How Words Shape Our Perception Of Life with Stuart Elliott

Tanya Gill: 00:00:00

Friends Welcome to the trifecta of joy. I'm joined today by Stuart Elliott. Stuart is a mindful hypnotic life coach, and he helps people snap out of their trances of unworthiness and self sabotage. So they can go on to create a deeply fulfilling happy life. Now, the trifecta of joy is about awareness, befriending your inner critic and raising your vibe. So Stuart, I'm so glad you're here to join us today.

Stuart Elliott: 00:00:26

Thank you for inviting me, it's wonderful to be able to speak and share some stories with your audience and hear yourself obviously, so it's great.

Tanya Gill: 00:00:34

Oh, I'm so glad you're here. So, before we started recording, we were talking a little bit about the impact and power of the subconscious mind. And so, you know, tell me a little bit about your experience of working with people and their subconscious mind. Well,

Stuart Elliott: 00:00:51

the subconscious mind, you know, the conscious and subconscious, just labels, and really, the mind is the mind. But you know, for convenience, we like to use labels and other you know, we can talk about labels later, because they are very important in English language. But really, the subconscious mind is there to protect us to help us. We all know about the fight or flight syndrome, we all know that we breathe, but we don't consciously, we're not consciously aware of it most of the time. And, you know, it's an automatic process. But it also can pick up messages, shall we say, from unintended sources, which would then we can process and take any news unconsciously without realizing it, to limit us. And a good example of this is, you know, when a parent has a child, you know, the child starts crying runs into something or something like that, it starts crying, or just cries for no reason as children do. And the parent comes along, I said, What's wrong with you? And this starts, you know, giving a lot of attention, what's wrong with you? What's wrong with you, the message keeps coming through and through childhood, the conscious mind picks up what's wrong with me, there's something wrong, there's something wrong, there's something wrong. And then later in life, this then becomes a part of their habitual thinking that they're not perfect that there's something wrong with them. Done with the best intention that people don't understand. Because again, we're not taught a lot about the mind communication in school or even through childhood. We're just assumed to be able to communicate, knows much better to say, What's making you cry. Yeah, something's making me cry. And it's, you know, it's such a simple little thing. And, you know, again, with wording with with the way we talked myself or the way we think, or if you say to me, how can I help you? The message to the Mayan culture is, can you help me? It's not the message you wanted to give. Now, if you'd have said, I'm curious how I can help you.

Tanya Gill: 00:03:00

Interesting, right, ah, can I help you versus

Stuart Elliott: 00:03:05

how I can,

Tanya Gill: 00:03:07

I can help you

Stuart Elliott: 00:03:09

messages now how not? Whether or not you can help me. And there's this, you know, there's lots of this type of talking we're doing to ourselves every single day. And we forget all the things that we can do that we've learned to do all the difficult things like walking, like writing, like speaking all these things, we should get them. They just everyone can do that. And then we've met with a new challenge. I can't do that.

Tanya Gill: 00:03:39

It's so interesting.

Stuart Elliott: 00:03:40

Add on the Yes. Yeah, that I can learn. And remember, we learned to walk. I mean, did you ever meet a child that doubted it could walk? Hmm, good point.

Tanya Gill: 00:03:52

One step at a time.

Stuart Elliott: 00:03:54

Yeah, it just did it. Because the new record and my little child, my eldest child, where she first took a couple of steps, she then goes, she's so happy. That's what we should do. We should learn from our past from our progress and from children.

Tanya Gill: 00:04:12

Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, it's so it's so fitting because what you know, in in part, one of the foundations of the trifecta of joy is befriending your inner critic, and befriending your inner critic is recognizing that you do come from that cultural stew, right? So and the cultural stew is everything that you learn and you pick up along the way in life, right? Everything like the don't not knows, right, what you didn't do. And often they came from a place of keeping us safe, like you said, and yet we internalize them. And sometimes those internal stories become so embedded in us that we don't even recognize that we're react Doing to a very, very old story that really no longer is the truth. Right?

Stuart Elliott: 00:05:06

Well, maybe it was never the truth in the first place. You know, that's the thing that we just took it on as the truth. And that, you know, that's where a lot of challenges lie with people. You know, that's, that's, that's the thing, our mind is very funny. You know, there's a lot of little things like that, that we can pick up. And they're not meant to be negative, but we take them internally as negative.

Tanya Gill: 00:05:29

We do we do, we take them as internally as negative, and then we make that about our experience of our self worth. Right? And what we believe we are capable of doing moving forward. Right. And I think that, I think that as humans, we are meant to evolve. And we are meant to grow. And we are meant to experience, we are meant to falter and fail along the way. And that's part of living to see too, is the learning that comes along the way. Yeah, I mean,

Stuart Elliott: 00:06:06

I just sent a message to one of my clients yesterday to say to her that your failures or mistakes of yesterday, are your reservoir of wisdom for today. And that's so true. It's just what you said.

Tanya Gill: 00:06:21

The reservoir of wisdom for today. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. In one of my programs, I have a program called shine and it's about body awareness and, and really loving yourself to a place of moving into, if you want to lose weight, that can be part of your path, if you want to create peace with your body as it is, that's part of it. But it really is a mind body spirit experience. Right. And that's an that's such an important piece of understanding ourselves. What I love is that, when you talk about that, you know, one of the things that we come up with, when you talk about the failures of the past being being your wisdom of today, and and being able to acknowledge that wisdom of today is that we can be in that place of fear. And you know, the acronym for fear face everything and rise, or Rob, Buck everything and run. Right. And so And really, we I think that sometimes our minds, you know, we go through that back and forth back and forth of this fear exists and what do I do with it? Right, and what do I do with that fear? Have you ever had an experience in your life where you've really been faced with a fear and and how did you move through it?

Stuart Elliott: 00:07:52

I've had many I spent a lot of time in Africa I spent nearly 20 years living there and I love the African bush I love the outside with the wild animals the Big Five camping, you know, in game reserves have had lions sniffing around the tents at nighttime and the very, very first time that happened, that was that was pretty scary. How just lay there and I put Qasim all the way is just to the side, I didn't hear anything and tried to keep the Stila quiet as possible. And the next one, when you see these footprints this big, all the way around the tent, then you think to yourself, yeah, well, but you know, it's interesting. I was on a game reserve against a game a morning game walk one morning, and I love to be next to the Ranger the guy you know who's at the front, because I want to see things and those eight of us in this little little party and the other people were just chattering away at the back, you know, and they were quite spread out. And this guy said to us, he knows there's an old buffalo bull here, and it's gonna take us to see it. So we're going along and then, you know, he said there's as you can see this little thing in the bush and this Buffalo was a little bit upset because it was a little bit cantankerous. So we made a mock charge. And then you know, it disappeared into the bush and the guy that we all froze obviously in the get the guide said, Okay, I think it's gone now. It's okay. Just be quiet and be careful. So we carry with us. There's no I can see it. This is where I said over there in the book. I can see I can see it there. And he said, No, there's nothing that I can see. And then the whole Bush exploded. And this guy came out and he was serious. This time he had his head down the whole works and he's he's coming full speed and they can move pretty damn fast around a ton and a half of weight and African buffalo and the guide. He was so worried that this was going to be a big problem that he dropped and he had his rifle off in a second and he's, you know, leveling up trying to shoot it. He was on the ground. I dropped at the same time. My wife who's now my ex wife, but And she was off like Usain Bolt, she was just gone. And nothing was stopping her. Next thing you know, there's this incredible wall of noise emanating from myself and from the Ranger. I don't know where it came from, but we were just screaming, as loud as we could at the Buffalo for those that stop dead, and he's like, What the heck happened? The only people he could see me in the range have dropped and this is volume of sound. And then this other person has gone off, you know, and a mad 100 yard sprint. And he said, This is not right. There's something wrong here. So he just twiddled its world around us shut off into the bush and running away. And, you know, after a few seconds, it seems like you know, forever because everything slows down. We collected ourselves, and we got up and we found my ex wife on the finish line of her 100 meter dash with the other people who had no idea what's going on, she'd knocked a couple of them over when she was running. Because she, you know, she wasn't stuffy for anything. And then we're all chattering away, like nervous monkeys. And it's amazing what power you have. I mean, I have no idea where that volume of noise came from, I didn't even know I was screaming. It just appeared. And it's, you know, it's wonderful that we could do that, because we didn't have to harm the buff. Well, that's the thing. And, you know, the power, the excitement, the wonder of that was just, it was just so special, I was never scared. I'd never felt scared at all. I just, it was just so energizing. And I could see an ant walking on the in on the ground at about 200 paces, I could just see it, I was just so so charged up with everything. And it's wonderful. These, you know, to have that experience. Now, not everybody would be able to write the act in the same way. Yeah, people would actually freeze and, you know, obviously get hurt other people, which is run and all sorts of things could happen, you know, so we all react in different ways. And that was an automatic behavior, where it came from, I don't know, but it's nice to have it, it was a wonderful experience.

Tanya Gill: 00:12:11

Well, and what is so interesting about that is that everyone was having the exact same experience of, of, of that very dangerous animal being in a space of proximity and potential risk. And so everyone, everyone reacted differently, like you said, and then the after effect, the experience that you had of it, you know, you said you didn't have any fear in it, which is incredible. Sounds like it was almost an exhilarating adventure.

Stuart Elliott: 00:12:46

It was I mean, obviously, there was something that made me scream, that was, you know, how do you you know, consider, you know, how do you label fear? What actually is fear. I mean, there's so many ways we can think of fear, for instance, a speaker going on stage, they're nervous, they do get scared, they do get worried, you know, pop stars, rock stars, performance, some of them are in the bathroom, vomiting before the performance, but when they get out there, that energy is collected and put into their performance into how they are. So it's a very interesting word, your fear is, it can be in some ways empowering. Another way is it can be debilitating, as you know, as we say.

Tanya Gill: 00:13:33

You know, it's funny, we one of the things that, that that we talk about often is the similarity between this sensation in our body between fear and excitement. No. Right and, and that that sensation in our body, often we feel it, lots of people say they feel it in their stomach, or they feel like an energizing sensation through their body. And, and often we'll label it as fear, rather than excitement or anticipation. And that's really about what's happening between our ears, right? That's about what's happening in our brains. It's about our interpretation of it.

Stuart Elliott: 00:14:17

Yeah, I mean, this this is the problem with words that I find and words are only labels to make it convenient to communicate. And we associate things with words unconsciously. For instance, I was on a train call, a couple of years back a hypnotherapy training call. And we went into breakout rooms and I was doing an exercise with this lady. And we were talking about benign attention just accepting, just noticing that because we chosen the phrase benign attention. There was something that word that she couldn't latch on to she couldn't understand. She had negativity she had so much negativity there. And we you know, through the discussion, I find out She, she was a caregiver in a terminal cancer facility. And she saw a lot of horrendous suffering every single day. And obviously benign, is associated in some people's lexicon with tumors, and cancer, whose is this tumor benign, or whatever. So she's got all these negative associations with this word that she's bringing into this thing without knowing it. And it just obviously wasn't working for her. So I got out the thesaurus, and just read off a few synonyms to her. And all of a sudden, one of them just think that's it, the light bulb went off, all the negativity went away, and she had now understood what we were doing what we were talking about. That's one word. And if I hadn't been aware that she was, you know, reacting negatively, that word I would have carried on, and she would never have been on the same page with me. And this is the challenge we have, with words, you know, we assume that everybody else has the same attachment and the same understanding of the word to us. And if we're not reading the other person energetically, or, you know, visually or whatever, we won't see that. So we don't give a, we don't have a proper communication, we give a mixed message to the person. So it's something that we need to watch is we need to be taught at school, but we're not. We just assumed to be able to communicate, because we can talk or, you know, we can use words. You know, we missed that whole point.

Tanya Gill: 00:16:36

It really speaks to how communication is on a lot of different levels, right? We assume, I think there's an assumption that communication is about speaking and language. But, but what it's so much more about is it's, you know, it is about that honor, empathy, love and presence, it's about showing up for that person. And before it's about speaking, it's about

Stuart Elliott: 00:17:01

listening. Yep. Right. Losing, I said, Listen with your whole body. Yeah, yeah, just it is.

Tanya Gill: 00:17:12

No. And you know, it's funny, I remember, I remember one site, many, many years ago, I did a course. And we were all given this image of a giant heart with two ears. And we were told to doctor it up to make it the perfect listening heart. And it was so interesting how what people did, and most people put an eye put eyes, a nose and a mouth on it. Right, because we want to be able to see, and then we want to use all of our senses. And then of course, we want to be able to communicate. But the perfect listening heart remains just that it's the heart with ears. You know, it's that it's that element of that just holding this space and listening versus being in that space of always planning what you're going to say, like so for example, this podcast is a perfect example. You know, I, I usually ask for a couple of questions that someone might want me to ask in the event that they have something specific they want to talk about. But I like that this is that this podcast is really about just having conversation. And being with what comes.

Stuart Elliott: 00:18:34

I think that's important. Because natural, isn't it?

Tanya Gill: 00:18:37

It is it is natural. And it is that space of really Holding, holding space with the other person and being able to really truly see them.

Stuart Elliott: 00:18:51

Yeah, I mean, and the word see is very interesting as well. I mean it because rest, we were talking, I was thinking of an experience I had a few years ago and another hypnotherapy training, actually, at the end of the course, is a live call. So you know, in person course, we had to do a one hour exam, and give a hypnotherapy session to somebody else. And the person I was paired up with was blind. And I was totally apprehensive about this, because I've no idea how to talk to a blind person. And again, this is me labeling and judging and everything else, and making off starting to make what could have been a problem, something beautiful into a problem. That because I became aware of that I actually went in more open minded and had a wonderful, wonderful conversation with this gentleman. And it brought home something I knew that it really brought home in a big way. The fact that because we sighted were actually more impaired than someone who's blind because we rely too much on our sight. 70 80% of our messages come through vision. And yet he told me that he just recently been on a holiday because he lives in Switzerland. And we were in Amsterdam at the time. And he'd been on a holiday to the highlands of Scotland on his own, no white stick, no guide dog. And he said he was at the top of one of the mountains. And he could see, and this is his language, he could see the birds, he could see the seagulls he could see the smell. And you know, you talk to him about colors, he you know, he could see red, green, he could see everything. And he could see, but he's got his blind. So what systems is he using within his body that we've all got. And he know he can function perfectly. It's just a wonderful, wonderful lesson to me. It's in our, because we become so dependent on our vision. And we think that's the only way we can see. But we can see in so many ways. And through that experience, I've done more and more work just by the phone, and I can read the people I can feel the energy changes, the shifts and everything else through the phone. And I think, you know, a lot of the time especially during in person well with people, it's a good idea to start practicing that, you know, because we rely too much on the vision and we forget what's going on. I mean, one time, I was talking with another client on the phone, and it was the lady and I said to her, are you just logged back in the chair sounds like you're relaxing now. And we're on the phone call. And she's just stopped. And she's like, I could just picture looking around for hidden video cameras or something like that? How the heck did you that's what we we have that ability to read energy if we practice it, and we become aware that we've got that ability.

Tanya Gill: 00:21:53

Yeah, yeah. And reading the energy of others is a really powerful tool. Because really, at the end of the day, we are all vibration, we are all energy. And, and, and raising your vibration is about being able to recognize the energy of others. And, and, and feeding off of one another and nurturing one another in that energetic exchange. And it definitely doesn't just take vision to create that. Right. And with the the world of the internet, and as it is like, I mean, you and I are having this amazing conversation, Stuart, where in the world are you right now?

Stuart Elliott: 00:22:35

I'm in the south of China. So it's quite a way away from the States.

Tanya Gill: 00:22:40

Right. And so I'm actually I'm in Canada. So you know, so we're in very different physical worlds right now. And yet, isn't it absolutely incredible how we can have an energetic exchange right now? And we can say, well, what's that?

Stuart Elliott: 00:23:01

We're in the same world.

Tanya Gill: 00:23:03

Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Yes, yes. Yes. Right. Like, that's what's so amazing is we are in the same world and our listeners who are going to hear this podcast are also in and of the same world. And so we are human beings having our own human experiences, and able to energetically share it on a global scale.

Stuart Elliott: 00:23:29

You know, animals are very, very good at raising energy. Yes. I mean, everybody knows about most people know about dogs and how they can read. But I remember an X beautiful experience I had when I was in Zimbabwe. And my friend and I were camping, you know, during a camping trip on the game reserves on the western side of Zimbabwe. And we stayed this one night near Victoria Falls National Park. And there's a lot you know, it's open countries. I'm also Botswana, Zimbabwe in places like they don't have fences at the Game Reserve. So any animals come along and go as they want to, and that's wonderful. And this one evening, we decided to have a Brian, we'd rented a little chalet on the side of the river, not far from the banks of the river just up from the falls, and a prize, a barbecue in South African parlance. And I said to Roy, I said, you get the meat ready, and I'm gonna build a fire. And they had a little brick bright area next to you know, the house about 2030 feet away from the house. And I just went out there, you know, as dusts was falling, and got the wood ready. And as I was about to put a flame to it, I just looked up into the bush, which is about 10 feet away. It's thick, thick bush and trees and everything's really nice, but I just looked up and I saw an elephant standing there watching me. Well, my first thought was that if I liked the fire now the smokes and to be there, and it's not going to be polite. So I didn't like the fire. I just stood there and we had a conversation Action, he read my energy. And I wasn't a threat. And I wasn't out of this environment, I was part of the environment. And I could have this, I could read his energy and he wasn't a threat. There was no fear nothing, it was just beautiful. And as I stood there, and we had this silent communication, then I noticed next thing, there's a small deer sized antelope called a bushbuck. And he was also standing there just watching me a little bit later, a small family of Ward hawks came down, you know, towards the river to get their evening sat down. And one of them just brushed against my leg as I went past he hadn't, or it hadn't even thought about me being a person, I was just part of the environment. It's just, you know, it's just so wonderful. And this lasted for several minutes, and we just stood there. And then I heard a chatter in and creaking crashing and branches and a troop of baboons came across as they were going to find somewhere safe to roost for the night. And then as the dust got deeper, and it got darker, the other thing just slowly casually turned around and just melted away, disappeared. And the bush Park went with him and I was just there. And it was just that energetic communication, that period, it was just so so beautiful. I mean, you can't put words to it. Not a word for smoking, we didn't need because we had that energy language, that energy communication. And it's just wonderful that we can have those experiences. We don't need to go to Africa to do that. If we choose to we could we can experience with our friends with our family. I mean, you know, if you've got a family, sometimes you just know what your partner or your child or relation is going to do. You know, because you've got that communication already.

Tanya Gill: 00:26:43

Yeah, yeah. And some of that is synergy. Some of that is the synergy that we have with a loved one or a partner, those kinds of things. I think, though, that the other piece of it that that is, is so transferable, is that the energy really does kind of also, to a certain degree dictate that outcome. So for example, with the water buffalo, you screamed, and that energy was very different. And it obviously backed off, which was beautiful, because you guys needed that in order to stay safe and be okay in that as well. He did too. Absolutely. Because reality is is had he decided to move on you unfortunately, he probably would have been met with a very unfortunate ending, and in a way it as a means to protect you guys. As you talk about this experience, preparing to build this fire and then feeling the energetic space of the elephant specifically is speaking to my heart among the other animals. You know, we have those we have those opportunities and experiences with other humans, you can walk into a room and feel the tension, for example. Right? And, and, you know, it really is about what we as human beings choose to do with do with that energy to right,

Stuart Elliott: 00:28:12

latex choice that takes chances conscious choice, doesn't it? And that's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. It's the awareness, the acceptance and the choice that we make afterwards. And if we understand that, that's very empowering. Yeah. Yeah.

Tanya Gill: 00:28:26

It is the choice it is the choice, you know, and we say like attracts like, right? We say that vibration scientifically, like attracts like so. So you know, when you're creating an environment that is peaceful, for example, like with the with the animals, when you chose not to build the fire, it creates that energy that says unspoken, right? Unspoken, that says, hey, like, this is the space that I'm holding. And you're invited to be a part of it. And I'm holding this space for and with you, unspoken. But we feel that energy and animals. You know, I think it's not just about sharing human experiences, it is about sharing life on this planet.

Stuart Elliott: 00:29:17

Because again, we all part of the planet. We're not separate. And this is one of the challenges we have this. A lot of he was thinking we are separate. We're above all this, but we're not we're part of the whole system. Part of the weather part of the river as part of the you know, we are the energy. And you know, if we can get this message to people that this is it's not somewhere we live, it is part of us, maybe we will protect the planet more, because we're harming ourselves.

Tanya Gill: 00:29:48

Mm hmm. Hmm. And you know, and that really does come back to as human beings having that human experience, deepening our own aware airness, deepening that relationship with ourselves so that we can trust ourselves in how we're showing up in and of the world.

Stuart Elliott: 00:30:10

And talking of awareness that goes back to the word as a label, how many people really have this deeper understanding of awareness? What does it mean to a lot of people?

Tanya Gill: 00:30:21

Right? What does it mean? What does awareness mean to you?

Stuart Elliott: 00:30:25

Well, I mean, awareness is about connection. To me, it's about knowing everything is part of me, and I am part of everything else. Because we're all at the end of the day, we're all energy, just different frequencies of energy that we can see. So once you understand that, and you start working with that awareness is about everything. You can be here talking, and there's a bird flying through the sky there. And you see it, you're aware of it, you see it. I mean, I, when I was in South Africa, living in South Africa, I was at a garden of a client. And it was a rundown garden, I was doing garden maintenance, cleaning it. And I saw on the edge of the swimming pool, a little kingfisher. And he was looking at the pool, and all of a sudden, he just looks up and he's got his beak. And they're like, you know, an artillery piece or something like that in the sky. And he's just froze like that with his beaker. I looked up so far in the sky, high, high, high high, you could hardly see it was a little speck, which was a hawk. And how did he this Kingfisher know that that Hawk was there. I could hardly see the thing. He just knew. And he stayed there until the hawk passed. And he's there because he's been it was like it was was his protection at that time. He was just totally aware. And that's the thing, to have that awareness. When I was camping in the Serengeti, we, we were surrounded by this massive, massive herd of vilda beast, and they formed a circle around our campsite about, I don't know, two or 300 feet, you know, distance of just as clear ground. And if you walked out 10 paces from where the, we were camping. The villa based on that side, would move back 10 paces, they didn't stop grazing, they didn't stop doing anything to do it, they just knew, and they just automatically move back. And if you weren't back into the camp, they just moved back to that boundary, they had this fixed distance that they were aware was a safety, excuse me, a safety net. They knew, they could just, you know, read everything. But awareness is so much more than just a little word. It's part of us apart from being I mean, we've all heard stories of a mother whose child in another country 1000s and 1000s of miles away has an accident, the mother suddenly knows that there's a problem she needs to get in touch with. That's awareness is such a big word.

Tanya Gill: 00:33:06

And you know, and I think that part of awareness is also being able to tap into that intuition. But you know, we have to recognize that there are different levels of awareness, right. So what happens is, we move through life, subconsciously, kind of just through a habit cycle, doing a lot of the same things, having, you know, 35,000 thoughts a day, our brains are just going, going going. And, and so the awareness is actually recognizing what you're experiencing beyond just letting the autopilot happen. But then, you know, moving into that space of recognizing, oh, this is my experience of this, but then also being able to expand it, like you say, into that deeper knowing the awareness that becomes a deeper knowing. And that deeper knowing is, I think, where a lot of people put up their blocks, right? I think a lot of people block their intuition, block their gut block that, that feeling that niggle that they experience because we let our brains take over sometimes.

Stuart Elliott: 00:34:17

Yeah. Well, that's the thing because we're too involved in our day to day living being whatever you want to do. And we don't allow the connection to the energy systems. I mean, a lot of the ancient indigenous people, they knew the places on Earth where there was energy, where there was a special thing. And we've forgotten that we've lost that or we've had it conditioned out of us because of the way society has become structured. That if you just I mean, this is why one of the one of the basic talent survives wellness has to be in nature. Yes, the and it's just amazing if you can actually stop that chatter that noise and just let it be you How much different you feel how much more peace or how much more connected you feel because now you're starting to exercise that awareness and start seeing you start hearing you start feeling is everything just changes, doesn't it? It's just such a beautiful thing and you know talking of nature in parts of Africa, there's there are a lot of Baobab trees. And these trees can live a long time, several 1000 years. Have we ever thought to consider what these trees have seen over that period of time?

Tanya Gill: 00:35:31

Ah, Stuart, I love that you asked that. I love that you asked that. I personally have such an I'm going to call it an intimate relationship with trees. Even in my own yard, I had a tree that fell ill and unfortunately had to be cut down and I literally wept that this trees life had come to an end. And and you know, I do I love that. Because, yes, do we often think about what these trees have experienced what they have, like you say seen their seasons? Through their environment through time? Yeah. Wow.

Stuart Elliott: 00:36:16

And you know, it's been proven now that trees do communicate with each other. And if you know if one tree in a whole forest area have similar trees, is attacked by caterpillars, for instance, it releases chemicals pheromones, that the other trees pick up read in their produce a bitterness or however you want to call it in their SAP, which then prevents the caterpillars from feasting on them. So they have a communication, they have a much more advanced communication than we ever ever give them credit for. We just see it as a piece of wood. But there's not just me. I don't know how old the trees are in Canada, but throughout the world, the trees live, you know, hundreds of years, 50 100 200 more years in some places even longer. You know, what have they seen? What has the experience? And if you if we could talk to trees as people, we become very wise.

Tanya Gill: 00:37:12

Yes, yes, indeed, it brings me back to a child a book. I don't know if you're familiar with Shel Silverstein in The Giving Tree. But you know, it's this boy, and this tree and as life goes on, this boy comes to the tree, for fruit and for shade and for solace. And then as it gets older, it goes on and and it carves its initials in the tree trunk when it when this boy falls in love and, and then the boy goes off and lives his life and then comes back and, and you know the tree, it's the relationship of the tree Eve through its life, even as it ends up becoming a stump, and how its offerings to life, the life of this boy as he moves through his life, you know, that that relationship, if you will, that relationship? And I think that we I think that we do we have those kinds of relationships with our environment, when we're intentional and aware, and whether we have the relationship of like with ash tree like in that book, for example, or if we can expand it to the value of all of nature and how it impacts us and nurtures us as human souls, I think is really, really powerful to consider that

Stuart Elliott: 00:38:40

it is because you know, again, we are part of nature, we are not separate. And this is the thing that the modern world has devised, whereas the you know, the indigenous our ancestors, they knew they were connected. They were part of that whole thing. That you know, there was a wonderful story I read in a book called The Lost World of the Kalahari about the the Bushmen of of southern Africa is written by Lawrence fundingpost. And he spent some time with the he's I think he was an anthropologist or something. I can't remember his correct title. But anyway, he spent some time living with him and he went on a hunt with him one day and he was in a four by four trying to keep up with the west they were hunting this big antelope we should call the hens market is about the size of a cow or something like that. And they chased it for something like 3040 miles before they finally brought it down. And part of that the whole thing is the ritual they have of saying thanks and being grateful to the animal for providing the food for them, etcetera, etcetera. But in this this chase, the Bushmen were running along through the desert and he saw in the coyote as I say he was struggling to keep up with them. A big snake a big Cobra rise in front of this one Bushman and if all of that says he's finished, this Bushman was full tilt. You know, here's your Running Running and he just casually jumped over it and carried on in in break stride he hadn't seen hadn't got any fear, he was just part of that environment. And he saw unreactive without even thinking. But here's here's the interesting thing about another percent part of that awareness is, when they finally wrote the animal down and they finished the prisoner, they have a problem. How do they get this massive animal back home to where they're staying 3040 miles away in the desert. They don't, they send two people or a couple of people back to go get the families. And that's why they have such collapsible shelters that they just make up on the fly. And the rest of the people stay there to keep the predators away. But this is 3040 miles in the heat of a chase, how do they know where they've come, they've come from, oh, my gosh, of that environment, they know. So they just go back, it's no problem. They have this built in connection being understanding, I don't know how you can put them in words, but they are part of that. So they just know, they just go back there, click the families, they come back, and then they stay there for the next however long it takes to finish the you know, the meal. And the greatness, they have the gratitude, and they have all the connections and rituals that they go through. They're part of the land a part of the environment. And where you know, as human beings in the modern race, we're the only group of people I think that have divorced ourselves from our environment.

Tanya Gill: 00:41:35

Mm hmm. And that definitely brings it back to when we divorce ourselves from the environment makes it a lot harder for us to feel that really, truly deep awareness. It sounds right. Yeah,

Stuart Elliott: 00:41:48

it negatively impacts us because we don't see ourselves, we don't understand the actual powers the truth about what we have

Tanya Gill: 00:41:58

the power and the truth of what we have the power and the truth of what we have. It's about connecting back to that power and truth of what we have, as our own individual human beings having our here human experience. Wow, Stuart, this has been such an incredible conversation. You know, I just really appreciate how we've been able to weave together the concept of thoughts and ideas and, and you know, our own internal limitations, and also how we connect with our environment to deepen that knowing on a on a really, truly powerful individual level. This has just been absolutely incredible. Now, I know that my listeners are going to want to know more about you, what is the best place for our listeners to find you, Stewart?

Stuart Elliott: 00:42:54

Well, the best place is LinkedIn because of the you know, the firewalls and things like that I don't have the other side social media. And I think I gave you my LinkedIn URL. But the other thing is they can email me at Stewart at SPG dot P Zed, or z if you're American. And Stewart is SDU a RT? If they want to have you know, I'd love to have a conversation. And the nice thing about this this little short period of time is there's no distance. Yes, yeah. Because we are apart. And we are one and that's that's the one of the big messages that I think we need to share with everybody that we are one, we can become aware of that. And then you know, we can have such a much better life much more, innovating exciting.

Tanya Gill: 00:43:42

We are one, we are part of a collective we are one. Thank you so much, Stuart, I will make sure that your contact information is in the show notes. And to our friends, thank you for listening to the trifecta of joy. Thank you for joining us with this amazing conversation with Stuart Elliott about really deepening that awareness on an on a really truly mind body spirit and a whole collective level of justice to know they and that's a perfect example. Right? Like this is a perfect example of where words sometimes just don't cut it. And it is about the energy. So, my friends, thank you for listening, Stuart, it was wonderful to have you here. Thank you again for joining us.

Stuart Elliott: 00:44:37

It's been an honor and it's so nice to be able to connect with so many more people and just share a few stories. You know, what we that's where we came from sharing stories.