How to heal a man: Superheroes, shadows & sacred circles (transcript)

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Episode Transcript:

Lian (00:01)

Could the child you once were still be holding the pen that's writing the story of the adult you've now become? Hello, my beautiful mythical old souls and a huge warm welcome back. In this conversation, I'm joined by Karl Brooks. Karl is a long-term BeMythical student and a much loved member of our community within our Academy of the Soul, UniO.

Karl's journey from crisis to reclamation has been one of the most beautiful. We've had the honor to witness.

Karl has a deep connection with his inner child who unbeknownst to him had been running most of his life behind the scenes in his subconscious. He now wants to lead other men that are interested in connecting within themselves and breaking the patterns of childhood that are still causing havoc in their lives today. Together we explore the hidden stories that shape our sense of self and the deep healing that becomes possible when we finally listen to the boy inside the man.

We journey through Karl's childhood adventures, his breakdown and awakening and the tender work of inner re-parenting that allowed him to become a man of depth, devotion and strength. This conversation is for all of us who sense that something essential could have got lost along the way and are ready to listen for its return. And before we jump into all of that good stuff.

If you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world, would benefit from guidance, support and kinship, come join our Academy of the Soul, UNIO. You can find out more and join us by hopping over to bemythical.com slash UNIO, or click the link in the description. And now back to this week's episode. Let's dive in.

Lian (01:54)

Hello, Karl. Welcome back to the show. I am so happy to be here with you Karl,

Karl Brooks (01:58)

Hello, great to be back.

Lian (02:05)

already just been delightful just reconnecting with you and kind of dipping back into your story and the way it's kind of weaved over the years we've known each other and we were just reflecting it's 10 years ago ⁓ since we first met back in our happy school days. But I'd like to go back a bit longer ago than that to begin with because I mean this is really true for all of us. I noticed this doing the work I do but also interviewing the kind of people I interview, we can almost always see threads of our myth, threads of who we are here to become back in our childhood and our childhood experiences, our childhood wounds. And as you know, that's a big, big reason we do the work we do in the way that we do it. And so we were reflecting before we started about the way that that's absolutely true for you, but also the way that little boy Karl has been so important for you in you really following your path, doing the deep work, reconnecting to who you really are. I'd say more so in some ways for you than it is for others. And so that's where I'd like to begin. And we were just joking about the way that your people who are listening rather than watching won't be able to see, but you've got your little office set up under the stairs, Harry Potter style.

Karl Brooks (03:38)

That's it.

Lian (03:38)

So let's take a journey back to that little Harry Potter-esque boy under the stairs that was Karl. How did it all begin?

Karl Brooks (03:49)

⁓ wow.

So yeah, I I used to be quite ⁓ boisterous and yeah, just...

used to camp out in the bushes and make these secret camps where no one knew where we were hiding and we would watch the world go past. ⁓ And we used to go down to the local police station and get stickers and badges.

Then we would stick the badges and stickers on and pretend we was policemen and and do and do patrols around the local estate If we would see something going on we would run to the nearest phone box because this is pre having mobile phones and we would Dial the police and tell them where the situation is happening and then we would stand at distance and watch it all unfold So yeah, it was quite ⁓ it was quite interesting and we would do police training and that, jumping over things and running and keeping fit.

Lian (04:54)

Hmm. It's so interesting.

So I don't think that's a part of you that I've heard before. I know, I know the kind of storyteller part of you that's ⁓ been a really important part of the reclamation, but this, how would you name it? This kind of rescuer. ⁓ detective caretaker part how would you how would you name that?

Karl Brooks (05:25)

I think it's been quite profound because...

For you, the person walking down the street, we were just kids and we were just walking, but in our own heads, we were superheroes. So we was living this out in a mental state. And in that mental state, you could be anything.

Lian (05:47)

Mmm.

Yes. ⁓

Karl Brooks (06:00)

Yeah, we were running down the road, were pulling up the handbrake, were backsliding the back of the car out, we were jumping over walls, Just what happens in the movies was actually going on in our heads. But actually, in real life, if you were to see us, you'd just see some kids running down the road sideways.

Lian (06:15)

Mmm.

I love that so much. Yes, of course. It was funny because I handed over to you like a beat before you said superheroes. I was like, of course it's superheroes. And I so I love this, the way that children just have this like untamed, unfiltered connection with that way of creating this rich inner world, which they then you know, they make real, they make tangible, they make material because they act upon it.

So I, I feel like a really good point to take this trip now into the future, not into the future from where we are, but into the future from that little boy, because it strikes me there's quite a juxtaposition between that lively imagination fueled boy of then to the Karl that I met 10 years ago. So will you, will you give us a snapshot of what was going on for you then?

Karl Brooks (07:22)

Well, I think that story and imagination can be your best friend or your worst enemy. And if you're not using it to create something ⁓ unique and magical, then ⁓ it will take bits of what people have said that you are and then build this story around who you are.

Lian (07:32)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (07:52)

⁓ And you can, just like you can breathe into being a policeman and really get excited and run down the road twice as fast as you would normally, because you're actually embodying the story of being that person, you can flip that so that it can be completely and then you can take somebody else's story on what they're saying and build a story around who you are. So if you are, so...

Lian (08:29)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (08:31)

If mum says that you're this and your friend says you're that, and then you start feeling like that, and then you can really get down on yourself, and then you stop trusting that inner boy, excited, passionate, all the words that you just said, and that power is then given over to ⁓ others, like, tell me who I am. ⁓

Lian (08:58)

Hmm,

yes. And who had you been told you were back then?

Karl Brooks (09:01)

And that, just, well, the thing is that this isn't a, this, you go quiet and this continues to happen internally. ⁓ And then you forget that you is actually a storyteller to begin with. ⁓ And this narrative that you've built around who you are goes into the subconscious. You bury it down because

Lian (09:20)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (09:31)

it feels painful, you just, that can sit there for a little while. ⁓ And then you just get busy, you get distracted, you get on with life, you get on with your exams, you then get a job, you then get a girlfriend, then you've got somebody else in your life and stuff like that, and life just happens. And...

Lian (09:37)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (09:56)

And it goes, it lives like that for years and years and years until something actually shakes you up or breaks your train of thought. And when we first met 2015, I think, that was the rupture or the breaking of my subconscious sleep as such.

Lian (10:28)

Hmm. Yeah. I'm going to ask you another question about that in a moment, but it really stood out to me when you just said, trying to thought in the, will typically use that in a more moment to moment sense. You know, we might be talking and then something happens. And usually for me, it's one of the dogs wanting to go in and out of the door. ⁓ And it kind of interrupts our...

a train of thought, I love the way you just used it because it also then happens over years and decades that we're in those same patterns of thought without realising and then sometimes that gets derailed. And as we were talking, actually, this is also occurring to me, before we started recording, we were reflecting on the way that as a culture, we're so scared to have those ruptures. We're so scared to look at those sort of deep dark places in our psyches. We're so scared to come face to face with our wounds. And so it often takes some kind of life rupture for that to happen. But then sadly in many cases, because we don't have the context of like how this could be the beginning of something new and true.

We do our best to kind of scrabble back to what we used to know, because that feels better than where we are. So we'll probably get into a bit more of that in the moment, but that's really striking me at the moment that you had this rupture. And so would you share a little bit about what that was for you? what, in fact, you know, another way of saying this is like, what brought you to me and Jonathan? What brought you to Happy School?

Karl Brooks (12:13)

Yeah,

I've discussed with a wife and she's okay with me to share this story. ⁓ And when I look back, I wouldn't have this story any other way. I just like to say that. This story has worked out perfectly. ⁓ But what we had was ⁓ me and my wife were in a codependent relationship. ⁓ And we were, it was quite, if left,

Lian (12:25)

Hmm.

Karl Brooks (12:41)

it would have been quite toxic codependency. ⁓ But my wife was quite overweight at the time and decided that she'd like to get fitter and sort of mental health out and just, she didn't want to follow in the same pattern as her family. ⁓ And she made the excuse or there was an excuse in the family that it's just the family way.

Lian (13:02)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (13:10)

So she started to ⁓ go to Slimming World and lose weight and ⁓ wear better clothes and speak to people outside of the relationship, know, like friends and go out and do stuff. And then she was this whole person, outside of the codependent relationship. so that was like, and that was like, so it was like Pac-Man, you know? So like she was walking away and I was like,

Lian (13:37)

Hehehehehe

Karl Brooks (13:40)

⁓

but, but that, that for me was like,

That was like this little boy that just wanted to know who he was.

you know, I knew myself in the relationship. I didn't know myself as a single entity without that comfort. ⁓ And that's when that whole story of...

Lian (13:58)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (14:07)

people telling me who I am, now who I am without all of the comforts of being her soulmate and being a person that she talks to and being the person that she goes out with and the person that says she looked nice and now other people are doing that, it felt like betrayal. But it was the part of, it was the breaking of that I need to be whole in myself also.

Lian (14:26)

Hmm.

Yeah. Although, of course, as with all of us, that dawning of I need to be whole myself kind of often comes later. I know that when you first came to us, it looked dark. Life looked dark. Would you share a little bit about kind of what you were feeling and thinking at that point?

Karl Brooks (15:01)

⁓ I remember the

I remember the worst time was...

I just thought that I was causing everyone pain and discomfort and I actually convinced myself through story, through my inner thoughts and my inner dialogue that these guys would be better off without me ⁓ and that I was doing them a service to not be here anymore, ⁓ not be here as in on the planet. ⁓

And as I felt that, like everything just went calm and I was like, there was a voice from within my head that was like, look at what's going on outside of you and look at what's going on inside of you. And the two are not aligning. The two are in polar opposites of each other. So people are saying, I'm still here, I love you. But it doesn't feel like that because they're not doing everything that they...

used to do and ⁓ I don't feel like I used to do. ⁓ So yeah, there was this ⁓ difference between how I felt about myself and my situation and what was actually going on outside that I needed to explore more. ⁓ And this voice, I was quite intrigued like, whoa, where did that come from? That was really still, really calm,

Lian (16:14)

Mmm.

Mmm. ⁓

Karl Brooks (16:42)

really precise and really nurturing and not what I'd been used and not what I'd been used to.

Lian (16:51)

Hmm. Yeah. It's fascinating how even in those truly dark moments, there's these kind of chinks of light where we get to see or feel or hear something that's true, but perhaps something, and I think we often can look back and think, I'm sure I had that kind of, you know, inner guidance or inner knowing back in childhood.

I often notice that it feels completely new and yet somewhat familiar at the same time. So there's a number of things I was experiencing and thinking as you were sharing at first was just like, my gosh, the thought of the world without Karl. You know, it's...

Even though I know the story has a happy ending, I was just feeling this real heartbreak that that's where you were, you know, knowing you as I do, knowing the huge heart you have, knowing how beautiful your family is. So the fact that that's how you felt, yeah, really breaks my heart. And it breaks my heart also because I know that this is not something that you are alone in feeling and thinking. And I was thinking how there is...

lots of men individually that have their own version of you feeling the way you did. I was also thinking there is a, is there's a cultural wound and experience at the moment, ⁓ playing out over a kind of larger stage where men's understanding of themselves, their roles, their relationships is kind of like it's changing beyond anything we've perhaps known. ⁓

for many, many years. This is a profound and quite sudden change. And I think that that's what's going on at this larger collective level. It's like, so who am I if what I used to be valued for, who I used to be in relationship to, whether it's to your wife or to your children or to your family at large, your culture at large.

It's like, that's no longer what's ⁓ required of me or valued from me, what's the point? Who am I? And I really, had a moment of understanding that in a way that I perhaps haven't been able to so far in. So thank you. Cause I think this is something so important in what you've just shared there.

So what next? Where did that voice take you?

Karl Brooks (19:26)

Yeah.

think a ⁓ lot of it was down to nature. Nature was trying to tell me lots. ⁓ I've always been... I wasn't then, but I've always been very relaxed in nature.

I go into the forest and noise of all the wants and the needs of everyone outside...

calm down. I have...

I have a deep communication with the forest, with the trees, with ⁓ the plants, little animals, and they metaphorically ⁓ teach me stuff. And with the inner child work, I remember going into the forest, being really still, and seeing my first robin.

⁓ right over there in the field. And I was so excited about seeing this Robin that I run for a good 20 minutes, half an hour to get my binoculars from home and then run all the way back just to see him up close.

Lian (20:45)

⁓

Karl Brooks (20:50)

This here is a tree stump, a tree stump ring. And.

This here is a split that goes all the way to the middle. And if something is left, if something is left from the year of five, you know, this, this ring here is five and it gets wider and wider and wider and wider. And then when you get to 49, 50, it's a massive chasm across this ⁓ tree stump ring that I'm looking at at the moment.

Lian (21:22)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (21:27)

and each of the rings that represents time through the through the years of your life. ⁓ And with my inner child work that I'm doing is if I was to go back to that little boy at five ⁓ and ask him how he's feeling and you know what is making the situation mean about him because he always makes things not about other people but about himself personally, ⁓ then I can reassure him that he's doing the best that he can do at the time. And it slowly but surely closes the rupture. So something that you believed when you was five, if you can go back to that little five year old, hold him on his shoulders and say, mate, you've got this, it closes the rupture right up to the present day. ⁓ And yeah, that's the work that I love doing at the moment. Yeah.

Lian (22:36)

Yeah, in fact, may

I just using that really, really beautiful metaphor. As you know, so much of the work we do and have done together is the way that our deepest medicine is found in those wounds. And so there absolutely is, you know, the way you described it is that kind of rupture comes together. There absolutely is this

Karl Brooks (22:46)

Mmm.

Lian (23:06)

healing that happens. And yet it isn't healed in a way where it's as if the rupture has never been the case. It's more that the kind of wounds have the opportunity to bleed gold, to allow what was a source of pain, a source of separation, it becomes a source of connection, a source of beauty. So from that lens, now knowing what you know, how would you name what that

Karl Brooks (23:17)

Hmm.

Lian (23:36)

kind of what was that five year old or it could be a different age, what was that wounding? What were the experiences, the pains of that boy that you recognise now kind of led on to creating the pains you had as adult Karl?

Karl Brooks (23:53)

Yeah, it is amazing.

It's not the easiest journey ⁓ and the protection mechanisms that this body and this psyche have produced to keep you safe and to keep that little nugget of information safe. You really have to push past the conditioning ⁓ and push past the... ⁓

Lian (24:10)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (24:23)

Yeah, just the energy that is the energy that is taking you so far to keep that from your vision. You've got to push through that energy. ⁓ And

Lian (24:31)

Yes.

Yeah.

Karl Brooks (24:37)

It's quite sophisticated in the way that it will try and throw you off course.

Lian (24:43)

Yeah. In fact, before you directly answer my question, I just want to say something about that, because I think this is such a good point. It can sound as though, because we're kind of, you know, so many years into your journey now, and I've had the privilege to witness so much of it, it can sound as though these things are, I guess, more available, more visible, more accessible than they actually are.

But of course, you know, this metaphor you've got of that.

⁓ tree slice is a great one because actually it's kind of more like we do it in layers and we do it in cycles and spirals and we get the opportunity to kind of go back and see a bit and then we don't perhaps we think we've seen it all and then we realise like ⁓ my gosh there's still so much and there's more I can go deeper and I can go further back and I can go back to even before I even had language ⁓ and so I think that's a really good point.

Karl Brooks (25:39)

Hmm.

Lian (25:47)

And as you were just saying, the reason this is so challenging and it's not so instantly available is everything is set up against it. And, you know, we could talk about everything that's going on in the outer world, but really, more importantly, a whole being has been set up to allow us to survive, to function. And anything that potentially is gonna shift that, change that, it feels like a threat. It's like, how on earth can I carry on building this thing that's allowed me to get so far in the world if I start to question it? It won't make sense anymore. And of course, all this is happening subconsciously, which makes it so tricky. And like you say, it kind of...

is a bit like that whack-a-mole game. It's like you kind of think you've dealt with it here and then it pops up here and it changes shape. yeah.

Karl Brooks (26:39)

it does.

And what I was going to say is like, don't think that this is, I mean, because your adult brain will want to contextualise it and use it adult to adult, but you're dealing with such a small little boy and he's got little small ideas. So the word that I like to say, I say trauma, see this trauma here

This little boy was four years old and he was going to his sister's hospital when she was born and his dad was, or his stepdad was holding him by the hand and he see a little Lego man by the tree stump of a tree and tried to pick up the Lego man and his stepfather pulled him away from it and he couldn't communicate that he wanted the Lego man by the tree. So he was pulled down the road kicking and screaming and making a big situation out of what he wanted but his dad thought that he was being misbehaving so he's pulling them even further ⁓ and he couldn't communicate that he wanted the Lego man. So he believed back here

Lian (27:35)

⁓

Mmmmm

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (27:58)

where the ring, where the crack starts, that he couldn't ask for what he needed. And then that just cascades into adulthood and causes loads and loads of pain. So how I, when I was meditating, drum turning or whatever, and that memory came up from that Lego man. I went online and I purchased a Lego man with

Lian (28:03)

Yeah.

Karl Brooks (28:26)

H5 written on it and and I bought it for him and when it turned up I ceremonially unwrapped it see what it was put it on the side put my hand on my chest and said I've got something for you something something that was yours from day dot ⁓ and then when I came in and opened it I opened it from that place

Lian (28:55)

Hmm.

⁓

Karl Brooks (28:56)

And now that memory, I have a little Lego man there called Karl, age five. I'm just holding up to the camera.

Lian (29:06)

⁓ fabulous.

Karl Brooks (29:09)

But that's how you gain the trust of a little five-year-old you give him what he wanted and you say to him powerfully I give this to you because you can ask for what you want of me Your parent because I'm sort of reparenting myself and And I will give you what you need ⁓ And then

Lian (29:13)

Yes.

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (29:39)

Yeah, literally like there'll be a teenager that will come up next. Well, we said we wanted that car, you know, that big car, that Vauxhall Astra GTE. And you're like...

Lian (29:46)

Haha, could get expensive!

Karl Brooks (29:55)

But see, this is the key. This is the real nugget. This little boy just wanted to be heard. That teenager just wanted to be heard. So I bought him the car. It's just up on the shelf there. It's a little model GTE Vauxhall Astra, right? But it's not about the Vauxhall Astra. It's about him being heard, seen, and acknowledged for the feeling that he wants a car, the feeling that he wants a ⁓ Lego man as such. ⁓ And so, yeah, so I did exactly the same for the inner teenager that came up. ⁓

Lian (30:40)

⁓ gorgeous.

I love the, ⁓ that story of the Lego man. Of course, it was your story and your story of your five year old self and a profound aspect of your wounding. But I was also thinking there's something ⁓

Karl Brooks (30:47)

Hmm.

Lian (31:04)

There's a real wisdom in that, think more broadly about children and our inner children and how they will attempt to express how they're feeling. And it won't always be in a way that we can understand, like the way you weren't able to actually communicate to your stepfather what he wanted. And we as parents, both of real children, but also as parents of our inner child,

can really miss what's being asked of us, can miss, it can seem as though it's a temper tantrum, it can seem as though it's whatever, not, you know, this little person that's got wants and needs and fears and really needs to be seen and witnessed and cared for. So I think there's, there's a important message there more generally about how these little parts of us, you know, try to express how they're feeling, what they need and

Karl Brooks (31:58)

Mm.

Lian (32:02)

So easily missed, so easily

Karl Brooks (32:05)

And I think the nervous system has got a lot to do with it because when I say trauma, because people some, well, I haven't experienced trauma. No, but a little situation like that can be put into the nervous system and then sit there.

Lian (32:16)

⁓ yes.

Hmm.

Yes, it's, I think it's a good thing that we have the awareness and language around these things these days, but equally it can mean that we dismiss some really important parts of our story because we can think, and I've noticed this, it's, it can be the people I've worked with who actually have less in the way of kind of those obvious trauma experiences that we kind of

sort of say, ⁓ yes, that was traumatic experience, is often the people who haven't had those, but have had these moments like you've described, or it might be more just like the sort of water they were swimming in, as it wasn't even kind of like big obvious events.

It can be more challenging because they're kind of like gaslighting themselves constantly like, well, I didn't have it that bad. I didn't have that, you know, awful thing happen to me like that person, you know, talking, who's in circle with me telling me about therefore, you know, who am I to say that I've had trauma? And so I think it's a really important thing to recognise that it doesn't have to be these big obvious trauma events for our little inner person to have these beliefs and this like pain and this sense I can't really fully ⁓ be myself and to really recognise like it's gonna come in all different forms and we get what we get. It's not going to necessarily be like someone else's and I even look back at, I've had some of those more obvious traumatic events in my life.

But don't necessarily know that they were as profoundly impactful as some of the kind of seemingly more minor moments. And yeah, I think we're looking in the wrong places when we only focus on, you know, has to be these big things to in order to call it trauma or to even acknowledge the impact it's made. Okay, so we are, we're coming up on time.

Karl Brooks (34:27)

Yeah, they're

Lian (34:33)

What I'd love to do now is really kind of come right to, mean, not that we haven't been talking about present day, but I really want to look at your senses to looking at who you are in the world now, the what you're about, what you're passionate about. I see the things you post, say for example, in the Be Mythical Facebook group, I see the ways that...

you are bringing different things into, for example, your children's lives, like completely different influences than you perhaps would have 10 years ago. And so I'd love to know kind of like having experienced everything you've experienced and the ways that it's hard for boys and men today to live true to themselves. what do you know now? What would you, again, I suppose I could put it this way. If you were talking to, it could be a teenager listening, you know, like the teenage Karl of years ago, it could be an old older man. What do you feel is important for boys and men to hear today? What's the message you'd love to give them?

Karl Brooks (35:45)

I that there's something I've been looking at recently, ⁓ generational trauma, ⁓ which is like ⁓ a great grandfather will treat his son in a certain way, ⁓ and then that man will treat his son in a certain way, and it just goes down the line, and your dad... ⁓

will treat you how his dad treated him. ⁓ And what I've done this weekend, this has been an absolute magical weekend. ⁓ I met up with my dad. ⁓ I haven't seen him for 20 years. ⁓ And I felt nervous about the meeting. So I said, I don't know how you're feeling, but I'm feeling quite nervous. So I brought that into the

Lian (36:18)

Mmm.

Karl Brooks (36:45)

into the conversation and he was like yeah I'm feeling nervous as well. So what I did there is I didn't know if he was going to come with his shield up trying to be like all protecting himself so I put my weapons down and show my vulnerability saying I'm feeling a little bit not quite right and he came down and we spoke and we spoke about his dad and his childhood and ⁓ issues that have affected him in his life. And I'd really just had a lot of compassion for like his story ⁓ and his dad's story. ⁓ And then we went to his dad's or we went looking for his dad's burial stone at the graveyard. And we found it. We found it after like three hours of looking for it. It was in a different cemetery than my dad remembers. But we, yeah, we found it. But I said, for you to find this gravestone in all of these gravestones in this separate place to that, there must have been, you know, a spiritual help there. Dad calling you in as such.

Lian (37:52)

⁓ that's devotion for you.

Karl Brooks (38:15)

And

I've done a lot of mental work and that's great. It all stays between my ears, ⁓ but I'm all about bringing things into the physical now. ⁓ So I knelt down ⁓ by the graveside and I was like, you know, ⁓ and I just spoke out how generational trauma has worked down the line and it stops here today with me. and I'm not going to pass this on to my kids or the rest of the generation and I forgive you for the way that you've treated your son, my dad, but we're here and we're making amends and you that stops.

So thank you, you know, and it was done in a loving way, but I needed to speak that out

because there is a lot of generational trauma and generational trauma to me is, yeah.

dads don't know any different than how they were. And what I've been doing lately is I've been getting together with a circle of men and they have been showing me how to be a man as such because we haven't got elders, we haven't got people we look up to, we haven't got them role models. Even our dad, if he learned from his dad, he isn't really...

the role model of secure, ⁓ vulnerable, open, masculine men in a circle. ⁓ But trust me, first of all, I was repelled by this circle and I was like, ⁓ they've got too many rules and they've got this and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What part of me is actually, you know.

thinking of this, you know, where are you coming from? Well, we don't like rules and we don't like this, you know. And I was like, yeah, but, you crave structure. Yeah. And this is me talking to my little boy. ⁓ you crave structure and you want reliable and you want to learn and you want to improve and you want to step forward. And this group of men, instead of calling you out and saying, you've done this, they call you forward.

Lian (40:22)

Hehehehehe

Karl Brooks (40:47)

I say, Karl, you're better than this. Who do you want to be? And then I say, I want to be a man who, who, who says something and follows through with it. And how does that impact the rest of the group? You know, and, and then I say, yeah, they'll have less trust in me if I say I'm going to do something and I don't do it, you know, so there's this accountability that I've never had. So I take that to my children. ⁓ and we have a family gathering after dinner.

And I'll say, are so much better. And I give them their gold. I say that you're better than this. You need to have a tidier room so that you can live better and find things when you need to and X, Y, and Z. ⁓

Lian (41:34)

Mm, yeah, so important that we get to kind of re pattern those pathways. ⁓ my gosh, the story of you at your grandfather's grave, I, I had chills as you, as you were speaking there and I was thinking, they're so powerful, even if you were doing that alone, but the very fact you were doing that in front of your father that you hadn't seen for 20 years, my goodness. I mean, just that moment, everything that that required of you and called you into. Wow. I mean, if you could just take one snapshot that shows you who you who you are as a man, who you've become. ⁓ My goodness. How, how wonderful. Yeah, well.

Karl Brooks (42:26)

Yeah,

Yeah, it really did feel powerful, this body needed to experience it. ⁓ So there was a very physical, emotional, ⁓ spiritual ⁓ move there.

Lian (42:34)

Yeah.

Mm, really important. think there's so much, unfortunately we're out of time, but I think there's so much to be said about that. ⁓ Really, I think there's something that perhaps we are kind of like on the cusp of reclaiming again culturally this recognition that, you know, things need to be tangible to be able to be sort of touch and felt. ⁓ yeah, such a powerful example of that.

Well, Karl, this has been ⁓ such a pleasure to take this journey with you, to be woven into the story with you. For listeners that would like to follow you on your ongoing journey and find out kind of how that develops and perhaps things you might be offering in future, where can they find out more about you?

Karl Brooks (43:32)

Well, I feel like this is a story in itself, but I feel like I've been dreaming for a long time, the world's dream, not my own. And this is about sort of reclaiming my own dream and my own desires and wants and needs. So I've gone Instagram and Facebook and I've called it Waker of the Dreamers. And the of is a zero, so Waker of the Dreamers.

Lian (43:46)

Mmm.

Mmm, gorgeous.

Karl Brooks (44:02)

with a zero in the off, just to be different. ⁓

Lian (44:03)

Perfect. And we'll make sure those links on the face, but on the show notes rather as well. Well, thank you so much, Karl.

thank you for sharing yourselves with us. And again, for me personally, it's been just such a treat to be with you all these years on your journey.

Karl Brooks (44:21)

Yeah, it's been an honour. Thank you.

Lian (44:25)

I very much hope you enjoyed watching that and if you did and you're not already subscribed then do hit that bell thingy and subscribe to automatically get each fresh new episode as it's released each week. If you'd like to find out more about the work we do at Be Mythical to guide and support old souls in this new world to live their own unique myth…

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Lots of love for now.

See you again next week

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