027 – Unlock the Power of Your Heart with Joseph Clarke

027 – Unlock the Power of Your Heart with Joseph Clarke

Unlock the Power of Your Heart with Joseph Clarke!

Join us for an enlightening session with Joseph Clarke, author, and spiritual healer, as he guides you to strengthen your connection to your beautiful, powerful heart.

✨ Meet Joe: Joe combines Reiki energy healing, mindfulness coaching, and heart-to-heart dialogue to help you cultivate your sacred heart connection. His book, SOL: Supportive Guidance for Healing and Awakening, offers spiritual wisdom, practical guidance, and inspirational poetry to empower you to live more from your heart. ✨

Why Live from the Heart? Hear about Joe’s spiritual awakening experience, a testament to the transformative power of heart-centered living & discover how you can too, and why it impacts every aspect of your life.

What You’ll Learn: Two Powerful Techniques that:

• Strengthen your gut-heart-mind connection.
• Allow energy to flow in times of emotional pain or stress.

Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with your heart and awaken your true self!

SPECIAL OFFER FOR OUR LISTENERS:

Mention this podcast and your first session with Joe will be a 2-hour session for the price of a 1-hour session.

Book a consult on his website here.

Episode Transcript

Kelli Russell | 00:03.124
Welcome to our Radical Enlightenment podcast. I’m so excited to have Joseph Clark on with us today. He is an author and spiritual healer, and Joe’s specialty is strengthening your connection to your beautiful, powerful heart. Joe uses a combination of Reiki energy healing, mindfulness coaching, and heart-to-heart dialogue to help you cultivate your sacred heart connection. Joe also just recently published a book called Soul, a supportive guidance for healing and awakening. through a combination of spiritual wisdom practical guidance and inspirational poetry soul empowers you to live more from your heart welcome thank you so much for joining oh thanks jamie on kelly i really appreciate it absolutely i wanted to hear a little bit about your spiritual awakening and i’m i wanted to have you on because i do a lot of work in the realm of the subconscious mind and a lot of it is conscious mindset training and getting into somatics, like how is your body experiencing changes and things like that. But I recognize the power of paying attention to and living from the heart. And we in our culture tend to prop the brain up on a pedestal, and its job is to plan and protect, which lends to about 80% negative thoughts. And then often I teach people to kind of kick it off at the pedestal, but then… What I liked, you know, you and I had a session together. And what I liked about your coaching is that you’re teaching an integration of all of it. So really, it’s all working in conjunction. But I’m mostly curious about how to speak to and move into the heart so that we can really listen and communicate and live from a heart centered way. So, Jill, let’s talk about your spiritual awakening. What happened there?

Joseph Clarke | 02:01.724
Oh, man, a lot of things happened there. I think the most succinct way to summarize it is, you know, I was a law student in 2010. I was at UC Berkeley. I was 29 years old at the time. And it was a, you know, a three month semester. And for most of that semester, I’d been feeling run down. I was noticed I was losing weight. I was having night sweats. I noticed my resting pulse rate was high. Usually it was in the 60s. Now it was routinely in the 90s. And so clearly there was something off with my health. But talking about putting the head on a pedestal, I was so focused on achieving in law school. And the wild thing about law school is your final exam is 100% of your grade. So all the work you put in during the semester leading up to it, if you don’t complete that final, for purposes of the grade, it’s all for naught. And so what I told myself is, look, I’m just going to get through this. I’m going to do my final exam. And when it’s done, I’ll go to the health. clinic, you know, I’ll get the antibiotics or the, you know, the advice, whatever I need to get back into the flow of things. And, you know, health can wait. So I finished the exam. It was an exam on evidence law. This was December 15th, 2010. Some classmates are going to the bar. They’re like, Hey, you know, let’s join. And I’m like, Hey, I’d love to meet you guys there. I’m going to swing by the health clinic first and go up.

Kelli Russell | 03:23.811
Wow.

Joseph Clarke | 03:24.492
Before the sun went down that day, I was diagnosed with leukemia and I was receiving chemotherapy the next day.

Kelli Russell | 03:30.693
Oh, my gosh.

Joseph Clarke | 03:32.014
Yeah. Yeah. And so that head, brain, that mind, which, as you said, plan and protect, it had this vision of the future, which was we’re going to graduate law school and it’s going to be all in this timeline. And you’re going to become a lawyer and there’s going to be retirement and all these things. It was all almost like the future was laid out and I was just kind of walking into it. And this was like a freight train that T-boned this whole thing, the rails and was like, yeah, life doesn’t always work that way. And, you know, in terms of my spiritual awakening, the thing that happened there was, you know, the first few days I was in the hospital, I was blessed to have a lot of visitors, friends and family came. And especially this first few days, there’s just this frenzy of activity around me. You come to draw my blood, bring me meals, set me up with things, give me consultations. Basically from. morning to night, it was just kind of nonstop. And the blessing was I didn’t have much time to really dwell on my situation as a result. But then several days into my stay, that moment came. I remember I was lying in the hospital bed. It was late morning. My bed had already been changed. My visitors had already left the room to go to breakfast. My doctor had come on his rounds. It’s something me just kind of realized, okay, this is actually a little time just for me. And what started happening is I started ramping up into something like a panic attack. I had researched this form of leukemia. I had acute myeloid leukemia, which I knew was an especially lethal form of leukemia. And. my thoughts really started gathering steam. You talked about those 80% negative thoughts. They become so dominating in my mind space. And the thought that just kept going around was you’re going to die in this room. You’re going to die in this room. Whoa. I’m getting a little emotional thinking about that. And Kelly, I really felt on the verge of panic. It felt like these icy tentacles were gripping my guts and my heart. and my throat and just squeezing them. And my mind was just spiraling and spiraling in this negativity. And as it reached what felt like a fever pitch, kind of that level of intolerability, suddenly there was just wash of calm, just instantaneously. Yeah. And I remember I kind of looked up and I just sensed something above me. I was lying on the hospital bed. And I sensed just floating right above me, there was a presence there. And I couldn’t see anything, but it was just clear to me. I could just feel it there. And I could feel that it was what was bringing this soothing, washing calm. And then I felt it descend into my body. And it was almost like it just blew out that fear, that kind of icy tentacle that had been gripping me, that negative thoughts that were spiraling. They were just gone in an instant. And replaced was this reminder from deep inside of myself. this voice that came from so deep inside of me and it said, you’re okay. You’re okay. Whether you suffer in this room, Joe, whether you die in this room, you on the deepest levels are okay. And what was wild about this, Kelly, was at this time in my life, I was an atheist and being a law student and I was just kind of skeptical by nature. But this message was so empowering and from so deep inside of me. It didn’t feel like someone came in the room and was telling me this. It felt like I was actually remembering something that I had forgotten in my life. And that recollection really set the track for all the spiritual awakening that’s unfolded since.

Kelli Russell | 07:05.335
What do you think that energy above you was or is?

Joseph Clarke | 07:10.317
I call it a guardian angel. As my journeys evolved, I wondered to some extent whether it was my higher self manifesting to some extent and bringing me comfort. in some way beginning to integrate with me at that time as part of the awakening process.

Kelli Russell | 07:25.240
Wow. And then beyond that, were there micro experiences or other big experiences along the way? Did you start chasing the dragon, so to say?

Joseph Clarke | 07:39.869
Yeah. So I was gifted with a lot of books. I’ve always been an avid reader. And one of the books I read in the hospital was Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth. And I’d never read a book like that before, where it was directly addressing you on the deepest level and inviting you to expand your consciousness beyond the confines of conventional thinking. And it really lit a bulb in me. I mean, the way I describe it is I was maybe for the first time in my life aware that I was aware. And so when I left the hospital, the main thing that I took with me was that mindfulness, both that level of awareness that I had and then the practices like breath work and meditation. which then became a part of my life. But, you know, life’s funny. As profound as the Guardian Angel experience was, I really got back onto the same track I had been on before. I was a bit of a maniac. I actually took a job while in the hospital. I was getting blood transfusions. Yeah, I know. My workaholism is kind of mind-blowing. But yeah, I was a TA for class, writing a… an 80-page brief on a California Supreme Court issue, literally as they’re giving me chemo and blood transfusions, I’m not doing this. And then I get out, I had signed up for a summer internship at the public defender’s office. I did it on time, got past the California bar exam, became a public defender, worked for eight years at the Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office, and was really back on that track of, I’m going to work as a lawyer until I retire, and then it’s going to be, you know, live the good life and then eventually die, and that’s it. And it was in 2018 that my spiritual awakening had the second and much more intense phase that kicked in.

Kelli Russell | 09:22.984
What happened there?

Joseph Clarke | 09:25.865
Oh, boy. Basically, the universe flipped the script on me. I’ve always been a head person, cerebral by nature, intellectual, fond of concepts. With the benefit of hindsight, what I now see is that part of the way I maintained that imbalance of always being up was I used my torso and particularly my heart and my gut almost kind of like a landfill. Whatever I didn’t want to deal with up here, complicated emotions, unresolved issues, difficulties in relationships. It just got pushed down. And for all those years until 2018, that was the dynamic I was used to. That was the way things flowed. And in 2019, or 2018, 2019, it’s almost like the universe stuck a key in my heart, turned it, and reversed the flow. Whoa. So my head, yeah, which before I’d been this kind of sanctuary, this marble palace of peace. I could, you know, be there with my abstractions. I was now living in this torrent, this flood. of all these repressed memories, emotions, feelings.

Kelli Russell | 10:31.414
Wow.

Joseph Clarke | 10:32.535
So overwhelming that it was hard to get out of bed in the morning sometimes. Sometimes I would stagger as I walked when it would hit me really hard. I’d put my hand against the wall to brace myself. It was a very physical experience. And I’ll be real with you, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my life. The rigors of cancer really paled in comparison just to how deeply constant and intense and internal. this experience was. And this was really the beginning of the shift of emphasis in my life, saying, hey, move more of your energy away from the headspace and down into the heart and the gut. And I love what you talked about earlier, that image of kind of knocking the head off its pedestal, what the universe kept saying to me, because I kept trying to do that. It’s like, don’t demonize your head. There’s nothing wrong with your head. It’s an imbalance of energy and consciousness. What it really wants to be is integrated across. cross these three spaces. That way the head’s not doing too much of the work and the heart and the gut aren’t being left with nothing to do. All three of them can work together as a team. And so my sense of wholeness and mental health shifted from this concept of kind of thinking everything’s okay in my head to feeling a connection on a very somatic level between my gut, my heart, and my head. And in that surrendered somatic state, that’s where I find my peace.

Kelli Russell | 11:52.875
What ended up happening with the leukemia?

Joseph Clarke | 11:56.909
I went into full remission. I did five rounds of chemotherapy, which kept me in the hospital for most of a six-month period and end of 2010, beginning of 2011. And by the grace of God, I was fortunate enough. The next step would have been a bone marrow transplant or biopsy. And then there were other potentially more grueling things ahead of me, but I was very fortunate that chemotherapy managed to clear it out.

Kelli Russell | 12:26.269
Wow. And still clear to this day?

Joseph Clarke | 12:29.390
I’m going to find some wood to knock on. Yes, I’ve made permission since 2011. Yes.

Kelli Russell | 12:34.392
That’s awesome. I was wondering if you would guide us through a process that we talked about where we can utilize the breath to connect to those three centers and get them communicating in a balanced way. Would you be willing to guide us through that?

Joseph Clarke | 12:53.260
I’d love to. And I could even share a story. before or after about how this has benefited a client of mine. So yeah, whenever it’s right, I’d love to share that too.

Kelli Russell | 13:04.048
Why don’t you guide us through it? And then let’s talk about application of how do we utilize that in our lives? And yeah, that would be great to hear about how it can impact us. Let’s do that.

Joseph Clarke | 13:16.759
Perfect. Perfect. Okay. All right. So this method is called three candle breathing. And I was just talking about how my spiritual awakening process has taught me the benefit of not just over concentrating in the head, but of balancing energy across the head, the heart and the gut. And this three candle technique is designed specifically to do that for you right now. And so the way you’re going to do it is start by just connecting with your posture and make any gentle adjustments to let your posture feel healthy and comfortable for you. One way to bring some alignment in your posture is just to notice if you’re sitting down, what your pelvis is contacting right now. Is it a seat? Is it a chair? Is it the floor? Just notice the pelvis being supported by the surface. And now let the spotlight of your attention shift upward to your spine. Feel your spine. Notice how the spine is being supported by the pelvis. And notice how the spine is supporting the neck. Gently bring that spotlight of your attention up to your neck. Feel the neck. Notice how the neck is being supported by the spine and how the neck itself is supporting the head. Let that spotlight of your attention now come to your head. Just notice your head. Sense it there. Feel it from within. Now let these four areas, the head, the neck, the spine, and the pelvis. Come into an alignment that feels healthy and comfortable and sustainable for you. Beautiful. And with that healthy and comfortable posture in place, we’re ready to begin the technique. I’m going to teach it to you in three separate steps. And then what we’re going to do at the end is we’re going to put those three steps together. I’m going to guide you every step of the way. First, what we’re going to do is we’re going to establish the belly candle. What I invite you to do is take your palms, gently place them over your belly, right in the area of your navel. To start, I don’t want you to think about breathing right now. I just want you to focus on gently extending that belly out right through the belly button. Gently extend it out into the hands and then let it release. Let it sink back to a natural, comfortable state. When you’re ready, do another belly extension. Gently protrude that belly outward. through the navel out into those hands and then let it retract. Good. Go and do two more belly extensions now. Letting that belly extend outward almost like a balloon blowing up into the hands and then let it retract. One more good extension and retract. Beautiful. Now what I want you to do is to begin to integrate your breathing into this rhythm and I want you to notice something. I want you to notice that as you extend that belly out into the hands, you actually naturally begin to draw air into your lungs. Extending the belly out creates space for the diaphragm to go down. And it’s that natural lowering of the diaphragm that creates the vacuum in the lungs that draws air in from the atmosphere without requiring so much effort from the upper body, such as the neck and the face. So coming back to your belly now, practice this move. Gentle belly extension. And inhale as the belly extends and then release. And see if you can power the inhale with the belly extension itself. Go and take a little time and practice that now. Powering your inhale with the belly extension and then let it retract. Let your belly do the work. Beautiful. That’s one of the beautiful things about this method is in the process, you’re practicing rhythmic belly breathing, which is a very powerful and healing tool. All right. So now the last piece here is we’re going to add that candle. That’s the way the candle works. It’s a visual. This visual of a candle lodged right there in your belly. As you do that belly powered inhale, I want you to picture that candle lighting up and growing brighter and hotter as you do. The deeper you inhale, the brighter and hotter that flame gets. And then what you’re going to do is when you exhale, you’re going to blow that candle out. You’re going to see that flame go out and you’re going to see nothing but smoke coming off of that wick. And that’s an invitation for you to surrender into the exhale. Don’t hold on to anything. Any thoughts you’re holding on to, any tension you’re holding on to in your body, even any worries you’re having about whether you’re doing this technique right, let it all go into the exhale. Let it all go into that smoke. Because what you’re going to do on the next inhale, you’re going to relight that candle yourself. So let’s go and do that now. We’re going to do the belly candle. Reconnect with that healthy and comfortable posture. Hands on the belly. Gentle belly extension. Power and inhale. Now picture that candle in the belly going brighter and brighter as you inhale. And then blow it out. Nothing but smoke. Let it all go. Nothing to hold on to. When you’re ready, repeat that cycle. Power a belly inhale. See that candle burning brighter and hotter. And when you’re ready, release it. Nothing but smoke. Nothing to hold on to. Let your body relax. Let your mind drop whatever it’s holding on to. Because you’re going to light that candle again. Extend that belly and light that candle. Let it burn as bright as you want. And when you’re ready, blow it out. and let everything go out with it. Nothing to hold on to. Do one more of these. Belly extension, power that inhale, burn that candle bright, take it as far as you want to, and when you’re ready, blow it out and let everything trail out with that smoke. Good. Go and pause for a moment. Give yourself a little congratulations. You’ve now mastered the first step of three candle breathing. Now that you have this down, the other two steps, you need to go much more quickly. We’re going to let the spotlight of attention now come up to the nose. We’re going to do this to emphasize to ourselves that we want that inhale powered by the belly to come in through the nose rather than through the mouth. Exhale can go either through the nose or the mouth, but we want that inhale to come through the nose. So with the spotlight of your attention on your nose, reconnect with your healthy, comfortable posture. And I want you now, don’t worry so much about the belly breathing in this step. We’re going to add that back in. Right now, I just want you to take some breaths. And what I want you to focus on is making sure your breath is going through your nose. Go ahead and do that now. Inhaling through the nose. Exhaling through the nose or the mouth. Good. Spotlight of attention. Shine on the nose. Let that be the source of the inhale. Beautiful. Now we’re going to drop a candle right into that nose. Same visual as before. As you inhale through the nose, that candle burns brighter and hotter. As you exhale, nothing but smoke and let everything you have you’re holding on to, tension, thoughts, worries, let it all go into that smoke because you’re going to restart that cycle. So go and do some nose candle breaths right now. inhaling through the nose, lighting that candle, exhaling, nose or mouth, blow it out, nothing to hold on to. You’re going to relight that candle, relight it through the nose, bright and hot, and then let it go. Everything goes out with the smoke. One more nose candle breath. In through the nose. See that candle burning bright right at the nose. And then blow it out. Beautiful, beautiful. Nothing to hold on to. And lastly, let that spotlight of attention shine down to your heart space. Feel free to put your hands over your chest right now. Feel that heart muscle beating in your chest. this tireless source of life always operating within us. We’re going to connect with this heart right now. What I want you to do is as you inhale through your nose, I want you to feel a very gentle expansion of the chest. Don’t make it dramatic. Don’t make it as big as the belly was. Just a very gentle light opening of the chest space on that inhale and then letting it go. Go and do that right now. Focus on your heart. Take an inhale through your nose, feel your chest gently expanding, and let it out. By now you know this technique. Go and drop the candle in. I want you to do three or four chest expansion breaths, just gentle expansion of the chest, and see that candle burn as you do, and then blow it out. Gently expanding the chest with the inhale and then letting it go. Candle burns bright and hot and nothing but smoke. Beautiful. All right. Give yourself a little pat on the back. You’ve now mastered all three steps of this technique. Now what we’re going to do is we’re going to put them together into one fluid motion. This is three candle breathing. I’m going to do one as a demonstration first just so you can see all the pieces fit, and then I’ll narrate you through just some together. All right, so here’s my demonstration. I’m reconnecting with my healthy and comfortable posture. I’m going to put one hand onto my chest and one hand onto my belly, and I’m going to light my candles in this order. It’s going to go belly, nose, heart. belly, nose, heart. So I’m going to narrate one right now that I’m going to do on my own, and then I’ll walk you through them. Extending my belly, drawing the inhale in, belly candles lighting, it’s coming through the nose, nose candle is lighting, I feel my chest expanding, chest candle is lighting, three candles burning at once, and all three candles blown out at once, three trails of smoke. And into those trails of smoke, all my tension, all my thoughts, all my worries, anything I’m holding on to, it can all go in because I know I’m going to relight those candles on the next inhale. All right, let’s go ahead and do it together. Feel free to put a hand on your chest, hand on your belly. I’ll guide you through a few and then take over on your own rhythm. Trust your intuition here. Light that belly candle. Light that nose candle. Light that heart candle. Blow them out. Let it all go. Good. Another round. Belly candle. Nose candle, chest candle, burning bright, and blow them out. Nothing to hold on to. Relax and release. One more together. Light that belly candle. Light that nose candle. Light that chest candle. Three candles burning bright, and release it. Nothing but smoke. or anything you want to into that smoke. Now I invite you to continue with this three candle breathing and I’ll just provide a little gentle narration and support for about a minute here to support you and your technique. Breathe with the three candles belly nose and chest. Light that candle in the inhale. Blow it out in the exhale. Three brains, one mind. Three flames, one fire. You are that fire. Go into two more solid rounds of three-candle breathing. Right as you can on that inhale, and then let it all out. Beautifully done. Give yourself a little pat on the back. You can squeeze if that feels right to you. You just gave yourself a wonderful gift, connecting with your body, connecting your three brains, empowering your heart, redistributing your energy to bring more harmony to your system. I invite you to just take a brief moment of reflection here. Just notice how you’re thinking. Notice how you’re feeling right now. And if you’re feeling any better than you were before, Let your mind make this connection between these results you’re feeling now and this method you just used. And doing this will help you positively reinforce the technique so that you remember to use it in a time of stress and you feel more confident sticking with it so you can get these results again. Thanks, Kelly.

Kelli Russell | 28:33.087
Thank you so much. I felt like at first I was hesitant to blow out the candle of my heart because I was thinking about it. as the sacred, beautiful space. And I was, there was a part of me that said, Oh, no, I don’t want to blow out that candle. And then I started thinking about the pain that we hold in our hearts from past wounds or experiences and our hesitancy to get hurt again, which causes us to block off the flow of giving and receiving love. And then I started getting into that rhythm where and he said, Don’t worry, it’s you’re going to light that flame again, you know, so it was like, really? releasing those past wounds or future worries of getting hurt, allowing that energy to move, and then feeling that burning bright light again, and feeling the infinite nature of that. It’s like we’re lighting it again, we’re releasing anything that we’re holding on to. We’re lighting it again, we’re releasing anything we’re holding on to.

Joseph Clarke | 29:32.254
Beautifully put. And I love what you said there about this kind of thought that the heart is a sacred space, because I think you’re exactly right. And what I think you found in this technique is it’s a sacred space for you. And what you and I on the deepest levels are, I believe, is an influence, an inflowing of consciousness that is constantly arriving and re-arriving. And that danger of staying stuck in the head is we concretize. We get stuck on mental positions. We forget that we’re actually more of a flowing thing. And we think of ourselves as more of a concrete and a fixed thing. And it’s from that mindset that we feel that we have something to protect or something to avoid. But when we surrender into the flow of feeling our bodies, powering our breath and using our intention to hold these visuals on a very deep level we remind ourselves who and what we are on the most essential level which i believe is we’re each the inspiring warmth of our own hearts and so that heart candle is really you coming into your being and

Kelli Russell | 30:28.183
that releases that trust that you will come again i love that by come again what does that mean does that mean reincarnate or does that mean that we’re just in it that continual flow of letting go and And it’s almost like from a particle to a wave, from a particle to a wave. How do you look at that?

Joseph Clarke | 30:46.758
Yeah, well, I love that term reincarnation. I personally do believe in reincarnation on the level of after an organic death. I don’t believe we die. I think we just assume a new form. But the saying, as above, so below, I think that applies to the macro and the micro. The macro reincarnation is that organic death I just described. But I think we are constantly reincarnating. I think every heartbeat to some extent. is reannouncing our rebirth. It’s only from that headspace where we identify ourselves as something that is fixed and moving through time, almost like a rock in a river, as opposed to being the river itself.

Kelli Russell | 31:26.420
Yeah, I like that because in order to evolve into something new, we must experience a series of little deaths of the old self. So we are reincarnating in real time in this life. And something I always like to say is that as long as there is breath, there is an opportunity to do something different. It’s never too late. Like when people, they’ll have, you know, a hardship within their family or something, and they’ll say, you know, it’s too late, it’s too far gone. And then I’ll say, as long as there’s breath, there’s a chance to do something different, you know.

Joseph Clarke | 32:04.229
So beautiful. I’m thinking here about the etymology of the word breath, and it’s spirit, inspiration. So as long as there’s breath, you know, as long as there is spirit and you are that spirit. And when you’re doing that breathing with intentionality, when you’re doing it with surrender into the body, you’re quite literally invigorating yourself with spirit, rebirthing your spirit self into that form. Beautiful.

Kelli Russell | 32:26.563
So how did your client integrate this into their life? What did it mean for them?

Joseph Clarke | 32:32.885
Yeah. So this is a woman I was working with. She was in her 50s. And for this session, she and I worked a couple times. On this session, she was worried about an upcoming encounter she had. A friend of hers had recently suffered a terrible loss, the death of a very dear loved one. And her friend was deeply distraught. And my client came to me and she said, I’m going to meet with my friend tomorrow. And I’m terrified about this conversation. And what she told me was about this troubling pattern she was seeing in her life, that when friends were coming to her with difficulties, things like divorces, things like messy emotional feelings that didn’t really have a name they could put on it. She noticed that she was listening, but then her responses, she would say things like, oh, but you know, everything’s perfect. Everything’s okay. You know, in the big picture, things are okay. And she knew intuitively that this wasn’t helpful. She actually saw her friends kind of distancing themselves from her in real time because they didn’t feel supported. And so she’s like, I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want to repeat this pattern. This conversation especially is so deep and so important. And what my intuition told me was that this was an over-concentration in the head. The head is the seat of those I-minded ideals. You know, through the crown chakra, we see these truths. And she was right. Everything is perfect. But what we remember when we’re connected to our hearts and our guts is there’s a time for those truths to be spoken, and there’s a time for them not to be spoken. And so what I saw an opportunity to do with her was to help her cultivate a stronger connection with her heart and with her gut. And it was actually in that session that this three-candle breathing was intuitively and inspired. It just came organically. And so I taught it to her in real time. She loved how it felt. And the coaching I gave her was, okay, in the hour before you meet with your friend, try to do this a few times. And then during the session with your friend, whenever you find yourself thinking about what you’re going to say next, I want you to resurrender into this technique. And so then I connected with her the next day. And the first thing she said, she’s like, oh my God, I am so glad we talked. She goes, this was the best conversation I’ve ever had with my friend. She’s like, it flowed. It was easy. I wasn’t anxious. My friend actually asked to extend the time. They were only supposed to meet, I think, for an hour. The friend invited her to stay longer. And she said, I just listened. I just supported her. I only spoke when I really felt like I had something resonant to say. Otherwise, I was just there, present in my heart. And that was just such a powerful testimonial to me of what, when you’re fully connected to your heart, your brain, and your gut, really what you are is you’re you. You’re that unique individual person who can show up with authenticity and integrity, recognize the moment and respond in a way that you could truly be proud of. And that’s what she did. And so it was a beautiful genesis for this technique. And I just seem to do so much good sense.

Kelli Russell | 35:15.884
Was she doing it, you said the hour prior, but then when she was sitting in front of her friend, was she envisioning the candles and subtly doing the breath as well? Or because she had done it in the hour prior, she was just present and relaxed. How would you recommend using it?

Joseph Clarke | 35:33.617
Yeah. So my sense of what she described and what I would recommend is always calibrate into the situation, especially in a situation like that, you’re having a hard, hard conversation. That of course comes first. See the technique as basically when you see yourself moving back into that stuck pattern, that’s that invitation to re-engage the technique. And then it’s about finesse and artistry. How much do you engage the technique while still being available to talk? And that’s always a foul and error process, but it really worked for her.

Kelli Russell | 36:02.013
Yeah. And it would be kind of weird if we just started doing a deep diaphragmatic breath and went, you know why somebody was right in front of us. But I could envision myself spiraling a little bit and then experiencing or drawing in a flame and allowing my belly to expand. And then just letting it go really subtly, almost imperceptibly, where I’m aware of the presence that I’m guiding myself into. And then it allows me to be in that moment with them. So maybe there’s just like a couple rounds where I’m lighting the candles. It’s just a gentle release. And I’m like, okay, I’m back. And now I’m fully engaged again.

Joseph Clarke | 36:50.063
Exactly. And that’s the thing. Once you have the technique down, you don’t need that internal narration to drive it anymore. You have that, you know, it’s bodily. And so at that point, you can just engage it lightly. And I love what you said. You can just do a belly candle. If you know the person is going to speak in two seconds, belly candle, boom. And then when you have the longer gap, they reach for water, three candles. And so you’re simultaneously doing this inner and outer work, and you’re doing the inner work with the intention of serving you in the outer. Instead of when we get spun up in our heads, there’s always this scarcity thinking of how much longer can this last? Am I going to know what to say? And that fear is drawing you out of the moment and into your mind. This breathing cycle, especially with the exhale, is always returning you to the moment.

Kelli Russell | 37:29.369
That’s cool. I have some people I work with on public speaking because they have a strong desire to get in front of groups of people and help them heal and then… they get a little stage fright. So I could see this being really helpful right before they go on and things like that. Because instead of just being up in the head, it’s like speaking from the heart, from the gut, from the truth. So anytime there’s a tricky conversation, or you know, you’re doing a presentation or something that you could utilize that breath, it seems like it has a lot of applications.

Joseph Clarke | 38:00.846
Yes. And you know, one of the things I found is stage fright, I’m nervous, I tend to kind of like motor mouth or just get on a script and go, go, go. And when you have that breathing as part of your technique, it actually works pauses, which you notice effective speakers do. The audience likes it. It gives them a little break. You can use it for points of emphasis and every pause is an opportunity to breathe again.

Kelli Russell | 38:24.461
When I found out about what you did, I was really curious about, you mentioned to me that you do men’s groups sometimes. And I was just wondering, We’re talking about the importance of men getting in touch with their hearts and being able to live and express themselves from that way. And this is relatively a new construct. I mean, maybe in the 70s, we saw that with the hippie movement. But in general, in probably the last several thousand years, that’s not something that is uniquely cultivated within the mainstream culture. And now as women are becoming… more masculine in our roles, doing so much and performing and competing and things like that. I think that there’s a tendency for women then to shut off the emotion as well so that they can achieve and attain. So how do you see this as a benefit to the overall society for both men and women? And how do you recommend that we do that? Like, why should we? Why is that beneficial? And how?

Joseph Clarke | 39:44.022
I think the main benefit is when you have a strong heart connection. And again, every time I say this, you know, I want you to picture this balance. You can almost picture like an eight or infinity symbol that’s connecting the head, the heart and the gut. And we tend in our society that that pattern you talked about is, as I see it, over-concentration in the head, the gut, or both. And so as we’re drawing energy that’s overloading the head and the gut and let it concentrate more and more in the heart, the main things that come online that weren’t there before… our perspective, purpose, and integrity. When we’re living from the head or the gut, we tend to find ourselves lost in our agendas and roles. We look for that structure that helps us define how we’re supposed to act in a certain situation, and then we try to fit ourselves into that stencil so that we feel like we’re doing the right thing for ourselves. This is well-intentioned. It comes from a good place in us. But it’s fundamentally misguided because in that process, we’re giving up our uniqueness. We’re giving up those qualities in ourselves, those things that we care about most deeply to try to serve an external purpose. And so I think the main thing that that stronger heart connection gets is it reconnects you to you. It reminds you who you are on the deepest levels. Not who everyone else is, not who everyone else thinks you are, thinks you should be, not even who you think you are, you should be. Who you truly and most essentially are. And with that in place, head and the gut are now empowered to use those agendas and those plans to serve your true purpose instead of constantly losing yourself to one external purpose or another because you’re trying to accomplish something, trying to satisfy somebody. You’re acting more from your authenticity and your integrity. And I think if you think about the people who are real leaders, who are real inspirers, or even people just in daily life who you feel comfortable around, who are disarming, who feel safe, who feel genuine. authentic and make you laugh and smile. That’s what they do. They’re themselves. They’re who they are. They’re not trying to give you a version of themselves that they think is going to work for you, this back and forth game. They’re just speaking and living from their heart. And when they’re living from their heart, because they’re not devoting so much energy to those external agendas, they’re more available for you. And so they listen and they connect and they share and they give advice that’s actually tailored to you instead of just kind of giving the truisms that they’ve been told and they’re passing along. And that’s all a result of this recalibration of energy, bringing that heart back online and realizing all along that it really has been the master. But the beauty of this master is it does not control. It does not direct. It just reminds. It just reminds the head and the gut, here’s who I am. Here’s what matters to me. Here are the gifts that I bring. And now use these to help me serve the world. And when I serve the world, the world naturally serves me. It’s a natural reciprocity. That’s what I see.

Kelli Russell | 42:41.552
How, what is the best way? Because I’m used to kicking the brain off its pedestal, right? Because I tend to overanalyze everything. What is the best way to come back to balance? I mean, I know that we have that breath, but is there a way that we could look at it and get a visual representation of them all working together that has worked for you?

Joseph Clarke | 43:07.148
So, I mean, two thoughts are coming to mind. So I think the visual representation that works best for me really is that that H or that infinity symbol. And, you know, if you want to visualize it right now, I’ll kind of do a guided visual. I have my hand over my heart. Yeah. Picturing a white light radiating from my heart, right? Like the brightest star in the night sky. And now I’m going to take that light and with my hand, I’m going to trace it upwards in a circular motion, gently up to my headspace. And then I’m going to see another star shining in my head right above where my eyebrows meet. And then that star arcs downward back to the heart space, reconnect briefly there. This is the center. This is the bridge. Coming down now to the gut, right to the navel, to the hara, seeing a star right there, pausing there for a moment, feeling that space. And now tracing that starlight back up to the heart. where it began, where it ends, the alpha and the omega right in our center. And if you use that pattern, you can just trace it visually in your mind, or you can use your hand. It’ll connect these three areas, and it’ll achieve that recalibration of reminding ourselves we’re over-concentrated high and low. We want to bring more to the middle. And the second piece I’d say there, and this is something as a head person that I relearn every day. My visuals, my concepts, they serve me and they empower me to reconnect with my heart. But the visuals and the concepts themselves are not actually me coming back to my heart. When I’m in my heart is when I’m feeling myself flowing through the heart space. I’m feeling that heart muscle beating. I’m feeling my breath flowing in and out. And I’m feeling myself, quite literally, as a concentration in the center of myself, ebbing and flowing with the breath, beating and unbeating with the heart. And that’s what I think surrender really is, is we use those visuals to guide us. We use those concepts to inspire us. And then we surrender. And the mantra I love is soften, feel, and flow. Soften, feel, and flow. We soften. We let the body relax. Let the tension melt away. Wherever we sense ourselves holding on to something, clinging to something, just let it go. Let that body gradually soften, releasing its tensions, releasing its agendas. just gradually bring a softening to the body. Once you feel like you’ve done softening for a while, once you feel like you made some progress there, we’re going to shift to feeling. I want you to feel the heart muscle beating in your chest. See if you can just feel it directly, instantaneously. Go right to it. and help you strengthen that connection. You can put your hand over the heart muscle to feel it beating. I like to take my pulse at my throat sometimes. And right now, just focus on one thing. Feel, feel, feel the heart muscle beating in the chest. Feel the overall body housing this heart. And feel both at once, the body and the heart within. Feel. Feel. As any thoughts arise, anything tries to pull you away, see that as an invitation to feel freshly. Feel again. To feel anew. And now flow. Flow. You can flow with the breath like we did in three-candle breathing. You can flow with the movement if you gently want to move your hands, for example, back and forth in a rhythmic wave pattern. Or you can just sit in silence and sense the flow of activity. It can be the flow of thoughts. It could be the flowing rhythm of the heartbeat over time. It could be the flow of a sound in your environment, the flow of sensations in the body. Any rhythmic movement you can connect with connects you with this state of flow. And this state of flow reconnects us on the deepest level to what we are. the inspiring warmth, this inflowing of warmth and presence into our heart. And then eventually let even that mindset go. Return to your daily life and keep soften, feel, and flow in your pocket. And anytime you find yourself spun up in anxiety or spun down in depression, you can soften, feel, and flow to bring more energy back to your heart space.

Kelli Russell | 48:40.840
I could see a lot of my clients saying that they would get stuck. So if they have that intense emotion and some of them are dealing with really deep traumas or something that seems unsolvable, seems being a key word, but what do they do when that emotion, like they’re allowing themselves to feel and they are allowing the fluidity but it sticks do you have any ideas about how like for those extra sticky ones what do you do yeah so i think a couple things would come into mind first is surrendering

Joseph Clarke | 49:24.126
even more deeply into the technique if the situation allows and this is where it’s always important to be cognizant right if you’re driving or if you’re doing the dishes no don’t do this driving with your family yeah yeah you want to know your situation because exactly as you pointed out that stuckness is actually a hidden opportunity. It’s a part of ourselves that’s crying out for healing. What we just have to be honest with ourselves about is now the right time to go into that depth because it can take time. It can be a very vulnerable experience. But if time allows, surrendering ever more deeply into that practice, working in that three candle breathing, staying with the energy, that difficult energy, softening around it, breathing with it is a powerful healing technique. I think the other thing we can do for ourselves, though, is give ourselves permission to let it be. Because for deep, for deep stucknesses like that, I think the most important thing to do is to find someone you can work with who can help you through the process. Doing those things alone. You know, I think for most of human history, we’ve always been tribal societies. We’ve always had people we worked with in sacred ceremonies and even just around the fire to help us through life’s difficulties. Don’t do it alone. Find a friend. Find a professional. Somebody who can help you navigate through that. In the meantime, use your breathing. Use your connection to your body. And what I think, what I found a lot is the more connected I am to my heart and my gut, there’s a lightness that comes back to me, a sense of humor, a sense of perspective that allows me to not get so hung up on what I’m feeling and to buy into some of those horror stories or nightmare visions about what this means. I could say to myself, I’m doing my best right now to heal it. I’m committed to healing it in the future with the help of someone else. And for right now, I can let it be and focus on my activities in my life.

Kelli Russell | 51:07.845
Yeah. It’s beautiful and such a good reminder that we don’t have to do it all alone and we can call in the helpers.

Joseph Clarke | 51:14.128
Yes.

Kelli Russell | 51:15.188
And you do work with people one to one. And what I experienced in your presence was a deep feeling of acceptance, nonjudgmental. We could talk about anything. You were super intelligent, very insightful, tons of what I would call intuitive hits that you were sharing with me about. what was coming in, what you were noticing that was really good at helping me reflect or seeing things in a different angle that I hadn’t seen before, or even thought of looking at it in that way before. So like surprises, which I love, and just super adept at the healing modality of Reiki and the way you’re moving with energy and being a space holder, I felt so safe and secure in your presence and able to just be or even the parts of me that I don’t want to look at myself and just to share those and to feel your nonjudgmental acceptance, what a gift that is, you know? So we wanted to offer people a gift today for listening. And if you want to experience the magic of Joseph’s work, he is gifting your first session two hours for the investment of only one hour. So it’s like a two hour for one. And so I hope that you will try his services out and he can help you through that intense experience that you’re going through, or just learning how to get out of the brain and into the heart, or just experiencing a beautiful healing. There’s so many different ways that you can help. So the best way to do that is to schedule a consult with you. And it’s on your website, Joseph Clark. Clark is spelled with an E at the end, dash spiritual flourishing.com. And he also has a lot of great events and workshops. They’re all in a blog. So you can check that out all there. And also I wanted just to touch on your book, your book, Soul. It’s spelled S-O-L. What’s in there?

Joseph Clarke | 53:19.782
I’ve got a copy right here. Yeah, it’s supportive guidance for healing and awakening. It’s a book that helps you connect more richly and deeply to your own heart. This book came out of my spiritual awakening process. And what I did is I put into the book what I thought would be most helpful for people to hear and to know, to help them recognize the ways in which they’re stuck, to realize how they can heal through their hearts. And then also a lot of just on a human-to-human level, guidance, tips, and inspiration for walking this path. Because, you know, as you talked about in the safety of this podcast, space we have right now. It’s so easy to focus on these things because we don’t have other distractions. Life isn’t coming at us. But we all know the way we normally live 98% of the time is in the hustle and bustle of life. And so what this book does, it provides a lot of inspirational guidance and practical tools for things you can do not only in the safe space of a mindfulness practice, but actually on the go to bring more awareness, to reconnect with your heart, to find a flow and rhythm that suits you, and to feel more like you’re living life. instead of life is just happening to you.

Kelli Russell | 54:32.676
I absolutely love that. And that’s our whole reason for this podcast is exactly that, you know, sharing tips and tools to inspire and awaken. And it sounds like your book has all these practical things, which that’s what I’m looking for is like, just tell me how to do it because we don’t know. And you found a pathway with ways that work. So it’s like sharing that with those of us who are in the dark feeling around like toddlers trying to figure it out. So thank you for sharing those ways that we can do that. And is there any last words of wisdom or anything you’d like to share as we close out?

Joseph Clarke | 55:13.502
Yes, and the word that’s come into mind is friendship. I think if you reflect on your life and you think about the things that you’ve treasured most in life and that you truly look forward to most in life, it’s being in this feeling of friendship. And the message I want to share today is twofold. One, the conventional way we think about friendship is interaction with other people, with our friends, or even being friendly with people we don’t know. there’s a beauty and a power and a gift to that, a vulnerability that helps us feel more in community and connection with each other. And the more walled off we are inside, the less willing we are to show ourselves and reveal ourselves to others and let them reveal ourselves to us. The more we start buying into those limited conceptions of who and what we are. And so I encourage you, when you have your interactions, just try it for today. See if you can bring more that spirit of friendship, openness. flow, honesty, humor, and lightness into your interactions. And the second message I want to share, which may be a little more counterintuitive, is that friendship is also a gift we can give to ourselves and within. It’s also a product of interaction. When you’re gentle with yourself, when you give yourself that sip of water, that break that you sense your body really needs, when you feel the urge to be hard on yourself, to punish yourself, to kind of wag the finger, or to put yourself back to the grindstone, but instead you slow down, you take a breath, you give yourself a little time. Those are all acts of friendship to yourself. And so I invite you to reconceive of yourself, not merely as the operator of this body or the liver of this life, but as someone who cultivates the flame of friendship within your heart. And you do that one simple and kind act at a time with yourself. And I encourage you, notice the ways you’re doing that and congratulate yourself for it. Make the intention to do it. Make it a goal and try to do it deliberately. And then notice how as you cultivate this flame of friendship in your life, both in your interactions with others and in your interaction with yourself, notice what shifts. And I bet what you’ll find is you feel better. You think more clearly. You make wiser decisions that you can truly be proud of later. And you just enjoy life more.

Kelli Russell | 57:34.555
Thank you so much. That’s so beautiful. Where can people find your book and where can people find you on social media? Where are you hanging out?

Joseph Clarke | 57:46.572
Yeah, so my book is available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and authorhouse.com. You can also find my book and purchasing links through my website. And then I’ll direct you to my Instagram page. My Instagram handle is at Spirit Flourish, at Spirit Flourish.

Kelli Russell | 58:07.381
Wonderful. And I highly recommend you hop on his website, josephclark-spiritualflourishing.com and get a consult in and see how you can work with Joe. He’s amazing. So thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate you sharing your gifts, your inspiration and your tools with everybody.

Joseph Clarke | 58:29.686
Thanks for having me, Kelly.

Kelli Russell | 58:31.547
Absolutely. Have a great day, everyone.