Ep 36. Emotional Regulation for Business Success and Personal Wealth (with special guest Robert Hill)

I invited my good friend, Robert Hill back on the podcast to discuss his relationship with money, the work he has done to live in his body and how that has impacted his entire life.  

Robert and I discuss how Human Design allowed both of us to have such compassion for ourselves and our families, highlighting the importance of presence and emotional regulation for both personal and business well-being.

On the podcast we discuss:

• Robert's relationship with money when he was younger and the emotions he felt.
• The connection between your relationship with money and feeling safe in your body.
• We define what feeling safe in our bodies means to each of us.
• How compassion and gratitude play a huge role in our relationship with money.

Ways you can experiment with to get into your body:

• Conscious Re-birthing Breathwork
• EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique)
• RRT (Rapid Resolution Therapy)
• Meditation
• Being Sitting/Doing nothing
• Playing
• Being in nature
• Yoga
• Therapy

Books and Mentors we mentioned in this episode:

• Mind over Money by Brad Klontz and Ted Klontz
• Dr. Gabor Mate

You can connect with Robert on his website or via his Instagram page

Compassionate financial mentor and guide to female entrepreneurs so that they have peace of mind and fun with their money in order to live life now and in the future.

To join the waitlist for Grow the CEO cohort click here.

Generate a Life Well Lived website

Generate a Life Well Lived YouTube Channel

New to Human Design? You can receive your Human Design chart here

As always, thanks for listening.

From my soul to yours.
Erin

Transcript

Erin Gray: 0:00

You're listening to Generate a Life Well Live podcast. I'm your friend and confidant, Erin Gray. I created this podcast to have a place where I could express and vulnerably share my insights with you regarding money, self-development, parenting and travel. I hope you enjoy the journey where I share everything I know and am continuing to learn along the way, as I honor my heart's desires while inspiring and encouraging you to do the same.

Erin Gray: 0:26

Hey, hey, I've got Robert Hill back on they podcast today and if you're not following his Instagram, I'll put it in the show notes. But go follow it, because I literally I don't think I've told you this. I totally stalk you and like, look at all the places you've been. Just, his photography skills are amazing. So I brought Robert back on to talk about money. He is a business coach and then what do you call it? An adventure elopement photographer? Is that the way that you? Yeah, and so his photography skills and pictures are amazing. So go check him out on Instagram. So thanks again for coming back and having a conversation and all the things.

Erin Gray: 1:10

So in my visits with or I should say interviews with lots of people that I've had on the podcast, money has been kind of I think I would like.

Erin Gray: 1:21

It's been the thing that obviously has affected my life and I think it's the thing that I've had to really work through and has resonated with a lot of people.

Erin Gray: 1:31

And so one of the things that my goal for this podcast is to show up and to share vulnerably, because I think for a lot of us, one right it can be difficult to do because that exposes us and when we don't feel safe in our bodies to do that, and it was just something that I really wanted to be raw and vulnerable and to share. And so, for the money aspect, tell me, or tell the listeners, a little bit about your history growing up, because the more that I talk to people, the more that people respond back. They're like I'm not the only one, like this is, this is, this has happened to me too, or this has kind of been my story, and so I think it gives them some sense of connection and, yeah, I would say, not a loneliness, you know of like We've all kind of had our own experiences with our relationship with many and also, yeah, that connection of like the more we talk about it, the more it exposes it, the more that we can like normalize having conversations around it.

Robert Hill: 2:56

Yeah, totally. I think what you just said really landed with me, because when you first reached out to do the podcast, you would ask if I wanted to talk about money. And I remember in that moment, my whole body just constricting and just like, oh my God, no. And over a couple of hours, as I was kind of contemplating it, I like relaxed into it and I kind of realized like wow, like I have had a pretty wild journey. I think everybody has a wild journey with money. But I think that that was kind of my signal. That was like oh, this actually could be one of the best things to talk about, one. I've never talked about it publicly, but also I do think that money is this thing that, because of the way that we've built our society, it like rules so much and it takes up so much space in our minds. And I think a lot of my journey with money if I was to kind of encapsulate my story or my life in regards to money I think it has been a big one. I don't have it figured out, like I don't know that anybody ever really has it all figured out right, we're all just learning. But I think that my journey has been one where I've shifted from my mind into my body when it comes to money.

Robert Hill: 4:22

Growing up I had a bit of an interesting childhood in the sense that my mom and my dad split when I was very, very young and my dad wasn't really in the picture for the first decade of my life and my mom remarried a couple of times. So we were kind of changing situations up quite a bit and each time that she remarried she remarried to somebody who was in the military. So I wouldn't say that growing up we had really that much of like an extravagant life, like it was very base level, like military housing kind of thing, and so it wasn't really extravagant at all. And when I think about the highs and the lows, something that often comes to mind is when my mom divorced her second husband, we moved from Alaska. I grew up the first seven or eight years of my life in Alaska and we moved to Florida and big shift, big change. But at that time I mean my mom had a really rough childhood as well. So it wasn't like she was at the top of her game when it came to work and money and her piss and all of that, and so her main focus was just taking care of her three kids. And at the time and I think I look to my mom now with so much reverence because just to see what mothers go through and to see how they show up for their kids is wild but in this one season of our lives we were kind of at our lowest point, where we were living in an extremely low-income area.

Robert Hill: 6:01

My mom actually was in the middle of the year and my mom actually worked at a daycare, specifically because that got us free daycare. So after school we would just go to daycare and then we would be there the rest of the day. And I remember back then this was like 1997, 1998, mcdonald's had a promotional back then where on Tuesdays from like 5 to 6 pm you could buy hamburgers basic hamburgers for 29 cents and on Wednesdays you could buy cheeseburgers for 39 cents. And my mom figured out that buying sliced cheese and going after the Tuesday hamburgers was actually cheaper than going after the Wednesday cheeseburgers and so what she would do is she would go to. We would, I remember distinctly going through the drive-thru and ordering like tons of hamburgers, like 50 hamburgers, and that's what we ate like around the clock for a season of our lives. I have a very big aversion to McDonald's now. I don't know if it's linked with that or not. I just can't stand it.

Robert Hill: 7:11

But when I look back I look at that time as kind of like from a financial standpoint. You know that was that was like the low of the low that I can remember, you know, living in a two-bedroom apartment sharing a room with my mom, my two sisters having their room and eating McDonald's around the clock, you know. And as I grew up, things kind of started to shift. As I became a teenager I watched my mom, you know, really step into a space that she started to feel a lot of purpose and she really excelled in that space and I watched kind of the quality of our lives and the finances of our family definitely start to rise. We ended up buying a bigger house. I started watching my parents buy cars and like all of a sudden we were in this place where we were living. You know, at the time as a kid I don't recall thinking like good or bad, but it was just this is what we had, you know. But I think that a lot of that for me growing up and especially finding kind of some things that I was really interested in photography. I picked up a camera when I was 12 years old. I was fortunate enough to really find something I really loved when I was really young and it ended up becoming this thing that, like I built a business around. I really built a life with this At first when I started my business.

Robert Hill: 8:37

I know at that time I was so operating from my mind and I think that there was a lot of conditioning and there was a lot of, like, you know, what I saw my parents do growing up, which was work really hard and hustle and don't be very emotionally present and, you know, just grind it out. And so that's kind of the route that I took. And I found, when I first started my business, that it was so mental, it was so psychological. I was studying, you know, psychology and persuasion and marketing and all these things that are very mental things, you know. And my business took off faster than I ever thought that it possibly could and to the point where I was doing things or making more money than most everybody I knew, in the photography world at least.

Robert Hill: 9:32

And I think it was at that point that I realized like I am not feeling how I want to feel. Even though I have all of these material things, I have the finances, I have the status, I have the following all of that I didn't feel how I wanted to feel, and I think it was at that point when everything started to crumble, because I had this wild personal awakening. I think that that's when my money journey really actually started, because that was my journey. That was when my journey with myself actually really started, and I think that since then it's been definitely quite an experience just to really be able to break down the walls of how money can rule our lives and how we can so mentally feel anxious and exhausted and overwhelmed by just the role that money plays in our lives.

Erin Gray: 10:26

So yeah, so much of what you said. It's like, yes, like the, the I wrote down and there's this book called Mind Over Money, but it's all about, like our. It's like a two psychologists I think it's a son and a dad and they kind of break down, like and they talk about money worshiping and like that is something that I identified with of like, like you said, like putting putting money like up on this pedestal and like believing that the money you know is going to, if we have a certain amount, that's going to bring us, you know, the joy or the safety or the security. And for me, what I realized is like I would get to a certain level or point and have assets. And then I was like, okay, well, at 250,000,. It was like well, okay, now I moved the goalpost right. Okay, at 500,000, it was like well, shit, I think it was around 500,000. I was like, wait a second, like it's not, I'm not my body, like I don't think I had the language of my body, but like I don't feel any different with 500,000 than I did with 250.

Erin Gray: 11:34

And so it was like something there's, there's something else here, you know, and I think that, like you say, in the culture, right of you know how we have been brought up. That like it's about status. It's about, you know, like what you have. But even working in the financial industry, you know it's like but Friday, but Friday afternoon, happy hours like everyone would get sloshed, and it's like now, looking back, it's like, wait a second. You know like we're, we're doing some of these things because there's things within us that need love and attention and tenderness. You know and and and. So why are we, you know, rushing to the bar and and getting you know completely, it's like all of these people that I'm around have all of this money and they still don't feel right, there's, there's, there, they're chasing something, something that you said about, you know, growing up and with your mom, and something that I've really had to, which started with me having compassion for myself first, but like compassion for our parents.

Erin Gray: 12:33

Because I think a lot of times the, I think when you go through you know like it's not like you. You have anger and then you like go through this process and you never feel the anger again, right, it's like, but when I started kind of like really unpacking and really tuning into my body and thinking about how I grew up and like what my parents and like having, like there was, there was some anger that I felt like why did I have to be the one that knew all of this stuff? Why did I get you know? Like I felt a lot of like yeah, I felt a lot of anger right Towards my dad of like why did you share all this with me?

Erin Gray: 13:12

Like I know, and I'm seeing now like it was from a place of like wanting to empower me and to teach me things, and then also that feeling of like yeah, but I was 10, you know, and having now looking back, having such compassion for our parents, because I can't imagine like trying to make ends meet, trying to pay your bills, trying to do the things, and feeling such stress, like you know what it's like when we're in the survival base versus creativity, you know, and it's like we're just, you have three children, you're doing the best that you can and like having, I think for me it was like really coming to a place of such love and compassion that, like my parents did the best that they could with what they have.

Erin Gray: 13:55

You know, and I don't know how many of us have gotten like I don't want to say I've gotten to that place, but I think for a long time I stayed in that like anger and upset place versus kind of viewing it from their lens, right, like what is it like that? Your mom was like, okay, how do I feed my children? You know, like this was the thing that I could do to make sure that food was on the table. And, you know, and I think, when we can have compassion for ourselves and we can really get which going back to, like getting out of our heads into our bodies, right, like feeling that, the tenderness that we all have, right, that vulnerability, and then being able to have compassion for our parents, for, you know, because I always look at it, the intention is always like to take care of your children too, to to, um, you know, make them have a better life than what you have, right, like that's the viewpoint you know that I hold, like parents, you know, with.

Robert Hill: 15:09

So yeah, I feel like I think I think, when it comes to Our parents, like you know, when I, when I had my personal awakening, which basically was just the moment that I felt and I can look at a distinct moment in which this started to happen but it really was a season of my life in which this really started to the wake up, started to happen I remember feeling so much anger and so much grief and I wanted to blame everybody. I felt like everybody had lied to me like and I was. I was 26 years old and I was like what in the world? Like how in the world have I been duped like this? You know and I think you know any any time what I would have had to learn over the years, especially when it comes to my parents, because it first I really wanted to blame my parents a lot, I and I said some things, I did some things, that looking back, I can see that it was just a little child inside of me who was just freaking out, you know. But I think any time that and I've had several experiences that have kind of brought me to this realization but any time that we are Angry at somebody, it's because we just have an emotional charge going on inside of us. It's our experience, like you're the one who's feeling the thing and we can continue to blame others or we can just actually be with what we're feeling, which is so difficult, you know, and so scary. Like to really go into the depth of that and and I think a bigger conversation, more side conversation, I think, is like how do I do that and who do I go to to do that? And, like you know, I think there's a lot of questions to be, a lot of questions. There's a lot, of, a lot of things that need to kind of go into that.

Robert Hill: 17:08

But I've just found that the more that I be with me, the more that I feel through those things and like be really intentional about going into the depth of my emotions and and feeling those things and releasing the discharge and just charging the energy that I'm holding from my childhood, from my teen years, from my young adult years, the more compassion I'm left with like that's all you got. You know, because you can, you can blame your parents all day long and if you really sit with it, like who are they blaming their parents and who are they blaming their parents and who are they blaming? Their parents? Like generational trauma is a thing, like things get passed down and and it's not that we're here to like heal all of our trauma it's really just come to the realization that, like, everyone's doing the absolute best that they can with what they have. You know, I think that's. I think that's.

Robert Hill: 18:07

I think that's where where I found so much value in human design. Because, like, if anything, human design is the opportunity to understand yourself on such a depth that I mean I've done a lot of things, I've studied a lot of things. I know that there's a lot of things I haven't studied. There's infinite modalities and systems in the world, it seems like these days, but I've never come across something that has that has helped me, given me a map to explore as much as human design has.

Robert Hill: 18:41

But, on the flip side, in learning not just my design, but in learning my design, expanding my capacity to be able to learn other people's designs, I think that it's a system that really allows you to learn how to truly respect other people without putting your stuff on them, like because now, seeing my parents designs, I'm like, oh my god, like everything makes sense. I can see exactly what played out. I can see when shadow came into play, I can see when alignment came into play. I can see the fluctuation of those things, and only to the degree that I can, you know, but I think that it's yet. It's another tool that just cultivates more and more compassion, and I think that that's the key, and I think that that's even the key when it comes to compassion. I think that I think that I've never connected these, but there's something in me right now that really wants to correlate compassion and gratitude with one another, and I find that gratitude is just this specific quality of energy that really plays a big role in money.

Erin Gray: 19:49

Yeah, I want to go back. I wrote down a couple things. One, human design. I 100% agree with you, because when I learned about my design, like you just said, when I learned about my parents design, like it was, I was able to view them from such a, like you say, a compassionate, loving lens, like, of course, right, and having having that tool, because I think a lot of people are like well, this is something else that come across. A lot is like well, how do I actually get into my body? Right, and I think it's different, like the process is different for each person, right, and so I would love it if you're open to sharing how do you like to get into your body?

Erin Gray: 20:34

But one of the things that I if this was probably back in May, june, I was, you know, like I feel, like language is such a beautiful thing and also like sometimes it like keeps us in our in our minds, you know, because I was like actually searching for the feeling that I was trying to feel, versus just feeling whatever it was.

Erin Gray: 20:55

Like I couldn't name the feeling, but I was, I was sensing and feeling something right and I realized I was like wait a second, I'm like spending this time trying to figure out what am I feeling? Versus like just being with the feeling, and I think you know, so often we might be looking for how we're feeling, or we might be trying to follow a process a certain way or doing. Versus, like you said, like literally just being where we are, which is scary, right, like in the beginning, scared the bejesus out of me, right like it didn't feel good. It did not feel good, like I couldn't really do it for very long. You know like I'm talking like seconds, right like minutes maybe, and it's like a practice, like anything, like the more that you do it, the better you get at it. When I say better, what I mean is like the more it doesn't feel as intense in my body as it used to. So I would love it if you wanted to share, like some of the things that you've used to get into your body.

Robert Hill: 22:00

Yeah, I think something that just came up was I'm going to butcher this to some degree, but there was a, I want to say, a French philosopher way back in the day. I think his name was I'm going to butcher this, but it's Blaise Pascal, I think, or Blaise Pascal something like that, and I love that he. He said this thing once, that he basically said that all of humanity's problem starts from man's inability to sit quietly, quietly in a room alone, and I think a lot of people would debate that. In my experience, I don't think that there's. I think that he just nailed it.

Robert Hill: 22:48

Like, I think the beingness is the parts, and even in doing coaching, a lot of what I'm. You know, no one really has business problems. Everyone just has personal problems that are affecting their business, and the personal problems that they're having is a problem of beingness. And we're all on this journey of self awareness for all, on this journey of like who am I and how am I different and how do I stand out? And like, how do I create something that's unique to me or authentic to me, you know, and that comes through the journey of presence, through beingness, and if you can't be with yourself, then your mind is never going to figure it out. Like that's the part that is really the the, the mind fuck of it all.

Robert Hill: 23:37

Like, yeah, it's it's, it's with you to be able to understand you. You know, and so, and I think that growing up in a world or at least you know in our country like very, very capitalistic and very materialistic, to consider what it means to just be with yourself, it's, it's anti the path we've been taught. The path we've been taught is go, move, do, grind, hustle, like you know it's. It's constantly on the go rather than operating from a place of beingness. So I can, I can recall so many times in my business where it was like I would wake up with anxiety like oh my God, what do I have?

Robert Hill: 24:21

to do today. Yeah, my God, am I doing the right thing? Oh my God, am I? You know, and it's, and it's the worst, like anxiety is terrible. The feeling of nervous system being shocked constantly is I wouldn't wish it on my enemies like it's just, it's terrible, you know, and so, but it's also one of those things that, like, in those moments, can you just rather than play in to that conditioning, yep.

Robert Hill: 24:48

Can you just sit? Can you be still with that, even though it's going to suck, even though it's going to be painful? I think my biggest, my biggest, my biggest, or the thing that really, really kickstarted all of this. You know, I grew up. I was a really active kid. I love extreme sports and I think a lot of times and I say this just because this has been my journey A lot of times, I think, when it comes to meditation, a lot of people are at the point where they look at meditation, they think about meditation and they go.

Robert Hill: 25:31

I need to move, like I need to go on a run to be able to meditate, and I absolutely think exercise is such an incredible way to get into our bodies, but there's still a different quality to I need to go, do something to get into my body and I can just sit right here and be in my body. You know, and I ended up it was kind of a string of synchronicities that led to this, but I, years ago, discovered an organization called Dhamma, who they host these. Some people refer to them as retreats. I would not call it a retreat, it's more of a course, and they teach a very specific form of meditation known as Vipassana, and I had no idea what Vipassana was and I didn't want to go on the internet and try and figure it out. And even if you did go on the internet and you try and like listen to someone's explanation of Vipassana, there's no possible way that you can actually understand what it, what it is you know.

Robert Hill: 26:40

But I decided to sign up for this Vipassana. So I was in Italy for about a month and a half for workshops and shoots and work and that sort of thing, and I ended up having the opportunity to go to my first Vipassana. It's a 10 day long silent meditation course in which you are learning to meditate and you're on a very strict schedule. You're meditating off and on, you have breaks in between, but you're going at one hour, one and a half and two hour long sessions for about 10 and a half hours a day for 10 days straight and you're on the same schedule every single day, starting at 4am and at 9pm.

Erin Gray: 27:16

Talk about a lot for your nervous system If you're a person that hasn't sat with yourself, and then to go for 10 days of 10 hours that's intense right.

Robert Hill: 27:26

Yeah, I mean, it's intense the moment you arrive and you hand over your keys and your phone and all your belongings because you're not allowed to take anything with you whatsoever. No, no phone, no journal, no yoga mat. You can't do exercise. Nothing Like literally you are on this schedule. You cannot have any items other than the clothes on your body, and even those have to be fully covering you and very simple no jewelry, no makeup, no pur like literally nothing. You are cut off from the world and even cut off from the energetic exchange with other people.

Robert Hill: 28:02

You're literally in solitary confinement, being trained, how to be with yourself, and you know, a lot of people that I've talked to about this are just like hell. No, I would never do that, you know, and I get it. I get it, but the value that I walked away with was unspeakable. Like I can't put into words what the level of presence that you have when you come out of that place, the level in which you can smell the grass, the degree in which you feel the wind on your face, the level of in-tune-ness you are with your senses is ridiculous, because you've just I was going to say, you've taken away all of the things that distract your senses.

Erin Gray: 28:55

I always say we're human beings, not human doings, and you say in this culture that we live of hurry up, fast, fast, fast, go, go, go, go go. And so for some of you that are like you just said, hell, no, I cannot do that. Where is your starting point? For me, I had to just start with a guided five minute meditation. I used to never meditate, like who can do that? Blah, blah, blah. Okay, but what can I do? That's a little bit like ooh, it's uncomfortable to sit and be with myself for five minutes or 15 minutes or whatever it is. It's like there's always a little bit outside your comfort zone that you can take, that can get you closer to ultimately like no phone, no music, just being with yourself.

Erin Gray: 29:43

And I think, like our society does not value silence, stillness. You know, like I remember I don't know if I said this on this podcast or a different one, but like Alex Hermosi was talking about you know, like you can't make money in meditation, right? Like if people want to go get an anxiety pill, they don't want to like sit and meditate. And while I don't necessarily believe what he said I do I do agree with. Like we have been brought up with. Like what's the quick fix? Right, like there's a pain in our bodies and we're like what doctor do I need to see? Versus like, no, what emotion might be trapped or my feeling in my body that's causing this pain?

Erin Gray: 30:24

Right, and when we can really get back to the basics of like everything is happening within me and what I see in my external world is because of what I'm thinking and feeling, right, like we've been taught or led to believe that like things outside of us are what are causing us to feel a certain way, versus like it is generated within us first and then we see it in the external world and so that slowing down and stillness, that and the amazing things that come from that, right, like you're talking about the anxiety, right, like so many of us want the feeling to go away and so we get on the train and just do whatever, right to make the feeling go away, which it doesn't really go away.

Erin Gray: 31:14

Right, and versus sitting with it, being with it and like allowing it to dissipate, but I don't think anybody we didn't learn that in school. Like nobody's teaching us really. I mean, I think it's now starting to. You know, obviously come about, but like nobody taught us, like that that was the answer. Not to like, do more, hurry up and all of the things.

Robert Hill: 31:42

Yeah, and you know I what you just said and that that whoever that was that said that about you can't make money in meditation. I would strongly disagree and I don't mean that in the sense of like go make money being a meditator. I don't mean that as much as I mean.

Erin Gray: 32:05

We can create money with meditation.

Robert Hill: 32:09

Well, yes, exactly, you can create money. Yes, right, like I think one of the big questions you know that I've had over the years and I've literally thought over, thought, I've gone down every rabbit hole to try and come up with, like, what's the answer to this question. But the question that I've gotten, probably more than most questions, is like what is value Like from a business standpoint, right For business owners? We're here to create value, to add value to other people's. What is value?

Robert Hill: 32:40

I, in being asked questions with the defined head and all the gates activated, I'm like like I'm like asking that question internally all the time. You know, and I think that my journey has really showed me, especially in the last couple of years. I think I finally experienced what the answer was. I experienced it. I didn't learn it Like. I didn't learn it in terms of like I didn't read it in a book. I experienced it and I went oh my God, that's what it is. But I think that the thing that everybody wants and I don't feel in this moment that I'm projecting like is, if this is just what I want, that this is like the core of what I want as well, but I think that the core of what every human being on the planet wants is they want to feel safe, to be themselves, and a regulated nervous system will help another nervous system regulate, like co-regulation starts with one person being regulated period, and so you have to feel safe.

Robert Hill: 33:47

To create safety for other people.

Robert Hill: 33:49

You have to be safe and secure and grounded in who you are to be able to do that for other people. And I think that the beauty of life is that we go through life and you may have a season in which you feel really safe and grounded and secure in yourself, and then something may happen that throws you off and it's like welcome to the hero's journey. It's time to find the next level of safety and keep spiraling up this thing. But I think that that's the part where no one really cares about what you know. Everyone cares about how safe you are, and when it comes to operating a business or when it comes to money, you have to feel safe in order to not have these external factors be controlling you and spinning you out all the time.

Robert Hill: 34:35

And so I think as well because I think this would have been super valuable for me to hear somebody say this years ago was the goal is not that you're trying to get regulated in your nervous system, which, if you don't know what that means, it basically means that you just feel calm, you feel zen, you feel grounded, you feel at home within yourself. It's not that we're trying to get there 100% of the time. Your nervous system is built to fluctuate between ventral, vagal, sympathetic, parasympathetic, fight or flight, shut down, regulated. You know we're meant to fluctuate. It's not about being 100% of the time regulated. It's about how quickly you can regulate when you dysregulate.

Erin Gray: 35:15

And I think that's the part you can return back to baseline.

Robert Hill: 35:19

Right, can you return back to baseline quickly? Because what ends up happening what I experienced and what I see so many people deal with is that they get dysregulated. They don't even know what that means. They don't understand the feelings they're having in their body. They get dysregulated, but because of the way we've been trained, because of the way that we've been conditioned to live in our minds rather than our bodies, because we have this external authority rather than internal authority, because we watched our parents growing up and we're like we should do that, or we should do what our friends do, or we should do what our mentors and leaders are doing.

Robert Hill: 35:47

We start doing what everyone else is doing rather than what we're supposed to do, and in turn, we find ourselves in this chronic dysregulation where it's just our bodies are being electrocuted all day long, all the time trying to keep up because we don't think that what we're doing is the right thing. And until you can learn how to be with your feelings and learn how to regulate and come back to baseline faster, you're not going to experience the sense of wholeness and beingness and presence that you actually want out of life. You're not going to sense the level of safety that you actually want and from that point you're not actually going to be able to add the value that you know you could add, because you're not energetically in integrity with how you actually want to feel.

Erin Gray: 36:31

How would you describe safety? What does safety mean to you?

Robert Hill: 36:46

I would say I would correlate it to a lot of things. I would say not being in threat. Of course I would also say it's being in your body, it's being okay with what's going on in your body, it's having self-trust. I think confidence is mixed in there, and not confidence from a mental place of like let me try and prove myself. You know I got this. But confidence as in, I don't need. I'm grounded here, I'm at home in myself.

Erin Gray: 37:34

Yeah, yeah, I would agree with all that. I also think and you've said this a little bit it's like when I learned that it was okay to feel whatever I was feeling, that to me, like I have full body chills. Saying that, like that to me was like okay, that's what we're after, right? Because when it's okay to feel guilt, when it's okay to feel embarrassment, when it's okay to feel shame, and I can sit with it, oh, and when I can love every single emotion that I have and that it is here to allow me to turn inward, to be tender, to be with that parts of me that I have either abandoned or betrayed, like that to me is like that's everything you said and like that is like, because we're running right, we're running from, it's not safe to feel certain emotions like it wasn't safe, maybe growing up, right, maybe we, either from our teachers or parents or whomever, right, all of the conditioning, generational, you can name it right, all of it.

Erin Gray: 38:42

And is it safe to feel anything that your body is feeling in that moment and to be with it? As long as it takes to be with it and I have noticed this too it's like okay, well, I felt it. It's like well, is it still there? Yeah, I'm like okay, I did the thing versus like it still needs to be there and be expressed right Versus like I did the thing and now okay, versus truly being with it as long as it takes, like I think we still that goes back to the mind Like we have this idea of like how long it's supposed to take, right Versus like no being with yourself when you're experiencing whatever you're experiencing.

Robert Hill: 39:24

Yeah, I you know, vipassana was a. I think Vipassana was one of the first major experiences I had in relation to getting into my body. However and I think that this is this is something that I've never heard anyone talk about, but this has been my experience, and I think that this is the part of life that I think is valuable for anybody to know is you're a human moving through this world. We all have definition from a human design perspective. We all have definition. We all have openness other than that one like 0.3% of people or whatever that's like fully defined Crazy.

Erin Gray: 40:30

For my reflectors right Like or for my, they're 100% undefined. Yeah, yeah.

Robert Hill: 40:37

Is your mom a reflector?

Erin Gray: 40:38

Yes.

Robert Hill: 40:40

Oh my gosh, we got to talk about that. Anyways, we're all moving through this life and we are all picking up energy, whether that's from other people, whether that's from the planetary transits, whether it's just from shit is moving. When you go out into the world, things are moving your experience and things, your sensing things, your thinking about things like emotion is happening. Energy is in motion constantly.

Erin Gray: 41:13

We need to say that, right, because emotion is just energy in motion, like we're all just energy, yeah, yeah.

Robert Hill: 41:22

So going out, we are experiencing energy in motion, we're picking up energy. I at this point don't know if you can't not pick up energy. It's just part of the process. You have the whole chart, you have the whole, everything right, and in that, living in a culture that tells you to go, go, go, go, go, go go but oftentimes I have experienced now in retrospect, looking back is that of course, life is going to get overwhelming if you're just picking up energy and you're never actually giving yourself space to be alone, to discharge, to be in your own work field, if you're not having tools and practices that discharge the energy. It's an ongoing process. There is no end place. It is going to constantly happen and I think that when I went into my first vipassana, like I said, I walked out and it was wild. I think the most wild part of it was jumping back into life and just seeing so wildly clearly.

Robert Hill: 42:28

Vipassana means in Sanskrit. It means to see reality as it is, and you see reality as it is, and reality can be harsh depending on how much you are actually trying to live in reality, and it was an incredibly wild experience to be able to jump back into the world and just see the level of reaction in everything and to just be this very still being that's just watching it all play out, and it was very isolating. It felt very lonely. There was a lot of things that came with it. We came with more work, right. But I think in that process of things I've done multiple vipassanas now and what I realize is that that level of presence doesn't last. It can't last. You're not meditating 10 and a half hours a day. It's going to run out. And I found after my first one for me personally it was about eight months before I actually it clicked I went, whoa, I'm reactive. I'm really reactive way more than I was when I came out of vipassanas. So it dissipates. We're constantly being conditioned because we're constantly picking up energy and experiencing energy and motion and so finding the tools that really help you discharge regularly.

Robert Hill: 43:49

For me, I have found I started doing conscious rebirthing breath work about a year and a half ago and I really feel that I am going to continue on with this journey indefinitely. At this point, because it puts it on my calendar Every week to two weeks it's going and I know what the process is. I know that I'm discharging the energy, I know that I'm actually setting this time aside two hour window for me to breathe into my body, to get into my body and to actually feel what I'm feeling and especially feeling into the depth of anything that may have really rocked my nervous system in the last week to two weeks. And I feel like not having that for me, like I look at it now and I'm like, of course, we have a dysregulated world with people with chronic anxiety and depression and stress and overwhelm, and it's like we aren't feeling what we want to be feeling and we aren't consistently finding ourself in a place of presence, not just because I sat in meditation for a couple of minutes and I was like all right, I'm breathing and I'm good and like check, like, check, you know, it's like really clearing out, like really clearing out and getting back down to baseline of like this is what presence is, over and over and over.

Robert Hill: 45:14

And I heard, I read something recently that basically said cultivating presence in your life is the process of collecting present moments. And it was just like man, yes, like I need to fill my life with all the things that I know that cultivate presence, that give me the opportunity to have present moments over and over and over and over and over. You know that put me more in my body than in my head and the more that I've been on that journey, the more that I feel safe. And a year and a half ago, when I started working with this breathwork coach, I did not feel safe in my body. I felt very, very unsafe, very chaotic, very much overwhelmed going on. But it's also one of those things that it's not an overnight process.

Robert Hill: 45:59

I posted something on Instagram a couple months ago that was hilarious and it's like this meme of somebody has a bucket of water and they come out on their balcony and they throw the bucket of water off the balcony and there's like the quote at the top is like me trying to heal 30 years of trauma in one session and like the camera pans and the whole field is on fire and I was like that was me in session, 100% thought I was going to get through all this. But it is one of those things that it's one step at a time and it's it's. It is can you continue to come back and can you continue to breathe in, and at first it's going to be unfathomably, unfathomably difficult, like there's just no other way to put it, it's going to be the hardest shit you've probably ever done in your life, because facing yourself is, I think, the challenge that we're here to to you know face. So it's not easy, but it's worth it.

Erin Gray: 47:01

It's worth it. Like I got full body chills. It's, it's not. I think that's the thing is like we want we've been taught like there's a quick fix. Right Like this will occur until we decide to transcend and go do something else. Right, like that is that is our. I think that is part of being a human on this plane. Right Like it is.

Erin Gray: 47:22

And I think for everybody is like what I had to learn is like what works for me. Right, because we here we go back to like so many people suggest different things and it's like, oh well, it worked for this person and you have these expectations right, versus like just trying things like breathwork work for me, eft work for me you know, I tried RRT, rapid resolution therapy. Not really it's work for other people. Right, like there's so many different and meditation and just being like literally sitting and doing nothing. Right, like that, that wasn't where I started, right, and also like it's just like you've got to play with this stuff playing. Like for me, I know that's the part of the moving my body and that's not necessarily being, you know, like sitting and but it is a way for me to get into flow and it is like I don't think about. You know, my husband that's like what are you love surfing so much? I'm like with the define head in Aja. See, it's one of the very few places that my mind doesn't give me thoughts, right, I think, because I'm just so focused on reading the waves and being in the ocean and just you know what I mean. It's just like it's, it's. It's the one time that, very few times, I should say right, like that, it's not like giving me all of the things. And so I would say, you know, to each of you, like, just experiment with what feels good for you. And when I say feels good, I don't mean that it's going to necessarily feel good in the beginning. It's just like what feels, I know, for me. I have like, well, it worked for this person. Like I kept going at it. Going at it versus like okay, let me just try something different, and that felt better for me and it and it worked for me. You know what I mean. And so what are the? What are the things that you know?

Erin Gray: 49:19

We talked about being in nature last time on the podcast and like we are nature and also I know that, like when I've worn my shoes too much and I haven't been in the grass and I haven't been, you know, like that is something that, for me, grounded and it feels good to lay in the grass and just sunbathe. You know what I mean. Like put a, put a and put a blanket down and just be right, like with, with, so it's just for everybody. It's just like you have to be willing to experiment, I think of like what works for you and and to, like you say, practice and to just keep at it because it's there will never come a point, and I think that's where I was for a long time. It's like, oh, I thought I would do the things and that would be all done, versus like this is forever, like this is just part of it's just like you brush your teeth, it's just like just part of part of the daily what we do, you know.

Robert Hill: 50:20

Yeah, I think, I think something that that what you just said was so key. Like I, if there's one thing I can look back on in my life and just be like man like this, such a funny paradox, if you will, of our minds is we're trained to think that others have the answer. We are trained to think that others know what we should do right, but my entire journey has been me figuring shit out, like experimenting and figuring it out, and I think that that is just so important to say, because nobody's path is your path, like that's. The point of the journey is that you are walking into the dark forest by yourself and you're figuring out how to get to the other side by yourself. And I know that that can maybe feel a little bit extreme or a little bit intense, but we Can. I go a little bit woo-woo here for a second.

Erin Gray: 51:30

I'm like it's my life.

Robert Hill: 51:31

Yes, of course I just say whatever you want to say, I have. I've been really meditating on this for months now. I had this epiphany and I was just like when it came through, I was just like, damn, that is potent, for me at least, and I basically just had this epiphany months ago that the word alone is also the same as all one. And it's like this paradox of us being these five-dimensional conscious beings in this three-dimensional reality and these bodies and personality and egoic, you know, identities and all of this, and it's like we're fluctuating between those two things constantly. It's like we're tapping into like pure consciousness, awareness, presence, and then we're coming back into 3D and like that's the game. The game is is that and I think that there is what can feel very overwhelming it did for me at one point in time is sitting in the reality that you are all alone, but it's just because we're all one, like it is one consciousness experiencing life through many, many different perspectives, many, many different mechanics, and I think that that's kind of the beautiful reminder of just realizing that it's all just a game. And it's all like we're going to fluctuate. You know you're going to go in and out, and the more that you can find peace in that fluctuation, the more you're going to play the game in the way that is actually more fun for you to play the game you know.

Robert Hill: 53:15

So I think that it's very easy to think that someone else has the answers If you don't feel like you have the answers right now for yourself. But nobody has the answers. No one has any of this figured out and you, going on the journey of going, you know not, I should go do a Vipassana because Robert did, or I should go do EFT, or I should go, you know, do any of these things. It's really how does this feel in my body? Like, does my body say yes to going and doing a Vipassana for 10 days? Or does it say yes to going to therapy or doing breath work or learning to meditate or starting to do yoga? Or like, what does your body say yes to? Because the more that you listen to your body and the more that you just follow that, follow your inner authority, the more you're going to cultivate that self trust and you're going to find more safety and presence in your body because of that journey.

Erin Gray: 54:15

Oh my gosh. Yes, so much I wrote down patients which I don't think a lot of us have. Right, Like our muscle isn't that strong for patients, it's being willing and having the courage. I don't think it's.

Robert Hill: 54:26

I don't think. I don't think it's that we don't have patients, as much as we don't have presence, Because if you have presence, then patience is just the byproduct.

Erin Gray: 54:35

I guess.

Robert Hill: 54:36

So yeah, I'm right here, but I get you, yeah, patience is hard. I want that now yeah.

Erin Gray: 54:43

Like, and I think the willingness and the courage right, like the willingness and the courage to be with yourself, like and you said something about, like I wrote down grounded, it's like the self trust when you develop that, that level of self trust, because I mean I think we all, probably all have right, like we have denied, like Gabbermonte says, you know, like that trauma has just been like a betrayal of ourselves and you know where we, where, you know like we, we betrayed who we are, what we were feeling in that moment to connect to someone else.

Erin Gray: 55:31

And when we can come back, I have full body chills when we can come back to ourselves and we're like I am, like I am number one, right, like, numero uno, right here, like Robert is numero uno, like all of you are numero uno full stop, like first and foremost, and being so grounded and like I can't I don't even have the language to describe the amount of self trust that I have developed over the last year Like and here we go back to safety right, like, if it doesn't work out the way I think it's going to, because I said yes or no to something, I'm okay with whatever is going to occur and what I'm going to feel, but continuing to choose my inner authority, my knowing over someone else like man. It's everything.

Robert Hill: 56:23

Yeah, and I think to kind of wrap all of this back in like, when you're operating from that place of beingness and that place of presence, money becomes a tool rather than something you're being tortured by. Yeah, like it's no longer this thing, that you're operating from this mental place. If I'm doing it wrong, or I don't have it figured out, or I suck with money, or you know it's, it's, this is just a tool for me to play the game. Yeah, and I get to decide how well I play the game. Like that's it. I've. I've I've been thinking a lot lately about just like not to go into, like you know, we're all in a simulation Like I don't want to go there as much, but but if you think of it like a video game, you know kind of it's I mean it is like you are.

Robert Hill: 57:15

You like I've been playing this game. I don't play a lot of video games, but in the last the winter season it gets rainy. I've been playing this. I've been playing the new Zelda game this this winter, which has been so much fun and it's just crazy, like you're, you're holding this device, you're playing this character, you're collecting coins and like doing stuff with them. You know, and it's like that's all that we're doing. You know that we're literally just consciousness playing a character collecting coins and like have fun Period, whatever that looks like. Does that look like buying a house and having a 401k and investing in this and all of that If it does, cool. If it doesn't do something different, like it doesn't matter what you do. I think we just get so inundated in our minds with so many things that we should do with our money. I mean, it's like what feels fucking good? What?

Erin Gray: 58:04

do you want?

Robert Hill: 58:05

to do.

Erin Gray: 58:06

Yes.

Robert Hill: 58:06

What do you want to do? What's your inner authority saying Like, are you in your body? Is your body telling you what to spend money on, or is your mind telling you what to spend money on? That's the correlation that for me in this whole journey and I think, why we've gone on this whole rabbit hole of like presence, of meditation and all these things, it's because if you aren't in your body, you're, you're just not going to have fun and at first it's not going to be fun to get into your body necessarily, but it's like I don't know. I'm just convinced at this point, like you got to go through that dark tunnel to come out the other end and be like I got it, like let's have a good time now, you know.

Erin Gray: 58:43

I'm so glad you said that, because go ahead Sorry.

Robert Hill: 58:46

No, I was just going to say, like money is that thing that, like we give our power away to money, like I, it's a hard thing for me, being an entrepreneur to and and you know, I again, I was, I was privileged, I was, I was, um, I, I had the opportunity. I maybe it was fate that I picked up a camera and I fell in love early and I started a business when I was a teenager and I've been doing it ever since. I've just been in it for so long that now when I look at friends, when I look at family, when I look at people who are like in a nine to five not that I think that there's anything wrong with being in a 95, because that may be what's best for you in this season, especially in creating safety, but there's a certain level of of I have to build my life around you in having a job right.

Robert Hill: 59:36

Nothing wrong with having a job. It's something. I've had to get a job throughout my journey of being an entrepreneur in seasons, because I needed time and space to do some other things. But I think we all deeply crave freedom. I think that means a little bit something different for everybody.

Robert Hill: 59:54

But if money is something that you're constantly giving your power away to, I'm constantly sacrificing a life that would fully light me up, that would fully, you know, inspire me and and would fully, you know, allow me. I don't like the idea of like stepping to my potential or anything like that, but just do I love how I'm showing up and giving of myself? Do I love how I'm serving? Do I feel an integrity and do I feel stoked that I'm making a difference in this world?

Robert Hill: 1:00:30

I think we miss that when we are so caught up in giving our power away to money. Because money is constantly shocking our nervous systems, you're constantly bringing about overwhelm or stress, because we're in our minds trying to figure out a puzzle of how to get more money so that we can feel secure enough. But, like you're never going to feel secure enough, no matter if you have $50,000 or $500,000, you're not going to feel secure enough if your nervous system can't come back to baseline quickly, period, and I think that that's that's really what we're speaking about here is is all of this inner work that we talk about? It's to get us to the point where we can feel safe enough, where money just becomes a tool for us to go have fun and really enjoy our life, rather than this thing where we're like we're a slave to this world.

Erin Gray: 1:01:15

And when you feel safe, like you said, fun because I can, I for sure if I was listening to this podcast three or four years ago I'd be like the fuck. You say fun, right, like I was in survival. But when you can get to that place of, like you say, being present, being okay, being in your body, like it is just for fucking fun, like you know.

Robert Hill: 1:01:37

I don't know. We're here for fun, we're here for pleasure.

Erin Gray: 1:01:40

Everyone's always like what's my purpose? Like to fucking have fun and then whatever else you want to do, go do Right, Like that's our purpose.

Erin Gray: 1:01:46

Like fucking come alive and like, have some fucking fun and do some shit you like to do and like everything else. So I seen on the cake and I think we take things so seriously, which goes back to probably right Nervous system regulation, all of these things versus like when you're like in your body it's there is no past, there is no future, it is just right now and so you can, you can, correlate this.

Robert Hill: 1:02:09

Sorry, go ahead.

Erin Gray: 1:02:11

No, I was just going to say, like, use money in a way that, because I was that person right, I was the money worshiper, I was the person clinging to money, thinking that it was going to at some point I was going to feel safe or it was going to bring me, you know, the. I was putting everything away to then enjoy my life and I'm like, at some point I was like, fuck this shit. Like you're going to look back on your life, like, and you're going to be like, what did you do for 20 plus years? Like you literally tried to save and invest your money so you could go have some fun. Well, why don't you just go have some fun right now and like, obviously there's lots more involved, right, like the deconditioning and all that, but like, why don't you actually do the thing now and then, like, let money be in service to you, not of, yeah, being a slave to money? What are we going to say?

Robert Hill: 1:02:56

What came up when you were just talking, right, there was correlating it to purpose, right? Like, what was your purpose when you were five years old? Yeah, swimming, that's what it's about. What, if you can have, you can recall as a kid. Granted, some people have really unfortunate, traumatic, very, very traumatic childhoods where this may not have necessarily been the case, but if you imagine what it was like to be a kid in your body, as a kid, but then have the mind of an adult, like that's what we're going for Like, can you have the level of play and fun that you had as a kid, but have the mind not of the conditioned mind, but the mind of, just like I can think about things, I can make decisions from a more aware place, I can learn things, I can cultivate skills, you know, and, yeah, I think that that's where, when you approach money like a kid with an adult mind, it's a whole nother world than operating from a place of being in an adult condition, stressed out of a well-me'd body with an adult mind. Yeah, I'm convinced at this point that purpose is granted. I think it's going to be different for everybody, but I also think it's the exact same for everybody.

Robert Hill: 1:04:27

And, going back to earlier, you asked what safety is. I've had this interesting experience as a coach, where I've worked with a whole lot of people. I can confidently say I've coached over a thousand people, and a lot of those people it's been in the area of purpose or in the area of why. We talked a little bit about this on the last podcast, and what's been fascinating is to see how literally every single person that I've ever gone on this journey with, they've all had the exact same answer. I've heard it a little bit differently, but the exact same answer, the exact same purpose.

Robert Hill: 1:05:14

Everybody has the exact same purpose, and it's to be yourself. It's to feel safe, being authentically you. That's it. What does that mean? I need to be able to play. I need to be able to have fun. I'm here for pleasure. You're going to experience pleasure to the degree that you're willing to experience pain. In my journey, at least, that's been a truth. So it's. You know, we're here to experience life and we're here to figure out. What does it mean to be authentically me? So hopefully that's a fun one.

Erin Gray: 1:05:53

I always say, like we were given five senses, it was for pleasure.

Robert Hill: 1:05:57

Yeah, exactly.

Erin Gray: 1:06:00

All of it is for pleasure and we've somehow gotten off on that, we've derailed ourselves, right. But like I totally agree, like it is, and we all come to it our own way. Like I was on a call the other day and someone was like well, I don't necessarily like playing the way you like to play. It's like, don't play my way. Like, play your way, your way is crafting and doing. You know, it's just like everybody has their own form. Here we go back to like comparing right, like you play the way and do what lights you up, what feels good to your soul, like whatever that is, and so I love it. Robert, thank you so much. Do you have anything else you want to add before we say goodbye?

Robert Hill: 1:06:40

I don't think so. I love having conversations with you. The rabbit holes we go on are just so potent. I love it.

Erin Gray: 1:06:47

But they are. You know, I know you're just saying rabbit holes, but like it's, people want a quick fix, quick answer, right, but like you do have to. It is about the here we go back to like we want a quick fix, we want that easy, but like it. What it is is like it is simple and it's not easy, right, like, and it takes time and that's how to get there right. Like, just tell me what to do, like how to feel safe with my money. It's like well, gotta go down the rabbit hole. It's like the Allison wonder.

Robert Hill: 1:07:18

Yeah, I think people want like we I hear that all the time, you know like we all. Like people just want the quick fix. They want the diet pill, right, and and again. People would debate this, they would argue with me about this. I don't believe it. I don't think that we actually want a quick fix. I think we just want to feel safe in our bodies. And we don't feel safe in our bodies and we think a quick fix is the answer.

Robert Hill: 1:07:39

Yeah, and if you just be with what you're feeling, be with yourself exactly as you are, and find safety in being who you are, you'll no longer need a quick fix.

Robert Hill: 1:07:53

Like I, this is one of those things that that a lot of times when I'm working with people, I hear people who get on these mind traps of like, oh, I'm going to start this business and it's going to go five years and then I'm going to sell it and I'm going to do this and that and the other thing. If that's because you're just having fun, cool, like, rad, but what's really going on? Like because I think, when you really tap into yourself and you then integrate work with your life, you no longer are doing work, you're doing your life's work and I think that there's a really big thing to be said about the mental concept of work life balance versus work life integration and like are those things getting integrated? Are we actually operating an alignment? Are we actually doing what we actually want to do or are we sacrificing? Are we? Are we self abandoning? Are we self sabotaging for the sake of a dollar? That's nobody can tell you, you know, it's only you. You get to explore that with yourself. You know, but doesn't sound fun to me.

Erin Gray: 1:09:08

Okay, my friend, thank you so much. Where do you want people to if they want to connect to you? How do you want them to to visit and find out more about you and all the things?

Robert Hill: 1:09:19

I'm building out some things I'm very excited about this season of business. I have some new things coming, but as of right now, website roberjhillcom, or Instagram at roberjhill.

Erin Gray: 1:09:30

Yeah, go check out the Instagrams. Okay, my friend, thank you so much Thanks. If you want support as you unpack your money beliefs so that you can start having fun with money and enjoy all that you have created, you can head over to my website to schedule a call. And, as always, from my soul to yours,