Creative Status is a podcast about using creativity as a vehicle for improving your life by deconstructing ego, integrating the shadow self, and designing and manifesting a real life. Every episode explores how the creative process can help you GROW REAL by moving towards wholeness in yourself by making the unconscious conscious.
This episode of Creative Status is an amazing conversation about shame and ego death with coach Kalyca Zarich.
If you’ve listened to the podcast before then you’ll have definitely heard some ranting and raving about the EGO – it was about time we dived into looking at the mechanics of killing this darned thing so we can live a REAL life.
Actually, “Ego Death” is kind of a myth because you CAN’T KILL SOMETHING UNREAL. All you can do is to allow your ideas about it to evolve so you can keep evolving into wholeness.
“Shame” is another topic that pops up loads in these conversations because – in my opinion – shame is the main driving force that causes people to hide from themselves and to erect barriers between themselves and themselves (i.e. pick up false ideas of EGO).
Once we understand our relationship with our own shame and learn to master it then we can start to free ourselves from ego and its unhealthy hold over us because we can LEAN back into our REALNESS instead of shrinking from it.
This was a really great conversation about some of the misconceptions we tend to have around these ideas and also what we can DO to start improving our lives.
I really appreciated Kalyca’s energy and the way that she was able to be so candid whilst talking about things that are often difficult to talk about.
This is a very ‘human’ conversation that will make you more human if you implement some of the insight it gives you.
Listen using the embedded player above or on your favourite podcast platform!
(Scroll down for full show transcript)
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Episode Links:
Kalyca’s Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/749566423620607
Kalyca on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kalycajinzarich/
Creative Status Links:
The Creative Performance Transformation Lab: olianderson.co.uk/creativeperformance
Follow me on Instagram: instagram.com/olijanderson
My YouTube channel: youtube.com/olianderson
Get my books on Amazon: amazon.com/author/oli
7-Day Personality Transplant System Shock for Realness and Life Purpose: olianderson.co.uk/systemshock
Free one hour creative workshop to take your creative brand or project to the next level: olianderson.co.uk/creativeworkshop
Free 90-Day Journal Challenge: olianderson.co.uk/journal
The Law of Attraction for Realness (mini-course): olianderson.co.uk/lawofattraction
Show Transcript: Ego Death, Shame, & Creativity
INTRO
Oli Anderson: Oh hi there, Oli Anderson here, you’re listening to Creative Status.
This is a podcast if you don’t know about using the creative process as a vehicle for moving towards realness or wholeness or healing or connection or whatever word you want to use.
My name is Oli Anderson, like I just said, I’m a creative performance coach. I help people to bring realness into their lives and business. Most of what I talk about is based off the stuff in my books, Personal Revolutions, the Short Costs and Realness, and Shadow Life.
Every episode of Creative Status, I basically interview somebody about creativity, realness, connection, all the things I just mentioned, and I try to understand the philosophical and psychological implications of all this stuff to show that it has real world practical value and to show you how you can kind of implement this stuff in your own life without it sounding like a bunch of gobbledygook. Today’s interview is with an amazing business coach called Kaleeka Zarik.
The interview itself though has nothing really to do with the business coaching stuff. We actually talk about some of the underlying emotional stuff that can get in the way of our journey towards wholeness that can cause us to become fragmented.
We ultimately dive quite deep into shame, trauma, how it shows up, what it looks like in our lives, how it causes the ego to basically restrict our experience of ourselves and of life, and what we can do about it. So, Kalyca, thank you so much because you shared quite a lot of your own experience in this conversation, which was a really brave thing to do. You really candid, really open, really honest, and I got some amazing insight from it. Everybody else, thank you so much for listening to the podcast.
Please leave a review somewhere. If this helps you in any way, that’s going to help other people find it and help them too. And of course, it’s going to allow me to be rich and famous because my podcast is going to be more popular.
But yeah, there’ll be another episode of Creative Status next Monday. Hope you enjoyed this conversation. I really did.
Kalyca, thanks again. Everybody else. Here we go. Boom.
INTERVIEW
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, Kalcya. Thank you so much for joining me today on this episode of Creative Status. I have a suspicion, as I always do, to be honest, that this is going to be a kind of deep conversation about some very meaningful things.
I suppose I have to say that. But ultimately, we’re going to be exploring a lot of ideas to do with shame, how shame shows up in people’s lives, how it holds them back, and how it ultimately causes them to create a false version of themselves that they can identify with, which limits what’s possible in their lives. So that’s me throwing some expectations of the conversation out there.
Before we get into it, do you just feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you do, and also letting us know what you personally want to get from this conversation?
Kalyca Zarich: Of course, yeah. I mean, first and foremost, I’m really grateful for this opportunity to be here with you today, and to share some of the things that I’ve been working through over the past, gosh, 33 years. That’s how old I am.
So yeah, I’m Kalyca. I actually live in the United States. I live in Colorado.
I’ve lived here my whole life. I love the mountains. I love exploring, adventure. I’m a and yeah, I’ve really been on a deep journey of healing.
Like so many of us or all of us, I guess, experienced a lot of trauma, grief, loss, and just trying to make sense out of my existence here on earth.
Oli Anderson: Wow. I love mountains and stuff too. So I’m a little bit jealous they’re in Colorado. But yeah, one thing that comes up a lot in this podcast is a little line that I just I’m always throwing out, which is that the main issues in our lives are shame, guilt, and trauma.
If we as human beings have like unresolved shame, guilt or trauma in the most extreme cases, then ultimately what happens is, is that we find ourselves becoming fragmented and then we go into hiding. Fragmentation is kind of bad – it sucks, because ultimately it goes against the natural drive that we all have towards wholeness.
So we’re going to dive into that a little bit more deeply, I’m assuming than I normally do, because I normally just end up throwing it out there and running and raving about it. Of those three things though, shame, guilt, and trauma, just to get this conversation like opened up and going a bit. I have found that in most people’s lives, shame is the thing that kind of screws them up most commonly.
It might not screw them up more than trauma, but in general, I have found that there are two kinds of people out there in the world. There’s shame driven people and the shame dissolving people. That basically means that everybody has some kind of shame that they’ve picked up as they’ve been going through life.
But you can relate to it in two ways. If you’re shame driven, that’s when you end up going into hiding and the shame is dictating nearly everything that you do and causing you to filter your life through the ego. If you’re shame dissolving, that’s when you kind of wake up and you put yourself on some kind of a healing path and it can be different for everybody, but that path is basically dissolving the shame by taking you back to wholeness.
Wholeness just means connection to yourself, connection to others and connection to the world. So that’s just me framing how I see all this stuff, but to open it up, what do you think about that idea that there are quite a lot of people out there running around and they’re just being driven by their own shame, maybe in many cases without even knowing?
Kalyca Zarich: Oh, it is so profoundly true based on my experience. I mean, yeah, speaking with you for the first time when we met about a month ago, I was so relieved to hear you speak of these things because you have a very profound way of explaining the things that I’ve felt and the things that I’ve kind of gone through.
I think I spent, gosh, so much of my life being shame driven. Truly in a state of survival, survival mode to the extreme. And I think I look back on that period and having kind of transitioned now into dissolving and moving towards wholeness. I think I do have regrets about spending so much time in that shame cycle is kind of what it feels like. And the other thought I have is that, I think for so long I blamed the trauma.
Like I pointed to the trauma being like, this is the problem. And it wasn’t until I started to move through the process of healing that I recognized and I can recognize now that it was shame all along that was really removing me from my true self.
Oli Anderson: Yeah, so ultimately that’s what it all boils down to in my view, like when we move to our wholeness, dissolve and all that stuff we just said, when we do that, it puts us on the path to being reconnected ultimately to the real version of ourselves.
Realness is what I call it. When we get to that place, that’s when everything kind of clicks. Like we feel amazing, we got energy because we’re not weighing ourselves down with all these negative thoughts or whatever it is. We’re just flowing with life instead of forcing it. One of the reasons that shame is so kind of screwed up is because it causes shame driven people to become control freaks.
That’s what I found. Like I used to be like this to be honest and like I’ve seen it with people that I work with now they become control freaks because when we got all this shame bubbling away beneath the surface, we need to control the external world so that it doesn’t trigger that shame basically. And so that means we’ll try and, I don’t want to use the word manipulate but we’ll try and control people to act in certain ways. We’ll try and change other people.
We’ll try and change the world. We externalize everything ultimately so that we don’t turn inwards and then face that shame in the short term so that we can start dissolving it. So I guess the question is, does that align with your experience? And to open it up even more, what was it that you started doing to go from that shame driven place to like this shame dissolving path you put yourself on towards, wholeness or realness and that kind of thing?
Kalyca Zarich: Oh my gosh, yeah, such a deep question. So I guess it would be helpful to share part of the experience that definitely resulted in me going into a mode of hyper control. So I was sexually assaulted when I was 14 and I actually was not able to speak those words or share that with anyone until I was in my mid 20s.
So immediately after it happened, I went into, I kind of internalized everything. I didn’t know where to turn, I didn’t know what to do but the biggest thing was that I 100 % blamed myself. I think the only way I could reconcile what had happened was to place blame. And for me, the easiest way to do that was to, I guess it’s a control thing already emerging but to tell myself that it was entirely my fault and that I had put myself in that position. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I was hanging out with people I shouldn’t have been and that just created an immediate shame cycle, right? As you can imagine. And I buried it. It buried it as deep as I possibly could and I tried to convince myself that it never happened. And I think that was because I couldn’t handle the shame of that experience because that’s where I took it.
And then from there, I think that really did set the stage. Everything you’re saying is so true to my experience because I think that carrying that shame of that experience and not sharing it with anyone, not feeling safe, really kind of moved me into living into the identity of a victim. Like that’s an identity that I carried with me forever.
And then the other part, the control part, it actually manifested itself later as obsessive, compulsive behaviors. I struggled with an eating disorder. That being a huge part of the control where I was suffering so much internally that starting to attach to external behaviors and external validation was part of the cycle, right?
I remember… I’m thinking like actually having the thought like, oh, this is something I can control. Like I need to focus all of my time and effort on this.
And you know, in hindsight, it’s like, it makes sense as a coping mechanism because then I distracted myself so much with those behaviors that I didn’t have to feel any of the shame or feel less of the shame, right?
Oli Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. Like, so obviously thank you for sharing your personal experience, because it’s kind of like a, I don’t want to use the word extreme, but it’s a serious example of the kind of thing that we’re talking about.
So it allows us to see the structure of how this works because I’ve found like, even people who have not necessarily experienced something to that degree, still have this stuff going on in their lives, and it causes them to hold back and to distract themselves and to try and control things in the way that we’ve just said, so that they don’t grow into the real version of themselves.
But basically it, shame ends up putting some kind of a block between what is going on inside us and needs to come to the surface and the process of allowing that to happen. And no matter who we are, it’s only by allowing that kind of unconscious stuff to become conscious that we can heal and keep growing and expanding in the way that we need to. And so what you’ve shared is like, it’s like not a textbook version, but it shows really clearly what people are kind of dealing with.
So let’s break it down a little bit, right? So in your case, you ended up kind of coping with this, and we have to remember as well, like the ego stuff that we’re talking about, the identity stuff that we talk about, it is a survival thing, right? So your way of dealing with the situation was to kind of shut down a little bit, to go into victim mode, and that was your way of avoiding these feelings, which in the short term, would no doubt have fucking soaked, but the healing was always gonna be on the other side of letting that stuff go where it needs to go. So I always think people either become victims, or they become like heroes when they go through something like this, but both of those things are totally unreal. So in the case of the victim, they basically end up blaming everything that’s happened on external forces and that kind of thing, or they end up blaming themselves, but then directing that outwards. The heroes on the other hand, they basically end up becoming too callous almost, like they shut down their feelings, and they think they can just handle everything in life, that it’s gonna throw at them, and they basically avoid their feelings by acting as though they were stronger than they are.
So that was a very long-winded way of saying that. The victim kind of identifies with their weakness that they think they’ve perceived in themselves. The heroes, whatever you wanna call them, they end up identifying with the kind of false strength that isn’t there, but in both cases, it’s about avoiding the feelings. So how did you get over the victim thing? And like, how do you see the whole victim thing now? Because even, we’re saying all this, but there’s a lot of controversy to some extent, around saying the victim mindset is unreal, and it shouldn’t exist, and we should take responsibility, and keep growing, and dissolving our shame, and blah, blah, blah.
And at the end of the day, like if you got sexually assaulted, that’s an awful thing to happen. And so we could say, in some ways, you’re a victim of that, but what is the fine line, I guess, between acknowledging that, yes, something bad did happen, but you’re not a victim, if that question even makes sense.
Kalyca Zarich: Oh yeah, yeah, it does. It’s interesting that you kind of presented that, because I think, for me, I had layers of both, the hero and the victim. I think the victim identity was much more overt, like it was a little bit more hidden.
And I think, so I guess really what happened was, about, gosh, I guess it was 2021, I experienced a full-blown ego death, and I had actually been working with a coach, for like a year and a half leading up to that point, and I think she had just been expanding me so much, and giving me a container and a space to let a lot of my pain and shame out, and know that I was still okay, that it sort of triggered this whole ego death process.
So I think the thing that I think about with shedding that, I feel like it’s shedding the victim identity is what I went through. Through that process of expanding, I was able to recognize that, I am not that event. I am not even a product, really, of the circumstances that I’ve survived. There’s so much more depth to who I truly am, right?
And yeah, so I guess that was really one of the turning points for me, although I really don’t think that would have been possible without me sort of feeling like enough’s enough, and being willing and vulnerable, and able to start opening up to people, and start asking for help.
Oli: Yeah, no, that’s amazing.
Like, I think that’s quite common. So when people are going through these transformational journeys, they eventually reach a point where they’re like, right, this breaking point, basically, enough is enough, because they realize that the way they’re doing things or the way they’ve been going about life in general is unreal, something like that.
They realize they need to make some changes at a fundamental level and that’s when basically they’ve reached the end of the line of that current version of the identity because if you find yourself at breaking point, I believe it’s because the identity is not as fluid as it needs to be, if that makes sense.
Like if you keep a static image of yourself and you take it out into the world or out into reality, eventually you’re going to have to break and you’re going to have to go through some kind of ego death or something like that. So let’s talk about that if that’s cool. Like when you go through this whole experience with ego death and everything, what exactly do you mean by that?
Because personally, I don’t think we can kill the ego and I know it’s just a language thing, but like I think we can step back from it and then we can see like where it’s been kind of screwing us up or whatever. But in your case, like what was going on there? Like what happened specifically?
Kalyca: Yeah. So I guess a little bit more background on the circumstances leading up to that point. And then I’d love to share what it felt like because I think that will give it more, it’ll make it easier to understand.
So, you know, I mentioned that I kind of did both coping, I took on both methods of coping the hero. And the way that looked was really the control thing. It was a lot of self punishment. I went into a like a deep state of self punishment.
So along with struggling through the like control externalization with the eating disorder, I got heavily into running. That was sort of a escape for me, a release. In many ways, very healing. I kind of think about it as a double edged sword, because it did provide me with a lot of healing and experiences that I would not trade for the world.
I honestly don’t even know how I would have survived that period if it weren’t for having an outlet like that. But the hero part, the control part was like, I am tough. I am strong.
I’m taking on a second. Nothing can kill me. I’m unstoppable. And that felt good because it kind of gave me my power pack in a way, right? But I did become very obsessive and compulsive with that behavior. Because I think people can relate to this, if you’re struggling with shame, you want more of what makes you feel okay. Even though like, you are not fully living into your true self and real authenticity, but it’s like, oh, this makes me feel more okay. So I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
After this, right? So that’s sort of what running turned into. And in 2021, for the first time ever, I’d gotten into ultra running and trail races. And I’d done, gosh, 13 or 14 races up until that point.
And I, for the first time ever, was not able to finish a race. And that was a crushing, devastating blow to me. And that just opened my eyes so much to the fact of like, wait a second, like, why am I, why am I, why am I finding my value in this external thing?
It was truly a wake up moment for me because the fact that it was such a crushing blow, like I came out of that experience. And I was like, okay, it shouldn’t feel like this. I do this because supposedly I enjoy it and it’s fun and it’s adventure and it’s challenging your limits and all of those things. But like, it had become my identity. Like, I do hard to fit. That’s who I am.
Oli: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So sorry. I was just going to say that I can relate to this so hard, because I used to kind of be like that with my workouts for the same reason. So like, I, you know, I went through a shame driven period. And like, the way that I would compensate for those feelings, I would just work out all the time, or I go do crazy like hikes and things like that.
And I became so rigid with my routine around that stuff that I actually started missing out on life. Like, basically, if there was something, some social thing going on, I’d be turning it down because I was going to go do my workout and that kind of thing.
And, you know, I’m still regimented and I’m still healthy. But now, that is not my identity. Do you know what I mean? Like, I’m more fluid with it. And I think when people are shame driven, instead of shame dissolving, basically, they become obsessive in the way that we’re talking about, they become outcome dependent, they need certain outcomes like winning the race or getting the business deal or whatever, to make the shame stay at bay.
It becomes like an addiction almost. And so in your story example that you shared where you didn’t win that race. Basically, that’s when you realize you were being outcome dependent instead of outcome independent. Your self worth was invested basically in getting the, you know, winning the race, finishing the race. And that is how people end up living when they’re shame driven. That’s another perfect example of what we were talking about.
So anyway, sorry I interrupted you when you were going on.
Kalyca: Yeah, no, you are so spot on. Like that is exactly how I spend so much of my time. And in all honesty, it actually feels really good to have this conversation with you and to, you know, under to realize or re recognize that it is such a profoundly common experience that a lot of us aren’t really talking about, right?
Oli: Yeah, it’s amazing. Like I see it so frequently like with people that come come for coaching, like this distinction between outcome dependent and outcome independence. It’s one of the things that once you understand it, it can basically change your life.
And like, I don’t mean that in an exaggerated way. Like once you get it, and you see that you’re acting in this outcome dependent way, and you step back from that, that’s when you can start dissolving the shame. And all it ultimately means is why I said like, you basically choose some goal or some external activity to keep the shame at bay. And there’s the fundamental mistake that you making there is that the shame needs to go anyway, because as soon as you take a look at it, or you share it, we’ll get on to that in a second.
As soon as you look it in the eye, that’s when it starts dissolving. It’s all these crazy activities that we get involved in where we’re running around like headless chickens trying to escape from it, that keep its power over us. I would say I don’t know if you remember these, these things in Super Mario Brothers, but I use it as an example. There’s these ghosts in Super Mario Brothers, I used to play it when I was a kid. And like, as soon as you turn you, you try and run away from the ghost, it chases after you.
But when you look at it, it pauses and its power is gone. It’s the same with shame. And these shame driven people who are basically ruling the world, if you look at them, they’re constantly running around trying to keep it at bay. But actually, as soon as you face it, and you start making that choice towards whole nurse that we were talking about, that’s when it starts to fade away and you can kind of freeze. So, so yeah, I’ll stop ranting but is there anything there that you want to add or whatever?
Kalyca: Yes, I was smiling, you can’t see my face, but I was smiling when you were mentioning that because it resonates so much. And I think it’s a great visual. For me, a couple of things come to mind. Number one is, you know, running from the ghost, it feels like you’re a slave, right?
It feels like you’re being chased, or you’re chasing after something. And what I found with that is no finish line, no accolade, no achievement ever made me feel joy, not real joy. It wasn’t until I shed a lot of that, which I will be honest, was very, very painful to go through.
You know, I’m anyone who’s experienced something like that, it really felt like I was being broken open, like I was being broke in a part, like broken down into this like micro dust of myself, not sure if I would ever rebuild. But the crazy thing is like when you can escape from that shame cycle where you’re chasing after something, or you feel like you’re being chased.
That’s where you find true joy and true freedom.
Oli: Yes, 100%. Yeah. And the reason that you find joy and freedom and all that is because you find wholeness, you find the real version of you, your realness, which is always connected to everything else. And you’re in the flow, blah, blah, blah, you’re not forcing life.
Like, when you just described, you know, the lifestyle you’re living, you know, you’re constantly looking for another acola accolades, you’re trying to win a medal, whatever it is. When you’re running around like that, you are basically in survival mode, right?
So this is the thing like the shame, it basically sends us into survival mode. And so we start instinctually running around doing all the things that the shame is driving us to do. Because we think if we don’t do these things, so if we don’t run the race, if we don’t do blah, blah, blah, blah, we think if we don’t do that, then something awful is going to happen.
We think we’re not going to survive basically. And when we’re in that state, it’s not us that is making our decisions, we are not in the driving seat, the ego, the survival instinct, which is there for a reason, but isn’t aligned with reality necessarily, that is leading the way. And so we’re constantly following, you know, these, these promptings and dictates from within us that are not us.
And it just adds tension because it’s not real. And so when you reach that breaking point, or when you wake up, you literally do have to rebuild yourself. But ultimately, what you’re doing is you’re just removing the power that all of these, you know, survivalist, egotistical, whatever you want to call them, promptings have over you, and you take power over your own life.
So basically, I’m saying is when you’ve been shame driven, you’re actually, like the word suggested, driven, you’ve been pushed towards things without even stopping to think or ask why. And then when you wake up, that’s when you can start, you know, moving towards realness and wholeness and all that kind of stuff.
Kalyca: Yeah, definitely. And like, I think, you know, a lot of people, they see the, the goal is like, Oh, I want to be more present in my life, right?
Like, I think that’s a common expression. And I that resonates with me so much, because I feel like when I was in those periods, or that long period of time, I really did miss out on the world around me. I missed like you said, with your experience, I missed out on relationships and time with family members that I can’t get back. And so many things that, you know, your life is just like whizzing by you and you’re so focused on survival that you do miss out on being present.
But I do think that like, in some ways, it almost feels like being present is not the actual goal. For me, it’s like detaching from your shame and all the things that have warped your sense of self, right?
And in a lot of ways, connecting to something greater, like for me, there has been a spiritual journey there of like, connecting to what I believe is God and like, connecting with others. And there is a lot of power and freedom in that waking up period. But it’s not as simple as like, Oh, I just need to be more present in my life.
It’s like, no, I actually need to go through something where I shed this false identity.
Oli: Yeah, yeah. Like that is 6 billion percent how I see it as well. So when you go through this process of, you know, going from shame driven to shame dissolving, the ending, the end state of the dissolution process, if you want to call it that, is that you realize your identity does not exist in any way, shape or form, basically.
And so your ego, your sense of, you know, who you are as, you know, in terms of labels and contingencies, like the version of you that’s a runner or has a certain job or whatever, all that stuff kind of dissolves. And then it is between you and something bigger than yourself.
So yeah, you can call it God or the universe or all these different words that people use. It becomes about learning to surrender to the flow of life itself, because life, you know, it takes you where you want to go and you can, you know, choose a vision and a direction and you can mold your life. But even to, you know, get the things that you want and to achieve certain things that are real coming from a real place, you have to give yourself to something bigger than just you.
And actually what I’ve learned, and I’m so glad you brought this into the conversation about the higher thing that you end up having to, you know, transcend yourself and kind of work with, what I’ve learned is that all of these shame driven people, they need the ego because they’re actually scared to make that connection to the higher thing.
Like the ego, the false sense of identity is basically the illusion that it’s all up to you, that you are totally in control of your life, that you are totally separate, you’re totally independent, all you know, you’re fragmented basically. And the shame is the only thing that keeps all of those illusions in place. But because of what you were saying, like people don’t want to take that plunge into, you know, looking at the ghost or sharing these feelings that they’ve got, because people don’t want to make that leap and feel shit in the short term as they like bring those unresolved emotions to the surface.
Well, they just spend their whole lives explaining away and justifying the shame that has imprisoned them in the in the in the first place, if that even makes sense.
So I know I’m rambling, but basically what I’m saying is shame is basically our attempts to argue for the state of disconnection that has messed us up in the first place. Something like that.
Kalyca; Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That rings so true. I yeah, I think that’s such a profound like conversation to have.
And even if it’s just bringing it into people’s awareness. One of the thoughts I had that I actually worked through with my coach during the process of kind of waking back up was actually a very deep distrust in in God, if you will. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the universe or there was a very intense distrust that I had. And I had been like, there was really a fracture there that I had to work through. And, you know, again, I don’t think I would have had the courage or the awareness to do that without having a coach and having someone that was an effective participant in it, right?
Like, to rebuild that trust. I think, again, it goes back to something I mentioned in the very beginning where it was like, you know, I blamed the trauma or I blamed what had happened to me. I was angry in a lot of ways and disenchanted and thought like, there’s no way there could be something greater than than me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wow. If so, why would this have happened, right? Or why would people have died?
Or why, you know, like all these. But I think that’s the interesting thing with that is that that is more of the same thinking, right?
Oli: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Like, basically, you’ve introduced one of my favorite words since this conversation, which is trust. So, you know, this is a podcast about the creative process, but how basically everything is a creative process. It’s about us going from a state of disconnection to a state of connection. And in order to be able to ride through that process in whatever form it shows up in our lives, it takes trust.
You know, it’s a cliche, right? In self-help circles or whatever, spiritually trust the process. But when it comes to reality and having a real life, you have to trust.
And like one of the biggest problems I see, like with whoever I’m working with in general, is that if they’re not getting the results they want from life, if they don’t feel good in general, they’ve got all this emotional shame driven stuff going on that we’re talking about, they don’t trust. And you know, it’s not their fault. Blame isn’t anything to do with it. And actually, we should talk about the blame thing a bit more because it’s related to the trust thing.
But basically, if you have a lot of shame in yourself, you end up being a control freak in the way that we’re talking about. And when you’re a control freak, you think that everything is up to you.
Basically, that’s the abridged version, right? And when you’re in that state, that’s when you start forcing everything through your own plans, through your own understanding. But like we said, life is way bigger than just us. And so if you’re everything you’re trying to do is fueled by you believing that the end point of your existence is your ego and the things that it shows you through your perceptions and interpretations then you skip that stage of realizing that there is something higher and you can call it God you can call it whatever but even just at a very simple level none of us understand everything none of us can control everything like it’s just the way life is whether you’re believing God or not nobody can control everything, right?
And so there’s always going to be uncertainty there’s always going to be doubt there’s always going to be you know questions that can’t be answered and the trust thing is about just navigating that and riding through it and so if you don’t have you know the awareness that is allowing you to be shame dissolving instead of shame driven you won’t get the results because you can’t trust and so that brings us back to the blame thing because you know another part of life that we can’t escape so along with uncertainty and doubt and all those things I mentioned.
Aanother thing that is going to happen to all of us eventually is that just bad things happen like things happen that go against our original plan for our lives so in my case like I had some like serious health issues and when they occurred I went through exactly what you’re just talking about with blame and all that kind of stuff I’m like you know whose fault is this is it because this happened when I was a kid or you know like you can blame God you can blame whatever it is right you try and blame things in retrospect.
Like this health stuff I’m on about it happened like 15 years ago at the time it was just the worst possible thing that could have happened right but in retrospect it turned out it is the best thing that could have happened when I was going through it I didn’t think that at all like it was just a nightmare but as I got to the other side it was actually a blessing because it woke me up to so many things about life it showed me my own strengths it showed me who I really am it just cut out so much bullshit that I had picked up because it’s been shame driven.
When I went into that process so the question is is there a link that you found between the blame thing and the trust thing because actually you know when these bad things happens we start looking for blame purely because we’re not ready to trust the process yet but what I am learning in my life is that you can always trust the person like literally always like trust is the key so I’ve thrown loads of stuff at you there but like what do you think about that?
Kalyca: Yeah, you know what what came up really strong when you said that was the blame thing is more of an that you’re externalizing it right you’re trying to make sense of it by finding you know something outside of yourself where I honestly feel like the trust thing is from deep within like it almost feels like it’s at the core of who you are and for me the experience has felt like learning to trust myself so that I could be present in my body so that I could open up that channel to again what I believe is God or the universe energy.
Like I don’t I like the trust was almost like the gateway of like first I had to trust me then I could trust something greater than me I had to trust other people like and I don’t think the experience I don’t think I would have ever come out of it if I wasn’t able to have that trust I think I would have stayed in the cycle of external validation, external achievement, external blame.
Oli: Yeah 100 and you know 100 million percent like the people I’ve seen that remain stuck they can’t trust in the way that you said like and at the end of the day like it is up to to us and our you know the way that we relate to ourselves and the way that we can find the strength or not to ride through those emotions the shame and the guilt and the trauma blah blah blah.
Llike it’s unfortunate if people are stuck, of course, but the only way out is just almost the law of life it seems the only way out is to trust and it’s exactly what you just said like I found this myself like first of all we have to trust ourselves and then when we trust ourselves we can let go to you know God or whatever and that ultimately I have found explains why people end up holding back and hesitating and been stuck in their minds as a product of all the shame driven stuff that we’re saying.
So let’s just take the case of uncertainty for example right I found you know uncertainty is just part of life like I said earlier you’re gonna have to ride it out and so if you want to basically achieve something in life or you want to get to where you know you can get or you feel that you’re called to go let’s say you are gonna have to ride through uncertainty but if you’re shame driven and you got too much stuff going on you’ll start projecting forward in your mind with all these what if kind of thoughts like what if this happens what if that happens blah blah blah blah blah.
You’d make yourself so anxious with these what if questions that you won’t even get started but the only reason people ask themselves those questions is because they don’t trust themselves. Like, actually, if you trust yourself no matter what well those what if questions just go right out the window it doesn’t matter because you can replace it with it another statement which is “no matter what does happen you’ll be able to handle it” – like you’ll figure something out because you trust yourself so once you got to that stage you can also, like you said, see that okay the only way I’m gonna be able to trust myself is to let go of the ego stuff I have to let go of my identity.
I know that I’m gonna change I know that this journey is gonna you know teach me lessons and help me become the next version of myself and that always involves wholeness and God and all the things you’re talking about.
But we have basically covered a shitload of things, pardon my French, in this short conversation. I feel like I could go for like hours and hours. Like you’ve uncovered so many of the things that I just love talking about.
And it’s amazing that you’ve shared your experience and shown that, you know, this isn’t just theoretical stuff. This is stuff that applies to everybody, basically. So I suppose to wrap this all up. Could you give some final words of wisdom, I guess, to sum up the conversation?
But is there also something tangible that people can do, like actions that they can take, to kind of start moving in the direction that we’re talking about? And also, can you let people know where they can find you and everything as well, if they wanna talk to you about anything, or just connect or whatever else you might have to offer?
Kalyca: Yeah, I would love to. You know, it almost feels like magic or like fortuitous, right, because if the thing I’ll say is that this conversation would have never been possible if I wouldn’t have woken up, right? Like, and I think the beauty of it, like what you’re talking about, what is available to people is what truly feels like magic, because opportunities will present themselves in your life.
Like you said, if you’re not trusting of yourself or something greater than you, then you’re less likely to embark on those journeys, right, those roads, those doors that open, you’re less likely to go through them. So, I mean, again, I’m just very grateful that, despite the things that have happened to me, it’s not about that.
It is about something greater. And I firmly believe that based on the experience I’ve had. And the other thing that I want to say is that that level of realness that you talk about is available to everyone. And it may not be a pretty road to get there full disclosure, but it’s possible. And a couple of things I think that were big turning points for me, definitely what we already mentioned of being able to start trusting myself again and to feel more empowered that I deserved more than I was giving myself or allowing myself to have. But then also just being open to the magic of the universe or the opportunities that God puts in your life.
I wouldn’t have met my coach, or maybe I would have met her, but I would have been closed off to her. And that was such a transformational endeavor for me. So I think that the lesson there is like, if you’ve been going on your journey by yourself and white-knuckling it and trying to grit your teeth and figure it out on your own, I can promise that it is so much better and easier when you can open up and trust someone else to help you. The healing journey just expands in ways you would never ever expect when you can let someone else in.
Yeah, that being like all the turning points I can reflect back on were when I was able to open up and let someone else in. I think that’s the tangible. That’s the tangible take away.
Oli: Share things and trust the process of that as well. Like basically what you just said, it just shows how important the trusting is. And you write like ultimately once you can start trusting life, the trust shows you does basically.
I know it sounds weird. The trust shows you the does, but then it opens the doors as well. And then if you can trust yourself to go through them, that’s when life starts to be real again. And I love how you said that realness is available to everybody because it just is, because we’re already real.
It’s the shame and things like that that make us think we’re not or that disconnect us from it. So I can feel myself, I’m getting worked up again. I’m going to start ranting so I’m going to reel that in. But can you tell people where they can find you if they want to connect with you? Or… like I found you, you’ve got a really cool Facebook group that I found you in. That’s how we started talking. I don’t know if you want to, I don’t know if you want to share that, share that, but basically, yeah, where can people find you?
Kalyca: Of course, yeah. So I do have, you can find me on Facebook, Kalyca Jen Zarek. You can find me on Instagram, same thing at Kalyca Jen Zarek. And then you can also join my Facebook group, especially if you’re someone who’s into creating an impact for others. I actually help entrepreneurs who are in the high impact digital space. So my Facebook group is called the Entrepreneurs Edge, Multiply Your Impact. And I would love to connect with anybody and further this conversation.
I’ve, like I’ve already mentioned, I think opening up has opened tons of doors. So I’m here for it.
Oli: That’s awesome. I really love that thing about the doors opening so I’m going to be thinking about that probably all day. But, Kalyca, thank you so much for coming on here and sharing your personal experience, and allyour insight. It’s been really awesome and I really appreciate it. So thank you again.
Kalyca: Thank you for the opportunity. You are truly wonderful and I’m so grateful that we met. Thank you.
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