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David Peralta - The Role of Spirituality in Healthy Masculinity | Ep. #64
169 Plays1 year ago
David Peralta is a spiritual teacher, coach, and creator of The Soul Centered Founder. Since 2019, he’s been helping impact-driven entrepreneurs build 6- and 7-figure businesses by aligning themselves with their soul’s purpose.
He’s spent over 20 years studying Zen Buddhism, eastern spirituality, and Christianity, and learned the science of how to awaken the soul directly from a spiritual master named Sri Kaleshwar in Southern India.
For years, David worked as a sought-after SEO and content marketing consultant. But despite the professional success, he lacked the level of fulfillment he'd always envisioned for himself. This spilled over into his family life, where he struggled to be the loving husband and father I knew I could be.
But after a series of profound spiritual awakenings, David realized that he needed to stop living a life based on fear and false expectations, and start living a life centered in the soul. Once he began to do so, he experienced miraculous levels of success across all areas of his life—and a complete transformation in his relationships.
Now, he helps others to open their hearts and align themselves with the wisdom and power of the soul—so they can create a lasting impact and become who they are meant to be.
In this episode you'll learn:
- David’s journey. How an experience at 14 years old began a life-long spiritual journey.
- Why spirituality plays a key role in men’s identity.
- How to “hold offense” and be open to all religions.
- What is unconditional love, and is it possible for humans to attain it?
- How changing for the better ripples into the next generation.
- Why it takes time to integrate spiritual experiences into our lives.
- How we can integrate in a way that solidifies our experiences.
Links
Host: Josh Cearbaugh
Website: https://joshcearbaugh.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/joshcearbaugh
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshcearbaugh/
Online Course: https://www.jumpstartyourlife.com
Guest: Andrew Daniel
Website: https://soulcenteredfounder.com/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of David Peralta
00:00:00
Speaker
In today's episode, I talked to a very, I would say, grounded and unique individual, David Peralta. He's a spiritual teacher, he's a coach, and he's a creator of something called the Soul Centered Founder. And really, he brings 20 years of studying Zen Buddhism, Eastern spirituality, Christianity, and really working with men or
Spirituality and Masculinity
00:00:24
Speaker
people. But today's conversation was about men.
00:00:27
Speaker
on helping them unlock success and really define what that is and the role of spirituality in masculinity.
Unconditional Love: A Debate
00:00:36
Speaker
We even get into a little bit of a debate about unconditional love and whether or not that is, one, attainable in humans and also, two, whether or not that's something that we can grow in both in our current lives as well as pass on to our children.
00:00:50
Speaker
Today's conversation is a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast as well as take a moment to write a review. It obviously helps the algorithm and also gives me feedback for how I'm doing and also the guests that I have on. It helps steer the conversation around masculinity. So without further ado, let's get started with the conversation with David Peralta.
The Multifaceted Nature of Men
00:01:16
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
David's Call to Help and Spiritual Awakening
00:01:46
Speaker
So since you were young, you had put in your bio that you really felt like you had a call to greatness and really to helping other people.
00:01:57
Speaker
I'm curious, looking back on your life, where do you feel, especially because a lot of people, they spend a big chunk of their life kind of sifting through and searching for what that call is. Where do you think you got that deep sense of calling to help other people and to really pursue that greatness in you?
00:02:21
Speaker
Uh, if I could sit in a word, it would be my soul. Uh, that it was not what I recognized. I didn't recognize that at any point in my childhood and in my early years, but later on I realized that's what was all the time. They're feeling like this is what has the potential to live in a way that I wasn't living. And that's where it was coming from. Got it. Okay.
00:02:49
Speaker
This could probably take five podcast episodes, but what was some of that evolution of peeling back the layers of realizing that? That is quite a question.
00:03:07
Speaker
So it started when I was 14 years old, and it started with a spiritual awakening. It started with an experience of a profound sense of divine love that I suddenly started to feel for everything and everyone around me. That actually came with
00:03:33
Speaker
I'm trying to figure out how to put it. You've asked a really targeted question. Like people don't normally ask questions like that. And so I really appreciate it. Yeah. There was a process of awakening. Let me put it this way. There was a process of awakening that already started at a very young age. But I wasn't aware of it happening.
00:03:59
Speaker
And so there were experiences that I had along the way that gave me taste of what the soul was, but without enough awareness about it. So I would have this experience when I was 14 of deep, profound love. And then again, losing that and experiencing kind of the lack of that.
00:04:19
Speaker
And then again, at 20 years old, another one of these experiences where I start to feel connected to something that is not what the world is telling me is an option, connected to a deeper sense, an inner intuition, an inner voice, right?
00:04:40
Speaker
In other words, I had been following the script. I had been following the expectations that had been set on me. I was checking all the boxes. I was getting good grades. I had gotten into a good university. I was doing good work there, but inwardly, I was
Finding Freedom Beyond Societal Expectations
00:04:55
Speaker
deeply unhappy.
00:04:56
Speaker
None of what I was doing and none of these boxes that I was checking was leading to any sense of fulfillment, to any feeling of meaning and purpose in what I was doing. And so at 20, there came another one of those layers peeling back where I had a moment where I realized that I didn't have to do any of those things.
00:05:16
Speaker
that I was actually free to make a choice, that there was a source inside of me that would guide me towards what was right for me as opposed to just following these things externally. And then this continued at 24 – no, excuse me, at 21.
00:05:34
Speaker
I had another experience that showed me there's something else going on here. I started to feel all this energy flowing through me one day and out. What I knew to be healing energy was flowing. It was in the middle of a psychotherapy workshop. It was an intensive psychotherapy retreat. This healing energy starts flowing through me to the other participants and again shows me there's something else inside of me. There's something else going on.
00:06:03
Speaker
awakening, but not yet clear what it is. That process continued. I mean, there's a lot of directions that I could go in, but like your question was, what was the process of peeling back the layers?
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, so that process was the process of that soul awakening, of my soul awakening. And it was a process of learning how to let go of what I was
00:06:38
Speaker
what I was being asked to do by the world and to follow something inside of me that was guiding me.
Living Connected to the Inner Source
00:06:45
Speaker
And so that then guided me after that to a Zen Buddhist monastery that guided me to finding an Indian saint in India named Sri Kaleshwar. And then that's when it started to kind of
00:07:01
Speaker
sink. In other words, that's when I started to become aware. This thing that has been guiding me this whole time, now I'm feeling it as a living presence in my life. Now I'm feeling this light inside of me. Now it's starting to bloom and blossom in my life and now I'm starting to see the effects that it has in my life. And then once I start to shift
00:07:22
Speaker
my awareness to that once I start to give my attention to that and start to let that become more of a dominant force in my life, as opposed to the mind-based approach, which I had taken up until that point, then that's when I started to live that life that I had felt this is what I was meant to live. This is how I was meant to live.
00:07:45
Speaker
not only from my soul, but connected to all souls, connected to that oneness, connected to that divinity that's in everything. And so that's a very high level kind of summary of what that process was like. What was that experience that you had at 14 that kind of like began that process for you?
00:08:09
Speaker
So what happened was I was sitting in my history class and my history teacher was a former police officer. And he told the whole class a story of a time when he was on call, on duty, and he was called to a hit and run. And when he
Profound Empathy and Love
00:08:30
Speaker
arrived on the scene, it was a five-year-old girl that had been hit.
00:08:34
Speaker
And so he went to her and he held her and she died in his arms. And then he was the officer who had to go to the mother of that girl and tell her what had happened. And when I heard that story,
00:08:50
Speaker
It hit something in me and it touched a part of me that had never been touched by a story before. And I started to feel the pain of that story, but something else started to happen, which is I started to relive that story as if it was happening to me.
00:09:09
Speaker
And I started to experience that story as if I was that girl and as if I had just been hit by a car and as if I was dying and as if suddenly I'm being held by another human being and I'm feeling this both this pain and this suffering but also this connection to this police officer and then suddenly I'm experiencing it from his perspective.
00:09:31
Speaker
And it's the same thing of watching this precious child die in my arms, but also feeling this gratitude that I could be there for her. And then suddenly I'm inside the mother and I'm being told that my child has just died and I feel
00:09:47
Speaker
this loss and this sorrow and this grief, like this sudden hole open up inside of me like I could never imagine. And after I experienced these things, I'm experiencing a level of emotion and pain that I'd never felt before and I just start sobbing. I can't control it. Class is over and tears are just pouring down my face and I'm going out into the break and my friends are looking at me and they're saying, you know, like, are you okay? What's wrong? And all I can feel
00:10:18
Speaker
is their concern for me. I can feel such a profound love that they have for me that I'd never felt before. And this love just starts overwhelming me and even more tears start pouring out. And I realized like, okay, I cannot function at the moment. So I go to the school nurse's office.
00:10:38
Speaker
and she sees the state that I'm in, and so she says, okay, just go ahead, lie down on the couch, and then I lie down, and then that's when it starts. I suddenly start to experience suffering on a level that I had never imagined before. Completely out of my control, I start to live in my inner vision
00:10:59
Speaker
the most incredible suffering experiences that I could imagine. So, for example, suddenly I'm in a gas chamber in the Holocaust, and I'm experiencing the terror of the collective group as they're being gassed, and I feel this in my own being.
00:11:20
Speaker
And then suddenly I'm transported to the other side of the glass, and I'm now inside of the German officers who are gassing the people on the other side. And what I will never forget was when I was on the other side of that glass was feeling that the Germans were actually suffering more than the Germans.
00:11:43
Speaker
the Jews that they were killing because the Jews were suffering from what was happening to them. But the Germans already had such a level of suffering inside of them that allowed them to do this. And then not only were they perpetrating this suffering, but then that suffering was coming back on them. So there was such a level of suffering happening there. And it just continued. I experienced one experience after another like this until I felt like I was experiencing the suffering of the globe. And then at some point,
00:12:10
Speaker
it stopped. And then there was just this calmness. The tears stopped completely. And I just felt this clarity. And I walked out of the nurse's office and all I could feel was love.
00:12:25
Speaker
all I could feel was love for everything and all I could feel was love in everything. And again, one of my friends came in front of me and I couldn't even speak to her because of how much love I felt for her and how much love I felt coming from her. And that opened the door on that day that... Wow.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah. Talk about an experience, especially in the middle of school at 14. My goodness. Yeah, exactly. And that would mark most people. I and just as an observation, but like to. It says a lot about you as a person to allow your heart to be open to that experience. I think a lot of us, you know, whether it be trying to get accepted or being afraid of being embarrassed or just everything the teenage years bring.
00:13:18
Speaker
would fight to shut that down instead of let your heart be open to experiencing it. So man, that is, whew, that was quite the experience. Even just listening to you, I can feel some of that. Um, I, so I mean that, that is, I mean, first of all, that's an amazing and unique experience. I can see why it would mark you.
00:13:44
Speaker
and really begin that journey. Now, obviously, like you said, it's an evolution and it takes time to really peel back the layers and discover kind of the why behind that. And I think this is kind of correlated and connected to it. You could say that was a human experience in the sense of the emotion, but the love component, depending on where you are on your spirituality and your faith,
00:14:13
Speaker
you know, I would say that God was an intricate part of that experience for you. And my question within that is, you know, what in your experience, not just that one, but just in your life experience and in what you do and helping people, what do you feel is kind of spirituality's role in, you know, we're primarily, there are women that listen
Spirituality's Role in Masculinity
00:14:35
Speaker
to this podcast, but primarily speaking to men. What spirituality's role in really helping men
00:14:42
Speaker
for a lack of better words, become who they're meant to be or to be able to access what life really has to offer. That is a very big and a very deep question. I tend to ask those kind of questions. I really appreciate that. I really, really do.
00:15:10
Speaker
So I would like to rephrase it slightly because I don't think that I would say that spirituality has a role. Okay. And the reason why I say that is because…
00:15:28
Speaker
Spirituality isn't a role and it doesn't have a role. What we call spirituality and what we refer to spirituality, that's the reality. That's what's real. When we live that and when we live in alignment with that, that's when we've finally done away with all roles. We've done away with everything and now we are living the essence of who we are. We are living in connectedness to the oneness.
00:15:59
Speaker
that is the reality that underlies all of creation, that underlies everything that we see. And when we live that, when we embody that, when that energy is moving through us, then naturally and authentically, we are going to express ourselves in accordance with that. And so if we're male, we're gonna
00:16:30
Speaker
We're going to live in alignment and we're going to express the principles of the divine masculine. If we're female, we're going to embody the principles of the divine feminine. And each one of us is going to have the union of the two inside of us. And so we're going to express that union. We're going to express the fullness. We're going to express the wholeness. There's not going to be any artifice, right? There's only going to be pure authenticity in every single moment.
00:17:03
Speaker
You just touched on something that I wanna actually go a little bit deeper on. And that is, all men and women have an intermasculine and interfeminine. And I think that, especially in today's society, a lot of that is convoluted and kind of muddied the waters. But what is,
00:17:28
Speaker
What does it look like for a man to Yes, be in his divine masculine be You know locked in kicking ass, whatever it may be But also like what what is that?
Divine Energies and Gender Balance
00:17:42
Speaker
Divine feminine that lies within I mean, I literally I have a tattoo on my right arm of a king and a queen that represents my inner masculine and inner feminine and so this is it's something that I've spent some time exploring in myself, but um
00:17:57
Speaker
I'm curious of what does that look like practically for a man to be leaning into his inner feminine in a healthy way. Yeah. Um, so one thing that I like to say is that the, the inner feminine, it's, it's not a concept, right? Yeah. And it's not just an archetype in my experience. It's a very real energy.
00:18:25
Speaker
So what is that energy? That energy is the energy of creation, creativity. In other words,
00:18:36
Speaker
I'll take a little bit of a step back and give a little bit of a background of my understanding of how creation works, if that's okay. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so in what I've learned and what I've experienced, there are two aspects, two main aspects, two main energies.
00:18:57
Speaker
There's what we call the Divine Father, and there's what we call the Divine Mother. There's also a third aspect that completes the Trinity, that's the Divine Son. The Divine Father is the formlessness, the pure consciousness, right? Pure potentiality, what exists before anything exists? So before the creation exists, there's only silence, stillness, this pure energy, and we can call that love.
00:19:25
Speaker
Because if we ever feel that energy, that's what we feel as love. Whenever we feel love, it's that energy expressing itself in the creation. So that's the Divine Father, just pure potential, capacity to become anything. The Divine Mother is the energy that takes the energy of the Divine Father and brings it into the creation and so takes it from formlessness into form.
00:19:54
Speaker
She is the energy that animates everything. So everything that we see, feel, hear, touch is her energy has taken that formlessness, given it vibration, given it form, and it is her energy inside of it, that creative life force, that creative life-giving energy that is sustaining everything.
00:20:20
Speaker
And so these are the two forces, right? And so that feminine is a very real energy that exists inside of everything, just as the masculine is a very real energy, right? That is the energy from which everything arises. So when we connect to those two, right? First of all, one of the biggest things that happens is the heart opens in this union.
00:20:48
Speaker
Because the heart is open to that divinity. The heart is open to that love that is beyond the creation and it is open to that energy that is creating everything inside of creation. So when we live this way, we express qualities that we would call divine. In other words, with our open heart, we are very loving.
00:21:15
Speaker
Right. So this is the union of the two. This is not just the feminine quality. We are very still. We feel a, it's not even a deep sense of peace. There's only peace. There's only love. And we also see that in everything. So we relate to everything with love and with compassion.
00:21:38
Speaker
Also, because we have an open heart and we're fully embodied in our humanness, we feel everything. So we feel the suffering of others. We're open to the suffering of others. We're not consumed by it because we're connected to that stillness, to that source. And so we feel compassion.
00:21:59
Speaker
We treat others with kindness. There's also a huge source of creativity in us that Divine Mother Energy is a huge source of creation energy. And so our thoughts and our intentions have a massive amount of power.
00:22:17
Speaker
And so, in other words, whatever thoughts we're holding, whatever intentions we're holding, whatever visions and plans we're holding, they will manifest in the world much more powerfully when we are connected to that energy than otherwise. There's probably a whole lot more, but I'll just start there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happens when a man is lopsided in one or the other?
00:22:43
Speaker
In the math, like if they're, if they've either not let themself explore or lean into the feminine or they, because of pain, because of trauma, because of life, right? Um, they've either suppressed or, um, maybe embraced a warped perception of what masculinity is.
00:23:07
Speaker
Yeah, so first of all, the way that you just said that, that's exactly the issue is that there is a warped perception, right?
Impact of Parenting on Masculinity and Femininity
00:23:16
Speaker
There is a warped understanding of what it means to be masculine and what it means to be feminine, right? There comes a point where if we touch these energies, we can drop all concepts. We experience directly, right, what that is. But when there is wounding,
00:23:33
Speaker
when there is pain, then we do not experience that. The classic example is in our childhood, our parents are meant to embody this energy. Everybody is meant to be whole and having both of these energies inside of them. And then when you have a father that's embodying these energies and a mother that's embodying these energies,
00:23:58
Speaker
There's pure unconditional love and union between them and then a child is born into that and a child should be experiencing pure unconditional love from the moment it's born.
00:24:09
Speaker
right? So the warping comes from normally, or one of the angles that that warping comes from is that relationship to the parents. There's other sources that that warping can come from, right? But if we've got a wounded father, or we've got a wounded mother, or more likely, we've got a wounded set of parents. Yeah.
00:24:30
Speaker
then that is going to influence both our understanding of what it means to be masculine, it's mostly going to be based on how our father is, and the feminine same thing, it's going to be based on the feminine. So what happens if that's imbalanced, right? When as a man, we do not feel connected to the feminine.
00:24:55
Speaker
We do not feel connected to that source of nourishing creative energy, right? That when we're hurt, that energy is there to comfort us and take care of us and let us know, give us that feeling of safety and security. Then many of us and many men will spend the rest of our lives forever searching and yearning for that energy. We will also feel disconnected from that energy.
00:25:23
Speaker
And so when a man feels disconnected from that energy, he's not connected to his source. He cannot connect to his source because his mother is the link to that source. We come from our mother. She's the link to us. She's the link for us to oneness. But we don't have that link. When that's not open, then all kinds of things are gonna happen inside of us, right? All kinds of other energies are gonna get out of balance. Our emotions are gonna get extremely out of balance.
00:25:51
Speaker
Because if we don't have that nourishing, balancing energy, when we feel upset, then that upset is really going to increase. And then we're going to develop potentially a lot of anger, a lot of rage, right? We're going to develop a instead of this feeling of connectedness to everything, and that things are created in dependency with each other, we're going to develop a forcefulness and a will to dominate and a will to make things the way that we want them to be.
00:26:21
Speaker
as opposed to being co-created with the world around us and in harmony with the world around us. So basically, it's going to create a massive amount of imbalance and unhappiness in our life.
00:26:34
Speaker
And the problem is that if we feel fundamentally disconnected from that source, then no amount of yearning or searching is ever going to satisfy that feeling.
Yearning for Nurturing Energy
00:26:48
Speaker
It's never going to satisfy that belief. So even when we enter into a relationship, if we carry that feeling of separation, then no amount of trying to get that energy from our partner
00:27:02
Speaker
is going to fulfill that until we learn that we are connected to that, that we are a part of that source. Yeah, I'll stop there. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think those are all really good points. There is one thing that you said that sparked a thought with it's a how would you describe it? Between my wife and I, we have several conversations, obviously, but one of them is around the topic of unconditional love.
00:27:29
Speaker
And I don't think that you were misleading in what you said, but in the way that you described kind of a good alignment. Right. I have yet to meet someone that has flushed out all of their issues and is essentially the perfect parent. Right. And
00:27:51
Speaker
And whether or not that model of unconditional love is humanly possible, right? Is attainable no matter how much work we do. I mean, I've got five kids. I love my kids deeply. I have realized that my oldest son is 14 and
00:28:11
Speaker
It's it's been hitting me lately that it's like man my time with him is in a sense coming to an end You know, he's maturing into that young man phase, etc But with five kids ranging from five to fourteen
00:28:25
Speaker
Even in all the work that I've done, even in all the things that I'm aware of, in my imperfections, I've spent the last 10 years sifting out healing and reconciling with my dad and my mom and changing that relationship, just doing the work, essentially.
00:28:46
Speaker
But I still have moments where I want to throw them across the room. I'm tired. I don't know. I'm stressed out about taxes, whatever it may be. I'm imperfect. And so the topic of unconditional love, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this because for me, I feel like
Modeling Unconditional Love
00:29:09
Speaker
as people, unconditional love is unattainable. Let me explain what I mean by that statement.
00:29:19
Speaker
Unconditional love means to me, means that regardless of what you do or where I am, I am able and have the capacity to extend that kind of feminine, nurturing, kind, loving response to you, no matter what, right? Now, you could say like, yes, if my son,
00:29:46
Speaker
commits murder, I'm still going to love him. And that could be unconditional love. But in the nuts and bolts day to day of raising kids, I personally don't see that it's humanly possible to model, essentially, or to live in that state of unconditional love. I just don't personally think that it's attainable. At its core, do I love my kids? Yes, I do.
00:30:16
Speaker
but using like what you said in the sense of like the imbalance that can come when our parents or us as parents don't model that or it is lopsided even if it's just in a moment like a lot of the a lot of the healing that i've done have come from moments right moments that my there's there's overarching there's um
00:30:38
Speaker
There's kind of a culture that's created in each family. And so I think that's where a lot of that kind of breakdown or lopsidedness or dysfunction can come in is when there's a culture of performing for love or there's a culture of this or that that creates a distortion there. But in the day-to-day, I guess one, do you believe that unconditional love is
00:31:02
Speaker
attainable or able to model adequately for our children to then grow up and not have to sift through these things that we are having to sift through now. Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Like 100%. And I'll tell you why.
00:31:22
Speaker
Because I did see it modeled. I did meet somebody who lives in that. That was the future that I had in India. And so I came to recognize that not only is this possible, it's possible for every single human being.
00:31:36
Speaker
He also very unequivocally stated that it is the most difficult thing in the world to develop. It is the hardest thing that a human being can set out to do, right? But if we look at like how many impossible things have humans achieved when they set their minds to it, right? When they set their hearts to it, they end up achieving things that, you know, like
00:32:02
Speaker
what would have seemed impossible 50 years ago or 70 years ago at this point, climbing Everest, right? Now look at how many people do it on a daily basis almost, right? These kinds of things. So I've seen it and I felt it and I've been in the presence of a human being who can do that. And that's what gives me the full faith that yes, it's possible.
00:32:28
Speaker
Um, so that's the answer to the first question. Do I believe it's possible? Absolutely. Okay. Okay. Well, I, I, I can appreciate that pushback and even that challenge to me, um, with the caveat and the understanding that it's one of the hardest things for us to be able to, to achieve, but not impossible. I think that's, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. And we, and we have to want it. Yeah.
00:32:55
Speaker
We have to want to develop that. And it's likely that for most of us who are, have been wounded, that we may not hit that point while our kids are still in the development stage. So we don't have to be too hard on ourselves about that.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's fair with that expectation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, it's like, we're doing better, we're shooting for that. And just the act of shooting for that, just the act of aiming for that, if that's what we're aiming for, is already creating a new culture and a new environment for our children. Yeah. So if they carry that torch on, and they're already going to have a huge
00:33:47
Speaker
leg up. They're going to have a huge head start when it comes time for their kids. And if their kids carry that torch, I firmly believe that there eventually will come a generation where we finally do have two parents come together who have finally been raised in unconditional love, who were born in unconditional love, and then live their entire lives in unconditional love, including once they become parents.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, a generational thing. Yeah, yeah, because I even thinking of my own story, which we don't need to get into the details of just because of time and people that have listened to my podcast, no snippets of it. But I love the way that you said that, because even for me, the super abbreviated version,
00:34:34
Speaker
Um, had a rough patch with my dad was now in hindsight realizing I was in a lot of pain. He was in a lot of pain. He didn't manage it well. I didn't manage it well, et cetera. But part of part of my healing journey and reconciling and growing closer to him.
00:34:54
Speaker
was observing and realizing the fact that the pain that he was going through where, you know, my grandpa was a drill instructor in Vietnam. So like if you just personify that guy, right. And my dad has told me he never once in his entire life heard his dad say the words, I love you.
00:35:18
Speaker
Obviously, there's way more involved in all of that, but to look at, yes, there was pain and disappointment and hurt and all of that from my dad, but there was also looking at where he came from.
00:35:34
Speaker
there was so much good that he fought for and gave me because of what he came from, right? And just like you said, like now I'm working and fighting to extend that lead towards love. And I guess time will tell if we can arrive at a generation that you described in the sense of being formed and raised in an unconditional love environment. I'm super optimistic.
00:36:03
Speaker
Yeah, I love it, I love it. It challenges me sometimes, but I would much rather be around optimistic people than pessimistic, so. Yeah, there's a couple things that you touched on earlier that I'm just curious about because there's so many people now that are kind of locked into their tribal mentality, and that tribalism translates over into spirituality often,
Tribal Mentalities and Spiritual Beliefs
00:36:31
Speaker
right? Not always, but often.
00:36:33
Speaker
And you know, we kind of get locked into what is right, what is wrong, what's the right way to pursue love or to pursue God and what's the wrong way and all of that. How were you able to
00:36:49
Speaker
approach your spirituality where, you know, whether it's just exploring Christianity and Hinduism, Buddhism, you know, all these different practices of evolving in spirituality and becoming a more loving person. You know, my mom is a staunch Christian, but she was really challenged. She did English as a second language and taught a monk. And this was, you know, years ago. But she said, you know, I kind of had a little bit of a crisis of faith because
00:37:18
Speaker
Here was this monk who was more like Jesus than anyone that I had ever known, and according to my faith, he's going to burden hell, right? What kind of monk was he? I believe Buddhists. Don't quote me on that. I actually don't remember. Sure, sure, sure, sure. But not Christian. Not, but yeah, sorry, he was not Christian, so. Yeah. And, you know, and so here she is like, I know pastors that are,
00:37:47
Speaker
You know, for a lack of better words, shitbags, like it just they're just they're pursuing Christianity. They're even modeling. But you get behind the closed door and there's ugly sides of them, you know, and here's a man that is just overflowing with love and compassion, etc. And so she she's had to reconcile that and wrestle with that. But for you, like how
00:38:13
Speaker
Two questions. One is how were you able to approach it with with an open mind or an open heart or open spirit in the sense of finding love and finding God in all these different dualities of spirituality? And and to what would you what would be your advice to people that kind of have that that black and white approach to the right and wrong ways to find God?
From Atheism to Spiritual Embrace
00:38:41
Speaker
All right, so I'll start with the personal experience. I started as an atheist. That's how I grew up. Even in spite of this experience of divine love at 14, I was an atheist because when I was exposed to religion, I saw hypocrisy, I saw contradictions, I saw basically what you described in terms of that pastor.
00:39:12
Speaker
So the way that I moved through that was I experienced spirituality experientially. In other words, I would have direct experiences. And then when I would have direct experiences, then that told me, okay, this is real for me, right? And also I would start to see
00:39:41
Speaker
Well, let me take a step back. Many of the greatest saints that I have come to follow were also unequivocal about one thing, that all religions are one.
00:39:56
Speaker
Right? All paths lead up the same mountain and that's all they are. They're just different paths. And so I was very fortunate that in every branch of spirituality that I was exposed to, that was the underlying theme.
00:40:11
Speaker
Right. Okay. And there was never in any aspect that I was exposed to, this is right. And what everybody else is believing is wrong. Right. It was none of this is true. Right. That was another really fundamentally important part of the teaching. It's not always explicit. Right. But it's any tool that we use to express the truth is itself an illusion.
00:40:41
Speaker
but it's a useful illusion that is pointing the way back to the truth. But no matter what words we use or what teachings we use or what systems we use, none of it is the truth. It is all pointing the way to the truth. And once we experience that truth or have some experience of that truth or awaken to that truth directly, then we see, oh, okay, that's in everything.
00:41:06
Speaker
that truth is in everything that exists inside of everything. And that's one way that that the teacher that I studied with in India, Sri Kalashwar expressed it. He said the only true religion is the oneness of humanity. Okay, that's the only true religion. Anything that we put on top of that, right, is an organization or a system or process that we might use to help people realize that but that's all that it is. Does that make sense?
00:41:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing in terms of, first of all, I would not give advice to anybody who has that kind of black or white thinking. Sure. Because I don't think that there could be open.
00:41:51
Speaker
That's fair. I don't think that they're actually going to be open to that kind of thing. But what I would encourage anybody to do is to really have the desire in their heart to know for themselves and to have the experiences for themselves.
00:42:10
Speaker
Right? Because once we feel that love, and once we feel that oneness, there's no, there's no mistaking, there's no, there's no doubt, well, you can still doubt it, right? But then you don't need the teaching at a certain point. Once you've started to experience that for yourself, you start to live that you start to embody it.
00:42:36
Speaker
I guess that's it. It's critical that we all have direct experiences. Actually, let me put it another way. We all have to know God for ourselves. We cannot have an authority stand between us and God. We cannot have a church stand between us and God. We cannot have a book stand between us and God. We cannot have a guru stand between us and God.
00:43:04
Speaker
We have to have a direct experience of God. We have to know God for ourselves, in ourselves and in everything. And that's what spirituality is. That's, you know, the truth expressing itself in every single moment.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I really like that. What I've said to people, my past and a lot of my life is around Christianity specifically, but one, again, short version, reached a very low point in my life.
00:43:35
Speaker
was ready to commit suicide and actually found plant medicine, psychedelics and that amongst other things. But regarding spirituality, I would say that that saved my life. It helped heal my mind and save my life with those experiences because like you said, they became very real for me. But in that, a lot of the the structure of Christianity began to break down based on my experiences and
00:44:04
Speaker
What I've said is that I see each religion as kind of a container. And for different people, those containers work very well. Again, going back to my mom, she's one of the most kind, loving, generous, empathetic, compassionate people that I personally know. Now, yes, she's my mom, but just the way she's chosen to live her life. And the container of Christianity helped her become that. And for me,
00:44:34
Speaker
that container of Christianity became restrictive for me to be able to become that better person. So zero issues with it. A lot of my friends are very devout Christians, all of that, but I didn't fit inside of that container. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense.
00:45:01
Speaker
It makes perfect sense. I guess what I'm hearing is true spirituality is not meant to be a container. Yeah. That's a good way of putting it. Human beings have a need to create containers.
00:45:21
Speaker
Human minds have a need to create containers around what is beyond their understanding and beyond their knowing because it's safer. And human beings also who don't have direct experiences but read about a teaching will then form concepts and ideologies about the teaching that then start to become removed from the actual teaching and the source that that teaching is connected to.
00:45:52
Speaker
Yeah. And this is why I believe a lot of people feel uncomfortable with these containers is because a lot of the containers are, number one, they're completely artificial. All of them are. Some of them can be useful, but in order for them to be useful, they have to be connected to that source. And if they're not connected to that source and they're only connected to ideas and interpretations of teachings about the source, that's when you're going to run into trouble.
00:46:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you can get a whole bunch of people following an idea without ever helping them connect to the source. Yeah. A big thing that I've always wanted to do with this podcast is one, have the conversation around healthy
Integrating Spiritual Insights into Daily Life
00:46:42
Speaker
masculinity. That's kind of the core of it. But two is also to give men
00:46:49
Speaker
practical things, because we're often very practical in our application of pursuit of things. And so with that said, I'm curious, you had said that it took you years to kind of integrate these experiences at 14, 20, 21, et cetera, to get you to where you are today.
00:47:15
Speaker
What are, what are some practical ways that men can transition their, um, or, or extract their, you know, they have these insights or revelations or experiences with God, with love, with spirituality, with the divine feminine, you know, all of that kind of stuff. But what are some really practical ways that men can transition those insights or those experiences into, um, making them an integral part of their lives?
00:47:45
Speaker
Hmm. So I feel that that's going to be unique to every single person. Every single person's journey is going to be completely different. Yeah, that's fair. I feel that the first thing is that there has to be a desire.
00:48:08
Speaker
there has to be a desire to integrate that. And there has to be a desire and a choice, right? Between what kind of life do we want to live? Right? For me, it almost didn't feel like a choice. Okay, but it still was a choice. Because when I was young, and I felt these experiences, and I connected to these energies, and then I tried to live my life, right, the way that I was being told to live my life.
00:48:38
Speaker
The choice was clear. There is no meaning and purpose in this way that I'm being told to live. And these energies are more real to me and the experiences that I'm having are more real to me. So I want that to be the center of my life, no matter what, right? And so that's the first step. We have to make a choice and we have to have a level of clarity. We have to dig in and know what it is that we want.
00:49:03
Speaker
And if we don't know what it is that we want, if we're in that place of suffering, then we have to know, we have to start by knowing, I don't want this. I know I don't want this. I don't yet know what I do want, but I know I don't want this. And the second thing, the second part of that is we have to call on God in whatever way, whatever form, whatever way we connect to that energy as.
00:49:32
Speaker
Right? Yeah. Whether it's Jesus or God or Buddha, we have to connect to that underlying energy because we live in relation to that energy. That energy is what's going to create in our life the circumstances that are going to allow us to move towards what it is that we want. If we try to do it on our own, which is what most of us try to do and a lot of men try to do, we're going to hit wall after wall after wall and life is going to show us this is not the way.
00:50:00
Speaker
We have to live in relation to that energy. And so we have to call on that energy. Even if we don't have a form, right? Even if we have been atheist or agnostic or whatever, at some point we have to recognize like, okay, there's more going on in life than I'm aware of. And I'm calling on that life, right? Or the universe or whatever it is. I need help because I don't wanna live this way and please guide me.
00:50:30
Speaker
Show me the way. And so then that's what starts to happen. So there has to be a desire. There has to be a certain degree of clarity. And again, like I said, even if you're not clear on what you want, at least being clear on what you don't want to start with. Sure. Yeah. I think that's a good point.
00:50:50
Speaker
then in relation to that energy that is the source of everything that's arising and happening, we have to ask for help. Okay, please help this, please help me. This is what I'm struggling with, right? If we don't connect to that source and we're struggling with something, how are we going to help ourselves? So when we connect to that,
00:51:16
Speaker
it will create in our life. It will create circumstances. It will guide us to the right people, to the right teachers, to the right therapists, to the right whatever it is that we need that enabled us to take that step, the next step, the next step. And every single step of the way we get more clarity, we're able to ask again with more clarity. The energy is able to support us. And so it becomes this virtuous cycle of depending 100% on that energy
00:51:46
Speaker
getting clear on what we want, asking that from the energy and then doing the effort based on whatever that energy presents to us in our life. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I really liked the way that you laid that out. Absolutely.
Redefining Success and Inner Alignment
00:51:59
Speaker
Um, I want to do something that seems like a hard pivot, but, but as I think it's directly connected, um, that's the topic of success.
00:52:11
Speaker
And like I said, I think it's connected to this conversation because a lot of men chase a perception or a delusion of success. The first question around that is, around the topic of success, what does that mean to you? Or maybe a different way of asking that is,
00:52:41
Speaker
What should men do besides like really pause and look deep within, but how should they approach success and how should they approach defining success for them? If I could define success in one sentence, it would be the openhearted expression of love.
00:53:11
Speaker
That's success in my understanding. And the reason why that's my understanding of it is because that's my understanding of our purpose. That our purpose as human beings is to let that love from that source express itself through us.
00:53:32
Speaker
and it expresses itself through us in relation to the rest of the world. So through our love for what we love, we love other people, we love other things and that love flows through us. That is what allows success to be created in our life. And I'll get back to that in just a moment because the problem that we have is we don't live that way.
00:54:01
Speaker
We have images and concepts and expectations of success. In other words, there's a lot of concepts that our society creates that says this is what success is, success is a lot of money, success is this type of body, success is this type of house, success is this, success is that, right? All of those are not real. They're just concepts.
00:54:33
Speaker
So we can chase that concept. We can achieve that concept, but that concept doesn't have substance by itself, in and of itself. So when we achieve that concept, right? When I achieved the good grades, when I achieved getting into university, I did not do those things because it arose from within me.
00:54:55
Speaker
I was not in alignment with the source and it wasn't the source that was telling me go and do these things. Get good grades, go to college, go to university. I did it because I was chasing that concept. So without that connection to that inner source, without that connection to what is it that's actually trying to arise in me,
00:55:16
Speaker
When I achieve these external things, there is no meaning in them. There is no satisfaction in them. There might be a temporary high of, I got the good grade. I mean, I did feel great when I got that acceptance letter into school, right? I didn't laugh at all, right? It wasn't long before I was back into my anxiety and insecurities.
00:55:38
Speaker
about everything, about going to that school, actually. And what was it going to be like? And what was going to happen? And how was I going to make friends and blah, blah, blah, right? I was just right back into my daily suffering. So there is no success that will come from chasing a concept and an idea of success. We will only feel successful when we are in alignment with that source.
00:56:04
Speaker
And when that is arising from us. And so when we feel an inspiration come up, when we feel like I have a really clear feeling that this is what I want to do with my life. I have a clear feeling that this is what I want to create in my life. Now this is coming from inside of us. If we feel inspired to go to college, great, do it, right? That's that source inside of us calling us to do that.
00:56:30
Speaker
So when we follow that, then a lot of things are happening. Number one, that energy is flowing through us, we're listening to it, and then it is expressing itself through us in our actions. And when we live in that alignment and that congruency, then that energy of that love and that creative energy gets channeled through us, it moves through us, and we feel
00:56:51
Speaker
happy. We feel joyful. So we actually feel success as we move to fulfill what it is that we feel inspired to actually create. Now another one of the problems why people struggle to do that is because most of us are not in touch with that source. We're not in touch with our soul.
00:57:11
Speaker
we are too much in our head and too much in our mind and too much in the concepts, right? Or we struggle too much to feel because we've cut ourselves off from the heart and we've cut ourselves off from the soul. So part of the process is that we have to learn
00:57:30
Speaker
through healing, through connecting, through different spiritual means, we have to learn how to reconnect to that source and experience that source so that we can live in alignment with that. Yeah. Why do men chase a broken perception of success? Why do men chase? So women,
00:58:01
Speaker
are inherently more connected to that creative energy, that divine feminine energy.
00:58:10
Speaker
Yeah, they create life inside of them. They have a huge creative power, the power to create life. So that's naturally inside of them. So they naturally have more of a connection to that than men. That's why it's so important for men to connect with women in a true open hearted way. Because then we have a source in our life that is connected to that creation that creativity energy. Yeah. When men don't have that,
00:58:41
Speaker
many times they feel lost and they don't feel a connection to inspiration. They don't feel a connection to intuition and they don't feel a connection to something guiding them. And so if you're lost and you're in pain,
00:59:01
Speaker
then what are you gonna do? You're gonna look outside of yourself for answers. And if there's a society saying here are the answers, right? If you have people who are telling you these are the answers, you don't need to look inside. Just do this. Just follow this, right?
Five Steps to Personal Success
00:59:21
Speaker
We're already automatically gonna be following broken concepts.
00:59:27
Speaker
And then the degree to which we feel broken inside, the degree to which we feel pain inside and disconnected from that source is going to influence how broken of a concept are we going to follow. Because many of us are hurting.
00:59:43
Speaker
But at some point, that source, it's still there, that light is still there, and it pushes us towards healing, right? And it pushes us towards, these concepts are not working for me. Whereas a person who's in deep pain and is completely disconnected from that source is going to follow completely, like,
01:00:02
Speaker
total illusory concepts of I want this, I want this house, I want this power, I want this car, I want to be in charge, I want the world to be the way that I want it to be and I want to force my will on the world and you can go all the way to the extremes of the level of violence that we see in the world. Those are men who are so disconnected from their source and they are trying to impose their will so strongly on the world that that's what ends up happening.
01:00:30
Speaker
Did that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, when, when working with people, I saw on your site, you, you've got a kind of a seven step process. Five step, five step. I'm sorry. Five step process for helping people, um,
01:00:51
Speaker
really define and connect to that healthy success. What's the high level of those five steps? Sure. So the first step is we have to create a vision.
01:01:07
Speaker
We have to have a crystal clear vision for our life. We have to have an aim, right? We have to connect to what it is that we want to create in this life. And not just the next step or in a few years, but what is the highest aim that we can conceive of in our life that we want to achieve in all areas of our life. So this is not just living our best day possible. This is really if we reach the end of our life,
01:01:33
Speaker
And we've achieved everything that we want to achieve. What does that look like? And what does that feel like? That's the very first step. Because once we get that clarity, we now have a clear destination, right, that we can move towards. In that vision, there's going to be an expression of love and of energy, there's going to be a way that that energy wants to come through us.
01:02:01
Speaker
And that is our unique purpose. So everybody's purpose is the same. Everybody's purpose in my understanding is to express that love, to connect to that love, but how it's going to come through and what are the actions that we're going to take is going to be different for every single person. So once we have that clarity, we start to discover this is how this love wants to express itself through me, right?
01:02:29
Speaker
Not only in our relationships, right? How do we want our relationships to look, but in terms of what kind of work are we going to be doing in the world? What is that unique way that we're going to be expressing that in this world? Right? So then the third step is once we have that level of clarity,
01:02:51
Speaker
then we can start to tap into our intuition. Because once we have developed a felt sense of what that end state is or that destination is, then we can start to look at everything that is in front of us, right? And all the options that we have and the million things that we can do to grow our business or to develop professionally that we usually end up scattering our energy in. And now that we have this sense,
01:03:22
Speaker
Either it becomes crystal clear, this is exactly what I need to do. These are the steps that I need to take. And so then we feel, again, arising from within. Nobody is telling us outside, right? There's no email marketing guru. There's no, you know, funnels, tactics, right? There's nobody from the outside saying like, you know, you have to write a book or you have to start a podcast. We feel an inspiration from within.
01:03:46
Speaker
And if we don't instantly have that clarity, we can start to look at the different options that are in front of us, and then we can feel which one of these options brings that feeling up inside of us again. That feeling of aliveness, that feeling of wholeness that we feel in that vision that we created.
01:04:05
Speaker
And now we know this is what we need to do. So that's what we've got to pursue wholeheartedly. So then the fourth step is once we start to do that, is to develop a recognition that everything that happens is from that creative energy. We can only take action, but it is that creative energy that exists in everything that is going to create results.
01:04:30
Speaker
when we can recognize that, then we can let go. We can let go of responsibility. We can let go of the burden of feeling like it's all on us because it's not a very small percentage is on us. And that's just doing the work. Right? Yeah. So once we can do that, then we can do the work without attachment to result.
01:04:50
Speaker
And once we're able to do that, all we have to do is put the effort in the directions that we feel is the right direction and then let the direction come back from that energy. Let the results, excuse me, let the results come back from God. And what very often ends up happening in my experience and the experience of my clients is that the results come from left field. So we'll put a ton of energy in this direction where we feel inspired, but the results will come from somewhere totally different.
01:05:21
Speaker
And that can happen when we have totally let go. And usually when the results finally come, they will come in a way that is far beyond our expectation. When we let go of the attachment to the result, now there is space for the energy to create for us something that is beyond what we could have envisioned. And that's when we start to experience a level of success that is beyond our imagining.
01:05:50
Speaker
Yeah. The final step is to learn how to prioritize love over everything because love is the doorway for this energy to flow into our lives and the people in our lives. So that energy, that creative energy, it exists in everything, but it exists most powerfully in the souls of other human beings.
01:06:15
Speaker
Every soul has the potential to reflect the light and the love of God, of that energy, of the source, whatever you want to call it. And the way that we tap into that energy is through opening our hearts to others.
01:06:31
Speaker
So when we prioritize the relationships in our lives, above our business and above any results that we're trying to achieve, when we focus on opening our heart and connecting to that light and that love inside of another, we open the door for that love to enter into our life. And we open the door for that love to then, that energy to come in us, through us, and basically whatever vision we've created, whatever intention we've created is like the blueprint
Prioritizing Love and Relationships
01:07:01
Speaker
And that energy will come and take that blueprint and really start to create it in conjunction with the rest of the world.
01:07:10
Speaker
And that's when we start to live in a miraculous way. Like that's when things start to happen in a way, which is just like, we start to live in, I've started to live and many of my clients have started to live in a state of awe and gratitude and expectation that these things will happen. It's not expectation that we expect that what we want is going to be given to us. It's a constant state of gratitude that if we live in this way, we're going to be completely taken care of. What in Christianity is described as the kingdom of heaven.
01:07:40
Speaker
When you seek you first the kingdom of heaven, then all things will be given onto you. So then now that we're in that state of energy, we go back to step one and then just repeat the whole process again. And we just, you know, it just becomes, it's not a circle, it's a spiral, right? That moves upward.
01:07:58
Speaker
And you constantly revisit your vision, right? And you constantly revisit what it is that I should be focusing on, right? And you constantly develop even more love and more energy flows into your life. And now you're at a new stage and the cycle just keeps repeating. I love it. Sign me up. Something I ask everybody, we're wrapping up here, but I'm always curious.
01:08:26
Speaker
What, uh, what people would put on this is one billboard, one billion people see that billboard. What does it say? Love just says love. Okay. Maybe stems from love. Yeah. I was just going to say, please love.
01:08:55
Speaker
There you go. Oh, I like that. Yeah. Okay. David, I really enjoyed this conversation. It's been both challenging in certain ways for me personally, especially around the topic of unconditional love. But I think a lot of people are going to gain a lot of insight from your life experiences as well as our conversation.
01:09:19
Speaker
Um, what, what do you have going on? How can people find you? How can they connect with you? If it's sparked something in them, they're like, you know, I actually want to go through those five steps. Um, like how can they get in touch with you? Obviously we'll have links in the show notes, et cetera, but just want to give you a chance to share.
01:09:36
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
Connecting with David Peralta
01:09:37
Speaker
The best way is to go to soulcenteredfounder.com. That's the website where I have my organization where I'm working with entrepreneurs and founders, but really anybody who feels like they've got a calling and they don't yet feel like they're living in alignment with what they feel is either inside of them or that source that they feel like they want to connect to or they just feel like they have something that they want to give in this world.
01:10:00
Speaker
It's not quite clicking yet. So they can go there and there's a way to book a free consultation call with me. And I'm happy to talk to anybody who feels the pull or the inspiration to do so. Awesome. Well, David, again, thank you so much for taking the time. Definitely want to have you back on again. I think we touched on some topics that we could go much deeper into, but I think the high level of the things we touched on was really good to do.
01:10:30
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for the opportunity, Josh. I really enjoyed talking with you. Awesome. All right, until next time. All right, sounds great.