Christian Sundberg Author of A Walk in the Physical Core Curriculum for Awakening Ep. 261

Krista: Hi Christian, welcome to the podcast.

Christian: Hi, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for having me.

Krista: Yeah, me too. So, I always like to give my guests the opportunity to introduce themselves in their own words about who they are and what they do. I'll pass it back to you.

Christian: Yeah, thank you, Krista. So, my name is Christian Sundberg. My body is 43 years old right now, but I am aware that we are not actually just the human characters that we're playing. Right now, I know that sounds strange to a lot of people, but about 13 years ago, I had an awakening experience where I had taken up a long-term meditation practice, and I began to have out-of-body experiences. I also began to have pre-birth memory return to me, so I remembered a time preceding this life in which I had chosen this life and signed up to experience this.

So, while I'm still very much veiled now, that awareness that we are not just this is, you know, right there for me. So, I'm just very motivated to try to reach out to other people and to share because who we really are is just such an amazing, oh, such an amazing message full of so much good news and hope. You know, we're just... there's nothing actually to fear in our lives here. And so, I just feel so motivated to share, you know, some of what I can, even though it's so beyond language, you know, about what we really are, who we really are while we're here on Earth.

Krista: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can't wait to unpack your book with you. That's a lot of deep questions. So, I'm always interested in everyone's life journey as in the human experience of religion because I feel like we are evolving away from it, and some of us are evolving into it. But what was your early childhood experience with religion, spirituality, or nothing at all? And then, kind of, where did you find yourself as an adult, and what are you anchoring yourself in these days?

Christian: Yeah, thank you. So, I was raised in a household that was primarily Lutheran, so Christian, and I really saw the world through that lens for a long time. I've always been a spiritual seeker, but that was the system that was handed to me and that I understood the world through. I was actually quite devout in my church. I served as an assistant minister for 20 years, and I was on the church council when I became an adult.

As a young adult, I was on the church council, and I taught confirmation class, actually. The pastor even asked me to consider going into seminary, so I actually very seriously considered that at the time. Though, even at the time, before my awakening, I kind of sensed that the spirit was bigger than what we could put in a box, so I didn't feel quite comfortable committing myself to a certain belief system even then.

But when I went through my awakening journey at the age of 30 and onward, it really meant quite a deconstruction of the belief system that I had up until that point in my life. That took a lot of humility and courage because there were a lot of things that I just hadn't seen or that I had believed incorrectly. And that is okay. You know, that's the nature of how the experience is here. We see out from the beliefs we're handed, and the world reflects back to us the beliefs that we hold.

So, I saw the world a certain way through that belief lens. It takes a certain level of awareness and willingness, I think, is probably the right word, to actually call that into question and to begin to actually see the world through a new lens. It can be very challenging to the ego to do that because it's very fear-provoking.

So, yeah, so now, at this point, for the last 13 years, I don't feel the need to associate with any specific tradition, though I do enjoy certain traditions. I speak at a Unity Christian Church, and I belong to a Presbyterian Christian church, but I no longer feel the need to identify with any set of form. I'm happy to practice spirituality either through them or not through them on my own. In fact, I feel my relationship with God is stronger than it's ever been, to be honest, even though that word is even... even the word itself is so limiting. It's much bigger than even that word. But yeah, that's a very personal process and something I experience every day.

Krista: Yeah, this deconstruction process is so disorienting, and adding the ego, the fight that you have with your ego, is a real thing, plus all of the domestication and conditioning. I deeply know that process myself. And because there are so many people here on Earth living in the confines of what has been presented to us as the reality of what God is, it's really hard to challenge that. And usually, you become an outcast, and it's so challenging. So, I really appreciate you saying all of that because that's definitely accurate.

Christian: You know, it's very much accurate in the sense that we not only are the beliefs handed to us, and we don't know to look any further, but we think that this world and the things in it are all that there is. So, when we take that away, it feels, at least at first, like, "Well, what then is there?" It's like being out at sea without a life raft. You know, the ego really wants to grab onto something. "Please tell me what to believe in so I can feel better," kind of thing. But this process of truly awakening to what we are requires a deep surrender into even that which you don't know. And that can be an actually really beautiful and liberating process because, underneath all the fear, love and peace and joy is what we really are.

So, it's okay to explore. It's okay to search and to really call into question and to really explore what we are, explore what life is, and actually accept and fully meet and fully process everything that we experience here, even if that means letting go of certain belief systems and going at it without knowing, like admitting to yourself that you don't know. That can be hard.

Krista: Yeah, I had this experience coming out of my own religious experience where I was very much indoctrinated, and it was very fear-based as well. As I started unraveling everything and really discovering who I was, I realized that there was so much of what we were taught was caught up in this, what I would say, an illusion of certainty, which I know you addressed in your book, and we'll talk about here in just a little bit.

But it's funny because what you mentioned there about surrendering that we don't know, it was weird because I had this moment where I was like, "I almost feel better that I don't know everything than saying I know these things for sure." Because saying you know for sure, you can get challenged a lot, and there are a lot of people who don't believe, and there are differing opinions about it, and whatever the case may be. Being able to relinquish that uncertainty was truly liberating in a way that I can't even really describe with my own words. So, it's interesting you hit on that as well.

Christian: That's beautiful. Yeah, the uncertainty is genuine to acknowledge. It's authentic to acknowledge it because there's a lot we don't see here. There's a lot we don't know in the physical. But we're in a society where everybody pretty much claims to have everything figured out most of the time when, really, even as a whole species, we have very, very little figured out. So, yeah, it's like, you know, Plato and Socrates, they would say the first step to wisdom is knowing you know nothing. Oh my gosh, yes, it really is true. I mean, you really have to acknowledge, "Wow, I don't understand."

And one thing I'll comment on that, though, is that part of the reason that we feel that way is because form itself—that means objects, ideas, thoughts, everything that is based in this local world—is not fundamentally real. It's not the fundamentally real substance. And so, we can't actually find the answers here.

One of the reasons we're confused is because we keep looking at the ant. We keep looking at thoughts and forms and books and ideas and this object and this system, and then, "Well, which one? Where are the answers?" That entire thing arises within something much deeper, much faster, much less limited. So, you can't put that much larger context into the small local box. It just doesn't work. It's like not having the right operating system for your technology.

Krista: Yeah, it is something like that. It's like being inside of, I don't know, Minecraft, the video game, and you're inside Minecraft, and you're like, "You know, you dig with blocks, and everything is a block world inside a video game, and you say, 'Where in this game is the real world? I don't know. I can't find it.'" Well, you can't possibly express the depth and the richness of our world in Minecraft blocks.

Christian: No, similarly, you cannot possibly touch the richness and the vastness of our higher natures or the higher realms with the language that we have, with the belief systems we have, because everything we have here is based in our local system. Even things like linear time and discrete location, these things that seem so obvious to us, they seem like fundamental properties of reality. They're actually not fundamental. Discrete location is actually an illusion.

Krista: Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's... well, we're going to unpack all of that. Okay, let me just take a moment here before we get any further because we could just go on, I think, here. But so, you wrote this beautiful book called A Walk in the Physical, and I feel like I've been looking for this book probably my entire life. So, I'm deeply, deeply indebted to you that you wrote this book because it encapsulates when you go on your spiritual awakening, and you sort of start to understand that there are all of these things you don't know, and it's... and that you do know, which is also another thing we'll unpack here.

Yeah, there also is, like, a very... I felt, for myself, a deep sadness in wanting to go home, but like, where is home, right? And you talk about that in the book. And also, a very significant experience that you mentioned earlier of being able to have this pre-birth experience and decide your life. So, let's tell the people real quickly what your book is about. What was its intention, and then what do you hope that it's going to do in the world for people like me and everyone else trying to figure it out?

Christian: Thank you. So, my book is called A Walk in the Physical. First, I'll mention that it is available to be read for free online. It's not about money. I'm not just trying to sell it. I want the message to be shared. On the book page of my website, it's available at the third link down. So, A Walk in the Physical... oh, I feel like it's my life's work, actually. I feel it was very important that I kind of actualize it, deliver it in this place. It came to me over a period of six years in chunks. I never once sat down and said, "I'm going to write a book now," or that I'm going to work on my book. That's never how it arrived. It was always like pieces, like inspirational arrivals, and I just recorded them. It took about six years for all the chunks to arrive.

The intention of the book is to provide a concise, encouraging framework to help understand what the human experience is within the larger context—like, what are we doing here, what is going on, and who are we really? And that is so beyond language. It becomes extremely difficult to try to present in this format, like we have mentioned. So, I try to do it in a way that's non-linear. I felt that was the way I was called to present it, actually. Like, if I was just going to sit down and write it on my own, I think I would do something a lot more linear.

But the way that it's presented is a short section that's only 14 pages long or so that describes, in very concise, structured language, what is the human experience, what are we, what are we doing here, what's the value of this experience, and why do we come? And then, there are 160 essays that are referenced throughout that part one so that, if a given sentence calls to the reader, they can go read about that sentence because spiritual growth is not always linear. Like, we each have a certain idea or a certain encouragement or a certain thought that might help us at a given time. This book is meant to help the reader find that one sentence that is their next piece.

And so, there are 160 essays on various topics about what we are and what we're doing here and what the world of form is and why we're using it and how we should consider using it. And then, there's a section in the book, part three, that's question and answer, where I try to speak to all of the standard big questions, which are difficult to put language on. I don't claim to have all the answers. It's not like that, but I have been asked these questions over the years, so I began to record my own answers, and eventually, that helped me to create part three of the book. And they're organized by topic, so if there's a topic that is of interest, you can go right to that topic and just read about that.

And then, part four of the book is a meditation exercise and some thoughts on how to relate to your own journey because that is a very personal and unique process. And I find that meditation is a very important part in that process, so I definitely wanted to lift that up in the book as well because, ultimately, this is not about ideas. The book can be helpful because, of course, it's words, it's ideas, but what's more important is your own experience. Yeah, what are you actually experiencing, and how can you actually find and get in touch with who you really are underneath everything that you're not, everything you've associated with, which is not you? So, all the negative self-perceptions and the rich story of this life that seems so deep and convincing—trying to help the reader find, underneath all of that story, who do you sense deep down who you are? And I love that you said before, you know, like, about what we already know.

Krista: Oh, yes, yes, that's so important that we seek that out and find that and intuitively feel into it because we all do know, like, deep down. I know that we've all forgotten, even though the veil works, you know. The veil is very effective. It's a very effective consciousness technology, you could say, so we don't remember all of who we are at the human level. That succeeds, but deep down, we all know, like, deep down, we all sense there's a connection missing. There is a love that is just like, "Where is it?" You know, we're always looking for it.

We could say, in Christian terms, we're always seeking God all the time. We just don't know it, and we're like, looking for it in this object or this relationship or this process or this activity or, "Show me the next thing that'll stimulate me and try to fill that hole that seems to be missing." But we all know deep down that it's in there, and we all also feel the existing, living connection that we still have with that higher nature. It's not like it's been completely removed. I mean, it feels like it's been removed, but in fact, we're already connected right now, and each one of us, we don't really need an external person. We are, like, deep down, if we follow our own intuition and feel into our own being, there is so much there. And so, this book is about helping the reader to do that.

Christian: And it's interesting because when we go on this our own journey and we are liberated from the box of either Western ideology or any other religion that people are brought up in, even if you don't read all the things and you do just sit quietly or go to nature or meditate or empty your mind, what I find as evidence that is so convincing to me is that we have the similar knowing that is already there, and it's deep and deeply embedded in us, and it's about reconnecting into contact with that.

And that just makes so much sense to me that we would be having those same experiences, yes, without being told what they are. And that's exactly, yes, yeah, no, exactly. We all have that same internal direction, that same compass, or whatever you want to call it. We all are what we really are. So, it's like you say, when you find that, it is the same. Like, if you go read, I don't know, just like you said, it's not about reading, we know it, but just if you go read, like, I don't know, 10 of the great philosophers or non-duality teachers or spiritual teachers in the world, you will find the similarities.

Or if you go read a thousand near-death experiences, people who have died and seen the other side and come back, you will see the similarities. Like, this is a real, this is an objective, I don't know what the right words are, but a shared, consistent foundation that we all come from.

Krista: So, yeah, so when, and it's undeniable, yes, it's undeniable. It's undeniable. Now, what's really interesting is that undeniable core. We may all seem to sense it really like a subtle thing at first, okay? But what's really cool—I don't want to stimulate the ego too much here because this can be a super stimulating idea—but if you go down this path far, like, if you really meditate and you really seek out underneath all your fears, in the depth of your awareness.

"What am I?" You know, "What am I?" If you really, really explore that and set aside the time and do it consistently and don't settle for any stories, and you're very, you know, what I mean, you're very objective, and you really explore, and you bring to greater and greater alertness, and you meet your own crap and face your own fears, there can be experiences that arise that are not physical, in higher reality systems, for instance, or higher states of consciousness that are so absolutely amazing and blissful and tangible, very tangible, not just, you know, ephemeral, abstract, "Oh, that's kind of nice," not that kind.

No, I'm saying like, full, like, more real than this experience, real and lucid. And when you experience that, the realness of the higher context, it becomes utterly self-evident. You know, people say, "Well, how do you know that was a real experience, man?" Like, it's like if you say to somebody, "How do you know you've seen the sky?" Like, how can they convince you? You can't convince somebody you've seen the sky. You just know you've seen the sky. But this is even more real. I can't even describe it. It's just so self-evidently real.

So, I'm mentioning that because it starts maybe it might feel like a subtle, deep, distant thing, but in deep exploration, when we're willing to let go of everything we're not, which is the thoughts and the forms and the human association, we may spontaneously discover, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing and real." There are higher reality systems that are so vibrant and rich with color. You could... I don't even know how to describe it. Color that's alive and that you could stare out all day and would just fill you with joy for, you know, or states of being that you know you're not local.

And that you can actually feel tangibly that the physical body is occurring within you, not that you are in a physical body. I know it feels like we have been shoved into a physical body, and now we're looking at our eyeballs, you know, I can see out of my head, you know, but no, actually, the body is a set of constraints and definitions that is arising within your consciousness, and there's this beautiful inversion point that can happen when you feel tangibly that the body of your aliveness is so much bigger and not local. So, anyway, I'm just sharing that because this is not like just a subtle woo-woo thing. This is very real, very tangible.

Krista: Yeah, it is pretty incredible. I think one time I really scared myself by asking that exact question, not through meditation, but looking in the mirror at my own eyes and looking to see what was behind. It felt like it wasn't physically me. Like, I know I'm me and my physical body and all of the things that are real to this moment, but looking at my eyes and looking at the consciousness that was behind it, I was like, the first time I did it, I scared myself because I could feel what you're talking about, you know, just for a flash of a second, feeling that and being like, "Oh, there's so much more here that I don't understand." Like, that was so early in my journey, and I was like, "God, this is scary. Like, what did I just unlock?" And, you know, it can feel scary.

And I think I want to talk to you specifically since we're on this riff here about the individuation of source that you talk about in the book. And to me, when I was reading it, I felt like it spoke to something more profound about how we're trying to connect so deeply with source and one another, almost like if we're trying to put all of the parts back as the whole. And like, we are always all reaching out. We are always seeking God, and it looks different, and it feels different. And so, my question is on the individuation of source. Like, will we ever become the whole again? Do you think?

Christian: Well, we are the whole right now. Okay, so that's a loaded question. [Laughter] But I know that it seems on the surface like we're not the whole, really deeply. Like, yes, we've taken the experience of separation really far out on the spectrum here. I mean, we're doing the extreme sport of coming out as far into separation as is possible. We have a gold medal in separation. Like, I mean, other beings would look, and some, I mean, some other beings actually do look at us and say, "Are you crazy? Like, why would you? How could you even do that? How could you even engage an experience where you actually feel separate from everybody else? That's ridiculous. Why would you do that?"

Oh, so we're doing that now, right now. Like, we're in it. We can't... we made it. So, the question is being asked from the perspective of this really deep, apparent separation, while the truth of our nature is always connected. We never actually get separated. That's an important assumption to point out because even assuming that you're separated automatically is your consciousness buying into a perception that's not in alignment with the truth. Not super helpful.

So, if we start with, "Okay, wait, maybe I really am connected to everything," you know what I mean? And then see, and you start to see all of those connections. Yes, they express even all the way out here. What I mean by "out here" is even out here where the limitation set is so extreme in the physical because we really are in a very alien state and an extremely dense, high limitation state of being right now. It's like crazy. It's like going to Mount Everest, and you're like, "Wow, it's cold.

There's no air up here." We got a gold medal in density too. That's it. Well, that's what this is. That's what this experience is. It's that. So, now that we're here in the density, yes, we are seeking to rediscover, in part, I mean, in part of what we're doing here is we're seeking to rediscover that connectedness that never left, to reawaken to who we are even from here because if we can do it from here, like, while we're at this point of extreme separation, it is like an expansion of the knowing of the being all the way out to this degree. You see, the contrast is like a creative tool. So, we do seek to actually experientially find who we really are, to wake up from the dream while we're in the dream because it's fun to do that, and because if you can do that here, even when you're out on the mountain, it's like, "Holy cow, that is some awesome and powerful stuff."

Krista: Yeah, I think it's just so interesting that that separation feels so real. I mean, I know I felt it for so long, and it wasn't until I got real far into my journey that I found it in nature the quickest. Like, when I am feeling very separate or alone or disconnected, yeah, and usually, I think, you know, most people might say that disconnection is really the disconnection to ourself and everything we are, right? Yes, but when I go into nature, like, I am immediately, it's like clicking in. It's like being sat down into like a spaceship and going, it's just immediate for me, and I remember vibrationally closer to who we really are again because nature is in a state of acceptance. It just exists. It's just alive. It's just being and presenting itself, and we vibrationally feel that without even knowing it.

Yeah, like we come into this vibration. We see it. We hear it. We smell it. We're in the presence of it physically, and that vibration of acceptance automatically moves us closer to who we really are, a little bit, just a bit, but enough that we feel it, and enough that we feel the ease, you know, immediately. Yeah, because spirit, our true nature, is ease and joy and peace and love, but it's just that we've gotten so deeply associated into what we're not, you know, the human story, the forms, the negative self-perceptions, like, "Oh my gosh, I'm unworthy of love," or whatever it is that my parent taught me when I was three, and I'm holding on to it, or, "Oh man, you know, I lost my job. I must be shameful," or, "I can't pay the bill, so I have no power," you know, whatever the negative perceptions are that we think are so real.

Our association into that is the separator. Like, the veil permits an obscuring so that we don't remember, but it's our association into the form that makes it so real, whereas, like, babies, you know, small kids, they've come in. They're not so deeply associated yet, so they just come and go, you know, like, there, they feel it, but then we tell them 200 times, "Oh, your name is this, and you need to do this," and they're like, "Oh, okay," and then now that's their care. Now that's who they are, right? And their identity builds, and all the things, yeah, all the way till now.

Christian: Yeah, I will... I love that you brought up the acceptance thing because this was one of my questions too, and definitely, I think, key curriculum on the spiritual and human experience is getting to a place of radical acceptance about everything. But in your book, specifically, you call out accepting what it is. So, when you talk about that in your book, what does that actually mean for somebody reading it and trying to understand that concept and how it can help them on their journey?

Christian: Yes, excellent. So, what it means is exactly how things are right now, what how your life has arrived to you, your circumstances. So, that's the external, and the internal too, your feelings and your body, the feelings in your body, the state of your body, the thoughts that you're putting on the state of your body, and the state of your life, everything, the whole thing, all of all the form.

All that that I just described is form. It just means distinctions of some kind that have arisen within the metaphorical soup of consciousness. You've lost yourself into these forms, okay? So, the reason that acceptance is so powerful is that rejection is done out of fear, and fear only occurs when we buy into a self-perception that's not in alignment with the truth.

So, when we stop rejecting everything, even things exactly as they've arisen, and we actually say, "You know what? I accept this. I'm present with it. This is how it is. It's okay. I'm here now. I'm fully alert. I'm awake here with exactly how things are," that acceptance automatically opens the channel and moves you vibrationally closer to who we really are because life itself is accepting.

Like, you could say that source is unconditionally loving. That's like a fundamental, and we'll use the word quality, but it's the nature of source. It's unconditionally living, and unconditional love is completely accepting, utterly accepting. It doesn't reject. It doesn't kick out or push away. It's not how it works. So, where are we rejecting and pushing away? "Oh no, but there's these bad things in my life. You know, there's these pains.

There's these limitations. There's these terrors. This person left me, or this person abused me, or I have this disability. I reject that." You know, that's what we do. Well, if we decide to put down the false power of rejection because raising the mighty fist of the ego might work in the short term, but it's not true power. If we put that down and actually fully accept this moment exactly as it is arisen, true strength, true power, true life can rise up and flow through us, and all of a sudden, we can find joy and peace and freedom. It can be present even now, even in exactly this circumstance, and then we're in power to change it even if we wish.

We do that. We see we can do that from a place not of rejection but from a place of love and peace. You know, we don't have to lose our peace even as we take action to help our world and help those around us. Acceptance doesn't mean inaction or inactivity. It's a state of being. It's a state of relationship to the circumstance and a relationship to the meaning we've put on it.

Krista: Yeah, I think it's just such a powerful and alchemical thing to apply in your daily life and then everywhere. And I find it so freeing to be able to accept things as they are. On my journey, in particular, I had a really negative inner dialogue, which you do talk about a little bit in the book, and it was one of the things that really created a lot of obstacles for me that weren't obviously real but created psychological obstacles, let's say. And being able to accept that maybe I wasn't the right or not the right—that's not the right reason—that I didn't accept in those moments that I could be lovable because I had flaws that I couldn't reconcile or because I had baggage that I was hanging on to or things that hurt me that would make me feel like I wasn't enough. You know, I think all this is a common struggle in our human experience.

Sure, everyone goes through this at some point. And for me, I came through acceptance in the lineage of my practices and education and Buddhism. That's where I first came into contact with it. Removing that judgment, which you also talk about in the book a lot, allowed such a deep acceptance of where I was and loving the flaws so that I could love the future part of me that was reconciled to all of that. And I just find it so important to be able to do that. I feel like it's so liberating, and it does create this peace and ease that you're talking about. I wish everyone could feel that.

Christian: Yes, no, absolutely. That's really beautiful. One comment I'll make—I didn't mean to imply that that process you just described is easy. It can be easy, of course, but the reason I mention that is because fear, which is at the root of all this rejection and ego stuff that's going on, it's just fear. Fear can be hard. Fear is like the worst. It is the worst. No, no, absolutely. In fact, I mean, really, it's the only real problem. I mean, there's not even a real problem.

It perpetuates, yeah, fear and ignorance are the only two real issues that we have here on Earth. Everything else arises from that. Everything arises from that. Yeah, so the reason I'm pointing that out is because that does... what you just described, okay, you notice you have an inner dialogue saying you're worthless or this certain quality about you isn't good. It takes humility and bravery to look at that and go, "Oh crap, I really do feel that way. That hurts. That really hurts. I'm afraid. Oh my gosh, I'm afraid." And then you feel small because, "Oh my gosh, I'm afraid," you know, and "I have no power." Okay, so this may sound like a tangent, but I just feel nudged that I should mention it.

So, when I first went to... so, I had a very traumatic experience when I was 22, and I had post-traumatic stress after this. This was part of what I signed up to experience. I didn't know it at the time. At the time, I was only deeply traumatized, but I went through years of counseling. And when I first walked into my counselor's office, onto the literal and proverbial couch, to sit down on the couch for counseling, behind her, written on a chalkboard, was a sentence that, at the time, it just pissed me off. It just stimulated my ego. And the sentence was, "Power lies in accepting powerlessness." I thought, "That's BS. There's no... that's...

I automatically was like, 'Boy, that's the biggest BS I ever heard.'" However, I have subsequently discovered that it is very much literally true, like very, very tangibly spiritually true, because we already feel the powerlessness. You see, the ego does everything it can to try to convince us we don't. "Oh no, no, I'm going to tell myself this new story," or, "Oh no, look, I have value because I have money in my bank account," or, "Look, I have value because I belong to this group, and this group's good, and that group's bad, and so now my group's better than yours, and now I got that solved." That all doesn't really work. Underneath it all, you really have, you know, if we really have that powerlessness feeling or whatever it is, confronting that inner dialogue means acknowledging that actual negative self-perception that's causing fear, that's stimulating fear at the root, and that's hard. But what I want to point at it though is power lies in accepting the powerlessness.

So, accepting the fact, "Oh, I actually feel powerless," or, "I actually feel shameful. I'm not worthy of love," or, "I actually feel ugly," or whatever, whatever the thing is. When we actually go into that dark closet, like all the way, like push our way through the clothes, as it were, you know, and feel it—I use that metaphor a lot of times, but it's a great metaphor—when we actually go in there and explore that and actually feel that into it and smell the mothballs and we're like, "Wow, I got a lot of mothballs in here. How do I didn't even know I had 100 mothballs in this closet. They're terrible." When we really do that all the way, there's this really beautiful thing that happens, not because we're trying, but by actually going in and acknowledging how we feel. And yes, that may mean lots of tears. It may mean gut-wrenching, body-racking tears.

That's fine. That's okay. You're here to experience and to process that crap. Once you really, really process, you find it vanishes because now you went in and faced it instead of running away from it your whole life anymore. And once you face it and process it, it vanishes, and now the only thing that's left is what you already always were, which is peace and love and joy. And in fact, the peace and the love and the joy is actually expanded now because now you know what it's like to actually have been powerless and yet rediscover that you really are powerful. Yes, that expansion, yes, and you have that forever. Like, after the human experience is over, you retain that forever. Like, "Oh no, no, I know what it's like. I was there, man. I know what it's like to feel powerless, and I processed it. I meant it. I climbed that mountain." Wow, that's powerful work. That's what we're here to do. It's beautiful.

Krista: It is beautiful, man. I am literally telling people that all the time because when you go on the healing experience too, there are two things that are so true for everyone. It's that one, we want to just ignore and sweep everything under the rug because that feels easier, and number two, that there's this idea that if we confront the things that get in the way from us having a deep connection with ourselves and others or source—and I think all of us are calling out for that connection—that if we address it, it's somehow harder, but actually, it may... it does every time. You're just letting go of everything, so you become lighter. You have more space.

You have more expansiveness, more openness. All of the love that you ever wanted to feel starts to emanate from yourself out to the world, and you're literally, figuratively, and literally lighter. And you know, you can verbalize this, and like you said in your book, sometimes language doesn't even do us any favors here. It's not even... we can't capture what it is right, even you and I trying to say and point to what this is. You have to experience it because the words are not complete here for what that is.

Christian: Absolutely. I think that everybody's listening though, who is listening, has that intuitive sense though, and we all seek that, like that peace, that joy. We're like, "Oh my gosh, we might think, 'I've been missing it my whole life,'" but you still know deep down in there. You still know. Like, you may have rejected it your whole life, and you may have been proven to you six thousand times that you are shameful, but underneath it all, you still know that you are precious and important. It's in there. It's because it's true. It's the reality.

Krista: Yeah, gosh, so good. I think I probably should have mentioned something earlier, maybe asked you about it early in the interview, but here we are. So, you keep alluding to something called the veil, and people that maybe haven't read your book yet that are watching this interview, let's explain to them what you actually mean by that, and then, you know, maybe you can also tell us a little bit too about choosing your life and the situations you had, and a little bit about that part of the book because it's so fascinating to me.

Christian: Sure, yeah. So, you know, the veil is a broad term that everybody kind of uses a little bit differently, but when I speak to it, I mean a specific thing—a set of limitations that we wear in order to have the incarnative physical experience. So, think of it this way: your consciousness right now, it pre-existed the human experience. We don't remember that, you know, because that's what the veil enables. It's that you don't have conscious access to before the human experience. It seems like all you've ever been is a human.

Man, that's alien. Anyway, the veil is the set of constraints that your consciousness is presented with, like a cloak that you have to surrender to. And the reason is, you have to buy into it. We have to buy into it because the soul is sovereign. What I mean is, it's a piece of source. There's no greater authority, you could say, that you're a fragment of God. So, what can lock God away into an experience where it doesn't know itself anymore? The only thing that can do that is God, like yourself. The only thing that can do it is your own surrender. There's no other power.

So, in my experience, okay, so in very brief, I worked with my guides. They presented this life to me. I reviewed this life in incredible detail with all the millions and millions of possibilities of how this life might unfold, what it would be like to experience being Christian.

And I made certain requests, and I understood certain things about the body and the parents and the context, and I knew that I would experience, very likely, a trauma in my 20s that would give me a chance to re-engage a fear. My main purpose in coming was to process this certain very, very low vibration that had bested me in a previous experience. And okay, so after I had reviewed everything there, I—this is a longer story I've shared many times—but getting right to it, when I was right about to actually incarnate, I was in this area that can only be described as like a mechanic shop or a technician's chamber, and there were these technical guides there. I don't know how to describe them, but their nature is like mechanical, and I like to call them tinkers.

They're beings who are extremely skilled at veil application. I know this sounds wild, but the thing is, the soul is very, very complex, and the physical experience and the context and the body and everything that's going on with the life is very complex. So, they have to do this thing in order for there to be an effective veiling over so powerful a being because the soul is so powerful. So, in order for the subset of the soul, the personality portion of the soul, to be veiled, there has to be a surrender into this cloak, like I described.

So, I remember being in this room—I describe it as a room, and it's not really a room, but it's like a room over the Earth—and these beings presenting to me the veil and saying, "One last time, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this?" And I said, "Yes." And then I remember this plummet in vibration, down, down, down, down, lower, lower, lower, lower, lower, more lower still, and then, like, when you feel like you're at the bottom you could possibly go, going more lower, lower, lower, lower, lower, and having all of my knowing be cut off and all of my connectedness disappear, and suddenly being... it felt like being shoved inside of a tuna can, like a tiny metal can, and yet so being super dense but also super like empty, like the vacuum of space. And it was so, so uncomfortable. And so, the veil is that set of constraints that I surrendered to. Like, in this case, in this life, I focused on not fighting off the veil because I had done that in a previous experience out of fear. After right after I had incarnated, I was still in the womb, and I rejected the limitations because they triggered my fear immediately. I was like, "I'm not doing this. There's no... this is insane. I'm not doing this. No way." So, but this time, I just focused on not fighting it. Eventually, I did end up, however, deciding, "I'm not doing this once again."

So, I was like, "I'm not tolerating this for a lifetime. This is not happening." And in that case, I had this very profound personal experience that is just so beyond language where... oh, the only words are the great "I Am" presence of God, source itself, came to me and expanded me back out, and I felt all of the universe within me. I felt the sun, the sun of Earth, churning. It was conscious. It had a consciousness to it. I know that sounds crazy, but I knew it. I could feel it in me, and it was alive, and it had like a raging bliss to it. And God said to me, "This is still what you are. You can never not be this." So, I stopped fighting and surrendered back into the state of being bodily in the womb, and the next thing I remember is a long time later. I remember being physically born the day of my birth.

So, that's just a super quick, high level, but so that's the veil. It's that set of limitations that we wear, and even now, I can feel the veil on me. I'm not fighting it. It's cool. It's present, but it's like in the police shows, the cop shows, you know, where someone's in an interrogation room, and they like, there's like a one-way glass wall, and the police officers can see the person being interrogated, but you can't see out. That's what it feels like to me. Like, I can't see out. Well, I know I have these certain memories, but overall, I'm very much veiled.

I can't see past the glass, but I can see the glass in my consciousness, and I'm just like, "Oh man, like, you know..." Anyway, I know it's an opportunity, so I can feel it. I'm wearing it. We're all wearing that veil right now. It is metaphorically like being given a weight, like a heavy coat that we wear on and in our consciousness so that we can operate from this extremely high-value, unique, utterly super dense and separate-feeling perspective of being human. There's so much opportunity in that. In fact, even just being given to human life is like winning the lottery. It's like so valuable.

Krista: Yeah, I know that, you know, people that might be coming into contact with this concept of the veil might not understand it because they haven't read your book or have just never heard this before. But what you said back there about that feeling of that first incarnation where you're like, "I was about to say a bad word," yeah, that's pretty much what it was, but like, I have deeply felt that too.

I also have two family members who left this place through suicide, and I deeply understand that that was at the core of what they were feeling. And so, you can imagine, without understanding the veil, the concept of knowing we're not this physical body, this 3D world, and that sometimes is really painful, especially because we are this sacred soul in this experience, and because we do, and we don't have the knowledge, you know, simultaneously, it causes so much internal turmoil. And I think, as a seeker, you know, that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to come closer and at peace to all of these things, to try to reckon. I know, for me, I'll just speak for myself, like, that's what I was trying to do. I was trying to reconcile, like you said, this walk in the physical against what I knew spiritually to be true.

Christian: Yeah, I know that's a really excellent point. So, being veiled seems to... I was going to say create a big problem, but it didn't actually create a big problem. It's actually an opportunity. It seems to have created, however, a big problem, a huge problem, and that huge problem that it seems to have created is separation. And that's the separation from each other, separation from source, separation from our knowing, from all of our memory, all of our knowing of who we are. Now, it seems like it's... I mean, it's very effective at doing that, practically speaking, but it's just...

I'm just qualifying it because our true nature is always on the other side. I know that's not satisfying to the separate personality who's like, "No way, I'm pissed," but I'm just pointing it out because the deeper part of us is always connected and is... we're like, we're on the other side right now. We don't actually have to go anywhere. But yes, like you said, there is this huge problem now, and the price of coming to be human is the pain of that separation, and it's a big pain.

There's nothing that hurts more really than losing all of what we are. In fact, even I... I heard, I think it was Natalie Sudman, the near-death experiencer, I think it was her—I could be wrong—say something like, "Even one day on Earth, even just living one day on Earth, is such an accomplishment." I agree with that 100%. Even just going and eating your breakfast and going to work and dealing with your own internal dialogue, you know what I mean?

Like, even just going through those things that seem very day-to-day and routine for us from this perspective is huge. It's no small feat. It's not a small feat. So, then, I get a lot of emails from people, and sometimes people say, "Oh my gosh, this is really hard," and I'm paraphrasing, and it's like, "Yes, yeah, it's really hard, but here now." But here's the thing though: now, what do you do with it? That's the key. It's not about how hard it is. It's like if someone puts 100 pounds over you, and you're like, "This is heavy," okay, but now you have a choice: do you lift the weight or not?

And in this metaphor, not lifting the weight is running away. Well, it's all the fear. It's all the ego, all the rejection, and not owning our own crap. That's not lifting the weight. Lifting the weight is when we turn around and go, "Oh my gosh, I feel like a scary little child, and I don't know anything," and then I could lift this and get really strong muscles. No, but no, what I mean is by acknowledging the limitation and the fear, that is lifting the weight. So, lifting the weight is making choices that are aligned with love rather than fear and all the things that come in, and there's a million and ten things that that can mean, choosing love rather than fear. So, we have not... it's not just a price. It's not just a great cost. It's not just a huge problem. No, we have an incredible opportunity, and this is one of the things that motivates me so much about sharing this message.

This is a huge opportunity. We can and should use it while we're here and not just cry and reject it. It's okay if we feel horror or pain, but now that it's been... now that this contrast has been offered to us, what do we do with it? Because if you can lift a hundred pounds even a little bit, you're doing way more than is possible with metaphorically a half a pound. I'm just using this simple, silly metaphor. Yeah, well, all I mean is in the higher reality systems where the constraints are much less dense, it's easy to say, "Oh, I'm kind, and I'm free," but do you really know? Do you really... you know what I mean?

Do you really know? If you come here and you can find your own strength, find your own love that is there for you, find your own love, love the person next to you even when you've had a bad day, smile at the person in the store and make their day better, like, every time we choose that, we are helping the whole, and we are lifting the weight, and we are helping love to expand. It's an incredible service we're providing, and that service doesn't need to be a heavy-hearted one at all. No, no, our true nature is joy. So, the more and more we align with love, the more and more joyful our life becomes, and then what's so amazing is now we're within this highly veiled, dense experience, and we find, "Oh my gosh, this can be bliss even here." The bliss of our nature is deeper than this, and actually, we can use it and enjoy it in a way that's so unique.

Like, just a super simple example: one time I was out of body, and I was curious if I could taste something, so I manifested a vat of peanut butter frosting, and I tasted this peanut butter frosting, and it was the best-tasting peanut butter frosting that that peanut butter frosting could ever taste like for me. However, it lacked a surprise novelty. What I mean is, it wasn't surprising. It was like a recording of the best flavor of peanut butter, whereas here, if I put food in my mouth, I will be surprised by sensations that arrive. So, that's a very just... such a very simple, normal example. I'm just pointing out that our physical world is full of beautiful sensory opportunities and experiential opportunities, social opportunities, cognitive opportunities that just don't exist in much less limiting systems. And when we integrate those experiences, we learn and we grow in a way that stays with us far past the end of even our physical death. It's a beautiful opportunity.

Krista: Oh, I think the alchemical process of transmuting your pain and suffering into wisdom, into usefulness, into clarity, into kindness, is joy, all the things. I feel like it's almost one of the highest things we can do here on Earth. And what I noticed for myself, as I got further and further into alchemy and stopped injuring myself, I stopped injuring the outside world, and then I didn't...

I wasn't experiencing things at the frequency, like, you know, I would say bad experiences, you know, two decades ago, that where I would run into, and you just realized that, you know, going down that alchemical journey of being able to have the courage to face the things that we come in here, you know, whether we choose that suffering... you know, people have different ideas about this, but you know, I think we do, you know, I think we choose suffering consciously and unconsciously, and then being able to say, at some point in your life journey, like, "What is this trying to teach me, and how can I allow it to change me into a higher version of myself?" is so perfect, such a profound experience to have in this form.

Christian: Yes, so, fear, like we mentioned earlier, fear is hell, and so, what I mean is, if you have fear, you're going to have a negative experience. And when I say your fear, that means you have ego-driven fear. So, if you live a life that is self-serving and rejecting your own issues and not taking ownership for your life and just trying to get the things that you think are going to stimulate you today, you won't actually be deeply happy in the long run because we're love.

Our true nature is love. Love is joy, and love are synonymous. So, what I mean by that is, you can just look at the quality of your own life and say, "Am I living a joyful life or not?" And if you're not living a joyful life, it's okay. It's okay to acknowledge and say, "Oh wow, maybe I have some fear and some rejection that is there." So, that's a part of the alchemical process.

So, basically, I'm saying it's not like signing up for suffering. It's not like... the wording is careful here. It's not like we sign up to suffer. It's that we sign up to experience contrast and limitation, yeah, that might provoke our fear, and fear is suffering, okay? Yeah, but it doesn't necessarily have to be suffering. No, it never has to be suffering. It's our own rejection that hurts. Even pain, if you have like a headache or something or if you're vomiting or whatever, whatever the negative sensation—like, a few years ago, my gallbladder failed me, and I had to have it removed, and I spent six weeks like wandering around crying because it hurt so bad. I lost all this weight, and I was just a big mess. But that sensation, it was like, I noticed, yeah, it was really, really painful, but was it charged? No, it's just pain. It's just a sensation arriving within my experience. I get to do whatever I want with it.

And when the time came to get operated on, I used to be very afraid, like, years ago, of surrendering to anesthesia, as an example, but I chose to walk up, get on the operating table with full alertness, and not reject it. You know, use that experience. That's alchemical. It's alchemy because it's like the context is neutral. It's not negative. It's just something that may be very extremely triggering for your fear. So, then, face your fear. Use the opportunity. Use the trigger to face and process your fear, and then you won't be afraid anymore, and love and joy are what remain. That transmutation is synonymous with the expansion of consciousness. That's what we're here to do. It's beautiful. So, anytime there's something negative, it's like a messenger. It's like, "Oh, wait, time out. I feel negative. Why do I feel negative?"

And you go, "See," and you'll find usually there's like a little message at your door saying something like, "I feel powerless because I blah blah blah," whatever the story is, and then, "Okay, why that?" And then you seek down and over the root, you're going to find a fear. So, you can always trace whatever is in the present moment down to whether or not you're fully accepting or rejecting something in your experience. And that process of then switching from rejection to acceptance and actually feeling and owning who you are and becoming more alert, more present instead of less present, owning that process, oh my gosh, there's so much powerful alchemy that takes place. It can be a very physical process too. It can happen in your body.

Like, I knew so over years and years of dealing with the trauma that I experienced at 22, I've had more chronic health conditions than I care to share, but I've healed so much because I didn't know it, but my body was acting as like a soundboard for all this deep buried crap that I had down in there. And so, the healing that I went through by the alchemy—I like that word—the alchemy that I went through in consciousness had a very physical element to it, very strong feelings, you know, during the fear and the negative, it was very physical, and yet during the releases and the expansions, very physical bliss and an increase in life force, actually, and in health. It's really interesting. The body is like such an important tool and a part of that process.

Krista: That's really fascinating to think about it like that, that analogy of the soundboard is really interesting to me. We're getting close to the end. I do want to ask you just one more question about the book here. There were two words that I made in bold letters when I sent you my pitch email to come on here, which was love and intention, and I felt like those were getting volleyed throughout your text. And you hear this a lot, I think, everywhere in our consciousness about love, and I think, to me, I haven't heard it described so succinctly as the way you described it, like what it is, how we are supposed to be—or not, I guess, supposed to be is not a great word—but like how we should be growing into love with one another and ourselves and how this is so important, and the intention we're putting behind in our shared experience of humanity. I wondered what you had to say about those two things in general for the listening audience: love and intention.

Christian: Love and intention, yeah, yeah. So, this is really hard to describe and talk about because we have like five words, you know, we use the word love. This is way... it's just like it's just like God. It's not... it doesn't matter. It doesn't do justice, but love is the closest word we have. Love is okay. So, love, we could say, is synonymous with our true nature.

And so, one of the main things we're here to do is to wield an intention, that means the actual why behind our choices, the actual one, not the why we're necessarily telling ourselves on the surface, the actual deepest why, to align that why with love rather than fear, rather than rejection, because love is in alignment with the unity of being, whereas fear only can arise as we buy into the illusion of separation and the negative self-perceptions that that triggers. Fear can only respond in that which is only a rise in that which is non-native.

So, acting out of ego is acting in alignment with the illusion that we're not, whereas love is acting in alignment with that which has the true lasting power, the true bliss, and the joy and the freedom of our being. So, what does that mean, you know, in our... I'm careful to try to put too many specific labels on what a loving choice means because it can mean so many different things.

I do try to describe it throughout the book in various ways because our intuition will always guide us better than any words. But love can mean all sorts of things. It can mean compassion, kindness, bravery, strength, surrender, action, discipline, stepping back. You know, it can mean... there's just so many things, but the question is, what is that quality of the why? You see, it's not the behavior on the surface, and it's not even technically the outcome of the action on the surface. It's the why. It's the intention that matters. Like, if you truly intend to do good, truly intend, that's what matters, even if that true intention may produce an outcome that is sub-optimal for someone. That's secondary. When we mobilize loving intention, the world tends to heal and become wonderful. We tend to brighten each other and enliven each other and just empower each other in a way that otherwise we can't.

So, and I'll say one last thing about love. So, you could think of it, and let love, loving intention, meaning two things: one is a quality of virtue in any given direction. So, take like bravery, to stand up and do something when it's hard versus being able to stand back and let something happen or to accept without action without losing our peace or something. You know, any axis we can come up with, it can mean in either of those directions. So, it could mean like, for instance, humility and confidence. Those two things don't need to be conflicting. Can we know humility, truly, and can we know the strength of our own being and that we have nothing to fear and there's never a reason not to be confident?

Can we know both of these things? So, there's many, many different axes that we might exercise choice-making through, many, many different axes, and so that's one... that's one area that love learns both, like it's like refining virtues, you could say, in all these different directions. And the other thing that love does is grow in wisdom, and that means deciding which to implement, which choice to make, which end of the spectrum to wield in this context today. And that is also really important because that means you have to look at your action and say, like, let's say you're in a public place, someone is doing something mean to someone else, so now you have a choice: do I intervene? Is it appropriate to intervene? And then you can immediately, in a quick second, make a decision. And then you find in yourself, "What is the quality with which I'm making this decision?"

So, many times, we may be called compelled to step forward and say something. Maybe it's a mother who's treating their child poorly and hurting them or something, and you step forward and say something gentle like, "I don't know, this child is a loving child," you know, just remind them of love in some way, and then they might say, "Oh, it's not your business." That's okay. Maybe you're called to step in and intervene. Maybe it's a situation though where you see something happening, and it's best for you not to step in. That discernment rather than ego because the ego... oh no, it's way easier for you not to do anything, or, "Oh no, don't, I don't want to look stupid." I'm not talking. I'm saying love means deciding the former rather than the latter, like basically listening to the heart and listening to the spirit and living fearlessly, basically. So, yeah, both of those are really important, and that is basically the name of the game because if we really do that, we find it's not about the product of our actions. It's not about moving the objects around on the stage today.

It's about your relationship to the present moment, your relationship to life itself. Are you living in joy and freedom today? Are you loving the person next to you today? That's all. That's where the power is. You see, like, we think on the physical, "Oh, that's not accomplishing much." No, no, when you actually process your fear and you actually choose love, the whole collective consciousness of humanity hears it because we're like a big pond in consciousness space, and you're like a light going off, and then everybody else, maybe they may not be able to consciously identify it, but their being can see. And I'll just say, not to again not to stimulate the ego, but in thought-responsive reality layers, you can see it.

Thoughts can be seen and heard and felt. They're all... they're like things. So, in the pond of the human collective consciousness, when one person wakes up and chooses joy and chooses freedom even when it's hard, that gives permission to thousands of other people because the temperature of the water shifts up, and now, so all... so you don't have to worry about everything. You just choose the way that you relate to life, and then when you do that, you do raise the temperature of the water. You do help all of humanity, even if you're behind closed doors. No one has to even be able to see you. You can still just by appreciating a houseplant in the sunlight in the morning, if you really feel that and you bring that love into that moment just for a moment, not artificially, just genuine, you just appreciate it, then you have just touched all of humanity.

Krista: Well, that's beautiful. I love what you said back there too about regardless of what the outcome is, having the intention coming in with love, that that's what's important because I think sometimes we can also have that like analysis paralysis when we want to intervene or we want to help or we want to provide a moment of nurturing or support or whatever, all of the examples you used right now. And sometimes we can get caught in that pull-push and pull of ourselves like, "Should I?" And I think if the answer is, "Am I doing this from a place of love, genuine love?" then I'm going to move forward, and whatever the outcome is is not important, but I'm doing this intently with deep, unabiding love for humanity, this person, yeah, this animal, whatever it might be.

Christian: One comment I'll make to that: the intellect is in service to intention. So, what I mean is, all the learned ideas, all the understanding that you have, that's what your consciousness utilizes and works through. Intention shines through the intellectual choice. So, that might mean that a lot of analysis, that might mean that a lot of analysis can be useful in a given choice, perhaps, but many times, analysis paralysis also could be ego because we're afraid of doing the wrong thing. We're afraid of having some outcome happen. Usually, the heart knows pretty darn quick. I don't just mean the heart like just the heart. I mean, usually, our being because the soul...

I don't get too much down this path because I know we're running out of time, but the higher portion of ourselves has really good vantage point. It can see everything, sees a landscape really clearly and quickly, immediately, very quick. So, then, we're on the path, and we're like, "Which way do we go? Do I go down this path or I go down this path?" And the soul says, "Take a left into the woods," and you're like, "What?" Because it can seem much better than you, and that is an immediate thing. It doesn't take analysis paralysis. You just know. So, I'm just highlighting those two things. You know, yes, you may need a lot of intellectual deliberation for a choice, but the deeper being is very immediately communicative, and we know. Like, we know. It's instinctual.

Yeah, yeah, it's like, and it's deeper even than biological, physical instinct. It's spiritual knowing, and we know in circumstances. We just know. Like, and it's like, you might do something or choose something that appears so small on the physical surface. It might be the smallest thing in the world, but you just knew that it was like, maybe you just decided to sit down for 10 seconds and be instead of, like, maybe you're walking out of a Chipotle with your dinner in hand, you're ready to get in your car and drive home with extra guac, and you just feel like you want to sit down for 10 seconds, so you do.

You sit down, and you just experience for a few moments. That could be it. It doesn't matter what's the physical outcome. What I'm saying is, if that is the direction of love, then it's beautiful, and it serves it, and maybe you affected others. Maybe the traffic ended up differently than you could have otherwise seen. You don't know, or maybe there was no physical outcome, but you just took a step towards joy and freedom. See, basically, fun, even fun, fun and joy and freedom, like that, it's a service when we choose that.

Krista: Yeah, well, and I think it ties into the whole conversation, so we can wrap it up here, I guess. But it calls to the idea that we are all connected, so when we're making these conscious decisions with intention and love, and all of it's happening in the physical world, but there's non-physical outcomes that shift everything. And so, that's why we can continue on this path unafraid, telling our ego to back it up and just living into the knowingness and trying to pull up the veil a little bit every time.

Christian: Yeah, absolutely. One comment to that: the yeah, I'm not discounting the meaning and the depth and the importance of the physical. It's a big play. Okay, it's not even real fundamentally. It's like a big shared dream environment. So, we are very... we tend to, which is so wild to even fathom, it's very normal though from the higher vantage point. It's very... it becomes ridiculously obvious.

I'm just saying that because we get really concerned, "How much money do I have today?" or, "What am I going to do if this certain physical thing happens?" or, "What if I can't do this certain physical thing?" Okay, the quality of intention is what matters because what lasts past the physical and what always existed is you, your consciousness itself, your spirit, and what we're quote-unquote learning is that quality of intention, not the moving of objects. We can create any objects we want. We're powerful beings, but here in the physical is where we experience lack and limitation and linear time and all these things.

So, but that stuff is all not fundamental. What is fundamental is you and your ability to wield an intention to make choices that is in alignment with love or fear. And so, that's why those small things... another reason those small things are so important because when you choose love, that is the success. It doesn't matter. It's not about how we've rearranged the objects today. We are loving beings, so when we can bring love even to where there apparently is not love, that is the success already. We're done. Done. Whatever you done. Okay, actually, no, it's not done yet. Where can everyone connect with you on social media, your website? Like, where are you hanging out?

Christian: Um, it's awalkinthephysical.com. There's a book page there. I have a bunch of talks and interviews there. And you can also reach out to me by email. I apologize if I can't respond right away. Sometimes I get a lot of emails, but awalkinthephysical@gmail.com is my email address. And the book is available on Amazon or on Audible as an audiobook.

Krista: I bought both versions because I wanted to hear you read it while I had it in front of me.

Christian: I'm glad that works. Yeah, it was like extra learning for me to make it all stick, basically. So, I want to end in some gratitude, and I'm really curious about what three things you're grateful for in this moment or this week, this year, whatever it's like, whatever's in your heart space.

Christian: Oh, okay. So, one thing I'm really grateful for is a couple weeks ago, I went to the National IANDS conference, the International Association for Near-Death Studies, and there were about a thousand people there, and the vast majority of them were experiencers—near-death experiencers or other spiritually transformative experience experiencers—and the love at this place for four days was like nothing I'd ever felt, and it reminded me that we really can have love and acceptance and celebration of each other on Earth because I experienced it for four days in one small place right across the street from the Pentagon, actually. It was a great dichotomy.

Out the window is like the center of the world's industrial military complex. Anyway, so I'm just pointing out that there was that real... there's the life contrast. There's the contrast. So, I'm really grateful for that because it was like a reminder, "Oh, this really can happen. We really can live in total love with acceptance." The second thing I'm really grateful for is my children lately. They're 14 and 12 right now. They've grown up a lot. They're very precious and independent and strong and beautiful people, and I get to see the rediscovery of the life process that from their young eyes, so I'm appreciative for that. And the last thing I'd say is I'm really appreciative of my wife actually because she has gone through a huge amount of awakening herself and growth. It hasn't been easy for her because she comes from a very conservative family. Her parents are not supportive of this open-minded message because of their religious tradition.

So, I'm appreciative for anyone but especially my wife who may choose the humility and the bravery it takes, like we started this conversation with, in order to question and actually grow. That's hard, and so I'm really grateful for that. And I know I've already spent my three things, but I'm also grateful for all the people that I've met throughout this work who've done just that, who've done what you described and what you're doing now because when like-minded awakening people can connect, it's like a circuit in the physical. It's like reaching down two connections to the higher realms and touching down here, and it creates like an electrical circuit or a temperature circuit in vibration. I'm really grateful for that because it is a beautiful experience to do that on Earth, and what an opportunity we have. We can all do that with each other. This kind of podcast helps serve that, and that's really beautiful.

Krista: Yeah, that's why I named it "I'm Awake Now What" because once I started waking up, I was like, "Oh my God, what is next?" Yeah, exactly. I get it. I totally get it. Well, thank you so much for coming here and doing this interview. I gosh, I love your book. I love everything you're doing. I really appreciate you spending the six years to investigate and to channel all of those answers. You know, I don't know if that's the right term for what you did, but just to allow us some insight when we're so confused about the veil and about what's happening. I think I wish I could have had this book like 20 years ago. I'm also 43 as well. I think it would have just... I just love it, and I love that it's going to help so many people along this awakening journey, and it's so important. And I'll be thinking about your wife. She's in good company on this podcast for sure. So, I'll be thinking about her in the next few months and giving her lots of good vibes and lots of streams.

This podcast was directed and produced by Krista Mara in alignment with Light Casting. Music curated and created by Mr. Pixie. You can find "I'm Awake Now What" on all social media channels by searching IANW Podcast. Head over to your favorite podcast app and subscribe, download, rate, and review. Come back every Sunday to partake in a new and enlightening conversation. May you be filled with love and light until we meet again.