Episode 94 Soul Embodiment & Breaking The Trauma Cycle: Interview with Ken W. Stone

Dec 21, 2022

What does it mean to embody your Divine Presence? How does the Divine express itself through you?

MEET Ken W. Stone

Ken W. Stone “The Soul Archaeologist” is a spiritual messenger, author, and healer.

God expresses through Ken in a unique way: when people sit with him in transmission, they have a profoundly different experience of the Divine in their body. For example, he has worked with a number of former advanced students of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who each said, unprompted, following their initial session with him, “that was the deepest spiritual experience of my life.”                                                                                                                

Ken shares his gifts with a spiritually diverse, growing international audience through various virtual and in-person programs, retreats, and one-on-one work.

Find out more about Ken at Ken W. Stone and connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

17-Week Online Class with Spiritual Teacher, Author, and Healer Ken W. Stone

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • What is Divine Presence? 4:55
  • What are transmissions? 10:35
  • The journey of becoming a healer 15:35
  • What is soul embodiment? 26:11

What Is Divine Presence?

  • Understanding each person has their own unique challenges
  • How does the Divine present itself to each individual person
  • Facilitating the healing process through the Divine 
  • What is a spiritual messenger?

What Are Transmissions?

  • How do transmissions work with meditation?
  • The importance of liberating yourself from the structure of language when it comes to experiencing the power of healing
  • The journey of becoming a healer

The Journey Of Becoming A Healer

  • What does it mean to be a healer?
  • Accepting the gift of being a healer

What Is Soul Embodiment?

  • Recognizing a disembodied soul
  • Opening up to the experience of who you really are
  • Helping clients support soul embodiment
  • Recognizing the many spiritual resources that are available to you as a therapist

Connect With Me

Instagram @holisticcounselingpodcast

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Join the private Facebook group

Sign up for my free email course: www.holisticcounselingpodcast.com

Rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.

Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Find out more about Ken at Ken W. Stone and connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

17-Week Online Class with Spiritual Teacher, Author, and Healer Ken W. Stone

Transcript

Chris McDonald:  This is Holistic Counseling, the podcast for mental health therapists who want to deepen their knowledge of holistic modalities and build their practice with confidence. I'm your host, Chris McDonald, licensed therapist. I am so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to share an amazing review I got from Roma Holiday on Apple Podcasts. Roma says, I recently discovered this podcast and instantly loved it. She explains various holistic concepts and techniques very well.

I'm learning a lot, and her voice is so soothing and comforting. I wanna thank you so much, Roma, for taking the time to write that review, and I'm so happy it's been helpful, and I do hope you found my free gift Becoming a Holistic Counselor, which is an email course available on the website, holistic counseling podcast.com, and a big shout out to you for being a listen.

And I wanna tell you about today's episode. I've really been looking forward. Today's guest, Ken w Stone. He is known as the sole archeologist, which is a spiritual messenger author and healer. When people say with him in transmission, they have a profoundly different experience of the divine in their body.

For example, he's worked with a number of advanced former students of Maharishi Mahi Yogi, who each said unprompted following their initial session with. That was the deepest spiritual experience of my life. Ken shares his gifts with a spiritually diverse, growing international audience through a variety of virtual and in-person programs, retreats, and one-on-one work.

A fun fact about him is he used to be a sound engineer, was once offered a job to go on the road with Wayland Jennings. He is here today to talk about soul embodiment and breaking the trauma cycle. Welcome to the podcast, Ken.

Ken W. Stone: Honored to be with you, Chris. Thanks for having

Chris McDonald: me. So did you go on the road with Waylen?

Jenns ?

Ken W. Stone: No, . Ok. It was, it was one of those early experiences in life that served as an anchor. One of those regrets that, uh, you know, I learned some important lessons from not one of those

Chris McDonald: crossroads. Right. Should I do this

Ken W. Stone: or not? ? Exactly. Exactly. Um, I always wish that I had, but, uh, but I.

Chris McDonald: Oh, okay. So can you tell my listeners a little more about yourself and your work?

Ken W. Stone: Sure, yeah. I guess the, the most simple way that I can say this is that about, it's now, I guess 15 years ago, in the fall of 2007, I was at a. In Residence meditation retreat, and a fellow participant wrote on a piece of paper, you should be working as a healer. As we were doing the, the closing meditation for this retreat.

And I didn't know what the word healer meant, and I didn't know what he was talking about. And I started sobbing uncontrollably. I was making my living as a mortgage lender at the time, and so far away from a healer, huh? Very far away from a healer. And I mean, I really mean, I had no idea what a healer was, and still it just, it rocked me to my core, the statement he put on paper.

And so anyway, that was kind of the beginning. Every step since then has been a deeper step into the unknown. For me, and it's just been a really beautiful journey. And so now I find myself working with people in different parts of the world from all sorts of different traditions and backgrounds and beliefs and perspectives, and supporting them mostly from an experiential dynamic, mostly in silence, in having a, a deeper experience of the divine by whatever.

In their body, in their being and in their life. So is this

Chris McDonald: like energy healing or is it different,

Ken W. Stone: I guess you could call it energy healing. It's, I mean, a lot of people are familiar with energy healing or that's maybe a, an accessible way to think about it because there are modalities like reiki or other modalities that people have learned or somebody knows someone that does reiki in, in my case, it's not a modality, it's not something I learned.

It's. The spontaneous expression of divine presence in me through me as me, and that is enlivening the same in the individual or the group with whom I'm, I'm working with and or sitting with. And, but I mean, I can be sitting with people through a recording. I mean, they might be listening to an audio recording.

Session I did 10 years ago. And from their perspective, they're having an enlivening experience of divine presence now. The experience they're having, whatever it is from their particular lens, is unfolding in real time for them, even though it might have been something that took place, you know, quite a while ago.

So do you

Chris McDonald: call yourself a divine healer? What do you think your, your job title is in career ?

Ken W. Stone: Well, I feel like I. I mean, I've, I've tried on different titles over time. I, I called myself a spiritual healer for a while, and that was a challenging title for me because of course I gave it to myself. But, but it was a challenging title for me because the idea of healing, or at least most people's idea of healing is that there's something wrong and it needs to be fixed.

And what. Discovered and continued to discover is that there is nothing wrong. That doesn't mean people aren't having challenges. This, this is not about denying people and their experiences. It's just that I don't have an experience of people as being broken or flawed or. Whatever, all, all the things that happen to individuals, you know, uh, physically, emotionally, mentally, and so on, the challenges that we face as human beings.

When I work with people, I have an experience of them as an s distorted expression of the divine, and it's not an idea or a projection that I'm trying to. Impose on them. It's like, I mean, this might sound strange, but it's like a fact. It would be like if we could, or we had the proper lens, uh, to look at the sun, you and I, and we looked at it and I said, well, Chris, do you, do you see the sun there?

And you'd say, well, Ken, yep, I see the sun. There it is in the sky. do. Do you see how beautiful that is? And you know, maybe it looks beautiful to you too. And you might say, sure, yeah, that looks beautiful, but neither of us are trying to imagine the sun. We're not trying to imagine an object in the sky that's warming our faces or providing critical element for life on the planet and so on and so forth.

Whatever our ideas of those things might be. It's just a fact There it is. In the.

Chris McDonald: So just a fact, trying to sit without a minute ,

Ken W. Stone: it doesn't, it's a very difficult idea because the idea of the fact of wholeness is almost impossible to. Conceive of, at least to me it is. Yes. Um, because wholeness is usually, I mean, let's just think of it in terms of physical home homeless or mental wholeness, mental health, usually that's a contrast, an imagined state of being or existence or expression that is in contrast to the experience.

Let's say I'm having of my body or my mind or whatever. And if we think about that or if, when I think about that, I think, well then it's just not this problem. You know, that would be what wholeness would be, but as it turns out, wholeness is, is different than that. It might be not that. For sure, but it, it's lots of other things as well.

So it's just this spontaneous expression that is already within each human being and it doesn't really matter what has happened to the individual, uh, what they've done to other people or what's been done to them. I mean, I've worked with people who have been through severely traumatic experiences, people diagnosed formally with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, for example.

and for whom they haven't been able to discover any relief. Physically, emotionally, you know, on any spiritually in any way. But when I'm working with them, I don't, I'm sure this sounds strange, but I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I don't feel like I'm trying to cause something to happen. It's happening the same way that the sun is happening.

If you and I have welding goggles on and are looking at the sun for. And

Chris McDonald: I think healing too is not, if you're a healer, it's not that you are, you're facilitating that through the divine. It's coming through you. Right. I think that's some of what you're saying too, right?

Ken W. Stone: Yeah. And I, I mean, I guess I started by saying, I sort of struggled with the idea of the title of healer.

And so the reason for that is this whole business of, you know, what is healing and so on, so, I mean, I, one of the ways that feels more comfortable to me, although I've begun using Healer again, because it's an easy way to capture something that's very difficult to simply talk about or talk about simply is what I think.

People connect with that too. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But spiritual Messenger is something that, That also resonates with me. Yeah.

Chris McDonald: What's, what's a sole archeologist? .

Ken W. Stone: It's a, I've never heard that before. . It's a name that, that a friend of mine gave me, . I had done some work with her and some session work and supported her and, and, and she's very good at.

And sitting with people and sort of discovering who they are, you know, at at some deeper level and giving voice to that. And so she was doing this with me one day and she said, tell me what you do. And I said, well, you already know what I do. And she said, oh, I know, but just, just say something about it.

And I said, well, I don't know. I guess I, I help people uncover the buried treasure of divine presence that's already within them. And she said, you're the sole archeologist. .

Chris McDonald: Perfect. Yeah, the buried treasure within. So it reminds me some of what therapists do too.

Ken W. Stone: Exactly. Yeah, there's this journey of discovering all the different aspects of the self, I suppose.

Yeah. And one aspect of the self is this undss distorted divine expression. At least that's how I perceive it.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. So I know you mentioned transmissions that you receive. Can you talk about that? What is a transmission?

Ken W. Stone: Transmission is a way, um, that I have tried to language what happens when I'm in session with people and I do session work with groups and individuals.

So maybe it's in contrast to meditation. Meditation is, in my view, is something that someone can meditate by themselves. And of course there are lots of different techniques and so on, and maybe there's a guided meditation and all of that. And then, but when I'm working with people I'm, there's a deeper, let's say, energetic or spiritual component of what's unfolding.

And so, yeah, I just use a placeholder. Label of saying we're in transmission as a way of demarcating that for myself and for people I'm working with and, and as it turns out, it's demarcated in terms of the feeling or the experience that people have as well. Although often a client would start feeling the session maybe hours or days before it starts formally, so.

Oh wow. I mean, some people have signed up or registered for a. You know, a month or two ahead of time and begun experiencing the work, the energy work, the, the deeper spiritual work immediately, as soon as they commit to participating. Of course, I'm not consciously aware of that. That's not something that I'm You're not putting it out there.

No, I, I don't put anything out there that's, I mean, I, I mean, of course I have a website and so on, but what I, what I mean is that I'm not, this work is not about, An intention or sending something to someone or anything like that.

Chris McDonald: I think of everything as energy and, and I'm glad you said that about some people feel the work before they even start.

Cuz I know I have a reiki person that I would reach out to. She, she hadn't even sent out some of the energy and I started to feel better. .

Ken W. Stone: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I

Chris McDonald: guess that's a similar thing. Yeah, for sure. Connect with that person or energy. I don't know what it is. I don't have no explanation, but it's

Ken W. Stone: very strange.

Yeah, it is strange. I mean, I think people have all sorts of interesting, strange, weird experiences and then oftentimes the uh, the more the sort of off the deep end of. Of the experience takes place when they encounter me. , like it's just, it's so, it's so wholly different and you know, there's, it's sort of difficult to have a context to, for people that are experiencing it, you know, it can just really transport them and to, um, a deeper interior space.

And so it can be difficult to, to try to find language. Make reference to it or explain it.

Chris McDonald: And I think sometimes there's not words

Ken W. Stone: truly that we can, I think that's find in human language. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I think from my perspective, the deepest work that we can do as human beings takes place without language.

It's when we release ourselves from the sort of obligations of language, which to me also include the illusion of separation. I think language is an artifact of separation itself. And so when we, and by the way, I think the illusion of separation is an extraordinary gift that we're receiving from the divine.

So I don't see that. I know some people perceive that as a, a cursor a problem, but I, I don't see it that way at all. You don't see it that way. No. Yeah. But in any case, if we let go of language, it seems to me we're freed from all sorts of things that have to be formed and we have an opportunity to move into the mystery, the unknown.

We can still experience it, but. We're liberated from the structure of language. And I think

Chris McDonald: if you've ever had a spiritual moment that, like I've had recently with, I connect with my spirit guides and I got messages from them, and some of what they were saying about this issue I was having was, I, I still can't even put it into words, but I understood it.

Does that make sense, ?

Ken W. Stone: Oh my gosh. It so makes sense. I mean, I, I mean, yeah, I'm always trying to interpret, I mean, I shouldn't say always. When a client wants an interpretation, I'm attempting to convert an ineffable, non-language based experience into language. That's so hard. It is hard. Yeah. I mean, I, I think in some ways I'm, I've been blessed to not be trained.

So, or come from a tradition That's true. So I don't have the obligations or the structure that others have have imposed. But on the flip side, I don't have any of the benefits of those things either. So, interesting. The language that I have is, is uh, is kind of strange because I'm just, you know, it's like I'm creating or trying to articulate a structure without, Tradition or or reference point.

So how

Chris McDonald: did you take that leap from, you know, somebody had mentioned that you're a healer and you're in finance, right? And then moving on to where you are today. I'm just really curious about that, like those steps involved. Cause that had to be like, what in the world am I doing?

Ken W. Stone: Yeah, I mean for sure. I mean, some of it had to do with, at that time in my life, I had just turned 37 and it felt to me like my life was really falling apart.

And for about the six months prior to that, That day I had been spontaneously asking, well, doing, uh, some visualization exercises from a book by Charles Honl called the Master Key System. The spontaneous question was not in the visualization or I don't know where it came from, but in it came and the question was, what is my purpose?

And so in some ways I was, I was primed on so many different levels, you know, a really kind of radical transformation, but, you know, who's really ever prepared for radical transformation at a time, right? But in, you know, it's more like after the fact you think, oh, well that kind of makes sense. But in any case, I, I hired him for an intuitive session.

I'd never had one in my entire. Never seen a psychic. Wow. Really felt drawn to it ever. I mean, and I, I spent junior high and high school and college years in Boulder, Colorado. You'd think I would certainly have the street cred and so on for the location that I lived, but I just never felt any, you didn't just had no appeal whatsoever to me, and even just lots of skepticism about it.

And still I hired him and in that session, it was a couple days after Christmas that year, and, Of course, I wanted to know, is my life gonna turn out, you know, there's this big mess of a life going on, , what's, what's gonna happen? And all he wanted to talk about was healing, blah, blah, blah, healing. And when, when he goes into session, he goes into trance.

So his voice changes. I mean, it's Oh wow. In a way, just too weird for words, you know? Certainly that's how I felt about it then. And, uh, anyway, I came out of the session and I, I thought I heard him say three things. Uh, you know what you're doing. You don't need to be. Just go do it. Oh, and I should tell you, I mean, to add to this, when we came out of silence in September, his first words to me were A, and these made me cry while also wondering if there was a nearby psych word for him, his words were, you're gonna discover you've done this in many prior lifetimes, and this is more natural than breathing for you.

Whoa, that's deep. So, That is deep and, and also almost too much for me to even comprehend. So anyway, when he said these things in December, I mean, who knows why I took them as, I mean, okay, I guess this is how it is. And you know, somebody had a. A, uh, migraine on the 1st of January, and I said, can I put my hands on your head?

And they allowed me to, and my hands and feet started buzzing and their migraine went away. You know, I had some experiences like that, which were, I guess, kind of low key and easily dismissable. And then I had a couple of experiences round about March. Of 2008 that were not run of the mill and not easily dismissable at all.

They were, they disturbed me. Actually, the reason they disturbed me is because of the, the impact. The healing hat on these two different individuals. One was a gentleman I met at the retreat who randomly called me up, you know, in March and said, Hey, what's up? And I said, Hey, apparently I'm a healer, . And, and he said, uh, he said, can you find it in your heart to heal me?

And I was like, uh, I mean, there's nothing to find. Of course I'll do whatever I can. What's up? And he told me, These various medical challenges he was facing. And he had gone to Eastern medicine and Western medicine and nobody could help him. And so I did a session with him immediately. Actually he went, he was in the Midwest of the United States and I'm, I'm out here in the west in Colorado, and we weren't even on the phone.

He just went and meditated by his lake on his land. And I went from my mortgage office down to my truck in the parking lot side of my truck, and. And did a session for 20 minutes or something. And you know, he had this spontaneous healing. I mean, all these things that were wrong were within 24 hours, not wrong anymore.

Wow. And, and this was a guy who had, um, he had traveled around Europe with Mahi Maha Yogi. He was a certified teacher with our living foundation, which is how we met at an Art Living Foundation retreat. And he was also a certified teacher with, I can't think of the organization, what their other names were, but at one point, maybe they're called this now.

Earhart seminar training, or I think I've heard of them. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I can't, A Landmark forum is another name for them anyway, so I mean, the point is he was, You know, he had his, his credentials and things that were unconventional. He said to me, I'm having a hard time talking about this, because it was such a profound experience.

I mean, by far and away, this was the deepest spiritual experience of my life. Oh, and by the way, all these, you know, physical issues were immediately cleared up. I mean, it was like, for me, it was like getting hit in the face with a two by. Because it was until then I thought, whatever, this isn't real, who cares?

And when he said that, I thought, oh my God, what is this? The, the other one was a friend of mine, his wife is a veterinarian, and she'd been bit by a cat the day before we were having lunch. She had been bit on a Wednesday lunch on Thursday, and I was telling him all the ways my life was falling apart and he didn't get up and run away from the table.

And so I thought, well, I'll go for broke. I said, apparently, I'm also a healer, . And he, his response was, well, can you do a healing on my wife without her knowing? Let's do an experiment. And I, I didn't understand the importance of permission and all that at the. So I did a healing and, uh, the following day, at the end of the day, I get a voicemail from him.

The doctor had called and in a panic and said, we've got the labs cultured from Wednesday. You have to get to the hospital immediately. I'll meet you there. And they rush to the hospital and he unwraps your thumb and there's absolutely no evidence. That she was bit, there's no wound. Goodness, nothing. The doctor, I mean, what my friend, the language he used was the doctor wigged out, like completely lost his mind.

Like, what is going on here? And again, for me it was like not a two by four, but a six by six. I mean, it was really, it actually was upsetting to me. It's like, what , how is this possible? How, how is that even possible? Yeah. Hmm. So that was the beginning. Those were the things that just, yeah.

Chris McDonald: And I appreciate you sharing that.

That's so fascinating to hear that journey. And, and for you, it seems like you had to wrap your head around what was going on. It took me a while.

Ken W. Stone: Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Yeah. And to accept this gift,

Ken W. Stone: truly. Yeah. Acceptance is, I mean, I had an idea of what my life would. And accepting this gift was, you know, in a big way was brings up all this emotion.

For me, it was about letting go of the life I thought I was gonna live. Yeah, yeah. This is not, that's intent, truly. Yeah. I mean, I, I thought. Well, I, I think I understand my life and the reality was, I have a clue. I had no idea. Thus became, you know, basically every day, a new step into the unknown, a deeper, more intimate journey with the divine, you know, working with people all over the world and people of different traditions, and people who disagree about spirituality and so on.

When I work with them, they find something in what I'm saying or what they're receiving in the silence and are opening to a deeper experience of God by whatever name. I mean, it's just, it's just been absolutely extraordinary and you know, I suppose like any deep inner work, profoundly challenging and, and be.

And it sounds

Chris McDonald: like you have to embrace that, right? That this is who you are and you know, it seems like you got a lot of humility with this too, and like really this was something I was able to facilitate .

Ken W. Stone: Yeah. I mean, can, you can see how this kind of thing could be go the other way, you know? Yeah. It'd be really easy to, you know, to think, oh, well this is me, or I'm, you know, look at Migo.

And I'm not saying I don't have an ego or any of that. I mean, I, in, in my sound engineering days, I, I walked up to a band once. , I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but, but you know, let's keep it real. Here's, keep it real. I walked, I walked up to a band after they had played at a venue. And I said, if you ever wanna sound good, gimme a call.

And I give my business card. Oh, wow. So, I mean, this was the arrogance of my, of me and my youth. But the point is, I mean, we all have those moments. I guess I, and I probably had lots of them. And in this is just this, you know, return to, yeah. I don't know. A much more vulnerable. Authentic place of humility and, and real deep connection to, to people in, in all sorts of, and to myself and in my own challenges and suffering and, you know, experience of life and so on.

I mean, it can be very challenging for people to navigate. And, um, I've been, you know, like a practitioner of last resort for a lot of. And so

Chris McDonald: that's sad in some ways, isn't it?

Ken W. Stone: It is. It's sad that people, it's, it's much suffering for so long and truly, truly. And on the flip side, you know, it's really, it's incredible to be able to, yeah, sit with somebody who's suffering and just have, watch them blossom to have a radically different experience of themselves, not, not over the course of months or years, but in moments like just.

They're having a completely different experience of themselves. There was a, this guy who had been deployed through multiple war zones, complex ptsd. I did three sessions with him and his body healed. His mind healed. His life healed. It was crazy. It was absolutely nuts. His PTSD was gone, his triggers were gone.

I mean, it was like he was a different person. I mean, he, he couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. It was like, what is hell? You're both like, I don't believe this truly he would. And he would tell me about it and I would think, what is, this is crazy.

Chris McDonald: Wow. So how would you describe soul

Ken W. Stone: embodiment? Well, I think of it, I think of the soul as the pathway through which we encount.

Divine presence, or it's the animating expression of divine presence. So the way I perceive the soul is that when it's home in the body, it's down in the hips and it's enlivening every aspect of the being. But the soul has this tendency, at least in separation to, to disembody when it encounters trauma or challenges or whatever, you know, just some dison.

Could be physical, emotional, doesn't matter. And when it disembody, it moves up in the body. It moves from the hips up through the torso. And, and uh, actually we've probably all seen somebody in a disembodied state and didn't realize it or wouldn't have put those words to it. You know, somebody who's been going through chemo or, or radiation or something, or just a very traumatic event.

It's like the light goes out in their eyes and there's that dullness. That's the soul has disembodied up above the eyes. And so soul embodiment, a conscious soul embodiment practice is just supporting the soul and coming home and, uh, all the way down into the hips. And as it comes home, it enlivens everything.

So all the stuff that is the end distorted expression of you gets enliven. Woohoo. That's great. And then all the, all the trauma, all the noise, all the dissonance, all the things that are held and unresolved physically, emotionally, you know, on whatever level. Those also get enlivened, and if there's a conscious embodiment practice, then they also are transmuted.

And so it's. Just a really profound kind of process of being able to open up to an experience of who someone really is, not who they're afraid they really are, or who they hope they really are, but as you know, as this unds distorted expression of divine presence. Called, you know, Ken or Chris or whomever with, you know, my personality and yours and so on.

I mean, I think it's easy to get into a projection and imagine this is some idealized whatever. It's, it's a human expression, but it's, it's really beautiful. So how

Chris McDonald: does that happen? So if somebody's. Soul is embodied. I'm thinking like trauma, since a lot of therapists are listening. Yeah. So how can we help clients to get back into where they're embodied

Ken W. Stone: more?

Well, you know, I've really been thinking a lot about this because I feel like there's a real opportunity for therapists to support this kind of work. And I mean, I think there are lots of examples of, aside from let's say, how the divine expresses through me and you know, whatever weirdness goes on in session and all of these things, embodiment for sure is one of the things that's always happening.

And so, I mean, if people wanted to experience that, I can offer a resource Yeah. Where they can go experience that for themselves. But beyond that, I mean there are, and so, I mean, it'd be wonderful to, to share that and share that. People in their practice and all of that. But beyond that, I mean, one of the, I think there are lots of examples that maybe aren't named soul embodiment experiences, but where that happens, like, um, in curan, in sacred chanting, yes.

Mm-hmm. , you know, there's a, just a deep. Embodiment that takes place. Here's another way of thinking about embodiment. Becoming present is widely recognized as kind of one of the keys, right? To kind of unlocking all of these different insights into self. And, you know, being able to express more completely and so on.

Uh, soul embodiment is a part of the process of becoming present. When you're embodied, you are absolutely. Present. So think of other ways that as a practitioner, how as a therapist, how you support people in becoming present. One of the things that's happening with that is soul embodiment. And when soul embodiment becomes a conscious practice, it will transmute.

Those traumas in a really, I mean, it's, it's almost like soul embodiment is fanning the flames of a fire. And you can think of the fire however you want. I mean, in some traditions it would be thought of as the fire of the Holy Spirit, let's say, or, but it doesn't need to be a religious thing. Right? Or, or, or even a spiritual thing.

If you just think of it as straight energy embodied in the head is like the mast and the sail of a ship. Embodied in the heart is like the mast and the sails and the head and the hole of a ship. You think, hey, that's the whole ship. Right? But if that ship goes out to sea and faces challenges or opportunities, it's gonna capsize because the keel hasn't been dropped, but embodied in the hips and the heart and the.

We've got a keel, a hole, and a mast. And if the winds of challenge or opportunity in life blow, that ship behaves totally differently. Now it's capable of performing in all sorts of sort of crazy environments out at sea, in life, in the sea of life, and so in, but if it's conscious, That is a totally different resource than accidental.

So the, the key from my perspective is to support people, not just in transmuting trauma and coming into this deeper, visceral experience of their wholeness, of their embodied selves, but then to anchor that in and open that as a. Every day in their lives. And what happens as a result of that is absolutely extraordinary.

It's amazing, spontaneous, healing, all sorts of just really beautiful things. People come in contact with their, their own spiritual gifts. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely extraordinary and I would venture to guess that most therapists, whether they have the. Whether my language resonates or not, you all have an experience of this because when you're in session with a client, you are present with the client.

You're not just present with yourself, you're present with hopefully, right? Yeah. With the client as well. Yes. And when you're present in that way, there are all these resources. And I don't know how you all talk about them mean, I think of them as spiritual resources, but whatever. Right. Whatever you want to think of them as.

There are all these resources that are in the room. They're in that person's body. They're in their being. They're in the session to support the work that aren't there if you're not present. Yeah.

Chris McDonald: Sometimes just being present with someone can be very therapeutic. Help towards healing?

Ken W. Stone: Oh, it's profound. I mean, I, I, it seems to me that presence is maybe the thing that we most, I mean, it certainly has an extraordinary value to any human being, to have another human being be present with them, and then to be consciously present is just.

Yeah. Fireworks, you know, it's incredible. Take it up

Chris McDonald: a another notch. For sure. And when you talk about the hips too and all, it just brings to me cuz I, I'm a certified yoga counselor teacher and I'm just thinking yoga, how this ties in with that too. Yeah. And how that's such a profound gift that we can teach clients to, to be able to connect to their bodies, to get that present moment.

Awareness through movement and breath. It's all, all connect.

Ken W. Stone: All connected really powerfully connected. Yeah, and I mean, it's, it's wonderful to me as I, you know, continue to interact with other people and support other messengers and so on. You know, I've learned a lot of these things from people, oh, there's this whole, there's a reason why this is true, and here's, here's the school of thought on this, and here's all the expertise From my perspective, it's just all sort of showed up to me intuitively, or been given to me and download or whatever.

And so it's wonderful to see. Confirmation of those things and recognize the, the awareness being shared in various traditions from different perspectives in such a powerful way. What's a

Chris McDonald: takeaway you could share today that could help listeners that might be just starting their holistic journey?

Ken W. Stone: Knowledge is overrated. The thing that matters is experience, and you're already having. And experience in your holistic journey. It's the thing that brought you here. So let go of a concern about understanding or knowing and be in the experience because all the resources that you need and that everyone you will ever work with needs.

Are there. Perfect.

Chris McDonald: I think those are really wise words to really keep in mind through all this. Cause I think a lot of us are out there like, what training can I take ? What can I get certified in and how can I learn this? And, but yeah. So that, that's a good, good reminder. So what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about.

The best

Ken W. Stone: way is just to go to my website, ken w stone.com, and if you're curious about this way that the Divine expresses through me and want to have a little experience of that for yourself, there's a 17 week class that I offer for free. That's a self-study program called Exploring Divine Resonance, and you can register for it on my website and just put your name and email address in and you'll get a log to my online learning platform.

And the classes will start being delivered through your email or you'll get a link to the each class. And there are transcripts and video and audio of each class. And each class includes some teaching, some reflection from me and. Some time and transmission, some q and a, and then an opportunity for participants to add questions and ask things at me, and then I respond through the online learning platform and writing to those.

So I'd love for anyone that, that sounds amazing. It's an honor to share it and I, it was a wonderful class to teach and I feel like I'm still teaching it and engaged in it every day cuz new people register all the time and have questions and it's a wonderful resource. But thank

Chris McDonald: you so much for coming on the podcast, Ken.

I really appreciate it.

Ken W. Stone: Such an honor to sit with you, Chris. Thank you for the work you're doing and for the opportunity to join with you.

Chris McDonald: And listeners, don't forget to join us for another episode next Wednesday. Did you love this episode with Ken? So remember to subscribe and take the time today to rate and review so we can continue to get even more impactful guests.

And this is Chris McDonald handing each one of you much late in love. Till next time, take care. If you're loving this show, will you write, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform? This can help us to reach more holistic therapists and bring even more impactful guests to the show. And once again, thanks for being a show supporter.

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