Episode 10 – Gaia: The Elite University of Souls – An In-Depth Conversation About Life as the Soul’s Training Ground

When Pål-Esben was starting out on his journey of development, he told his guide he wanted to move somewhere with sun and beaches, where he would be happy. The guide just laughed and asked whether he really thought he’d be happier, since his baggage would come with him. Later, paralysed on the sofa by a depression no treatment could touch, Pål-Esben made peace with it, put on Netflix, and things began to turn around.

In this tenth episode, Amina and her teacher and guide, Pål-Esben Wanvig, continue with the ninth of the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart: becoming a master of understanding and living out your soul’s desires and life mission in this incarnation. They explore how the soul speaks to us through the primary feelings, why this planet is the elite university for souls, and how to find your way out of numbness. It is part of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a podcast about the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to yourself.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

In this episode

• Pillar 9, continued: why the soul has you and not the other way round, and the light prism of personality it sets up before birth
• Why the core of your character can’t be changed, and how your learning themes show up in the challenges you face
• The soul’s language of primary feelings, and why you need a mirror to tell passion from addiction
• Amina’s rush to sell up and move, Pål-Esben’s dream of sun and beaches, and why your baggage always comes with you
• Gaia as the elite university for souls, and never feeling like a victim again
• More than 100 diagnoses and a treatment-resistant depression: making peace with illness instead of fighting it as an enemy
• Numbness as the common illness of our society, and how real gratitude practice reawakens the primary feelings
• Why there are no shortcuts, from computer-game levels to spiritual teachers on TikTok, and the choice between the funfair and getting serious

This podcast is for you if you:

• Seek real depth in your spiritual practice
• Want to understand yourself on a more fundamental level
• Are curious about shamanism but tired of superficial “new age” spirituality
• Have taken many alternative courses but still feel that something is missing
• Feel an inner longing for freedom, love and wholeness

In a time when so many get lost in external methods and promises of quick fixes, this podcast invites you back to the only place where true answers can be found: your own heart.

Listen above, or read the full conversation below.

Transcript

A warm welcome to the podcast “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. This podcast is a collaboration with our favourite magazine, the health and lifestyle magazine Medium, and is devoted to exploring the bravest journey a human being can set out on: the journey home to oneself. We follow Amina, a student at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School, as she goes through a deep primordial shamanic process of development together with her guide and teacher Pål-Esben. It is a raw, unpolished journey of discovery towards true joy in life, deeper meaning, and a life that truly feels good to live.

This episode is an English translation of our Norwegian original, voiced by the digital avatars of Pål-Esben and Amina.

Today’s topic: the ninth pillar

Pål-Esben: Well then, a warm welcome to a new episode. And as always, it’s a great pleasure to have you with me, Amina, because it would have been boring with just a monologue here. I really, really appreciate that we’re doing this together, because I enjoy that too. A warm welcome, Amina.

Amina: Thank you so much, and likewise, Pål-Esben. I think this works better when there are two of us.

Pål-Esben: I think so too. We’ve now come some way into our podcast. So far we’ve focused on introducing you and your unique journey of development from chaos, pain, suffering and anxiety, which we discussed in the first two episodes, where you told us a bit about your story and where you started. Then we began to talk about what happened at the start of your profound journey of development as a shaman at the Yggdrasil Shamanic School. In those episodes we’ve covered some of the groundwork, the foundation for the exceptional development and growth you’ve gone through in such a short time. We’ve put a great deal of emphasis on the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, the ultimate path to happiness, meaning and shamanic magic.

Looking back at the nine pillars

Over the last few episodes we’ve discussed these 9 pillars. They start with number 1: becoming a master of gratitude. Number 2: becoming a master of forgiving yourself and others. Number 3: becoming a master of physical, emotional and spiritual self-regulation, which is an exciting thing in itself. Number 4: becoming a master of building a healthy value system and a strong personal character. Number 5: becoming a master of seeing the glass as half full. Number 6: becoming a master of healing your almighty syndrome. Number 7: becoming a master of healing perfectionism, which I think I had a bit of fun with when we talked about it. Number 8: becoming a master of understanding nature’s healing rhythms, and what that means. And what we’ve come to now, which we started on in the previous episode, is the ninth pillar. On the one hand it’s the hardest to understand, but at the same time it’s the most exciting. And that’s number 9: becoming a master of understanding and living out your soul’s desires and life mission. In the end, Amina, this is what it’s all about: why our soul comes into this incarnation, into this body. Today we’re going to dissect this a bit more and build on what we talked about in the previous episode. And if you as a listener missed that one, I recommend listening to it before you carry on with this one, since we won’t repeat much of what we talked about last time. So what are your thoughts on this, Amina?

Amina: Super exciting. The soul: it can sound like a very simple word. Yes, the soul is a big, beautiful, lovely light in a way, but it’s so much more than that. I remember at the beginning of my journey I thought I understood what the soul was, and then gradually I’ve realised more and more: “Whoa, this is so much more than I could ever have imagined.” And along the way a lot of questions have come up. Where does the soul actually come from? How do you know that you’re in contact with your soul? And then there’s this business of learning themes and so on. So I have a few questions up my sleeve today, which I think the listeners might benefit from too.

Pål-Esben: Absolutely brilliant.

Amina: Yes. If you think about the soul, about coming closer to your soul and your heart on a spiritual path: how can a human being know whether they’re in contact with their soul? Does it say “hi, hello”, or are there other signs you can look out for?

The soul has you, not the other way round

Pål-Esben: Yes, that’s a brilliant question, because the soul has a very archetypal, very concrete language that’s actually very hard to miss. But before we can get a grip on that, we need to understand how this works. And before I answer the question, I’d like to say a few words about our soul and its entry into this material world. These 9 pillars we’ve talked about in the earlier episodes are the groundwork and the foundation for a human being’s profound process of development. Simply by working with and developing each of these 9 pillars, it’s impossible for a human being not to become happier and healthier and create a more meaningful life. That’s what we call the groundwork here.

And when people talk about the soul, there’s often a misunderstanding doing the rounds. We think the soul is out there. As in: “I have a soul.” That’s wrong. The soul has you, because you’re inside the soul, sitting where you are today, Amina. You’re sitting inside your soul. Your soul isn’t out there. Because your soul is this gigantic structure of energy that we discussed in the previous episode. It’s bounded, it isn’t infinite, but if we humans need a picture of how big it is, I’d say the size of the solar system we live in. It’s a gigantic thing. And it’s deeply, deeply connected with the creative force that has created everything, and it isn’t bound by time and space. So it knows exactly what it is, it knows exactly how everything fits together, and it knows exactly what’s important to do for the soul to go through its process of evolution.

Nature as teacher: everything is evolution

You see, we as shamans go out and study nature to find out how things work and fit together in this world. And by that we don’t just mean studying how the grass grows, and the trees, and how the birds sing and the stream flows. We also study this from a higher perspective: through the evolution of the planet, what the universe’s process of evolution is like, and how things fit together. Take what many call the Big Bang as a starting point. People believe that’s where the universe began, which it definitely isn’t, even though modern research says so. There’s a completely different story behind the start, and we’ll talk about it in a later episode. But if we study the universe and everything it includes, the planet too, we see that absolutely everything is about evolution. And that’s also the nature of our soul. It wants to evolve. And look at that, the dyslexic got the word out! It wants to go through its process of evolution. And it does that by experiencing from different perspectives.

The light prism: the personality the soul chose

So you could say, if I take you as an example here, Amina: when your soul was in its full state, before this incarnation, it decided: “OK, I want to experience a limited existence from a particular perspective.” And then it focuses, so hard, on one point. That point is what develops and manifests as your physical body, your personality, your character and so on. But it happens inside your soul, not outside your soul. So it’s a bit different from what people think. And when the soul sets up what we can call its perspective, the one it wants to experience from, what it has come here to learn and experience is already set up before you incarnate. We call that a learning theme, though we can call it so many things. And to be able to help you, or help itself, since you are your soul, to experience from particular perspectives, the soul also sets up a specific personality, character, disposition and so on right from the start, before the first cell division happens in the mother’s womb.

And we can say that the soul experiences the material world through that character, that personality, those qualities and those dispositions, like a light prism. You’ve probably seen it at school, back in the day, when we were young or younger: we shone light through a glass prism, and out came all these rays of light in different colours. That’s the whole point of having a character, a personality, dispositions and qualities. It’s the soul’s light prism, which it experiences material existence through, from very particular perspectives.

Can character be changed?

In the old days, when I was much younger, I always believed that it was possible to change and develop a person’s personality and character. Even back when I was training in taekwondo and martial arts, and my teacher was very focused on ethics and building a value system, I thought it must be possible to cultivate these values in everyone. Because I believed it was something that could be shaped, something that could be changed fundamentally. Now I’ve had 40 years of experience since I started as a taekwondo teacher. 40 years, mind you; now you can start doing the maths, I’m getting ancient. All that time I’ve believed that it must be possible to cultivate and develop a person’s character and personality and all these things. And the answer after all these years is this. Yes, you can put certain filters on it, so that it expresses itself in a material world as something finer, something nicer, something better. But the core can’t be changed.

We see this very easily when people go through personality development. They learn about the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, for example, and everything is so lovely, and they become nicer and nicer for their family and their kids to be around. But as soon as they come under a bit of pressure, the core comes up to the surface: the core that the soul has brought in with it to learn from. And it’s totally spectacular, really, how it works. Your character, which you bring in with you, is there. When you come into this world, it’s imprinted and reinforced in certain directions. And my task, and yours too, since you’re a teacher, is to help a person back to their fundamental character. There, all these imprints are peeled away: all this junk and nonsense, like the pain and suffering and fear that have been imprinted in us and that we’ve experienced through trauma. That way the true character, personality and disposition of the soul can come up to the surface. And that’s when the real process of development begins.

Children are different from birth

So when we start out here, we bring this perspective with us, a very particular perspective. And we see it already when children are born. Even with the same mother, even with the same father, even if they’re twins, you often see that children have very different personalities and characters right from the start. So you as a mother could perhaps say a few words about this, Amina?

Amina: Yes, my children are two completely different children, with the same parents and the same upbringing. My children’s father and I have had a few discussions about this, because he thinks one of them is a bit lazier than the other. That’s because the other one runs round the house ten times before we’ve even got inside, while the first one really just wants to go straight in, lie down and relax a bit. They’re very different. They have different temperaments and different ways of reacting. As an astrologer, of course, I looked at this early on: they aren’t alike. They’re not supposed to be alike. They have many of the same learning themes, but also many different ones.

Pål-Esben: And here we come to twins too, who actually have the same birth chart, being born in the same minute, and who can still turn out differently. Yes, that’s often how it is. Sometimes they’re very alike, but often they’re very different. Then you could say: if astrology were 100 percent correct, they’d be exactly alike. But astrology is only one part of this game. It’s a tool, but this is much more complex than what astrology can show. So it’s quite exciting to see. When I meet very young children and spend time with them, I observe character, personality, talent and so on. That gives you an insight into what their soul has come here to experience life through, that is, their light prism.

Learning themes are revealed in the challenges

And then life unfolds so that they come to different stops along the way, with challenges, for better and for worse. Very few of those challenges are set up in advance, but the light prism we experience them from is set up in advance. So the art is to see which perspectives we can change, go through, and learn and grow through. And then it turns out that a soul’s learning themes, a human being’s learning themes, are very easy to uncover. Because when you come across challenges in your life, something that’s difficult, you’re guaranteed to have a learning theme that your soul has come here with and is curious about: how you can handle it, how you can grow out of it, how you can change your perspective on it, as we discussed a lot in the previous episode. And for me as a mentor and guide this is totally spectacular, when you see this game, because it actually isn’t very complicated. What’s complicated is the human ego, intellect, karmic memory, imprints and so on, which resist and say: “No, I don’t want that. That’s what’s to blame. No, this is terrible. Good God, why is this happening to me?” That’s drilled into us through our upbringing, through our imprints. But really it just blocks us from something that’s actually extremely exciting and worth engaging with and understanding.

Just as you did. You came from a very, very difficult background, where things were pretty chaotic in every area. And then it began to shift, from suffering to something more exciting. Can you tell us a bit about how you experience the transition here? Because it’s exactly the same light prism that your soul has come here to learn from. But you changed perspective. You live through the same things, but you experience two different things.

The world didn’t change, my filter did

Amina: Yes, and finding words for it is an art. What I began to notice was this. When I began to change my autopilot, and expanded the way I saw the world and understood myself through the primordial shamanic process of development, with everything I learned about initiations and everything I came across there, I noticed that I experienced the world changing. The world became a brighter place to be. I experienced things as different. But the world isn’t really any different. It’s me, that is, my filter, my glasses, that has become different. And this deeper, deeper part that I’ve come into contact with over the last few years means that I can go through difficult things and still feel good at the same time. You could call it having a good outlook, but really it’s being in contact with something much, much deeper.

Another thing is when I feel: “Whoa, now I’m starting to go down into a valley.” Perhaps there’s been a lot coming at me, perhaps something has happened, and things start to feel a bit darker. Then I think pretty quickly: “Oh yes, but the world hasn’t changed. It’s me. Which perspective am I in now? Where am I in the game here? OK, I’ve been dragged down a bit too far.” What I tell myself these days is that I’m starting to believe the illusion that everything is bloody awful and not OK. It’s so easy to get carried away by all the difficult things in life if you’re not aware of it. But to come back to your question: being able to experience life through that perspective, through the lenses I’ve been introduced to and come into deeper contact with over the last few years, has really been a game changer. It means I have a solid anchor in myself, whatever happens. And of course I can have a day where I lose myself a bit, and then: “Yes, OK, I can just shift into that perspective.” That’s also an art to get to know, with a bit of trial and error there too. So, yes.

How we create a better world

Pål-Esben: Yes, and this isn’t something that just happens by itself. It’s something you need to practise. But there are systems where you can practise this in a very short time, so that you become able to experience and see things from other perspectives, from a meta-perspective. Then you can use your free will and say: “OK, how do I want to react to what’s happening to me?” Instead of saying “why is this happening to me?”, you think: “OK, what can I learn from this?” And that’s quite a big change.

I’m often asked by people I meet: “How can we create a better world?” Our world is so chaotic, and it looks as if it’s getting darker and darker, with more and more war and unrest and polarisation. How can we create a better world? Well, the only way we can create a better world is to go into ourselves and become a better version of ourselves. Because by becoming a better version of ourselves, we do one thing that also affects the world around us. When we change perspective, when we gain deeper insight, when we come closer to our heart, it will radiate out to the people around us. This is the only way we can create a better world. And you see it, for example, in a family, which is a miniature world, as you know from experience. It’s absolutely amazing.

Amina: Yes, it’s absolutely amazing, and it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve experienced on my path, among other things with my children. I’ve worked on myself and kept the focus on myself. Not in the sense that I stopped focusing on my children, but in the sense of filling myself with enough light and stepping out of all the layers that I’m not, or don’t need to be. And then I see that they change too. It’s as if their filter changes somehow as well. I see it in my family too. My mother, who has started on her own path of self-development, a spiritual journey of development, has begun to change perspective in ways I never thought possible. And a few months ago I was visiting my dad. He likes to tell me things he has realised. He comes from Lebanon, so his Norwegian is a bit broken. And he came up to me and said: “The real religion in the world, I think it’s love.” And I said: “Well, that’s not a bad thought.” He likes talking about his philosophies. I can see them beginning to change, and it’s very interesting.

The soul’s language: the primary feelings

Pål-Esben: Interesting. There’s a misunderstanding in our world today, where many people think they’re supposed to change the world around them. But just trying to change other people, or change whatever it may be, is very difficult. What we can always do, and what we have 100 percent power over, is ourselves. And that’s also part of our soul’s journey here: beginning to see this as one of the learning tasks we have, one that will mean a great deal for a person’s life.

What you asked about at the start: what language does the soul speak? How can we know whether we’re listening to our soul, whether we’re doing what our soul wants, that is, what we really want, or whether it’s the ego, fear and so on that’s steering us? That’s the question here. And it’s actually very simple, because the soul communicates with us as physical beings through what are called primary feelings. And primary feelings in turn come from the heart. Examples of primary feelings are passion, humility, love and so on.

Amina: And gratitude too, perhaps?

Pål-Esben: Gratitude, yes, and so on. And devotion. These kinds of emotional states that come out of what has to do with the heart. So the soul communicates with you through primary feelings. That means that when you live something out in your life on the basis of passion, you’re guaranteed to be in contact with your soul. For some reason I understood early on, from when I was little, that the only thing I want to engage in is what I have a passion for. That’s meant that pretty much everything I’ve done, I’ve succeeded at. And as soon as I try my hand at something that’s driven by the ego, by control or by fear, it goes wrong.

So the soul communicates with you through primary feelings, through your heart. And you engage with the impulses from the soul by choosing themes, areas and projects in your life that are connected to primary feelings: passion, devotion, joyfulness, what’s truly meaningful for you. When you then give feedback to the soul by living out passion in what you do, the soul begins to communicate with you even more clearly and distinctly. The challenge is that we humans are taught not to listen to our heart. We’re taught to listen to control, to fear, to “I don’t have enough, I need more”. That has to do with survival, with getting things the way we want them. In other words, very intellectual, driven by the ego, driven by the karmic memory. And the more we live our life based on these impulses, the more disconnected we are from the soul. Then you’re listening to what are called secondary feelings, and making choices based on them.

So when a person asks me, “Is this the right thing to do for my soul?”, I ask them these questions: “Well, do you think this is fun? Do you find it meaningful? Do you have a passion for what you do?” And if they say a resounding yes, I say: “Then it definitely has to do with your soul. Definitely. There’s no way it isn’t to do with the soul.” But the problem is that we go to a job we’re bored in, and we’re only there to earn money to survive. That’s definitely something that can make us ill, since it has nothing to do with the soul’s passion and desires. That’s how you can check whether projects A, B, C and D in your life suit your soul.

Passion or addiction? The mirror decides

Amina: Isn’t it very easy here for many people to mix up passion and addiction? Because you feel drawn towards something that actually isn’t good for you. Is there a little code you can crack there, to see whether you’re fooling yourself?

Pål-Esben: We haven’t come here for things to be easy. Gaia, our planet, is the elite university for the souls in this universe: one of the most complex, most difficult and most demanding places for a soul to incarnate. That means no beginner souls or inexperienced souls come here. It’s the best of the best. And then of course nothing is child’s play. So how can we analyse whether this is driven by control, fear and ego, or whether it’s driven by the heart? Well, it isn’t always so easy to do by yourself, since we’re subjective about ourselves. So if you want to go down that road, I always recommend making sure you have a mirror. That means a therapist, teacher or mentor who knows about these things, so that you can mirror this and see what’s what, until you learn: “That was the heart. That was passion. That was control.”

It’s the same when we come to topics like intuition. How do you know whether this gut feeling of yours comes from the ego’s control and fear, or whether it comes from the heart? At the start this is very difficult. Then you need a mirror, a teacher, a mentor who can help you sort out what’s what. The same goes for so-called spiritual experiences. How do you know whether it’s the subconscious, with its programs and images coming up to the surface, or whether it’s real: a being of light, an angel, the spiritual experience you’re having? You can’t know that until you have a mirror that can help you sort it out, until you learn the vibration: “Aha, that’s typically how a being of light feels. Aha, that’s typically how the ego and the intellect work when images pop up.” It isn’t something you can easily work out by yourself. That’s why you need a mentor, a guide, a therapist: someone who holds your hand through a process like this. Otherwise it can take forever. It isn’t enough to go on YouTube and watch a certain number of YouTube videos and hope you’ll work it out, or to listen to our podcast 15 times, or other podcasts. You can be inspired by that. You can be inspired and motivated, but the real journey of development starts the day you have a mirror, where you get help sorting things out and someone to take you by the hand: a competent guide. We went through a few experiences like that at the start too, didn’t we, Amina?

The rush to move: a reference experience

Amina: Yes, there have been a few times when I’ve made some choices and then said: “Pål-Esben, I sort of felt this was the heart and the soul, but was it really?” And then we’ve talked about what’s really going on. I remember last year I was very set on having to sell my flat and move, I had to do this and that, and I’d booked myself a trip. I was in a real hurry about all of it. And I thought this was my soul pushing: “Now we’re moving on out into the world.” When you guided me back to myself a bit there, I remember asking you: “But where does that energy come from, then?” And then you said something. I don’t quite remember what it was, but it was around the theme of fear, or what you might call demons, something I was dealing with at the time. I don’t quite remember, because so much has happened over the last year. But when you said it to me, I got an experience of how my fear feels: that I’m short of time, that I have to hurry, that there’s something I’ll lose, something I’ll miss out on, if I don’t do these things. So I got a very important reference experience of how that feels.

Pål-Esben: Correct. What’s important are these reference experiences, where you feel the feeling, the vibration, of what’s what. It’s like when we’re small children. Through experience and guidance we have to work out: “OK, here’s a pen. No, that’s a car.” And gradually we recognise these images, these vibrations, and we remember: “OK, that’s this, and that’s that.” Here too, what you need is help sorting things out.

The grass isn’t greener: your baggage comes with you

And what’s often the trap for us humans is that we think the grass may be greener on the other side, and that we need something more than what we have today. Let me give an example. When I was at the start of my primordial shamanic journey of development, I lived here in Germany, in a town that wasn’t exactly uplifting: a dark, heavy town. It really isn’t such a nice place to live. So I say to my guide at the time: “No, I don’t like living here. I want to move somewhere with sun and beaches and blah, blah, blah, and there I’ll be happy.” And he just laughs at me. Then he says: “So you really think, Pål-Esben, that if you move to Hawaii or the Bahamas or Bali or one of these places you talk about, you really think you’ll become a happier human being?” “Yes,” I say, “yes, I do.” Then he says: “Yes, but don’t you understand that you take exactly the same baggage with you wherever you are? And don’t you think it’s better to work through that baggage here and now, in a place where you get the right input and are safe enough to focus on this and work through it? Because the day you work through that baggage here, you can be happy wherever you live, Pål-Esben.” Well, that was interesting.

So escape is something that always has to be looked at with clear eyes. And I’m not saying it’s wrong to walk away from things you’re unhappy with. For example, if you’re in a relationship that’s truly destructive, of course you don’t need to sit in a destructive relationship and suffer. Then you get out of the relationship. That’s not what we’re talking about. If you’ve had a house with mould and all those things, that’s something else. But right where you were when this happened, the challenge was…

Amina: Go ahead, you can say it all. I’m a pretty open book.

Pål-Esben: Yes, we just have to be careful here, so we don’t slide too far into what’s personal. The challenge at the time was that you were all over the place. We call it the ADHD thing: you have to go here and there. And in reality what you needed was centring, grounding, balancing and coming down to earth. That was why I asked you the question: “What’s going to happen now, when you start a process of moving and selling and so on? Then you’ll be wound up for the next 6 to 12 months, because it takes at least that long to move and get settled again. Is that what you need, Amina?” Then I asked: “Don’t you think it’s better that we now carry on with the process of calming the stress, so that we can start to think clearly, and you get enough calm and balance, centring and grounding, so that we can get going on the tricky fear themes?” Those were the ones you had at the time. And then I said: “Can’t you think this through, Amina, and then make a choice? But make a choice based on your heart, not on what the intellect wants to do.” And then you went home and made your choice. That was the story.

Amina: That was the story. I remember all of it. I have a good memory.

Pål-Esben: And these are things that aren’t easy to work out by yourself. Because it’s one thing to want things, or to say: “Oh, that’s what’s right for me.” That doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what we need right now. Of course there are a good many exceptions, but often the situation we’re in, and what we’re going through, has to do with things we need to learn, experience, grow out of, understand and gain insight into. That’s how this fits together. Very, very exciting. And especially exciting when you begin to get a grip on it over time, once you’ve practised a bit. Isn’t that exciting?

Amina: Very, very exciting.

Pål-Esben: Very, very exciting. And that doesn’t mean life is a bed of roses, because you regularly come face to face with yourself. This is an elite university, and it never gets easy.

Never a victim again

Amina: No. And something that has changed my life enormously is that I genuinely never feel like a victim any more, that life is against me, whatever happens. Because it can be easy to think, if you’re on a journey of self-development, a spiritual journey of development: “Yes, but now I’ve changed this and that, now I’m doing lots of good things here.” And then suddenly something happens in the outer world, or you get ill, or one thing or another. And then it’s so very easy to say: “Yes, but I’ve done this, and this, and this. Why is the world against me?” But where I am today, I feel that whatever happens, I never feel it’s because I’ve done something wrong, or that someone is going to punish me. Nor do I feel that “no, I don’t deserve to go through anything painful now, because I’m in contact with my soul and the whole package”. It’s a very liberating filter, a very liberating part that’s integrated in me. I don’t believe I deserve anything better than anyone else just because I do things that are good for me, or because I’m walking my soul’s path. I hope I explained that well enough.

More than 100 diagnoses: enemies or a helping hand?

Pål-Esben: It isn’t so easy to explain these things. But if we look at it from an eagle’s perspective, and I mean this literally: your soul, the soul of you listening right now, my soul, all the souls that have come to this planet have come to one of the very, very most complex, difficult and challenging places to incarnate in our whole universe. That’s the basis here. It means that life will never be easy. It isn’t made to be easy. And the day we acknowledge that, we shift perspective and say: “OK, if life isn’t made to be easy, what’s it about, then?” Well, it’s about how we learn to grow out of the challenges we’re faced with in life. Whether that has to do with relationships, or with health, or with whatever it may be.

I recognise this from myself too. In the old days I struggled with a lot of illness. I have more than 100 diagnoses from doctors: pretty much everything is wrong with me, the whole lot. I used to fight all these illnesses. I saw the illnesses as enemies: “Why are you there? I’m doing so much now, I’m doing everything with my diet, I’m spending hundreds of thousands of euros on clinics to get help, and I’m doing everything in my power, massively, massively. But I’m still not getting well. Why is this happening?” I understand that people see these problems as enemies. But gradually I began to wake up and see that these aren’t enemies. This is something I want to use as a lever for my process of growth: in understanding things, in understanding human biology, how the energy system fits together, how illness arises, how I analyse root causes. That led me to start studying functional medicine, and I’m pottering away at a doctorate in functional medicine right now. Because it gives me an opportunity and a push to learn and grow. And when I changed this perspective, from seeing my many illnesses or diagnoses as enemies to seeing that they’re there to help me in my soul’s process of growth and development, things changed quite radically. The road to getting well also went much faster, because suddenly there wasn’t so much need for all of it any more. So now I’m looking into whether I can reverse certain DNA mutations I have. What I’m doing now is very, very spectacular, seeing whether I can change that, because then it will mean a lot for many of my clients and students too. That’s what drives me, what I find exciting. I use my challenges, my problems, my pain, whatever it may be. Instead of saying “poor me, why is this happening to me?”, I think: “OK, how can I get a helping hand from this?”

Making peace with the black hole

And that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Sometimes I go down for the count too, especially the last time it happened. I have a diagnosis of major depressive disorder, that is, the worst form of depression. But it was made worse by bipolar type 2 with an irregular cycle, which nobody worked out and nobody understood for many, many years, and whatever I did, I couldn’t get out of it. So I had the problem that suddenly I’d have two or three days when my head was clear, and then I could have weeks and months when I was completely paralysed in the deep, black hole. And of course it’s horrible when you go through things like that. I fought against it: “Why is this happening to me? After all, I’ve done so much.” Nobody could help me, no medication could either. Treatment-resistant on top of that: whatever they did, it didn’t help. And I’m lying on the sofa, completely paralysed and suffering: “Why is this happening to me?”

Then some flash of lightning goes off in my head, as I’m lying there in a victim mentality, and I think through my life and say: “Pretty much everything in my life is good. I have somewhere to live, I have enough food on the table, I have a partner who loves me, and I have a job I love. That means 90 percent of my life is great. And here I am, noticing the 5 to 10 percent that isn’t good, and turning my whole life into crap. Why, why, why?” I went a few rounds with myself there, and eventually I made a decision. It’s OK to be paralysed. It’s OK to lie on the sofa and not be able to move. But I can find a state where I’m at least neutral, where I put on Netflix or whatever it may be, and say: “OK, my body can’t move, I can’t do anything, but I’m making peace with it.” And then, instead of beating myself up because I’m not productive today and can’t get done what I want to, I put on Netflix and the like and allowed myself to lie there and do nothing. The worst of it is that Netflix is brilliant. And I learned to make peace with these things. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in this life, precisely this change of perspective in the deepest suffering. And that doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that everyone can just manage it like that. But the point is that it’s possible.

And what happened after that was magical. Instead of seeing the depression as an enemy, I thought: “OK, how can I begin to acknowledge this and make peace with it?” And then suddenly a creative process started in me, where I began to look at completely different solutions for depression than I had before. That puts me on a track that eventually leads to my being completely free of a diagnosis like that, which is actually impossible from the point of view of modern medicine. Yes, of course it’s an extreme case I’m talking about here. I’m not saying that everyone who’s depressed is able to do these things, because there are many different forms of depression. But losing hope, and fighting illness as if it were an enemy, isn’t the path I would take. Because if the doctor or the psychologist or the psychiatrist can’t help us, my brain works like this: “Then I’ll look at other things.” And since I’m very holistic, there’s a solution to most of what we struggle with. That’s a bit of my story about extreme situations like these in my life.

The resistance that creates suffering

Amina: It’s very exciting and very inspiring to listen to, and I hope it inspires more people. Because when you let go of that resistance… You often fight so hard against it, whether it’s the illness or what’s happening. And I’ve fought and I’ve fought and I’ve fought, I’ve had so much resistance: “No, it’s not supposed to be like this, I don’t want it like this, it can’t be like this.” And the more resistance, the more suffering. In my experience too, getting to the point where you simply let go of the resistance is about the closest thing to magic you can get. And then there’s the development that happens after that, everything that opens up when you manage to let go of the idea you have of what life is supposed to be. Because you often hold on to some idea or other, and then you don’t quite see reality for what it is. It’s the same with the people who are very into manifesting, who say: “This and that is happening to me, but I can’t use those words, I can’t say it out loud.” And then: “Yes, but that’s reality.” “No, I can’t say it, I can’t talk about it, because then I’ll manifest even more of it.” Perhaps we need to see reality for what it is first, and then we can see how we can resolve it. I like calling a spade a spade: “OK, this is reality. So how do I relate to reality in a better way?”

Synchronicities and the soul family

Pål-Esben: And what often happens when you come full circle with illness is this. The day you stop seeing these things as enemies, a creative process starts in us. It means that certain synchronicities and events will often arise on our timeline, where we can find people, helpers and information that can take us further. As long as we’re stuck in the suffering, we’re completely blocked. When we begin to open up and shift into creative mode, these things happen, because that’s also by the soul’s design, and comes from how the universe and the basic mechanisms of our universe work. At least that’s how it has been for me. And for you?

Amina: Yes, for me too.

Pål-Esben: That brings me to the people who help us: the soul family, soul friends, twin souls. That’s perhaps something we can take up in another episode, because it’s also incredibly exciting, what happens when you begin to walk your soul’s path, and which people you come across along the way. Then you’re linked into synchronicities, synchronous events that arise, and we can also discuss in an episode how that works. But this is part of the groundwork for that to happen. As long as we’re caught up in our secondary feelings, like fear, hatred, jealousy and those things, we’re more or less blocked. When we begin to open up and orient ourselves more and more towards the heart, listen more and more to the impulses from our soul, which are connected to primary feelings, and begin to live that out, that’s when the change begins to happen.

Amina: Yes, very exciting. Very, very exciting. I have lots and lots of stories to tell about that too, because I’m coming across more and more people from my soul family, and it’s a lot of fun.

Pål-Esben: Good. Let’s carry on with the questions. That first one took quite a while. Do you have more questions up your sleeve, then?

Numbness: the common illness of our society

Amina: I always do. Another question, which some people may be wondering about. I often come across people who are drawn to the alternative, an alternative path, the spiritual and the metaphysical, but who feel numb: “I don’t know what I like, I don’t know what I want. Do I like this, or do I like that?” Perhaps you have no idea what your life mission is. You don’t know, and you don’t have the navigation system you need to follow what you like and what your passion is. How can you get to know it better, then?

Pål-Esben: That’s also a very, very good question. Eight out of ten who come to me are numb. The vast majority of them are numb, and that isn’t because there’s anything special about them, but because the world we live in consists of numb people. By numb I mean having very little contact with your primary feelings. We see the little child, when it’s young, throwing leaves up in the air and simply delighting in it and squealing over the leaves. Then we see that by the time it’s 15, or before, this is gone. There’s no genuine delight in anything any more. It’s as if we become more or less numb robots who are supposed to function in a society. And I often ask people who come to me, for example with burnout: “Can you give me ten things, write a list of ten activities you can do where you feel joyful and happy?” Very few can write anything at all, and that’s frightening. But it isn’t the individual’s fault. It’s a result of the society we live in, the imprints, and not least the disconnection that happens between us and our soul somewhere between the ages of 7 and 14. And that’s by design too, as we talked about in the previous episode. We’ve come here to learn in this four-dimensional space, that is, space-time, where we don’t have our knowledge available from the soul. And then our imprints and experiences begin, through the soul’s light prism.

What’s happening in the world we live in now is that people are getting more and more stressed. They’re more and more filled with restlessness, anxiety, fear, control, survival and those things, and they have to function; that’s what matters most. Look at a family today. Up early in the morning, and then you have to feed the kids, and then drive the kids to kindergarten and school, and then go to work, come back and pick up the kids, feed them, make dinner, and then there are activities, and then perhaps you take your work home in the evening, and then you have to do something social. It’s absolutely, totally insane, this hamster wheel that so many people are in. And it creates such great inner restlessness, such great chaos in us, that we have very little contact with primary feelings like humility, devotion, passion and love, and are mostly steered by secondary feelings. That’s what this numbness is, because any numb human being can feel anxiety, hatred, jealousy and fear.

Reawakening the primary feelings

And your question is: how do we reverse this? It’s done through a process. You can’t just snap your fingers and give yourself an affirmation that every day things are getting better and better. That’s meaningless in a setting like this. Here you have to look at how to peel off the layers that have been created, especially from the age of seven, and that create this numbness. For that we have a process you can go through, which is described in the book The 7 Golden Keys, a book about creating a happy life. There you learn the basic mechanisms you can start with in order to begin weaning yourself off this numbness. So there are seven specific things you need to understand, and of course some methodology you can use to gradually come further and further out of this. And after that we have the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, where you start by practising, for example, becoming a master of gratitude.

Because the fact is that most of them, let’s say eight out of ten of those who come to me as students, are a result of society. They’re more or less numb. And then they have to get going and do an exercise, a real exercise that has to do with gratitude. Not writing down five things you’re grateful for every day; that’s just the surface. It means really doing the exercise, the meditation process it takes to reawaken the emotions you once had in a situation where you were grateful. It’s a process of cultivation, a special methodology you use. They start with that method and go back to a point in their life where they were really happy and grateful: for example when they had their first child, or one of their children, or found their partner, or whatever it was. And at the start very few are able to feel anything at all that has to do with primary feelings, even though in that situation, when it happened, they had masses of positive primary feelings. That describes the numbness. But as you practise this on a daily basis, you have the chance to begin to reawaken your access to the primary feelings. It takes a bit of time, and you need to invest ten minutes on a daily basis to do these exercises, while at the same time cultivating the 7 Golden Keys, with consciousness, self-responsibility, using your free will, cultivation and so on. Then you can begin to come back to a state where you feel the primary feelings again, where the numbness gets less and less, and where you get more and more access to the opposite of numbness. And then you can begin to orient yourself by what the soul wants again, and then you’re on the right track. That’s the start of this process. And again: it’s always recommended that you find a guide who can lead you step by step through a process like this. Because the ego sometimes struggles to find motivation when you don’t manage it in a day or two, or: “Now I’ve done this for one session and I still don’t feel anything. No, let me do something else.” That’s the modern human being.

I have a student now who started the basic training last August. She has struggled a lot with numbness and with feeling primary feelings, and she has been on this journey of development for a few months now and does gratitude exercises on a daily basis. When I last talked to her, she told me that she had met a being of light that awakened real gratitude in her. She didn’t quite understand what it was, because she felt a deep gratitude, and then it was: “Yes, it was so strange to feel gratitude for that being of light, because I’ve struggled to feel it with family and friends.” Those are some of the exciting things that happen when you actually work with this over time, when you really wholeheartedly set about getting to know it better. So it’s very, very interesting. And the good news is that it’s possible for everyone. But it will never happen overnight. It’s a process of cultivation, and that’s the biggest challenge for the modern human being, who wants shortcuts and wants everything fast.

No shortcuts at the elite university

People think they can go on an ayahuasca retreat in the mountains and become enlightened, and that kind of nonsense. Then you end up in a world where you think: “Oh, I can just do this and that, and then I can skip the learning process the soul has come here to experience.” Hello? It’s the same idea as playing a game, a computer game, where you start on level 1, and there are challenges there. If it’s a shooting game, you have to shoot; if it’s Super Mario, you have to collect this and that. And when you’ve mastered the challenges, the exams, on level 1, you’re moved up to level 2 and given new, harder challenges. But what is it with modern people, in the spiritual, alternative world too? Well, they think there must be some method or other where you glide from level 1, skip all the tasks of development and learning, end up on the final level, level 10, and then you just have to do something, and it’s over. That’s one of the biggest misunderstandings out there, and it leads people into frustration. Because they do and they do, and they try and they engage, but life doesn’t change. It’s the same problems in the relationship, the same problem with their health, the same problem with meaning, the same problem in their relations with the people around them. Nothing genuine and real changes in their life. And that comes from having this idea that you can just skip ahead. But you can’t start in the first year of primary school and just say: “No, now I want to do my doctorate at university. Which method should I use? Can’t I find this special chakra cleansing, or this special whatever it is, and snap, snap, snap, I’ll be there?” This way of seeing life and a process of development only brings limitation and frustration. Because it’s like going into a dense spruce forest and wandering around in there: you never find open land where you can see the terrain. It’s a tendency in the modern human being in the society we have. Everything has to go so fast, and people are seldom willing to engage wholeheartedly. If you haven’t had results in a week, then no, you jump to the next shiny thing, you change method. And that’s what stops people from experiencing liberation and the profound transformation that you’ve experienced in your life, and many, many others with you. You did have this attitude of learning the special method so everything would sort itself out, but you’ve gone through your process. Were you willing to do that? That’s what I find is one of the challenging things in the society we live in.

Amina: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It quickly gets messy when you try to work things out, and then you jump on the next thing that comes along and think it will solve your problems. I was there myself too. It’s very easy to end up in what I might call a spiritual hamster wheel, with all these methods and techniques, and then you’re locked in the trap again. And it isn’t so easy, because you can’t get your bearings when everyone is promising you the earth.

Pål-Esben: Just go on social media, YouTube. Now you have spiritual teachers on TikTok, and I think: “What?” The world has come completely unhinged here. So you’re supposed to spend ten seconds on TikTok now and then, and become spiritually enlightened? Hello! That’s part of the malaise. Or you’re on YouTube, and you watch that video for that method, that special meditation, or you watch a kundalini yoga video and learn kundalini yoga stuff, and then you do it, and nothing happens, and then you go on to the next one, and then you find yourself a seminar there, and you try and you try. There’s nothing wrong with the human being, because they’re searching to find liberation, searching to find the insight, searching to come back to their full existence in their soul. The problem is that our human psyche is set up so that we go looking for gold and all that glitters, and our attention span is on the same level as a goldfish’s. That is, three, four, five seconds, and then: “No, that wasn’t any good. I’ll switch to the next one.” And that is, let me say, one of these big challenges and learning themes that our souls have placed here for us, which we need to find our way out of before we can experience the things we’re talking about here now. Namely: nothing comes overnight. You need to find a guide, teacher, mentor, whatever it may be, who has a process that works, so that you can be taken by the hand and led through it. Just as you do with your students, for example, with the totally brilliant results that many of your students have. That’s what you need. There are skilled guides out there, but if a guide says, “Come here and learn these methods, and everything will sort itself out”, then you’re guaranteed to be on the wrong track.

Voyage of discovery or getting serious: the choice is yours

The question to ask is: do I want to go on a voyage of discovery? That’s fine, whatever you choose. I was on a voyage of discovery at the start and learned everything. It was like being at a funfair; it was totally spectacular. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with going on a voyage of discovery, nothing wrong with going to the funfair and having fun and excitement with things. But there’s a difference between that and finding your way back to yourself, finding your way back to your power, finding your way back to your infinite wisdom, insight and knowledge. Those are two completely different things. And I think you can make a choice based on this and say: “OK, I want the circus, I want discovery.” Then you do that. Or you come to a point and say: “Goodness me, now this is serious.” Then you choose something else. And what’s so lovely about how our existence is set up is that we can incarnate an infinite number of times until we get the point, in this or in parallel existences of our planet. We can incarnate an infinite number of times until we get the point. So there’s nothing wrong with having a few incarnations where you do exciting things, and have the circus and lie on the beach. Perhaps you’re a millionaire, a billionaire, and don’t need to do anything. But you come to a point where you need to make a decision like that and say: “Enough is enough.” As you did.

Amina: Yes, enough was enough.

Pål-Esben: And as I did. So I find these topics important, because after all, otherwise you need to incarnate a thousand more times before you get the point. But that isn’t necessary. It can also happen now, in this incarnation, in this life. And that’s the reason there are people like you and me who can help others, those who are ready for it, of course, to the final stage, to level 10, or to the final point where liberation can happen. Then this game for the soul, the learning task, is finished, and you have no need for any further incarnations. Then you can take on other challenges and do other things.

Amina: Exciting!

Words of wisdom to wrap up

Pål-Esben: Yes, totally mind-blowing, really. So I think in the next episode we’ll continue a bit here with the soul, because there are quite a few other things to discuss there too, questions and things around this. So I think we’ll round off the topic of the soul next time. Do you have any words of wisdom to wrap up with today, Amina?

Amina: Do I have any words of wisdom to wrap up with? I could ask a question for reflection, then, for our dear listeners. Perhaps you can think a little about this. Am I in contact with my soul? Is my soul trying to tell me something? Am I following my passion? Am I numb? How can I, with the help of this episode and the tools we’ve talked about here, The 7 Golden Keys and the 9 Pillars for Finding the Path of the Heart, use this in my life to come closer to the primary feelings? In other words, to reflect a little.

Pål-Esben: Yes. There’s a great deal of wisdom in that. And there’s no shame in seeking help from someone who can lead you through a process, whether it’s a doctor or psychologist, or a coach or a spiritual teacher, a shaman, or whatever it may be, as long as they’re competent to guide you through a process like this. There’s no shame in seeking help, because none of us can fix everything on our own in this incarnation. Nor is that the intention. That’s the reason we incarnate together in a soul family, which we’ll talk more about in the next episode.

Amina: Yes.

Pål-Esben: I hope that you as a listener appreciate this as well, and that it has inspired you. I’ve seen people go from complete numbness and emptiness to joyfulness, and it doesn’t have to take years. It’s a miracle that can happen in three to six months, if you get going and do this wholeheartedly and authentically. So good luck. Thank you so much for staying with us all the way, dear listener. We really appreciate your feedback, and a five-star rating on Spotify helps our podcast reach more listeners. And thank you so much for being here with me, Amina. I really appreciate it.

Amina: Likewise, Pål-Esben.

Pål-Esben: Thank you for being with us, dear listener. I hope you’ll join us again in the next episode. And until then: have a truly wonderful day, evening, night or morning, wherever you are listening from. Take care.

Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of “The Journey to Self-Realization”, a primordial shamanic journey of development back to your true nature. We hope Amina’s story has inspired you to explore your own journey of self-discovery and development. Remember that the path from suffering to self-realization can be demanding, but with courage, patience and support from a competent guide, mentor, teacher or therapist, almost anything is possible. We wish you all the best on your journey, and we’ll talk again in the next episode.