Embrace Your Inner Monster - A Conversation with Matthew Cooksey

Anita Adams: 00:00:04

Welcome to the joyful journey podcast. If you're looking for more clarity in your life, clarity of purpose or how to activate that purpose, and you are someone who wants to operate from your highest self to be a force for good, you know this world craves, then this is the show for you. I'm Anita Adams, your host and guide to finding clarity and creating a life you love. Let's tap into our inner wisdom, access our highest self and unleash joy. As we do this, we raise our vibration and heightened the collective consciousness. And that, my friend, is the joyful journey. Let's dive in. Hey, joyful journeyer Anita Adams here your host and today I'm excited to introduce you to Matthew Cooksey, who was joining us all the way from Melbourne, Australia. Matthew is a therapist, coach, truth seeker and speaker he's on a mission to help people embrace their human mess so they can lead their best lives. Matthew is dedicated to teaching people the art of loving the unlovable within now let me tell you quickly how Matthew came to be a guest on this show. A few weeks ago, I released an episode about how you must let go of the how in order to create a life you love. Matthew heard the episode and reached out after praising the episode, which is always a good thing to do if you want to pitch yourself to be a guest. Matthew Then said my audience may appreciate if we build on what I spoke about in that episode, he told me how he is helping his clients revolutionize how they relate to everything inside that loaves uncertainty. So they can let go of the how and unleash the unique contribution they know in their bones they were born to make. Needless to say, Matthew caught my attention. And I invited him to be my guest on the show. So welcome, Matthew, it is so great having you here today.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:02:17

My goodness, it's lovely to be here. We were just talking before we started just about the deep alignment that we feel I'm in the work that we're doing in the world. And I'm excited to get into this, this conversation because I think it has, we have so much to learn about how to let go and really allow things to come forward in our lives. So it's gonna be fun.

Anita Adams: 00:02:44

I think so do there's a nice energies in there, we're gonna, I think we're gonna have some fun here and who knows where it will go like, give me we can go in any direction. And we'll we'll discover some new things, I think. But first, before we jump into what we intended to get together to talk about, I want to acknowledge you for reaching out and asking me to be on this show. I mean, taking action on what you want, and leaning into your purpose. This is such an important part of achieving great things in in life and being someone that has an impact in in the world. And I just want to acknowledge you, and thank you for modeling this important behavior so beautifully. So well done you.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:03:31

Thank you. And I actually think it really, it's a really good example to peel back a layer on for people to, you know, to really see what goes on inside, for me to be able to reach out to you to come and have this conversation. Because I think very often we imagine that there are these fearless people out there or there's these highly spiritual spiritually attained people who just you know, float through life on the cloud and end up being a guest on a on a podcast and you know, my message for people it really does revolve around how do we how do we hold the parts of ourselves that don't get what our highest self gets that do get frightened by reaching out to somebody or making a request or the uncertainty of whether a dream is going to come to fruition? So how I want to just completely like confess to everybody listening here that I didn't when I reached out to you there wasn't like a total absence of worry or self concern in in my reach reaching out out to you. But very often what I see happens is people's self concern becomes the the problem Emery thing in their, in their being. And so for me, what I'm really starting to see for myself and helping other people realize is that this higher self can actually be found not just on the mountaintop in this transcendent place, but in, in the gritty, human emotions, like when I'm feeling fear, when I'm feeling shame, you know, our higher self is, is there too, it can be found that and when you can find your Higher Self there, no longer do you need to run away from anything, and then you can reach out to Anita Adams, they hate and need to, you know, I would love to come and talk about this more with you, you know, so it's just, I want people to hear that, I think they hear that it's not the absence of fear that allows allowed me to do that. It's like really finding my highest self in fear.

Anita Adams: 00:05:56

I love that distinction of finding your higher self in that fear of finding your higher self in that worry, or whatever the emotion is, it's not a separateness of my higher self is this and here I am, in this moment, feeling like freaked out or whatever. There's a oneness there. And I would love I love that. I've never, I've never thought of it in that in that way. So do you have a process for for calling on that higher self that helps you move past fear?

Matthew Cooksey: 00:06:32

Right, yeah, I mean, for me, and I love how you've kind of zeroed in on this, because I think a lot of people are stuck on this path. Because there is this duality inside them. There's, there's screwed up, me, who's like fearful and worried and anxious and all of that. And then there's this higher self. And we're almost trying, it's like, we're trying to get away from ourselves to this highest, hoping that we're going to find some salvation, some kind of respite from ourselves. And so for me, it has been a process that's very driven by being in touch with the raw, the emotional experience of whatever the emotion is. So we, I think very often get confused about feeling, I often think like, we actually don't know how to feel, we need really classes at school, about how to feel, because for example, what I would, what I do, how I find this higher self, in the most unexpected places is I drop in, I let my attention come down into my body. And I'll really let myself experience the raw physical emotion in my body. Like, if I do it right now, I can feel, you know, there's this bubbling happening in me that's like, this excitement about being here in conversation with you. And this joy, and I'm looking at your face and Anita and for anyone who's you know, just listening to this, I need to has this beautiful energy pouring at me. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of me, that feels very, at ease here, very relaxed, very open all of that stuff. But down here in my solar plexus, I can also feel some tension. And for me, it's, it's become a journey of, of dropping down and giving that tension, let's just say in this instance, really space to actually finally, let it be. We are so often just reacting to that feeling. And then coming back up into our head going, we don't like I don't like this tension. So I'm just going to, I'm going to ignore it. And so the first step, this is just the first step for me, is the step of dropping down into it and making the determination. I'm going to give this some space and with no agenda, no agenda for years, the thing that I've had kind of upside down and inside out was I would because a lot of people are now getting into somatic kind of therapy. They're really becoming more in tune with their emotions and their bodies and that's that's really wonderful. But when you have an agenda, and the agenda is Fill this to hopefully get rid of it, you miss, you miss the miracle that is at the heart of that emotion.

Anita Adams: 00:10:14

I absolutely love everything you're, you're saying right now, and I have to tell you, I get getting like, truth bumps, for I used to call goose bumps. I know somebody, somebody shared that with me and I've stolen it the truth bumps. So I've I for the last year or so I've been doing something called spiritual writing or automatic writing where I just, you know, I zone out and I write, and I have a dialogue, if you will, with my either my higher self or Spirit, God, whatever your word is, for that there's this, this greater than you feeling to it. And a message I've been getting over and over and over again is to just be just be, and here I have this interview or conversation with you and you are talking about, you just gotta let it be. And I feel like oh, this is what I'm joined this the message that I've been trying to understand that this whole duality thing that you're talking about, I'm so guilty of, you know, it's like, okay, just be accept, allow all these emotions to surface, you do not have to push your fear away, you do not have to push your anxiety away, you can just accept it, breathe into it, allow it to be. And that's when you will experience the miracle. And I'm I feel like you were divinely driven to come and be on the show to share that message with me and anybody else who is currently listening to this because they are meant to hear that message as well. So very, very cool.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:11:57

I also have a truth bumps, and I'm also stealing that. I mean, I remember when my teacher said, there's this point of spiritual maturity, where you have to be more interested in the truth than feeling better. Mm hmm. Because how much of our lives and our spiritual practice, our emotional practice is actually not really oriented around wanting to know what's true, we want to feel better. And what I noticed is that, on my own journey, as I have become more and more interested, and emphasizing what's true, even if learning what's true, makes me feel worse. Can I tolerate that? Can I tolerate that. And if I can't tolerate that, then that's not something to judge, it's something to really notice that, oh my gosh, okay, I have this experience of myself as this as this highest self. And I have this more sort of every day experience of being being me, and they feel kind of quite, quite different. Am I Am I just desperately trying to get out of this everyday self and into this better feeling self just because I don't like the feeling of it. Or I may actually interested in seeing what's really going on here. And for me, that's where we can start to what I see in people is that their spiritual brain boots up at some point very often through some kind of breakdown, or that turns into a breakthrough or, you know, some difficult calamity comes their way and, and it causes a shift in their, in their being and then their spiritual brain winds up. But it's like almost like what we're describing here is we then have our mental and emotional brain. So now we've got these two brains, but it's like one runs on Apple, and the other one runs on Windows. And they don't talk to one another. So we find ourselves trying to live life through these two radically different operating systems that give us completely different views of ourselves and of the world. And when you can really start to engage in this practice in the way that we're describing, what I see happening is like it's like the wiring. And the operating system connects these two computers, the spiritual computer, the psychological one, and all of a sudden, you can feel as like I was I was feeling some shame this morning. I was feeling shame. And there was a felt sense of shame in my body like that. in the pit of your stomach, that like awful, gut wrenching feeling that you are a bad human being done something that you are bad, like, I was feeling that gut wrenching clench in my, in my gut. And then when I dropped into it, as I've just kind of been describing, it was like my spiritual computer booted up, connected with the psychological computer. And suddenly, I got to see the shame through eyes of eternity, the eyes of God, through the eyes of love, my highest self. And so it was like, and it just melted, it just melted. And at the core of this shame, all I could find was love. And so it was just this amazing, this, this amazing experience. So we can we can start to bring these two computers together through this kind of practice.

Anita Adams: 00:16:02

Mm hmm. That's beautiful. Okay, so I want to I want to dissect this a little bit, I find it really interesting. And I have to. I'm feeling that duality that's happening right now. Because at the beginning of this, this show, I said to you, let's make sure all of our devices are turned off. So we don't have any pings or anything like that. And then sure enough, my my computer, my phone is pinging. And I'm like what the ACC, and it pulls me out. And it makes me angry and frustrated. And I feel like I drop away from being connected to this amazing human being in front of me. Because of the stories I start telling myself about why that's happening. How come I can't seem to get technology to work for me? Do you know, you hear what I'm saying? So I know.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:16:56

I said, Great. And how perfect that is perfect, because we can actually use this to illustrate this whole point. You know? So I mean, if you're if you're open, if you're open to it, you know, we could just make a space right now for you do you actually feel that? You know, because one of the approach we usually employ in the moment like this is we try and push it away, right? And when you try to hold it,

Anita Adams: 00:17:26

and I'm like I gotta focus, focus focus on you, like, Come on, let's get back.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:17:32

Get back into the game like mine. And it's very willful. It's really very forceful. It's really that relaxed place that

Anita Adams: 00:17:45

I get my energy totally shift. Like I just went to this like, Oh,

Matthew Cooksey: 00:17:51

I'm wrecking I reckon you're not alone. Yes, me too, like this is I wouldn't do about this, right. Um, there is a, there's a wonderful piece that might be just worth worth reading a part of, of here that I read a few weeks ago by a guy called Jeff Foster. He's a spiritual teacher. And I'll just read a short passage of it. And it says, fall in love with the darkness, the shadows, the hidden parts, the bits we hide out of shame. Fall in love with the innocence, of childhood fears of the dark of being exposed, of showing ourselves being seen. Coming to, to the light, fall in love with the secret humanity. Know that darkness is not darkness, only scared, fragments, longing to come into the light. Beings who want to love and attention and breadth and inclusion in the larger picture of self. Make it safe for the little monsters to come out of hiding. And let them know that they're beautiful, and worthy, and not monsters at all. And for me, in that moment for you there, there's a little monster here that comes up, you know, and she gets really frightened about getting this right and not having a ping in the background. And we could just literally drop in to the body and we could feel her and we wouldn't even need to get into lots of stories about her could just feel how she feels in your body. And if we were to give her some space to just be there and to be with her. What do you what do you find? What are your experience? You just give her that space?

Anita Adams: 00:19:58

mischievious pneus actually

Matthew Cooksey: 00:20:01

Beautiful, beautiful. And I love almost, yeah, I can feel you again now in a different way. As you drop in with her like it feels to me like that duality just collapsed again.

Anita Adams: 00:20:23

Very interesting. What an interesting process. So it's I guess it's recognizing when it happens when you when you're this, the little monsters are appearing. And instead of trying to chase them away with a broomstick or whatever, you want to just stop for a moment, maybe the process is to take a deep breath, close your eyes, see the little monster? Right?

Matthew Cooksey: 00:20:53

Right, that's certainly a really important part of it. What I do notice with people is there's so much mental infrastructure, opposing what you just described, we have learned and entrenched in our mind, to avoid our little monsters. Actually, very often, it's really hard for people to do what you just described, we are pathologically determined to not do what we just said, like as much, I think, for a lot, they hear what we just sort of described and in sort of, intuitively, makes sense. But then something happens when it all starts coming up in life, when you start, you know, I think a lot of your listeners or people who are wanting to make a contribution in the world, they're wanting to, you know, make a difference to to others. And then they start down that road, and then suddenly, the monsters get triggered. And, and the the will, the impulse to avoid that and push that away, I think is so automatic for so many people that very often what I find is you need, you need another step, actually, you need to really go and have a look at the beliefs that are held about these somatic emotional monsters that we have inside us. And so that's what I do with people in the work that I do is I actually really evoke proactively the monsters with people, I say, let's look at your life. And let's see where the monsters come out to play. And, and of course, when they come to it, they're like, yeah, these friggin monsters are ruining my life, they're holding me back. And there's very much this, this idea of wanting to get away from them wanting to get over them. And so, so once we really see and understand where, where the monsters are, who they are, what they are, how they come out. And the judgments that are held about them what partly like in that beautiful moment where you just made contact with that mischievious one inside you. It's like without the judgment, you can see her in her mischievious nests. And you can unless such a gift in that then then there's creativity. There's intuition, all of that stuff. But without without, with with all of these judgments of these monsters, then they remain monsters.

Anita Adams: 00:23:44

Without the judgment of these 70 said without the judgment. So you okay, you want to take the judgment away from these monitors? And then they Okay, got it. Okay. That's really interesting. When

Matthew Cooksey: 00:23:55

when we Yeah, when we can examine how we judge these monsters and really look at those judgments and judgments fall away, then they no longer monsters to us. And, you know, makes sense. Why would we want to go towards a monster? Like, we don't want to do that. Right. So the first step is to see that they're not monsters. Yeah. These feelings that that like jump up in our body and seem to take over our life that feels it feels horrible. I don't want that. I don't want that. I want to get away from that. So that that's a monster Get away from me. And that reaction makes a lot of sense to me. And at the same time, it keeps us stuck in this either or world.

Anita Adams: 00:24:37

Interesting. Okay. I'm starting to make some connections to why you wanted to reach out and have a further conversation about the getting over the house. So let me just backpedal a little bit in my podcast about letting go of the How are you if we focus on how we are going to achieve the end goal. We get lost In the enormity of the vision and feel overwhelmed or like our dreams are hopeless, in order to move forward with a big dream, I believe you must then focus just on the single next step you need to take instead of the end goal. And I think what I might be connecting now from this conversation is that that that, that feeling of getting lost in the enormity, those feelings of overwhelm, that whatever is being triggered for you, those are the little monsters that you're talking about. And what if I'm getting you correctly, what you're saying is that we have to acknowledge those little monsters and embrace them. And then we can take a look at the first step that we need to take or the next step or whatever. But first, first and foremost is really sitting with that duality and understanding that duality and understanding what is the little monster within that is putting on the brakes? Am I know I'm throwing words in your mouth? But

Matthew Cooksey: 00:26:02

absolutely, yeah, I feel excuse me, I feel like you're, you're beautifully joining the practicality of this up with a theory that I've been kind of expressing because the right? If the steps that we want to take, bring out these money, these little monsters, then the chances that we're going to follow through on those things are really slim. And we all know that willpower is not a very reliable and very limited resource. So yeah, the monsters are coming out, they're coming out and and what if they contain? What if they hold the key? Like we say these months as a as the obstacle? What if they hold the key? What do they know? What if they have the intuition? That's my experience. That is my experience that these monsters are holding the keys like I can, I've got the truth bumps in my body now like my whole body is like, Oh my God. It's like a monster to hold the key. They hold the key to so many of the insights that the intuition, the creativity, that you know, all of this stuff, but it just, it arrives in this form that we just reflexively tend to push away because it feels it feels frightening. We're frightened of our fear. We're frightened of that anger. We're frightened of our shame. We're frightened of our guilt. We're frightened of our feelings. And what's this prevent present in our feelings, predominantly, and these monsters are actually our greatest gifts.

Anita Adams: 00:27:53

Okay, so we need to get to know our monsters. Is that what I'm hearing?

Matthew Cooksey: 00:27:57

I, I would say yes, with a small caveat get to know them in the body. Primarily, like, it can be useful. I map The Munsters basically, for people, I draw people a, like a mind map, where we actually identify all of the different monsters and guess what they're like a little inner family. And they're all in allegiance with other monsters, some of the monsters are fighting each other, as well. You know, there's this inner battle for control of our lives. That's noisy, an inner psychological battle, which prevents us accessing the wisdom of our higher selves. And so, so I think it can be very helpful to build a mental picture for sure of these monsters. And I do that for people and draw it all out and define what it is that these monsters believe, and their their perspective on themselves and on the world. But then it's kind of like, really like with that knowledge, like, hold that lightly let that go. And then when they present, you'll feel them and then feel them then give space for the energy because very often, if we stay in our mind about it, it just gets more clouded. It gets more confused. Really, the breakthrough is to be found in the body, in the emotion just in the raw energy that these these parts of ourselves are evoking and when you can find joy and love in the middle of shame. You're free. You are liberated. And that's really the promise of of this sort of work.

Anita Adams: 00:29:58

It's really fascinating. Um, so it's just to reiterate, we're not trying to eliminate fear we're not trying to get rid of, well, anxiety is a big one. Like, we don't want anxiety in our life. So do we do we just, yeah, I stumbled on this one, because that's a big one that I, you know, I talk a lot about with my clients and trying to help them overcome the anxiety so they can move forward with whatever it is that they're trying to move forward with just having a healthy happy life. And so what would your recommendation be on on that? Like, would you would you say, okay, just acknowledge that there's, there's this being within you, that is a little monster that is full of anxiety? That's, yeah, walk me through this.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:30:50

Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for this wonderful exploration. Because it makes it really real for people, it makes it really concrete. So I think there's a, there's a, there's a paradox here, in this on the one hand, we don't want to feel anxiety. And we want to get on with our lives we want to want to live in we want to come alive. And, and yet, then we do we feel so we feel anxious. And when we show up to that anxiety, with the agenda of getting over it, feeling it to get over it. That actually sustains it, and it prevents us from finding the piece that is at the it's almost as if the if you can picture this, as if the anxiety is actually made of peace. Imagine like a didn't, you've got like a really sore muscle. That's not it, you know, and it's really agony. And you go from massage and somebody, you know, digs their fingers into it. Normally, it hurts, right? It actually hurts like it gets more painful. But it was never not your muscle. There, it was always your muscle. Oh, it's not like there was a foreign body in there that was creating the pain. And so anxiety and all of these emotions are almost like a love in spasm, let's call it love, or peace in spasm. And when you actually can be with it without any agenda. Ironically, that is is sort of the moment where it relaxes out of the spasm. And you just experienced it as what it was all along, which is love and was loving is yeah, okay,

Anita Adams: 00:32:53

I get that you in your bio. You you talk about the art of loving the unlovable within. So that's what you're talking about right here, right? Now,

Matthew Cooksey: 00:33:05

what I'm talking about exactly it because this is what we've all learned in our lives to push away, in one way or another with ever more sophisticated ways. And what I see in spiritual circles, is that we're less prone to pushing it away with substances or workaholism, you know, we've sort of probably been there, done that in some some level and, and so we have more subtle ways in which we push that away. And I just know in my life and in the work that I do with people, when they can, when they can see this and feel and know that anxiety is love and peace at its center. Their whole orientation to it shifts dramatically because it's like unwrapping a gift. You're like, wow, okay, there's a gift for me here. And I know, I'm so aware of how ridiculous this probably sounds, levels of the mind. For the mind. That's like, a gift in anxiety. Don't be ridiculous, it's awful. It feels horrible in my body, like the gift here. Like it's just awful. I want it to go away. And I just want anyone who feels that to know that it makes total sense that you feel that that way and me to most of my life. Most of my life. I was finding ever more sophisticated ways to avoid going there and really just letting it be to get to go back to your intuitive thing. So really just be you know, can we just let it be and that's where there is this breakthrough available for people if they can be held and supported very often to Let it be over an extended period of time, because in the work I do, you know, I work with people for like 10 weeks, and I literally get them to evoke whatever it is they don't like, over and over deliberately. And as they evoke it, that's when I'm giving them the the, some of these pointings that we're going through in this conversation, to how to be with those intense feelings of anxiety or depression or shame, or how do we be with it, but not get subsumed and taken over by it? You know? And it's like, it seems like we've only got the option to either avoid it completely. Got to transcend a mountain or get lost in it. And what I'm trying to help people see is that there is this place where you can you can lean in and bring the mountaintop with you. And then find the mountaintop in the valley. Wild.

Anita Adams: 00:36:07

Yeah, that's beautiful. I love it. So some, you want to attach no meaning, attach no judgement, and have no agenda when these feelings come up. That's, that's where you start? And then yeah, and then acknowledge, just simply acknowledge what is happening, be present with it.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:36:36

I think that's really the key bit to be really then curious

Anita Adams: 00:36:41

about various that's a good word. Be curious. I like that. Be curious.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:36:46

If we go back to that statement about do you? Are you interested in the truth? Or do you just want to feel better? For me, curiosity, is a sign that I'm in this place of truth seeking, as opposed to just wanting to feel better. So it's kind of like you drop in, you start to sort of make space for the, for the emotion of anxiety, try and stay out of your head and more in the bodily experience of it. And then as you make space for it, it's like, okay, could I just actually investigate this? Maybe for the first time in my life? What is this? What is this? What, what if I just give this some attention? I just look at it. Just look at it. How does it move? Is it moving? Is it changing? What happens if I just leave it alone, but actually give it attention at the same time? What happens? And to really see it experimentally? Treat it like an experiment? Does it change? Does it then relax very often, what I find is that, paradoxically, when you give it that kind of agenda attention, it will just like, I don't feel that, you know, earlier in this conversation, I said I felt this tension in my, in my gut. I don't feel that at all, it just relaxed, because I gave it a space. And then just as I, as I say that I'm just in, I'm just having a moment where I'm like, I'm really enjoying the spaciousness that I feel that came about, because I embrace that little monster of that tension. So the curiosity, I think, is the key word. Can I be curious? And if I can, that's cool. Just notice, oh, I can't be curious. That is something for me to then look at, like, what is what am I believing about this feeling? Or this monster? How we want to look at it? That makes it impossible for me to be curious about it? And then we might go back to them, but we might use the mind to examine Okay, well, I believe that this anxiety is going to destroy me, or I believe that this anxiety is ruining my life. But how can I be curious about this anxiety if I believe that this anxiety is ruining my life, and it's my enemy, my sworn enemy. And in that case, very often, if people are struggling to just be with it and be curious, I will then take them to their mind. And we'll do a process of inquiry into the thought process about the monster about the feeling. And we'll do that. And it's so exciting because then you kind of go through that process with somebody more mentally when you go through like, okay, so this is ruining your life. Is that true? And you really, really, really bring the spirit of curiosity in a more cerebral kind of way about thing. And when I find this very often, the truth is not quite as they had it, and once they see a more true view of that feeling, then when we evoke it again, and they go back in, all of a sudden they can find curiosity around it. So I think a lot of people are getting stuck, because they are diligently trying to make space for the anxiety or the shame or whatever it is. But then, but then they can't access the curiosity, because the the leaves about how this feeling is damaging me or ruining my life or spoiling things or whatever, it is so strong, I can't be curious about it. So we've got to, we've got to unwind a bit of that mentally, in order to access the curiosity, because it's all well and good to say, just be curious about it. And in my experience, like, that's sometimes easier said than done right? Here in the grip of an anxiety storm or, or grip, shame storm or whatever.

Anita Adams: 00:40:54

That's really, really helpful, what you're sharing, and it's something that I think we can all walk away with and practice right away, you know, just looking at and acknowledging those moments, even just like the little moments like the phone ringing, and it rattled me, you know, and just taking a moment to, to breathe it in and connect with with that. And there's obviously there's bigger moments if we're trying to move forward with our, with our dreams, you know, what is what is stopping? What is stopping you from taking that action? And maybe, maybe we can talk about that a little bit? And well, yeah, well, I'd like to end on on on that like exploring how we move forward with our jeep dreams when we've got a the fear piece that is stepping in the way, I guess it's just isn't the same thing, just the same? The same principles? It's just acknowledging what it is that stopping you.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:41:51

I think I think, I mean, I'm in the midst of this at the moment, I'm building a movement, building a movement to bring together psychology and spirituality, because I think these are two siloed worlds. And in many ways, this process that we've just been going through today, really bridges the two in brings itself into our gritty, human emotions. That's the goal of it. Anyway, as I'm building this movement, I'm feeling all the emotions that you know, anyone feels when they're trying to create something new, or trying to build something, you know, there's vulnerability in creativity for when we know that right. So what it feels like to me is that the process that we've just been talking about, is like learning to surf. Imagine the big waves of emotion, okay. And for somebody who's listening to this, what I would say is, if you want to really move forward with any, anything that's going to impact the world, there's going to be vulnerability in it, which is going to bring up the, the emotions and these monsters. And so if we can learn to surf, those big waves, and I'm truly mean it like if anyone's actually surf, like the joy of riding, I'm like, not a good surfer at all, I'm mostly falling off when it comes to actual surfing. But what it feels to me as I'm building my movement, is that I, as I come up to the crest of a wave, I experienced, like a big fear, it's very high, I can fall, you know, all sorts of emotions come out. And what I'm learning to do, is exactly what we've just been describing in dynamically in the moment, really making space for the feeling the emotion without an agenda, bringing curiosity to it, finding that it then naturally dissipates into the love and the piece that was always in the first place. And then I'm kind of flying down the wave in joy and excitement. And it's wonderful, and it's exciting, and things are happening. And I'm on a neatest podcast and what a what a, you know, exciting moment this is, and then I'm coming into like the bottom of the wave. And, you know, if there's confusion, and there's shame, and there's chaos, and there's like, what am I doing, like, where's this going? What's this all about? Like, all of those normal feelings that we experience? And there's, again, the same thing, there's a learning to make space with that, to find curiosity about about that. And so what it feels to me like now is that I'm surfing. I'm surfing the his emotions in a way that is so exciting. Like, I would never have thought I was drowning in shame as a kid as a young adult drowning in it. And I would never, ever have believed that I would have said that, that being with shame would be a joyful thing ever, ever, and in some levels is not. But in another level, it absolutely is joyful, because I find my highest self right there in those moments. So I think it'll come back around to your question, we need to learn to surf, we need I don't think it's enough to just take these practices, it's like saying, It's like watching somebody on a surfboard having one little go and go, okay, cool. That's I now I know what you need to do. And it's like, no, you don't, like you don't know what you need to do, you actually need to practice this a lot, a lot, you know, in order to be able to actually stay on the board, when it's right at the top, or when it's crashing down on, or at least if it if you fall off the board, which you do, which I do for sure. To then not be in a terrible stuck place about that and to just simply be able to get back on on the board. So I hope that

Anita Adams: 00:46:26

yeah, I'd like that. I like the analogy. And I'd like the idea of of practicing this, like I think like any kind of transformation requires, you know, a conscious effort, and practicing the skills to to get better. And I guess what I would suggest is that we can practice it on the little things like when your phone keeps pinging during a podcast into the moment and except the mischievious monster that's, you know, rattling around inside or whatever it is, you know, when we find those, find those moments, being self aware, I think is so important. being self aware and recognizing when those little moments happen, and practice on the little things. And then I would I would assume that as we get better at being curious and, and connecting with those little monsters that when those monsters are bigger and scarier that we can deal with them, or accept them and embrace them so we can let go of them in in a more compassionate way. So

Matthew Cooksey: 00:47:33

it's beautiful, the idea to begin in these small moments, because I think we can probably have an easier time finding curiosity about a phone pinging, then, you know, bigger calamity in our lives. I've got something on my website, if anyone is hearing this and need some kind of resource, I have a resource that's called Finding Your higher self in the last place, you'd expect to find it, essentially. And it kind of goes through some of these steps to help people kind of work out how do they actually do some of this stuff. So it's just practice. It's practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. And before you know it, you're surfing, you know, it's amazing. Amazing. I've never thought that that I would be able to embrace truly, truly embrace these emotions tolerate maybe get over. Sure. But race. Yeah, race. For me, that's really the acid test of our highest self, because our higher self will embrace them. I can tell I can tell everyone that for sure. It will, it will not shrink.

Anita Adams: 00:48:51

I love that. And I just I'm pulling out my notes. Because you said something at the beginning of the show. And I thought though, it would be really good to reiterate it. spiritual maturity, more interested in the truth than feeling better. And that's that curiosity piece, being curious to understand the truth and just trying to feel better. So thank you for that. What is the what is the website that our listeners can go to to get that? That should be source?

Matthew Cooksey: 00:49:20

Yeah, it's just about to go live. Because I'm switching over. It's called unmistakable.com. And the whole premise is to take the mystery out of all of this, you know, so hence the name unmistakable.com. So can find me that great.

Anita Adams: 00:49:35

And I'm assuming that that that's your website, so people can if they want to find out about your coaching services and different things, that's all there as well. Awesome. Yeah.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:49:45

Making point out there. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's all there. So yeah, if anyone's feeling excited about the possibility of embracing these things, then you know where to find me and yeah, it's a joy to do this. Work with people. I also just wanted to acknowledge you, I need to have for like, my experience as a guest in the show has just been just a view just being real, you know, so real, so open to your own experience as it arises. And it has made this feel very fresh and very live this conversation and very concrete and practical to so thank you so much, Anita. But what you're doing here, I think you're you're embodying teaching so beautifully.

Anita Adams: 00:50:29

Thank you. I so appreciate that. I believe one of my assets is that I'm a very curious human being and why I'm started this show was, from my curiosity, I'm curious, I want to learn more, I want to understand how I can truly access my highest self so I can be of greatest service to my clients as well. So thank you for showing up and showing up with all of yourself to the show and playing full out with me. It's been really fun, a real a real honor and a pleasure to meet you. And I hope we will continue to have a dialogue as you continue the work that you're doing. I'd love to stay in the loop with what you are your big mission of bringing spirituality and psychology together and helping more people I think it's it's really interesting, the work you are are embracing, so very cool.

Matthew Cooksey: 00:51:25

Yeah, so good to be here. And thank you,