Our life's foundation

What is our life based on? What do we turn to when everything falls apart? Ideally that should be the foundation of our life. Something stable, permanent and deep, providing support for our growth as human beings and for the relationships we build around us.

In this episode we explore what can truly answer these requirements, as well as many misconceptions coming from our modern life.

Transcript

Episode 6 – Our life’s foundation

Welcome to the Mindy Movement, the thought-provoking podcast by Soulful Soundwaves. Conversations inspired by real life events, lessons and learnings, gifted to us while traveling across Australia in a tiny home on wheels. Welcome aboard.

We would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners, custodians and ancestors of the land and country we walk on, and their connection to the land, waters and community. We pay our deepest respect to the elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Indigenous people across the world.

Lorenzo:

Hello beautiful people. Welcome. 

Maeve:

Welcome. 

Lorenzo:

Today we're going to talk about a topic that had me thinking for a while. 

Maeve:

We lost him, the cogs were going. 

Lorenzo:

Yes, I had to think about it and process this thing for quite a bit. And it took my grandmother, my adopted grandmother, the elder Djapirri Mununggirritj, to explain it to me very patiently, multiple times. But I think it is a very important topic. we talked about foundation, what is the foundation of our lives? 

Maeve:

A big one and a nice one. It's important. I think this is going to be a nice little conversation between us. 

Lorenzo:

Yes, let's start straight away from the meaning of the word foundation. What does foundation mean practically? 

Maeve:

Oh, foundation is something that needs to be stable. It needs to have a depth to it, I would say. It also needs to be consistent. 

Lorenzo:

That in physical terms, practical terms, let's say for building a house. But also for everything else, like the foundation of our lives, for example. 

Maeve:

And that analogy, actually, of building a house. That’s what we would probably think of most when we think about a foundation. It’s a foundation of a structure, of a building. So explain to us what would you think that foundation needs in order to be strong? 

Lorenzo:

Well, I always thought that the foundation of my life was my family. It turns out that my family is not the foundation of my life. It is basically the house that I build on top of the foundation. Well, let's put it this way. Let's take a number of things, number of examples. And let's measure these examples according to these three principles. 

Maeve:

Okay.

Lorenzo:

So for example, family. Family is not permanent, because it has a limited time. 

Maeve:

Yeah, based on when that person is with us. 

Lorenzo:

Yes. It is true that family as an extended entity can last for centuries, like generations and generations. But the people that we actually have as family in our lifetime, they are non permanent. 

Maeve:

Yeah. 

Lorenzo:

Stability. Stability is something that I wish for everyone to have a stable family. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. So stability is not, it’s another no. 

Maeve:

It's not a given.

Lorenzo:

Depth. Yes, it's indeed a deep experience because it leaves you marks, in a good and in a bad way, that you have to work with for the rest of your life. 

Maeve:

Yeah, and also the relationships you have with family are probably some of the deepest you've got in your life.

Lorenzo:

And as they say family is always there. So it's often something that you go back to when you feel yourself in a down or you feel that you got a little bit knocked out from life. 

So family, two out of three are a no go for family. So family is not a foundation. We can consider something else, like we can consider our bank account. We can consider the money that we feel necessary to go through life. 

Maeve:

So money is something that society holds very dear. Can money be the foundation of our life? So, is it deep? Well, no. It's a very superficial relationship we have with money. So in fact, that's totally the opposite. Is it stable? Well, it's only stable as long as you've got it.  Or as long as you've got the work that provides that money. Is it permanent? Well, it’s the same as stability, it can be a fickle relationship. One day it's here and one day it's gone. So no, it doesn't reach those three categories. 

Lorenzo:

What about status? What about your position in society? The consideration that you feel you have from society? It is deep? No. It is stable? No, because your career is non permanent. And it’s not permanent for the same reason. So your status is not and shouldn't be the foundation of your life. So this is the reason why I struggled so much, because I discovered that what I consider the foundation of my life was not the foundation, it was the house. 

Maeve:

Yeah. How did that make you feel?

Lorenzo:

A little bit misplaced, to be honest. If we want to find out what is the real foundation of our lives, I think we should refer to cultures, in this particular instance, native cultures that have had a completely different approach to life. So, we are in Arnhem Land. The local culture is the Yolηu culture. For Yolηu the foundation of their lives is their relationship with nature. Which determines everything. Which needs to be strong in order for us to be able to carry out our responsibilities and our duties with everything. With the relationship that we actually build while we travel through life. 

Maeve:

For sure. So, let's just use nature in the same way we've used all the other things. So is the relationship with nature deep? Yes, it can teach us so much. It's a mirror for us. It can pull us out of the depths. Is it stable? Yes. 

Lorenzo:

It's always there. 

Maeve:

It's consistently there. And is it permanent? Yes. All we have to do is turn to it. And it's there. It's always there for us. So that's a really interesting insight that you got, and that you felt. 

Lorenzo:

I felt like I've been enlightened for a little second because with this realization comes the fact that Western society in general is completely out of balance because of this reason. We don't have a strong foundation to go back to and therefore we tried to create a foundation in other ways. 

Maeve:

Absolutely. But it never really replaces what we should have as a foundation. 

Lorenzo:

It never really works. You're right. 

Maeve:

In some ways, that's the instability of it and the imbalance. It’s everything else that we try to replace that relationship with nature. That consistent foundation, we've replaced it with things that are very vulnerable, that they can be here one day and they can't be here the next. 

Lorenzo:

Exactly. And what happens when you use something that is not strong as a foundation? When the storm comes the house is not solid. 

Maeve:

Totally and let's talk about the energy body of us. The root, which is by no coincidence, it's called the root being the foundation of ourselves. 

Lorenzo:

You mean the Root Chakra.

Maeve:

Yeah, the Root Chakra. One, it's the closest to the ground. So it's in our pelvic area, but it's also our roots. And how we feel in life and our stability determines how that root plays out in our life. So as humans, energetically, our root should be deep. Yeah, our root should be stable, and our roots should be permanent. They should go down deep, past us down into nature. That is our connection and our opening with nature. And, you know, nine times out of 10 when we work with our clients on the energy cleansing of the body, the Root Chakra is out (of balance). And that's okay, but we need to start to work out why. Because what happens if our roots aren't deep? We're surface level. Our roots become surface level and we become sprawling vines. Instead of that big strong oak tree - just using metaphors - we become this crawling vine. They can cover a huge area, but ultimately we're looking for things to wrap our roots around to make us feel secure. You know, when you look at nature, and this is exactly one ways nature teaches us. When you look at a vine, you can see its little toes or its little hands sprawling out trying to find the next branch. 

Lorenzo:

A crack.

Maeve:

Yeah, or a crack, or anything to use as an anchor. And that's what we do in life when we're not feeling strong. So one of our little arms and roots can go around our family. We hold that dear. So that's why we try and use it as an anchor. Then another thing could be our status or the money or the house we own or the boat we own or how we're seeing the status - how we're seen in society. 

Lorenzo:

Well, I think the house or the boat are more considered like accessories, less like a foundation but yes, definitely.

Maeve:

The reality is none of these are foundation, but what we do when we're surface level is we think that that is something that…

Lorenzo:

We can attach to. 

Maeve:

Yeah, we attach to it and it makes us feel strong. And it makes us feel whole because, you know, it's the ego at play. But if you live in a big house, and you have attached your worth to this house that “I live here, therefore people are going to think I'm important.” You know? What happens, and we've seen it in the last two years very, very vulnerable situations. Actually overnight people have lost jobs, they've lost the income, they've lost their houses. And when that happens, if you have subconsciously seen that as the foundation of your life, what happens when they're taken away? 

Lorenzo:

You're terrified. 

Maeve:

It's excruciating. You feel lost, you feel hopeless. 

Lorenzo:

You feel you’ve got nothing. 

Maeve:

You feel you've got nothing. And that's the most important thing. What we see in Indigenous cultures is the consistency to see nature as their foundation. Nature is where that foundation starts. All the rest can be built upon it, as you said, they're your walls. There's your house, there's the roof. You know, that all makes this pretty little scene. However, the foundation doesn't crack. So when we hit tough times, there isn't a massive big hole in our foundation. Or worse still, we're still trying to figure out “Where is my foundation? I feel like I'm on ice.” 

Lorenzo:

Yeah. That's exactly how it feels. Why nature? Because I can feel that for many of us. It's like “Yeah, but I like to go into nature but, you know, in some way we don't have enough time to consider nature as a mother.” Because you spend most of the time doing your job. 

Maeve:

Yeah. Providing. 

Lorenzo:

So how can we do it? Basically, that's the question that arises in my mind. And the answer is, “If this is a priority we should find the way to reach out every single day.” The reason why we should do that is because we already know that when we are into nature, the biorhythms of our mind and our body start changing, start aligning with a more natural and more peaceful rhythm. 

Maeve:

Yeah, and I think a little bit further to that though, it needs to be a priority of ours. It needs to be a priority every day that actually we need to ensure our foundation is strong. Because if our foundation isn't strong our house isn't strong. You can build whatever you want on top, but it takes daily work. It doesn't even need to be sitting in the wilderness in the forest. It can be just watching a butterfly fly. Non judgmentally, just watching the behavior of animals and nature. And that's what's so beautiful when we when we find that space. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. But I think it's very important to be surrounded by nature because that's where we can actually feel (what) in science is called the Schumann Resonance. The frequency created by a magnetic field between the centre of the earth and the ionosphere, which has a frequency that we cannot perceive with our ears, because it's too low, is 7.83 Hertz. But our mind, our brain, can actually register it, can feel it. So the results are…there have been scientific studies from 1974 on this thing. 

Maeve:

Yeah. And actually, if you ever want to know any stats or research there's a whole page on our website with many studies. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. And even get in touch for a chat about it. When you are surrounded by vegetation, trees, grass, bush, animals. If you stay there for long enough, you actually start realizing that you are not above everything else, as a human being. You are just part of something. Because the first thing that happens is that your breathing slows down. Your heart rate slows down, and at that point you start feeling in harmony with whatever is surrounds you. 

Maeve:

Yeah, I've got a few beautiful memories pop in as you say that. When we sit in stillness, and we've had this experience which is mind blowing. Many others have had the same experience. When you sit in silence and stillness in nature. At first, you're sometimes seen as an intruder, depends what animals are around, you know, they might go “Oh, human here, human, be weary.”  Or they might just be looking at you, you can just see. Depends what animal or species we're talking about here. If you sit long enough in stillness and silence and in respect, that brings respect, to watch all those animals come to you or just adopt you in as that scenario. They land on you or they come up and they're so curious. They smell your toes, or…   

Lorenzo:

Maybe they don't come up to you, but they come closer. Because they are curious.

Maeve:

Yeah, yeah, and it's amazing to see that experience because it actually makes you feel, just personally is you belong. You belong in that scenario. And it instantly lifts you. It instantly lifts you and then in doing that and feeling that our foundation is rock solid. Yeah, is rock solid because we don't need to seek the validation. It just is. 

Lorenzo:

I think the biggest obstacle is that we are used to search for things and look for things outside of ourselves. What nature does is that you are sitting in a scenario that is always changing, but in minimal things with minimal movements. So you have to erase your knowledge of how things happening with what kind of speed, and you have to start turning your gaze inside yourself, which is the most important thing because that's where things really happen. That's how we find peace, joy, how we find happiness, really, satisfaction, fulfillment. All we experience we think it comes from the outside and touches us but the truth is that we are experiencing our own personal perception of what is happening outside. So in a certain kind of way. Everything that happens to us has a reflection inside. So if we start understanding this level of perception, then we can change things for the better. 

Maeve:

Yeah, and build that solid self. 

Lorenzo:

Exactly. 

Maeve:

Because that's where this all starts, it’s about foundation. Allowing ourselves to become strong in ourselves and not rely and become dependent on external factors. 

Lorenzo:

Absolutely. 

Maeve:

It's a good reflection process to see what we have our arms wrapped around. Are we the vine? Do we have our arms wrapped around our identity and our, you know, status and our… whatever that is for us. You know how much money we've got in the bank, and XY&Z or family, maybe even religion. If that's all something that we wrap our arms around, we might just need to think twice. 

Lorenzo:

So we should start the transition from vine to divine. That's just a joke. Food for thought. 

Maeve:

Food for thought, another one. So thank you so much for coming to join us on today's topic of foundation. We hope it has been of benefit. If you ever do want to understand more about the energy of your body and all the chakras and what's going on in them. Please reach out, it is something we are so passionate about, about leading people back to a fulfilled happy and attuned life and attuned to your most perfect natural state. 

Lorenzo:

Thank you for listening. 

Maeve:

Thanks guys.

Lorenzo:

Lots of love to you. 

Maeve:

Namaste. 

Lorenzo:

Namaste.

Thanks for listening to the Mindy Movement Podcast. You can find more content, free meditations, brain entraining music and much much more over on our website, at www.soulfulsoundwaves.com. 

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