Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] So it's not so much a journey of awakening. It's more of remembering that we are already awake and then continuing to remember that place that is always within us, that never leaves, that is just a breath, a moment away.
[00:00:20] Hello and welcome to the first ever podcast episode for my new podcast, Awake. I am Stephanie Zeller. I'm really excited to start this podcast. If you know me, you know that I have another podcast called the Magic of Transformation.
[00:00:37] And I wanted to start this new one because there's a little bit of a different flavor of teachings and sharing that I want to do in the world. And because it is different, I wanted to provide a different outlet, a different channel for those teachings. These teachings are really for you if you are on the very particular path of awakening, of learning, identifying, remembering who you really are, remembering your essential essence, on the path towards unity, consciousness, and knowing that you are one with everything.
[00:01:17] This has been my most deepest, profound path over the last seven years, ever since I had a very kind of spiritual, mystical experience where back in 2018, I had a glimpse, had my very first glimpse of who I essentially am, my true self. And during this glimpse, I saw the truth, which is that I am not just this character in this movie of life. I am not just Stephanie. I am so much more. I am life itself. I am love.
[00:01:51] I am everything. And ever since that moment, it has been the most important thing to me. It has been the subject of all of my deep searching and the thing that I always return to now, my essential self, my awareness, the love that is me and is everywhere and everything.
[00:02:15] So in this podcast, I don't know what will fully transpire. I think that's the, that's the joy of this, of creation, is seeing what just emerges on its own. But my guess is that it's going to be little insights, teachings, perhaps some tools, and some stories of my own path, and hopefully these will help you on yours. As I've been searching for the last seven years and I've been learning from some truly amazing teachers, it has been the frameworks that they've laid out through their own teachings and their own stories that have given me the path to traverse and to discover myself. And so that is what I am feeling called towards doing now and putting out into the world. Over the last several years, there's been a really remarkable shift that has happened within me, and that remarkable shift has been what I might call the recognition of what really is the background of my experience. It used to feel like I was living my life and my life was just full of so much suffering. I mean, I have been privileged in so many ways, but I've also had a lot of trials and tribulations in my life. I've had a lot of little t traumas, a lot of big t traumas, to name a few. I've been divorced twice. I've had over a dozen major surgeries.
[00:03:54] I have had. I no longer have this now, but I used to have a history of chronic pain. I was in a very traumatic accident when I was in high school where my best friend was killed.
[00:04:07] Yeah, there's been a lot of experiences that I've had that have, in the past, made me feel like my life was nothing but suffering and the struggle that I had. Washington. How do I hold onto joy? How do I find joy, and how do I hold onto it? And I feel like there was like a dog paddling energy there to find joy and a clinging to it and holding on to it, and a struggle to keep it and really, truly embracing against it, not being there against something bad happening again that would take it away from me. And when it did, when something bad happened again, it would almost be this, of course, energy, because that's what life is, you know, life is. Life is suffering. And it's so fucking hard to find joy and to hold on to it. But that's the good fight. And you gotta just keep fighting the good fight.
[00:05:05] And, boy, has my life changed and has my perspective changed in the last seven to eight years.
[00:05:14] I no longer feel, and that's the key word here, is feel. I no longer feel like that is my life. Like suffering is the background of my experience. Like suffering is the ground that I walk upon only to find here and there a few flowers as I'm walking. No, I feel now like I'm walking on a flower, like joy. And the gift of life is the background of my experience. And yes, of course, I still experience things that are unexpected, that are difficult. I still have emotions that come up. Like sometimes I experience sadness, I experience grief, I experience disappointment.
[00:06:01] And yet those difficult emotions are not what I'm experiencing all the time. And when they do come up, they last for a remarkably shorter period of time, because I am so anchored. I'm so anchored in the background of the joy of my life. Joy is now the background of my experience. Joy and peace and beauty and love. And in knowing that I have a connection to everyone and everything, that never leaves me, even if for moments, I forget that it's something that I can always return to and always find my home. In.
[00:06:43] And the reason I think I am feeling so compelled to start this podcast is because that is not my experience alone, that is everyone's experience. And it's merely our forgetting that. That is our experience that causes us to feel so much suffering. I mean, we are born into this life with this veil of separation, thinking that we are separate from the whole, feeling alone, feeling isolated. And that is a painful journey. And it is a journey that I was on for over 30 years of my life. And although there are moments where I forget that I am connected, by and large, that is no longer my experience.
[00:07:26] The place that I'm at now is this deep knowing that I am connected to everyone and everything, and so are you.
[00:07:35] And what I thought was a journey of getting there, of finding my destination right, like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, was really actually a journey of remembering the truth of who I essentially am, the truth that was always there with me, that was always in me.
[00:07:57] I just forgot how to find it. I forgot how to see. And as my journey was a journey of remembering, I realized that I was always awakened. I was always awake beneath like beneath the veil of forgetting. I was always there. That peace was just waiting for me to remember.
[00:08:28] And it is for you, too.
[00:08:30] When we think of the journey of awakening, of enlightenment, we think it's a journey that's really out of reach, an impossibility, like only the monks in the mountains can reach that point. And although I'm by no means fully awakened, always in that peace, always in that awareness, I've now had so much of my days and so many of my moments where I'm able to abide there and rest there and be in touch with that truth that I know it is not something that is out of reach, that in fact, our essential nature is something that every single one of us can penetrate and can remember and can reach. So it's not so much a journey of awakening, it's more remembering that we are already awake and then continuing to remember that place that is always within us, that never leaves, that is just a breath, a moment away.
[00:09:40] So if something in you is feeling resonant, if something in you is feeling alert, alive, then I'm happy to have you here.
[00:09:51] I'm happy to have you join me as I continue to investigate and explore my own journey and share that with you. And hopefully some of my experiences and words and teachings will help you as well.
[00:10:07] If you know someone in your life that you think would resonate with this podcast episode as well, then I deeply thank you for forwarding it to them, and be sure to follow and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss future episodes. Thank you for joining me on this journey. Until next time.
