The path to liberate your soul to live free - Lian & Jonathan

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Written By Lian Brook-Tyler

Episode 532, released 23rd January 2026.

This week marks a significant turning of the wheel for Wild Sovereign Soul, not only have we rebirthed as The Wild Sovereign Soul Show, which is the first phase of our wider rebirthing of *everything* we do, it’s also the first episode of our co-founders Lian Brook-Tyler and Jonathan Wilkinson sitting down together for their monthly, free-flowing conversations honouring the path of the Wild Sovereign Soul.

It’s challenging to live in this crazy modern world, the Wild Sovereign Soul path is what we know will help.

Each month, they’ll be meeting live themes from the modern world head on, weaving together what they’re currently consuming and creating, how wildness, sovereignty, and soul are showing up in their own lives, along with questions from listeners and the team, and the patterns they’re seeing across our students and clients. There is room for curiosity, disagreement, and humour, alongside reflections drawn from their own experiences and initiations, as well as insights from ancient wisdom traditions, astrology, Gene Keys, shamanism, and more.

The show offers grounded perspective, practical insights, and stirring activations for staying soul-led, aware, and responsive inside a modern culture that continually asks us to flatten and deaden ourselves. Each episode is also an invitation to journey deeper with the themes within the Wild Sovereign Soul community, UNIO.

Listen or watch on:

 
 

Or if you prefer to read: Scroll right down for the transcript

In this episode, Lian and Jonathan reflect on twelve years of shaping this work, and on the moment it became clear that Wild Sovereign Soul wasn’t another rebrand, but a naming of what had always been at the heart of what they do. 

Just some of what they speak includes….

The increasing pain and struggle that so many of us are experiencing right now - even more so than they began this work 12 years ago, the soul as North Star, the choices that forge sovereignty, thawing bodies numbed by modern domestication, the moments that awaken soul through loss and love, and the ordinary places this path shows up, in nature, in boredom, and in the decision to say yes or no when it truly matters.

Listen if you have ever felt out of place in the modern world, sensed there was a truer life waiting, or wondered what it actually takes to live it.

What you’ll receive from this episode:

  • Things aren’t getting easier, they’re only getting crazier and the Wild Sovereign Soul path is what brings us back to ourselves, each other and our own souls

  • How reclaiming wildness restores instinct, belonging, and aliveness in a world that trains us to live from the neck up

  • Why sovereignty always asks a price, and how choosing it reshapes fear, agency, and the way you meet challenge

  • What happens when the soul becomes your North Star as a lived orientation that changes everything

Resources and stuff Lian spoke about:

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Subscribe (BTW, it’s absolutely FREE) to the show on your favourite platform or app by clicking the relevant button below… That way you’ll receive each episode automagically straight to your device as soon as it’s released!

 
 

Thank you!
Lian & Jonathan

Episode Transcript:

Please note: We are a small team and not able to check through the transcript our software provides. So you may find some words are out of place and a few sentences don’t make complete sense. If you do see something utterly ridiculous we’d love you to let us know so we can correct it. Please email any howlers with the time stamp to team@bemythical.com.

Lian (00:00)

Hello, my beautiful souls, happy new year and a huge warm welcome to the brand new Wild Sovereign Soul Show. That feels so good to say. This week marks a real turning of the wheel for us. Not only is it the new year, we've also rebirthed as the Wild Sovereign Soul Show, which is the first phase of our wider rebirthing of literally everything we do.

Also, this week, Jonathan and I sit down together for the very first of our free flowing conversations devoted to the wild sovereign soul path. It's challenging to live in this crazy modern world. The wild sovereign soul path is what we know will help. Each month we'll be meeting live themes from the modern world head on, weaving together what we're consuming and creating, how wildness, sovereignty and soul are showing up in our own lives, along with questions from our listeners and team and the patterns we're seeing across our students and clients.

In this episode, Jonathan and I reflect on 12 years of shaping this work. And on the moment it became inconveniently clear that Wild Sovereign Soul wasn't just another rebrand. I mean, hey, we've been through a few now, but actually a naming of what has always been at the heart of what we do.

Of course, everything we've been journeying with, along with you, over the past couple of years with Be Mythical, is still absolutely true. We are still all about each soul living their own myth and the power of stories and archetypes to help us do that. And we'll be speaking much more about how this weaves with the Wild Sovereign Soul path in a future episode. But for now, this conversation is one in which we focused on why the wild sovereign soul path is the antidote to this crazy modern world.

Some of what we speak about includes the increasing pain and struggle that so many of us are experiencing right now. Even more so than when we began this work back 12 years ago. The soul as the North Star, the choices that forge sovereignty, thawing bodies numbed by modern domestication, the moment that awakens soul through loss and love and the ordinary places this path shows up in nature, in boredom and in the decision to say yes or no when it truly matters. So listen if you have ever felt out of place in this modern world sense there was a truer life waiting or wondered what it takes to actually live it.

And before we jump into all of that goodness if you have just arrived here welcome You've come at a very good time. If you've come back, welcome home. And if you keep finding yourself here without subscribing, your soul clearly knows what it's doing honour the call and go ahead and subscribe. And if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world, and as you'll hear us talk about, you are certainly not alone and your heart longs for guidance, kinship and support. Come join Unio, the community for wild sovereign souls. Unio is the living home of the wild sovereign soul path where together we reclaim our wildness, actualise our sovereignty and awaken our souls.

You can discover more and walk with us by heading on over to BeMythical.com/unio or click the link in the description. And if you're listening to this in the next month or so, when we have moved everything to wild sovereign soul, it will be then at wildsovereignsoul.com slash UNIO.

And now back to this week's episode, let's dive in.

Lian (03:46)

Hello, Jonathan, here we are again. The first episode of the year, the first episode of Wild Sovereign Soul and our first Wild Sovereign Soul show together at the Tongue Twister. Hello.

Jonathan (04:05)

Hello many firsts indeed and yeah this just feels good, feels right. This is right where we're meant to be and yeah looking forward to this.

Lian (04:19)

Mm, me too. As I was waiting for you to join the studio earlier, I was pondering how this conversation, there's just so, so much depth and breadth we're going to get into. It's kind of almost like a course in itself. Like we are giving it all away. Let's see, let's see, no pressure, but that, is my sense. There's going to be a lot in this.

Jonathan (04:39)

Yeah.

There's certainly, there's certainly much there.

Lian (04:50)

So shall we begin with a bit of a, I guess, backstory as to why we are where we are becoming, well, depending on when someone's listening to this, either becoming or we've already become wild, sovereign soul. Why is that? What's the story there? you want to take that away?

Jonathan (05:20)

Sure. Well, to many of our long-term listeners and for those who aren't long-term listeners, this is our 12th year of this podcast and 12th year of myself and Lian creating what we've been creating in the world. And there has been many, many iterations now. Some evolutions, revolutions, and this one we've been called into this time is...

Lian (06:00)

you

Jonathan (06:01)

feels like the one and I can't say that without smiling and Lian Leveille the same because we we've probably said that before but this is this really is and to give a bit more context to that the reason we're here with this wonderful beautiful new name of wild sovereign soul is because

Lian (06:03)

I hope and pray so.

Jonathan (06:32)

We've been called into creating and bringing together into a framework, a model, all of the work, everything we've been called into for so many years now. And during that process, we was bringing it all together and these very persistent and consistent strands as we are referring to them now have been there, which are

Lian (06:41)

you

Jonathan (07:01)

the wild, the sovereign and soul and the reclaiming of our wildness, the actualising our sovereignty and awakening our soul. And we were working with this framework and it was just becoming more and more clear to us that now this is actually what we are like in its entirety, what we're here for, what our work is about And it became clear that rather regrettably, because we have had somewhat of a rebranding fatigue along the years. It was like, okay, wild sovereign soul it is. And so in the kind of shortest description, that's how we ended up here. It's through crystallizing all of our work into this precise framework.

Lian (07:36)

You

Jonathan (07:57)

which is a, an antidote, a solution, a guiding path for souls of this world that are trying to find their way back home. And as all of you listening will know, it's pretty challenging right now. And, we feel in our bones, we know in our soul that this we'll go into in this show and what we'll be continuing to go into is the path. so yeah, that's a little bit of why we're here, but I'll let you pick up from there and yeah, go wherever you're called.

Lian (08:45)

Hmm.

There's a couple of things that occur to me. one was when you were talking about the fact that this is, I think is it our fourth rebrand or fourth brand, fourth name, fourth, iteration that's right, isn't it? So we've gone from as though those of you that have been with us at the start will know.

Jonathan (09:10)

No, think it's the fifth. Lian, Lian it's the fifth.

Lian (09:14)

Fifth. I don't know. So we've come from born happy to primal happiness, to wake in the wild, to be mythical to now wild, sovereign soul. Yes, it is our fifth. And it was just occurring to me how letting our team know that this was happening and

Jonathan (09:13)

fifth, isn't it?

Lian (09:34)

their responses for me said it all because as you say, there is definitely this sense of like, my gosh, rebrand fatigue. and yet our team didn't respond that way at all. They were just like, yes, this makes complete sense. It feels right. And I'm recalling that because there's definitely been for me in particular, almost like a little bit of embarrassment of like, can't believe we're doing this again. and yet.

Jonathan (09:43)

No.

Lian (09:59)

I recall every person I've said this to has had the same response of like, almost like, love that, of course, it makes total sense. And so that just felt important to share. And again, not least the fact that I just want to ⁓ acknowledge our team and their loyalty and devotion to all that we do and being with us through, you know, some of them through at least three of those iterations. And whilst I'm in the flow of acknowledging, I also want to acknowledge you.

Jonathan (10:07)

Mm.

Lian (10:29)

the listener. And I know some of you have also been with us right from those early days, from the start when we were born happy, 12 years ago, so I was actually just talking about that. And wow, you know, what a journey that you've been on with us. through all of the twists and turns that brought us to this being that just obvious next step, the hashtag of course, as I sometimes say. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for trusting us, ⁓ moving through all of those different chapters with us. And my hope is, and I kind of would go as far as I'm not, as you probably know, I'm not the most certain person in the world. I live with this kind of vast world of possibilities at all times, but I know this is something that will touch your soul and call forth all parts of you into the life that you're here for.

So that feels an important thing to just mention. of course we are, it's not just you and I, Jonathan, it's our team, it's our listeners, it's our students and what a fellowship we are.

Jonathan (11:58)

Indeed, I truly echo that and we are incredibly blessed.

Lian (12:03)

Hmm.

And then talk about fellowship, which is a word I love is obviously something that's ⁓ mentioned many times during the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And is something I often talk about when we were in UNIO, our community for wild sovereign souls, this idea of fellowship of people coming together. And I'm just going to touch on this briefly. ⁓ But we've increasingly seen this ⁓ kind of like, guess, different kinds of people that we have in the world. This is obviously like really oversimplifying and with no nuance whatsoever. But Broadly speaking, there are people who have come here to conform and that's not, do not mean that in a detrimental dismissive way. That is the path that their soul came for in this lifetime to conform to the, what's around them, the culture, the narratives around them. And then there's the divergence.

which sometimes we also talk about as old souls, because I think to a large extent they're synonymous. But looking at through this lens of conformist versus divergence, what we've seen over the years, and by divergent I don't mean neurodivergent, although many diversions are also neurodivergent, but our work, this path is for the divergence.

And I'm going to touch a little bit more at the end of this in terms of ⁓ a deeper conversation that I'm going to be having with you all next week, I think about that. But just want to name this now that if you're here listening to this, chances are you are a divergent. And as far as we can see, you will need something akin to everything we're speaking about here in order to It's important for to know that this isn't for everyone, but it is for those of us that have come here to diverge from the mainstream path.

Jonathan (14:10)

Yes, it feels one of the most ancient time honoured energetics is woven into life. That for those who just don't have the, either don't have the ability to conform or just feel that call to diverge or just find themselves diverging, there are people.

There is a way there's something that meets them that helps guide them and support them on their journey. And yeah, we feel very blessed that we are able to help meet people on that journey. Because of course, we too, both of us are divergent ones. And we have been there for one another and we are on the journey too. And We are living in some very

interesting times and

We'll probably cover going into much more detail in other shows around this, but it can be quite easy to feel quite down or be impacted in maybe not the most positive ways about the way the world is at the moment. But in many ways, this is a breaking down of the systems of what's here and this is a real opening. And There's so much, so much possibility for all of us in these times.

Yeah, it's this very, very good times to come. just, I just want to just want to say that ⁓ somewhat at the outset, may get into that later on in this show, but we certainly will do in the shows to come. And yeah, to all you divergent ones, we are with you. We're here for you. And ⁓ we're here for the journey.

Lian (16:03)

Hmm. So talking of these times, as we were planning this conversation, we were both reflecting on the fact that 12 years ago when we began, we, I may say that perhaps we coined that phrase, this crazy modern world. Um, and it's been with us, you know, I think right from very early on in our work.

that it was clear that there was a context to the work that we do. And it is the fact that it is this crazy modern world. And to a large extent, at least part of the purpose of us doing what we do is to help people to live well in this crazy modern world. And what we've been reflecting on is that in just 12 years, things have changed radically. We could say things have become even more crazy. We have seen that, haven't we? The difference between when we began and now, the themes that we're talking about have only heightened. Do you want to say a little bit more about that? Because again, this is the context we are working in. Some of the work we do would be...

true, whether we were talking, you know, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, but some of them are very specific, precisely contextual to these times. And this time in particular, again, even compared to 12 years ago. So I'd love to hear you describe how you see. And again, you're better at this than I am because I spend so much of the time kind of in my rose-tinted world, where you're much more like, you know, this is how it is. don't hold back.

Jonathan (17:54)

such a beautiful world it is, Lian.

Yeah, so true. I mean, we already thought 12 years ago that we was in this crazy kind of hockey stick ⁓ curve ⁓ of change. And We had no idea how much more ⁓ crazy this modern world was going to get. And yes, there are those kind of two parts of our work and maybe they aren't necessarily always so simply separated, but there are those ancient time-honoured paths, energies, ways of working with people that will just always be there. And then there are those that have been adapted that we have been called to change, to meet this, this craziness, this rate of change, because we are certainly the children who are caught in this like crazy flux state where we, the world is moving at such a rate of change, that it's impossible for our rate of evolution to catch up. And so if we don't take certain measures, or certain aligned actions, actions that are in alignment with our soul, then we can quite easily find ourselves ⁓ in some incredibly, incredibly challenging situations. ⁓ yeah, that's obviously, as we say, it's part of the ride. It's what we chose in these times. And yeah, that's very much what we're being called into. How much more crazy that's going to get? Who knows?

but, one thing we do know is that, much of what we'll cover in the wild sovereign soul, ⁓ path is what's going to really help support you in your very own unique soul path. Cause everyone has their own unique path, but there are a set of guiding principles that can, ⁓ it can meet you on that and meet whatever, whatever much whatever craziness we have to come that we can't even foresee. right at you know at this birthing age of AI and all the all the ever interesting things that are right here in this moment.

Lian (20:33)

Would you perhaps name ⁓ some of the ways that this, again, craziness of the crazy modern world shows up in terms that you could simply say is disconnection, but would you just name, like bring to life what that might look like in someone's life?

Jonathan (20:52)

So, probably the easiest, like you touched on there, is the disconnection and the results of that. ⁓ usually that shows up in some form of dis-ease, be that mental or physical, as all forms of dis-ease stem from disconnection at their root cause. the further and the more disconnected we are, the more...

disease we feel in our bodies, in our minds, ⁓ in our hearts, in our souls. And that separation is creating such illness, such numbness, such loneliness, such lack of being alive, really. And so much pain.

so much pain. really is at the core of everything. And we often speak to the avatar as a wonderful example that just really shows what can happen when we live in synergy, in this symbiotic relationship, deeply immersed and connected with all that is in harmony, in deep coherence and This is what is possible and I appreciate for most people it can feel that we're a billion miles away from that. But we are always so much more closer than it may seem. And there's always so much at hand, close for us to start reconnecting, to start to come home, to start to come into some sort of centered, grounded, balanced sense of self and...

Lian (22:35)

Hmm.

Jonathan (22:46)

orientation. Because that's another key thing is so many people are lost, feeling lost, and feeling hopeless. So yeah, I'll stop there because I could say a little bit much more on that. that's, for me, much of what I think comes up with regards to that. But is there anything one would like to add?

Lian (23:10)

No, I feel like we are now set up perfectly to look at what will help us create again, if we hold that avatar vision that we believe is possible in our own way on, in this planet.

Of course, what we are about is creating the path for people to actualise that in their own lives. And we do that and you touched on this earlier via three, what we've named primordial strands that we're going to ⁓ explain. So I'm going to hand over for you to just define what we're talking about here. And then I just want to spend a bit of time then explaining kind of each of those definitions and why we're here talking about them in the way that we are. But would you like to just ⁓ share that kind of initial definition of what we mean?

Jonathan (24:10)

certainly. ⁓ as I as I did touch on it is the path of reclaiming your wildness, actualising your sovereignty and awakening your soul. And these strands as Lance said, as we we call them now ⁓ may sit in some time in some ways independent, but they are woven together and they are imperative. These are the principles to live fully, to truly live life as your true self. Because you can, so many people, as I said, are living a life, but it's not truly theirs. It's not truly a life they're living as from soul, from the real essence of who they are, to truly experience the fullness, to be able to see and taste the awe and wonder and the beauty of life. And I don't mean to make that sound too fanciful, but this is what is true. This is what is available when we honour these three primordial strands. so Wild Sovereign Soul.

Lian (25:35)

And so again, I wanted to just spend a little bit of time defining what's meant by these words. And the first one, I don't know if you mentioned in what you've just said, but the primordial strands are first principles. They are the first principles of living that kind of life that Jonathan described.

some of you probably already like, yep, I know what a first principle is, but I just want to, because I grew up with this notion, this way of reasoning, which my sense is, is actually a kind of innate way that autistic people reason anyway, is just a word for it. But those of you who perhaps are less familiar with that term, first principles, it can be seen as the underlying set of

assumptions that everything else is built upon. And so you could see it's like the smallest possible truth that's at the heart of something. And that could be a system, it could be a movement, it could be a method. And then you take that smallest possible truth and then build up from it. And so the first principle is that, it's the underlying truth assumption that everything else comes from. And that's

The reason I'm really making a point of this is what we're talking about in terms of wild, sovereign and soul, they are first principles. They aren't just, you know, nice beliefs. They aren't just kind of like, this is something that we've discovered helps people. These aren't literally first principles. They are the founding stones that this life has to be built on in order for us to live it fully.

And so that's when we're talking about these primordial strands, they are first principles. And then I just want to see you touch really quickly on, and if you know me, you'll know that I'm a absolute, I love the English language. I love words. I love knowing the root of words. And so just briefly why we've decided to call them primordial strands. Firstly, the word strand.

It just organically became, I think it was me initially when we talking about these three things, I named them as strands just as kind of organically as I was talking. And then over time, they just became like, this is obviously what they are. And of course the word strand gives this sense of a thread of something which intrinsically suggests it's going to be woven with other things. And one of the things in particular this word is used for is of course a strand of DNA.

Which again, is this kind of sense of a first principles of something, being. And so again, this word strand always just suggested itself and then it over time just became of course. This makes so much sense because these three strands do weave together. The word primordial again has this, it's almost like a repetition of this idea of first principles because it happens first. It is that original starting point.

So it exists right at the beginning. This could be the beginning of the world, the universe, you know, a story is the thing that happens first. And so again, the primordial strands are really compounding this idea of these are the starting points of something, these threads of life that then are going to be woven together into this wild sovereign soul life.

Back to you, Jonathan, if you just want to name what each of those primordial strands is, and then we'll dive deeper into each of them.

Jonathan (29:33)

Indeed, indeed. yeah, the way these came together was really rather, rather beautiful, almost came through us in many ways. ⁓ So the wild primordial strand is reclaiming our original state of naturalness before our taming and conditioning from modern domestication.

The sovereign primordial strand is actualising the elevated awareness that provides agency, inner confidence and self-governance. The soul primordial strand is awakening to the eternal unified unique essence of who we really are.

Lian (30:31)

So we now will go deep into, well, as deep as we can in the context of this being, you know, hopefully not an eight hour episode into defining each of them. And so we'll begin with wildness and

I'll just share again what Jonathan said about that. So the wild primordial strand is reclaiming our original state of naturalness before our taming and conditioning from modern domestication. And for each of these, we've given this sort of deeper, not exactly a definition, but almost like a so what sense of it. You know, like this is what this creates. This is how this feels. So the one for wildness is.

Life once more flows with a sense of being at home in one's own skin and the living world guided by instinctive knowing and sensual aliveness, resourced and resilient with a deep feeling of belonging.

So would you like to bring that to life a bit more Jonathan? Like what to you is this wild primordial strand?

Jonathan (31:40)

Well, understandably, when we refer to the wild or anyone hears the word the wild, they immediately can think of the outside, the wilderness, ⁓ understandably nature, and maybe a wild man or wild woman. But really, at its essence, probably one of the easiest ways speak to it is just what is natural.

that is natural? What is our naturalness, our state of naturalness, in terms of internally being, but also our body? What's our body state of naturalness and the world? Like if we left the world to run by its own intelligence, how would that look like? You know, most of us can see that fortunately of how it is. so

When we talk about this wild primordial strand and the reclamation of that, as we said, it's a return back to our original state. it's so it's, this is the one that, as we often say, there didn't need to be as much focus on this, because for the eons of time, we lived so deeply and intimately at one with nature. We knew we were nature, we were part of nature and we honoured the spirits of nature, the gods of nature. that has, as we know, over time, slowly and now rather intensely eroded. And ⁓ that has left much of where we are right now. But this forms a ⁓ really big part of what we do. And in many ways, a lot of people understandably can find this the hardest in some ways to be able to be with. there are this you don't as

Lian (33:40)

Okay. you

Jonathan (33:56)

we as we used to say many years ago, you don't have to go and live in a shack in the middle of the woods and eat bugs like

This isn't what is required to reclaim your wildness. There is so, so many ways to do this while still being and living as part of this modern world. But the reclamation of your wildness, the return to your original state, your state of naturalness is essential. If you are to move through the other primordial strands, and honour the first principles of what we're speaking to here to live your soul, life, and live it fully.

So yeah, that's, ⁓ again, of course, much more that can be said, but that's ⁓ certainly some of what immediately comes to mind is just to set that scene because usually what comes up is

when I just referred to.

Lian (35:03)

And as I think you just said, like this is vital. This is a nice to have. This is vital in order to be able to walk our soul path whilst meeting the challenges this creates in the modern world. And the, the first reason.

for that that occurs to me is...

we like nothing really counts unless it has this ⁓ flow into the material world, into our bodies, our physical forms, and then outwards into the world. And so whilst say for example, someone might be like, well, I've got, you know, sovereignty down. I feel very soul led. Unless we have this deep, intimate, immersed relationship with all that's natural.

that physical ⁓ aspect of ourselves and of life, it's just like, kind of does it really matter? Is it even real? Is it really happening? And that's a very kind of, almost like quite basic way of looking at it. But I think it is as straightforward as that. There's other reasons too, but it really is like, this is where the rubber meets the road quite literally. It's like, where life actually happens is in this material world and this, the world of our bodies and the environment we're in. but I'd love to hear your sense as to the other reasons this is vital.

Jonathan (36:39)

Just picking up from where you were speaking to then is there is this deep ancestral wisdom that is waiting, lying there, dormant in our DNA, waiting to be activated and actualised once we start to honour this first principle, this primordial strand of reclaiming our wildness. all have this inner tracker, this inner original operating system that comes online, ⁓ which again, it's effortless. It doesn't mean it's not going to be uncomfortable at first, you know, going through the motions of being in nature and not having a phone. And again, just say it doesn't always require reclaiming your wildness, going into nature, but I'm just going to use this as an example. So when one would say go to a sit spot or have go on a soul quest, spend any sort of extended period in time in the analog world, in the actual, you know, arguably the real world that we are, which is analog, ⁓ devoid of any digital connection, or people, there is this uncomfortableness that many can meet. And there's others that are just an immediate ⁓ and you know, the the ease starts to wash over and through their body. the key thing is it doesn't take long. Doesn't take long at all. Again, from doing many vision quests and running many vision quests after, you know a good just a few hours, one's body starts to really open. Well, it starts first of all, to slow down. And the moment we start to slow down, we can open. Once we open, we can receive all that is there for us. And we can again, have this come online. And so, yeah, I just want to speak to how ⁓ effortless much of this can be, once the initial hard aligned actions have been taken to honour the wild primordial strand.

Lian (39:04)

Yeah, there was, as you're talking, I'm going to sort of segue into a little story here. ⁓ I think as we go, if we can bring this to life with human stories, ⁓

I was reflecting how often for many of us, it's not the only way to experience this for many of us. When we're deeply immersed in nature, it can be some of the most profound experiences of union, of oneness, of that deep connection, the internet interconnectedness of everything. And of course there are other ways to experience that.

But it is one of the, guess, like, it's a pun, but like natural for humans. It's how we've been for so much of our time on this planet that there's something about being back in nature in that kind of deeply immersed way that you were talking about that seems to like just like jerk us back to that, or it can do. And I was just reflecting on over the years of doing the work we do, how that does so much of the work for us. We've had countless students where we've invited them into the different kind of practices and rituals that form our work, which we're going to get into in a moment. And even the simplest thing can suddenly awaken parts of them that they just did not know were there. It is so incredible. And I think so much of it is that like feeling of like, oh, I'm not just this set

⁓ little being going around the world. I'm part of all of this. And it's thriving with consciousness, life, guidance, support, friends, you know, like it's all here for me. And we're going to use ⁓ anonymised stories as we go here. So the names that we're using aren't the real names. And so that'd be the case throughout. But I was recalling Cameron, who has been with us through many of our different crucibles over the years. And he was someone like just such a dear soul, such a dear soul. very much like he would have described himself, you know, then he worked a trade. so very kind of, you know, like, just very salt of the earth down to earth person that, you know, wasn't at all on any kind of spiritual path. came to us because he'd struggled with really deep mental health problems, including depression. And then I remember the difference it made him literally, you know, of course all parts of our work, but in particular for him, taking the invitations that we were giving to spend time in the wild in all different ways and how they was just like waking up to parts of himself. And I really recall there was one time when we were in medicine, the Crucible we ran back in 2021 for the first time. And I was playing the shamanic drum and he had such a bad response to it. It was almost like, like, this is just, I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm meant to be doing. And to the point where he nearly left the Crucible altogether as the very first ceremony. And he went from that.

And again, I think this is largely because of the time he spent in nature to just going so deep into that path himself to actually making his own shamanic drum, you know being part of circles, doing that kind of work. And I think so much of that was the time, because he was someone who really embraced that connection with the natural world, didn't he? More than many do. ⁓

Jonathan (43:05)

So much so.

Lian (43:06)

he'd come back to the stories of things that happened on his walks in the woods and you know, this, ⁓ my gosh, I mean, he's just such a great storyteller

Jonathan (43:11)

Some of the best stories.

Lian (43:15)

anyway, but just the magic of that time in just again, local woods next to him just brought him back to himself. And again, he's one of many, but he's just one that comes to mind as just such a delightful example of the power of that.

Jonathan (43:33)

Yes.

Lian (43:34)

Just before we go into what that work looks like, what the practices look like, I know that when we talking before, you were reminding us of back in our original days, our three principles days, that kind of includes us. We're not just talking disparagingly about other people, but just walking around kind of basically like dead from the neck down. you want to just say something about that before we get into the practices of reclaiming your wellness?

Jonathan (44:04)

Yeah, it's not a great deal to add really, but it is often the case in ascension based, let's say, philosophies or approaches that one can leave the body, neglect the body and indeed, exactly, exactly.

Lian (44:25)

and even be encouraged to directly or indirectly.

Jonathan (44:30)

⁓ And ⁓ almost like you don't need to worry about your body. You can leave that behind. You know, that that's what and that's obviously a very, that's a very seductive thing. And it is true, you are not your body, but you have a body. And within that body is like a ship laden with all of just all of the wonder and wisdom and the access to so much and

Lian (44:36)

Hmm. You are not your body.

Jonathan (45:00)

So yeah, there was that, there is the term that we used to use so often. And again, it is encouraged and there's no disrespect to any of those. Everyone's on their own journey. But what we tend to find is at some point for most people, they will return home to their physical form and be able to receive and a lot of that comes from being in nature. Like Lian was saying, that activation that happens and ⁓ no longer are they dead from the neck down.

Lian (45:39)

Mmm.

Jonathan (45:41)

slowly but surely more and more alive.

Lian (45:46)

Yeah, gosh, there's so many things I could share about myself personally when it comes to this primordial strand in particular, but in the interest of time, I won't for the moment. We've got so many shows to come that we can wax lyrical on all of this, but what I'm going to do is I'm going to read out just some of the practices that form...

the wild sovereign soul path when it comes to reclaiming your wildness. then if there's any in particular that you want to, and this is by no means a complete list anyway, but if there's any that you want to either add or just speak a bit more on, feel free and then we'll move on to sovereignty. So again, these are just some of the ways that we guide people to walk the wild sovereign soul path and particularly reclaiming their wildness.

So there's soul quests, which come in many forms, but in particular, ⁓ vision quests, which I'm sure Jonathan will want to add a bit more about on that. ⁓ wild wanders. taking a wander, sort of following your, your belly button out into nature, following where you're being led. ⁓ having a special tree, a tree that becomes like, my gosh, everything, ⁓ a companion, a guide, just.

There isn't even enough words I can use to encapsulate what this tree can become. You've probably, if you've been listening to this show for some time, you've probably already heard me talk about the role of my oak in my own path. And I literally wouldn't be doing what I do. can hear the emotion here already. I wouldn't be doing what I do without that oak and the relationship I've had with it. and still have. Body-led movement, allowing your body to move as it wants to move.

menstrual cycle awareness, my goodness, like that one thing can be absolutely life-changing for a woman. ⁓ eating in a more wild way and that could come in the form of foraging, hunting, fermenting foods. ⁓ one of things I absolutely love to do is fermenting. ⁓ it's, ⁓ yeah, just so much, again, just the fact it's a wild, ⁓ it's wild life force happening in, in each jar. Incredible.

So there's just some of the ways, but again, do you want to enlarge or add to any of that, Jonathan?

Jonathan (48:16)

I don't think in terms of the individual things, and there is of course much more ⁓ that can be said of that and we will do, but just to say that what you get to experience, going on or taking part or connecting with some of the things that Lian was speaking to, you're able to bring back home. You're able to bring back into this modern world, this domesticated world that you live in. And that can be an illumination of your naturalness of actually, okay, this is actually what's natural for me. And then you can practice that in your home.

You don't always have to need to go out into nature. And that, I'll speak for myself personally, really being able to have that clear sense of what my, my original state is, my state of naturalness. What, what am I when I am being my most authentic self, when you start to really get a taste of that,

It's not like a light switch. It can be momentarily a state experience, but you start to get a taste, a smell, a texture of it. And that's something that starts to grow. And it's something that you can really start to grow anywhere.

because you have that touch point. And so being able to just be in your state of naturalness, just know, okay, when you're not, and then being able to just drop into the body, because this is the thing that we're saying, once you come back home to the body, the body is nature. The body is home and it will illuminate so much for you that doesn't always require that you go into nature. It will more than likely require that you need to disconnect from a few things. You do need to disconnect from your phone, from this modern world in some shape or form, stillness, silence, presence. Presence is just about everything there is. It is the most precious thing we have. And when we come home to our state of naturalness, we come home to that state of presence, which allows us to be truly present to what is the gifts of our body, the beauty of life, the pain, the whatever it is that we are meant to be with. that practice is something that can be, as I said, honed and aligned action that can be done and repeated time and time again in the intimacy and privacy of your own home and doesn't need to be in nature. But of course, when you can get out into nature, please do it when you can find a tree and have what I sense much of you felt when Lian emotionally just started to touch on that connection to her tree. When you get it, it changes everything. And also just to to finish quickly is notice where you had any strong

reactions to anything that Lian spoke to. Just like Cameron had with the drum. That can be a telltale sign. You can obviously have a strong positive reaction, which is also a great obvious telltale sign. And sometimes you may have a numbness, also but don't write off something because it's this really strong initial, ⁓ no, not for me. usually that can be some form of resistance or our inner protectors or something like that. So I just wanted to touch on that ⁓ for any of you while Lian was running through that list that maybe had a big resistance ⁓ to something.

Lian (52:37)

Yeah, great reminder. I think it's fair to say some of the things I've had the strongest, ugh, no, not for me reaction to, but the things that were most for me. Annoyingly. Okay. So moving on as we still got a lot to dive into, into sovereignty. And so again, I'm going to share the definition of sovereignty.

And then we will define it further. So the sovereign primordial strand is actualising the elevated awareness that provides agency, inner confidence and self governance. Life is shaped by divinely guided conscious choice. The majesty encouraged act in the presence of fear and the clarity of purpose to meet all of life, whatever it brings.

So would you like to expand upon that? Like what is sovereignty, Jonathan?

Jonathan (53:42)

So it is the most wondrous thing. ⁓ really is. it is something that, while it comes almost within our system, it's not pre-activated. It may be pre-installed, but it is something that we create that is actualised over time. And the sovereign grows through taking aligned actions, actions that are in alignment with our soul, with our truth, with the essence of who we are, and not our, let's say, the more wounded parts of ourself, the not self, the shadow self, the ⁓ parts that are maybe motivated by, again, anything that isn't the essence of who we are. And there's nothing wrong in that. This is the nature of this human experience, but a huge, huge, in the same way that we were saying that the wildness is probably the one that requires most attention that didn't used to require much attention before. the sovereign strand and sovereignty itself also has that to its ⁓ effect that we've lost the rights of passages.

We've lost the many ⁓ forms of material for liberation that allow us to go through that maturation process into sovereignty. And things such as vision quests were some of those rites of passages that were, there was a given. We would just find ourself going on them. Nature, life itself would guide and draw us into that because we were so immersed.

in nature and connected to our soul. so, yeah, I love to start there in just defining that, ⁓ yeah, it isn't something that comes pre-activated, but it is pre-installed. But it is something in this modern world that we have to, we have to bring presence and awareness to, to take the aligned actions to start to go through that maturation process and start to really awaken and actualise our sovereignty.

Lian (56:09)

Hmm. So moving, ⁓ moving into why it is so vital. And again, with each of these, they sound wonderful. You know, what you've just described, it's like, who wouldn't want that? And yet I think again, coming back again and again, like, why is this vital? Why does actualising our sovereignty allow us to walk our soul path in this crazy modern world? And

It's a funny one, sovereignty, in that in some ways It isn't almost like rewarding in and of itself. It is something that allows us to choose the other two, the other two primordial strands. mean, they're very much woven together anyway, as we've said, and sometimes the work, as you just gave the example of Vision Quest, the work Reclaiming Our Wildness also is so intrinsically linked with actualising our sovereignty and requires sovereignty to even choose it. But it's so interesting sovereignty in that in some ways it is literally just a tool. It just allows us to do things.

And yet, we were talking about this when we were preparing for this recording the other day. On the other hand, it is quite sexy. When you think of someone who is sovereign, it is one of the most appealing, alluring, sexy things that someone can be. And so I find that just an interesting thing about sovereignty, that in some ways it is literally just a tool that allows us to live life fully. And yet there is something just so magnetic about a sovereign person, which of course is a rare person in this modern world. So anything else you want to add to why this is essential? I didn't really even talk about why it's essential, but it just occurred to me to say that.

Jonathan (58:01)

Just to say.

Well, just to tack on to the end of that, which is thank God, because the seductiveness of the shadow to not take the aligned actions to step into sovereignty ⁓ is so strong that, yeah, having it be ⁓ sexy, as you described it, is a really helpful motivating factor, as well as all of the many others.

Lian (58:19)

Yeah.

you

Yeah.

But anyway, I didn't actually ask, ⁓ saying that it's sexy is not answering the question of why it's vital. But the first, the first, and I guess almost like the main reason it's, I don't know if any of these can be considered the main reason, but one of the key reasons it's vital is as we've kept talking about, this crazy modern world is darn challenging to live in, let alone to walk our soul path in.

And it is completely understandable that we will consider ourselves a victim to it. We will consider ourselves at the mercy of it. We will consider ourselves to have no power, no agency in the face of the challenges of this crazy modern world. Sovereignty is what changes that. Sovereignty is what allows us to recognise that we can not only meet the challenges of this modern world, actually see them as the way that we do become our true self. We can meet the challenges of this crazy modern world in a way that we are allowing it to forge us, to allow us to become ourselves. it is sovereignty that creates that shift is a ⁓ real shift of perspective where I'm no longer a victim of this crazy modern world. I am sovereign and choosing these challenges in a way that allows me to become my true self. I mean, that on its own is just like, I mean, if that was the only reason that it was worth actualising your sovereignty, I think that on its own is everything, but I'd love to hear you add your thoughts.

Jonathan (1:00:16)

It really is as you know, we are right where we are based on the sum total of the choices we have made in our life. And for so many of us, for so much of our life, we make those choices from a victim place a victim stance a lot without that level of sovereign awareness. And we Speak often to the sovereign price versus the victim price and just having that awareness that you've been paying a victim price. And it's, doesn't always make it that much easier to sometimes make the choice. Boy, are you glad that you're aware that the choice is there in the first place and that no long and to have this, clarity of no longer will I choose to pay the victim price.

Lian (1:01:02)

Mm.

Jonathan (1:01:10)

I will pay the sovereign price. And the

Lian (1:01:13)

you

Jonathan (1:01:14)

sovereign price, although sometimes quite hefty in what it will require, is always, always worth it. And with the sovereign price, with actualising your sovereignty, comes this beautiful

hard to really describe it as a thing, ⁓ but the energy which is grace. And grace is the most incredible companion, is the most incredible quality to have when we're coming up against the crunchiness of this modern world, when we're coming up against the raw harshness of our life at times. And without grace, without sovereignty, we will inevitably lose ourself we will inevitably never be able to find ourself And so yeah, that it's all about choice. And when we have that sovereign, it's like that compass, that elevation, it really, it really brings it all home to us. And ⁓

Yeah, there's so much more we could say on that, but it is everything in terms of having you create the life you came here to create and to honour the truth of your soul, of your heart, of what you long for.

Lian (1:02:53)

Mm.

I was going to add one more ⁓ aspect of why it's vital. ⁓ And then we'll move into what does it look like? What is the work of becoming sovereign?

As I mentioned earlier, sovereignty is rare. Like a real, you know, deep degree of sovereignty is exceptionally rare. And that makes this more challenging, you know, with many things in life, perhaps not the thing, perhaps not the primordial strands, but other things in life that we want to develop.

We can look outside and there's role models for that. They might, not be people in our lives, but there might be celebrities. There could be people out there that we have as role models. Sovereignty is so rare. We lack role models. We were talking the other day how, you know, people say, you know, we really lack elders, which is true. But part of the reason we lack elders is we actually lack true adults, which, you know, really is a synonym for someone who's suffering.

And if we lack true adults, know, true adults grow into elders and we're lacking that kind of foundational part of someone even being a true adult. And what I've experienced myself and what I've seen in so many of our students, there is something about that archetypal recognition of the sovereign that allows us to...

be awoken, activated, inspired by it, and it calls us forth into it. It is so magical to witness that where it's like you start to invite people to touch it, it's not even create, it's because it's already there, these of course archetypes are in themselves pre-existing. But they start to...

bring into their mind and being this idea of this inner king or queen, this sovereign and the qualities they have and the way they move through the world and the way they speak and the choices they make. And it becomes this role model for them. It's more than a role model, but it becomes this activation into that for them in a way that I just think it's like, wow, like pure magic witnessing that.

And it is vital because of that, because it's not something that there's nothing else that's going to do the job of the sovereign. And yet there is this almost like secret kind of code that is just waiting for us to like discover us. that's the sovereign. And then when we, when we realize what it is, it comes alive in us. And again, it requires the choices to actualise it, but there is almost like a blueprint that gets activated. And yeah, so, so magical. Anyway.

Moving into the work. And again, I'm just going to ⁓ name some of them. And then if you want to expand on any of them, let's do that. So there is first and foremost, in some ways it's the simplest, but the hardest practice of all, which is to choose to become sovereign. As you said earlier, Jonathan, sovereignty is so much about conscious choice.

And there is that kind of initial choice to become sovereign, to step onto that path of sovereignty. And then from that point onwards, everything we do, every choice we make happens within that choice, within that context of I'm already on the path and therefore it's the lens I look at life through. And even when, and we'll talk a little bit about bit about this in a moment, even when one is consciously choosing to pay the victim prize, it's still happening within the context of sovereignty. There of course is a huge amount of healing and shadow work to become aware of what triggers us, the projections we're making onto the world, onto other people, and then meeting what lies beneath them, what was created that. There is developing a loving, truly loving relationship between that inner sovereign, which can be seen in this context as kind of like our inner parent and our inner child. Before this happens, and even when someone's doing really good in a child work, it can be actually what happens is the inner child actually just runs even more amok. It's kind of like, okay, great. You know, it's all about me now. I'm just going to, you know, allow my fears and my needs to just take over.

What happens when we're doing this through the lens of sovereignty is we start to develop that very strong sense of, again, a true adult who is able to meet the child, care for the child, listen to the child, but still be the leader of that person's life. Really, really important part of this work. And then as we've touched on, a really important practice and again, foundational practice of actualising our sovereignty is to Be able to illuminate when something's a sovereign price and a victim price. Which, what would, of these two kind of choice points, what's the sovereign price and what's the victim price? And then actively choosing which to pay, which again, can sometimes be, you know what, I'm not ready to pay the sovereign price here. I'm going to consciously choose to pay the victim price and I'm sovereignly going to choose to pay that. And it's not necessarily the choice I'm going to make forever, but right now.

I'm going to take the hit. I'm going to do the thing I know is not really aligned and know that I'm going to have to pay the price. But I'm doing that from a sovereign place or conversely, I'm going to really consciously choose to pay the sovereign price. I'm going to do the thing that's aligned, even knowing it could have, for example, people around me ⁓ disapprove. I'm going to, I'm going to pay that price because it's so important for me to do what's aligned.

So again, this is not exhaustive list, anything that you want to ⁓ add about the work and the practices of actualising one's sovereignty.

Jonathan (1:09:32)

No, I think, I think that felt pretty complete, ⁓ for now, at least anyway. But again, it just comes down to in the simplest form, those choices, and the sovereign grows through taking aligned actions. And yeah, there's, there's the simplest way of saying it, but there's so much more and

There's so much more we've actually said on this as well in previous podcasts on sovereignty, just to say as well. yeah, that feels enough for now.

Lian (1:10:03)

Hmm.

Wonderful. And then coming to a story of someone that we worked with, we were reflecting before we recorded on, know, there's just so many examples we could give when it comes to our students who have really just, you know, beautiful examples. talk about the lack of role models. They've become role models of sovereigns to others. And We could have chosen so many. then what we decided to focus on was a story of someone that I'm going to call Ellie. coming in, unlike many people coming into our work, she was already so sovereign in so many ways, you know, coming into elderhood, lots of success, lots of power.

Someone who in many ways was already a true adult. And yet it was so just beautiful to witness how the sovereignty work she did with us has allowed her to make, well, again, going back to that sovereign price, to make the sovereign choice, pay the sovereign price in really important areas of her life that have meant her life now compared to her life back a few years ago when she first came to us, it's unrecognizable. She is now living what she used to describe, you know, like I want to be able to live my right life. I've had all of this success, but I don't feel like I'm fully living my right life. The difference was, I mean, again, it's across all three of the primordial strands, but in particular, really understanding and actualising her sovereignty has allowed her to make these really important choices that nothing else would have led to the life she's got now, which again is an enviable life and more importantly is her one right life. But it requires even for someone who already would have been very high up there in most people's estimation of someone who was suffering, it was that again, actualising her sovereignty to make some really difficult choices.

that has resulted in that. just again, what, you know, she's living where she wants in a really beautiful place. She has radically changed the nature of her work to allow her to do the things that her soul was calling to her. She's a very creative person, was being called to do things that she just didn't have the time to do. So it really is, again, without wanting to reveal too much about her.

She has now one of those dream lives, but it took paying the sovereign price to create that, which of course required the actualization of her sovereignty. But yeah, one of my favorite stories.

Jonathan (1:13:15)

Indeed. Wonderful example.

Lian (1:13:18)

So moving into our third primordial strand, that of soul, awakening the soul. So the soul primordial strand is awakening to the eternal unified unique essence of who we really are. I always get a kind of like, like a tingle for some reason, like when I read like, eternal, unified and unique and the paradox within that, which gives me this like little thrill. So life opens into love, beauty and deep meaning guided by wisdom and vision where joy and fulfillment arise from living in alignment with one's true calling. Who wouldn't want that? So would you like to ⁓ share a bit more in terms of what is this soul primordial strength?

Jonathan (1:14:10)

Well, this is if there is the one ⁓ it's this one. The other two are really in support of this. ⁓ And it's it's the most precious thing there is really. It's it's who we really are. It's that what I sense and I judge that tingle that you guard is what comes from your own soul that truth that it feels when those words land and It's, it's been attempted to be defined over the eons of time from all the greats from Rumi to Hafiz to you name it. And so ⁓ it also feels one of those ineffable things ⁓ in many ways to speak to, but in its essence, it is who we are and is the most precious thing we could ever.

connect with, we could ever have a relationship with not just our own soul, but other souls. And once we're able to come home to that, as again, you will have heard many ⁓ mystics and sages say over the year, you get to see the soul in everyone.

And you get to have that experience of true union on a soul level with yourself and with the soul of Mother Earth with the spirit of everything and Yeah, Soul is where it's at. I'm sure we'll get into much more about it, but that's what initially is there for me when you ask me that question.

Lian (1:16:12)

Hmm.

So again, I always feel like with this, there's not really a need to say, why is this vital? Again, because it is the point of it all. It's like, why is it vital to awaken our soul? ⁓ Like how does it allow us to walk our soul path in this crazy modern world? Well, kind of everything you just said, but let's go into a little bit more on this. Again, for us, it's just like, How could you possibly not do this? Like, of course, in order to walk your soul path, you have to awaken your soul and yet, let's focus a little bit more on, ⁓ and again, because in some ways this, I guess they're all rare in this modern world, but...

I think for someone to awaken their soul without the other two is practically impossible and given the other two are rare, know, this is not something that we see a lot of examples of out there. And so I think it's an important one to really bring to life. Like what does it give us? What does it provide when we are awakening our soul?

Certainly for me, I had this experience many years ago now where I, a bit like we were talking about with sovereignty, that it starts with the choice to become sovereign and I was with my mentor at the time, which was actually one that I shared with Jonathan. had the same mentor for a couple of years. And for whatever reason, because it wasn't even particularly a focus of the work I was in with him. But for whatever reason, I had this kind of sudden notion of living from soul. That was how I kind of conceived of it and said it in that moment.

And I just had this very clear realization, I am right now in this moment going to choose to live from soul. That's the devotion I'm going to make. It's perhaps been present, you know, all these years up until this point, because I probably wouldn't have been where I was if that hadn't happened. But suddenly there was this conscious recognition of devoting to live from soul.

and that changed everything.

All of a sudden I had a North Star that I hadn't had until that moment. It was just in the recognition of like, that's the thing that matters more than anything. Other things matter, but the thing that matters more than anything is me living the life that my soul chose to come here for. That is my North Star now. And everything I do. is in service of that North Star. And I think for me in particular, because I can be simultaneously, vary in the moment and just kind of like whatever's here is what I'm focused on. But then also, as I was saying, this kind of like in this sort of multiverse of uncertainties, that for me was truly life changing to finally feel that I had this kind of purpose and meaning and there's something quite meta about this because it also gives us purpose and meaning. you know, very simply put having that as a North Star for me was just everything. So it gives, Awakening Our Soul gives us a North Star and I would say it is the North Star. ⁓ But again, I'd love to hear your sense Jonathan as to why is this vital? What does it give us?

Jonathan (1:20:11)

Yeah, it really is many things. It is a North Star and it is home. It's one of the great longings we have when we come into this earthly realm, into these bodies is the longing to go home. And the deeper and more intimate we become with our soul.

the more at home we feel. And probably the most beautiful thing we can experience in this life, in this human experience of life is to feel at home, truly at home with ourself, at home with other people, to know ourself deeply as we can, of course, you know, there's, there's, there's layers to this. And who knows how far they go, but certainly having that intimate union with oneself, with one's soul, and being able to live your life from that place is the greatest gift, the greatest treasure there is.

It is what allows you to truly see the beauty in everything in life, to see and feel and have that deep knowing of why we're here. And it just encompasses so much and gives us so much. they're there. It is just of all of all the things, this is the one and it's so incredibly precious. And also it knows laughter, playfulness, joy, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. know, a lot of times in many of the spiritual teachings that are all about, let's ⁓ say, connection to God, to creator, however it may be described, it gets really serious. And the most soulful, the most awakened souls that we know are generally the most lighthearted, they're the most playful, they're the most joyous, they don't take themselves or life so seriously. And what a gift that is. What a gift.

Lian (1:23:06)

Yeah. The, the one that really has been present for me, just recently is, and it links to what you're saying there about not taking life on South Shea seriously, but it's, there's something else beyond that, which is from this place of soul awakening, we, we can journey through the, you know, the ups and downs, the ruptures, the losses of life and just meet them in a way that we feel as though there is a meaning to this. This isn't just a random thing that's happening. This isn't a kind of bad luck. is something where we kind of like simultaneously, it's not that we're bypassing it. It's not that we're just like, this doesn't matter, but it allows us to kind of see the beauty in that too, to see the God in that too.

And I think back to when my father died, I see in hindsight, this was what happened. It was like one of those just real spontaneous moments of soul awakening where I was simultaneously, I've spoken about this many times on the show before, so I'm not going to kind of tell the whole story right now, but just in this moment, it comes to mind as such a great example. It was quite an extreme example where my father was killed very suddenly under very shocking circumstances. And I was very present to that and feeling all the things one might feel about that. And then simultaneously just seeing there was just deep meaning and beauty in that unfolding at once.

And it was, again, it was happening spontaneously. was like the soul knew what it was doing and it was kind of finally time to like give me this big wake up call, which I think was also going back to what you were saying earlier about the kind of, as we awaken to our own soul, we also awaken to the soul of others.

It seems very much to me that it was my father's soul that was also kind of like just, you know, almost like my father's soul and my soul like together, like, come on, we've got to wake her up. So there's something more to life than what she thinks there is. And it was this like big, you know, tap on the shoulder, like, wake up, look at all of this. Yes, it is the worst experience you've ever had. And look, isn't it the most beautiful. can't you actually feel the love at last in all of this? ⁓ So yeah, it's, as you said, it is the most precious thing.

Jonathan (1:26:09)

It really is. And that's a beautiful example and ⁓ you know, us into, know, the what, what it requires to awaken the soul. And there's the things we, can consciously do, which we'll get into shortly, but it is so often those rupture points ⁓ of when we lose someone so dear to us, or when

Lian (1:26:29)

Hmm.

Jonathan (1:26:36)

something so dear to us is birthed into the world that we have these moments of soul awakening. These moments of, even if we've, again, no work so cold or anything like that, we just have this deep, intimate, beautiful connection. And even in the, again, can be in the, I know when I lost my father, it was, an incredibly challenging experience, but it was so incredibly beautiful. And that doesn't mean it's always the case for everybody. ⁓ just cause myself and Lian, were able to have that. So many people don't, ⁓ but for my, for my father personally as well, it, it, it allowed me to be with that in, in just the most beautiful way.

And as I know we were speaking earlier, you had that ⁓ similar experience with Felix when you got to look into his eyes for the first time when he was born. There's like these moments that awaken us to something bigger, actually bigger than itself. It's strange because in some ways it seems at odds we're talking about it being all about, it's the essence of who we are, but also connecting to that allows us to experience something bigger than what we are at the same time. And yeah, those bookends are real catalysts for that experience of soul.

Lian (1:28:18)

Mm. Yeah, I love the, I love that you mentioned that because there's, there's conscious practices we can choose into. And then there's the ones that we could say our soul has already chosen into. And then there's a, there is some choosing, ⁓ in terms of like, am I going to allow this to awake me? Am I going to allow this to do its work on me? Because of course, we could be like, no, I'm, the, you this is the worst thing that's happened. I'm at the mercy of this. It's, I'm actually going to become more closed. There is still free will here. But again, as you say, these sort of big moments of soul awakening are often kind of thrust upon us. Um, and then we can either allow them to do their work or not. then alongside that there is, and then I think there's also, it's worth saying, and I think your father's death is an example of this. So my father's death is an example of, know, to a large extent I was living pretty much like just completely dead to soul. It didn't even exist. And ⁓ so it was very like a spontaneous ⁓ soul awakening when he died. For you, you'd obviously been on this path for many years when your father died. And so for you, it was much more of a conscious choosing to allow it to further awaken your soul.

Jonathan (1:29:45)

Certainly, I'd had I'd lost

Jonathan (1:29:48)

people very near and dear to me prior to that. And it was a very different experience ⁓ from the one I had with my dad where, I said, for me, I don't think unless I'd been on the path and the journey I had, I would have been able to have that. mean, who knows, but my senses, yeah, there's ⁓ a clear distinction there between ⁓ yours and my experience.

Lian (1:29:53)

Mm.

Mm.

Yes. And I think the, yours and same example for me, when my mother died four years after my father, and then also when I've lost animals since, it definitely was much more of a choosing to allow this to kind of deepen that soul awakening, as opposed to this being kind of a spontaneous thing. Yeah. And then.

Jonathan (1:30:31)

Yeah, like you said, more of conscious opening.

Lian (1:30:41)

I think it's also worth saying, and again, there is so much kind of entwining between the work of the three strands, but in particular, many of the practices we spoke about earlier in terms of reclaiming your wildness are also awakening your soul practices. Again, talking about going on a soul quest, spending an extended period of time in nature.

Is absolutely one of reclaiming one's wildness, but it almost always will awaken one's soul too. And so you get two for the price of one. But some others, and again, once again, this isn't an exhaustive list, but some of the work that we will invite students into, and it's meditation, ritual and ceremony, contemplation, prayer, receiving guidance and acting upon it, presence, blessing, self-nosis and that could come in many different forms, including those kind of ⁓ ancient traditions like astrology. And then I guess you could say sort of modern forms that have come downstream from that, like human design, gene keys. These are ways of really starting to understand our soul and why it's come here. Gratitude and appreciation. Anything you want to add on the work. And then I'm going to give a little example from one of our students before we

Bring it all together.

Jonathan (1:32:09)

I don't believe so. Nothing in this moment, at least. ⁓ it's all, you said, in many ways, it's all soul work. And certainly the first two strands are all in service of this one. But that's a great place. And also it's not a limiting or restricted list. That's one thing I will say. Like everyone has their own soul path and their own...

their own approaches that will awaken their soul. And so we're by no means saying this is the list and nothing else works. ⁓ It's truly honoring your soul and taking those aligned actions is going to consistently provide you with whatever you need on your soul path. ⁓ yeah, there are a bazillion ways of that you can really honour your soul and awaken your soul. ⁓ in many ways, the most powerful ones are that that are informed from your soul. And so just getting quiet, like we were talking, getting into nature is where so much of this starts, because that's when your soul can start to let you know what's aligned for you on your soul path. So yeah, I'll just add that.

Lian (1:33:36)

Yeah, really, this in particular is one that again is so, there are these, you know, very ancient traditional ways of awakening one's soul, but it again, because by its very nature, it's unique to each soul. It's also the one where there can be, you know, completely unique to that person. So,

The student I'm going to share a little bit of their story. I'm going to use a pseudonym, but she's definitely someone to be more than happy for me to use her actual name, but we'll call her Victoria. And my goodness, what an example of someone awakening their soul and being this like shining star as an example to others of what that looks like. so Victoria, when she first came to us, she also joined us just like with Cameron, we talked about earlier in our crucible called Medicine. So five years ago now.

When she came to us, you know, the way she would have described her life and has described her life in various testimonials and things of that nature is, you know, she was living in this way where she was obsessed with making money, obsessed with being a success, was in a marriage that, you know, really wasn't fulfilling. They weren't happy together. He's a beautiful man, but you know, it just wasn't right for either of them.

was just working ceaselessly, very lonely, just in so many ways, like her life was not an aligned life for her. And she is this incredible, powerful, magical, creative, just beautiful soul, but her life did not in any way, shape or form correspond to that.

And she was working as, I guess you could say a coach, but very much again, like, you know, how there's that Congress cookie cutter. This is what it means to be a coach. And now I'm a high performance coach. Fast forward five years of Dee, I mean, I guess more than anyone, you could say she has thrown herself at the work of becoming a wild sovereign soul more than perhaps any other example we could give. I mean, my goodness, the sovereign prices she has paid.

the depths of work she's done with us. Just, you know, so incredible. And again, it has the rewards to show it. Her life now, she just sent me the photos. Actually, I don't know if you've seen them. She sent me the photos this morning. She's just on a photo shoot. And my gosh, like as an example, like literally as a picture of her soul, they are that. Just filled with beauty and roses and sexuality and sensuality and creativity and artistry.

because that's her life now. She is, um, I mean, I don't think you could even use the word coach to describe the work she does with people, know, just deep soul activating, enlivening work. and you know, again, after all those years of just chasing success and money, she now has it, but doing the work that her soul came here for. She, um, ended the marriage she was in and again, not at all wanting to make it sound like, you know, is anything wrong with him or her? They just weren't suited together, but they are now, you know, free to live the life that's right for them. Yeah, there's just so many ways I could just describe, you know, this is an example of someone whose soul is awake and is calling them over and over again into more of that, more aliveness, more beauty, more love and so, yeah, just, it brings a big smile to my face talking about her because, um, yeah, the world needs more of that goes back to the Clarissa Pinkola Estes quote that I, um, shared in a post I wrote the other day. And it talks about, you know, soul on deck.

You know, when you have a shining soul on the deck of this ship of life, it allows other souls to catch a light, other souls to be awakened, other souls to start to shine. And that is what happens when someone's soul is awake in the way that hers is.

Jonathan (1:38:13)

It's so infectious in the most glorious and wondrous ways.

Lian (1:38:20)

Yes, it really is. And I'm sure anyone listening is probably guessed. If they know who she is, they'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Okay, let's now put it all together. I'm going to hand over to you. What does it mean to be a wild sovereign soul? So in all three strands are ⁓ reclaimed and actualised and awakened and weaving together. What does that mean?

Jonathan (1:38:45)

It means a great deal.

things that comes to mind to heart soul is what we've spoken to quite a bit and that is to live fully, to truly live fully and also to die complete.

As I just said that, that I was connected to ⁓ someone who I follow and he shared a beautiful story about his father who was passing and he was dying at the time and he was choosing how to die and he said to him, ⁓ son, I don't know if I've ever really showed you how to fully or truly.

He says, I'm going to show you how to die. And there is something so powerful in that. ⁓ And as it happened, he had really showed him how to live anyway, that ⁓ sometimes when is that latter part of that living fully and dying complete. It's that's when we're connected to soul. That's when we can die really letting go with, with peace in our heart.

Jonathan (1:40:07)

and a mind and a body, even if it feels too soon, even if it feels abrupt, even if we don't feel like we're ready. It's such a powerful thing. And death is, you know, it's the first time actually we've spoken about death throughout this whole podcast, not this whole story. We touched on it, of course, earlier with regards to our fathers. But it is, you know, a huge part, as important a part as the living fully.

is the dying part and the honouring of that. And it's impossible, impossible to do that without being in some shape or form connected and awakened to one's soul. so yeah, the greatest gift there is in this lifetime is to live it fully, to be truly alive, present and awakened to the awe and wonder of this life.

And whenever it is time, whether it's abrupt or whether it's after this long, beautiful life, we die complete.

Lian (1:41:19)

Hmm.

So this is going to sound nowhere near as beautiful and evocative of what you've just shared, but I feel like this is an important thing to add. And what I'm about to say is.

I kind of wish I'd said this right at the beginning, but maybe it's perfect that it's now that I'm saying it.

So everything we've spoken about in terms of reclaiming our wildness, actualising our sovereignty and awakening our soul. As you've heard, we've spoken about them as an experience that kind of one has and we've spoken about it in all kinds of ways. And Jonathan's just spoken about the experience of becoming a wild sovereign soul. So all three primordial strands kind of fully alive. And yet.

It's really important to recognise that although these can be considered a kind of, ⁓ a stage one gets to, and they can be, they are also states one can experience and then come out of that state. And often that is the case. Often we will be kind of experiencing.

one of those primordial strands in a really intense way where you're like, right in this moment, I feel as though I'm fully wild. And then one might come out of that state and be, I don't know, wrestling. I'm just giving an example of where I'm probably at my least wild in one way.

when I'm like wrestling with passwords and trying to log into something and nothing's working. And in that moment where I'm grappling with technology, I do not feel like I'm kind of in this like natural wild self. And so it absolutely, each one of these can be both a state and a stage. And so we're not at all saying, you know, you are either.

whatever the opposite of a wild sovereign soul, or you're this wonderful wild sovereign soul, for most of us will be somewhere kind of in the work of each and is not really a binary thing. You'll be somewhere kind of within those many, many different states of or steps, could almost say along the path ⁓ of becoming a wild, becoming sovereign, becoming soul.

And as one moves through this, I guess you could almost say you're like, the more times you have that experience, that state of sovereignty, little by little, it becomes a stage. But of course that's what made up of many stages. ⁓ Some of which we're in the work of, not some of which, we are in the work of really defining and distilling that. There will be a sometime very soon, a way one can ⁓ take, I guess, an assessment for one to sexier word to see where you are in terms of those primordial strands. But again, it is really important to recognise there is this, we're not just saying like, ta-da, you're either kind of at this amazing end state of when wild sovereign soul or forget about it. You will be moved in and out of these states and gradually move through those stages. ⁓ And yeah, it's, of all the paths one could walk, I can't think of anything more glorious.

So we are coming to the end of this experience, this journey of becoming a wild sovereign soul. What would you say to people listening?

Jonathan (1:45:07)

Hmm.

I would invite them to honour whatever they are curious about. Whatever is calling to them. We've covered a lot in however long we've been going now. And our curiosity is such a key...

thing for us in this world. And it's the thing we lose first, really, when we become fearful. Fear, one of the first things it robs us of is our curiosity. And so if there is something that's resonated, that's really touched you in your heart, your soul, your body, your visceral response, a good one, an unpleasurable one, ⁓ maybe spend some time.

Just being with that, spend some time in contemplation, asking what is there for you with this? What is it that your soul is calling you into? And see where it leads you. And if it doesn't, if there isn't anything that comes through, be patient.

That's the other thing that's, well, that's one of the main things again in this modern world. We lack that patience. We also lact the ability to be with boredom. And ⁓ as we've spoken to before on the show, boredom is such a precious energy. Allow yourself to go out into nature and become bored. Become bored.

Allow yourself to brush up against that threshold of boredom. And at some point you will pierce that threshold, that veil. And beyond that is what your soul is calling you towards. And so if something isn't there, allow yourself to get bored, go out into nature, create some spaciousness for something to come through. And of course, We have many, ways in which we can help meet you with that, Lian, I'm sure you can speak more to.

Lian (1:47:43)

Here's what I prepared earlier.

It really delights me to, ⁓ anytime I speak about UNIO, I mentioned earlier, it's our community for wild sovereign souls. And I think we've just hit the two year mark for when we first began UNIO. And UNIO as with everything else that we do has gone through evolutions and it really is just such a special place.

I talked earlier about that sense of fellowship, companionship, kinship of journeying our wild, sovereign soul path with others. And that's, Unio that's what it provides. And so if you're feeling called to walk your wild, sovereign soul path in the company of others, that's the place to start. ⁓

There's lots of things I could say in terms of what you'll get, but primarily it is again, that sense of kinship, but also the guidance of Jonathan and I as you're walking, as you're having challenges come up, as you're like, what on earth do I do here? I'm in this kind of dichotomy of like, you know, do I choose this or do I choose this? Bring it to us, bring it to the guidance circle and we'll meet you right there. So the link for that is bemythical.com slash unio. We also.

Very soon, hoping in April, we'll be releasing our brand new Sovereign Soul Crucible. Name yet to be made known to us. It's probably going to be a three month course. So probably going from April to July. And we will be going deep, deep, deep in really everything we've just been talking about here.

understanding what's required for you to become a wild sovereign soul and particularly the unique wild sovereign soul that you're here for. And we will be doing all kinds of, if you joined us for a crucible before, you'll know that it's kind of like very varied, a lot of fun actually, goes super deep and come the end of it, you will have measurably move forward on your world sovereign soul path and be reaping the rewards of that. we're really looking forward to, well, just us, journeying, we love, we love of love doing this work with groups. And so, yeah, I'm so looking forward to that. The link to register your interest, because it's not yet open for enrollment, but the link where you can go register your interest to find out when we first open it is at BeMythical.com/wss so WSS as in short for Wild Sovereign Soul and if you're listening to this in the near future you'll be able to find the details at wildsovereignsoul.com I just get the first time I've said that publicly!

just going to say that again. Wildsovereignsoul.com. ⁓ my gosh, it feels so good to say that. And so I don't yet know what page it will be, but of course, you know, we will soon be all rebirthed at wildsovereignsoul.com. If you go to that, ⁓ if again, at any point after probably the next month or so, and you'll no doubt be able to find quite easily that course that I'm describing. And then finally, if you would like to join me live to go deeper into something we touched on earlier about ⁓ whether you're a conformist or a divergent. And again, if you're listening to this and you've made it this far, I am always certain you are a divergent, but there's some more other things you might want to know about that which are vitally important to you walking your old soul path, come join me on Friday the 30th of January at 2.30 GMT, so British time, and it'll be a huge amount of fun but also again go really deep into this again, a soul choice to come here in this lifetime as a divergent and what that means, what that's calling to you, the challenges of that, we'll be journeying through that together and that's on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash at BeMythical at the moment at least, of course, in the near future, it will be at Wild Sovereign Soul. Yay. I love to say that. think that's everything for the moment. Of course, we've got so many other offerings and crucibles and ways to walk with us that will be coming over this next year, but they're the ones that for the moment just are kind of like initial next steps to join us.

Anything you'd like to in closing, Jonathan?

Jonathan (1:52:52)

This has been a beautiful experience. As we, think we've spoken to this ⁓ a few times to each other that this feels so meant to be and that, yeah, it just feels perfect. And I have of course really enjoyed ⁓ as recording a podcast again, it has been long overdue and ⁓ I'm really looking forward to continuing to meet

Lian (1:53:21)

you you

Jonathan (1:53:31)

on these wild sovereign soul shows. And again to anyone listening, ⁓ I think we made enough invitations, but yeah, I'll just bring you back to your soul and bring you back to creating that spaciousness and getting quiet and listening to whatever is aligned for you and your soul. And if the alignment is there, we are here for you.

We are here for you to help, guide, support, meet you in any way that's aligned. Lian has just shared a few of those and those are just a few. We have so many wonderful things that ⁓ are coming shortly. ⁓ yeah, we are certainly very excited to ⁓ get into all of those with you. But for now, I will leave it there. This has been a pleasure.

Lian (1:54:21)

Yeah, there is talk about living the life of a wild sovereign soul. It's having the opportunity to do the work we do, create a conversation like this, talk about these things ⁓ that are just like, that is, that is for me personally in this moment, that's living my own wild sovereign soul path. there is nothing I'd rather do.

Jonathan (1:55:08)

Me neither.

Lian (1:55:10)

So, thank you so much to you listening, your wild sovereign soul that brought you here. Yeah, sending you so much love and looking forward to hopefully seeing you in a Unio or in our upcoming wild sovereign soul course very soon for the moment. Wishing you well, sending you all my love and blessings. Goodbye.

Lian (1:55:43)

So I really hope you enjoyed this episode and it stirred your soul. Here were some of the big takeaways.

Things aren't getting easier. They seem to only be getting crazier and the wild sovereign soul path is what brings us back to ourselves, to each other and our own souls. Reclaiming wildness restores instinct, belonging and aliveness in a world that conditions people to live from the neck up.

Sovereignty always asks a price and choosing it reshapes how fear, agency and challenge are met in everyday life. I mean, not just changes, radically the soul becomes a lived North Star, it reorientates life towards meaning, integrity and deep fulfillment. And as I believe I said in the episode, it does change everything.

If you would like to hop on over to the show notes for the links there at BeMythical.com/podcast/532 ⁓ and as you heard me say earlier, if you're struggling with the challenges of walking your soul path in this crazy modern world and your heart longs for guidance, kinship and support, come join us in UNIO, the community for wild sovereign souls. You can discover more and join us by hopping over to BeMythical.com/unio now.

Let's walk the path home together. And if you don't want to miss out on next week's episode, head on over to your podcasting app or platform of choice, including YouTube and hit that subscribe or follow button. That way you'll get each episode delivered straight to your device, auto magically as soon as it's released. And in some way, you're also really helping us to continue this show, which again now is in its, well, coming up to its 12th year.

it really helps us to get the message out there. So you are helping us too by subscribing.

Thank you so much for listening. You've been wonderful. I'll catch you again next week. And until then, I'm sending you all my love and blessings as you walk your own wild sovereign soul path.

 
 
Lian Brook-Tyler
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