It's like, let's try this whole new experience, let's try mammals, let's try this whole new way of bringing life into being.

And so that helps me personally to let go of my lack of worthiness, to let go of this idea of it should be like this, it shouldn't be like that.

And to just remember that it is how it is, and how it is is perfect within the context of infinity, that infinity has space for everything.

Every experience, every triumph, every challenge, it is all welcome in the context of infinity.

And then of course, there are practices that we can do to help us to increase that experience, that zone of capacity inside of our nervous systems.

Very brief lesson on nervous system, how they work.

But we have everyone knows fight or flight.

That's that sense of let's get this thing done, let's get out of here, let's attack.

Very activated sympathetic nervous system.

Or at the bottom end we have what's called dorsal vagal activation.

That's more given up.

That's, that's the surrendered the completely let go.

Like, I'm out of here, there's nothing else to do.

You just fully let go.

And in between there, there is what's called the window of tolerance, the ventral vagal system, which is where we're supposed to spend most of our time.

And that's the place where we're curious, we're connected, we are social.

It's a part of this experience of being human.

And we have control because we can expand our capacity to stay in that window of tolerance.

We can expand our capacity through things like breath work, things like ice baths, things like meditation, things like gratitude practices, honestly, things like lifting heavy weights, things like prioritizing time in nature, all of these practices.

And that's one of the reasons that I have been working on my own morning routine.

Some of you listening may have gone through the five day morning practice challenge.

And I've actually even simplified it further recently to be what I now call the Rise routine.

And I've fallen in love with acronyms.

So I apologize if I use acronyms all the time.

It's definitely something I've become a fan of.

But this One is rise, as in reflect, inspire.

And then I'm still working on the S, which it's either sit or spirit.

It's probably spirit.

So rise, sorry, Reflect, inspire, spirit and energize.

And reflect being, writing and reading.

So journaling, inspire, being breath, work and visualization and getting active in our my mind and visualizing a more beautiful world.

Positive affirmations.

Because the brain doesn't know the difference.

Did you know that?

Did you know that out there in the world that the brain literally cannot tell if you are thinking something, like imagining it or if it's actually happening?

The brain doesn't know.

It's like, oh, this is a real thing.

So I highly invite us all to start envisioning and imagining and affirming the world you want, not just the world you see around you.

And then we have sit or spirit, which is really around that space of spaciousness, meditation, feeling into the body, etc.

And then energize, which is exercise, move your body, do yoga, lift weights, be strong, all of that.

So those are some very simple steps to reconnect with worthiness.

And one that fits in there as well is prayer.

And worship.

And worship.

The way that I've defined it here, which is its original meaning to be in a state of worthiness.

How would you pray if you do pray?

How would you pray if you believed that you were worthy?

What would that look like?

What would you say to the divine?

What would you ask for?

What would you share?

What would you give thanks for and bring that into your practice?

Highly recommend that.

So I'm going to share one more song and then we're going to move into the final part of this episode, which is a Q and A with those who are here live.

And I will do my best to make this interesting for anyone who's listening to this via audio.

So if you are watching this right now live and you have questions, you have feedback, you have a quote you want to share, you have anything at all, let me know.

I will.

I will respond to it after this song.

But if you are listening to this as audio, I will read out their questions and keep it interesting for you as well.

And you can always send me a voice note.

I put a link in the show notes where you can go and send me voice notes and I can put those into future episodes in the Q and A section.

And like I said before, we do have some cool guests coming up, so we're going to do this whole thing with guests as well, which is rad.

I'm going to take a moment to open the window because it's actually too hot.

I wanted to keep the sound out, but I realized by keeping the sound out, I also kept the air out.

So this song I'm a little wary of playing because I don't want.

It's hard to play softly and my microphone is very sensitive.

But it's a song called Home and it feels fitting.

So, let's see.

Growing up was easy I took life slowly Ocean and mountain were my friends I was in no hurry Shoes were never near me I was barefoot I was never naked in the rain I know you well I know you well I know you well Home, home.

Home.

I've lived in the city, city all around me no one was naked in the rain Seemed as though the people compounded their troubles Compressed them in to concrete and to paint I see you crying People walk by it doesn't make.

Much sense to me and I see.

You crying.

Why don't you try and.

Come on home with with me?

Come on home Everyone who meets me.

Knows I'm from the country and I'm.

Proud of everything that I have learned I love all you people Everywhere I travel you get me naked you get crazy in the rain I know you well I know you well I know you well Home, home.

Well there you have it, ladies and germs, as the lovely Tim Ferriss says.

Can't steal his catchphrase.

I get in trouble for that.

So I hope you've enjoyed this time together and if you are watching this live and you have any questions at all, now is the perfect time to drop them into the comments and I will happily respond and share.

But otherwise, I just really appreciate you being here.

Thank you so much for joining me on We Are Already Free.

This is season four, I think.

I didn't check beforehand.

I'm pretty sure it's season four.

We've had such amazing guests up to this point.

We've had the holistic psychologist twice, actually.

We've had Brian from Food Lies.

We've had Emily Saldiah from Free Birth Society.

We had Terra Couture from Slowdown Farmstead Roman, the musician of artivist gloriousness.

We've had so many more, so many wonderful people, musicians, creatives, professionals, authors, visionaries, and just ordinary humans like you and me who are together remembering and reminding each other that we are already free.

So thank you for being here.

Please remember to subscribe, to comment, to share this Whether it's the video, whether it's the audio, share it out there.

Let's get this Message going, let's get it flowing out to all the wonderful people in the world.

And please do.

If you are struggling right now with that feeling of doom scroll which so many of us struggle with, like if you check your screen time on your phone, I don't know how to do it on Android, but on, on iPhones it's pretty easy.

Go into your settings and check screen time.

And if you're like many people, you're spending an average of 3 hours or more on the phone.

In America right now, children under the age of 18 are spending an average of six hours a day on their phones.

And this is not good for us.

Like, we're designed for real connection.

Authenticity is one of our primary needs in this life and so we look for authenticity through these digital devices.

But for authenticity to exist, we need to have an opportunity to go deep with people, to be seen, really seen in a our beauty and in our ugliness and in our triumphs and in our pains where we can be held and grow together.

I mean, that's one of the reasons I've created the already free academy is a space where people like us who want that depth can get off these algorithmic, I'm going to say demonic, I don't know if that's.

It's not accurate, but these, these life sucking algorithmic machines that are pulling us out of ourselves.

So if you're one of those people and you are ready for a change, I have a free 21 day dopamine detox challenge that is live right now.

You just sign up already Free me.

I think it's Slash.

I actually forget right now.

That's funny.

Challenge maybe or yes, alreadyfree me.

Slash.

Yes.

I will check that after this.

It'll be in the show notes.

I apologize, guys, this is.

I'm a bit rusty.

I've had a month or so off of the podcast and everything's a bit blurry now.

But yeah, thanks again and thanks to those beautiful people I see you who have joined live.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback after this.

But for now, thank you for being with me.

My name is Nathan Mainguard.

It is my honor and privilege to support those of us who are on this journey of authenticity, of self acceptance, of self love, of worthiness.

May you find that worthiness.

May you remember it within the king chaos of the world.

Whether you are going through the fire or whether the fire is occurring around you or whether your life is in total bliss and beauty right now.

May you remember that you are worthy of all of it and that it is okay and it is passing.

And this too shall pass.

It's been an absolute pleasure to share this episode with you.

I will be back again very soon with some beautiful guests, so make sure you subscribe, follow, share, etc all the wonderful things.

And until then, please remember we are already free.