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Laura Coe: On Love, On Spirituality, and On Finding Deeper Purpose
722 Plays2 years ago
Laura Coe is interviewed (yup that's me) on her story over the last 4 years on love, her new book series, and her latest passion, the Akashic Records. She shares her story through a reverse interview with good friend, Kevin Keiser, on how she discovered a deep connection to spirituality, more authenticity, and more of what she loves!
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Transcript
Laura's Journey to Authenticity
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of the Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Ko, your host, and thank you guys for tuning in. I'm laughing because I'm saying that and all the while knowing that not only am I the host of the podcast, but I'm also going to be the guest today. So I'm turning the job of the host over to a dear friend, Kevin. He's going to interview me.
00:00:48
Speaker
The reason for that is i wanted to share my story with you guys what i've been up to how i've gone deeper into my own.
00:00:56
Speaker
authentic path, what that's meant for me, how I really redefined authenticity and how that's changed my life. All of us are looking for ways to open ourselves up to our purpose, our calling to go deeper into ourselves. And I found that for myself. And I wanted to share that journey with you in the hopes that in sharing my own journey,
00:01:19
Speaker
perhaps it might inspire or unlock you deeper within your own. We've had several hundred guests on the show over the years, all of them sharing their stories of their authentic practice, their journey into a life that feels both successful and authentic on their own terms, that there's no prescriptive way to do that. And so I wanted to equally share
00:01:41
Speaker
what I've been doing and how much I've found over the last few years that has changed and helped my life. I've got a bunch of podcasts lined up ready to come out. Kevin will actually be interviewed. Also, I have something new, The Little Soul School, littlesoul.school. Come check it out. I've got a new series of books.
00:02:02
Speaker
I can't wait for you to see those as well.
New Ventures and Shifts
00:02:08
Speaker
The podcast, while it's going to be the same stories and interviews with incredible people, we're going to go a little deeper.
00:02:16
Speaker
Hopefully to help people unlock more of their soul's calling, unlock their purpose. While it'll be the same format and incredible guests that come on, I'm hoping to inspire everybody with a deeper dive into this idea of purpose, authenticity, what it really means, and how we can access more of ourselves.
00:02:39
Speaker
Thank you again so much for listening, for all of your support over the years. Check out LittleSoul.School, the Nature of series, and I hope you like today's episode. Hello world, you're listening to the Art of Authenticity with Laura Ko, and I am not Laura Ko. My name is Kevin Kaiser, and we're doing a little bit of Switcheroo today. I've hijacked the podcast and
00:03:09
Speaker
so that I can have a little conversation with my friend, Laura Kohler. Welcome to your show. I love it. Thank you, Kevin. I'm so grateful to be here today. Well, me too, because without you, there would be no reason for me and there'd be no reason for this show. So why don't you talk about why you wanted to do this real quick?
00:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, so everybody listening, Kevin is a friend of mine and deeply into authenticity, spirituality. In fact, there either there will be an episode released very soon with him. But so much has happened for me personally in the last couple of years, and I haven't shared
00:03:54
Speaker
with my audience um the details i haven't been ready i've been in a creative recreation of the authentic uh sense of self and in that i've i've kind of kept a lot of it to myself and i wanted to share it and i thought it'd be fun i've done 250 episodes interviewing people all over the world and different things and i thought it would be fun if we just did a reverse interview and kevin could help
00:04:20
Speaker
bring this information out to you guys in a way that's coherent and organized because I just can't wait to share it with you. Yeah. We have no idea where this is going.
00:04:31
Speaker
dangerous curves ahead probably, but this is going to be really fun. Thank you so much for letting me do this. I was thinking back to how long we've known each other. And I think it was maybe like May or June of 2020. You're introduced by Cal, our common friend Cal Callahan. And I remember thinking at that time, I knew that you were going
00:04:55
Speaker
through some kind of shift in your life, but you were in the midst of some kind of big shift, which I've always appreciated that about you because
00:05:03
Speaker
You know, just like human beings aren't things, we're a process, right? Like our bodies, our whole life is a process. Like you're in this massive process of evolving, shifting, changing, just since I've known you. And when did this whole story begin? Like what changed and when, because who you are now is not who you were.
Career Reflections and Life Changes
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah. You did. You caught me, I think, dead smack in the middle of it, maybe coming out on the other end a little. But I started The Art of Authenticity. I had the book, Emotional Obesity. Things were great. I mean, I felt authentic. I mean, honestly, I was like,
00:05:52
Speaker
I don't know, thinking maybe this life thing isn't so complicated. Perhaps I may have cracked the nut on living an authentic life. I felt good. And by good, I mean, even when things were stressful and they were, my partner of 17 years was going through cancer. I had a young kid. There was a lot of stress in my life. And at the same time, I had this kind of ease or ability to,
00:06:16
Speaker
I don't know, keep perspective or keep it together, whatever you want to call that. And I felt true to myself. I loved what I was doing. And then I didn't. And I was like, whoa, what's happening? It was like a chapter closed. Yeah. And for those who don't know what you were doing, what were you doing? You're running a company.
00:06:40
Speaker
Well, I had run my company, but then I had written this book, Emotional Obesity. I did The Art of Authenticity, which most of the listeners are aware of because it's this podcast.
00:06:55
Speaker
I was coaching on helping people with the intersection of success and passion. I was really obsessed with this idea that success trajectories don't necessarily bring about a great life, but passion doesn't mean you have to be broke and successless. How do you intersect the two? I was blogging about it, podcasting, written the book, coaching. It felt great.
00:07:22
Speaker
I felt great. And then one day, not one day, but like within a few months, I was like, Oh, no, this is this chapter is closing. I've been talking about this this way for four years. And it just didn't feel authentic for lack of a better way to say it. It just slowly started to feel
00:07:41
Speaker
I don't know. The air had been let out of the tires, right? There was a slow draining feeling. I didn't want to have the same conversation anymore. I was evolving in a way, but I didn't know to wear at that point. I just knew, though, I had to listen to this within myself and do what everybody on the show had come on and discussed. These
00:08:05
Speaker
These moments where you have that knowing that there's something else and you just have to listen and follow it so that's what i started to do. Do you remember the exact moment that you decided. Okay everything that's come before this is the before and everything after this is what's next remember the moment that happened.
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, there was a profound moment. I knew that it was time to take a little creative break. And I thought that was important. But I had assumed it was going to be short-lived. But then my ex and I separated after 17 years. I was newly single. And I remember thinking very, very quickly,
00:08:50
Speaker
There's something about love and self-love that I need to investigate. It felt like a new chapter. I was interested in authenticity and what it meant to be authentic in your career in particular and in your life, but not relationship love particularly. It wasn't that deep of an interest. I started thinking, what does it mean to be authentic in relationship? What if I'm authentic and my partner's authentic?
00:09:13
Speaker
how do we deal with those two things at the same time and live our life? It was just this knowing inside of myself. There's something about this that I need to explore, investigate. I didn't know what that meant yet, but I felt this deep connection to
Exploring Spirituality and Self-Love
00:09:30
Speaker
that. I also, Kevin, knew that it was really syrupy and annoyed me. Self-love
00:09:37
Speaker
I need to love myself. I need to care about myself. Oh my God. Like let me say a mantra, like I am good enough. It all made me sort of sick to my stomach and I would avoid the conversations about love a little bit. The books, the self-help books around that topic, I'd sort of, I had a plus minus relationship. So that also told me like, ooh, there's something there because that resistance was pretty strong.
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, so this wasn't something that you were looking for. And what's really interesting to me, because I've worked with lots of different types of people, like high performers in entertainment and business. And it seems like everybody inevitably gets to that place that you're talking about, where they decide, hey, this doesn't fit me anymore. They have an idea of I need to go in a different direction,
00:10:28
Speaker
So you said you had this knowing. How did you know that you had that knowing? Cause there are probably lots of people listening. They're like, I think I kind of want to do something else, but how did you, like, what do you mean you had a knowing? What does that even mean? Yeah. You know, I'm grateful because it was round two for me, right? Like I left my business and
00:10:48
Speaker
Um, I knew it wasn't authentic and that time it was really around I knew my life needed to feel more authentic that word just kept Beating me like a drum in my head and I I knew I needed to follow that But two at that point I didn't know what that meant And then the art of authenticity came in the book and the coaching followed but I had already practiced that knowing So this time was easier but it it's um
00:11:18
Speaker
Everybody on the show tries to describe it a little bit and I'll do my best. There's something within you that starts to bubble up. No matter how many times you try to push that back down, it just keeps coming up and it gets louder and you're more uncomfortable.
00:11:34
Speaker
The last time I waited until I was in tears, falling apart, having anxiety and stress, trying not to listen. I didn't want to leave my career. I didn't want to make these changes. I worried about what that meant. I had a lot of impostor voices.
00:11:51
Speaker
And I did it anyways, and I really did see how exceptional my life became when I would listen. So this time when it bubbled up and bubbled up, it's like, I don't know, quiet voice, something very subtle in you that suggests there's something else, but you don't know what it is. And there's a calling towards something that's kind of subtle and
00:12:18
Speaker
There's a loud symphony of voices telling you otherwise in your head that it's not the smart thing to do and who does that and, and, and, and, but it won't go away. And if you don't, it's like an itch that if you don't scratch it, right, it just becomes more uncomfortable. So that's, that's what it was for me. And this time, thank God I had the experience to know, Oh, there it is again. I'm going to listen, I'm going to pay attention.
00:12:45
Speaker
I'm just going to follow. I'm going to listen this time without so much struggle. I still struggle. Sure. Well, every good story needs a good struggle. That's the only way that the hero changes. What happened next? What was the inciting incident, so to speak? What moment started to really change everything, change your life and the trajectory that brought you to where you are now?
00:13:14
Speaker
I guess there's two. If I have to look back and I don't know that I could pick one, but I think there was two. The first was after being in a 17-year relationship, I wanted to try the dating world. In today's modern culture, that means dating apps. I went out on a dating app. I met a bunch of people. But I think my first or second date,
00:13:39
Speaker
I went out with somebody and it was kind of like a movie. On our second or third date, we had a moment where we looked at each other and we both know the moment and something happened. Our eyes met and we locked. It was like an over-fireplace in a hotel.
00:13:59
Speaker
And it woke something up inside of me. I guess you'd say it was like love at first sight feelings. And then at the same time, there was an awakening within myself. I went home that evening
00:14:14
Speaker
And I don't write poetry, I don't read poetry, I don't like poetry. And I started having poems coming through me and I was like, what is happening? I woke up the next day, I was in a complete writer's block. I mean, for months and months, I wasn't capable of writing a single word. And this poem just started to flow through me. And it was a poem about her soul. Wow.
00:14:39
Speaker
That was really interesting. I didn't know her and I didn't know much about her. When I shared this poem, she was blown away and she was like, how do you know that of me? I was like, I don't know. Literally, Kevin, I sat down and I just started typing and it just flew right through me. It was without thought.
00:15:01
Speaker
Um, so that was that was number one. That was a huge awakening I sort of felt unhinged for some months. I wasn't sleeping. I was kind of uh in this creative mode I felt excited and exhilarated and a little unhinged if i'm being honest at the same time um and I don't know I wasn't doing much with my life like I felt very
00:15:28
Speaker
I wasn't, other than these poems, I was just hanging out, finding myself feeling like, my God, what is going on? Am I done with my writing career? Am I a one-trick pony? Am I going to have to shut it down and go get a real job again? And I was having all of those thoughts. And some were in there about six months after I had met this person, Jackie. And she suggested I go to an Akashic record reading.
00:15:56
Speaker
And I walked in not knowing what this was on a beautiful spring day. And I don't know what to tell you, it's an entire story, but I walked into a room and this woman did this Akashic record reading. It's an energetic space for your soul's history.
00:16:16
Speaker
I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't know what was happening. All I knew was the name Akashic Record and this girl is sitting there and she just started truth bombing me about my soul. And at this point, how would you describe yourself at this point in your life? Are you a spiritual person, a seeker, a skeptic? What we're talking about is pretty, I mean, for most people, kind of a little bit out there, right?
00:16:44
Speaker
It's like, where were you at that point?
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah. No, I think for most of the people listening, they've known me to be a healthy skeptic. I would say that's who I am. While several people have come on the show who have some spiritual views. I don't know. I think it's interesting. I love philosophy, but I was kind of like, I don't know. It's nice. I don't really believe in much. Healthy skeptic. I try things. Why not? Was kind of my attitude. Sure. I'll go to an Akashic record reading. Sure. I'll try acupuncture. I'll meditate. I'll do yoga.
00:17:17
Speaker
But in a reserve sense, didn't necessarily would say I believed in anything, you know, agnostic. I kind of held the faith of like, who knows? Maybe, maybe not. Yeah. So, so what actually happened? So she truth bombs you, but like, what, like describe what it's like? What is she actually doing? What is, you know, reading the records actually mean? Like in that moment? Yeah. So I walked in and, and she just asked for my name.
Embracing Akashic Records
00:17:46
Speaker
So I gave it to her. She read it, read some sentences. And those are the sentences that apparently open up your soul's history. I didn't even know she was doing that. Um, and she just starts talking and she starts telling me about, I was going to move into a modern minimalist department on the lake. And I had told a couple of friends, deer and deer close to me. Certainly she didn't know. She said, I see a modern minimalist department on the lake.
00:18:11
Speaker
I was like, wait, what? And then she starts telling me about my son, which I didn't mention I had a son. And she tells me truths about our relationship that are sacred to me. We have a deep bond, and she seemed to know that. And then she tells me that I have a little book of philosophical wisdom. And I was like, what the hell? And I thought, oh, well, I'm a writer. And she goes, no, not the book you've written. She said, there's another one.
00:18:40
Speaker
And I was like, I've always wanted to write a small book of philosophical wisdom. It's been something I hold quietly, but I don't know if I've ever spoken it. So she starts telling me about that book and details about it. And it just spoke right to the depths. Like we talk about authenticity on the show all the time. It spoke so deeply into a truth within me.
00:19:04
Speaker
And the words and the language and the way she described it, it was like somebody putting words to
00:19:12
Speaker
your deepest felt experiences that you haven't even had the ability to articulate for yourself. And then the last thing is she starts to describe this relationship and she said, Oh my God, you've met your soulmate. You guys have had 136 lives together and describes us to a tee, you know, the level of love and the level of conflict. Cause we had a lot of challenges as well. So what do you, what did you make of that? I mean, you're obviously,
00:19:43
Speaker
a little bit of shell shock, right? Like how does, how does this person know these things about me? But what did you make of it? Like leaving, leaving there. What did you make of it? Yeah. Um, I didn't, I basically was a deer in headlights. Uh, something in me shut down completely. My brain, I would probably say something with deep within me woke up and was listening, but I was just, I was just sort of staring and then,
00:20:11
Speaker
Jackie was going next. We had traded services. I guess we still laugh about it today because I walked out with this look on my face like a deer in headlights as she walked in. She was like, what happened to you? Then I went into a massage. I came out of the massage. She came out of her Akashic record reading. She looks at me and said, do you want to grab a drink? I was like, yep.
00:20:39
Speaker
And we went and here we are six months in, we had just decided to commit to each other. And now you've been told by a stranger that this is your soulmate of 135 lives, 136 lives.
00:20:53
Speaker
How do you start the conversation? So I was like, what did she say to you? She's like, I don't know what she'd say to you. I was like, I don't want to admit it if that didn't happen for you, right? I mean, it's not a normal thing to express that early in a relationship. So. Or probably in most relationships. No, no. What did the universal wisdom speak to you?
00:21:17
Speaker
Right, but it's, you know, it spoke so true in our bones and we just, so we shared and we both knew, we both knew we were being told the truth. It's indescribably true, right? Like you cannot argue with what you just heard. And then I just, I just became addicted. I was like, oh my God, I've got to do that again. So we went to Soho and we're on a trip and we decided to do one,
00:21:47
Speaker
The day before we, we, we went on the streets, Soho and we bought a Tibetan bowl for people who aren't interested. There's something called sound therapy and you can buy these bowls and they ring at a different vibration. And again, the healthy skeptic in me was like, why not? She wanted to buy one. I don't know. Play with the bowl. Why not? So I didn't necessarily believe that the vibration would shift anything and profoundly in me, but for fun we did. So we were in a hotel, we're playing with this Tibetan bowl.
00:22:14
Speaker
The next morning, we do this Akashic record reading again. And she said, I see Tibetan bowls and sound therapy. And to Jackie, you're going to create choreography from this experience, which by the way, today, she's really used all of this modality in her heart as a choreographer and dancer. So it just kept happening, these bombs. I was like, is she bugging our hotel room? Because only the two of us had been in Soho alone buying a Tibetan bowl.
00:22:42
Speaker
sitting there like idiots trying to play this thing, drinking a little champagne, and the next day this woman's tapped right into it. And again, those sole truths. She just started to express more and more about who I am as a person, our journey together, et cetera. It's one thing I love about... I've had those kinds of experiences in my life where it's so far out of the norm of what my own experience has been that it's overwhelmingly
00:23:12
Speaker
The evidence is overwhelming that I may not understand this, but life is mystery. And it's almost like life is trying to live itself through you. And in that process, you're becoming convinced like, wow, I actually don't know much of anything.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so that's really beautiful. So, okay, so then how did you get from there to where you are now? Because you're making this, I wouldn't call it a big shift. And it could be because I've known you for a couple of years, but this is essentially becoming your expression in your life, right? It's like you're no longer talking about authenticity and living it in the business world.
00:23:58
Speaker
but it's sort of living the mystery, like the mystery you're being lived, so to speak, and the Akashic records and guiding people is becoming a big part of that story for you. So how did you get from there to this point?
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah. You know, um, people open themselves up to these modalities at different paces. And I would say that I slow walked my way there. Um, I came from a medical family. Um, pretty much atheist. I grew up, you know, with intellectual, uh, everywhere and the stuff would be considered woo woo or out there like, you know, and I struggled, even though I thought of myself as pretty open-minded when really dealing with it within myself, I was,
00:24:43
Speaker
in need of a ton of evidence. And so I did a lot of readings. I got different people to read me. I like would check different questions with different people and get the same answers. And I just kept running all of these tests and it kept working, right? And it kept working. And these people who gave you the answers were complete strangers.
00:25:04
Speaker
for strangers, I would call a new Akashic record reading. I'm like, my name is Laura. Tell me about something. And I'd give them nothing. I was like the biggest nightmare client because now that I do this for a living, I don't love those people. But I was the really skeptical prove yourself person. And so it just kept ringing true. And as it rang true more importantly,
00:25:28
Speaker
when I'd listen, because the advice comes, so for the audience, the Akashic records are an energetic space that holds your soul's history, and it is for your highest good in that moment, for you to heal, to move forward, to learn, but it comes with compassion, no sense of right or wrong. There's no get, there's no time, there's no shoulds. And so,
00:25:52
Speaker
you have an opportunity. It's like a guru gets together with a team of therapists and all your best friends and says, what does Laura need today in her journey to help her move from A to B in the quickest way, right? To unlock, to open herself to a deeper,
00:26:09
Speaker
a deeper authentic truth within you so that you can have that flow state. You can have the ability to access more of yourself. So I was listening and that kept happening. I was breaking open. I was freeing myself of all sorts of
00:26:27
Speaker
constrictions or resistances within myself. The relationship was healing because they would tell us what we could do to understand each other better. And my work started to move forward again. I wanted to write. And so one day in a reading, it came through that I could become an Akashic record reader. And I was like, no.
00:26:48
Speaker
No way. I'm not a mystic. I mean, no way. But everything had been true. So I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I'm just going to listen, right? I'm just going to listen. And I took a class.
00:27:02
Speaker
And I learned how to, I learned how to read the Akashic records. Um, so it quickly, Kevin became something I was doing for entertainment to something that was like truly moving my soul journey forward to skeptical believing to like, okay, maybe there's truth in this to doing it. And then realizing not only can I become an Akashic record reader, but one day I realized I can open up the records and channel
00:27:31
Speaker
and write from this space that it's like a treasure chest of philosophical wisdom. So that all happened within
00:27:41
Speaker
I don't know, nine months or so. I mean, it was quick. I was practicing every day. I was working at it constantly. I'd spent hours and hours and hours in the records, playing with friends, teaching friends. I started realizing everybody could do it. Anybody I taught could learn. And I was like, we're all mistakes, right? We can all do this. And it just became literally the thing I wanted to do most all the time and a passion of passion.
00:28:11
Speaker
It's amazing. And what is a mystic anyway, you know, other than like somebody who doesn't want to live through theory, they want to know through direct experience and not just have book knowledge.
00:28:24
Speaker
The thing that's super interesting to me about your experience, it reminds me of, I think it's Arthur Clarke, the novelist, he said, you know, what was once thought of as magic eventually one day typically becomes science, right? And so like people listening, anybody who's had, had any kind of intuition, right? Or something happened and they're like, I don't know how I knew that. I just knew that they're actually tapping into the,
00:28:53
Speaker
information of the universal information, which that's common knowledge now, is that the universe is made of data. It's made of information. And it's timeless. It's outside of time. So everything that was, is, or ever will be actually exists in totality now. And I think we're moving into this time in history where that's just common knowledge now.
00:29:17
Speaker
Now, the only question is, well, can we really access that? And your proof that, yeah, not only is the answer yes, but you're already doing it. Now it's just a matter of learning how to master it in a different way.
00:29:33
Speaker
I'm so glad you brought that up because it's like a deep passion of mine. I mean, I love doing it, but I love dispelling this myth and you said it beautifully, that creative flow, the sudden knowing, the awareness, it's time for a kid, it's time for the second kid.
00:29:52
Speaker
It's time to move. It's time to change the job. You asked me at the beginning that knowing that bubbles up within us, right?
Evolving Purpose and Philosophical Insights
00:30:00
Speaker
That or a creative flow state or a sudden you go for a walk and you're like, oh, I just solved that business problem. And we talk about it, but like,
00:30:09
Speaker
What does that even mean? That makes no sense. It just came to me or I just felt that person when they walked in a room. Science is starting to prove that it's true. If you had taken the idea of cell phones 50 years ago, there's zero possibility any of us would have believed that you could pick up a little black box and push some numbers and dial each other. I have these sentences, you read them, you plug in different people's names and somehow it opens up this space.
00:30:39
Speaker
But again, we're already in the space. We are already tapped into it. So I agree with you. I think it's just the cultivation or the it's going from carrier pigeon to cell phone. It's just the ability to like, uh, do it more effectively, have a tool that does it and practice it in a way that gives you more access. And, and, and everybody can do it. I've taught hundreds and hundreds of people now, hundreds, and they've all been successful.
00:31:06
Speaker
Everybody says, I'm going to be the one that can't do it. And they do. Everybody can do it. Okay. So then talk about what you're actually doing now, because some of this is going to come as new news about Laura Coe to a lot of people, podcast listeners. What does this mean for you? How are you showing up in the world now authentically with this work that you're doing? What does that look like?
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, for anybody who's been tuned in for all these years, I'm so grateful for all of you. And we're in, I mean, almost every country in the world, which is overwhelming to think about. But I've been talking about authenticity from this one perspective, right? What does it mean to live a life that is truthful? You have an intuitive knowing that you're doing what you should be doing and successful, where I'm actually doing something in the world that
00:32:05
Speaker
I don't know, I feel good about, right? Whatever that means to you, it might be being a yoga teacher, it might be having 10 businesses and 15 homes. And that the point was that we all define it differently and it doesn't have to look prescriptive or one size fits all. But now I'm really interested, that feels like the tip of the iceberg to me.
00:32:24
Speaker
And now I feel like the Akashic realm because that intuitive knowing that little bit of you that says hmm I think this is right for me. Okay, great. That's wonderful This is like the megaphone or the the rest of the iceberg whatever metaphor works for you that
00:32:41
Speaker
gives you a greater access to that conversation that's happening so subtly within yourself, that authentic truth that is within us. It just gives you this depth and this experience of the vastness of that space.
00:33:02
Speaker
Um, we are able to with our human brains tap into the the subtle knowing of self but but this deep energy the one that is um filled with these soul lessons and with maybe past life information
00:33:19
Speaker
is offered through the Akashic realm. And it's just, it's so exciting for me because it's given me the understanding that our experience as humans in this lifetime is just so much bigger and more beautiful than I ever thought. And by beautiful, I mean, like,
00:33:44
Speaker
The shoulds of what we should be doing, I need to find my purpose and it needs to be a tangible 3D thing that I need to put in the world and it needs to be bigger and huge for me to feel good about myself and I derive my self-worth from doing that. It's really helped me learn that
00:34:03
Speaker
my journey in learning who I am and experiencing this energy of self and bringing that out into the world every day in small ways and potentially big ways are all equally important and really meaningful. And it's really just my soul growth happening day over day, month over month, year over year.
00:34:27
Speaker
The 3D manifestation, the way I put it into the world is nice, but it's not the thing. It's not the only thing that matters. The authentic expression is the beautiful outcome. It's like you plant the seed and the seed is cracks and the flower grows and eventually you get the actual flowering and everybody's interested in the flowering moment. They want to see the damn flower. I do too, but I've started to appreciate the entire
00:34:56
Speaker
um experience of life right from from seed planting through so would you say that that is that the purpose of life now um what is the purpose of life because i'm sure you've asked all kinds of questions
00:35:11
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You're such a heavy hitter. I knew a big question was going to come. Yeah. I've been talking about authenticity, right? And authenticity is purpose. And so what does it mean to me? I think it's about the lessons. I think it's unlocking the lessons in your soul growth and those
00:35:31
Speaker
Those expressions as they're unlocked can potentially become things like a business or a yoga practice or whatever it is that you're excited about if you want to put that into the world.
00:35:46
Speaker
But that's not the main point. The main point is the evolution within yourself, the continual growth of self, the self not being Laura, the self being the
00:36:03
Speaker
the awareness part, right? So there's the part of me that is Laura Cohen, then there's a part of my brain that's aware that I'm saying that. And so the part of me that's aware that there is this person called Laura Co is
00:36:18
Speaker
life force and it's trying to express through me and as it does there's a Learning and a growing and an unlocking of lessons and a getting stuck and a falling down And a struggle and a frustration and a breaking open and a setting free and I think that's what we're all up to Over and over and over in multiple lives all the time
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah, so it's not even so much the question of, who am I? Because I think everybody's asking that question. But what am I actually? Like what? What am I? And what is life? And I think you just
00:36:54
Speaker
beautifully described the way I see it too, how we are, I love how Pierre Tayard describes it. He says, you know, we're not human beings having spiritual experiences, we're spiritual beings having a human experience. And we just happen to call that human experience life, you know, our life. Well, so what is one thing that
00:37:21
Speaker
I don't want to say disturbed you, but as you're learning and unfolding and asking questions of the Akashic Records, what's one thing that you held dear for a long time until you got the actual right answer? And then you realize, well, shit, I got that wrong.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's so funny because you said it in your question, the word unfolding. I had a violent reaction to that word for so long. I hated it. I hated it. I hated the idea of unfolding because
00:38:00
Speaker
Everything in my life had been through effort and through outcomes and through a sense of a path. I was able to let go and let things happen, but I always had a deep intention.
00:38:16
Speaker
There was a plan in place. It was your plan. It was my plan. My plan was typically happening for me. This has been a letting go of epic portions of really releasing that there's
00:38:33
Speaker
really an ability to trust that things can happen in the time that they're meant to happen. People come to me and ask me through these Akashic record readings, I do them all the time now, I want this or I want that, I want this relationship, I want this purpose, and sometimes I have to tell them, well, you need to heal this relationship with your mother, you need to find a relationship to joy.
00:39:02
Speaker
That's what stuck. And so it's in the allowing things to be where they are being in the present moment, allowing things to happen exactly where they need to be, which is sometimes I'm not ready for what I think I am ready for. And things are unfolding in the order that they need to unfold in.
00:39:21
Speaker
that really, really just drove me insane, right? Because I'm impatient by nature, and that would be the second thing. I feel I'm ready, right? But I wasn't. This process was truly me letting go of all ideas that my mind telling me that things should happen in a certain order in a certain way
00:39:49
Speaker
It just doesn't work, and magic happens. Koot came on the podcast. A handful of people have come on who've talked about it. I think it went over my head, but the magic of life happens when you really let go and let the world, the universe, surprise you.
00:40:07
Speaker
in the way that it can potentially happen when you stop looking for it to happen in the way that you feel it really should, right? That's when you get that phone call. You're like, I can't believe that just happened or that email and all of a sudden things move forward for you in a logarithmically quicker way. So how do you do that though? Because I know one thing that's very, very popular, especially in spiritual circles is the whole idea of manifestation.
00:40:35
Speaker
I visualize the thing I want, I feel it in my body, I call it toward me. What you're talking about is different than that. It's not needing to make it happen or even manipulate the universe, like a vending machine. You say learning to let go, let things unfold. What does that look like? Yeah. A lot of the spiritual texts talk about
00:41:04
Speaker
the present moment, being in the present moment, truly, right? But what does that even mean to be in the present moment? It means that the clock is always ticking, Kevin, every single second, another second is going by. So if I'm thinking about present moment as time, that's not going to work because
00:41:29
Speaker
every second moves into the past and every next second is the future. So it's always in motion. So you can't capture a standstill moment,
Letting Go and Embracing Unfolding Life
00:41:40
Speaker
right? Right. So what is this present moment and the unfolding that happens when you're in
00:41:48
Speaker
The present moment when you're an acceptance of what is and you're in it That's complicated so um, it's been a Long process for me, but in a lot of lessons, uh, it's been a letting go as to what is and allowing myself to say in every moment I don't need it to be other than it is
00:42:11
Speaker
Right that's letting go of the ego telling me that something's wrong in this moment that it needs to be Different than it is because it's painful or it's a struggle or it's not the way I envisioned it It's also knowing that present moment is a feeling within me of presence It's not time It's me dropping in
00:42:37
Speaker
to the spaciousness of this moment and allowing it to be available as I just am available. And what I mean by that is my mind isn't taking me into the future. It's not sitting around in the past. It's not agonizing or ruminating over things. I'm actually here in this moment.
00:43:02
Speaker
And then as I notice I am getting myself into forward thinking and I start to push into how my life should be or what isn't right. I let that go and I keep that practice going all the time so I can stay in presence more often than not. It's not like a thing that happens and you stick there, but my awareness of it is so heightened that I, I can drop my ability to need to be
00:43:30
Speaker
future thinking or ruminating about the past. And that's when you start to have an awareness of the presence, an awareness of what is without fighting it, without being resistant to it. And so in there,
00:43:46
Speaker
is the unfolding, the magic. Things just start to magically happen when you just truly drop in without expectation or need or desire for life to be other than it is in every single moment, as often as you can throughout your days.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah, it reminds me something I heard Ady Ashanti say, which I know that you love Ady Ashanti too, about there being events. There are things that happen. There's just things that happen in life. But then there are the stories that we lay on top of those events of how it should have been, shouldn't have been the way we think it is. And that really being the only difference, like that gap there, that story is actual suffering. It's our unwillingness to be with what is.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah. And Kevin, I've been obsessed with him for the last couple of years. It's really helped me a ton, Falling from Grace, the book. I know I've shared it with you, but it just blew me open. Yeah, I love the book. Yeah, because this idea too of being a human and a being, I think that's the other part that
00:44:53
Speaker
has given me freedom. I got into these records, and I started listening to the guidance, which is more sole guidance, like that nuanced, authentic self-guidance. Laura, this is what's true for you at a deeper level. And I was becoming a warrior in my listening to that. I was like, oh, OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. I should always be listening to higher guidance. And then at some point, my ego, my humanness, was like, what the hell?
00:45:24
Speaker
I don't want to just be a slave to guidance like what am I what's happening to my life and I went through a six-month
00:45:31
Speaker
uh, I don't, I don't know what I want to call it, but like, um, pushback about what this modality was, right? Like is Laura Kojas a slave to like what this Akashic record guidance suggests for my life? Like that's fucked up. I have a right to make my own decisions. Right. Um, and then out of Shante's books really helped me to understand, um, it's both, right? It's both. I, I, I am,
00:45:57
Speaker
I'm listening to what is true within me. And when I listen to what's true, I am happier. Meaning like Laura, the human experience of my life, it's better when I listen to what I intuitively know deep within myself and follow that.
00:46:18
Speaker
But sometimes I don't want to. And sometimes I just want to have a martini and shop and be annoyed and be very human and be frustrated. And that's all OK too. And so that balancing between spirituality and being, instead of being angry with my ego and feeling like I should not have one, which I think a lot of spiritual practices
00:46:47
Speaker
lead you towards thinking or make you feel kind of shitty that you're not in your spiritual space all the time. I was finally able to live side by side, right? Like it's totally okay if I am having a massively egoic day, right? And it's okay too if I don't listen to guidance, I'll listen tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. It'll always be there, right?
00:47:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There's the Akashic records. There's no getting it wrong. They'll say things like, you can just do it in your next life. And I'm like, what? When I first heard that in my next life, what are you talking about? I have to do it now. Right. And it's like, oh, okay. You know, whether you believe in past lives or not is, is not important to me, but, um, this idea that, uh, everything, I don't know, you're behind and you need to do more and more and more and more and more. And you know, it just, it just, uh, has, has lightened for me.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah, and especially in developed countries, especially in the West, where we've got this idea of the pursuit of happiness. We always have to get more, be more, scale, scale, scale, grind, hustle, especially with our current culture.
00:48:02
Speaker
But yeah, what if it was true that you are infinite? What if it was true that you existed before you were Laura and whatever makes you you, your essence continues on after you're done with this particular costume in the play? I mean, to me, that's a really liberating idea, that there's way more to life than meets the eye.
00:48:28
Speaker
Yeah, and going back to the idea of being a healthy skeptic, I studied philosophy and there's this whole theory around knowing the school of epistemological thinking and it's
00:48:44
Speaker
was taken over by Descartes who said, if I think therefore I am, and if I have one thought for sure, then from there I can build from that and know things. It's called foundationalism. If I can claim one thing for sure, I can build my knowing from there. The last 100 years has been really stuck in there. Quine has released it, which is a whole conversation that's not important for now, but it's like,
00:49:11
Speaker
I don't know. I was really obsessed with knowing that if I'm going to listen to this spiritual way of living, I wanted to prove something, know it for sure. I tested the records like crazy. Like I said, I ran all these experiments. When I trained hundreds of people, I'd ask them the same question to see if I get the same answers. But in the end of the day, whether or not all of this is just untrue. If I end up dying and I become part of the ground and
00:49:40
Speaker
There's nothing. While I'm here, this is pretty exciting. Again, I sort of fashion it to, would you really prefer to go back to writing letters or do you like email? Do you want to give up your cell phone or is it really convenient to have this? Carry your pigeons, baby. Carry your pigeons or Zoom, right?
00:50:02
Speaker
Even if it's not true in the sense of the broader sense of truth, like my soul is this infinite forever space, I do know for sure this has changed my life for the better on a day-to-day just in this particular life because I'm freeing myself of the constraints
00:50:23
Speaker
that hold me back from doing the things that I want to do truthfully, love bigger, speak more truthfully, take my work to a different level. Those kinds of things that we all desire, those are more accessible than ever.
00:50:39
Speaker
That's amazing. And that's the proof, right? That's the proof of transformation is the being of it, the embodiment of it. Okay. The question that everybody wants to know the answer to is, okay, how do I, how do I access this myself? If it's accessible to everybody and you say that it is, how do I begin that journey for myself? Yeah.
00:51:07
Speaker
I appreciate you asking that. I created a little series.
00:51:16
Speaker
I was training so many people and I just couldn't keep up with it. So I created a free set of videos. It's on my website. I have a new website, littlesoul.school. So you can go there. It's totally free because I really want everybody to have access to the space because it's not my space. It is so important that I don't take ownership or claim
00:51:40
Speaker
This is mine, and I'm now going to charge you to enter it. So I wanted to make it available to everybody because I really do truly believe that it is accessible to anybody. It's like tennis or golf or name something that you do that's intricate.
00:51:59
Speaker
It takes time so everybody can hold a tennis ball and everybody can hit it, whether or not you sit there and do strokes for thousands of hours or not is a decision. And some people come into it with more or less technical skills.
00:52:16
Speaker
Everybody can access this realm, whether or not you can commit yourself to it, turn it into a practice, or translate it quickly. Some people do it really quickly, some people take longer, but everybody does access it.
00:52:31
Speaker
Um, so that's a way to start there's uh, certainly a lot of other people out there who who have um This has been around for thousands of years. It's not a new system It came to the state through somebody named madam blevetski. I love her name and uh, she created the school of the theoscopy the theosophical society uh, and you know, so it's been in the state since the late 1800s
00:52:59
Speaker
But it hasn't been popularized, really. It's kind of like where meditation was 20 years ago. And I'm just hoping to kind of bring this word out because it's kind of like this hidden secret. So that's how you can access it. And then if you just want to chill and do a reading, you can go on my site and I can do one for you. Or there's other people who do them. There are Kashuk record readers around the country. Yeah. And so I'm a healthy skeptic.
00:53:27
Speaker
I'm a lifelong seeker like you are. And when I first met you, I was joining a conference call you were having with our friend, Cal. And he said, at the time I was helping him write a book. And he said, yeah, I've got this call with Laura coming up. Why don't you join me? Because she's going to be reading the records with me for this book. I was like, what the heck does that even mean, man?
00:53:55
Speaker
And I've done, I mean, I've experimented with lots of different things. And I remember, you know, being 10, 15 minutes into that call and I've got to really finally attune BS meter. And I knew it was like, wow, this is the real deal.
00:54:11
Speaker
And then you and I connected afterward. I mean, we've been friends ever since. And you have guided me through accessing this information for my own life. I mean, things that have come through that you never knew about me, and there was no way you could have ever possibly known, just kind of come through effortlessly to the point where I was just speechless a few times. And so I can say just from a personal standpoint,
00:54:40
Speaker
These things are very real. That's my direct experience with it. And as I've begun to work with it myself, it's really changed how I see not only myself, but life in general. And it's people who don't understand that these things are accessible.
00:55:02
Speaker
are really, really missing out. It's almost like going through life with one hand and one leg tied behind you. You can get so much farther, so much faster if you're able to engage or tap your whole self. That's what it seems like is really happening, is you're actually tapping greater parts of yourself, which is connected in. Is that how you describe it?
00:55:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's really beautiful. It's like, um, again, going back to the way you were talking earlier, that intuitive knowing the, the creative flow state that so many people are trying to get into or just flow state in your life. Like it feels like you just get a big wave of that. Um, and, and you can ride that wave, you can bring it into a meditation practice,
00:55:54
Speaker
If you have a meditation practice, it feels like going into a deep, deep meditation, but with some kind of guidance that comes with it.
00:56:07
Speaker
It's a feeling and a knowing within your own body. You can't explain meditation until you meditate. You can't explain yoga until you do yoga. You can't explain kicking a coffee table until you've kicked one. There's certain things where it's like it really has to come through experience. And that's why I made these videos available because I have found that it's almost an indescribable experience.
00:56:33
Speaker
if you've never had love in your life and then you have massive love, right? Like there's these things that just shift and you go, Oh, I didn't know that was available.
00:56:44
Speaker
Um, and again, I think our ancestors would, would really just freak out if they could see cell phones, right? Like who would think that this could just travel. I mean, my voice is traveling through the air to you in instant time. That would have been an impossible idea. So sometimes you just have to see it to believe it, experience it, to know
Future Plans and Evolving Conversations
00:57:03
Speaker
it. Um, and yeah, it's a, it's a rich, beautiful, embodied experience. And then these truths come through, you know, I appreciate you sharing yours.
00:57:13
Speaker
Every day somebody calls me out of thin air I've never spoken to. I don't know who they are. They just tell me their name and I drop these knowings about them for an hour until they're in tears. But they're tears of catharsis. It's like, oh my God, I feel so seen. I feel unstuck. I feel like I finally got the advice I've been dying to get. It's a beautiful thing to be part of. I'm incredibly grateful. That's amazing. It's so fun to watch.
00:57:41
Speaker
Well, I know we're running up against time, but let's land the plane with where to from here. So what does this podcast and what does your work look like going into the future?
00:57:53
Speaker
Yeah. First of all, thank you so much for doing this interview. This is so much fun to be on the other side. I have a new series of books, The Nature of Series, that has been released. There's three, The Nature of Love, The Nature of Boundaries, and The Nature of Self-Love. There's 13 in total. I'm going to release the other 10 soon. And they're guided books from the Akashic realm on these topics.
00:58:21
Speaker
I've been doing the readings and I'm creating this little soul school, a space to create community and learn
00:58:34
Speaker
If you're not interested in structural religion, structured religion, if you're not somebody who is completely science-based, but you're somewhere in the middle, maybe a little woo-woo, but you're trying to figure it out, I want to create a space where people can come and learn about
00:58:53
Speaker
this and several other modalities in community where it's like a cool experience, but it's not being pushed and it's not part of a religious structure, but it doesn't have to be proved by data and science. I know that there's no way to explain this and I'm okay with that finally. So yeah, those are the things I'm doing. And
00:59:16
Speaker
I'm just the art of authenticity. I'm continuing these conversations. I want to keep talking about authenticity, but perhaps allowing in some of these deeper conversations. Not that they haven't happened in the past, but just maybe being more intentional about it.
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. And that's really what the world needs right now. With everything that's happening in the world, it's become really obvious to me that we're disconnected from ourselves. As we're speaking, there's a war happening in Ukraine.
00:59:51
Speaker
We're at war with each other because we are at war with ourselves. We don't really know ourselves. And so the work that you're doing to help people see, not just see, but to really experience themselves as sort of the greater mystery of life is so valuable. I mean, it's inviting people into a greater experience of their own life.
01:00:17
Speaker
which, you know, I can only speak for myself has been, you know, a true, I'm truly grateful for it, you know, and the things that you've brought into my life have, you know, been perfectly timed. And, and to me, that's a mystery that, you know, I can celebrate. So thank you. Thank you. I, I, I want to just close Kevin because of your comment with one, one thought for the listeners, you know,
01:00:46
Speaker
I've read a thousand times as you have in spiritual literature and self-help books about the currency of the world is truly this unconditional love, that we are love, that the world is love, and that's sort of full circle. I had that first turning point moment
01:01:07
Speaker
having a not so great feeling about that idea, right? I felt saccharine, it felt contrived if I'm being honest, right? But that connection to self that you're speaking of, that
01:01:25
Speaker
ability to know who we are at the core level is to know that we're this energetic being. There's the human and there's the being. And this energetic being, the one that we feel when somebody walks in a room, that feeling of somebody, the essence of somebody is
01:01:45
Speaker
love, not romantic love, but it's this energy life force, right? That's what I would now call love. And I'm so grateful to have unpacked that for myself. The records have helped me with that. This journey has been, in my mind, sort of a breaking open into that. And I hope
01:02:06
Speaker
as more people can maybe find that within themselves to your point, know themselves, connect into themselves, but to that self, to this, this essence of self that we can start to heal as, um, as communities, as, as a country, as a world right now, which it seems we need a ton of. Yeah. And that's the most important thing we could ever do. Yeah.
01:02:28
Speaker
Well, thank you for letting me do this, for hijacking the microphone. This has been so fun. And our journey has just begun, my friend.
01:02:37
Speaker
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kevin. Again, you guys, Kevin's going to have an episode coming out. Dear friend, writer, business guides. It's just, I can't list the things. He's got a long list. You'll hear all about it on his episode. And if you're interested in checking out the little soul school, littlesoul.school and of course, lorico.com. Thank you guys so much for listening once again and stay tuned. There's lots more to come.