Surrendering Yourself to New Possibilities with Kute Blackson

Jul 17

Want to know what blocks your manifestation? Do you feel stuck and frustrated by things happening around you? Are you looking for ways to tap into your inner power and transform?

“There is no one-step formula for transformation because everyone’s needs are different.” – Kute Blackson, (4:20).

Have you ever heard the phrase "sweet surrender" and wondered how giving up could feel sweet? Usually, surrender means admitting defeat, and it's normal to think that way. But what if surrender isn't about losing? What if it's a brave choice to let go and stop trying to control everything?

Tune in to a deeply inspiring episode of "52 Weeks of Hope" as Lauren interviews transformational teacher and author, Kute Blackson. Explore Kute's incredible journey as he faced a pivotal choice between inheriting his father's church and following his path to inner peace. Discover how listening to his soul's calling led him through profound challenges to the life he’s meant to live.

“My fear was if I speak my truth, if I tell my truth, if I dare to be who I am, I'm going to lose my father. I'm going to be alone, I'm going to be an outcast, the community won't love me.”– Kute Blackson, - (05:28).

In this episode, Kute shares the transformative wisdom he gained about surrender—not as passive acceptance, but as a powerful act of courage and trust. Hear his touching story about his mother's dignified acceptance of life's end, and discover how surrender can unlock your true potential.

“I reflected on people like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Muhammad Ali, Bruce Lee, Bob Marley, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, and Mandela. These great individuals all, at some point, surrendered themselves to life and a purpose greater than themselves..” Kute Blackson, - (16:43).

“I think surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. To me, surrender is the real secret to manifestation, the real password to freedom, the key to our next level.”Kute Blackson, - (17:37).

Explore the essence of grieving authentically, feel the rawness of your emotions, and understand why acknowledging the lies you tell yourself is the starting point for deep transformation. Kute also opens up about his non-negotiable morning routines, offering insights into creating stillness and space for true self-reflection.

“We rationalize the lies and excuses as the unconscious, self-protective mechanism to keep the status quo. We stay in relationships that we know are not aligned and not true and not aligned and not authentic. We work jobs that we hate. That is not a true expression of our purpose.” Kute Blackson, - (23:29).

Discover practical steps to create space for stillness in your daily life, whether through meditation, journaling, or simply sitting quietly for 15 minutes a day. Learn why it’s crucial to feel your feelings fully and not use distractions or meditation as a bypass.

"It’s important to allow the sensations to move through your body and experience them fully." – Kute Blackson, (14:30).

Kute delves into the importance of self-care practices, like exercise, as non-negotiable commitments to oneself. He emphasizes that the world is undergoing a period of intense change, awakening, and collective purification, where old systems are collapsing to make way for new, more conscious ones.

If you're searching for hope, inspiration, and practical advice for living authentically, this episode is a must-listen.

In this episode:

(01:43) Kate's upbringing and experiences witnessing miracles
(03:42) Struggle with authentic purpose
(06:25) Decision to follow authentic path
(09:14) Journey to the US and spiritual awakening
(10:56) The Magic of Surrender book
(17:09) The power of surrender and its misconceptions
(20:43) Surrender and feminine principle
(22:09) Kute Blackson's role and teaching
(22:49) The lies we tell ourselves
(25:19) Acknowledging the truth
(26:26) Befriending the pain
(27:27) Quiet reflection and journaling
(29:43) Exercise and self-reflection
(30:43) Navigating personal challenges
(34:02) Feeling and processing emotions
(36:25) A message of hope
(42:07) Negative self-talk

Resources and Links

Weeks of Hope

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Podify - Website

About Kute Blackson

Kute Blackson is a renowned inspirational speaker and transformational teacher, celebrated for his national bestselling books, You Are The One and The Magic of Surrender. Often hailed as a next-generation leader in personal development, he has appeared on Larry King Now, Fox and Friends, and Dr. Drew, with Inc. magazine calling him “The Mindfulness Guru Billionaires Go To For Advice.” Born in Ghana to a Japanese mother and Ghanaian father, Kute’s multicultural upbringing has shaped his unique approach to spiritual awareness. For over 20 years, he has inspired audiences worldwide, offering practical insights and soul-stirring wisdom.

Kute Blackson

Kute Blackson - Website
Kute Blackson - Facebook
Kute Blackson - YouTube
Kute Blackson - Instagram
Kute's life Changing and Transformational Journey in Bali in December - Boundless Bliss

If you're feeling powerless or hopeless amid the ever-changing world events, this episode offers a message of hope, emphasizing that change starts within each individual. Lauren and Kute will help you:

Discover how surrendering, rather than merely accepting, opens up new dimensions of possibilities for you.
Understand the importance of acknowledging the lies you tell yourself and how the truth sets the stage for your transformation.
Learn to stay with your emotions, move away from distractions, and embrace grief as a path to healing.
Find out how making time for stillness through journaling or meditation can lead to profound personal insights and growth.
See how surrender is an act of courage and trust, not just a passive state, helping you live authentically and fearlessly.

Key Takeaways

“When we truly surrender, we're open, available. We're open to the infinite possibilities in life. That's when the magic happens.”- Kute Blackson, (18:58)

“Surrender is not just going with the flow. It’s staying open to possibilities beyond our limited vision." Kute Blackson, (19:39).

Lauren [00:00:00] Are you a burnt-out overachiever buried in responsibilities? Do you miss laughing with your friends just laughing from the gut? Do you feel like life's passing you by? If you've been wishing for some kind of shift, you're in the right place. Welcome to 52 Weeks of Hope, the show where we take you off the hamster wheel by ditching your to-do list for the to-don't list. This is where you get to learn how to make that lonely ache vanish. Learn self-compassion techniques and to give yourself grace. I'm Lauren Abrams and I get to help you feel that magic again since going to my own dark night of the soul, so you can learn from my experience and the mentors and experts I meet along the way. And today we're talking to inspirational speaker, author, and motivational leader Kute Blackson. You know that feeling that you're meant for something greater but feel like you're falling short? Are you ready to launch it? Align with your authentic purpose? You're going to love this episode. Kute is the one who helps you break free from all that earlier conditioning and discover, then manifest your true purpose. Listen right now and get inspired into your greatness, the life you were born for. Welcome to 52 weeks of Hope Kute.
Kute [00:01:04] Thanks for having me.

Lauren [00:01:07] Yeah, thanks. It's really good to see you.So I saw on your website and I love your YouTube because so for anybody in a good mood you've got to go right, you feel motivated. Like even if you don't know what your motivation is, you're just ready. I love watching them. But part of your mission is you help people access their inner freedom, live authentically, and fulfill life's purposes. Those are big statements. And I know you've been speaking since you were a little boy. It's such a great story. And yet you veer away from what some would say was your life's purpose. And I love how you didn't do it. Maybe your dad said yours is what you're supposed to do, son. And you stayed true to what you felt was right for you. So you want to talk about that a little bit.

Kute [00:01:55] Yeah, I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana, and my mother's Japanese. I grew up in London. I have lived in the US now since I was 18, 18,1/2 and so as a young boy, I always felt people's pain and I was a very empathetic kid. And so I would feel people's pain and I wanted to alleviate their pain in some way. I didn't know what that would look like. And so I grew up in a bit of an unusual environment, in that my first memories as a young boy was seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor. She picks up the sand that this man walks on. She wipes it on her face and stands up. And so miraculous, so to speak, as I grew up around these miracles, but I thought it was normal every week I grew up seeing the same man who essentially picked up, looked at a woman in a wheelchair and said, why in this wheelchair you're not sick. Stand up. And he put his hands on them and they would stand up. Somebody would come in with questions and he would say, three punches away, put his hands on them, and they would start walking. Somebody would come in, they had cancer. You would pray for them and they would be cured. This man was my father. And so I grew up in this, this, this, I don't know, all of the possibilities. And my father had 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa. He was a very spiritual, mystical man, so to speak. So I was blessed in that sense because I grew up with a real sense of spirituality in sort of the metaphysical realm as well. He had thousands of self-help personal growth books, spiritual books from eastern mystics, and Western mystics on his bookshelf. So I would sneak into my father's bookshelf from the age of 18 to his office from the age of eight and read books. And so I became very obsessed with trying to understand life. And who am I and why am I here? What's the purpose of life? Where do I come from? Where are we going? And so from age eight, I started speaking in my father's church. I was told in the audience one day at the age of eight, and I had no idea what was happening, but words started coming out of my mouth and I began my speaking career.

Lauren [00:03:55] You know, stage fright,

Kute [00:03:57] You know, I didn't think about it, to be honest. I think I was innocent enough and, you know, stupid enough. Not not really self-aware enough that just. I just stood there and something happened, you know? And so, from that moment, I would speak every few weeks, every month, every six weeks, every 1 to 2 months. I'd be speaking at my best church. And that was really I know it was a very special experience looking back now.

Lauren [00:04:23] Yeah.

Kute [00:04:23] And so when I was 14, I was actually ordained as a minister, and I was given the mandate to take over my father's organization. And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of followers in Ghana, West Africa, right, and 5000 people every Sunday in London. And so it was announced, unbeknownst to me, that I was the guy that was going to take over my, you know, my father's spiritual legacy and his organization. And when it was announced, I knew that this was my heart sinking because I knew this wasn't my path, this wasn't my destiny, this wasn't my trajectory, my purpose in life.

Lauren [00:04:59] And it was yours. I want to just ask, was your mom in line with this? Did she just agree? Was she there?

Kute [00:05:05] We don't know either. Imagine we were both on stage and all of a sudden my mom's on stage. I'm on stage. My dad says to 5000 people. My son's taking over. And I look at my mom across the stage, and she looks at me, and she doesn't know. And it was just the same, right? It was just what was happening. And so I knew at that moment that this was not my path. And my heart sank in a seventh sense because I knew I wanted to help people, but I just knew this wasn't a line. I knew this wasn't my destiny, at least the form with which I felt called express. And so I was just too afraid. And my fear was if I speak my truth, if I tell my truth if I dare to be who I am. When I lose my father, I'm going to be alone. I'm going to be an outcast. I'm going to the community. Mom loved me. And so, like many of us, I think we allow fear to hijack our authentic expression. And I said nothing for four years, and went along with it, but all the while trying to convince myself that no, I may. I could do this. Maybe I can make this work. I can make this happen. And yet there was always this niggling feeling inside of me that something was not aligned. Something's not right. So it was a tremendous internal conflict that I went through. And so the shift happened when I was 18. I started feeling a deep calling, a deep nudging to come to Southern California specifically, either Los Angeles or San Diego, because this is where all of the self-help books that read were all of the authors.

Lauren [00:06:38] Okay, which ones are you reading? Which were you most drawn to at a young age?

Kute [00:06:42] Look, this age 11, I was reading Tony Robbins, age 12. I studied Deepak Chopra, you know, Wayne Dyer, Lewis. Hey, Marianne Williamson, Brian Tracy, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, I mean Dan Millman, check the guy, Wayne, the list goes on. And so they all seem to live in Southern California. And so I felt this nudging in my soul like, go to Los Angeles, go to Los Angeles, go to Bobby engines, go to Los Angeles, go to Los Angeles. And so, you know, sometimes what your soul guides you to do doesn't always make sense to your logic. It doesn't always make sense to your ego or your mind. But I really believe that when we dare to follow our soul, when we follow our soul without compromise, I really believe that we will always end up in the right place and will always be guided in the right path, even though the route that we take may not be the one that we most expect. And so I knew what I had to do because as I looked into my future, the alternative was to take over my father's church take it to the next level, and become successful. But I thought. What kind of success is it to succeed by the world's standards? But if you don't have yourself, if you don't have your peace if you don't have your integrity. And I felt the pain of my own self-betrayal. And I thought, if I start lying to myself now, I'm going to have to live the rest of my life living a lie. And that felt so painful. 2013 4050 felt so painful that I knew, I knew I couldn't do it and it was hard. It was difficult. It was terrifying. Because, you know, I'm 80 and I have no money. I have no support from my father, going by myself. I have no college degree. I mean, what are my prospects in life? I just want to go to self-help, I feel that it's not a thing. It's not a thing. At least back now. It's become a bit of a thing with YouTube. But back then, there was nothing. And so I had the conversation with my father, and I think that was the day the trajectory of my life shifted, and I let go of everything I knew, renounced everything, and said, I'm not taking over. My father and I. We didn't speak for 2 to 3 years, which was deeply challenging. And that's when I said a prayer to God. And I said, God, you have given me a vision. I was on the verge of giving up, but I felt like, you know, the universe, you've given me a vision and I feel it and I sense it, and I feel I meant to reach millions of people in my lifetime, and so don't leave me now, basically. And that's when someone handed me a magazine called The Economist. I looked in the back of the magazine and I felt chills in my body, I wasn't sure why. The back of the magazine says the American government's giving away 55,000 green cars and a green card lottery, and I applied. I won a green card in the green card lottery, and that enabled me to come to the U.S. with two suitcases, $800 in my pocket, and, showed up with a dream. And then I came and I found many of the teachers and the mentors, and I read about that when I studied with them, went to the seminars, harassed some of them, you know, and just learned. And then a few years later, after being in the US, I decided to travel. I started traveling to Israel, studying with some rabbis, went to Thailand, studied with some monks, ended up in India, and had some very deep and profound experiences in India. It's really my time in India that opened me to a deeper dimension of myself and my own purpose, and I wanted everyone to experience the sort of inner freedom that I was feeling. And it wasn't based on that. I was famous or had a house or nothing. I had nothing, but I felt free and free. And so I thought, how can people experience this? So I just started working with people one one-on-one. And this was before coaching was super popular. Yeah, one person came, another person came. Then I started to create my own way of working with people. I call it coaching. And out of my own inner transformation, I began to create a methodology of working with people. And then people started coming from around, around the world. And before you knew it, small groups, large groups, retreats, seminars, and it just began expanding to bestselling books. And that's a bit of my story.

Lauren [00:10:52] I mean, I've known about Surrender to Win for a long time. And your book is The Magic of Surrender, which people love. It's a great book. You want to talk about how you came up with the magic of surrender?

Kute [00:11:10] Yeah, the magic of surrender. Honestly, it was not. The book I wanted to write.

Lauren [00:11:15] Was that.

Kute [00:11:16] It was not the book I even thought I would write. To be honest, I sat down one day. My first book I had done really very well. It was a national bestseller. You Are the One. And I wanted to write. I thought, I'm going to write another amazing bestselling book. It's going to get me on Oprah. It's going to be a New York Times bestseller. Right? And so I sat down with a whiteboard and started, started coming up with all of these clever ideas, at least clever ideas. Right. And I brainstormed 50, 75, 100 titles that I thought would be amazing titles, different topics, different angles of what I thought my publisher would want, what I thought the world wanted, what I thought my clients would want, what I thought would build my brand. But the truth is, they were all brilliant ideas. But none of the ideas felt authentic. None of the ideas felt really aligned and true in my being, in my body, in my gut, in my soul. I couldn't look you in the eyes and say, this is the book. This is what feels like integrity. And the only word on this whiteboard that I felt a resonance with was the word surrender. It was like a light around it. I thought, oh shit, surrender. I don't know if I want to even go there because we have all of these misconceptions about surrender. And so I was resisting, and I had to surrender to the book about surrender. I saw that this was the book that was seeking to be written, and this was the book. It had a soul of its own, and I could lie to myself about it, but it felt the energy felt so clear that this is what is seeking to come through. And I could have resisted. And I think many of us, we get sick, we get depressed, we feel tired, we feel exhausted because we're so busy resisting what's true, resisting our destiny, resisting our calling, resisting our purpose. And so I said yes to it. And that's when all of my life, my childhood, my parents, how they met, how they lived, what we everything began to make sense. And I felt like I was born to write this book about surrender and inspire a whole new way of living. And I would say to also answer your question, I began to see that the seed of the book was planted a few years ago, because in 2016, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer and she was the person I love the most. She was like she raised me and she taught me about love, you know, and like, yeah, my best friend to a degree in a sense, you know, I mean, I really love this woman. And so to hear that she had some cancer and this was very serious just shattered my heart. And so I began living in L.A. I began to fly back and forth from L.A. to London every month for a week, three weeks in L.A. one week, and learn through the entire year. And what started out as, I would say, the worst year of my life ended up being the best year of my life. And I had gone into this year with every intention to heal my mother. I was going to wheel her into health and my supplements and green powders and you know, alternative therapies. And after about a month of being with them, I'm like, shit, I don't think she's that she's not interested. And so I had to just let go and realize that she has her own soul journey. And that freed me up to just be present with her and love her and just be with her, you know? And about six months into the process of going back and forth, spending time with her, the doctors finally said, there's nothing else we can do. So basically, you know, you're going to die soon. Could be days, weeks, months, but get your affairs in order. And two things happen. Two questions I asked my mother. Number one, my mother's a little Japanese woman, and I asked my mother, are you afraid? Are you afraid of dying? Because clearly that day is coming. And she looked me in the eyes without wavering, and she simply said. No, I'm not afraid of dying because I know I'm not this body. That even though this body will die, what I am will live. And this body is just a temporary vehicle for my soul. So I'm not afraid of death. And I just felt her freedom and her strength, you know? And then I looked over because I wanted to. I wanted to be a good son. And I thought, okay, Mom, what can I do for you in your final days to make your final days easier? It was a tough conversation, like, what do you need? Can I buy you something? Take you somewhere? And she says to me, and she again looks me in the eyes very sincerely. And she says, there's nothing I need and there's nothing I want. All I want is what God wants for my life. That's it. And I was stunned by her response because it wasn't like a religious statement. But I saw that she was at peace, and I saw that the reason she was up and this entire year, she didn't cry, she didn't moan, she didn't complain. She was a very emotional person. But she was free. She was free. She wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. She was open to the highest unfolding of her soul's destiny. And she surrendered. And I saw the power of surrender in action at that moment. Not in an ashram in the Himalayas, but in a hospital in the midst of death. In the face of your mortality. Like this is what someone looks like. And she was at peace. And so that really, I think, inspired me to write the book, because when I thought of her, I thought, wow, this is what makes her truly great. But then I reflected on people like Jesus and Buddha and Gandhi and Muhammad Ali and Bruce Lee and Bob Marley and Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa. And I thought Mandela and I thought these great people, they all at some point, surrendered themselves. They surrendered themselves to life. They surrendered themselves to a purpose bigger than themselves, the surrender themselves to God, the divine, the universe, the infinite intelligence to their soul. In that surrender, they transcended their own human limitations, ego limitations, and they tapped into another dimension of true potentiality. And life was able to use them and live through them, and manifest through them in ways that went far beyond their own personality, egos, capacity. And I thought, that is the power of surrender. And so I just want to say, you know, I think surrender is the most powerful thing that we could do. To me, surrender is the real secret to manifestation. It's the real password to freedom that is the key to our next level. And yet, in our culture, there was this misconception that surrender was weak, that surrender was passive, that it's giving up. It's waving the white flag, that if you surrender, you're going to get left behind. You're going to be a doormat. If you surrender, you won't manifest your goals, your dreams, your desires. And what I'm saying is, no. If you really understand the essence of true, authentic surrender, true surrender that these great ones demonstrated throughout history, what if you didn't get less in life? But what if you actually got more like more than you could have even imagined and envisioned for yourself? So I don't see surrender as a weak thing. And for me, I am so excited at this time in human history to reframe for people, surrender, and invite people to a whole new way of living. And so surrender is to let go of control, I should say, the illusion of control. Yeah. Let go of a way of living where we tried to force life to fit our limited idea, how we think it should be, and the idea of who we think we should be, how we think life should be, so that we can be open and available and allow life to lead us, life to show us. I think when we truly surrender and we're open, available, we're open to the infinite possibilities in life. That's when the magic happens. And that's why the book called The Magic of Surrender challenges. We all want the magic, but we often don't want to surrender. It doesn't work that way.

Lauren [00:19:26] Now, I love that I got very moved. I kept saying, oh, I didn't get it, I didn't think I got changed. I just got back from a seven-day silent retreat. Yeah, and I'm chatty. So I just thought that not talking would be the challenge, but it was all meditation, so it was going with it and going with it. I'm going with it. And I got so moved I was like, okay, yeah, there's my change. I'm very sensitive, but I love what you have to say. And for me, surrender means not just going with the flow, which it is. It's, the White Flag part II. Somebody used to have a white flag and they'd be like, put it up and say, quit fighting. If you're fighting, you're not surrendered. And it's beyond me. It's staying open beyond my limited vision. And if you go, go where the rivers flow. Going, stop! Stop trying to fight against the stream. And if you go with it, if you're fighting, you're not surrendered. Yeah. Go where it's easier. That means you've surrendered. That's how it was taught to me. So. But when you were first talking about surrender, I was thinking, that's so not masculine sounding, which is such an old construct, but I can't imagine from where you came from, if you told your father the title of your book to his huge congregation. And, so, I mean, I love all of it the way you describe it, because it is just surrendering your old ideas, being open to everything. Because it takes courage.

Kute [00:20:55] It takes a man this courage that takes tremendous footsteps, that takes tremendous heart, that takes tremendous trust. And on some level, surrender is a bit more of a feminine, you know, principle.

Lauren [00:21:10] Just a word. And you know, what is the word?

Kute [00:21:12] I think it is a bit more of a feminine principle to surrender. And we all have masculine and feminine sides. Right? But it takes great power.

Lauren [00:21:22] Every time you're a coach, have you surrendered certain business ideas? I mean, you know, somebody does that. They're taking ideas of their business from a coach or you're listening. I mean, there's a lot of different forms of surrender, but I love the way you described it and just being open to the magic. I mean, everybody wants magic, everyone wants joy. I mean, there are higher frequencies anyway. So you seem to really light up when you talk about India and what I've read about your trips that you took people on to India, they say like survival of the fittest for.

Kute [00:22:01] I don't do those in.

Lauren [00:22:02] I didn't think so. That didn't sound like surrender. And most people are surrendering to your way of the trip. So yeah.

Kute [00:22:08] No it was a profound surrender. And it was all about teaching people surrender, but I just don't do those anymore.

Lauren [00:22:15] Yeah. So when people ask you what you do for a living, you say, I'm a motivational speaker. Like, what's the most common question you ask?

Kute [00:22:22] I'm not a motivational teacher or speaker. It may be that people are motivated, but if anything, I'm a transformational teacher. I help people peel away the layers of their own conditioning so that they can see who they really are and live that in the world. And I help. So I help people access their own inner freedom more than anything. And so people transform.

Lauren [00:22:44] So if somebody's listening and they want to know what are the first few steps that I could take because everybody listening is not going to be able to access you. I mean, they actually can be on YouTube with his books and we have links to everything for you along with the description of the episode. But what are some steps that they can take to help themselves?

Kute [00:23:03] So look, I don't I would just sort of frame it to say, I don't think there's a one-step formula for everybody because everybody is different. We're all human beings and we all need different things at different moments. What I will say is, in a general sense, if someone is wondering where they can begin, I think one simple but very real place to start is that if they begin here, life will begin to transform for sure. Doesn't matter where you are. One of the things as human beings that keeps us stuck are all the ways that we like to ourselves. In so many ways, consciously or unconsciously, we lie to ourselves, we b.s. ourselves, and we rationalize the lies and excuses as the unconscious, self-protective mechanism to keep the status quo. We stay in relationships that we know are not aligned, are not true, are not aligned, are not authentic. We work jobs that we hate. That is not a true expression of our purpose. We say yes when we mean enough. We betray our integrity. I mean, the list goes on and we can get into the reasons why. And so I think that one place where people can start is to begin to look at and ask themselves the question, what lies am I telling myself? There is no transformation without truth, the original truth, freedom without truth, the truth will set us free. To me, truth is real yoga. Truth is real. But real spirituality isn't just prayers of mantras. And you know, yoga posture is telling yourself the freaking truth about who you are, about what you feel, about what's not. So you know yet. I think in so many ways, like as a child, I was too afraid to tell my truth to my father because I was afraid of the consequences. And so what I would just encourage people as a support is don't put any pressure on yourself to take action, because sometimes the fear of the consequence of taking the action by telling the truth is what freaks us out. And so unconsciously, we stop playing this game of confusion. I don't know when I really feel I don't know what my purpose is. I don't know what's really true. I'm not sure if this relationship is right for me when deep down we. Because there's a part of us and the deepest level that is connected to everything, because at the deepest level, we are everything. And so we know if we're really honest, we have a sense, if we're really honest, we know some things are aligned here, but because we're afraid of the consequences. So I tell people, take off the pressure of taking action and just acknowledge the truth. Might sound like. I'm no longer in love with this person. Scares me to think what that might mean. It scares me to think of bricks. You don't have to break up. You don't have to divorce, but just acknowledge the truth. Haven't been in love for six years. And I'm afraid. Or I hate my job. I've hated my job for the last two years, and I hate it. And that's true. You don't have to leave. But just acknowledging the truth brings you into a relationship with what it brings you into relationship with reality. And you can't change reality until you are in a relationship with it without any judgment. And so what lies am I telling myself? Really? Start telling the truth. What am I pretending to not know? Thirdly, I would invite people as they go down the path of the truth to begin acknowledging their feelings and acknowledging the pain, the pain of not telling themselves the truth. Because when we don't tell ourselves the truth, whether aware or not, it is painful. And often the pain that we feel is a sign that we're not telling ourselves the truth, even though we're not consciously lying to ourselves. But what we tend to do when we feel the pain is we tend to distract ourselves. We drink it away. Six of the ways drug it. The way social media works. We shop it away, travel. We work it away just so that we don't feel the pain. But the pain is a blessing. The pain is a messenger. The pain is a mirror. The pain is feedback. Trying to get our attention, showing us that in some way we're not in integrity, we're not in alignment in some way. And so what we have to stop doing is befriending the pain and asking the pain, what are you trying to teach me? Yeah. What are you trying to show me? Where am I not in alignment? Where am I not living my true integrity? When we lie to ourselves, it's meant to be painful. It's meant to be painful. And so I think people can just begin there and start there. What lies am I telling myself? And just feeling the impact and the cost of those lies? As a beginning point.

Lauren [00:27:35] Did you suggest doing that in meditation, having the quiet or journaling or both?

Kute [00:27:40] Either, I think to myself. You know, I think sometimes we keep ourselves so busy as human beings, you know, we run around, we're so busy, busy, busy, busy. And I think that was one of the interesting things about this pandemic experience, where for the first time, we couldn't go anywhere, we couldn't run around. And it freaked us out because, oh, shoot, now I can't stay busy because I think many times we're afraid of not being busy because we're afraid. If I am not busy, then I might actually listen and be still. And he has some truth that I don't want to hear. But if I distract myself, then I won't actually have to hear it. And so I would invite people, create time and space in your daily life to be still in that stillness. Just listen to that listening. Yes, meditate. But also sometimes the danger becomes we use meditation as a way or a spiritual bypass to bypass the feeling, the true feeling. Let me just meditate this feeling away. Let me just spiritualize this feeling away. You know, it's all good. It's all good. Let me just transcend it away rather than just integrate it and acknowledge it like this. This hurts. I'm not going to distract myself. I'm not going to meditate the way I'm going to face it. And so, yes, journal, write about it, get your truth out without any filter. Then that begins that process. But even just even if someone were to just say, you know what, for 50 minutes a day I'm going to sit and just do nothing. No phones, no devices, and just see what's present to me. That's a stop just to sit and just do nothing and just be with oneself. That is huge stuff. Then you could journal and see what's there and then see what's next.

Lauren [00:29:20] Yeah. You got to feel your feelings or it's going to come out somewhere anyway. Yeah. No, no two ways right? Yeah. The couple that so lasted during the pandemic for just a few for splitting up that if you're like wow I never saw that.

Kute [00:29:34] You're like wow, this is how I really feel about you, right?

Lauren [00:29:37] Yeah I know, I know, I go, oh, I didn't think that split up. But yeah, that 24-seven thing. So how do you make more time for yourself? Do you take that time to sit? You go out and just take walks. Make sure you get outside every day. Do you. What do you do?

Kute [00:29:56] I that's pretty simple. I mean, for me, it's nothing fancy. Every morning I exercise. That's my self-time exercise. That's and that's non-negotiable. Yeah. And that will mean if I have to be at the airport by 4:00 am, I wake up at 1 a.m. or, you know, if I have to be in the airport at seven, I'll, I'll exercise at 3: 30. And because that allows me to process and think and just reflect also and I'll sit throughout the week three, four times in a week and just journal and just put my thoughts on paper as a way to just process my feelings and process whatever is going on inside. And sometimes you end up surprised, like, wow, I did. What was even thinking less than I was even feeling this. And so it's just really simple ways of just being with myself through the exercise to meditation, to journaling.

Lauren [00:30:44] Yeah. The usual nothing, nothing. That's different, I guess. What's the hardest challenge that you've gone through personally, and how did you get through it?

Kute [00:30:55] I can't say there's one. I mean, there's been so many, you know, so many. I write about it in my book, My Mother Passing Away. That was a real challenge. But on a whole nother level. Incredibly beautiful. You know, when we talk about surrender, there's a difference between acceptance and surrender. And to me, here's a real key. Because how I got through the challenging moment, challenging time with my mother's death was really pointing to what I'm about to say. Many times we don't move into authentic, open-hearted surrender. Surrender is the full, open-hearted participation with the process of life that is happening. Like this is happening, and I'm going to be open to it, and I'm going to use whatever's happening for my highest good. I'm surrendering to this experience right now. Acceptance might be like, okay, it's happening. I accept this happening. I'm a bit pissed off that it's happening, but it is what it is. But I'm not participating fully and I'm just going to deal with it. Right? To truly move into surrender. Open heart to surrender. There's a phase in the middle that often we miss, and this phase is grieving. Grief is a doorway and portal. To authentic surrender. But in our culture, we're not taught to feel our feelings. We're not taught to grieve because there's a fear that if I grieve or feel my feelings and it's going to last forever, I'll never come back. It's going to overwhelm me. It's going to be too much. And so, you know, what we do is we avoid it. We distract the selves, we don't feel the feelings. And so we're also afraid sometimes we do a spiritual bypass where as a way to not deal with our feelings, we spiritualize it like it's all good, it's all gone. That's all. Which is true. But it doesn't honor the layer of grief that is unprocessed and dealt with. Sometimes not feeling the grief and acknowledging and dealing with the grief becomes the ego strategy of denial. Denial as a way of if I don't acknowledge, for instance, that my mother died, then I can always like the don't have to really acknowledge that it's really happened, then I can always stay connected to her in some way. But if I really acknowledge the grief, it's letting go. On one level, you see, surrender is a death. It's the death of an idea. It's the death of a relationship. It's the death of who we thought we were. It's the death of an identity. It's the death of moving from one stage of one's life to another stage and phase of one's life. Wow. I'm no longer 20. I'm 30, I'm no longer 30. I'm 40. And along the 40 Am 50. And they just surrender. That happens. And so to really acknowledge the grief is to acknowledge what was is to acknowledge the past, is to then let go, to give oneself the space, to let go of what was. And so all feelings remain present. I'm still fully felt and no feelings are lost forever. And the feelings that we don't feel and acknowledge fully, authentically will tend to manifest in unhealthy ways. And so when we can just be with the grief and acknowledge to not wallow in it, but be with it fully, consciously, with intention, we're able to let the grief go in stages.

Lauren [00:34:08] Yeah, there's a fine line there, definitely, between the wallow and just feeling your feelings fully leaning into them.

Kute [00:34:16] And this is how this might help people. Also, I would just say that sometimes people think they tell me I've been feeling my feelings forever. I've been feeling them. And it just I just can't. This is still present, but we think we're feeling our feelings, but we don't realize that we're busy thinking about our feelings, justifying, resisting, rationalizing, analyzing, trying to understand the feelings and not really just being with the feelings authentically. And there is a difference. So I tell people how to feel your feelings. Simple on one level. Simple. Take the label off of the feelings. Grief, sadness. You know, take the label off and just allow yourself without a label, without a preconceived idea to experience the sensation. Experience the sensation of the grief in quotation marks just in your body. What is the sensation and when you can be with the sensation of the grief, just be with it and notice where it is. Notice what happens. Just notice what happens when you could just be with it. You get into a relationship with it, you can fully experience it, and you start seeing that every feeling has its own natural cycle. And maybe grief has layers like an onion has layers and has layers. And so maybe one day you feel one, one layer of that grief, another day there's another wave, another day there's another way. And each time you just be with it, fully embracing, surrendering to the experience with that resistance, an aspect, a layer, a dimension of that grief dissolves. But so being with the feeling, not as an idea or concept or trying to resist it, but as just as a pure sensation through energy than we were actually experiencing it.

Lauren [00:36:00] Right. Is my jaw an example? Your jaws are tighter. It's in your heart and chest, or it's in your tight stomach or your hands. You notice wherever it is and it moves right. For me at least, if I stay with it, I notice it'll start moving through my body. That's what I notice, at least if I may have to stay with it and not go back into my head. Yeah. It's a process. Yeah. That's at least for me. I always think people in India are a lot more evolved. When I'm in Bali, though, I feel like I'm kind of there. It's a whole different energy. Do you have a message of hope you want to give?

Kute [00:36:38] You know, speaking to someone about this the other day, they will look into the world and they're feeling a bit powerless, you know, feeling a bit hopeless as they were looking at what's happening politically in the world climate and, you know, crypto and the stock market of real estate.

Lauren [00:36:52] And I always think those things always change. I don't know if I like that. Yeah.

Kute [00:36:57] But what. Feeling hopeless.

Lauren [00:37:00] Yes I know it's hopeless. I just have n't ever mentioned this, but that's what my husband does for a living. And one day he came home and he said something about the stock market going down or something. And I said, if you. Every day saying what direction that all of that went, we wouldn't be together. It changes every single day. I'm sure I don't pay attention. I mean, so I mean.

Kute [00:37:22] If that stuff comes.

Lauren [00:37:23] Up and doubt.

Kute [00:37:24] Yes, it's the nature of life. And so I just feel like we are in the midst of a real incredible awakening right now on planet Earth. And even though it might seem like we're going through some challenging, intense times, I really believe that old systems are collapsing, old ways of doing things are collapsing, old economic models are collapsing, and all financial systems are collapsing. And for anything new to be born, the old has to collapse. The old has to be replaced. You know, for a baby to be born, it has to push through and leave its comfort zone and go through the birth canal to be born into a new world. That caterpillar has to leave its shell so that it can be birthed into the butterfly. And so right now, I feel as though we're in that process right now where, you know, in any true authentic healing process, mental, emotional, psychological, therapeutic, healing process, the unconscious, suppressed belief systems, emotions, feelings, shadow has to be brought to light to be seen so that we can face it and heal it and release it and bring loving to it and clear it. And so it feels like it is on planet Earth. Everything's coming up. Everything it's coming up for us to see is reflected in politics and finances and the world. And, you know, everything's coming up. The collective unconscious and shadow is coming up for us to face, to see and release. And so I feel as though we are in the process of a tremendous purification collectively like never before. And it's not that the world is going crazy. The world is getting more sane and sobering and purifying and healing through this time. And so I am very hopeful and I am very hopeful during this time. It's easy to look at the world, sometimes go, this is wrong, that's wrong. This president, that president, this to me. And I don't care who's president, it doesn't matter who's prime minister, it doesn't matter who's the mayor. I mean, sure, maybe we have our preferences, but the truth is, the world is a mirror manifestation, the collective consciousness of all of us combined. The world is a projection of our consciousness combined. And we may not be able to change the world out here or change the government out here, but each and every one of us has the power. Each and every one of us has the power and the control to change ourselves. And I think when we change ourselves, when we look at the world and we go, wow, I don't like this, this, this and this, we have to ask ourselves, what does this person, what does this leader, what does this government, what does this reflect me about myself? Because in so many ways, we look at the world that's at war. We feel hopeless, we lose hope. But in so many ways, we're at war in our own consciousness, dropping bombs of self-hatred daily. We have so much internal conflict and division within ourselves daily. It's easy to look at a leader in politics and they have no one to take you. But in so many ways, we betray ourselves and don't have integrity with ourselves daily. And so I think we can all do is take the feedback from the world and say, you know what? I'm going to do my part to make the world a better place by healing myself, by making peace with myself, by loving myself. And so I am hopeful because I see that there is a quickening happening on planet Earth like never before. To me, I feel we are in the midst of the greatest spiritual revolution at the borders ever seen, and we are in the process of making a quantum leap in consciousness like never before. So to me, every one of us listening to this conversation, we incarnated at this particular time in human history for a reason. It's no accident that you incarnated. It's no accident that you hear your soul chose to be here, and we can no longer go to sleep or be in a coca coma. It's time for us all to wake up and participate in the grand process of evolution that is happening to me. I'm excited.

Lauren [00:41:15] Oh, that was an incredible message of hope. That's what I thought was great. I talked to this rabbi and she does it. She's very brilliant. And she just remembered telling me this. I reminded her a couple of years later, and she told me when I was incredibly disheartened after one particular election and she said the world needed to be shaken up. I'm paraphrasing. Yes. And she said, and so it just needed a big shaking. And then that's what's happening. And I just held on to that. Yeah. So that's, that's what's that I, you know who's your caterpillar. And I loved all of it. I love the birthday I loved and I held on to that and she liked it anyway. I reminded her a few years later when she got arrested in New York, her whole congregation, that she's very cool. Anyway, I just thought that was really great. I was going to ask you what to do about negative self-talk in your head, but we know what you do, and I think you kind of addressed that.

Kute [00:42:20] Yeah. Just because a voice is in your head doesn't mean it's true is just annoying. Observe it. Notice it, love it.

Lauren [00:42:26] Yeah. That's good. Is there anything else I should have asked you that will be done you'll say Lauren never asked me about?

Kute [00:42:32] We had a lovely conversation.

Lauren [00:42:33] Yeah, I thought that was great. I loved your message of hope that was a great place to end. Thank you so much for being a guest today on 52 Weeks of Hope.

Kute [00:42:41] Thanks for having.

Lauren [00:42:43] I hope you enjoyed this week's episode and take with you messages of greatness, truth, and authenticity. Such great messages to take into your week ahead. Be sure to tune in next week when the Manifestation Master herself joins Jen Mazer. She is one of the most sought-after transformational speakers and coaches, and she teaches you how to manifest your absolute biggest dreams. It's a great episode. It is so upbeat and it's one of my favorites. That's next week. You definitely don't want to miss that. If you haven't already, please subscribe, rate and review the podcast. If you don't know how to do that, you can just go to the website at 52weeksof hope.com. There's a button there to click a link and subscribe and review and it's really appreciated. Also, all the podcasts are in the show notes. It's all on the website at 52weeksofhope.com. If you're enjoying the podcast, share the love, and tell two of your friends. I really appreciate you and appreciate your listening and being part of this community. I'm Lauren Abrams. Thanks for listening.