E31: The Power of Cacao - Paul Makinson's Path to Sobriety and Self Discovery

Ever wondered about the transformative and healing powers of cacao? In this enlightening episode, we delve into the world of cacao ceremonies with our special guest, Paul Makinson. Paul bravely shares his journey, detailing his struggles with mental health issues and addiction, and his path to recovery and spiritual awakening through cacao ceremonies.

Cacao ceremonies are powerful rituals that use ethically sourced cacao as a tool for personal growth and self-discovery. Paul highlights the crucial role of cacao in his transformation, not only in terms of sobriety but also in co-running a holistic and spiritual business with his wife, Kayley. The duo's business, Simply Spiritual Healing, has become a beacon for individuals seeking a similar path of transformation.

Cacao ceremonies are not just about consuming cacao; they are an immersive experience involving collective chanting, silence, and the use of mantra and Kirtan singing. This potent combination helps participants release self-judgments, doubts, and insecurities, leading to profound self-discovery.

The healing potential contained in every cup of cacao is astounding. However, it's essential to respect this powerful plant and adopt a mindful approach when consuming it. Paul shares how incorporating a cacao ceremony, or even a few mindful minutes with cacao, can create an opportunity to connect with oneself and set a positive intention for the day.

As we delve further into Paul's life-altering experiences with cacao ceremonies, we learn how music and journaling during the ceremony inspired him to practice them regularly. This practice, combined with his connection with Kayley, led to the creation of Simply Spiritual Healing.

Furthermore, we explore the spiritual energy associated with the Ganesh mantra. In cacao ceremonies, the Ganesh mantra is chanted to signify a fresh start, opening pathways for healing and transformation.

The episode also touches on mindful chocolate consumption and veganism, emphasizing the importance of making conscious food choices for both our health and the environment. The power of spiritual healing techniques, the importance of investing in practices and rituals before teaching them to others, and the value of breathwork are also discussed.

In conclusion, this episode is a soul-stirring, transformational journey infused with love, cacao, and the power of spiritual healing. It offers insights into a world that many of us are unaware of and presents a new perspective on dealing with life's challenges.

https://simplyspiritualhealing.co.uk/

https://instagram.com/wallahkirtan?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

https://instagram.com/simply_spiritual_healing?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

https://www.facebook.com/Simplyspiritualhealing

https://www.facebook.com/paul.k.makinson

https://youtu.be/AktpU8FZ6Ws

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Mark Charlie Valentine, and here with me is Seb.

Speaker 2: 0:08

Hi Amit.

Speaker 1: 0:09

How are you, amit Good. Are you feeling refreshed and invigorated?

Speaker 2: 0:13

I am kind of after what we've done last weekend, after the weekend?

Speaker 1: 0:16

yes, do you want to tell the listeners what we did?

Speaker 2: 0:19

Maybe we'll just start off by telling the listeners who's in today and then we'll continue that conversation that we just had.

Speaker 1: 0:27

Yes, so today we have Paul Mackinson Now. I met Paul back in September last year when I went on a cacao ceremony and the question was what's a cacao ceremony? Well, we'll get into that on the podcast. There's no point in me going through it. But as we as we, I really enjoyed it and it was something I wasn't expecting. It was a five hour ceremony with all bits going on, but really enjoyed it. Found it very sort of therapeutic and calming and then that sort of developed into getting you along too.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Well, yes, because we've recorded the podcast with Paul a couple of weeks ago, I think.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Yeah, and then he mentioned this, didn't he?

Speaker 2: 1:04

And then he mentioned this, and then we went on a cacao ceremony. Was it with emergent men?

Speaker 1: 1:08

Emergent men. Yeah, emergent men. So it's about like it's a bit like a men's circle in it and exploring masculinity really, but not toxic masculinity.

Speaker 2: 1:18

No, and also opening up for men to talk about their own issues. Yeah, and something they're never to do.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Yeah, a safe, sacred space where guys can talk, because, as we know, guys generally don't talk enough and if they do, a lot of it is what we say is toxic. You know what I mean? That man up, which you know I'm a big fan of.

Speaker 2: 1:37

So yeah, but that'll be a future podcast. Anyway, it is yes.

Speaker 1: 1:42

We, yeah, we've got that coming up. So, yeah, the, yeah, the ceremony we did, yeah, really good. We've both got really involved Breathwork, what else? What's the breathwork?

Speaker 3: 1:50

The sound bath.

Speaker 1: 1:51

Sound bath. Yeah, it's lovely.

Speaker 3: 1:53

Yeah, I enjoyed that.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Yeah, I think we should talk to emergent men in the future anyway. Right, the White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. Paul Mackinson. Hello, paul Mackinson. Oh God.

Speaker 2: 2:06

He has literally just told you.

Speaker 1: 2:09

He just told me. Sorry, paul, yeah, I've got so much to think about.

Speaker 2: 2:15

And I would say you're just a bit too excited because of all that cacow with it. Yeah, and he was giving away what we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah, so welcome Paul. Sorry about that, I'll have to just discuss it. Yeah, so we're going to be talking about cacow and this comes from a ceremony of yours which I attended, yeah, which had a bit of an effect, so it was really good. So, to kick off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll sort of get into the cacow, what it does, our ceremony works.

Speaker 3: 2:43

Yeah, a bit about myself. So I am a dad, two kids I've got a three year old and a 10 month old. Three year old daughter called Ellie. 10 month old boy called Jimmy.

Speaker 1: 2:53

I run them.

Speaker 3: 2:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, the busiest I've ever been in my life. It's intense. It's in. Life is pretty intense. I've got me my wife Kayleigh, so that's my little family unit Got me dogfing and I run me on. Well, no, I don't run my own.

Speaker 3: 3:08

Me and my wife Kayleigh together are running our own holistic spiritual business where we're trying to bring all the things that we do, all the things that we've found that have been good for us, for us mental elves, for us physical elves, trying to bring it all together to get it out to people, things like. We live in Wakefield so we travel quite a lot to get to other stuff and we try to bring it from like Manchester, alifax or this field and trying to bring it into Wakefield and trying to bring sort of a community aspect. A bit of my background I've done various jobs. I started off like it's GV mechanic when we first job done All sorts of different labour and stuff, and then I've had lots of mental health issues like through my life. I think looking back I was quite depressed for a lot of it and that's developed into alcohol problems, drug problems, which rolled all the way through into mid 30s, early 30s, which it wasn't too long ago, just until I had kids, so was that from childhood, oh, from through teen.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Teen's a bad time innit, teen's mate, yeah, teen, 14.

Speaker 3: 4:11

Just eight grounds running at 14. Right, well, we'd, we'd and booze at 14 and then I would play it safe until I was 18, then 18. So I get me saying I think I watch Scarface at 17 and then get me some permission at 18. I'm going to start sniffing coke and taking pills as you do. Looking back, it was very much all mental health masking. There were a lot of good times, mate, like lots and lots of good times. Yeah, escapism, escapism. Yeah, I think a lot of it were. I always wanted to be a rock and roll style and I were really good at like the rolling more than the rocking.

Speaker 1: 4:47

I think a lot of us have been. Yeah, what was that?

Speaker 3: 4:49

Yeah Well, music has been a massive part of it all as well, so I did put quite a lot of effort into trying to become a rock and roll style. So, like, as soon as I had the Arctic Monkeys album we were about 19 and Libertines, I got my mum to buy me for Christmas like a cheapest acoustic guitar that they were in Argos and just like devoted quite a large part of my life to. I've been blessed with a weird good singing voice, so that helped, like with the guitar sort of stuff as well. Have you upgraded your guitar since? Oh, many times.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Many, many times yeah.

Speaker 3: 5:22

I've had a few, and there's some that I regret. Getting rid of. The clear and out is always good, man, we get attached to some things and it's good to put yourself through the emotions of letting go of these objects that we get attached to. I had a big 100 watt Marshall amp from Back in Me Banders and it had just been used as a shelf for like two years and it came to the point where it was like I've got to let go yeah.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Give it another life to someone else.

Speaker 3: 5:49

Yeah, I was done and I'm watching the guy the guy you bought is in a band called Seeker from the Playing Leads. They're just a group of young lads but they're putting that effort in and they're playing in gigs and venues so it's like it's nice to know that it's going somewhere Do?

Speaker 1: 6:03

you know, I've got rucksacks like that. I counted when I moved house and I had like 13 rucksacks. You know from mountain stuff and you think, well, I might just use it. I really liked that, but now I've got a new one, and you've just sometimes got to get rid of it. It's hard, but yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:16

Come attached.

Speaker 1: 6:17

I've had adventures with these. I suppose it's like you play music on these instruments and through your amp and then you think it brings back good memories and you have to get rid. I think if you can help someone else with it.

Speaker 3: 6:27

That's it, mate. I think it's called a Parigraha, when you're like clearing out non-attachment and things and just letting go of stuff.

Speaker 1: 6:35

It's an issue of Western life. I suppose Too much, too much shit.

Speaker 3: 6:39

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Clothes.

Speaker 3: 6:41

I've got clothes people have on.

Speaker 2: 6:43

I try and keep stuff minimal, but then and you become an automatic hoarder, or other people would call themselves a collector, but it is hoarding, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I kept my move.

Speaker 1: 6:54

I said if you had like three sets of trousers, three jackets and three t-shirts, you've got all these different combinations that you can work with anyway without getting too far off as topic, getting too philosophical. So this originated because I came along to a cacao ceremony which you were running, yeah, and in my recently recently labelled a hippie dippy. That's what I am apparently now. But this was something that I bit skeptical because I'd never tried it. I've heard of it, I've heard of it, never tried it. Right, what were we doing? Oh, we're going to go sit in a tent. What time year was it? September?

Speaker 3: 7:31

Was it? Yeah, not long after, Because my son had just my son had been born not long before Bloody freezing. Oh yeah, what a cold.

Speaker 1: 7:37

Yeah, so we went and sat in this, in this really nice surrounded by trees bit of woodland, in this big sort of tent, really nicely done out.

Speaker 3: 7:46

Like a big, massive teepee with a bar at the back end of it. Yeah, but I want to open. Was it for us?

Speaker 1: 7:51

And it's like right, what is going on here? Yeah, we did the ceremony and yeah, I was talking about it earlier on with someone you know, saying what we're doing, and I said I actually ended up stood up singing with the group at the end, which is not me, you know what I mean. It wouldn't have been my sort of thing, as a advancing aged male from the UK probably wouldn't be singing in a group holding hands with people, would you? No, it's not what we do. So can you tell us a little bit about the ceremony? It's the ceremony, but also the power of the cacao and what it actually does, and we can break it down into bits.

Speaker 3: 8:23

We try to start with it.

Speaker 1: 8:24

Yeah, I've sort of dumped it on you that. No, it's a pretty loaded question isn't it.

Speaker 2: 8:28

Yeah, I knew it would come.

Speaker 3: 8:32

I think so maybe open up a bit about the cacao first, really, with it being like the cacao ceremony so the cacao is probably the simplest way to describe it. It's where, like the main ingredient in chocolate is where chocolate comes from. As people have said to me, chocolate is the bastardized version of cacao, very much as cigarettes are the bastardized version of tobacco. Back years and years ago and still, in some cultures, tobacco is the most sacred of all the plant medicines. It's the original teacher. But we get our hands on it and turn it into this habit, this dirty thing. We look at chocolate now like dairy milk and it's like a guilty pleasure in it. It's something you give your kids to keep them quiet, it's something that you have that puts them at your far and all these things around it, but the cacao is. Can I just check with you, is it?

Speaker 2: 9:21

actually a fruit.

Speaker 3: 9:23

Yeah, it's a fruit, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 9:24

Yeah, watch this snack everyone. I don't know if you ever watched it down to earth on Netflix. It's actually really good, although I don't like when it's an actor.

Speaker 3: 9:33

Anyway, yeah, it's really good, isn't it? It's a really good series, man. I've watched it now.

Speaker 1: 9:37

It's said coming in with some from Netflix. Yeah, really good.

Speaker 2: 9:41

I've seen him go join a group somewhere and anyway the guy pulls out this fruit. Zach looks at it and he's like, oh, it's cacao. And they were actually eating the pulp and saying it was really sweet and stuff. And then they're getting to. So it's definitely a fruit.

Speaker 3: 9:54

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing, I've got a dried pod at home, a cacao pod, and there's another documentary on Netflix called Rotten.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yes, I've seen them when it shows.

Speaker 3: 10:07

So another thing about the chocolate industry is if you watch this documentary on Netflix about the cacao, it shows like our poorly tre Tret, like everybody in the industry, is like from the farmers, from like they're all there wearing like old Manchester United T-shirts and you know anime dance that have been sent across. So they get paid nothing, yeah, and people get killed and like the guy, so all the guys who were farming it and collecting it and drying it out, they get paid nothing. And then the guy who has the truck, he has a bit more money because he comes and collects it all. Obviously the guy who has a bit more money is a target. So then people are waiting and they come along and shoot him, take his truck, and the same truck comes and a different guy comes and he's selling that documentary on it.

Speaker 3: 10:46

So this cacao, maybe slightly veering off, but this cacao that we're getting is All the energy behind it is really good, like it comes from Venezuela. It's part of I can't remember the name of it, but it's part of like a project to make sure that everybody gets paid fairly, that everybody gets Tret right, that it's all Fair trade or something like that.

Speaker 3: 11:03

It's their own version of it that's in like Venezuela.

Speaker 1: 11:06

So can I just ask that, just while we're on the subject if the cacao comes and it's not through this sort of ethical way and it's come through a criminality way, is that cacao then not any good as in?

Speaker 3: 11:20

is it seen as dirty or you know, like we said, that the cacao are blessed and it's the energy behind it, like if you believe in energy, like everything is energy and if you have would have, like bad energy.

Speaker 3: 11:32

But kinder, yeah, yeah, yeah, I I believe, so like so all your cabris, all your all that sort of stuff. It's all got that negative energy and it's all got that greedy energy behind it as well. Like, like lots of things. Admit, think about, if you're, I used to sniff like quite a lot of cocaine back in there and then now that I think about it, like every time you're sniffing a bag of cocaine, people have died for it. Regardless it's, people have died for you to be able to bang that shit up your nose and it's probably the same we like the chocolate that you're eating. Yeah, yeah, awful to think, but it is, and it does have Energetical attach one station.

Speaker 3: 12:07

Yeah, look what's that documentary man.

Speaker 1: 12:09

It's like what was that called?

Speaker 3: 12:11

I think it's rotten Rotten they do when I have a card as well, yeah, I've seen them, I've not watched that because I've just not got around to it yet. But, um, if you like avocados, don't watch it. Yeah, I'll have to watch it some point more.

Speaker 1: 12:25

Yeah, so going back to the yeah, going back to the kakal sweet.

Speaker 3: 12:29

So yeah, so this comes, it's organic, it's sustainable. So the guy who taught me the kakal ceremonies and he runs his own kakal ceremonies and loads of other events in Manchester, um leon brown, he gets it, it comes and lands in Manchester and they have, like you said, like they talk about the energy, even though that we they try and make sure that all the energy behind it is good, you can't help it if somebody's having like a really bad day when they're packing it up or something like that. You know, like if you, if you're walking down the street and you're really, really happy and somebody's in a foul mood and they bump past you, you pick up that energy Right. Like. The more I get into all this sort of like mindfulness, spirituality, the more I realize that even just being around somebody and noticing that somebody's in a bad mood, you pick up that energy. So it's trying, it's all transferable.

Speaker 3: 13:10

So when the kakal comes and lands in Manchester, they have this big opening ceremony. We like sage palo santa and singing balls and drums and cleansing it all, before they then send it out right, which is it's just quite beautiful, isn't it? And it's just put a people putting extra effort in which some people might see as completely ridiculous and pointless, but I think it's a really great way to just try and make sure that people are getting the best energy wise, but in terms of the benefits of the kakal like, for me personally, kakal is the thing that helped me to transition from alcoholism, drug addiction, into sobriety, into my best attempts at sobriety, and it opened up a World. Like physically what it does. It provides got more like anti-oxidants than blueberries, which is one of the highest in blueberries, one like the highest in anti-oxidants. There are people definitely who are far more qualified at talking about kakal. I'm not the best person to like describe things. I can just talk about my personal experiences with it really, which is um.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Yeah, I think that's what this pop, what the podcast about the unit, rather than talking about the science, well, we do talk about science of stuff known. Again. Yeah, but yeah. But to get it straight from yourself and your story, yeah, I think that's more.

Speaker 3: 14:18

Um, I could sit and I could try and name the different compounds, water in it, but I'm just trying to. Oh no, you lose us. You know you lose me. Yeah, I'll lose myself. Um, so, yeah, I I now drink kakal daily, which I do.

Speaker 3: 14:31

I am going to say, like I am trying to slowly limit that for for my own personal reasons, but it's like, since I've come across the kakal, like I think that's been one of the biggest Facilitators in like changing my life and my and for my wife and for meeting people around me, integrating into sober communities, like the first kakal ceremony that I ever went to. I'd never had kakal before and, uh, I just I'd, like you were, you came to my ceremony, didn't you? But I went to a similar ceremony, like we're only a few years before man, and I went into that nervous wreck. I just wanted to like better myself. Well, I thought. I actually thought when I signed up for it I didn't know anything about kakal, never fucking heard of kakal, and I was just trying to look. I'd sort of got into psychedelics and stuff like that and I were looking for like medicinal ceremonies. Like some of my friends had ordered some co-colleaves of youtube, or not youtube like ebay or something like that, like the fundamental ingredient in cocaine. So when I first booked on a kakal ceremony, I thought it were a co-colleave ceremony, thinking basically I'm gonna get off my tits on cocaine and, uh, like I don't know, come out of it feeling better.

Speaker 3: 15:35

And then when I found out it were, uh, chocolate, I were a bit I was pretty upset, to be honest, and I was like just spent a fucking 40 quid on it On a chocolate ceremony. And then what I thought now I'm gonna go with it, I'm gonna go and see how sort of what happens went in like room full of 30 people Liam, we would get the cacao off of there. I'd know, I'd know that was my first ceremony. So I was sort of thinking like this is a bit pretty woo-woo.

Speaker 3: 15:57

I remember the first time anybody had ever like smudged me, you know, like cleans me with paulo santo, and from that like moment it were like I don't know, there was just an energy in the room that were I felt safe, I didn't feel judged, people just wanted the best for each other and all sort of facilitated by the cacao, like it's in this weird way and I had such release in that man line from all these years of pent-up aggression, anger and all that, I just like halfway through, like the meditation or whatever it was, I just burst out screaming, like in a room full of 30 people, then that would definitely like the energy behind the cacao, definitely behind that, allowing me to release stuff that I've been holding on to for years.

Speaker 1: 16:33

Yeah, I'm just gonna say then, because when you were talking about that, I think obviously I went in. I went in with Kirsty, who takes me to these things, and I'm opening my horizons and turning me full hippy-dippy, apparently when we did the cleansing and I'm walking in not knowing anything, what's gonna go on? Yeah, and then I think it's sort of accepting accepting that you've been there and just letting go in it.

Speaker 1: 16:55

Yeah, just even the, the mindset of that, it's like a big sort of relaxation on your mind. Anyway, we're, you know, I'm going in there thinking what's going to happen. Actually, I'm gonna go drink some chocolate and listen to some music and see what happens and being relaxed with that. Yeah, and that's part of that's part of letting go. Anyway, I think I've just been reading a book about letting go, accepting circumstances, not that I was gonna, not that I was in a Feelful situation, but there's some interpretation like what's gonna go on here now? Am I gonna look a bit of a dick and you?

Speaker 1: 17:26

think yeah and we walk through, we get, we get cleansed, and then you sit down on your mat and you, and then I just thought Do you know what? I'm just gonna go with this.

Speaker 3: 17:33

Yeah as well. The one yeah, yeah, exactly, and that's that's something that we can take into every Situation, like in his lives. One of me, one of my friends he's sober and for his Birthday party, like his brother, had set on a big party. Like he's sober, his brother's not, so loads of loads of mates were getting on it.

Speaker 3: 17:53

And he said, like I just went and I just embraced it, like I just enjoyed watching people around me, like being happy, and it's that sort of stuck with me as well. The same thing, it's just letting go the resistance that we've got to sort of situations. Yeah, well, some of us have a lot more, a lot more resistance than others.

Speaker 1: 18:09

I certainly. Well, it's ingrained, and I think it's ingrained in. We did speak early, didn't we, about how sort of culture with the with alcohol I know alcohol was my crutch, don't you said yes, yes.

Speaker 3: 18:20

Charlie.

Speaker 1: 18:20

Yeah, alcohol was definitely my crutch, I mean, but even it was sort of instilled, like you say, from teenagers. Yeah, you know, I mean, just, and that were back that way in my 80s you were a little bit later yeah, but it's just so common replacing, right. I think young people these days are turning away from it. But then, obviously, when you know the first thing I reached for for escape as in was a beer, yeah, you know I mean, and then that leads wherever you know, I mean I thought escape is so to it for to be then trying all these different methods, but the ceremony, yeah, I just thought you're right, go in, get cleansed, and I like go.

Speaker 3: 18:55

I suppose when you hear ceremony, people think like what, what is the ceremony I've had? Like I'm gonna say like old friends and stuff like that. You say like oh, why do you call it ceremony? Why do you keep going on about ceremony? No, it's like why we don't understand. Like when have we ever heard those sort of words, like in ours, in our culture, where we've grown up? Like what sort of ceremonies are they?

Speaker 2: 19:15

like wedding ceremony, like that's about funeral ceremony, funeral, yeah yeah, for someone who has never been to a account ceremony. Yeah, could you walk me through what happens as soon as I come through the door?

Speaker 3: 19:27

Okay, so as soon as you come through the door and so like the full shebang one that Charlie went to because obviously there's time limitations and stuff like different places the one that Charlie came to, five home, we had everybody queuing up because there were about 20, 25 people there, maybe everybody queuing up two lines, and we we smudged and we cleansed every person coming in, so that would either be using sage, burning sage, or burning burning palo santa, and we sort of go over the body, maybe saying a few words and just sort of clearing the energy before you come in and then you'll go down, sit down. There's quite a lot of music throughout. The cacao ceremony is like Atmospheric sort of music and the start of it. So everybody gets sat down and then I save the cacao, we pass it around to everybody, everybody sits down with a cacao and I try as much as possible like sometimes it's really difficult I try as much as possible to politely tell everybody to like shut the fuck up, it's Fair, fair.

Speaker 3: 20:20

Yeah it's how much time do we get to talk and how much time do we talk Complete and absolute, pointless bollocks. That's not what like the ceremony space is about Not what mine is, but other people will have different ceremonies where talking's a key point, but this is like five hours the outside world does not exist anymore. Turn your phones off, shut up, sit down and like, try and find this state of presence. That's what the majority of it, for me, is about like finding this state of presence, this stillness where your voice in your head is. You're at one with the voice in your head and it's quiet.

Speaker 3: 20:48

So we'll sit down, we'll serve the cacao, and part of it is connecting with the spirit. There's a spirit behind the cacao. There's a spirit behind everything. If you look into the shamanic sort of stuff, everything's got spirit, everything's alive, everything's energetic, conscious. But the cacao, when you can connect with it, it's got this really beautiful energy and it works like the heart chakra, the ana hat. So encourage people to hold it to the heart and sit and try and connect with this energy, and some people just that beefing straight away then like it's crazy.

Speaker 1: 21:16

That's crying for those people that are out of the auction. Sorry, yeah, some people's, that's fine.

Speaker 3: 21:21

Floods of tears already as soon as they come in, because it's just a safe space has already been created for them to release whatever they need to release and there's no judgment of shame or all like that. Then, once everybody's got to serve the cacao, then we go through what we would call a consecration, which is giving thanks for multiple different things offering the energy out, all the energy, all the positive energy that we create in the cacao ceremony, like sending it out into the world, doing it for the good of all people's mental health, all creatures, great and small, throughout the planet. And another thing which used to sort of make me cringe, but it's however you choose to look at it is offering it up to a greater power like God, however you perceive God to be. And then we go into sort of like calling in certain energies, and then I like to bring songs and mantras into it. So I like to start off I can't remember exactly like things change and develop and evolve, like as we all do.

Speaker 3: 22:11

So I like to start off with a mantra now, like a Ganesh mantra, which is so we go around, like the Marla beads, like Alcantron Mimala beads, which is like 108. And the mantra that we chant. So the Ganesh mantra is classes like the removal of obstacles, so it like clears everything up. So we sort of got like a fresh start. We'll chant, we'll all chant this together, so we'll all go around going Omgam ganapatiye namaha, omgam ganapatiye namaha, omgam ganapatiye namaha, 108 times, all the way around.

Speaker 3: 22:38

All the way around. Once we finish it things, I like people to sit in silence. So we'll do the 108, a little bit of silence, and just just to like be comfortable with the silence, to integrate the silence, to see what's going on in the body, like, maybe doing that mantra has really fucking helped somebody, like, and it does. The power of mantra is somewhat phenomenal. But I can't yeah, I can't do justice talking about right now maybe. So we'll do that and we'll do the mantra and then we'll sing. So we'll also then sing the mantra, which is the Kirtan side of it, which all comes from, like Hindu traditions, sanatan Dharma. So the Kirtan is call and response. So I will get on me.

Speaker 3: 23:17

I've got a harmonium which is like a little have you ever seen accordions? The squeeze box and harmonium is like a sit down squeeze box with the keys there and the but you pump it at the back Makes this beautiful noise and you flip a switch and it sounds like a church organ sort of thing and I will sing, like I'll sing a line and then I get everybody to sing back, which doing that in a sort of sober environment, like you'll have found this like really weird, really awkward. This is what that, for me, is one of the things, because I've always loved singing, but I've always been off my head or drunk as drunk as can be to sing or to feel comfortable singing. It just opens you up, man, like with the kakao, with the whole energy of the room. And when everybody gets singing together and I'm the lucky one at this point, because if we have a good crowd and I sing a line and then everybody sings back at me when everybody sings back at me like it's like just wow, like if there is a moment where I have found God, then that's where it's been.

Speaker 3: 24:11

25, 30, however many people like, giving it their all, releasing all their own self judgments, doubts and securities. You can see it slipping away and you can just, even if they don't have a clue what they're singing about, it's just magical. Then we'll go through that and then we'll stop, and then we'll fight with sitting, that silence again. Like sometimes you get everybody like, yeah, it's like, stop, stop, stop, stop, sit. Take note, think about how you feel. Like, like, actually like just completely. See how you're feeling, see what your brain's thinking, see what your body's feeling.

Speaker 3: 24:38

And all these things. The way that I try and do the kakao ceremonies is that all these things are like doable in your own home. They do. If you find something you think, fuck, that made me feel good, then it's something that you can take into your own. You can sit and do on a morning. You can sit and do your mantra on a morning, you can sing, you can light an incense, you can sit in silence, you can drink a kakao.

Speaker 3: 24:56

Sometimes we have an option to do a bit of talking and to say whatever your intention is, but we don't always. You know, if there's 25 people we're going to lose an hour, and sometimes, when it's five people, you lose an hour. So, like, try and get it down to minimal talking, though A bit more singing. I just I generally go like with the. I don't plan them anymore, I just go with whatever I'm feeling at the time. But then we will do some meditations. The meditations vary each time. Like you said, I was drumming last time. Sometimes I use like crystal singing balls, like the sound healing balls, if you've ever like done any of that sort of stuff, but that just brings an all-enough level to it.

Speaker 3: 25:33

Sometimes, if it's smaller groups will do like a bit of like rakey, a bit of energy healing, and then at the end generally I finish with I'd get everybody up in a circle, everybody holding hands, and this does sound like super hippy-diffy and sharp. People have looked at some of the videos of this and I'm like what are these guys doing? But it feels great. Man, like I would a few years ago. I would have looked at all this and thought what this is. This is mental. I'm never going to be a part of any of this.

Speaker 3: 25:56

This is crazy, but it feels great and it's this essence of like community and everybody in the room throughout the ceremony wants the best for everybody else in that room, like as somebody that grew up in pubs and around quite a lot of dickheads and stuff like that. Then people would. People were happy to watch somebody drop a pint or trip over, or if you drop to 10, or somebody would be straight there to pick it up, or they'd be happy to like give you an extra key, a cut to see you falling over or you know all that sort of stuff For that five hours everybody in that room is like mega connected. Everybody like really gives a shit about everybody else in that room and it's just a really special space to be in.

Speaker 1: 26:34

I'll just recall, as you all going through, that I'm sort of recalling that ceremony and you know what it's like taking a coat off, I think, yeah, you know what I mean, like slipping a coat off and then just being this is good. You know what I mean. Like taking a layer off basically yeah, I would very surprised myself, from whatever experience before, to come to that and just think, yeah, like you say at the end. And what did we say? We're singing.

Speaker 3: 26:58

It was that a line out of a Jackie Wilson song. Yeah, your love is lifted so high. Just that over and over again and it just like with the cacao, like working with the heart and just bringing into this sort of space of acceptance. Yeah, just it's a really great way to sort of connect people.

Speaker 2: 27:15

This drink the cacao. I guess you make it into a drink. Is it a warm drink? Is it a cold drink? Do you flavour it with anything else? Do you mix it with milk? Do you Do not? Do you mix it with oat milk?

Speaker 3: 27:29

Yeah, so I think more traditionally it would just be like the cacao water. I've heard loads of different things because, well, there's traditions everywhere, there's lots of lineages. So the way that I do it is cacao. Melt the cacao down in a pan, like however much, get it weighed out, really. So everybody, if we're doing a ceremony, everybody will have 50 grams of cacao. That's a ceremonial dose. Melt it all down in a big pan. I forgot the milk for that cacao ceremony as well. Good, I had a right pan.

Speaker 1: 28:00

No the oat milk. No the oat milk.

Speaker 3: 28:02

And my drummer, the guy who came and did a bit of drumming. He was at my house meeting my son and he came over and brought the oat milk.

Speaker 1: 28:08

I'm just thinking, then. I mean, this might be a personal view, but if it were, you won't be able to have dairy milk, would you? Because of negative energy.

Speaker 3: 28:17

It's personal, isn't it? Yeah, for me. I don't drink dairy. I'm vegan as well, so I just stick with oat milk.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Don't want to get too into it. It's just a curd to me then you know what I mean.

Speaker 3: 28:31

Yeah, I suppose theoretically you can try and cleanse it, but then you're still not going to take out, like all the antibiotics that have been fed to the cows, and that's one of my things with it.

Speaker 1: 28:40

It's like all the shit that they pump on me.

Speaker 3: 28:41

But to delve back to the, so yeah, melt the cacao down, oat milk, emalayan salt and generally use agave to sweeten it, just to make it more palatable, like you just tasted it, just as before we started, didn't you? And it's a lot more palatable. That first cacao ceremony that I went to they were like 30 people. He made the cacao open, you got your cacao and he sent a tray of condiments round and it had chili powder. He sent over on it and he said at the start of it if you have chili powder in it, it sort of gives it a kick up ass.

Speaker 3: 29:10

Cacao like physically works with the heart and it gets more blood pumping blood and oxygen pumping round your body. And chili powder, like okon powder, I think it opens up like the capillaries or something like that. So together, like boom, gets it really going. And, woman, I would like I would have shivered and shaking record. I didn't know what I was doing with me. The woman next to me just got a massive teaspoon of chili powder in mine and just went boom, there you go.

Speaker 3: 29:35

It tasted fucking disgusting, but it did the job you don't go to an ayahuasca ceremony and ask for a spoonful of sugar in it, do you? It's one of them. I would like to do it in some more traditional way. It's just the cacao in the water, because I really like it like that, but for it to be palatable and it's a bit of a marketing trick as well for people to then buy more cacao. So it felt like the taste of it rather than yeah, because we do do events and stuff where we just go to like stall days and stuff like that and we just sell it in cups and you see people walking back round and they'll come back round and be like I feel really present today. I've never had this before as it can tell me a bit more about it and it's sort of getting that medicine side of it out there and it's a safe, gentle medicine to get out there as well.

Speaker 2: 30:19

So you said earlier 50 grams of cacao is a ceremonial dose. Yeah, what is a daily?

Speaker 3: 30:26

dose. A daily dose is 15 to 20 grams. Now, like this is the, it is all on the back, but it's all on the back of the packets. One For a daily dose we recommend 15 to 20. For a ceremonial dose, we recommend 40 grams to 50. It tells you how to make it and everything. It's got like the sort of Not the ingredients, because the ingredients is just cacao, but the how to make it, sort of like we talked about as well.

Speaker 1: 30:51

Can people buy that off your website?

Speaker 3: 30:53

Yeah, we have a.

Speaker 1: 30:55

I like that.

Speaker 3: 30:56

No no.

Speaker 1: 30:57

Yeah, well, we'll tell. We'll mention all that at the end of the podcast, I think. So, yeah, I noticed on that ceremony I did. I seem to be a lot more in touch with the meditation but, like I said, whether it was the drumming meditation or whether it was just the whole thing of Do you know what I never realised until now that we're five hours. I remember, walking in, I think you'd said how long it was going to be and I thought, oh God, how am I going to do this? And then next thing it will like that's over.

Speaker 3: 31:23

Yeah, that's the thing, like I've had to condense them Right, like I have done them. I were at Saltaire a few weeks ago like the stall day thing. Anyway, it was awesome like we walked upstairs to do a cacao ceremony and I had 45 minutes.

Speaker 3: 31:37

So like condensing it from five hours into 45 minutes, you'd think, oh, this ain't going to work. And like 50 people came into the room, I run out. I had two big flasks of cacao, run out of cacao and I'd say to everybody, like I ain't got time for you to pay me, you're going to have to come and find me afterwards to pay and I'm sure some of them didn't, but that's their sort of stuff to deal with, innit. Yeah, we condensed it into a 45 minute cacao ceremony and it would absolutely mint Right Like it were amazing. So you can do this like you could sit at home and you could have your own on and on in 10, 20 minutes sort of thing. Just sitting down with the cacao just didn't quite as we were A bit of chakra music on YouTube or something like that. We didn't light an incense and day off we somewhat like that.

Speaker 3: 32:17

You're on to more of a winner rather than getting up, having to thank smashing free coffees being a fucking anxious wreck If you can get up on a morning.

Speaker 1: 32:25

How did you know, apart from the cigarette?

Speaker 3: 32:29

It's a game changer, bringing that into your life.

Speaker 2: 32:31

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:32

Yeah, there were a woman who'd done. She's amazing, she's perfect to jammer in Juesbury and she does a jammer cupping and I once did a bit of a trade for, like me, and Kelly went for a jammer or something like that. Do you know about the Hidge Armour? No, Alright. So the glass cups, oh sorry, yeah. Yeah, yeah, they suck it and then they like take them off, cut your back a little bit. Oh, really.

Speaker 1: 32:53

Yeah, yeah, just tiny, teeny tiny.

Speaker 3: 32:55

I've had it done like all over, and then you put the cups back on and then put some more suction back on and it pulls all the impurities out of the blood and you get like a layer of jelly. I'd like to try that Definitely. Mate, if you have any back pain or anything like that, you've come to the right place here, mate, definitely the right room for back pain.

Speaker 1: 33:13

We've got a collection of back injuries between us. Oh, put your hands on it.

Speaker 3: 33:16

She's phenomenal and she's amazing to talk to as well. Right, put that one in the list. Yeah, I did like a bit of a trade for a bag of cacao for her and she said like she said it worked without even meaning to. She said like after like three or four days of drinking it, she'd created like this, 10 minutes of rather than having the. I don't think she'd drunk coffee, but let's just say, rather than having the coffee and rushing with the day, she was sitting down and she was having like a mindful 10 minutes to start a day rather than just rushing about. And I think, although it does give you energy and you can abuse it, you can abuse anything. I've definitely abused it and over. Done it with a cow for sure.

Speaker 1: 33:54

Treat with respect and yeah, I suppose that's all part of it, though I know we've made it at home and there's that one, there's the making of it, and then oat milk, maybe a bit of like, say, a gavel or something like that. So that's a process that you should be mindfully doing, that's a meditation yourself.

Speaker 1: 34:11

And then the actual drinking of it, because it's not like drinking a cup of hot chocolate, is it? No, you know, because you thought I mean for myself. It's like that mindset of this is going to benefit me, so I'm going to enjoy it and I'm not going to just knock it down in one and go do something else. But that process of taking the time and treating it like a mini ceremony is giving you that space anyway. And then you've got the medicinal side of it. There's a win-win in it really.

Speaker 3: 34:37

Yeah, in every way. I sort of think, like you say, the making of it, like Not that I make it.

Speaker 3: 34:42

Well, it's just cursed Well yeah, it's still like what is. If we look at meditation, like what is meditation? It's choosing a focus point. People do all sorts of different crazy meditations, but the fundamental side of meditation is like you focus on your breath or placing the body like the heart and thoughts come in when you come back to the breath or something like that. Like if you are making the cacao and then your mind starts going off like I fucking need to ring so and so I need to do that.

Speaker 3: 35:09

It's like right no back to the cacao back to the stillness, like what energy do I want to put into this? I know what I'm saying. It's like my mind does it all the time. Sometimes I'll make it and I'll be fucking rushing her out, like you know. So it's quietening.

Speaker 1: 35:20

That's subconscious bit that keeps jumping in and coming up with these stupid ideas or saying you need to do this or you haven't done that.

Speaker 3: 35:26

Mind's like do you know what?

Speaker 1: 35:28

If I sometimes think, right, I should write all this down and just go through a process of what's just popped into my head all day, and it's you know. Things in future, things in past, things that I should have done things that I hadn't done things that I need to catch up with and you're like this is all bullshit. Let me just concentrate on that. Have you ever?

Speaker 3: 35:44

heard of the 5am club. It rings a bell.

Speaker 1: 35:47

Yeah, Well we used to work until 9am.

Speaker 3: 35:50

That makes a different sort of 5am. I think you do it for like 60 days, get up at 5am and there's like three steps to the first hour. So the first like 20 minutes is like intense exercise Right, get your sense sweating, get your sense moving, get your sense sweating. The second lot of 20 minutes is just what you said Anything that comes up, write it down, no matter what it is. Just writing for 20 minutes, just getting it all out of your head, all that shit that's going to be in your head all day. Just get it down on fucking paper. The last 20 minutes is like reading something that's going to benefit you. So not like I don't know, not like Facebook. Yeah, not Facebook.

Speaker 3: 36:25

But some sort of book that you're going to learn something from. That's going to activate the good stuff in your brain and if you do that for like 60 days, it's like a big successful business man sort of. Thing sort of approach. See if you can get up at 5am. I struggle to get up on a morning.

Speaker 1: 36:41

That's going to be tough.

Speaker 3: 36:42

Yeah, that's part of it, and if I do get up early in the morning, then it's default. You're looking after them, mate. Yeah, sometimes it's Jimmy. Sometimes I'll get halfway through some and then Jimmy comes down.

Speaker 1: 36:54

Are you aware of any negative effects of cacao? Yeah, if you abuse it, yeah Right.

Speaker 3: 37:00

Yeah, like there's a bit of a limit to how much you're supposed to have in a day, which I think it's like 90 to 100 grams. Some people I've known some people come to cacao ceremony, have the 50 grams of cacao. Like we're all different, we're all individual and as with other medicines, like you know, like mushrooms or something like that, a dose is going to whip people completely different. So some people come to a cacao ceremony, not at the cacao ceremony but like the day after they felt like and that's happened to me felt like they've been out drinking yeah, okay, like felt like they've had a bit of an hangover. Like what are you dehydrated? The cacao does sort of dehydrate you, one of my friends.

Speaker 3: 37:36

I can feel what it means, but I can't explain what it means. Cacao can be quite heavy on your adrenal glands. I don't understand what that means, but I sort of feel what it means, which is why I don't want to. I'm sort of like trying to back away from drinking it every day, but I still do drink it every day. I just got this thing in me that says maybe I shouldn't be drinking it as much there's the more. I'm sort of progressing.

Speaker 1: 37:58

Does it lose? It's effective. You drink it every day. Does it lessen? Do you drink? Do the tolerance Tolerant In different?

Speaker 3: 38:05

ways.

Speaker 2: 38:06

I suppose you yeah.

Speaker 3: 38:07

I had a week off it because at the moment I drink it for like I'm sort of doing it every day for Probably mostly for like health reasons. I definitely Diet's not as good as what you could be. Busy, two kids, nice to have that cacao on a morning. That's going to like sustain me. The coffee will take you up. It'll bring you like crashing back down. That's why you need like three or four cups the cacao. You only need one cup and then you're there for like maybe three o'clock. If you wanted to have another one, you can have another one. Definitely lost my train of thought. There Need a cacao.

Speaker 1: 38:37

No, we're just asking everything about Can you build up a tolerance, the tolerance? Yeah, I think you probably can. So yeah, that's what I was saying.

Speaker 3: 38:45

I had like a week off it and then I wanted to use it spiritually and like really connect and just find this sense of presence, rather than just drinking it every day as a drink, and it were a lot more special. So I like to have it for that one occasion, as opposed to Having it every day. Having that week off and then taking it out. Just the cacao, me, the woods, sitting down in front of a nice lake and just being on my own with it. Yeah, really nice, just being out in nature with it.

Speaker 2: 39:17

What made you change from being someone who participates in cacao ceremony To someone who practices them.

Speaker 3: 39:25

Oh, from the first cacao ceremony that I went to. I Were doing a bit of journaling at that point, like you know, writing, just writing stuff down. And I took my journal to the first cacao ceremony because, yeah, yeah, just writing down sort of stuff that were coming up, and I wrote down in there like along the lines of I could do this. I don't want to be that guy doing this, but I could be like that guy. And the music side was definitely the side of it, like they're getting everybody singing, and they were just do just something straight away. That were like could do this, maybe, I don't know, calling, yeah, it was just there. And then so the first cacao ceremony I went to on my own, I had a massive release. The second one I took Kaley took. So like you've got to, you've got to experience this, you've got to took Kaley to it. And then I proposed to her after that, which like, so we just like had this massive we already had obviously massive connection but things got yeah anyway.

Speaker 3: 40:22

And then the third one that I went to, they were all with the same guy. The third one I went, so sort of. At the end of it he said them I'm putting together a course for anybody that wants to Learn how to do the cacao ceremonies, and I'm sure it. He looked at me and I just looked at him and it were like in that look, it were like I'm fucking down for this mate.

Speaker 1: 40:39

Yeah, I'm so high me up, yeah, and then and then in a new, a new dinner you could feel it off. Yeah, energy. And he thought I'm gonna get a couple good office.

Speaker 3: 40:48

Oh yeah that were another thing and it's something. I've never been particularly great with money. It's something that I'm trying to work on and when the course came up and it were like a certain amount of money and I can't remember what we're doing, man, I mean dog-working business and I were earning like fuck off from it and maybe we're still. We were on a bit of benefits as well. You know, like I don't know I'm gonna afford to do this, but I'm fucking doing it. And then the money was just like yeah, not a problem, not a problem. Rate is there. Yeah, I found out he were a bit more money now that I had a bit of a flip out like I'm supposed to afford this, and it were like, actually, that money's there, yeah, sorted, and that would the most transformational weekend I've ever had in my life.

Speaker 3: 41:25

I'd stopped drinking before that point and I've moved away from like all my friends and like got me and Kayla got his family, oh, and I'd stopped like sniffing and all that. I was still smoking weed. Found it really hard. I couldn't even go a day without not smoking weed. And then morning that I set off, I had like free pipes and drove up and then I stopped smoking weed from like three or four months, hmm, like with without any. But not just man, not just not just because you like Liam, who did the cookout ceremony, not how fucking petrified to come home because I'd had like three weeks not three days in Lake District like Doing yoga, meditating, a bit of cold water, going down a lake wind and me eating like all my food were prepared for me, vegan food prepared for me, everything man, it were like it was pretty bliss or we were doing, we were doing work, we were doing graft in a different sort of way.

Speaker 3: 42:17

I was booking, petrified to come home to like real life. I thought I'm just gonna get a joint straight away and what the fuck am I gonna do? All right, everybody were having a swim and I will with this over a women shell, who's my friend, who I met on the kakao cause, and she said I'm an EFT practitioner. I'm like no idea what you're on about. So like it's called tapping.

Speaker 3: 42:35

I can't remember the full Um, I can't remember what EFT actually stands for. But she said we'll do it now. We'll go through this EFT tapping technique and I can't. I can't remember at all. But you go through it and you're tapping different points, points in your body and you're saying like affirmations, and she went through all that. Where did it end up? I can't remember the full process of it, man, but by the time it were done, I just felt like I feel alright now, like just been presented with this. You know, when everything just falls into place, man, like she. She were there at that perfect moment, guided by grace or whatever, or, and then she just had this perfect thing for me, like this, this EFT tapping technique, and I felt alright. After that I was like, yeah, so I'm ready to go home now.

Speaker 1: 43:16

So with the ceremonies that you do now, that's through your own business. Yeah which is simply spiritual healing, simply spiritual healing. Yeah, I'm looking at right now. So what else do you do with that? Cuz I it's like you know it's. I have this thing about wounded, wounded healers and it's like people that have been through stuff, yeah, and then try and then offer pathways through to other people. So she's creating it and that's what we do at podcasts, I suppose. Yeah, I'll try to do.

Speaker 3: 43:41

It's getting. Whatever's worked for you it's getting out to other people on it's. So the website is. It originally started off as a Kaley's business doing Reiki healings because she got a tune to Angelic. We're both a tuner Angelic Reiki master. I'm not a master of anything, it's just a title, what you pay for, right, but I do, we'd both do do Angelic Reiki. So that's how that's the simply spiritual healing started off. I tried starting off my own thing with the cacao business and Just like why don't we just pull it all together, do it all in one spot, because Kaley would do in the cacao ceremonies with me? Well, I mean, she got pregnant with Jimmy. She started like, oh, now when she had Jimmy, she was still doing the cacao ceremonies while she were like pregnant all the way up until she had Jimmy and then she had to Sort of step back. So from the website which we launched launched this year it's like a little Hub of everything that we try and do, or everything that we do do actually. So we've got a shop on there where we sell Like holistic stuff. We work quite, quite a lot. We like crystals, so we've got crystals and incense and stuff like that on there. We sell the cacao on there. We sell the full, full power cacao.

Speaker 3: 44:51

Kaley writes a blog that she puts on there. I may get around to writing a bit of a blog at some point. We've got a music section where we share like playlists. There's it's got a link to the YouTube channel where there's some of the Keotans and some maybe some meditations and stuff on there that we've done. I lose track with some of those stuff. And then we got the events page, which is where we put all the events, where we got like conscious connection there on the 26th of August, which is like we've hired out a big hole and then one half is gonna be stores, the other half is get on it.

Speaker 3: 45:24

Yoga, which is like dance, music and yoga combined. There's gonna be sound healing. There's gonna be Breathwork, like a mini cacao ceremony. That's on the website we got. I put all my cacao ceremonies on the website. Why do my up 26 of August? I'm a get there, it's gonna. We've got a. We've got a guy in from Manchester. Do the breathwork, craig see, and it was absolutely phenomenal. Oh, he's got another event, what I will tell you about afterwards a right which I'm booked on, which is all about them. They're masculine, like there's a couple of facilities who like next level man. It's in Manchester, a digress. Yeah, I'm doing a Mantra course starting in August. It's all like online on zoom, where I'm just helping people build up, like introducing people to mantra and Helping them build up a practice and stuff like that, so keeping busy then yeah, yeah, but it's all.

Speaker 1: 46:14

This is all around Sort of helping other people in it, so it's showing different ways to other people.

Speaker 3: 46:19

We say yeah, it's all different.

Speaker 2: 46:22

I hope you're helping other people and helping yourself as well. Hmm, well, I've got.

Speaker 3: 46:26

There's this funny thing around Spirituality about making money in there, but it's part of it, it's all money's energy and yeah, I didn't actually mean money, just help my own mind.

Speaker 1: 46:38

Well the money helps, the mind Absolutely keeps keeps some of the wolves at bear.

Speaker 3: 46:44

But yeah, he saw everything. It's all stuff that's helped us man and it's all these. It's not something that we've done once and gone oh yeah, let's do this teaches to other people like. It's stuff that we've fucking experience invested in. Like last year, I've been doing mantra for over the last couple of years, which isn't very long compared to, like, other people that have been doing it all their life, but I've invested in it, I've done courses in it, I've invested my time into it and I think, oh, that's really important because there's a lot of stuff nowadays where people just like the first time I went to the kakala ceremony, like, and I was like I could do this, but I didn't just go and do it straight away, I invested in it, I explored it, I developed it, I went and did the course and stuff like that. I think all that sort of stuff's really important to know what you're doing and know To build a relationship with whatever it is that you're working with building a relationship with a kakao, building a relationship with the mantra, like, and the other stuff that Kaley does.

Speaker 3: 47:40

She's built her relationships with them as well. Like she runs her women. She started doing a women's circle. She's doing some like journaling courses. It's all stuff. So we're from a sort of attack from different sides. You know what I?

Speaker 1: 47:53

mean, I think, with my still slightly sort of cynical mind, then if I'd have come to that ceremony and you hadn't been in touch with the ceremony and the kakao yourself and the music and the mantra, then I'd probably thought I'm seeing through this, whereas it was like I say, it was just like sucking this jacket off. I feel great. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 48:13

Kind of leads me to my next question oh guys we didn't even set that up. Go on, I was wondering do you sometimes have people who come to the ceremony and they feel like bad energy, or they either kick them out or ask them to leave, or they leave themselves because they don't feel like they're actually someone who should be there. Or does that actually happen? Or do people actually all feel positive about it?

Speaker 3: 48:43

One person- leave Overwhelmed or he would go in. We'd say I used to do a bit in the consecration like in the start of it. We're like giving thanks for three things. So it was like first, they give thanks for somebody in your life who's like you know that you really care about, who's always there for you in your life right now. Give thanks to them. Second, give thanks to something mundane, something that is in your life that you tit for granted, like electricity, roof over your head, running water, clothes, shoes on your feet, breathing, walking, something like that. The third one what? Give thanks to somebody who's really fucked you over? Whoever's done that to you in your life has been a part of your progression to where you are now. They've helped create this fucking amazing person of who you are.

Speaker 3: 49:20

And I got through that bit. One guy just stood up and he went, put his hands together like that and just left, didn't come back Interesting he just he brought up a lot of stuff for him and he just had to go. This is fair. Yeah, I've had somebody get to the end of a cacao ceremony and be like no, I feel like shit. I've just got loads of bad feelings now and yeah, I guess I can't be for everyone.

Speaker 1: 49:43

I'm just thinking, though. You know, when we had, we spoke to Emma recently about the hypnotherapy and she was saying, with the hypnotherapy, you know, even if, oh, they're more to do with their counselling, weren't they? And it was like, if you talk to a murderer that's murdered someone, they've had actually had a positive effect. Do you know what I mean? That that they're them doing something and being actually looking at it. It's like a bit of reverse psychology, but you look at it, well, something, that person intended to do something, and they've had a positive effect, which you've got to look at. Now, I suppose if people have come and realised something, like that guy walking out or someone having a bad experience, then I'd get going into the mental health thing. They might not have ever had that chance to process these bad thoughts that were circling around, or is that so much?

Speaker 3: 50:29

No, if you sort of come to that, to come to like the last bit, give thanks for somebody who's really fucked over. How many of us like myself included, like for 30, well, 32 years now. No, well, 30, for 32 years. I'm 35 now, so for 32 years I never had the concept of gratitude, of having thanks for everything that's ever happened to me. In all my life I held grudges, big time grudges that fucking weighed me down.

Speaker 1: 50:59

Yeah, that's something in it. That's only recently, we think, because I've always been like that and like people that have upset me. Well, I've been working outdoors and you're just like no, you never come in again. But then you see him again in the track again. You're like peace out, but was it stressing? It's stressing me.

Speaker 1: 51:15

Yeah. So and like Sarah had a book about a guy who I can't remember I've got it in the audible about and all they did were just letting go. I mean just that thing of letting go, just having a process and it just stand there and go do his little bit of breathing, let it go, and then that's it. That person's let them on with their own bit, and I'm a bit stress free, oh, not stress free, but I ain't got that much, like you say, not weighed down by it, it's letting go and like what's the opposite of letting go Fucking carrying like heavy weights.

Speaker 3: 51:44

man. That's what it's like, like dragging around fucking heavy weights. And if you can just start trying to get me wrong, I still got grudges and I still get pissed off and I'm you know, I've got a long, long way to go in terms of terms of life or whatever it is you know. But yeah, just learning, just having that perception, having that idea of you know, all these things have happened to me in my life and I should be fucking thankful for each and every, each and every moment, each and every second.

Speaker 1: 52:10

Yeah, I think I've just made mine different minor against water companies and land ownership and people. That's devastated nature and stuff.

Speaker 3: 52:19

Right.

Speaker 1: 52:20

Thanks for coming in, mate. I know we've been arranging it for a while.

Speaker 3: 52:23

Oh, it's, yeah, just short of a year innit.

Speaker 1: 52:26

Yeah, but it's been, you know, great conversation again and I knew it would. We, we will put all the, all your stuff on the on the podcast blurb on the website for anyone that wants wants it. The website speech simply spiritualhealingcouk, paul Mackinson, mackinson, mackinson. Yeah, oh, I've done it again.

Speaker 3: 52:47

Oh, fucking hell At least you made like the conscious effort to get it right.

Speaker 1: 52:52

Sorry mate, oh God, my name's. Mark by the way not Mark.

Speaker 2: 53:00

No, it's Mark. So I do have a last minute question. Do you ever eat a cow just on its own before, or do you always make a drink out of it?

Speaker 3: 53:06

Oh no, Do you mind?

Speaker 2: 53:07

No no.

Speaker 1: 53:09

That one for me. Oh well, put this, this is one of our video clips.

Speaker 3: 53:16

This is for calling me Mackinson.

Speaker 1: 53:18

Mackinson. Have we got it wrong, wrong, wrong way around? It's Mackinson.

Speaker 3: 53:24

Mackinson yeah, I got it wrong way around again.

Speaker 1: 53:26

Yeah, cheers, I'm gonna have it off the nut driver. What do you think of that? Quite bitter.

Speaker 2: 53:31

Hmm.

Speaker 1: 53:32

See, I'm a big fan or I was a big fan of dark chocolate.

Speaker 3: 53:35

I still am.

Speaker 1: 53:36

Yeah, I'm a fan of dark chocolate, but obviously not having any dairy limits your options, but lovely.

Speaker 2: 53:42

Yeah, Bit, I guess it's bit it's definitely not a texture. Textures your tongue, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, like as if it paints it, you know, with a layer of chocolate. Oh, I could count.

Speaker 1: 53:55

I wonder if I'm young, have you had kids having that?

Speaker 3: 53:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:01

Yeah, I suppose the kids have what I'd say. What commercialized chocolate? Yeah, they do I don't, my kids are.

Speaker 3: 54:07

I'm vegan, but my kids are vegan. I think that is one of the things that can be their choice when they get older. No dead animals is the thing. Well, yeah, the kids love cacao, like I'm sure Jimmy's had plenty through Kaley's boobies.

Speaker 1: 54:17

Oh, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 54:18

But he likes it. He'll eat it raw. Like that, ellie will eat it raw, ellie. Ellie's like an advocate for the brand. Yeah, he run a competition to win a free bag and they had to say, like you got to put a video of yourself on saying full power and Ellie, like had a big cacao all over the face. You're like full power.

Speaker 1: 54:35

We want to kill a damn bag, yeah, say for kids.

Speaker 3: 54:39

Like, say, for pregnant people, there can be a contraindication if you have maybe some heart problems or if you are on antidepressants. Like, if you are pregnant or on antidepressants or heart problems, like just have a low dose, you don't like, don't go smashing like half a bag in and never giving yourself a ceremonial dose, just tiny. Sometimes less is more, yeah, so I'm trying to trying to develop.

Speaker 1: 55:04

Cool Right. Well, thanks a lot for coming in again, Paul.

Speaker 3: 55:07

Thanks for having me, man. Thank you, it's been a really enjoyed it.

Speaker 1: 55:09

A lot. I think we'll. We'll be seeing you again. Well, I will be anywhere because I'll be coming along to some of your events. I reckon, yeah, man.

Speaker 3: 55:16

Yeah, Cheers bud. Thank you, thank you, thanks guys.

Speaker 1: 55:21

So what do you think yeah?

Speaker 2: 55:23

I enjoyed the conversation, actually Just flowed didn't it. It did, yes, and I got to try a bit of the cow. Yeah, munched away on Munched away.

Speaker 1: 55:33

Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's. I mean, we say it's chocolate, but it's not chocolate, it's more.

Speaker 2: 55:38

It's chocolate in pure form.

Speaker 1: 55:41

Yes, it's pure as form, so very enlightening, and it's sort of inspiring from Paul, like with his story and his openness.

Speaker 2: 55:49

Do you know what? I had a sip right at the beginning of the podcast of the cow and I just felt very alert. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 55:57

Well, it's open certain pathways, yeah, in your body.

Speaker 2: 56:00

Yeah, it's good, cool Highly recommend it.

Speaker 1: 56:03

Yeah, I definitely recommend doing a ceremony. Do you want to know who's in next time? I do. Yeah, I thought I might just keep that one for myself. So next time we have Jacob Kelly. Now Jacob is a DJ around the lead Yorkshire in wider areas. Now I met him. He's been on the scene for a while but he was his ex-forces and we got talking about the podcast and he actually mentioned you know, if I ever wanted to guest. Now his story is making that transition. He had a bit of a bit of a rough childhood, so sort the safety of the forces which he did, but then there's that transition after coming out. So it was only a young man when he came out. He's a very young man who was a boy when he went in at 16, came out eight years later and then had to find his way. So very open and, yeah, really good story.

Speaker 2: 56:53

Sounds good. I really like life stories because it really shows us other people experience and how they dealt with the experience.

Speaker 1: 57:00

Yes, and good, you know it's well, it's what we're about, and people coming in and inspiring others. So, yeah, looking forward to the same. See you soon, take care Bye. So I'd like to say a big thank you to our sponsor, who are Energy Impact, and also our supporters, product Agency up there in Newcastle, who are supplying our designs, et cetera, and Common Sense clothing, who supply us with our very, very nice apparel. And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buy as a Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for their little cop. Thank you.