Transcenders - New Perspectives For A New Era
Welcome to Transcenders—a podcast for those who seek the bold, the visionary, and the transformative. Join us as we delve into conversations beyond the limits of conventional thinking with trailblazers, innovators, and pioneers—scouts of a new era. In each episode, we explore uncharted territories of thought, uncover emerging paradigms, and invite guests to redefine what it means to be human in an ever-evolving world. This isn’t just a podcast; it’s a journey into the future, guided by the individuals who dare to look beyond and embrace the possibilities on our collective horizon. Whether you’re a curious thinker, a paradigm shifter, or simply seeking inspiration, Transcenders is your invitation to see beyond the edges of what’s known and to embrace new perspectives for a new era.
If you want to be a guest on the podcast or you want to book me as a guest, please drop me an email at support@pmdedes.com
Transcenders - New Perspectives For A New Era
Empowering Transformation: From Healing Wounds to Thriving with Dr. Passeri
I am in conversation with the remarkable Dr Passeri who is a true visionary in the realms of personal transformation and conscious living. With over 34 years of teaching and coaching experience, Dr Passeri has touched the lives of thousands, guiding them towards a path of self-discovery and empowerment. She shares her transformative experiences from the vibrant landscapes of Minnesota and California to the depths of the Peruvian Amazon jungle, where she embarked on a profound self-excavation of the soul.
In this captivating conversation, Dr Passeri discusses the power of observing disempowering narratives, unlocking the extraordinary potential within us, and aligning our thoughts, talk, emotions, and behaviours towards thriving. Discover how she found strength and resilience to confront deep wounds, including childhood abandonment, abuse, and eating disorders, and how she uses her journey to inspire and empower others to thrive. I hope you will be inspired as I am as we explore healing, self-discovery, and the incredible capacity of the human spirit with the incredible Dr Passeri.
Dr Passeri's Website: https:// www.lucianapasseri.com
Dr Luciana Passeri's Footwear Company: https://www.passeri.today/
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Peter Michael Dedes:
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today we have a remarkable guest who's dedicated her life to helping others repair, disempowering narratives and designing the lives of their dreams. Joining us today is Dr. Passeri, a true visionary in the realms of personal transformation and conscious
living. Dr. Passeri's journey
PMD:began on the vibrant landscapes of Minnesota and California where she discovered her deep passion for connecting people with themselves and others. With over 34 years of teaching and coaching experience, she's touched the lives of thousands, guiding them towards a path of self-discovery and
empowerment. But Dr Passeri's influence
PMD:doesn't stop there. She also built and leads a thriving footwear and textile company
called, Passeri showcasing
PMD:her entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to excellence. Her expertise extends to executive coaching for top 100 companies where she has helped high profile individuals unlock their full potential and create positive change within their organizations. And driven by her unwavering belief in the power of
humanity. Dr Passeri takes on
PMD:leadership roles as she chairs both the
humankind and La Paz international
PMD:foundations. And through these organizations, she tirelessly advocates for a world where every individual lives consciously and recognizes their innate power to heal themselves and the planet. It's through mindful and balanced lifestyles that she envisions a brighter future for us all. But
don't be fooled by her professional
PMD:accomplishments alone. Dr. Passeri finds her own connection with herself, others on the planet, through
adventurous treks over mountainous
PMD:terrains.
king solo
PMD:or guiding groups, she creates transformative experiences that lead to physical, cognitive, and emotional breakthroughs. Her passion for igniting and inspiring others to step into their power shines through in every step that she takes. As Dr. Passeri often reminds us, the most important relationship we will ever have on the planet is the one we have with ourselves. Why not make it a great one? Today we dive deep into her wisdom and the experiences, uncovering the secrets to repairing, disempowering narratives, living mindfully, and unlocking the extraordinary potential within us. So let's get ready to be inspired and empowered as we embark on this captivating conversation with the incredible Dr. Passeri. And let's delve into a profound journey of healing and self-discovery. Dr. Passeri, welcome to the Transcendent Minds podcast. Bring the audience in and tell us a little bit about yourself and your own words.
DR PASSERI:Oh, thank you so much peter. I'm really grateful. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for your podcasts. They really are wonderful and you bring beauty into the world through allowing people to share their story. And my hope is that my story will be no different than others that you have shared in that we are in service to supporting people in thriving and connecting to themselves. So my story is basically one of experiencing grief and sorrow and abuse as a child, which created disempowering narratives within myself that I assumed were my normal. And as I developed through my teenage years, my young adult and even my mid adult years, my understanding of self was always filtered through lenses of disempowerment. And tragically, as I look back on that, and it is tragic, I didn't know what I didn't know, right? I didn't know I was doing that. I would have sworn, I would have sworn that I was living an empowered life and using my thoughts to make myself better. And the reality was, I was stuck and I didn't know I was stuck and so I journeyed to the jungle. So a little bit about me as we get going, cause I think the story will come up as we talk today. So I spent a month in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, where I went to really do a deep dive and untether myself from the western world so I could allow my mind, my heart, my soul, and my body to just relax and for whatever needed to come up to come up and be healed. And I called it self excavation of the soul. But it wasn't just excavation of the soul, it was excavation of the mind, the spirit, the body. I had no idea when I went to the jungle what would happen. But what happened is when I came out of the jungle, I had been gifted by the plants, the shamans, the space, the animals, the critters. I had been gifted with the process, I guess you could say of observing and as simple as that sounds, I think we're gonna talk about that a little bit. But that process of observing self and observing disempowering narratives, which is really hard to observe when you PS don't know they exist, right? It's really hard to do. But when we do that, we actually can design the lives of our dreams and not just design them, but live them, untethered from all that disempowering stuff, I guess you could say. So my hope with my story is that my healed narratives, my healed memories, can now be in service to others and to the planet. I'm a hundred percent advocate that we all have the power to heal ourselves as long as we are willing to heal the narratives and the stories which of course is a fear-based endeavor for sure, for most people. I think is important to start off the conversation is out of the jungle when I came out of the jungle I was inspired because I journaled every day in the jungle. I was inspired to write my memoir. So God's in a box on my dresser and inquiry into the human capacity to thrive is the memoir that chronicles my experiences.
PMD:I love the title of the book of the memoir and God's in a Box on My Dresser and inquiring into the human capacity to thrive. And you open up about your personal journey to the Peruvian Amazon jungle and the profound impact it's had on your relationship with God and religion. Can you share more about how the transformative experience shaped your beliefs and ultimately helped you find healing and hope?
DR PASSERI:Excellent. Great question. So when I went to the jungle, I was a survivor of, and I don't love that term, but, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse that created a coping mechanism. I created a coping mechanism then using food. So I had an eating disorder for decades, and as I was trying to navigate the emotions and make sense of them, what I was also doing is negotiating with God, right? I would say to God, please take this eating disorder away from me. Just begging for relief,
making deals, I'll do anything.
DR PASSERI:And what I came to understand with my relationship, whether you say, God, divinity, spirit, intuition, however you define that part of ourselves, that's not tangible that's what I'm talking about. So what I learned though, is it's my responsibility not to expect an external source to help me heal, but that I had to cooperate with divinity in order to heal the narratives. There was no quick and dirty path. So that's the center portion. When I was a child, I had a beautiful relationship with Jesus. I'm talking four years old. When I was just four, it was the first time I consciously heard Jesus talking to me, and we just developed this great relationship. We'd play in the woods and because I was an abandoned child and suffered other sorts of loneliness, I guess you could say, Jesus just appeared in my life as this beautiful being. As then my life grew. I grew up Catholic as I entered Catholic school and was going to church more. Suddenly the dogma of religion took over and overshadowed my beautiful interpersonal relationship with spirit, who I knew as Jesus. And I'm not a
religion basher at all.
DR PASSERI:Religion can bring beautiful communities and wisdom and spiritual awareness to people and groups. However, it can also limit us. And what it did for me, what dogma did was it told me what God liked, what God didn't like. If you did this, you'd go to heaven. If you did that, you'd go to a place called Hell, and that was really bad. So as a child all of a sudden, this beautiful relationship got turned upside down. As I now started to view God and Jesus through dogma. What happens when a child is sexually abused, and you have these narratives of be a good girl, be nice to everybody, et cetera, et cetera. What people don't understand is that when you have been abused, you don't feel like a nice girl. You don't feel holy. You don't feel that purity that people say is such a part of Christian traditions. And so it's really confusing. I had no
support, nobody really knew
DR PASSERI:about my abuse. I kept it a secret because I believed that was my role. I could not hurt anybody, and if I told other people would get in trouble, which is another Christian narrative that can dominate a child's brain. So then as I went to the jungle, what I realized is my entire relationship with divinity had to completely unravel. Completely unravel. And I had to be willing to allow it to unravel, not just do a cognitive, oh, I'm gonna let this unravel. I'm gonna pretend God doesn't exist. It wasn't that at all. I actually had to say, Hey, I don't know if God exists or not. I don't know if there's a spirit beyond myself, or if I just made that up to make myself feel more secure. And whether everybody who believes in a deity just makes it up because it helps them make sense of their lives and feel a sense of belonging that they might not otherwise. So when I allowed my relationship with Divinity to completely unravel what I saw was the pure beauty of self. And what was revealed to me is this idea that I am not God, but I am divinity within because spirit is within me and that is always pure and good. And so my task became in that 30 days in the jungle, how do I connect more deeply to that and not only connect to it, but how do I allow that to drive my life? And then once I learned that, my goal, believe it or not, like around day 17, my goal was, okay, I got this, not got it as in totally got it figured out, but I'm on the path. And then the goal became how can I use this to be in service to other people? So many people suffer. Really severe abuse as I did, and I think it's a national, maybe world epidemic and that goes unmentioned, we'll talk about it a little bit. Let me explain what I mean. Research shows that one in four girls and one in 10 boys are abused as children, sexually abused, and that's reported data that's reported. So we know there's many more. We also know that most people don't report the crimes. And so what happens is there's millions and millions of people living with these pains and traumas and trying to navigate them in their life, and they don't have the tools to do it. Religion traditionally, as I was taught anyway, didn't give those tools. In fact, it made my life more and more miserable. Now aside really quick, so we've got that kind of sexual abuse issue. Then we have eating disorders, which are a silent killer. Talk about an epidemic in the United States a person dies every 57 minutes from an eating disorder. That blows my mind. Now, having suffered and actually almost died myself from an eating disorder, but having suffered from it, it doesn't necessarily surprise me, but at the same time even though it doesn't surprise me that there's so many people who suffer, what does surprise me is we still have narratives that, oh, somebody who suffers from an eating disorder, it's because how they they wanna look skinny, or it's because they're vain. We have all these stories about eating disorders and what they are and who has them and why they have them. When the fact of the matter is, anybody who suffers from an eating disorder or any addiction for that matter, they suffer from it because they are suffering. And so my goal with helping people understand their own healing path through this clocking what I call clocking your thought talk emotions and behavior, the idea is to help all of us who have suffered or who know people who have suffered untangle all the knots of the narratives. Align toward our highest self, our thoughts talk emotion and behavior so that we can thrive. And that narrative about clocking our thoughts, talks emotions and behavior that's not just for people who have suffered from abuse or addiction, of course, because regardless of how we grew up or however charmed it might have been, we still develop disempowering narratives. So my relationship now with God, let me bring that full circle, is what I think really beautiful. I see God as
spirit in
DR PASSERI:I see it as the dreamer. And maybe I don't wanna continue holding court here too long cuz you bring incredible wisdom to the podcast. But using the idea of the dreamer, And maybe I should explain that. Yeah. What I mean and how that connects to God and what is she talking about? So lucid dreaming is when, for those who aren't familiar with it, it's when you dream but in your dream, even though you're sleeping, dead asleep, you are part of your mind wakes up and you can consciously enter your dream. So you can tell yourself, oh, I'm gonna get on that boat, or, oh, I'm not. And you can direct things. It's really cool.
I lucid dream. And
DR PASSERI:when I lucid dream, because I was a gymnast, for those who have lucid dream, many fly right in their lucid dreams. I don't fly in my lucid dreams. I often, but not always can do flips and jump super high again because I was a gymnast, right? So I would do these flips and I can go to chandelier and then I can go to this light post outside, and the jumping just feels so amazing and beautiful. As the lucid dreamer, I can control how many flips I do, what chandelier I jump to. But I don't get to control what chandelier or post or ceiling shows up. I don't control who's walking beneath me. I don't control the scenarios that are beneath me. That is the dreamer. And when I use the phrase dreamer, I use that in connection with that part of self that we don't yet know or have a connection to, but have access to through our dreams. And that's how I know Spirit is alive within me, in part is because of how the Dreamer shows up.
PMD:I've been in that state. I think it's a very unique state of consciousness when we can gain control in a sense, over the environment, over the characters, over the actions. And that's an extraordinary opportunity to explore and interact with the dream world in a conscious and intentional manner as well. Because as you say, you can almost manipulate the narrative. I've heard some people, I know you said you don't fly through the skies, but I've heard people tell me they've flown through the skies, they've gone to these imaginary places, they've engaged in conversations, and I think the possibilities are only limited by your imaginations and the extent
of their lucidity.
PMD:And from what I remember when I was studying Jungian psychology as well, it's captured the interest of many scientists and spiritual practitioners because of its potential applications. I've used it in terms of being able to confront my own fears and it's given me access when I try and have
conversations with the subconscious
PMD:mind, I'm setting up that hyper performing neural environment, if you like. So I practice new skills or scenarios. It's an exhilarating and empowering experience opening doors to realms of imagination and self-discovery that are otherwise inaccessible in some ways. The other thing I wanna say about that is as you were talking it reminded me of the vastness of the human mind and its potentials to transcend the boundaries of reality. It can be a really profound and transformative experience that can enrich our understanding of consciousness and the nature of the dream world. And I want to delve into this aspect because I know that childhood abandonment and abuse, and I thank you for highlighting that, cuz I think we need to have more air time on abuse and to bring that out into the open, expose it. But I know the challenges you face in your life, which as you said include childhood abandonment, abuse, eating disorders, and those are incredibly difficult to overcome especially when you don't have the psychological sophistication or the prefrontal cortex conditioning to be able to interpret what is happening. You can measure it, but you may not be able to interpret it. So my question is, how did you find the strength and the resilience to confront these deep wounds and begin the process of healing?
DR PASSERI:That is such a great question, Peter, because one of my greatest life questions that I attempt to excavate in my memoir, but it's very difficult. One of my most burning questions is the human capacity to thrive, but also resilience. Why is it, for example, my dad, who was an amazing man, really remarkable, who was also an alcoholic and who died an alcoholic, why couldn't he overcome his addiction? I've heard all kinds of stories about, why he didn't. Oh, because he had so much shame. But then I go the next step, okay, but why couldn't he deal with his shame? Why couldn't he deal with his guilt? And then the question is, why could I, what's the difference between us? How could I unlock the location of the switch to say, oh, that's it, and he couldn't. And for those of you who are interested in reading the whole story it evolves in my book, but I think for the most part it's my desire to really bring good to the planet. So backing up a little bit, one of the things that I talk about most in my coaching is in the first days of the coaching is talking to people and saying, what do you want to contribute to the planet? What do you want to contribute? Rather than starting with, here's what I'm good at, here's what I'm passionate about, start with what do I want to contribute as a human being to the planet? And it might be through the job that you have, and it might not be. But once you identify that, you have a path forward and then things start to show up in your life to help you align onto that path. So for me, for example what was I think pushed me over the edge was my jungle experience where I was forced to observe my very difficult memories. I was forced to observe them so you could ask and we could spend, a half hour. What brought you to the jungle though? How did you go there? What inspired you to do that? And all that I can tell you there right now in our limited time is when I heard about the opportunity to go to the jungle. I immediately went there. My body just electrified. I didn't even know what ayahuasca was. I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing. I just knew I had to be there. That was my intuition talking. So I have learned to listen to my intuition throughout my life. To answer your question in a kind of circular way here, the first step was allowing my intuition to unfold and develop trust for my intuition. That trust for my intuition allowed me to hear about the jungle opportunity and then immediately go, yep, I need that. Within three weeks of hearing about the opportunity I was actually in the jungle. That's how much I was like, yes, I need that. And then once I was in the jungle, continuing to allow my intuition to drive me my intuition along with the plants and the critters and the medicine and the shamas, but being open to
observing. So what am I observing,
DR PASSERI:because that can be sort of cliche. So let me give you an example. Let me use an example with finances cuz a lot of people have difficult or confusing, curious relationships with money. So when I was in the jungle, one of the narratives that I looked at was my relationship with money. So when I looked at that relationship, what I heard were things like, money doesn't grow on trees, you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Money doesn't come easily. You have to work hard for everything you get. And all of those stories about money became my understanding of how to view money, right? So observing then, now this is a very simple example, but then observing that relationship with money. So when I observe though that relationship with money and I sit with it, that's only the beginning. That's only the beginning, the next step as I sit with it, then what I need to do is I kind of peer behind the curtain. So I'm seeing and observing whatever I'm observing. There's always something behind it. The answer to a problem always lies beneath the level of the problem. So you peer back the curtain and as you peer back the curtain, you see the emotion, the thought, the behaviors, and the talk that fuel that relationship with money. So for a lot of people it's, it might be fear of failure, fear of success, fear that people won't love you. Fear that people will love you. So I use the example of money to kinda explain this process of observation because it's one that a lot of people can relate to and it's one of the easier task to start with. In the jungle, I had to look at things like, I am not lovable, and here's all the reasons why. Sitting with a relationship with money is one thing. Sitting with and observing my understanding of being lovable. Who doggy. That took a lot of hours of walking back and forth in the jungle and going, what the heck? But I really am not worthy or cognitively. I know I am, but never changing the way I behaved or the way I felt about myself or how I showed up in the world. Because it's not just our thoughts that are gonna get us there. We have to align our thoughts, talk emotions, and our behaviors. So then observing worthiness and sitting and being so uncomfortable. The cool thing about the jungle, there's no escape. You're just there. You are there. The critters are there. Just suck it up. And do your work. And so as I was observing this worthiness, what happened when I peered behind the curtain, I just broke down and cried, and I just cried and I cried because there was nothing there. There was nothing there, there was nothing there because I was worthy. There wasn't and it wasn't even fear, when I reflect back on it, it wasn't like I was afraid of being worthy as much as I just didn't know I was worthy. I was never taught it. Quick aside, one thing that can be really difficult in working with people like me and coaching people like me who grew up with disempowering narratives, I never had the opportunity to develop powerful thought talk emotions and behaviors that would support me in thriving. So what? What happens in so much of life? We talk about like rehab, right? Like rehabilitation. But rehabilitation or retraining implies somebody has the skills to begin with and they just have to remember them. It's different with people who have suffered as children. It's not rehabilitation or retraining. It's actually going back and starting from anew. And the way to enter that and clocking your fear to enter that is entering it with amusement and curiosity. Entering those moments, entering that time as a child, and allowing for me, allowing myself to sit and observe myself in a high chair or observe myself memories of walking alone and being so lonely. And there became a point when, where my fear wasn't even there when after I was sexually abused, so many times, I wasn't even afraid anymore. Everything was numb. And so learning how to connect back was potentially scary. And I work with a lot of people who find that very scary. And what I try to help people realize is cognitively, we think it's scary. Because we don't know what we're going to see. But what I promise people and what is always true is you are going to see your truest and most authentic self that is so beautiful. It brings you to your knees. And then we start from there. And when we have that fundamental truth to work with, we can heal anything through clocking our narratives that we have learned. Oh, my mom said that wasn't true. I believed that for so long it wasn't true. Oh, my sixth grade teacher told me this and I believed it because I was vulnerable. Oh my haven't. That wasn't true. But when we work the other way and we just start with these other narratives I have that are disempowering and I need to change them, I'm gonna talk more affirmatively about myself. That can be a way to change our thoughts. But until we understand ourself our highest self as fundamental beauty and purity, all the other changes are just gonna sit there. We're still not gonna be able to thrive. As I say, it's not a complicated process, and I hope I haven't made it sound complicated. It's a really beautiful and very available. I do recommend you're a fabulous coach. I've seen your website also. I do recommend people have a coach to go through these processes with because sometimes we can feel really alone. Seems, it seems like I might be the only one who thinks this, or people are gonna think I'm dumb. I'm 57 years old, how could I still think this and I have a powerful job, so to help people on their walk I think is really important. It's one of my fundamental missions in life.
PMD:That's beautiful. I love that. And I don't think it's complicated. Whenever we use language to describe a process we have to clothe it with words and it doesn't always come out in a simple way. But in its essence, it is simple. But the process of the transformational and transcendent, I see'em as two sides of the same coin, to release oneself from emotional hypothermia is a process whereby the defrosting process takes time, it's not going to evaporate. And in these days of instant gratification and people won't fix me, I've had people come up to me and say, I've had this problem what do I do? What do I do? The answer isn't where your question is. You need to look at this in a different way and if you want instant gratification, I'm not your guy because there are plenty of people out there who will give you the advice and the answer that you need, but is it sustainable? I doubt it because emotional hypothermia takes time to defrost and then once you have defrosted you are left raw, open and vulnerable. And then you've gotta look at the essence of those things because whether you've been the invisible child, the abusive child, the wounded child, the parent child, they all have their own management team, their own recruitment agency, and the ego sits on the throne of hubris and it wants to survive, it wants to maintain that particular state, which then, influences your weight, influences the psychic residue you are carrying, and let's not forget the subconscious mind is 800 times faster than your conscious mind. And it is watching everything and defining who you are becoming. So the narrative that you were talking about is important in terms of how we encode our neurology and how we align to those practices that we start to implement. It's a beautiful process and I'm glad someone as unique as you, the divinity in you, which I see as a replay of God because, we are all unique. We all have a unique fingerprint, a unique d n a, and people they've got their opinion, but that is my core experience and belief. The title of your memoir, God's
in a Box on My Dresser,
PMD:and that's sparked my curiosity. What does the title represent and how does it tie into your exploration of the human capacity to thrive?
DR PASSERI:Brilliant question. When I say God's in a Box on my dresser, what that means is God has been defined, God has been defined in a box. So growing up Catholic, for example, which by the way, I have great respect for the Catholic tradition. I was on the path to be a nun for years and it was one of the most fantastic experiences of my life. That's in a chapter of the book as well. So this idea of God's in a box on my dresser is as we define God, we limit God. And when we limit the idea of God, then we limit our own capacity. And the example that I gave earlier, like growing up Catholic, right? I had this beautiful relationship with divinity, with spirit as appeared to me as Jesus, because that's who I was introduced to. But when dogma came in, dogma by definition is a box. Here's how you need to think to fit in and when you have to think a certain way to fit in, it limits your capacity to thrive. Because you can't know the totality of divinity because you can only know divinity in the box. So if I can't know the totality of divinity, I can't know the totality of my own human capacity. That's the most fundamental. The second, though, is that when God's in a box, on our dresser, when we define God, what we also do is we inhibit people's ability to experience life freely. An example of that is me growing up with this narrative that forgiveness is absolutely fundamental and by the way, I am a fan of forgiveness, but the way it can be taught in some traditions is forgive and forget. Just move on. It's a sort of spiritual bypassing. Other narratives, it's important to be pure and then purity is defined. So as I said, that, that's dogma, right? Purity is defined well. Then when people have experiences outside of that narrative of purity or whatever else, it's very confusing and actually can lead to spiritual abuse and can be very damaging. So when we untether ourselves from the box, we're able to at least be curious about the totality of a potentiality of spirit or some energy, some source greater than ourselves. In my experience, there's no way to define a spirit being source. For sure there's no definition of it, right? Even the most expansive definition, even atheists also have God in a box because the narrative is there is no God. So I've still defined the idea of a God. So by definition, spirit, God can't be defined yet as humans, we constantly do it to try to make sense of our world and in my experience that trying to make sense of our world is this attempt to belong. It's this attempt to have security to know what's gonna happen to our soul or to our experience after we die. And again, it doesn't matter what your narrative is. The narrative controls how I perceive my experience, both on this planet and in an afterlife or in the case of people who don't believe in a spiritual afterlife that everything just ceased to exist. Could that also be true? Of course. I don't know, I just know my own experience. So my hope with the book, my hope with my coaching also is that people don't necessarily abandon their box because as I said at the very beginning, some people experience great power in their religious traditions and there's opportunities for great community. So I'm not saying that, there's no place for that. What I'm saying is my hope is that we can expand the box, or at least keep it open and be curious and allow other people to equally know, understand, and share their experience, whatever that is, without trying to control the narrative, without trying to use fear to have people believe as we believe, or to intimidate people into ceremonies or services that we believe are important because of our narrative about a God or a spirit. So untether God from the box, untether ourselves. And when we do, we truly have this greater capacity to know self. I wanna say one more thing about that. I love your metaphor of defrosting. That is so brilliant as you are talking it made me think of how many tests we experience on this path, and these are tests in our experience of God, how we define God and how we define self in relation to God, right? Our roles and responsibilities. So these tests, I just wanna mention briefly because as people are working on their relationship with God or being open or curious or as people are excavating their childhood stories, what can happen and actually will happen, almost guaranteed, what will happen is you will have tests that come to show you that thing that you are trying to clock. And when I say clock, I'm like, I was a boxer for a while. Like I didn't hit people. It was like an exercise thing, right? So clocking those narratives. We have opportunities on this planet to do our work, to show up for ourselves. The how to do that, how to do the work, how to show up is a whole nother ball of wax. The train took a turn there. I recognize that.
PMD:That's okay. It's a conversation. It's allowing it to flow. And you know what came to mind as you were speaking was your coaching and your memoir offers a roadmap for readers to identify and overcome their own disempowering narratives. Can you provide some insights into how individuals can begin the process of firstly recognizing it, reflecting on it, and releasing it, resetting and rewiring it, and transforming that narrative in their own lives?
DR PASSERI:Yeah. So the first thing that I would say is to realize the connection between our thoughts, talks, emotions and behaviors, and what our experience on the planet is. So that first step is truly observing our day to today. What am I saying about myself, to myself? How am I feeling to myself about myself? The universe's job is just to give us what we ask for. And so when we ask for these things that are limiting, I could never do that. I'm not sure. I don't have the money. I could never travel like you. Oh, trekking. I would love to do that. Not able. So the universe doesn't care what story we tell ourselves about ourselves, it just gives it to us. So as we observe just our day-to-day, so the first step in this process, observe your day-to-day and maybe pick one or two things. For a lot of people, a good place to start is
with health, weight, or finances,
DR PASSERI:because those are things that can bring up really difficult stories. But those are also things that can give us practical skill, building abilities to help us then later go into some more traumatic, difficult narratives. If you try to start with the difficult ones, and I get how desperate I was to clock those disempowering narratives that were so painful, that's not a good place to start. So start with these others. So I'm observing as I am making a choice about food or about exercise. So simple, but don't discount the simplicity of this because as soon as we bring to our consciousness, our own personal patterns of behavior, we now have the ability to get in between the stimulus and the response. And for those people listening who have suffered from addiction, I get it. When we have an addiction, we feel like there is no space between the stimulus and the response. I feel this way or think this way, and immediately I have no control. That's why it's called an addiction, and that's why we have some beautiful support centers for that. However, The realization consciously that there is space, no matter how small it is, that we can get in between that space and, by thinking differently and thinking consciously, we can make that space bigger and bigger and bigger. But what I was saying just a minute ago about tests is what can be really difficult in this process,difficult but not impossible, and not something to be avoided. What can be challenging? That's a better word. What can be challenging is while we're in that process of expanding our space between the stimulus and the response, what happens is we get tested. We get tested because we're not resilient. Think of a food that maybe you absolutely hate, you would never eat. If it's put in front of you, you have no problem saying no. So we have power. We have power. It's how we think about things. So after that process, our abilities to change, begin to move more rapidly. So then I take that one area, whether it's finances, our weight or exercise or whatever. And then we take that and we observe and just observe. Here I don't wanna go work out. I know I should. I don't want to. Instead of just finding something else to do, allow yourself two full minutes to just observe what is going on. No guilt, no shame. Doesn't mean you're gonna end up working out. You just observe it. As you observe it how do you feel? What are you thinking? Are you thinking, I'm so bad, I'm so ugly. Fill in the blank. Are you feeling shame? Are you feeling guilt? And then once you observe that, if you have the time and it makes sense in your space that you're in peer behind the curtain. And don't be afraid to be curious. Peer behind the curtain. Oh, I'm afraid I might fail. Im afraid that if I don't have this tool that I've been hiding behind that somebody's going to love me. Of course, technically speaking, everybody wants to be loved, but not everybody makes ourselves available to love because of our fear of connection, right? So as we move through the peering behind the curtain, the next step is to clock our disempowering emotions and behaviors when they come up. It might be in that moment you might have the power to go, oh hell no, I'm going exercising, and then you go out. It might be, this is a better time for me actually to take a nap. Because taking a nap is what feels most nutritious to me, and I'm not making an excuse. That's what feels most nutritious. I'm not driven by the dominant narrative that if I don't work out, I'm a failure. So in those moments, you decide which behavior is best aligned with your ability to change this narrative. And then what happens, with each of these narratives is we start to align our thought, our talk, our emotions, and our behavior and our life unfolds in a way that allows us to truly thrive and live these remarkable, truly remarkable lives.
PMD:There's some great nuggets in there and it made me think about as you're talking through that process, is when we feel disempowered, we run towards a safety nest. But when we start to look at and peer behind the veil, and start to recognize what you're afraid of or how you are rationalizing yourself into immobility, you start to weave a safety net and you cultivate that safety net, which is your boundaries, your foundations your standards and your principles, and recognizing that these things come because they're coming towards you to help defrost that process so that you start to see it. What it really is, at the end of the day, it's all water anyway, because whether you freeze water, whether you heat it, whether, it evaporates, it's all water. And truth is like that. But sometimes it can become so impacted that your winning formula is to run towards a safety nest, and that's your habit and that's where you feel unencumbered safe, but it's a false safety and what you are talking about is the kind of the weaving together of that beautiful lattice work, if you like, of that safety net that you know you can trust. Because it is something that you've created, not someone that's told you to create it. Not somebody has shown you or shown you that you must develop it. So they haven't given you a rule book of behavior. They've said, here's some practical skills. Here's a practical toolkit of understanding where you can start to weave that net together.
DR PASSERI:So safety is a major thing that keeps people stuck in religion, right? Huge. It is so much easier to remain in a cocoon of this is who God is and how God thinks, what God likes and what God doesn't like. A hundred percent safety. I don't have to think for myself. I don't have to decide, if I should do X or Y. It's just all prescribed for me. So it takes away our autonomy. We actually aren't serving as our personal agents in the realm of a spiritual connection with divinity. We're relegating that authority to something external. And no matter how beautiful that external source, or no matter how well intended that external source is still limits us. It's also true, as you said. I love how you worded that how safety, that need for safety can be so limiting for us. And the way to clock that is to connect with self, right? When I'm connected with self, and I think that's where you were going with it, right? When I'm connected with self, I don't need those external safeties. I don't need those narratives. I don't need other people's input about how I should think or how I should behave because I am exercising my personal agency fundamental to my experience in the jungle. And what I write about in the book is we all have the responsibility to get healthy as adults. That is, thank you, my dad, who would tell me that often we all have the responsibility or we all need to take responsibility for ourselves as adults. And to me that means taking responsibility for the totality of my thoughts, talk behaviors and emotions for the totality of them. That includes how I interact with other people, because how I think talking and behave does affect other people. Now, I'm not responsible for how other people respond to me, that's on them. But I'm responsible for how I show up into the world, which is why some time ago I was talking about the first place I like to start with people is what do you want to contribute to the planet? So for myself, what I wanted to contribute when I discerned that and really discerned it in the jungle was helping people understand their personal power and helping people step into their power with the ability to clock all their disempowering narratives, rewrite their histories, and then design and live the lives of their dreams.
PMD:I wanna just shift the conversation to Ayahuasca because first of all, I think it's important to put a caveat in to say that, it's important to be guided and not just to go willy nilly and just, take the medicine without somebody who's trained. Would you agree with that?
DR PASSERI:Absolutely. A hundred percent. Sorry. There's alarm going off. If that's disturbing you in the background. That's all right. A hundred percent. So Ayahuasca was a tool that helped me unlock my stories. It gave me the opportunity to share with others tools that I learned. Not everybody needs to do Ayahuasca to heal, right? Some might be called to it like I was, but it is just a tool, as you said. Having said that, ayahuasca is no joke. This is not something to be taken lightly. This is not something to, oh, I wanna have that experience, or I wanna go to the jungle, or to Peru or some other South American country and trip, just to see. Absolutely not. Those people who are on the path of using ayahuasca as medicine are on a path of being committed to their highest self and that path it is excavating every single part of yourself. And how that shows up is very rapid in your life. So it's not for everyone. I like to caution people as well. You mentioned working with the right people. There's a thing now going on called Ayahuasca tourism, where there are large groups of people offering ceremonies as we refer to them, but not in the context of working with shamans. And why is that important. One of the many things that it does is it opens up our neuro pathways so that we have the opportunity within minutes or hour to reprogram. If when our neuro pathways are open and we're vulnerable and we are not in a very safe space, we are vulnerable to all the other negative energies in the space. Other people's negative thoughts and experiences, we are vulnerable to the shaman's ego and their own difficulties that they're experiencing in life. I wouldn't call them shamans cuz people who are administering the ceremony, shamans don't do that. So by definition a shaman wouldn't do that. But people who are administering the ceremonies, so be very mindful if you perceive ayahuasca is a path for you that you'd like to explore. Be very cautious. Do a lot of research about the who, the, where, are there multiple ceremonies. I certainly would recommend that people have experiences that are like a week to 10 days long, because when you are confronted with looking at your own stuff and you have one ceremony, where do you go? What happens? You go back into the world the next day. You might fly home two days later and you have all this stuff circling in your head, frozen stuff on thawing, other stuff being frozen into place, and it's very confusing. So the ideal in my experience is that people have multiple ceremonies, say three to five within a week. So the shamans can first open you, so then the shamans can work to help you connect with the plants within you and with the medicine. Then the third ceremony might be you really doing tremendous deep work, and the fourth ceremony might be something like helping you close, helping you create a safe space. Once you have ingested ayahuasca, you will be tested and those tests can come like Mac trucks at a hundred miles an hour straight at you. And if you don't have the tools to navigate that, it's actually dangerous. So great medicine. Be mindful and careful. Thank you so much for bringing that up.
PMD:And thank you for explaining that because I know it played a significant role in your journey of self-discovery and healing. Can you explain how the experience of ingesting ayahuasca and being
guided by shapibo shamans.
PMD:How did that influence your perspective on life and spirituality and your own capacity to thrive?
DR PASSERI:So when I was in the jungle, which is the basis for the book, and my true unlocking
indeed, Shapibo Shamans
DR PASSERI:were the people I worked with. So first and foremost, something really beautiful
about the Shaphibo is they
DR PASSERI:have no religious judgements about them. For example, somebody could be a practicing Roman Catholic and be fully welcome and not judged, and it's not incompatible with ayahuasca and with the shaman system. So that is really beautiful. There's no judgment. The second thing is shamans, in my experience and understanding, I will say I am not an expert in ayahuasca and shamanism, but my experience, which is quite significant over the number of years, is that shamans are gifted people who grew up in a tradition honoring plants and plants', ability to heal. The spirits of the plants is what they work with. So shamans will go maybe before their shamans, they will
go the shapibo and sit
DR PASSERI:in the Amazon and maybe sit for three months, just sit. And what they do is they're listening to the plants, and then the plants teach them what they heal. Now, while the shamans are sitting in the jungle, they're doing what
are called diettas, which means
DR PASSERI:they are ingesting the plants and only those plants to get to know the plant. So it could be one week, two weeks, three months. Some just ingest the plants for two weeks or maybe more and by doing that, the understanding is that those plants integrate with the shaman spirit. The plants teach the shamans and they become allies, I guess you could say. So shamans and people who work with ayahuasca over time develop a little ecosystem, in you, of your plant support network. This seems very odd to a lot of people who quite frankly, have got in a box on their dresser. It's hard to imagine this, and I totally get it because I was there. I totally get it. I was there as well. However most people who may have gotten a box and think, that sounds really weird also don't have any problem going to a pharmacy and picking up a medicine that a pharmaceutical company made and mimicked chemically of some plant compounds or taking vitamins, for example. So it's not that different. These are all just extensions of using creation and materials that grow in creation to help support us in thriving. The next part of this is once a person becomes a shaman, they work with ayahuasca, which is a brew. I think it's a great word to say. Also how it tastes. It tastes like mud to me. And not super pleasant, to be honest with you. So you work with the medicine, which is a
combination of the tracuna leaf and
DR PASSERI:the ayahuasca vine, and it's that combination that when brewed by shamans is ingested by those of us seeking medicine, the shamans also ingested. The next phase for example, in a ceremony, which is I think where this is going in a ceremony, what happens is everybody drinks from the same cup. In the work that I do, the people I work with, we have no more than five to seven people in a ceremony. So it stays very intimate. So you drink the medicine about 20 to 40 minutes after you drink it, the medicine will start to work differently in every person. But in the shamans, they start to sing and they sing what
are called echoros and these echoros are beautiful,
DR PASSERI:and they're like, nothing you have ever heard. It's remarkable. And what they're doing is they're singing, I may not be saying this the way they actually see it I don't really know how to explain it, I guess is where I'm going, but
they're singing the energy
DR PASSERI:of the plant. So they're seeing designs. There we go. That's a great way to see it. They're seeing designs and then they sing the designs. So they come, and in my experience, when shamans work with you, they'll sit in front of you. And then because I, for example, had ingested the medicine, when they sit in front of me and they start singing, they are singing the designs, the plant working in me. So it might be in my gut moving through me and their song is working with that medicine. Or as some of them say the medicine is working with them and showing them what needs to be healed. So you have to cooperate with the medicine, but
it's the eecheros and the
DR PASSERI:ingestion of the medicine that activates it.
PMD:So they become an agency of amplification for the divine cellular song of that plant. And then that has a compatibility of alignment, like a tuning fork with the recipient, as long as they have a mutual cooperation. And by that very fact, there is a spinning sphere where coalescing goes on between the shaman and the recipient. Would that be correct?
DR PASSERI:That is beautifully said, and I will be using that. That was beautifully said. Sometimes I get so wordy because it was my experience. And I don't know where to start. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. That was perfectly summed up. Thank you.
PMD:I'm trying to characterize it in my own mind because, Exactly. And trying to feel the experience of it. And there's a lot more I know we could talk about, I'm thinking time is against us. But I wanted to talk
about the Passeri Team of cobblers
PMD:and your shoe business and how they developed their expertise over a hundred years of experience. What inspired you to Handcraft shoes? Yeah, we're on a
different tack guys. What
PMD:inspired you to handcraft shoes that support people in stepping into their power?
DR PASSERI:Oh gosh. Thank you for asking that. While I was in the jungle I did as you've heard, a tremendous amount of meditation. I journaled every day and something that kept coming to me were the slogans, step into your power and come walk with me. Now, I didn't have a shoe company at the time, right? And I'm like that's really cool. Cause I was developing some other stuff and I just kept that in my head. Three days after leaving the jungle, I met my husband in a city called Cusco, Peru. My husband is not a jungle guy, so he was very happy to let me go and then meet me for the fun stuff after. So we met in Cusco and I walked into this little cobbler shop and I started talking and I immediately knew the energy. My intuition was dead on. I turned to my husband and I said, this is it. And he looked at me and he said, what do you mean? I said, this is it. And then he knew. So for 20 years, up until that point, I had been working with indigenous artisans in many different cultures, but in those cases it was always me supporting indigenous artisans through maybe small grants in creating their crafts and then I would put stuff into suitcases and bring'em home and sell them and create profits for the foundation to go back into these indigenous communities. So when I came out of the jungle, I didn't come out without any experience in working with indigenous shamans, but I had no idea how to start a manufacturing company. I have never manufactured anything outside of simple arts and crafts. I did not even know Spanish when I started this company. And so I walked in, I said to the shaman, Oh my gosh, these are beautiful. Would you be interested in partnering with me? And I was using Google Translate at the time, and he looked at me, and I'm guessing he's had a lot of people in his history come in and comment on how beautiful things are and want to work with him in some way. And people clearly don't always follow through, right? I did. Within three days of that, I had labels made for the company. We were putting them into shoes. I was designing different shoes. And then for three and a half years, we test marketed under a different brand so everything could be perfected. And then we launched Passeri, a beautiful line of handmade shoes, finest quality leather, literally on the planet, and then all of our textiles. This is so cool. This gets me really excited. All of our textiles are made from hand-woven alpaca, and we have four families of weavers. They're
the Katchawa people
DR PASSERI:who live in the mountains in Peru who weave their history. They're beautiful history into these designs that then we transform into what we call wearable art. The
pillars of Passeri are, be
DR PASSERI:beauty, live compassionately, love everyone, know peace, and be kind. And we believe that because all of our products are made from natural fibers that when we infuse into those fibers, those qualities that those qualities are then transferred into our customers. So that step into your power and come walk with us is a rally cry. It's a movement to let people know that you have so much more power and you're so beautiful and just don't forget that. And you can look at your feet to remind you if you want, but you don't
need to buy Passeri shoes to
DR PASSERI:be a part of the movement. So I'm really grateful. It's been four and a half years of building this remarkable company and you asked about the cobblers. So we have 10 to 12 cobblers who work with us, the cobblers in Peru 9 1 1. These people are so talented and desire so much to bring their work to the world, but so often don't have an opportunity to do. It's the same with the Weavers and why I am so proud of our slow fashion products is because we support people in living what
we call tribable lives.
DR PASSERI:Most weavers historically have not been able to make a living doing their craft because people want stuff cheap. It's the era of I want it cheap, I want it quick, and if it comes to my door, I wanna return it tomorrow for full refund if I want. And slow fashion isn't about that. Slow fashion is about creating, it's about honoring societies and civilizations and people and then using that honoring to honor the gift that those things give the people who buy the products. So it's a beautiful relationship and I'm so grateful to have started this company.
PMD:Oh, that's beautiful. The pillars that you cemented into the fabric of your company and how they've shaped your mission and how your business empowers people to cultivate their connection to self and to others, and to the planet and the journey towards living our best lives as mentioned in your mission, being influenced by beauty and compassion and love and peace and freedom and kindness, and beyond the specific experiences you share in your memoir, what is the essence of your life's journey that you hope resonates with others?
DR PASSERI:Very simply that we are powerful and beautiful beings who deserve, not just should have, but deserve a deep abiding, joy-filled connection with self that deserves the opportunity to clock any disempowering narratives that got stuck to us as we were growing and developing in life. That we have the power to clock those disempowering narratives and that we also have the power to bring our gifts fearlessly into the world. Absolutely fearlessly. Whatever gifts an individual has, they have the power to bring those gifts into the world. There's obstacles. Those are the tests. I have so many tests from my company in growing. Do you really want this? I remember just really quickly Walking down the street once it was about a year and a half into building this business, and I was walking down the street and I had tremendous anxiety because as I said, I knew nothing about manufacturing and I was building a factory in a country I didn't speak the language and I would have this anxiety overcome me. And it was debilitating and it was shame filled, and it was, I don't know if you can do it. And one day I was walking and I was like, knock it off. You know better. What do you teach? Live what you teach. And so in that moment, what I said to that narrative, that anxiety narrative, I just looked, I looked straight ahead as I was walking, I said, that's right. I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm gonna figure it out. That's the message. We have the power to figure it out. We have the power to heal. We have the power to bring our gifts fearlessly in the world, and we have the power to overcome our tests. No matter how difficult they might be. We have the power to overcome them.
PMD:It's a powerful and potent message to conclude the podcast and Dr Passeri, I wanna thank you for sharing your inspiring story and insights with us today. It's been truly enlightening to hear about your journey and there's so much more I would like to talk to you about. There's a lot more to unpack and to hear about the mission behind Passeri. Before we conclude, is there any final message or advice you'd like to share with listeners and where can people find you and where can
people find Passeri?
DR PASSERI:I think the final statement is in evidence to what I was sharing just a few
minutes ago. Passeri would've
DR PASSERI:never happened if I hadn't been open to my own healing, if I hadn't allowed myself to be curious to go to places that were really difficult. It would not have happened. And I share that as a pure and perfect empirical example of how our limiting beliefs can and do limit our ability to thrive and can get in the way of us thriving. It would be very easy to say that company would've started anyway. No, it absolutely wouldn't have. I would not have the resolve
and knowning that I could
DR PASSERI:do it in the way I now know and show up in the world because my thoughts, my talk, my emotions and my behaviors are aligned in service to that mission to allow my experiences, my trauma experiences and memories to be in service to other people and the shoe company is just one way for those memories being healed to be in service to other people. So whatever your listener's gifts are, there are things that will continue to show up in your world to give you opportunities, maybe totally unexpected, like my shoe company, to give you opportunities. Just show up and go, I got this. Here I go, and never look back. Where can you find me? You asked that as well. So my website is luciana passeri.com. It's L U C I A N a P as in Paul, a s e r i.com. And you can also book things there with me. That would be great. The shoe company is at Passeri today. It's P as in Paul, a s E R I today. And as of today, we are launching 2022 new models of shoes that are just so gorgeous and I'm so proud of them. They'll be online and available in about six weeks, which will bring us to about mid August. Right now we have gorgeous sneakers and some other models of shoes online as well, but our line will be expanded. So I would just appreciate people following us and going to our website to see our weavers. We have videos of our weavers and our cobblers doing their thing, so it's not just about buying the shoes. We hope to inspire.
PMD:I'll put those in the show notes and I'll definitely check out the website. I see myself ordering some sneakers from you.
DR PASSERI:Excellent.
PMD:And I want to encourage listeners to step into their power and embrace the journey of self discovery cuz from this conversation I can see that life is a never unfolding adventure and it's essential to cultivate your connection to yourself, others, and the planet. So we need to seek beauty and compassion, and love, peace, and kindness and all the things that we do, and let those qualities guide us towards living our best life. And from what I'm hearing is that we also have to remember that our humble beginnings don't define our potential. We need to embrace every experience, listen to our intuition, develop the grammar. Because they often, as you said,
Dr. Passeri is, they
PMD:can be the catalysts that shift our focus and shape our purpose. So we need to be open to embracing change and allow it to fuel our growth and let us all contribute to a kinder, more compassionate world. So if together we can continue to walk with purpose and make a positive impact on this planet whilst we are here as a temporary appearance. So I want to thank you so much.
DR PASSERI:Thank you, Peter. I'm really grateful for this opportunity. Thank you for your podcast and the opportunity. I am grateful.
PMD:You're most welcome.