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.
Step into the world of transformative creativity with Rev. April Kling Meyer, am ordained interfaith minister and Creativist.
In this episode of Creative Status, we dive deep into the profound connection between creativity and peace. Rev. April, with her specialization in healing trauma through creative expression, spiritual counseling, dreamwork, guided journaling, and co-creative ceremonies, sheds light on the power of creativity as a pathway to healing.
Rev. April’s approach is truly unique — open to individuals of any faith or none at all, she extends a compassionate hand, unraveling the threads of creativity that weave a tapestry of peace in the lives of those she serves.
Listen to this episode of the show if you want to discover how creative processes can be catalysts for personal and spiritual growth, fostering a sense of belonging and understanding.
Rev. April’s insights provide a roadmap for anyone seeking solace and healing through the intersection of creativity and spirituality.
Tune in to this episode of Creative Status as we embark on a journey towards inner peace through the lens of creativity and spirituality with Rev. April Kling Meyer.
Stay REAL out there,
Oli
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Episode Links:
Creativity is Sprituality: https://www.creativityisspirituality.com/
April’s website (ministry): https://www.onespiritinterfaithministers.com/april-kling-meyer
April’s personal website: https://alkm.me/
April on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprilklingmeyer
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: REALNESS, Peace, & Creative Transformation
April Kling Meyer Creative Status
Intro
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there. Oli Anderson here. You’re listening to Creative Status.
This is a podcast about using your creativity to improve your life. Every episode of the show, I like to interview somebody who had some something interesting to say about the human condition, the universal truths that apply to all of us, no matter what path we’re walking on the way to return to those truths. And today’s episode is no different. I’m talking to Reverend April Kling Meyer, who is an interfaith minister who has looked at all kinds of different religions and theological ideas and philosophies and so on and so forth, and gained some understanding about the universal patterns that can help us to improve our lives and move towards more peace.
That is the main theme of the conversation, how we can bring more peace into our lives, how that will make us more real, how creativity comes into that. Because, Reverend April thinks, like I do, that creativity and spirituality are, linked and intertwined. So it’s a really good conversation, lots of good insight. If anyone wants to talk to me about any of this stuff, you can book a call on my website. April, thank you so much for your time.
Everybody else, hope you get some value out of this and that it brings more peace to your days. Here we go. Thanks a bunch. Boom.
Interview
Oli Anderson: Oh, hi there, April. Thank you for joining me on today’s episode of Creative Status. I think we’re going to be exploring the topic of peace and how that relates to the human experience, the kind of misconceptions people might have around peace itself and all that kind of stuff. But that’s just me making assumptions. Before we get into it, do you feel like introducing yourself, telling people what you’re all about, what you do, and also what you want to get out of this conversation we’re about to have?
April Kling Meyer: Fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here, Oli. as Reverend April Kling Meyer, I’m an interfaith minister, which means I work rather independently, and my ministry is for all faiths or no faith at all. I’m happy to minister to anybody, and not being affiliated with a particular religion certainly takes the pressure off of having to evangelize or convince anybody to feel a certain way. I was ordained a little over a year ago.
Before that, I was and still am the proud founder of Creativity Is Spirituality. I used to refer to that as my mission statement. It became then, my ministry, and really focusing on the intersections between creativity and spirituality in so many respects has turned me into a peace worker.
Oli: Wow.
April: So I’m studying conflict resolution international peace studies at, Trinity College, Dublin. And I am excited to be here.
Oli: Well, I think you’re in the right place after everything you just said. So the main theme of this podcast is that creativity is ultimately a vehicle for spiritual growth or healing or whatever word people want to use.
And that if we can follow our creativity where it wants to take us, we can make the unconscious conscious and integrate all kinds of parts of ourselves we may have been hiding from and then feel less friction and frustration within ourselves because we’re more connected to wholeness and the kind of peace and stuff that comes with it.
So that’s how I see all this stuff. I suppose the first question I need to ask you is what is the link that you’ve, uncovered through all the work you’ve done with universal truths of your theological teachings and stuff like that? What are the lessons you’ve learned about the link between the creative stuff and the spiritual stuff?
April: Fantastic. I myself have started to see my own creativity as not just a vehicle for a connection to the divine, but a way of relating to myself. I started to see spirituality as the practice of being in relationship not just to the divine, but to the self and to the subconscious and also to other people and also to my own body.
What greater way to express that relationship between ourself and the body is through creative skill or creative expression. And in developing my creative skills, of which I have a few, I’m one of those people who has multiple interests, creatively speaking. I used to have a more adversarial relationship with my body. I used to see my body as the thing that got between me and my ability to be a better singer, be a better instrument player, or be able to so well that it looks like it just was, a flow of black and white photograph.
I started to evolve that journey with my body when I deeply connected to the intersection between creativity and spirituality. I started to see that relationship I had with my body as a relationship not as an adversarial situation, not as my enemy, not as my limiter, but as my collaborator. And I also started to view my body as a trusted, loyal friend. I would have to say in retrospect, and I didn’t think I could name this at the time but I had to go into the conflict resolution and reconciliation process with my own personal body. And, I think I speak for a lot of people that that’s not a journey that people typically undergo.
I think that what I see in the world is a more adversarial journey. I see that with creatives and people who identify as non-creatives alike and as you and I know, everybody’s a creative. But, people who really and that’s another thing. People who identify as non-creatives are likely in adversarial relationship to their body and see that body as the limiter. So I started to realize the way that I related to my body was, not the way a friend of mine would want me to. Somebody who loves me would not want me to relate to my body in that way.
So in undergoing that peace process with my own body allowed me to see that there is a peace process that we all need to be going through with ourselves m somebody else. I think that what we see in the world is really just what, we’re undergoing personally on a macro level. And I believe that so deeply that I’ve taken this work into more global study m to see what the relationship really is.
Oli: Wow. Do you think ultimately what we’re kind of starting to talk about is judgment versus acceptance? And the reason? I think that’s kind of what we’re talking about. I think the human journey of growing real, as I call it, is ultimately a journey from fragmentation to wholeness.
And the only way that we can have conflict in our lives, I think, is because we’re attached to some fragmented view of ourselves, the world and reality that is causing us to believe that we’re separate from everything else and also to judge ourselves. Now, for me, the opposite of judgment is reality. And reality is when we get into the kind of spiritual realm of wholeness and divine connection and all these things people like to talk about. And this path that we’re all on from being in a fragmented state because of underlying emotional stuff, normally shame, guilt and trauma to a, state where we’re more connected to wholeness is ultimately about letting go of the illusion of judgment, which keeps us in this fragmented state that causes all kinds of conflicts, internally and externally in the world.
And it sounds like the process you’ve started to unpack is ultimately that starting with the body. Because you’re right, a lot of people have, judgments of their body that cause them to have inner conflicts mentally and all this kind of stuff that is projected out into the world and then they see judgment everywhere. And ultimately, that is one of the main reasons why people don’t feel the depth of peace that they could be feeling.
So is there something there, I guess is the next question around moving from a state of judgment to acceptance? I think the creative process of going from fragmentation to wholeness ultimately leads to that. But what do you think?
April: I think that’s very beautifully put. I think that ourselves and othering other people is really the basis of conflict.
Oli: Yeah, 100%.
April: If we’re not trying to find common ground to start with, and we’re only starting with differences and separation, we’re starting off from a place of what I believe to be egoic illusion.
Oli: Yes, exactly that. Yeah. And when it comes to conflict idea, I would say nobody has ever argued about the truth because the truth speaks for itself. The only thing people argue about when they’re engaged in a conflict is their interpretations of the truth. That’s what everybody gets caught up on is thinking that their interpretations are, more right or more justified or whatever than other people’s interpretations.
And because we need those interpretations to keep our ego and the illusions that it’s founded on in place, then everybody gets hyper worked up about, been defensive about the interpretations they’ve attached to or etc, etc.
But the truth itself, I believe, is absolute. It’s an experience of wholeness. And you can’t argue about that. And so, in relation to the work that you’ve done with Peace and Peace studies and all this kind of stuff, is peace in that sense, just about stepping beyond that judgment and the interpretations that come with it and all that stuff so that you are more aligned with the truth. And if so, I guess how can we bring more of that into our lives? In a practical kind of way.
April: I think we have to get very comfortable with the idea of unknowing. I think we have to become very willing to embrace mystery. Because to me, judgment comes from this place of needing to know, needing to feel like we know when really we know so very little.
Our mind are not built to handle what you refer to as integral truth. We could not possibly with our and I hate to speak so adversarial about my brain, but I’m in acceptance with this, truly. But our brains aren’t really built for their purposes. They’re not really built to encompass the complete and utter truth of reality.
Oli: Yeah, I agree.
April: Built to perceive a very limited scope – we have to accept that limitation. We have to become very comfortable with the idea that we know very little and that that’s okay because if we come from the place of not knowing, we’re more receptive, receptacles m of true knowledge and truth. We’re more receptive listeners, we’re more perceptive people and are heightened and we’re able to absorb more.
We’re able to relate to others better because we’re able to perceive m if we’re in judgment where you’ve already decided so much m about what that other person’s reality really is, when really we know so little m we know so little. It’s that unknowing and that unknowability. That is our indication that life is a great mystery and that we must treat it all like a gigantic question that we may never have the answer to and treat that very dynamic of never having the answer to this question as, something really beautiful and precious.
Oli: Yeah, that’s so amazing. And ultimately, this is why nearly all of these conversations that I have with people come down to the idea of trust. Because you’re 100% right. Our brains are limited. Our brains are, fragmented actually. They filter the world through fragmented concepts, fragmented perceptions, because of our fragmented bodies. And that just means that from the outset, we’re never going to just perceive the truth by taking things at face value. Because the face value that we interpret and perceive is limited, but the truth itself is not limited.
It’s an experience beyond concepts and blah, blah, blah. And so human beings can never know everything. They can never control everything. We’re always going to be flawed and so on and so forth. And only if we accept that can we stop trying to control everything, stop trying to force everything, stop trying to be right all the time, and stop acting like we have all the answers, which we never can have anyway. That is actually just ego. And then we have to trust something bigger. And I suppose this is going to segue into some of the work you’ve done with the interfaith ministry that you have.
Because ultimately, that, I believe, is the lesson of basically every religion on the planet or every spiritual text. They say, let go and let God. I don’t know who said that, but that basically sums it up. You have to let go of that, egotistical way of trying to control everything and make sense of everything and force everything and let God or let the universe or let source or whatever word people want to use let things unfold as they need to. And that actually takes a strange kind of strength. And I guess you can’t have peace unless you find that strength to be able to let go and to trust.
So I guess the next question there is, how do we do that? Based on what you’ve learned from all the different religions and everything, how do we let go and trust and see that it’s not up to us to have all the answers? And actually trying to have all the answers is just going to make life more difficult than it needs to be?
April: Well, I feel like the answer to that question truly is curiosity. M, because m, when I think about people in my life that I have witnessed who I consider to be holy, and that doesn’t necessarily mean somebody that’s been ordained as holy or deemed as holy or, ratified in the church as a saint or anything like that.
I’m thinking about particularly for an example, Mr. Rogers. He’s a beloved TV, a beloved TV host for children’s television in the United States from a couple generations back. And I would think about how he treated the world, and I consider him to be a holy person, incidentally, an ordained reverend. But that was a little known fact about him. He was also an accomplished jazz musician, so a creative as well.
And I remember very well about how he spoke openly about his limitations as an artist. Whenever he would have to draw on his TV show, it didn’t matter how good it looked, but that it was just the act of doing it. and to say that to little children was so crucial. And I think about this all the time, but treated everyone he met with curiosity. And when you watch documentaries about him. There was a movie made about him starring Tom Hanks, Mr. Rogers.
And, people always say that what struck them about him was his curiosity about life. I’ve started to see that my most intimate, most precious warding relationships in life are the ones that I, treat with curiosity and that treat me with curiosity in return. I think curiosity is the name we give the state of unknowing the full acceptance of being in.
Because if I’m curious about somebody or something, I’m not making assumptions about it. I’m being truly receptive and perceptive about that person or thing.
Oli: Wow.
April: And I found that I really feel much more of a connection with someone when I notice they’re being curious about me. And I notice that they feel more deeply connected to me when I express a curiosity about them.
Oli: That’s amazing. And it’s so true, because when we’re curious, it’s exactly like you said. We kind of circumvent that default ego way of being where we look at life or we look at somebody, or we look at a situation, and we think we’ve already got it all figured out. And instead of filtering it through all the things we think we already know, we’re actually putting ourselves in the present moment so that we can actually learn and experience what’s truly there. And I think the other thing about curiosity is there’s kind of an element of playfulness.
So what you just said about Mr. M. Rogers, just the act of doing it instead of thinking about it and having all these preconceived notions and everything, just the act of doing it is enough to put you in that curious place. Because if you see everything as an experiment or, like a game that you’re playing or whatever it is, then you’re kind of moving in a kind of more joyful way. And I think you’re right. Like, curiosity is the best way to kind of navigate uncertainty in a very real way, but, a deeper level, it also connects you to life on its own terms. Do you see what I’m saying?
And so, when you’re curious, you’re an expression of life instead of an expression of death, which sounds very dramatic, but actually the ego, is a kind of death because it’s just totally unconscious. And so I guess the question is, how do we be more curious or how do we stay curious if we’re being a little bit curious? Like, is there any practical stuff there that you’ve learned?
April: I really feel that every time I enter creative process, the truly creative process with no outcome in mind m that it is a great way of taking my curiosity to the gym, as my friend Cheyenne would put it. It is a way of allowing when I get into process now, as opposed to before my connection of creativity and spirituality happened for me, I had an outcome in mind. I knew what I wanted to appear in my art or in my music. And I became very attached to that outcome. And if it didn’t go the way I’d hoped, I’d become very discouraged, very angry with myself.
If I treat the creative process like an act of curiosity and allow that to unfold as it is and go into mods and mediums that allow things to happen rather than to me, that’s the best way to practice it at least. And I think in terms of practicing curiosity with other people, we have to learn to become better listeners. We have to learn, maybe even take a class. I was just saying this on LinkedIn earlier, there’s no shame in taking a class on being a better listener. I think listeners, it comes right down to it, we’re probably not as good a listeners as we could be. And all of us could build our skills at being better listeners.
Deep listening is essential to curiosity. Deep listening is essential to helping people feel seen and understood and in connection with other people. A valuable portal to understanding reality, peace, connection, the divine in relation to other people, listening is the framework that builds connection.
And if we go into every, interaction we have with another person, with the act of listening rather than the act of needing to express ourselves all the time, I mean, naturally there’s going to be some give and take. But if we put the emphasis on listening, if we tip the scales toward being better, deeper listeners, towards the people that we love and care about and the people that we interact with every day or in passing m, I feel like there would be some kind of miracle that would happen, don’t you?
Oli: Yeah. Like active listening, deep listening, ultimately it’s teaching people to be curious about each other, like you said. And it’s also showing us that the main barrier to, actually truly listening and seeing what’s in front of us and experiencing it is all of the ego stuff that causes us to try and force life to our preconceived ideas about how things should be based on our relationship with ourselves. And so I think even though we’re talking about deep listening in relation to relationships and other people, all of those skills that you’re talking about that can help people become more active listeners, you can apply them to life as well.
Like you can have a deeper relationship with life by learning to listen to it and be more responsive in the moment. And all these things that we’ve said about the creative process and just doing it without any outcome-dependence or expectations about where we’re going, just allowing the journey to unfold in the way that it needs to, that is a very real way of living.
And ultimately it brings us back to the peace thing because we’re basically talking about living in a way where we’re forcing everything through ego so that we can try and maintain the illusion of control and separation and all that stuff. Or instead of forcing, we’re flowing. And I think that is the main difference between a, creative life where we’re flowing with life and a kind of empty, dried up life where there is no creativity because we’ve become disconnected from it, because we’re trying to force things.
And I think that’s the main issue in life for many, many people. They don’t trust life because of the kind of things we were talking about earlier. And so they try and force it. And as soon as you try and force life, you take yourself out of life. Something like that.
April: Oh, absolutely. that you said really triggered another thought about this, about not needing to be so attached and being so in control. Reminds me so of the process of meditation, too.
I feel that’s worth mentioning here, because meditation is all about relinquishing control. And I think where we fail in meditation, or at least where I fail in meditation, is when I try to control it, when I try to be in control. And any activity that allows us this space to be silent, like breathing, for instance, solo walks in nature and meditation, I think those are really excellent build our skills in the art of curiosity and that ability to remain silent and let our senses take in what they perceive.
Oli: What do you think is the main cause of human beings in general, trying to control everything? And I know that’s a massive question, but the human condition, ultimately, is that we have way less control than we think we do. And if we can relinquish the need to control, then we can be more responsive and usually get better results anyway, as long as we do have some kind of a sense of vision and purpose and etc.
But even though letting go of control tends to be better for our, mental health and physical health to some extent, because we’re not adding unnecessary stress and all that kind of stuff, most people out there are trying to control life, some more than others. But where does that come from, do you think? How do we account for it?
April: Oh, absolutely, it’s fear. fear of not getting our needs met. And I refer specifically and I know that’s problematic in a lot of respect ASLAV’s hierarchy of needs, our most basic needs being food, shelter, and connection, with other people and all that we require for survival. fear that somehow, some decision that we do or make will eliminate our possibilities of surviving. And that’s a very instinctual need that has become perversed by tendencies of needing to assume everything. And it does come back to that animalistic need to make assumptions.
Our mind’s ability to see pattern is where our ability to make assumptions comes from. Because our need to see patterns, our need to establish cycles in the way that we perceive our, the way that we perceive our food sources, et cetera, those arise from our need to survive. And it’s something we need to be conscious of that we need to I wouldn’t say overcome because there’s a beauty in the observance of cycles and the observance of patterns. It’s just our need to make judgments about it. I think that gets us into a bit of a situation where we’re interacting, our lives as if we are truly fear based beings and that we aren’t going to get our needs met.
We assumption that our needs are not going to be met unless we have complete control over everything that happens around us. And we’ve seen how that leads narcissism we’ve seen how that leads to, long term scuffles and strife and starvation and on upwards into global war. And we have this sincere, opportunity, this unique, I think maybe unique and very special opportunity of this time period in the grand scheme of things to, overcome and transcend that fear that even if we don’t survive it’s okay. I think the greatest fear of all is the fear of death. And death is inevitable. Death is just fine. It’s the next big step we’re all going to take.
Oli: Wow.
April: I think that if we develop a very comfortable sense, is okay. Death is where we’re all going and have a very sense of death being the great ending of our lives and the great rest we all have come to deserve at some point when we’re ready for it, when it comes for us, we will be very surprised at how great death can be.
So I think that if we have a better relationship with death and we stop seeing death as something to fear than all other fears when it comes to survival, because survival is prevention of death, that, we can concentrate on other things and we can transcend that fear. Wow, that is a lovely thing for me to be able to sit here.
Oli: And say no, but it’s so true. It’s powerful.
April: It’s hard to actually put into practice.
Oli: Yeah.
April: Hard.
Oli: So in my life, that is exactly thinking about death and facing death is the thing that woke me up to a lot of this stuff. And it made me get into a place where I can kind of trust life and kind of just go with it without really worrying anymore. And it’s because of exactly what you just said.
Like if you face death and you realize that death is coming no matter what, and that it’s not really a bad thing or a good thing, it’s just a neutral thing that’s going to happen if you accept it. Then when you are here on planet Earth, you can realize that your time, energy and attention are the most important things that you have. You will basically stop worrying about things you can’t control. And then a lot of your fear around surviving and then hopefully thriving, a lot of your fear just kind of melts away and dissipates.
And it’s because you’ve been more present, you’ve making conscious decisions in the moment about what you’re doing. And when things do pop up, these little niggling things, well, you can just say to yourself, like you said, well, okay, I’m going to be dead one day anyway, so I’m not going to worry about it. And then paradoxically, by not worrying about it, which we are wired to do, but if you can train yourself not to worry, things basically always work out.
And, you could come up with a million theories about why that might be. But ultimately, even at the most practical level, by not worrying about it, because you’ve circumvented that natural, fear of death, then you can just focus on changing the situation and being responsive in the moment and all that kind of stuff.
So the ultimate question now is, I guess, how do we kill that fear of death and start to find peace in our lives? Because obviously we’re hardwired to survive and to think that death is the worst thing that can happen. But regardless of whether we all go to heaven or whether we all just melt away for eternity and then that’s it. We’re just gone. Death is coming and it can bring us a kind of peace by making us more present. But how have you learned to do that? I guess by looking at all the different religions and working with people and etc.
April: I would have to say the grief process. Grief.
Oli: Wow.
April: If we have a chance in our lives to experience, become intimate with, or at least befriend grief we will truly death before our time to die. We will lose the people we love, we will lose the animal members, family, we will lose pets. I know that’s a grief that’s sometimes worse than losing a friend, the human friend, really. if we come to know grief and to fully feel our emotions of loss and around loss, I feel so strongly that grief is here to teach us about the inevitability of death and how not to any longer.
It also offers the opportunity for us to fear death more because we know that we don’t want our loved ones to feel what it is we’re feeling when we lose a loved one. That’s a very natural thing to want to avoid. But I think that if a more complete grief in our lives, if we allow ourselves a more complete, more whole, more defragmented grief, that we understand that when we come through that process and it is whole and complete, that we see that it is indecipherable from a gratitude process.
Oli: Wow.
April: Grief and gratitude are twins. In fact, I think they’re not even twins. They are just in fact the same person. Like Clark Kent and Superman.
Oli: Wow.
April: They’re just wearing different clothes. So grief. And gratitude, if we understand them as the same process in this psychospiritual community is saying and I mean, that not as being psychotic. I mean, it as, like a psychological thing is saying that gratitude, gratitude, gratitude.
We can treat gratitude as a bypass, but if we don’t allow gratitude to be a bypass, we really need to know grief. We need to get to know what it is we’re grieving. If, we become very connected to our grief and really able to identify what it is we’re grieving.
Sometimes working with dream work or any kind of hypnosis or any other kind of subconscious work helps us identify what it is we’re grieving, then we will become comfortable with death. And we’ll understand death as part of the cycle, part of the seasonal cycles of life. And we become able to befriend, it as well. And that’s, again, so much easier said than done, so much easier to talk about than to actually put into practice.
Oli: But I think it is doable. And everything you just said is kind of brought us full circle, because what we’re actually talking about, again, is judgment versus acceptance. And ultimately, by facing some of the harsher truths about life, in this case, death, it’s leading us towards acceptance ultimately. And that leads us towards gratitude.
Like, ultimately, I think gratitude is just a deep acceptance of what’s in front of us and how things are. And the fact of life is exactly what you said. Everybody we love is going to die. We’re going to die. Our, pets are going to die. It sounds awful, and it is awful. I don’t think we should just be stoic about it and pretend it’s like a cheerful thing or that we can just have no emotions around it.
We should grieve. We should grieve. But when we’ve, awakened to this fact of life, death, when we’ve awakened to it, we can kind of go through the grieving process before people die or before we die, in the sense of grieving for ourselves and our own passing and all that kind of stuff. And that always leads to gratitude. This is what I’ve found in my life. I know I’m going to die. I know all the people I love are going to die. And so actually, any judgment that I may have had of, them has been whatever.
Like, people annoy each other and ETT, all those judgments are now irrelevant. Because actually, not in all my relationships, to be honest, but in a lot of relationships, there’s way more acceptance. Because I know, okay, this person I am talking to right now is a limited edition. They’re not going to be here forever. I don’t want to waste time basically, like, with pointless arguments or, like, drama or etc, etc. And it’s because I’ve kind of projected forward grieved and then learned to have gratitude, which is ultimately just acceptance for that person. And I think we can live like that and it will bring more peace into our lives and relationships ultimately.
April: I completely agree. And what you said brings to mind another really, framework around grief. And I’m really paraphrasing you here that we have a chance to practice grief by grieving the projections that we have of the people in our lives before they’re gone.
Oli: Wow.
April: I feel like so much of our conflict that we have between ourselves and others that so much of the things in our relationships and friendships that don’t bring us peace are the things that we are projecting upon other people that are really our stuff that really we need to deal with by ourselves. I feel like if we are able to practice grief safely, we can start and use it as a tool for peace. Building as use it as a tool for inner peace is to start by grieving the projections, the assumptions we make about other people.
Oli: Yeah, and again, that kind of comes down to moving away from that default egotistical way of thinking and perceiving and experiencing life. Because ultimately, the ego is just the illusion that nothing is ever going to change but life itself, reality itself is constantly changing. And that’s why the death thing is so important.
Because actually, we know that death is coming. And so, that fact in itself shows that all of the ego and the way that the ego shows us life, it has no foundation. And so actually, the best way I found to step away from the ego and all the stuff that comes with it illusions, separation, disconnection, trying to force life, all the things we talked about death is actually the way to step away from all that and find a sense of peace.
So we’ve covered loads and I’m kind of super happy that we ended up in death. That’s one of my favourite topics. I wasn’t expecting that.
April: Me too.
Oli: But how would you sum all this up? How would you sum up this conversation that we just had? What are your final words of wisdom? And also, can you tell people where they can find you to learn even more about death and all the things that you talk about?
April: Great. Well, I will say that the peace process starts within and moves out in concentric circles to the people you’re intimate with and to the people that you know and outward and outward from there can all take part in the global peace process by making peace with ourselves and our bodies first and with the people in our lives second.
And if you want to get to know more about my work, you can go to Creativityispirituality.com and you can pick up my books – they’re workbooks so they’re fill in the blank. It’s all about you.
You’re the one writing books, I’m just the one providing the portal. And then you can also interact with me by scheduling time to talk. Your first visit with me is always free on Zoom. And if you’re local to my area here in West Waterford, Ireland, I have three locations where I can serve you one on one in person. But just go to Creativityisspirituality.com for starters. And then, you can also find me on Facebook and on Instagram.
Oli: That was amazing. So I’ll share all that stuff in the show notes. But, Reverend, thank you very much for this conversation.
April: Thanks for having me.
Oli: I think I’m ready to die now. That sounds a bit dramatic. I was just trying to be funny.
April: Let’s bring it on to all right.
Oli: Thank you again. That was awesome. Thanks.
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