How to Awaken Your Kundalini Energy with Patrick Paul Garlinger

Patrick Paul Garlinger 0:00
This stuff that you thought was healed comes up big time or something else happens in your life. And in each moment, you're realizing you're just continuing to heal all that, that you've carried with you through your entire life that you brought in from generations prior healing, your ancestors, your healing path lives. All this stuff just keeps coming up in your life, and you're gonna move from comfort to discomfort.

Alex Ferrari 0:25
I like to welcome to the show, Patrick Paul Garlinger how you doing, Patrick?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 0:38
I'm doing great. Alex, thank you so much for having me today.

Alex Ferrari 0:40
Thank you so much for coming on the show, my friend. Um, I'm excited to have you on we're gonna be talking about your new book, endless awakenings. Which is a fascinating book, by the way, your story in general is a fairly fascinating story of awakening and where you came from, where you are, what you're doing now and so on. So, my first question to you, my friend is what was your life like, before this spiritual awakening you had?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:05
Yeah, so I before Awakening was a Spanish professor, and then a lawyer and my awakening and my lawyering kind of, closely coincided, but I was a lawyer and in in law school before really awakening, and

Alex Ferrari 1:25
I have to never just statement said, my awakening in my me being a lawyer coincided, that's a sentence I don't think that's ever been uttered. As a general statement.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:34
It's true. Not many people admit that. But you know, I've learned especially through friends who are also in this business, primarily psychics and mediums, who tell me, you know, I have a lot of lawyers who are clients and judges who are clients, but they just don't, you know, they don't talk about,

Alex Ferrari 1:53
Of course, but anyway, I just thought that was funny.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:56
Yeah, it is funny, because my life was really, really intellectual. And that still shows up in my life, but I was really focused on being academic rigorous, it was all about reason, and I was really closed to, you know, anything remotely spiritual, you know, turn my eye, you know, roll my eyes turned up my nose. And I was really fixated on on advancing in the world, and being the smartest guy in the room and, and not really dealing well, with my emotions. That's pretty much pretty much the extent of my life before.

Alex Ferrari 2:34
So you know, like, like many of us, many of us had the same situation where we're like, hey, we want to be the smartest guy in the room, or the girl in the room and want to conquer the world. It was very ego, based, like, I'm controlling everything, I make everything happen myself, and so on and so forth. But then you had this, this thing happened to you. Can you talk a little bit about your spiritual awakening, and I know you're going to talk about Kundalini awakening. So explain that a little bit to people who don't understand what that is?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 3:01
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the way as I look back, I can see the vestiges of where my awakening began. So I have an awakening story that begins with a sort of dark night of the soul kind of cataclysmic moment, where now I can see where things began. And things actually began in around 2005 2006 When I was going to a gym in Atlanta, Georgia, and I started going to a power yoga class. And I was really into bodybuilding at the time, I was sort of a gym bunny, and I show up and there's this power yoga class. Can I do that? You know, it was like and headstrong, like, oh, I can power through this. And it turns out it was like an actual Ashtanga, a trained teacher who was you know, doing all the poses in in in Sanskrit, and it floored me literally, I'm sweating buckets. I had no I was doing was slowly but surely. Then I learned a little bit about yoga. And then I learned a little bit about meditation. And so I'm dabbling ins that is really what it comes down to, because that was the place where intellectually, I could go there without being confronted with any sort of deism. It spoke to my rigorous analytical mind and I still have a great respect for them. But then, my life literally fell apart. It just fell apart completely. I was so I had gone to law school. Thought I was gonna go back into academia. I got an offer for a fellowship to go to Harvard Law School to teach. Yeah, it was a it was like a one or two year fellowship. You know, my life was then it's just like everything that I wanted was was like from there. I was going to be in line to clerk on the Supreme Court, you know, all the things that are very egocentric Patrick really, really wanted and I woke up Every single morning with the most unbelievable gut wrenching nausea, and I finally just, I could not accept this. And I didn't know why it was just completely bewildering to me. But it was just that really strong intuition. This is not for you. I actually had something of like a nervous breakdown. I literally just broke from this because I burnt bridges, I turned down a Harvard fellowship, all of my mentors are like, What are you doing? I didn't know what was going on my life. And then, you know, I'm free floating, I am anxiety ridden, I have no idea what I've just done. I've literally blown up my life. And all of a sudden, these people just start showing up in my life. Friend of mine, who is an acupuncturist says, you know, I think you should go talk to my friend, so and so who's a psychic, and then you should go visit this Indian divine guru who's come into town, and then all of these people showed up, and suddenly my life opened up in a completely different way.

Alex Ferrari 6:01
Now as you're so what, when was the actual moment of the Kundalini awakening.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 6:06
So the Kundalini comes later. So this is the moment where I realized that I am not just Patrick, the personality separate from everybody else, and this is in late 2010. So I need a teacher who and her name is Mira by Devi. And I trained with her for many years, credibly incredibly gifted healer, a person capable of sending light into unlike anybody I've ever, ever worked with. It's like Reiki times 1000. It's the sort of thing that like, instantly, the first time I worked with her, I just had all this energy coming into my third eye. And the only thought I had was, God exists. Like that was a moment of like, Oh, my goodness. And I worked with her for many, many years, doing a lot of cleansing, a lot of clearing out of past life stuff, going really deep into spiritual wisdom, the teachings. And near the end of our time together, I had a kundalini awakening, which is, in the classic model, there's this energy that's sort of dormant at the base of the spine that shaped traditionally like a serpent. And I thought that the work that we had done together was sort of had basically been the equivalent of that. And instead, it actually just initiated it. And I was, all of a sudden, my lower back hurt, didn't know why it felt it felt tight, like I had worked out for days and days at the gym and hadn't done any stretches. And I was like, stretching my hamstrings and stretching my lower back and doing everything. And finally, one day, just like three or four days into this intense back pain I laid down, and my lower back just exploded like this. Coal hot coal like erupted this fire at the base of my spine. And I was like, What is going on, and for the next two months, this really intense energy would just move up the chakras, the chakras, they would hit stuff, I could tell that it was the energy was working. Sometimes I would start sweating buckets, sometimes I was, you know, sort of felt like I was I had electricity running through me, sometimes it felt loving and blissful. That was a kundalini awakening. And to this day, I have this sort of same energy kind of moving through my body at different times.

Alex Ferrari 8:34
That's fascinating. But I have to ask you, since you came from such an academic, intellectual, ego based place, when you told when you blew up your world, and, you know, you started to go down this path, a spiritual path, you kind of were out of the closet in a way. When you blow up your world. That's pretty, pretty public way of leaving what you were going to do behind and going into this new world, which at that point, you didn't even know where you were going. You just knew what you were going to wasn't right. How did your family friends, colleagues, look at? How did you deal with that psychological? Psychologically? How did you personally deal with losing, not only your friends and your family and your colleagues, but literally something you've been working for your entire life?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 9:27
Right, so sort of clarify, my world blew up, and I had to pivot and you know, I was at that time I was actually clerking for a federal judge. And so when when my when my world blew up, so I wasn't ready. When the world blew up, I was not ready to sort of leave and really embark on the path it on now. I actually pivoted and became that's when I became a lawyer. So I actually practice law For the next six to eight years, wow, while all of this work that's happening on the side is going on. And then towards the end of that, near the end of that time as a lawyer, the Kundalini happens, and then we have, so that's what I meant when I said that, you know, my life was kind of my lawyering and my, my awakening coincide. So then when I finally I was at a place where I was, you know, initially, when I started lawyering, you know, I was still recovering from that, you know, I spent many years kind of doing meditation, doing healing practices, all this work. And actually turning turns out really enjoying the practice of law, I actually really enjoyed law for the most part, it's it's not, you know, it's an exhausting world in many ways. But I was a really good lawyer, and I had a lot of fun. And then there became a moment when the message was, it's time to go, you've done what you needed to do in the law, you've built your resources up, you accomplish, whatever it is that you were going to do there, which was seeing the legal system, inside and out. I mean, I know the legal system pretty deeply. And then it was like, you're done. You've got these books. It's time to put that that path behind you. So when I left the legal world, I was in a much better place. I still went through the the kind of, you know, telling people,

Alex Ferrari 11:26
Coming out of the spiritual closet

Patrick Paul Garlinger 11:29
I had to really come out of the closet, I had to come out of the spiritual closet. And, you know, that's, I'm so glad you asked that. Because I don't think that's something that gets talked a lot about, especially if you've lived your life in a certain domain, like being a lawyer or being, you know, in business or something like that. And what your friends and family, you know,

Alex Ferrari 11:53
And then how you deal with it, you know, you might be more spiritually awakened. But, you know, when your mom or dad say, I can't understand you anymore, and you know, and they leave you they like, I don't want you to come back home anymore. I mean, that's an extreme version, or your friends or your colleagues just go. Patrick's lost his mind. Yeah, exactly. It's gone crazy. And you're just like, you're just talking spiritual. I've talked to mediums. I've talked to channels, who were business people and lawyers, who then go, I channel an entity now. That's like, seriously,

Patrick Paul Garlinger 12:25
I know, crazy. It is. And you know that that is what happened for me. Because when I was on the Kundalini in the, in the midst of this Kundalini awakening a month into it, you know, I heard this incredible voice that said, you know, we're gonna write, and we're gonna write quickly, and I'm like, Whoa, and then you know, three books get downloaded in six months. And so I get when you describe that sense of like, I have to tell people now. And what's interesting is, there is an acclamation to that I've had plenty of friends and colleagues. Just be like, yes, he's lost it, you know, unfriend me, leave me on social media don't pick up. And what's amazing, is that that's a normal process. You know, it happens, it can be painful, it's part of like, accepting, like, This is who I am now. And I get it, because I was that person that was like, What are you talking about? Like, that's, you know, you're just making this stuff up. That was me prior to my own awakening. And then you also find the people that, who, even though that's not going to be part of their, like, you know, exterior lives, you know, you run into them, and they're like, Oh, my goodness, I love what you're doing. It's amazing. Yeah. But you know, that's between us, you know,

Alex Ferrari 13:45
Shh quiet just so I get that all the time. Now, by the way, too, because, you know, when I came out of the spiritual closet with the show, which is a fairly public way of doing it, I've had people from my world, which was Hollywood, directors and screenwriters, and producers, call me up. And there's like, tell me about what you tell me about that channel? Can you tell me about what that episode was about? Can? Can we just have a deep conversation about simulation theory and the nature of reality? Like, I can't I can't talk to anybody else about this. That's a quote. I can't talk to anybody else about this. That's right. No. And you would think that someplace like Hollywood extremely open, apparently, it's not as open as we don't think it might be.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 14:26
You know, I thought that, you know, though, I was sort of my own sense of things was actually came a little bit skewed. I actually thought for a long time that, you know, like, oh, this, this isn't such a big deal. And then, you know, I would find that people were like, I can't talk to you anymore. Like, I don't know who you are. And I was like, Oh, really, I mean, like the channeling thing like that. That's the thing that you're like, bothered by. And so I had to sort of reorient myself for a while to sort of remember that people aren't as open because I lived among and had a community of people where it was just so open and like, oh, yeah, there's people who channel there's people who, you know, mediums or it's, I had to sort of relearn, like, yeah, you know, not everyone's open to it and, and then you learn to you learn to meet people where they're at, to use, you know, a common expressions like sometimes, you know, I use the term intuitive that works for a lot of people.

Alex Ferrari 15:24
It's interesting, it's really interesting that, and I've had this conversation on the show a few times about how other people react to this information to these awakenings. Because obviously, everybody who comes on the show has had a form of awakening in one way, shape, or form, if they're down this path. And how scared and this might lean into what we're going to talk about next is how scared people are when their beliefs are challenged, by the way in their own mind, because you're not challenging them, but your mere existence. Yeah, and based on even the things you say, it's challenging the foundation that they built their life on, whether it be religious, whether it be not religious, whether it be I don't believe in God, or I have a belief in this specific dogma, in a certain religion. If I believe in reincarnation, then that means that everything I've spoken about, that I've been taught about in the Catholic Church, let's say, is wrong. And if that's wrong, then rule and then everything just starts to just start the wall starts to crumble around them. And that's really and then they start to defend themselves, or they just, I can't be near you. Because you're, you're, you're going to rock my world. And I don't want to go there. Is that fair statement?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 16:40
No, absolutely. I think that's exactly right. I mean, you've just articulated in a very succinct and very powerful way, kind of the structure of people's consciousness, which is, you have a set of beliefs built around, which is an identity and either that identity has to be defended, because it might, you know, it might crumble, and then you were argue, like, I was like, who am I? What is this world,

Alex Ferrari 17:01
It's scary, it is a scary place, when you have a spiritual awakening. And when in whatever way kundalini awakening or just an awakening in the sense of like, I have to now do this other work, I need to go down this other path. It's scary, because you just don't know. You're kind of at sea, without in a little boat, without any rudders or any, any, any paddles. And you're just kind of floating there. And there's nothing around you to connect to where before you were very, you know, locked down you, there was a base, but now everything's floating. And that's the place I think that when you do a spiritual awakening, and please correct me if I'm wrong, is the ability to then let go of what you think or perceive as is control in your life. That's right. And then all of a sudden, the sun comes after the clouds, a path is shining, and like, oh, wait a minute, I can I can, I'm moving towards this, this direction. And I'm barely pushing.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 18:00
Yeah. Right, exactly. It is. And you know, then the path becomes something else, which. And I love talking about this, because what I then see happening with so many people, myself included, is that then there's a part of us that sort of, lets go a little bit, right, we let go of our old lives to some extent, we let go of what we knew we have to incorporate. And so we you know, we integrate sort of a new set of concepts, new vocabulary, you know, our sense of who we are and where we're headed shifts. And then there's what I like to call the awakened identity that kind of steps in sometimes, which is then now I'm on my path. And where does that lead me? And can I still let go and not have a destination, you know, what I see happening a lot. And I don't know if this is where you're going. But I see a lot of people who have an awakening, it's very scary, we we reorient ourselves. And then we're like, Okay, now, I have this new district where I was a lawyer, and I knew I was gonna go to the office, and I was going to do this and these other things. Now I'm gonna go and I'm going to do all these other things. And I, in my experience, that still has to be thrown. The whole idea that you actually that there is a path. It's more like putting one foot in front of the other.

Alex Ferrari 19:30
It but the difference is before you were trying to create the path yourself in the dark. Yeah, and you're just building the pathogen bam, boom, into a wall, dammit, back, right? Move over that. Damn it into another wall, boom, damn it into another one. And you just keep doing that throughout your life, where now there's a little bit of light in front of every footstep, but you still don't know particularly where you're going.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 19:54
Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly right. And in what you described as the way most people attempt to sort of create realize was just a lot of control and a lot of manipulation and sometimes brute forcing your way through things and you're going to force and then you realize this is a completely different way to create your life. And you know, in concert with all the other beings around you inform, not inform. And then yes, there's just a little bit of light ahead of you.

Alex Ferrari 20:21
Right, exactly. It's, but that's, that takes a mind shift, because it's scary. Because when you believe that you are in control 100% Yeah, then there's a sense of, of comfort, there's the blankie, it's your blankie, it's a sense of like, okay, I'm in control, and don't get me wrong, you still have to work, you still have to walk the path, right? You still have to, you know, engage in this process. If you don't, you're not going to just sit down, someone's going to knock on the door and give you whatever you're supposed to be doing. You have to, you have to go through, like you took yoga, and then you went into meditation. And then you started to learn about Zen. And that was part of your walking the path. And then the Kulina happened. It's not like you just woke up one morning. Well, what's that feeling in my back like? So the reason, the thing I wanted to talk about next was about the concept you've talked about before, in your books, being comfortable with being uncomfortable, which is kind of the theme of what we've just been talking about. of that is kind of the key to life, is if you can become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Can you dive into that a little bit?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 21:28
Sure. Yeah, it's one of my central topics. It's certainly the, the topic in the first chapter of the book that you mentioned, endless awakening. And it's because, you know, probably one of the most fundamental sort of core emotional states we have is always wanting to sort of feel this sense of control, safety, comfort, and discomfort being, you know, to be a little bit, you know, redundant, it's uncomfortable, we show like to stay in discomfort, we, we move away from it, and, and yet nobody has ever experienced really any growth without some sort of discomfort, and we're kind of always then redrawing the lines of what our comfort is, and where we're where we're comfortable. And, you know, that happens, even after you've had the spiritual awakening you, you, you go through some moment where you wake up, and it's uncomfortable, as you said, it's scary, we lose control, our life changes. And then a certain amount of comfort comes in of like, Oh, I understand things now differently. I've got it. And now I've got these answers. And then, and this is what happens, you know, excuse my language, but you know, hits the fan again, you know, like, nobody guarantee that it would be perfect, or this stuff that you thought was healed comes up big time or something else happens in your life. And in each moment, you're realizing you're just continuing to heal all that that you've carried with you through your entire life that you brought in from generations, prior healing, your ancestors, your healing path lives, all this stuff just keeps coming up in your life, and you're gonna move from comfort to discomfort, you're gonna find that there's always something that can be the edge of your comfort zone.

Alex Ferrari 23:26
And then a question I get asked all the time is and why do we have to suffer in this life? And I think you kind of answered that is because without pain and suffering, in a certain sense, you can't go that's kind of the discomfort. You have to kind of go through that to grow. And if anyone's honest with themselves, and they look back on their lives, you know, you and I are of a certain age, I think we're pretty much at the same vintage I think, you know, so you know you and you get to a certain age in life, you look back and go every bad thing, quote unquote, bad thing or negative thing that happened to us is the greatest catalyst for growth. Yes, in your life. It was always asked to me because I you know, I went through some stuff when I was younger. And people asked me, Would you change that? If you can go back? I go, No, I am who I am because of that pain, and suffering and trauma that I've gone through and that time in my life, right. And it's one of the reasons I got to the place I am right now, because of many other dominoes that fell. Yeah, because of that trauma. People if they look at it that way, you know, it's easier to look back on past traumas. But when you're in the quote unquote, shit, it's a lot more difficult to zenned out and go, Okay, this is happening to me. Why is this happening to me? And you know, what am I supposed to learn from this? You know, I recently went through something like that, you know, literally a few days ago, where I was out without power for eight days. Oh, wow. Not fun. By the way, had an ice storm here in Austin. Not fun, not fun at all. And I'm like, what's going on? Why is why is this happening? And then I after a few days of anger, good, you're angry, I was angry. I'm like, why this why me? The ego just came back up. And then you're like, Okay, so this has happened for a reason why is this happening? What lessons am I supposed to learn? And then when I started to change the perspective, my experience of what was going on, got better. It didn't take it away. It just got better. Because the way you react to what is? That's right, you know, because you have no control. And it's really, you feel powerless in a place where you have no control of anything, I couldn't turn the power back on. I couldn't stop the ice from freezing my butt off. I in there's things I couldn't control. So I said, Well, what can I control? I can control how I react to everything. That's the one thing I always have control over.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 25:58
Exactly. You know, what, what's beautiful about that? Is that you you're pointing to the ways in which you know, stuff, so comes up, yeah, we're gonna get triggered, we have these triggers what I find happening, and this is particularly true in, you know, among New Age circles, which, you know, I'm a part of, you know, I, but I see it prevalent because the reaction that you have sort of like, well, you know, what did I do? What did I do this? Oftentimes people say, Okay, what did I do? Why is my vibration attracting this? Right? There's almost, there's an undercurrent of self blame there, that doesn't need to be there. Because the idea is, well, if I were vibrating a different frequency, you know, this would, I would have avoided this, right? When in fact, it's like you, whether you were vibrating at Zen or not, if we talk in those terms, you know, that wasn't something you can control, there was something about that experience that you needed to have, so that you could look at the part of you that would be angry about not having power, or whatever it was. And that was, in part that was perfect for you. As you said, you look back at your life, and you realize that it's actually all perfect. I had this experience on the island of Hawaii, when I was working with my teacher, we were doing some really intense healing work around my heart. And I had a moment where it was the closest I've ever come to a near death experience. So a lot of people have had near death experiences where they do you know, they, they often have a very similar kind of structure, and they come back and they're like, I've got the sense, I just saw my life, like, every instance of it, but just in a very rapid fashion, which is some times an experience that people have every moment. And just the utter perfection of it is perfect. And underneath the idea that somehow if I'm not in control, something terrible that happened to me is ultimately, you know, a fear of death. It's the fear that, you know, that's the end. And we're done. And oftentimes, we have these experiences to remind us or to show us that, you know, that is not the end. So that's ultimately the fear underlying control.

Alex Ferrari 28:19
You know, it's interesting, because a lot I love what you said that in regards to like, Oh, I found that the right vibration, I shouldn't attract this to me. And just to give the audience an example, the picture of the gentleman behind me Yogananda apparent Honza Yogananda, who was arguably, you know, a walking master and essentially became an Ascended Master and Autobiography of a Yogi in his life, who had lived the spiritual path. Since the baby, he was like, anointed as a child to walk the spiritual path. Midway through him being in the United States, changing millions of lives. His best friend sues him and steals all of his followers. Yeah. He's pretty high vibration. I mean, if you're gonna go vibration on the earth, yeah, exactly. I thought that was pretty good. So that's an example that that was something he still needed to go through. That's right in, in his life's journey. And even though he was arguably one of the most spiritual people walking around the planet at the time, it was still something that happened, that he needed to go through, you know, Judas, Judas needed to do what he did to Christ, even though Christ was also walking around a pretty high vibration.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 29:38
Exactly, you know, these things still have to happen to for some way and that's where you know, not having control and trusting that your soul is is unveiling the life that you wanted to have it or that you're meant to have, should say, is, you know, the ultimate trust that's that's, you know, that's that's when people start talking about surrender. And it's it It's not easy, we still, we still go back into control. But it's, you know, these these moments where we could attribute some sort of, or take away some lesson of failure. That's, that's missing the lesson of like, Nope, you know, I'm I'm whatever this is, it's resolving something that needed to be resolved.

Alex Ferrari 30:23
And that's a fairly big way of looking at things. And there's a lot of trust that needs to be there, and you have to be evolved to a certain place. Because I'm just baby stepping into that right now, where I am in my journey. And to allow, I love the statement, you just said that your soul is unraveling what needs to be done as it was supposed to be? The Good, the Bad, the indifferent, all of it. And to? Again, looking back, you can be very philosophical and spiritual. Oh, yes. When I was going through that rough time in my 20s, it was always meant to be, but when the shit hits you right now, right? It's like you're in it, it tests to see how truly spiritual you will. And that might have been a way to, you know, because you, and I don't know, if you've run into this in the new age, community, I'm the most spiritual I am, I am beyond spiritual. I mean, I'm Buddha and Jesus wrapped up into one of the ego has taken upon like, well, if we're gonna go down the spiritual path, we're gonna be the best spiritual, we're going to be the most spiritual. And there's a I'm sure you've run into that as well. So sometimes, sometimes you need those little, little knocks to see how truly spiritual

Patrick Paul Garlinger 31:42
Yeah, this, this happens, because, you know, and it shows up all the time when people come to me for readings, and I'm like, Oh, wow, that this, um, you know, and I get that, you know, this piece of you from childhood, like, this hasn't been, oh, no, I healed that. Okay? Bypassing, because our identities that we form after we've awakened, where it's, I'm going to keep raising my vibration, I'm going to go through this portal, I'm extending to this dimension, you know, there's a way in which we kind of rebuild sometimes in our vocabulary, and architecture of growth and comparison, where I'm going to be the best, I'm going to be better than I was before. Or, you know, judgment, I'm not where I'm supposed to be just yet. We do that. And then the universe comes along, and you know, life comes along, your soul comes along and says, Guess what, this is where you got, you got some work to do. And we all do it, um, pieces of us that we just didn't even realize were there. I my whole I've been having Kundalini and channeling and having energy moves through me and having my higher self come in, for, you know, six years now. I don't even know what's in there. Still, there's still stuff in here, there's still stuff to be resolved. I went through a period a couple about two years ago, intense, intense resistance to all of this, I was ready to throw it all away again. You know, I was like, Well, I did it once before I can just blow up my life. And I'll start over. There is some deep, deep, deep past lifestyle that just had to be resolved. You know, and I had to sit down for like, six to eight months where I was like, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing readings, I'm not talking to anybody. Not going on social media and whatever. Because that's what needed to be resolved.

Alex Ferrari 33:44
It's, it's not easy to go back and really, you know, look in the mirror and deal with with stuff that you It's hard enough to deal with the stuff you can see. Yeah. And then you can admit to, but it's even more difficult to deal with the stuff that you don't even know is there. Right? On this life level, let alone generational karma or past life karma or other things like that, that you haven't even, just no idea about, you know, so I always just try to concentrate on whatever I can see. And then try to dig if I can find unconscious stuff, because that's the, that's the scariest stuff is the unconscious traumas that that the rule your life, and you don't even realize it,

Patrick Paul Garlinger 34:28
You don't even realize it, you know, and some of those can be really scary. And some of them you may be have a hint of, and some of them as you, you know, we don't have any awareness of them because they came from, you know, generations prior. But if they're showing up as an emotion as a scent, you know, in your life, you're like, I'm feeling this and you can't figure it out. Yeah, it's scary. You know, I'm happy to share because, you know, in this sense, I'm an open book of like, Listen, I'm still working through you know, I know that there's stuff there, and there's stuff there that isn't isn't Even stuff that you might even think of as a trauma that just shows up. I, you know, several couple years ago now, a few years ago, I lose track of, sort of when all these things happened, but, you know, suddenly had this intense experience where I was coming back to this. And it was around this resistance, it was a piece of this resistance, but it was from my, my lifetime. And I couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from. But it was, finally I did a sort of journey where I was brought back to an early memory of when I was in, like third grade. And in the third grade, my teachers decided, you know, I was really good at math. So they moved me to the fifth grade math class, which you know, anything, okay, whatever. But it, it wrecked my world. Because every all of my peers were like, Oh, here's what's what's Patrick? Oh, he's gets to be taken out of the class. Oh, he's the little special nerd. And then I went to the fifth grade class, and the fifth graders, like who's this little pipsqueak, and I hated all of it. And so I told him, I didn't do well, I was like, not paying attention in the math class. And so then my teacher was like, I guess you weren't that smart, great. Like, I created this whole existential framework that was like, I can never be myself, because everyone around me will, like, be alienated. And then I can never if I am myself, I will disappoint. You know, the authorities that be and I created this existential conundrum that made it very hard. And I realized when I look back on my life, that I had this push pull relationship to authority and other people and in being myself that it was like, wow, he was this like lens that I had, that I would never have identified as a trauma. Like two weeks of my life as a third grader,

Alex Ferrari 36:57
I mean, I was put in the slow reading class group in first grade. Oh, wow, they called it the the slow reading group.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 37:06
Oh, devastating.

Alex Ferrari 37:08
So I thought I was an idiot for most of my most of my education until I decided to go to college. And when I went to college, I actually enjoy it. And then I got straight A's Dean's List, all this kind of stuff. So then that, that structure of me being not that smart, went away. I was so smart in high school, that I was able to figure out how not to do any work and just pass. just skim through that how I use my intellect just enough to pass, but not have to do any real work. Which began my course of trying to hack the system constantly. My entire life, which didn't work out well. So the next question I have for you is, so we've talked about pain, we talked about suffering, is there a way or any advice you have about how to transform pain into a blissful part to understand its value? Because one thing, we're talking very philosophically about it? Is there any practical steps?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 38:21
Yeah. So you know, practically speaking, I absolutely encourage everyone to have just a really strong meditation experience, at practice, to be able to sit with those feelings, I mean, until you've learned to just feel them over and over, and not try to get rid of them. You know, it's really hard to get at the root, you know, people often will, you know, they'll, they'll resort to things they want us sort of move it and I get that, like, you know, if you feeling like some, you know, really deep sadness, something that feels existential bordering on depression, you know, you're going to try to lift yourself up, you're going to try to, you know, get rid of it. And some people turn really quickly to something like energy healing, or they're going to go to somebody and get an answer what's moving through me, sometimes you just need to sit with it, because the fundamental philosophical sort of way to look at as pain is just information, state information. It's not pain and suffering when you regard it as pain. And it's the sensation can be really, really uncomfortable. But it's not going to it's not going to kill you. And I am sitting in it, you know, feeling the sensation of anger or feeling the sensation of sadness. That alone can be really heavy. And then you've got to figure out, you know, what part of you was talking what what, what piece of us talking, you know, there's a sort of compassion around that sort of inquiry of of this version of you, whether it's a younger version of you, third grader, some moments in time on where you generated a story that says what happens, we generate a story about our life. And then you need to look at that and realize, oh, that that younger version of yourself did the best he or she could to, to make sense of the world. And then you got to reteach that person. You know, it's, it's, it sounds a little bit like, you know, re parenting your inner child. But that's, that's fundamentally the work. And I find that, you know, in my own experience, if I'd moved too quickly, to kind of uproot it, to, you know, could something just Reiki this out? You know, like, that kind of thing? It's usually still there.

Alex Ferrari 40:40
Well, let me ask you that. Well, let me ask you this. It's, I feel like it's kind of like, you know, when you're saying to feel these feelings to sit with those feelings, it's like trying to take a cold shower for the first time. Mm hmm. Because at the first time, it's knives hitting you. And I do take cold showers do Wim Hof and all of that. Yeah, all that stuff. And I do sauna work and all that kind of stuff, the extremes, because when you push your body to the extremes, there's a lot of health benefits and other things like that. But it also teaches you some very valuable lessons about life that you can put up with certain things that you thought would never be possible. So by the way, during this eight day, no power, I was the first one into the cold shower. And then my family followed in afterwards, they're like, You're nuts. You're insane. I can't believe you did this. And I'm like, I needed to take a shower. And I didn't want and I did. But when you first go into a cold shower situation, everything in your body is telling you to stop, get out, run, run, what's wrong with you. But as you force it, and you're like, No, I'm going to sit here for 10 seconds, for 20 seconds, for 60 seconds to the point where you, you know, you get to like where Wim Hof is, and he just loves it. Right? That's, that's the same thing. You're saying. It's like you sit with the pain, you sit with the emotion, you sit with the anger or the sadness, and you just sit there and let it let it just feel it. And as you start to feel it starts to where it's its power over, you starts to diminish. Is that true?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 42:13
That's absolutely right. And it was a perfect analogy. Because it is this intense discomfort until you you recognize that you're actually quite capable of holding it. And as you as you sit with it much as you do with the culture at a certain point, you're like it, actually there's something really pleasurable about it. Um, I personally, I haven't actually done the culture thing. So now I you know, I need to do follow my own advice and get comfortable with the discomfort of cold showers. But the, you know, a couple things happen is that, you know, a lot of the pain that we feel is the resistance to the emotion, we've just, you know, so much pushing back, that when you really let it move through you, it actually feels really different because you've let go of trying to push it away. And then over time, you know, it will, it will speak to you it will evaporate, or it will have a message for you something that needed to be heard, because it just it hasn't been resolved. And then underneath that is it's like very treasure. It's it's, you know, one, there's a clearing and you're sort of even deeper, but you've been unbelievably compassionate with yourself. And then a piece of you that needed to be healed needed to be resolved, you know, lifts on your own and you're just learning then that as this stuff happens, and you can go deeper and deeper and it can get really painful. Yeah, you're also able to hold more and more light and compassion, I mean, the capacity to, to really, you know, experience. I'll use the language of frequency and vibration to experience kind of levels of light where you're like, I did not know the human body could hold this much comes as you as you release these things. And for a long time I went through a similar period of like, Oh, why why am I not experiencing bliss all the time? Why is this stuff coming up? Or I would have a really intense, you know, crown chakra open light poured in, I'm blissed for, like, you know, an hour and the next day, then just, I am nauseous and something's coming up. And I feel like, well, what's wrong with? Well, that's what was happening that light came in and was like, it's time to pull up something that you you need to resolve.

Alex Ferrari 44:43
It's very much like what Joseph Campbell said, the treasure that you seek is in the cave that you're afraid to walk into.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 44:48
Exactly. It really is. And it can sound almost like a platitude, but it's true. I mean, and when you've experienced it, then you know you know that that's real.

Alex Ferrari 44:59
Now We've talked a lot in this conversation in regards to letting go and trusting the path trusting your souls pass rush, trusting the university, your spirit guides, whoever is guiding you along your path in life. Yeah. But a question I get a lot too is like, well, if you're gonna give up control, then why have free will. So that's a little bit of a weird place to be, I'd love to hear what you think of like giving up control versus freewill. And if I have free will, and this is where the control comes into ego comes in, well, if I have free will, I could choose whatever I want to do, how can I let go, Rich Roll? So how can you explain that to people who have that question?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 45:35
Right! It's so it's great. Um, and I, I talk about that a bit in the book. And because it is one of these things of like, yeah, if you surrender completely, you know, do our free will. And so I think about this a couple of ways. One is, and something that my guides have told me over and over is, there are no wrong choices that I've gotten that from my guides, I've gotten it from being an ayahuasca, there are no wrong choices, it's sort of like the multiverse theory of like, every little branch is going to lead you in the direction you need it to go. And we could talk about the pros and cons of looking at the world in terms of a multiverse theory. But, you know, there are no mistakes. So, you know, you exercise your freewill. And the way that sometimes like I'd say, it's like, you know, everything that you think of as a choice is a permutation that has already has been planned out. So like, you know, you you're making choices, but are they really choices, if they've already been perfectly prepared for you, like, you know, like, then.

Alex Ferrari 46:40
So I'll push back on that for a second. Because I'm gonna be devil's advocate here, please do so. So if every if these choices have been made, which I understand from, from your point of view, what you're saying that, that there's a, there's a blueprint, we have, it's, we've established ourselves like that Paul's going to eventually go into law, and he's a Spanish teacher, and all this stuff, and you think I should teach Spanish, maybe I should go into law, like those things are there. But within that realm of those decisions that have been laid out, from my interpretation, that is where free will, comes into play, like you are going to be a Spanish teacher that's been laid out, and you're going to want to be a Spanish teacher, you're not going to be wanting to an astronaut never wants to just say I want to be an astronaut, it wasn't part of your existence or wanting to do it. In the world that, let's say, I'm going to be a lawyer, and I'm going to learn law. In that space, you can choose how you're going to play in that world. And that's kind of the kind of the guide rails, if you will, like you can play within this box. And that's where your freewill comes in. By the way, though, if you do choose to, like, you know what, screw it, I'm going to be an astronaut. For some straight, which does happen from my understanding that you completely skew off track, which happens often in life, right? Something is going to slap you across, or snatch you with a sledgehammer and stop you from going down the astronaut path and go, Dude, what are you doing?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 48:12
Right! So you can imagine it? Yes, I agree with you, 100%. And each of these choices, you know, will potentially lead you deviating from your soul's path and aligning with your soul's path. And so ultimately, part of the letting go is realizing that, you know, we know what it feels like, when you've done it, to take a step that feels really authentic. You're just like, I didn't, I just knew to do this, right? I just knew I just did. And sometimes we will catch ourselves and be like, why am I doing Wait, but I have this impulse. So maybe you give it two or three times because you're getting that intuitive hit that's like, No, this is a thing, pick up the phone call so and so do X, you know, you you exercise that ID. So the way I understand it is that, you know, you could you could pick up the phone and do that thing. And it feels really authentic or aligned with your soul. And then like maybe something happens and you're like, wow, I end up over here. And maybe you don't do it. And maybe you get the impulse a couple of times and some version of you could have like taken, you know, done it on the second try or another one ignores it altogether. And they ended up far off the blueprint, and there's something that's going to move them back. All those paths are perfectly valid path. They're perfectly valid. You know, you know, when you're feeling like aligned, but if you you had an ego and in that sense, you had freewill to sort of say, I'm not listening to that feeling. I'm not listening to that. Got it. I'm not listening to my intuition, however you want to frame it, you know, yeah, you you will miss out on something and that happens to me all the time. I mean, I am in constant dialogue with my guides and they're telling me do this and do that. And sometimes I'll be irreverent, or I'll be like, I'm tired,

Alex Ferrari 50:04
I just don't want to do that, right.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 50:08
They're gonna be like Patrick, you will then learn, like, you know,

Alex Ferrari 50:11
Well, it's kind of like, you know, you, you really want to sing, let's say, for a perfect example. And that brings you all the joy in the world. And that's truly the path that you should be walking. But you're like, you know, I'm gonna get that corporate job, because that's more rational. And then you do that for five or 10 years or 20 years, and you're miserable, for angry and all these other things happen in your life, because you're not following the path that you truly are supposed to be on. Because you have been told a story that you have to be rational you have to be, you have to think about, you know, how you're going to make money. singers don't make money. You can't make a living doing that. But it's in that could have been the challenge that you had to overcome, and you're failing the challenge. And that's fine. It's part of your growth, your growth, exactly. In that sense.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 51:00
But in that sense, the soul and the divine, you know, they're not judging you for this, no, you're gonna have another lifetime, you know, some people's lives are just, you know, and you will, I think, have a life review where you're like, This was still perfect. All of these choices were perfect in terms of like, growth and experience. But did you live your life feeling like I am living this life that's aligned with my soul, which is as close as I can get to language where you just, you know that you feel alive, I know that there are certain things in the world that if I do them, maybe I could do them sort of, well, I'm not going to feel alive.

Alex Ferrari 51:40
Well, and and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Because this is, this is a big fascination of mine on finding your goal in life finding you're not gold, but your purpose in life and your meaning and what you're supposed to be doing, that you are given this want and this need early in your life, like you did Spanish teacher, law, spirituality, nowhere in sight, nowhere in sight. But you're given this, this, like, this is what you want to do. So you're like, Oh, I'm going to be a Spanish teacher, or I'm going to be a lawyer and you had your spiritual side hustle, while you're being a lawyer for those six years. Your spiritual side hustle, I like to call that that was a little bit different. But generally speaking, you had other things driving you. And you know, for my path was to be a filmmaker, and I everything about my life was about being as successful as I could be in that industry, right. And yet never reaching the heights that I wanted to reach. And I kept asking God, why did you give me this want, if you're not going to give me the success that I want? And, and I've said this before, like, I'm in the room with big movie stars, and big giant producers of some good enough to be in the room. Why isn't that? Why is that one little door not being opened for me. And only after again, looking back very philosophically going? Oh, all of that time. 20 plus years in the film industry has prepared me to do the work I'm doing right now. Yeah, exactly. And that's a very tough pill to swallow, when you're in the 25 and see what is coming. And that's where this trust of control exactly comes into play. And it's so people listening right now, if you're feeling that you're like, I am not getting where I want to be in this place that I absolutely love. This might just be a stepping stone to what your true thing was, which is exactly for you. And for me both. Yeah.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 53:44
And that as it applies even now, like now, you know, what isn't working, you know, what isn't happening, you know, anybody, you know, people embark after a spiritual awakening, and they go on this path, and then they like, Well, I'm not making money or I'm not successful, right? It can't keep it as a side hustle, then you sort of the way you describe the singer. And when that happens, they're like, Well, why did you give me an awakening? You got to stay with it. Maybe your role isn't necessarily to teach in the way that you think you're supposed to teach. That's where you really again letting life mold you. That's is how I like it, but just just let yourself be carried and guided. And letting go of these preconceived notions we just reoriented when repackaged ourselves as like, Oh, my life as a spiritual writer slash intuitive reader should look like this. It doesn't it does not. And I have to let go with that. And then then I discovered you know, I for me, you said you know, what is it about purpose, you said, you know, finding your purpose in life. And I love that existential kind of angst of, you know, like, cry, I'm imagining, like, why did you give me my god?

Alex Ferrari 55:06
Very dramatic. There's some lighting involved. Lord, have you forsaken me?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 55:14
This is an Oscar worthy performance. You know, and having that and, and I get that because I've asked myself the same question that was like, I was a fine lawyer. I loved writing briefs. Why give me these experiences, then to set and say, time to leave the law? If you know, and here I am, I'm loving my life. But you know, I'm not a name that, you know, you put out there and everyone's like, Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, I know who Patrick Paul Garling are is I'm not and and, you know, there's, there's the part of me that's like, well, how come? I don't know, you know that? You know, what, what do you want from me. And that's part of the trust is, and it may be that it ultimately looks like something very different. I've learned in part of my purpose. Sure, is to be really to recognize that the difference between heaven and earth is doesn't exist. This is heaven wherever I'm at. Even if it doesn't feel that way. You know, that we have these mystical experiences and stuff. And it's like, no, I got a scoop, the kitty litter team are really mundane. Like, my life could be these contrasts of like, okay, I'm doing that, or I'm dealing with a neighbor, or, you know, whatever, I gotta go grocery shopping. It's all were really beautiful. And so what does my work look like, you know, working with individuals that Tada? I don't know, you know, I gotta trust that whatever successes in my life, it's not necessarily the image that I think it's going to be.

Alex Ferrari 57:07
I couldn't agree with you more, because even now, this could be a stepping stone for me for something else that I have no idea what's coming down.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 57:18
I've been meaning to tell you because I have this from the before we got on the show. And like, I just kept telling it, like, I was like, wow, you have been super busy, right? Like you have been onstage believably busy. I don't do really do any sort of readings without permission. But by the way, you're gonna be stopping soon and slowing down. Because something's coming up for it is something is coming up for you. That's gonna seem like it's a little bit out of there. But you I don't think the podcast goes away, by the way. No, but I think it slows down dramatically, because you've got another big project coming. That's, that's big, it's big. And you're gonna have to slow down this.

Alex Ferrari 57:59
You know, what, look, the pace that I do these shows, I do four brand new episodes a week. Wow, have been at that pace. We went from two to three to four. And now we're staying at four for a little while, and I've already started to slow down. Because I've been told by not just you, by many of my guests, who are channels and who are mediums or psychics like I got, I got something for you, you're gonna have to start slowing down soon. Because there's something else coming, and you're not gonna have enough time to do everything. So you're gonna have to pull back a little bit. So I've been told this for months now. And I've started to, to slow down a little bit. And in the course of the next few months, we'll start to, you know, pull back, because it's, this isn't this, this, this pace is very difficult to keep to maintain. And not to mention my other shows that I do, as well. So I'm very well aware. But thank you for, for sharing that.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 59:04
It's so funny, because it was so strong before the show that I was like, I gotta tell him this. He is really going to be slowing down. Like, you know, like I said, I don't I don't normally read anybody without their permission, but it's like so present in your field. And it's like, well, it's

Alex Ferrari 59:24
So when you're looking at Whole Foods, you don't just walk up to it, ma'am, I'm sorry. I have to tell you something. So you

Patrick Paul Garlinger 59:30
I try not I definitely don't do that. And as I've as I've continued this work, I become this goes back to freewill. I don't feel much inclined to give people predictions anymore. Unless it's just like so really, you know, in their field like it just it just comes through. It's like this is happening. I've joked because I have a friend who is a medium And I was reading her and I said, Wow, you're about to blow up. And those were the words like blow up, which is a phrase I would not use normally. And she's like, you're like the third person that said that in those terms. And I was like, Yeah, I just hope you remember me when your favorite, like, you know, like, you're gonna take off. And I but I don't do that. Because I think that, um, you know, there's something about having your space and your your life be respected. And like, if you want a reading, then you know, it's definitely something that's like inspired to you know, you're coming to see me or go see somebody, so I don't I don't read people. Otherwise,

Alex Ferrari 1:00:41
I can keep talking to you. For hours, Patrick, without questions. So um, but I'm going to ask you a few questions. I ask all my guests. What is your definition of living a good life?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:00:51
I think a good life. Oh, what a great question. Um, so I'm gonna give you two answers, because I can never give just a single answer. And it goes back to our competition. Every life is a good life. Every life is a good life. No matter what, like, at the end of your life, when you're doing your life review, you're gonna like that was a good line. But I know that that's not a satisfying answer to somebody sort of looking for guidelines or guy, you know, guardrails and a life that you're living. And so, you know, I think that living a good life is doing the best you can to feel like, what who you are is in alignment with your soul that you are a being, and feeling like this is who I am. And that's not always very clear, because there's so much clarity on. But a good life is one where it feels like I am at least asking that question. And I'm finding some way of listening and hearing and allowing that to come through while at the same time, honoring that all the choices that may not seem like they were the choices that are necessarily perfect, or in alignment with my soul, are actually really beautiful. Two

Alex Ferrari 1:02:23
Good answers are good answers. What is your definition of God?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:02:29
Hmm. Everything everywhere all at once.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:35
And what is the ultimate purpose of life?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:02:38
Hmm. So interestingly enough, part of me wants to say nothing at all. Nothing like my answer to you was the silent pause.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:50
That is the ultimate purpose of life.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:02:52
The ultimate purpose of life. What's interesting about that question, if you can let me have wax philosophically, please, please, is, you know, why would there necessarily be an ultimate purpose to life? Which would suggest that there are other less important purposes to life? Now on a mundane, trivial level? You might say, Yes, I can invoke us and, you know, image, you know, the person that knows that they're sweeping the floor, and that's all that they're doing? Are they just sweeping the floor? is sweeping the floor trivial? Or is knowing that the only thing that you're doing in that moment, and nothing else is sweeping the floor? The purpose of life? Being in that moment, and having no resistance to it whatsoever? I hesitate to say that there is an ultimate purpose in life, even though in a way I just answered that there is which is to sort of be with this very moment with absolutely no resistance judgment whatsoever. And then you realize, that's God, you're experiencing God and in this in this moment? And that's why the answer might actually just be silence.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:19
My friend, fantastic answer to that question. Where can people find out more about you and pick up your book endless awakening?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:04:26
Ah, yeah. So I made it simple. The the www.endlessawakening.com will take you to my website, and you can find that book on Amazon. And so I thank you for sharing the book and spending the time with me today.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:42
And do you have any final words for our audience?

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:04:46
No, I think I've said everything I wanted to say today.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:49
Patrick, thank you so much for your for being on the show and for the work that you do and to help awaken all of us in this life. I appreciate you my friend.

Patrick Paul Garlinger 1:04:56
Thank you so much, Alex same to you!