INTRODUCTION:
Sandy Vo is the host of the Prosperous Podcast and the Founder of the Prosperous School of Self-Realization. Sandy is a meditation teacher and a student of Yoga Science and she both studied and taught at the American Meditation Institute. She offers a heart-centered holistic approach that integrates the mind, body, Spirit and guides individuals to experience life’s greatest prosperity.
INCLUDED IN THIS EPISODE (But not limited to):
· Experiencing The Divorce Of Parents
· Dad’s Who Cheat
· Overcoming Suicidal Thinking
· Living On Food Stamps
· Unity Consciousness Defined
· The Fragmented Self Defined
· How Energy Blockages Manifest Into Disease
· How To Get More Time Out Of Time
· How To Do A 1 – Minute Meditation
· How Chaos Can Be Beneficial
CONNECT WITH SANDY:
Website: https://www.sandyvo.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/prosperous/id1321799656
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/xSandyVo
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/isandyvo/?hl=en
MUSIC FROM TODAY’S SHOW:
· Sart All Over Again: https://bit.ly/3Bj2SP9
· Lean On Me: https://bit.ly/3oEUTbI
DE’VANNON’S RECOMMENDATIONS:
· Pray Away Documentary (NETFLIX)
– https://www.netflix.com/title/81040370
– TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk_CqGVfxEs
SDJ MEMBERSHIP (FULL EPISODES):
· $2.99 per month.
· Donate any amount for 30 days of access.
· $25 per year.
https://sexdrugsandjesus.com/membership-account/membership-levels/
SANDY VO LONG
[00:00:00]
You’re listening to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast, where we discuss whatever the fuck we want to. And yes, we can put sex and drugs and Jesus all in the same bed and still be all right. At the end of the day, my name is Davanon and I’ll be interviewing guests from every corner of this world. As we dig into topics that are too risky for the morning show, as we strive to help you understand what’s really going on in your.
There was nothing on the table and we’ve got a lot to talk about. So let’s dive right into this episode.
De’Vannon: Sandy bow is the house of the prosperous podcast. And she is the founder of the prosperous school of self-realization. Sandy is a meditation teacher and she’s a student of yoga science itself. And she both studied and taught at the American meditation Institute. This episode is really cool and fantastic because for the first time I get to talk to somebody who used to be on food stamps like me.
And, uh, she’s really, really turned her life around [00:01:00] and she’s very, very mind focused, meditation, focus, consciousness, focus. And the beautiful thing is that her life’s mission is to lead and guide other people to their own level of centeredness and a balance. And I’ve really enjoyed this episode and I hope you do.
Miss Sandy Vogue, thank you so much for coming on my show. And yeah, I wanted to start with a corny Ryan because I can do shit like that and get away with it.
Sandy: Well, this is kind of funny. When I was in college, I used to have this name called the bow show and, you know, people would tell me, you know, you should have a reality TV show and just call it the bow show.
So
I
De’Vannon: will watch that shit girl. There you go. No, I’m super duper excited to have you [00:02:00] on today because we’re going to be doing a lot of spiritual talk with also very grounded and, um, right off the bat. I want you to. Highlight and you kind of break down the resource. That is your website, because on there you tell us about your retreat, your prosperous school, you have prosperous the podcasts, you know, it was like, oh my gosh, that reminds me of, I’m a nerd out for just a second here.
I’m a nerd out, but you know, there’s star wars and they’re Spaceballs, which if you’re a nineties kid and you know, then the Spaceballs, the movies, baseball’s like, I dunno the Yoda doll that like one point in it. Nevermind, go ahead.
Sandy: I feel you though. I feel you. Um, so yeah, my, my website is Sandy bow.com. That’s S a N D Y V as in victory, o.com. And you can find. Every everything that we talk about today on the podcast, you can find it in that website. [00:03:00] There’s a link to a free meditation that you can download. And what it does is it rewires your unconscious mind while you’re sleeping with the vibrational therapy music that my fiance created, it’s really wonderful.
And there is also links to my podcast, which you can listen right on the website as well. It’s a very meditative, it’s a great way to recalibrate your energy. There are short 15 to 25 minute bite pieces that are very potent, and it helps you to just tune into yourself when you feel like there has been way too much going on in the outside world.
And if you would like to take things to the next level, I do a lot of things free at service, and I also help people at the next level with prosperous the school self-realization. So if you’re ready to go there. That’s a 90 day program that you can join. It’s holistic. It teaches you everything from your environment and recalibrating your environment, setting that up in a way that attunes to your unique energy [00:04:00] type.
And it also teaches you the five element, breath, work and meditation as well. So that’s the prosperous school. And if you want to go to a retreat in person, if you’re down for that, we have in-person retreat opportunities as well. So you would sign up on the wait list for that. So lots of things you’ll find on there.
De’Vannon: Okay. Okay. So that’s, that’s a bad ass and bitching. So with the, uh, with the prosperous school, the 90 day program, is there any one-on-one interaction with you with that, or is that mainly the.
Sandy: Yeah, there’s one-on-one interaction with that. So what I’ve done with prosperous, because I know that what happens is when you want to make a change in your life, you might be so motivated.
You might go and sign up for that gym membership, but just because you signed up for it doesn’t mean that you’re actually going to go. But when you are, when you know that you’re going to meet up with a mentor or a guide or somebody who is going to train you, support you along the way, there is more, uh, chances that are likely that you’re going to actually [00:05:00] show up and do the work.
So that was one thing that was a non-negotiable for me. I wanted it to have live elements, and I wanted people to feel like there was somebody that was invested in them and their journey and not just plunged them into a bunch of video lessons and not. Kind of guide them along the way. So we do see each other twice a month and it’s in a small group, so there’s small groups of four that she will be in.
And, uh, that’s where you get your questions answered. You get some live mentorship and you get to, uh, ask about some of the things that you’ve integrated, some of the practices. So, you know, if you’ve had a really, if you have a very stressful job and you also have kids at the same time and you don’t know how to manage it all, or you’re going through a relationship breakup and you have specific questions around, how do I apply this breathing technique in my life right now?
So I can have more energy or how do I balance out my masculine and feminine side so I can feel more centered and grounded. Um, we have tools to, to [00:06:00] kind of help you and guide you along the way. Okay.
De’Vannon: Thank you for sharing that. And now what we’re going to do is explain to people where you’re coming from and how you got to a point where you’re in a position to.
Be giving somebody else advice on things like that. And you, you know, we’ve heard it, you know, all before folks, you know, when somebody has gone through something, then they’re better equipped to help you along your journey as well. I was reading up on you and my research in you. You wrote that you, at one point in your life, you looked up to the sky and you, and you said, God, why me?
Why me? And so I want you, I want to know what was happening in your life, because I know that that pain and whatever went through it. At some point, you also said that you heard from the divine saying that, you know, you had a greater purpose. And so your purpose was birthed out of this darkness. And I, I wanna know what that darkness was.
Sandy: Yeah, yeah. [00:07:00] For me and for a lot of people, the purpose that you have in your life, isn’t something that you just wake up one day and you know, what your purpose is. There’s a whole journey that, that you kind of go through to get there. And for me, that journey started from a place of deep, deep depression.
I at when I was 15 years old, my parents got divorced and this completely rocked my world because my mom and my dad and the family that I grew up in was just full of so much love. And I had a very close relationship with my father. Uh, he would be like the guy that would, you know, we would talk about life wisdom, uh, universe, God, that would be my dad.
And so, you know, one day, because my mom was a gamble, Hollick she? She, my, my parents are entrepreneurs. They would put so much time and effort and energy into building businesses, [00:08:00] make all this money. And then my mom would gamble and it got their relationship into a really bad place. And eventually my dad cheated and he just.
One day got up and he loved, literally just disappeared, left. And, um, it rocked my world because I felt like we had everything, you know, even though my parents were immigrants from Vietnam, even though I was first generation I’m first-generation, I could go back and I could say compared to other people, there was a lot of things that I didn’t have, but I never viewed my life as that way.
I always felt very grateful and joyful, and I’m very appreciative of what my parents did for me. And I never felt like I lacked anything. Uh, anything that we wanted, my parents were able to offer to us. And so when you have this, this foundation from this family, that just feels so strong and you feel so supported in your life to suddenly, [00:09:00] boom, everything’s just breaks apart.
There’s a sense of. Responsibility and weight that you start to carry on your shoulder and your chest that you feel like somehow it was your fault or somehow something that you did. And I thought, I think a lot of kids, you know, nowadays they go through this and a lot of adults, especially adults that I work with as well, eventually get to this place where they work so hard, they make all this money and they don’t realize that the reason why they’re working so hard to a point of burnout and disease and illness is because they’re trying to run away from these, these core wounds and trauma that developed when they were younger, like parents getting divorced.
So that was a, one of the, the most difficult times in my life that led to a complete depression. Where things really started to get worse for me was when I lost my cousin to leukemia. And then I remember just feeling the entire weight of the world on my shoulders. I was when I looked up at the [00:10:00]sky and I asked God, why me, why am I going through all of this right now?
Are you even real? If you are real, then why am I suffering so much? And, um, it was, then it was really that question. It was almost like I had this, that question led me to experience God more directly, you know, and, and it was through that whole journey, um, through pain, through thinking that the suicide would really be my, my last option.
My only way of escape did I get. Catapulted back into reality into life. And I realized that there was a greater purpose for me than just death alone. It was death that taught me that life is so much greater and there was so much more to offer. And it was through that journey that I realized that, you know, the pain that I felt was because my mind did a really great job of suppressing.
A lot of things that happen when I was younger, that I didn’t even know how. [00:11:00]
De’Vannon: Well, I’m so sorry, all that happened to you, Sandy, but I’m so glad that you’re here to day and, uh, the share and to be transparent because that’s what helps you maintain the victory and helps other people get the victory in. So, um, so yeah, my dad cheated too.
He cheated twice. Uh, you know, once, once when my mom was pregnant with me, as my grandmother was telling me, and she spilled all the families, he wasn’t trying to, you know, she didn’t keep secrets. She told me all about all the bullshit. And then second when, uh, we, we were, I was in the eighth grade and, um, it was, it was a hot mess and any, and he ended up in like a mental hospital for three days and all of that.
And then, you know, it was chaotic, you know, and that’s when my grades is to go down in the fall and everything like that. And, you know, and I thought maybe I just, you know, it was less intelligent than I had been previously. And it took him until many years later until I was associated the trauma of the adultery to affecting me in school.
Because, like you [00:12:00] said, the reliance, the structure, the stability, you know, what’s gone in. So, um, you know, and then at one point you had said that, excuse me, that you were on food stamps. I experienced this when I was homeless. And then when I was trying to rebuild my life back up, that’s when I was on them as well in, um, I want you to just talk a little bit about that because I want you to help people.
Some people feel like, oh my God, you know, it was government assistance. I’ll never do that. You know, that’s just those ratchet as welfare Queens, you know, and everything like that. But I don’t view it that way. I feel like, you know, you paid taxes. Okay. If it stamps. So like with the drawing on your investment, you know, if it’s, if it’s at a time in your life where you need to go through it and you know, there’s a lot of pride mixed in when people are like, they don’t want to take help, you know?
And that’s how we get into even more trouble, no matter what form that comes in, you know, if you [00:13:00] ain’t got no food, then bitch go get the stamps. You know, if you can, it’s better than starving. Are you doing what I used to do and go sell drugs or are prostitutes yourself or whatever the case may be. And so I don’t feel like there’s any shame to it, but I feel like it centers around an ego, like in a bad, bad way of dealing with ego and everything like that.
So what’s your take on it.
Sandy: Yeah. You know, um, for me, that was when I was living with my mom, after my father had left and, and beforehand, I know my father was the kind of guy that just always worked hard to provide everything. And he never wanted us to be on food stamps. But when my dad left and we were left fending for ourselves, um, my mom was a single mother of three and she wasn’t able to provide for all of us in that way.
And that’s when we started, we got into a place where we needed to have food stamps and that’s what really helped us get by during those times. I mean, we were living in a [00:14:00] small, tiny little five. 600 square foot apartment, uh, two small bathrooms and, uh, two small bedrooms. And my mom and my brother shared one room and my sister and I shared the other room.
And if I wanted any break or freedom or if I would just want it to cry, you know, the only place that I had to do that was in the shower when I didn’t, you know, I’m when I could mask things and I could just be to myself. And so it was really rough during those times. And we needed to accept that type of support because even with me working and my mom working, it wasn’t enough to provide for my younger siblings to go from a place of owning your own business, to now having nothing and having to start over in a completely.
States than you’ve ever been. And so, you know, I think when it comes down to food stamps and governmental support, it’s really situational and it depends on where you’re at in your life. And, and if that support is, is [00:15:00] open for you and it’s something that you need, then I think part of the work is actually accepting the help, but not relying on it.
So when we finally got to a place where, you know, I was working a lot more and my mom was better, you know, working more, she was a little bit more established than we were able to get off of the food stamps. But I think it’s really just about learning how to receive help when you have it understanding that it’s temporary and it’s only a season in your life and that if you can do it right, that season will support you in moving forward.
So when I look back, I’m grateful, you know, I, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed that I was on food stamps. Like I didn’t want to tell anybody. That’s the kind of situation that we were in. However, looking back, I’m so grateful and I’m appreciative that we were able to have that kind of support when we needed it.
And it, it motivated me, you know, to, to, um, transform those times into something that was greater. And that’s why, you know, you can go [00:16:00] from food stamps to creating a full life of freedom. So when I look at my life today, my mom is with a man that she absolutely loves. I have a great relationship with my father.
My brother works for a really great company. My sister is an established travel nurse, and I have an established business and career doing what I love and fulfilling my purpose. So I wouldn’t have ever known that this was how things played out 10, 12 years later. But because I trusted the process and I found ways to be grateful, I feel like that’s, what’s led me to be.
De’Vannon: I thank you for sharing that. I echo everything you said. Um, it reminds me of a song on one of Dave causes album, and Dave causes a famous saxophone player in the, in the league, like Kenny G and everything like that. And I know you got a voice on you girl, because I heard she was singing, oh, one of your shows.
And we will be doing that song later on in the [00:17:00] podcast to lean on me. And, uh, but this way, this right here, which you just reminded me about that song and she, and she says in there, as long as you are breathing, you can start all over again. If your heart’s beating, you can start all over again. So she goes, as long as you, well, Barry, then you can start all over again.
If your heart’s beating, you can start. Although the, this is all very Swaby with fact the phones and shit and everything like that, but it’s super encouraging. And that’s the point? The thing that you said is just temporary and you see, like, when I was, when I got HIV and everything, I didn’t understand that, that it was just temporary.
I figured that that was the end. And then that would be the end of me. And that was the only option that I had seen. It was all about. It’s all about perspective and point of view. And so what we believe is our [00:18:00] reality. And so have you, had I looked at it as just temporary. I probably wouldn’t have, I quit my job and just thought I was going to die in a few months.
And so perspective is everything. Take us into what, you know, unity conscious. This is, you know, that seems to be a big theme of your work. So can you please break that down for us, Ms. Sandy?
Sandy: Yeah, of course. And I love the song that you just introduced me to. You’re going to have to send me the link afterwards, and that was a really beautiful job seeing in yourself.
So
De’Vannon: thank you. All of that. I’m going to send you to, and people, all of that will be in the show notes, all the music we seeing the day and everything like that. And I’ll be sure to get, uh, information for your, um, your fiance for his music. Cause it sounded like you were talking about buying Euro beats a little bit to me earlier, when you were saying, um, the music helps you when you sleep.
And I think that that’s a super. Cool thing. And so I’m gonna make a note to [00:19:00] get some information. So I could include that information in the show notes too.
Sandy: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So unity consciousness. So oftentimes as human beings, we like to corporate mentalize things. That’s what our brain and our ego does.
You know, when I am talking to you, I am a meditation teacher. When I am with my mom, I am a daughter. When I’m at work, I’m at work. I was completely different personality. Or when I am, um, when I am working in a school environment, uh, my, my energy shifts, my personality shifts, we carpet mental lies, things.
This is me in this role, when I’m doing this, this is me in this role when I’m doing this. So that’s what our brain does. And in order to protect us in order to, um, help us navigate in a working society, And this, the brain works in the same way. When it tries to think about its its past and, and traumas that we’ve experienced in our lives.
We, we, the [00:20:00] brain, what it does really well is it protects us and it blocks us from remembering certain things that are really harmful to where we’re at in the time. So remember I talked about part of my journey was when I started to look at some of the things that I’ve been running away from, I started to recall things that I didn’t even know happened to me when I was younger.
And one of those things was I got sexually molested by my step-grandfather when I was eight years old. And I finally recalled. At a time when I was ready for it, but I, I, my brain had done a really great job of suppressing that to such a degree that I didn’t even remember that it happened to me. I just remembered that when I’m around him, he makes me really uncomfortable.
Right. And so what unity consciousness is, is instead of looking at our minds, just from a past point of view or an unconscious point of view, or from a future point of view, it takes all of your, um, the division and the separation that’s going [00:21:00] on in your mind. And it brings it into unity. It, it takes you into unity and that’s one level of it.
The other level that is unity consciousness is about uniting with your inner wisdom and uniting with the divine. So if we look into Jesus, Jesus says, I am, my father are. When Jesus said I and my father are one. He is talking about unity consciousness. He is talking about, I am one with the divine. I am one with the father.
It’s the same thing with us when we learn how to unite our. The things that we think about, the words that we speak, the actions that we take when we learn to unite that with our inner wisdom and with the divine will, and not just the human will, then now we’re operating from a place of unity consciousness.
We are not divided. We do not. We do not feel that we are separate from our higher self, right. Which is also the self that is in tuned [00:22:00] to God. And so that’s what unity consciousness is. And when we can begin to harmonize all areas of our thoughts, our mind, our life into the present moment, right now we are experiencing unity consciousness, which is why it feels so good when you are so present with something.
You know, for example, when you are. Interviewing someone on a podcast and you’re really tuned into the conversation. You’re riding the wave and you’re having a great time. You forget that all this time is passing by when you’re painting, when you’re singing, when you’re just getting lost in the music.
You’re so present in that moment that you forget about the past and all the things that happen to you, you forget about the future and all the things that you have to do. And your entire being is immersed in this moment right now, that is unity consciousness. Does that make sense,
De’Vannon: crystal clear since Monday ear and you know, I’ve.
You know, I looked, I’ve looked at other people [00:23:00] and I’ve struck strive. Oh, you know, to understand, you know, it’s like how you’re saying, like the person might be one person at work, one person at home, one person in the city, one person in the field. You know, I think there is a difference in between being able to mentally shift gears, to accomplish the task, as opposed to assuming of what almost looks like a completely different persona to do it.
And as a lot of times I feel like, well, I totally feel like that. That’s a lot of why people are unhappy in life is because they’re not really being their truest form or truest self a hundred percent of the time or in living up in what you would call a unity consciousness. And I think some people feel like that that’s just what they have to do.
And so in order to get by, or in order to live in order to make it, you know, which is a big reason why, and then never made it in corporate America. And why, you know, I have a podcast, you know, in a kinky lingerie store, you know, that I run online, down [00:24:00] under a peril was because I wasn’t willing to do what I saw, what I felt like I said, other people doing, or then they would say, well, you know, you just have to like play this role while you’re here at work today.
And, you know, you know, go home and then you can really be yourself. And I was like, no, fuck you, motherfucker. I want to be myself right now. And so I’m going to unbutton my shirt. I’m going to let these tits out and everything like that. And they just didn’t want me to do that in the office. Some reason.
And so, you know, I’ve been fired before and stuff like that, and I’m not suggesting people go around flashing their kids and none of that. And, um, but it’s about a yacht, very much knew who I was and the sort of person that I was. And I wasn’t willing to change that no matter where I was. And I feel like society expects us to, to change how we are in certain places to fit certain roles.
And so I’m more for unity consciousness personally.
Sandy: Yeah, and you bring up such a great point in sharing that. And this is what I call the fragmented self it’s. When we feel like we need to break ourselves up [00:25:00] into little bits and pieces and, and personalities in order to fit into a certain box or a certain category.
I think that this is one of the reasons why mental illness and mental health is on such a scale of depletion in our society, because we are, we, we live in a society that promotes this, that, that promotes the fragment itself, where, you know, if you walk into this space, this is how you have to be, this is the code of conduct.
And while yes, I see that being very beneficial to a corporate structure. The reason why a lot of corporate structures are crumbling right now is because that type of. Way of being is not sustainable when you can’t fully be yourself, when you can’t fully express yourself in any type of environment and you have to conform to something that isn’t you, that is not sustainable.
And eventually the, or you feel sick, you feel mentally sick because you’re not [00:26:00] allowing that energy to be expressed. And the environment and the, the health of the company is also sick as well. There is dis-ease in the process so we can look at it at an energetic level. We are all energetic beings, right?
We learned this in, in physics class. When, when we learned from Albert Einstein, that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. So if everything in this world is energy. If I am energy, if this phone is energy, if this, you know, this book is energy, then what that means is that energy is constantly in motion.
We learned this in school, right? Energy is constantly in motion. We learned this about the laws of kinetics. Everything’s constantly moving. And so if we are. Suppressing our energy and we are not allowing it. We’re not giving it a place to go. We’re not expressing it. And we are suppressing it. We are doubting ourselves.
We are dimming our light. We change who we are when we’re around certain people. This eventually. [00:27:00] Stagnant energy. And when you have enough stagnant energy inside of yourself, it starts to manifest or materialize. So what happens to your body? You start getting, um, certain tangles or blocks in the body. So you might have some digestive issues.
You might have some thyroid issues, uh, because you’re not speaking your truth and you have a lot of energy that’s stored in your throat. You might end up having a lot of weight being on your body because you are literally carrying so much weight because you’re not expressing that energy. So this is true, even at an energetic level.
When you live a fragmented version of yourself, it will manifest into some type of disease. And that’s why so many people are unhappy. But when you learn to just be bold, being brave, um, trailblaze, a new path for yourself like you did, then you’re going to feel a lot more express. And even if the world around you does not like you for that.
Does not respect you for that, then it doesn’t [00:28:00] matter because your health, your sanity, who you are, you’re still living in integrity to that. So for me, you know, I might teach meditation, I might talk a little more properly. I might stay away from cursing and all that stuff, but I fully respect and honor people for whoever it is that they are.
And people feel comfortable with me, even if they’re the complete opposite of what I do or how I am, because it’s so important. We are all unique expressions of the divine. We are all unique expressions of the divine. So how you express the divine is one way and whatever way it feels good to you and how I express the divine is one way and whatever it feels good to me, it’s also, you know, decisions that you choose to make your life experiences are completely different than mine.
And so what I choose to do with my life is going to look completely different than yours. And so when you have unity consciousness and when you respect yourself and when you learn how to live in your fullest expression, you’re creating this ripple effect because you’re making space for everyone else [00:29:00] around you to do the same.
And now, you know, you might not agree with the people around you, but you’re going to respect them. And when you have respect, you have love.
De’Vannon: Yeah. That’s what happened, trying to, um, tell the evangelicals for awhile on my show, but I’m not, I won’t go down that rabbit hole just at this particular moment in time.
But, but, um, but yeah, love, you know, self love is absolutely. Is absolutely, you know, Cintas central to everything. Um, and you know, having served in the military thing. Let me tell you, I understand that like the catastrophe that on that day, just the fallout, when you have a bunch of people who are not able to be themselves, because from the day you enter into the military is all about rewriting.
Whoever it is you thought you are so that you can be whoever they want you to be in it. And then that’s expected to be maintained. I [00:30:00] only did six years because as I got older in the military, I went when I was 17. I don’t know that I necessarily recommend that. Um, by the time I was 22, I was like, this ain’t going to work.
You know, I’m just getting wild and Walter and they want me to be Tamer and hammer. I got in trouble. I got article 15, which is not a good thing. That’s like big trouble in the military. I’m going to get kicked out a few times. So I was like, let me go. But a lot of people don’t go and, you know, everybody, you know, so it’s common knowledge that military veteran the people in the military, you know, poor mental health prevails, lot of suicide and stuff like that.
And it’s because of what you just said, that people are not free to be themselves. And, um, and it is not sustainable. And unfortunately, a lot of it, you know, a lot of it does end in death. Um, so let’s oh, and then, um, I, I knew you were a, a, a good sweet a girl when I first met you. And I know you just said that you, you don’t [00:31:00] prefer to cuss or anything like that, whereas this Vich here does.
And the reason why I do is because no, and I don’t know if you, I don’t know if you’ve seen that documentary on Netflix, the history of swear words that Nicholas cage, I think it’s still on there. Nicholas cage has only like. Um, episodes, it was kind of like a mini docu-series thing and they talk about all the most popular swear words and everything like that.
And they go through the history and everything like that. And Nicholas cage is the narrator of it. Like he physically hosts it and it’s, it is so fucking cool. And so that I respect your open-mindedness because I agree that brief too. Like I have people on my show all the time that I don’t necessarily agree with, you know, like, um, like I believe for instance, like in Jesus Christ and the Trinity, but I’d have someone on here who worships the devil.
If I feel like it could be like good, you know, good, good for the audience to get the contrast and point of views. I don’t care. I mean, hell the person who worshiped [00:32:00] the devil is probably less likely to come to come against, come for me, you know, for being LGBT then like, you know, a conservative Christian person.
So they’re probably like a better friend to me. And so, um, But I like to, I like to use swear words because I, as I learned in this fabulous documentary, you know, it helps you to relieve stress and things like that. It’s something that works for me, then work for everybody. But also since I am so approached Jesus, I like to divide a line in between myself and whatever the typical Christian is supposed to be.
You know, you can still cuss and have a perfectly fine relationship with God. And I think it makes me look more reachable. More human and more down to earth, you know, and stuff like that. And sometimes a bitch just needs to, because the fuck out it’s been them with, but they haven’t done that.
And be like, the bitch had calming the bitch had to me. And so I think if I was hanging out with you and somebody made you angry and you didn’t [00:33:00] want to cuss them out, you could just have me on the shoulder and be like, Dee, I need you to handle it. And I’ll be like, she can’t say it, but God dammit. Yeah, I
Sandy: love that.
I love that. Well, you know, I think that’s what I feel like. That’s what intimidates people about me though, when they get into any type of a confrontation with me is that I’m so calm that it just it’s like intimidates them because that’s not what they’re used to getting. They’re used to getting something that’s completely the opposite, but I love what you’re saying about, about cursing.
And this is not to say that I never curse. I mean, I’m human and I have my moments too, and I have some, I, I’m not, I’m not against it at all. Um, and, and, you know, I just try not to as much, but, but I definitely have my moments. And in those moments you can feel that release. And so again, it comes down to how energy is expressed through you, right?
So like, if it feels good for you to say, fuck, you know, because it’s just like, Ooh, like it’s like a breath of exhalation and, [00:34:00] and fresh air. Right. Then that’s what serves you. And that’s why so much of what I teach is about what feels right to you and what is your core value and whatever it is that you need again, because your upbringing was different.
Do it, I would say self care is being self-aware, you know, so I, I attract all different types of people and students, and I love that level of diversity because we learn so much through contrast and polarization.
De’Vannon: Um, you had me at polarization, you know, I love, I love fucking shit off. I really, really do, because as you, as you, um, as we’re going to talk about later, you said chaos, you know, basically creates creativity, you know, and, and good things come from, uh, the bad, you know, as you have done yourself, you know, oh my God.
When you were talking about your story earlier about the cramp living space that you had, that. Reflected mine. And, um, [00:35:00] they’ll know that I’ve, you know, that’s not something I hear often, but, you know, we had like, basically we called it the front room, the back room. It was five of us, one bathroom and one little bitty kitchen.
There was no dining table. It was maybe, I don’t know, five or six feet by five or six feet. And that’s, that’s where the box with the fire in it, that we cooked food over
my brother and my brother and I. I’m gonna say this, and we’re going to switch to switch gears to your blog. My brother and I slept on button beds that were adjacent and touch my parents’ bed. And we always shared the room with them. And then my other sibling slept in like the front room on the couch. So that was their bedroom.
So,
Sandy: yeah, but that was my bedroom at one point too. Cause I just didn’t, I didn’t want to share with my sister. And so when I just wanted a little space, I would just go and sleep in the living room. That was my bedroom
De’Vannon: and get here. We are people. So even if you come from poverty, you can still be all right.
Um, so I think you have a really kick [00:36:00] ass blog on your website and I love blogging and I love blogging. I love reading blogs because it’s like an expos a into your mind and then what you think, you know, and everything like that. And um, so everybody do go check out her blog, that her website, which will be in the show notes.
And one that stood out to me, you said a new way to view. And you touched on this earlier, talking about how people run. Like we have trauma that happens in life and then we’re still running from it. It has the road process. Uh, you say time of the thief, when you say it’s a common thing that people have heard.
And so there seems to be a correlation between us really trying to get away from past trauma, but it ends up getting us moving super, super fast and it eats up our time. So I want you to talk about that and then tell us how we can, um, as you say, you know, basically like slow down time.
Sandy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that, and that I’m going to read the [00:37:00] quote from, from that, um, blog that you, that you read in a new way to view time.
Uh, Time is of the essence. If you desire more of it, let time take time. And the way that I thought to write that blog was because I hear so many people say things, no matter how old they are too. I hear people. And I have students who are in their fifties and their sixties. And they say that they don’t feel like they have enough time to do the things that they want to be doing.
They feel like they’re running out of time because they’re getting older. And then I talked to a young 20 something year old that just graduated from college she’s feels the same exact way. So it doesn’t matter how old you are. There’s this interesting, um, paradigm in our society where we think that we think that we don’t have enough time.
And the common saying is that time is a fif, it never gets. And, and so I believe that that [00:38:00] is something that we’ve been conditioned to believe by our society. And when we feel like we don’t have enough time, what do we do? We rush, we rushed to get to some place somewhere, something, and look at the way that we live.
You know, we, we wake up by an alarm clock is that alarm clock tells us where we need to be and what we need to do versus listening to our own body is and asking your body, well, what time do you actually want to wake up? Even when we go to school, we’re rushing to get to school before the bell rings, or when you’re going to work, you’re rushing to get to a certain deadline.
And then before we know it, we actually. Validate that time is a thief because we look back on our lives and we’re like, wait a second. Where did all this time go? And what I found when I started practicing meditation and I started to diligently tune into my own body and my own mind and what it was trying to teach me, I put away the alarm clock.
So I stopped using alarm clocks. I started to experiment with, [00:39:00] okay, let me just, not even put an alarm clock on. Let me just tell my body, Hey, wake up at this time before I go to bed and let’s see what it actually does. Let me just show my body, demonstrates my body that I trusted. So I did that and you know, I, I was waking up at 5:00 AM in the morning at that time.
And I woke up at like 4 52. You know, eight minutes before the alarm clock rang. And I was like, huh, this is really interesting. So I started to experiment with more things. I started telling my body different things, and I noticed that, uh, slowly, slowly, I started to shed the 60 pounds that I put on my body after I had completed competed in a bodybuilding competition.
And so what meditation, what it really helps me to do was it really helps me to expand the moment that I had instead of me thinking about, you know, something that was happening in the past and trying to run away from that or projecting something that was happening in the future. And trying to one towards that, I learned how to be so much more present that the time that I was in had [00:40:00]stretch and expanded, and that moment I was able to actually Marvel in and my life just felt so much more enriched because of it.
And every experience that I have feels more enriching, every interaction that I have with people, it feels more enriching. And so, you know, on my blog, The new way that I was suggesting to BW time is that time is just an illusion. Time is a function so that we learn how to communicate in our society, but it doesn’t define how we live our lives.
And if we can just stop measuring our life by what we’re achieving in a week or a day, and spend more time being present and paying attention to what’s unfolding in front of you, learning how to sink into your body and asking your body, what do you want? What do you feel right now? How does this feel to you right now?
When someone says this to you, how does it feel in your body? What is it like to actually tune into your breath and breathe [00:41:00] a little bit more deeper when you shift all of that, your whole perspective on time completely shifts. And that’s what my students who go to my retreat. They tell me, they’re like, I don’t know if I’ve been gone for a hundred years or if I’ve been gone for.
You know, five days because their relationship with time has completely changed. They feel like they have so much time back that they’re more energized to do the goals that they actually have instead of feeling defeated that they’re running out.
De’Vannon: It’s true. What you’re saying about like time and relative to like, like your awareness of yourself.
I was at a, um, like at a binaral beats. Music event at a unity church and a unity church. It’s a very like metaphysical part of church. You know, they, they believe in like the Trinity, but you’ll hear like them say like, you know, refer to God as her, you know, and then they’ll tie like metaphysics in and teachings from any religion, [00:42:00] you know, as long as it makes sense yet, they they’re pretty much centered on Jesus, but they’re not like Christian by any means like that they’re much nicer.
And, um, so that was a bit, it’s a new way. They were hosting, um, way not but much nicer than the fake Christians, not the real ones. And so, um, they were hosting like a binary. Thing. And the people had like all these crazy long light horns and things like that. And it was like a, like a meditation thing. And girl, we thought me and my friend friends echo the same thing we thought maybe we had been in there for 20 minutes.
And we like, kind of like, we’re in like some sort of state other than fully conscious, but I don’t, I wouldn’t say we were asleep we’re in something else. And it had been like two hours and we thought only like maybe 15, 20 minutes had passed, you know? And so I agree with what you’re saying. Like, it’s something about like in, you know, like how you write in your blog, like slowing down, being present, controlling your breathing, you know, it makes you have, you know, like, you know, like more [00:43:00] time within time, you know, in, and things like that.
But for people to slow down and be present in the moment, you know, as a, is a, is a, is a challenge, you know, and stuff like that. So you, um, you actually. Wrote, um, in there in your, in your, in your sight, through, as I was reading through about like a one minute meditation. And, um, I think that that’s, I’m going to ask you to explain it because I think that that is, um, for people who may be like looking at it, like, gosh, I have so much going on.
How on earth could I possibly slowed down? You know, this is beyond me. I think most of us could probably find 60 seconds. And I think that that could be a good springboard, you know, to help people feel like a lot of what we’re talking about is actually very much in graphs. So how could one, you know, do a one minute meditation.
Sandy: Yeah, well, [00:44:00] let’s do it together right now. Um, so it’s very, very simple. This is the thing that, you know, people will just over-complicate and then you, when you overcomplicate something, you’re not going to do it. And so it’s really about teaching your mind. This is simple. This is easy. This is a no brainer.
So I teach meditation and a three-step process. The first thing you do is you sit in a comfortable meditation posture. So if you’re sitting right now, you sit at the edge of your chair with your feet, shoulder width, apart planted, firmly on the ground, or you can also sit cross-legged as well. It depends on whatever you’re more comfortable with, and then you establish a finger lock.
So you’re just taking your, um, And your index finger touching it and then letting it rest on your thighs. And then what we do is we just take a moment to be present with the body. So we scan the body. This is our way of telling the body. I acknowledge you. I acknowledge all that you do for me. And we look at the body, observe the body from [00:45:00] the feet, and we observe it all the way up just as if you’re scanning something with your own eyes, from your feet, past your knees, pass your diaphragm area, your heart, your throat, all the way up.
And as we observe it going back down, you’re just going to relax the muscles around your eyes, relax the muscles around your jaw. Allow your shoulders to fall back a little bit and allow your entire body to be in a relaxed mode. Because when you relax is when you receive the most. And now I want you to bring your awareness, bring your attention to your.
Area right underneath your nose in between your lip and notice how your breath is going in and out in that area. Feel it as you inhale, and then as you exhale
and [00:46:00] now for the next 30 seconds, focus on the inhalation and exhalation underneath your nose, taking in deep inhalations and then exhale releasing once again, inhale
and exhale,
inhaling
and excellent.
And then whenever you’re ready, open your eyes.
De’Vannon: Wow. You have a perfect voice for this. And I’ve been in a lot of meditations, but I’ve never heard anybody focus attention to the, to the part of your body where your breath coming out of your nose actually hits. I think that it’s so clever and I really, really commend you for [00:47:00]coming up with that.
And, um, thank you for sharing that one minute meditation. I feel. Already. And, um, the speaking of that soothing voice of yours, like when I was listening to your podcast of prosperous podcasts, the way you, the way you, I mean, sound on it from like a moment you, you, you start talking, is it like a, you know, a Yogi, like, you’ve been like a meditation girl for like, you know, many, many lifetimes, you know, whatever it is that, that, that, that, that you’ve done to bring you to this point.
I really, really, um, take my hat off to you. And so, um, then I mean, many lifetimes, just like jokingly, I’m not actually like a reincarnation buffer or anything like that. So
Sandy: I’ve met myself in a past life.
De’Vannon: Oh, my gosh, like, oh, I could, I could, um, I’m a chemo, I’m a stay on focus. But like, yeah. [00:48:00] I wonder about that sometimes.
Like when I see people who I look like me and I notice like different things like that. And then, I don’t know. I heard somebody say one time that they believe that maybe people are reincarnated enough times that maybe because God is trying to give them a chance to get it right. And then who knows, maybe, maybe they might maybe not so much.
It’s like in Mulana where you’re going to be reincarnated as a sting Ray or whatever her grandmother wants to come back, you know, maybe reincarnation as a person versus like a dragon fly. You know, I don’t know. I’m not gonna knock any school of thought. Cause I, you know, I haven’t, you know, been, you know, You know, they had enough to experience with what actually is on the other side.
You know, I did have like an experience, you know, when I woke up, when I was younger, like dying, and if like I was losing my breath, I think it was like a heart rhythm thing. And then I just did fall. I did think that I was in a it’s, like I [00:49:00] was looking down a tunnel it and I saw one person who I knew was dead already.
But, you know, as this was happening, it was like, I was trying to catch my breath and it was going away from me no matter what I tried, I was like a teenager in high school or in middle school. And, um, but I happened, you know, I woke up the next. You know, but you know, there are stories about kids who like just randomly dying, they’re sleeping and stuff like that.
But, um, anyway, so, um, so on your podcast, which is a huge meditative journey, as I would describe it in a super helpful, and it’s right on brand with the way that you have everything else going, I think it’s a great outreach that you have so much stuff going on. You have a podcast at the retreat, the blog in and of itself, you know, in an, in a great website, that’s very interactive and people can go there and really understand who you are, you know, and things like that.
And so it’s a beautiful, beautiful website. And, um, your, one of your most recent podcasts that stood out to me was uncalled chaos in the [00:50:00] creativity. And that one was important to me because in it, you know, you’re talking about the COVID pandemic times that we live in and how trouble has become just kind of like, kinda like the norm is kind of what we do.
And I don’t think that this can be overstated. And so I wanted to spend some time. Talking about what you mean when you say chaos into creativity.
Sandy: Yeah. You know, I, I, I can say that. I think for everybody we’ve all behind the scenes, behind the screens of social media podcasting, and it doesn’t matter what role you play in the world or how perfect your life looks out there.
Everybody the past couple of years has gone through some form of chaos. And if you tune into the outside worlds, that’s really all that you see. There’s constant things on the media, on the news that, um, inject fear into our minds that make us run all over the place like scattered ants. And it, they, it also makes us feel more divided and separated now more than ever.[00:51:00]
And what I was saying is that, um, we think that. When we’re experiencing chaos in our lives, that it’s a bad thing. Right. But what I’m saying is that no, no, all this chaos that you see in the outside world right now, and all the chaos that you’re feeling inside your body and your mind is an opportunity to restructure, not just what is going on within you, but what’s going on within society and change what things look like moving forward for future generations.
Chaos creates order and chaos creates clarity and chaos can be transmuted into creativity. I can’t imagine. What life would look like for me, if I just had to be born and I would just ride this moose, like rode the smooth wave all the way to the end of the finish line until I die. I cannot imagine what life will look like in that way.
And I don’t want it to look that way. I asked for the [00:52:00] unknown. I asked to be guided. I asked to surrender. I asked for things to happen in my life so that I can learn so that I can heat the lessons and apply them and evolve my mind and evolve my consciousness into higher states so that I could be an instrument of love and peace and joy in the world.
And so if you feel like my life is so chaotic, I feel like once I take care of one thing, something else happens or there’s so much drama that’s going on in my life right now. Use it as an opportunity to see your life almost as a movie. And that’s what I like to think of things like my life is like a movie and I’m watching it on a screen and I can change the relationship that I’m having with my life right now.
If I pay attention to the movie that I’m playing inside of my head, because at the end of the day, what you see in your outer world is simply a reflection of what’s going on in your own mind. So if I can see that there’s chaos in my outer world, there’s probably a lot of chaos in my inner world. That’s desiring to be [00:53:00] turned into creativity.
So remember what we said earlier is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. So I can take this chaos that’s going on in my mind right now, where my thoughts are all over the place. It’s almost like I’m in traffic and there is nobody there to direct the traffic to go. And so there’s a traffic jam, so I can take this chaos right now and I can really transform it into a beautiful picture.
So what am I going to do with all this energy? Chaos is simply energy. That’s waiting to be transformed. So if you got chaos going on, how can you take it and turn it into something? So for example, Podcasts are amazing. And I bet you feel this way too Divan and where sometimes it’s like, okay, I feel like I’ve got a lot of heat right now.
And I got some things to say, and I’m going to tone on that mic. And I’m going to say what I got to say, right? And that’s your, that’s your channel? That’s your way of expressing? Or maybe you just want to pick up the phone and just start, you know, just start person like doing whatever makes you feel good [00:54:00] for some people it’s singing for some people it’s playing sports.
For some people it’s going for a walk outside, it just gets to be simple. And, uh, I think that we need to learn how to do that is actually transformed the chaos that we’re experiencing. And that way you’ll realize that what you created is a piece of art with your life. And now you’re watching a movie that you were the director in, not anybody else.
De’Vannon: Right. And so this, this reminds me of. Well, let me clarify, let’s say so. So y’all saying, he’s not saying like, you know, fall in love with chaos or anything like that, or to get like a used to it, but she’s saying, you know, since it’s there and it’s around us so much, what can we, what good can we get to come out of it?
You know, it’s about a shifting perspective. [00:55:00] Um, you know, not why has this happened to me, but maybe why has this happened for me? Whatever, whatever the would be tragic or what, you know, tragic thing is. We’ll probably totally try to thing is that you have had in your life. Um, uh, like when with HIV, you know, when I first got it, I was like, oh my God, this is so terrible.
And one die, you know? And I’m like, you know what? This is pretty awesome because you know what, it forced me to be more healthy than what I was, you know, diet, exercise, vitamins, and stuff like that, that I wasn’t taking at least not consistent consistently. And there were government programs in place to help me and stuff like that, that word, you know, very, you know, relatively easy to get for people with HIV or if not, you know, just for us.
And so. Right now I view it as a blessing because it helps me to understand my mortality and things like that. And it helps me to want to enjoy life more in the present because the whole grain door and illusion I’m going to live forever and I’m invincible, you know, flew out the window. So I now view HIV as the [00:56:00] total blessing.
I’m not saying, you know, they’ll run out and get it. Anybody. I’m not saying that, but I’m saying, you know, since it’s here, you know, I think I did my best to turn that chaos into something that was more creative. And so, and so the last thing we’re going to, I love you. And I love everything that you’re talking about in, um, and like you said, with the podcast, basically using them.
Get out, you know, the fire and the heat that comes up inside of you. Yeah. They’re, they’re damn good for that, but so are I still wear blogs too? And I really, I really love, you know, read ambitious for on a good blog and the work that we do, the blog that you have, the podcast that you’ve made, the thing I love the most about the message they will outlive us.
And so if this earth, you know, remains and stuff like that, you know what we went through now, you know, saying it can help people, however many more [00:57:00] years, the earth has left because we were unselfish and we’re willing to be transparent.
Sandy: Oh, let me tell you to van. And that just gave me full body chills, full body chills.
I think for me, when it comes down to why I do what I do, I just want to, I want to leave an infrared for future generations. I want them to have some type of a roadmap that I didn’t have, and that’s going to guide them in the direction of learning, how to listen to themselves and learning how to trust themselves, which are things that we are not taught in school.
And so that when I think about, you know, why I wake up and why I do these things every day, why I go through much on my own and like, why do I keep wanting to face the things that, that, you know, certain traumas or whatever that is. Um, because I know that I’m transforming that energy and planting a safe for future generations.
And this is also why in that podcast episode, chaos into clarity or chaos into creativity. I talked about. When you feel like you have a lot of chaos [00:58:00] going on in your life, you get to realize that you are the eye and the center of the storm. All the storm is happening around you, but you are the eye in the center.
And if you can just learn to surrender and lean on God and lean on the greater forest, lean on Jesus, whoever that means to you, then you’re just going to feel like I’m I’m I am living the life and being the instrument of a forest that is so much greater than myself. And that’s why I sang that song by song.
Like when I was recording it, it just came up in my mind. I’m like, oh, like, I’m just going to sing it because it’s going up. And it’s such a great song. If you guys. Um, if you guys don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s a lean on me by bill Withers who actually just passed away. I think a couple of years ago, a year and a half ago.
And it’s, it’s, I think it’s a popular song that we all know and it’s it, it’s it, the lyrics even start off by saying sometimes in our lives, we all have pain. We all have sorrow, but if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow [00:59:00] lean on me when you’re not strong. And I’ll be your friend, I’ll help you carry on.
I think about God in those moments, you know, like that’s, that’s what that’s, what’s being said to us. And we just have to learn to listen.
De’Vannon: Okay. Well, you know, you bought me to the, to the next and final point. It was time for us to sing the song anyway. So give us the lyrics. Cause we got to, uh, at least gave them a verse.
And then after we seen this, I’ll go ahead and let you have the last word. And then you can, um, tell people whatever you’re partying. Or not partying, but I’ll see you soon, uh, knowledge or wisdom will be, and we’ll be putting all of your contact information and everything in the show notes and stuff like that.
But I like, I like for my guests to have the last word, because you know, we’re here to hear you. Oh though I do Blab on and on and on and on and on. So some time then I realize we all have[01:00:00]
but if we know.
You can take the, uh, the coerce. Cause I want to just hear you now
Sandy: another podcast in general, but you know me,
now be your friend. I’ll help you carry
it. Won’t be long gone. And me, um,
De’Vannon: or you let the Lord use you hallelujah. On a Tuesday afternoon.[01:01:00]
No, write your last, your last words to the audience. Give us your,
Sandy: my last word. As we impart on this journey for now is. I feel like the one most powerful instrument that we have each been given, no matter what religious background you have, no matter what experience is not, you know, chemicals, gases, weapons, war, fear, vaccinations, sciences, education, money.
Those are not the most powerful instruments that we’ve been given. The most powerful instrument that we’ve ever been given is our minds. And with your mind, you can create. Anything that you desire and you can use it to feel the highest and greatest good. And what that looks like for you. So I pray that you continue to nourish your mind and feed your mind with things that [01:02:00] help you to create a garden that feel like peace and joy and happiness to you and love.
And that with this, you use your mind to be an instrument of love for a greater force. So we all, we all have brilliant minds and there’s so much that we can do with it. And as my cousin who passed away from leukemia says, life is like a blank canvas do with it, whatever you want.
De’Vannon: Oh, I’m so sorry that she passed away by that.
What a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful quote from her. All right. Thank you so much, Sandy, for your wisdom today, you are blessed.
Sandy: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.
De’Vannon: Thank you all so much for taking time to listen to the sex drugs and Jesus podcast. It really means everything to me. Look, if you love [01:03:00] the show, you can find more information and resources at sex, drugs, and jesus.com or wherever you listen to your podcast. Feel free to reach out to me directly@davanonatsexdrugsandjesus.com and on Twitter and Facebook as well.
My name is Davanon and it’s been wonderful being your host today and just remember that everything is going to be all right.
