Healing Trauma with Yoga and Psychedelics: Ping’s Inspiring Path with Ping Vithaya

0:00 Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. I don't have to keep holding onto this identity of personalities anymore. I can just reprogram, rework myself and drop all the stories that I told myself and become a new me who is actually me at core, not the coping mechanisms that helped me survive my childhood.

0:58 Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you. We talk all things yoga related for teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour yoga teacher training.

1:16 Or if you've never done a training before, this podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way. Together with Paul Tioto and Byron de Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource to learn learn more about yoga, whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga.

1:33 This podcast is talking all things yoga related and we're trying to talk from the teachers perspective and also the students perspective to make sure we get a full 360° angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world. Welcome to our podcast, the welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga podcast.

1:50 Michael here, your host today. And we have a guest in the house, a new guest, which I'm really excited to invite and have in my home. Ping Welcome to the podcast. Hi Michael, thank you so much for inviting me here. I feel really honored and grateful to be here.

2:12 I've been listening to going Pro since I finished my 200 hour two years ago. Listening on the plan, I would download it offline and I wouldn't imagine to be one of the episodes today. Yeah, I'm excited for you to be here. So Ping, first of all, I don't even know how to pronounce your let's.

2:35 Just. Say it one more time. Touch upon. Yep. So there's a test, but I know you as Ping, yes, which oftentimes you're like you can just think of ping pong, which I think is so funny. But yeah, I met Ping almost two years ago now. It was February.

2:55 Well, the February coming up, it'll be about two years where you came to Bali for a 200 hour teacher training at the same time as Megan. Actually, Megan's been on the podcast a couple times and that's when I met you. And also originally not from Canada, but you did spend a lot of time in Canada. So we had some kind of connection there a little bit, which was kind of fun, but I don't want to spoil too much. I want you to be able to share a little bit more about who you are in your story so that people

3:22 can connect with you a little bit more. So officially welcome to the podcast. And yeah, tell me a little bit about who you are, where you came from, maybe, you know, a little bit of growing up. And then if you want to, you can kind of infuse a little bit of maybe how yoga's kind of came into your life as well.

3:39 And we'll go from there. Yeah, happy too. So my name is Ping. I go by Ping. the Super long Sanskrit name is usually the paper name for Thai people. We just go by the nickname and it actually means peace in Chinese. That your your long name.

3:59 No ping ping ping is the ping an in Mandarin. Cool, so you're from Thailand originally? Yeah, I'm from Thailand. I'm from Bangkok, Thailand. Grew up there. I only moved to Canada in my 20s, which I'll expand more on that.

4:20 And yeah, I came to Bali in my 30 or I just turned 30 or 29, I don't remember what his number. So what was it like? What was it like growing up in in Thailand? Because like, I mean, I don't know what you don't, you don't seem to have an accent. I mean, maybe a little bit, but it's not that obvious to me. I actually didn't start practicing conversational English until I was 16, but then I just immersed myself fully into it.

4:54 Yeah, I grew up in Bangkok as a high, highly sensitive person. It was really chaotic for me. And I grew up in public schools, so I actually didn't learn English that much, only reading and writing. I had a great opportunity to study abroad and as an exchange student in China, in Harbin, China, which is next to Russia. And winter there was -30° And it was my first winter in life. It was my first snow that was.

5:31 Winter that was getting you ready for Canada? Exactly. They have a frozen lake in the winter where they host ice sculpture festivals that like big tracks can just go on and winter there lasts for like 6 months. So it was such a contrast coming from tropical Bangkok to there. Yeah, no doubt.

5:54 But yeah, I was immersed in multicultural environment where I met a lot of other exchange students from around the world, from America, from Europe, from Africa, and we really bonded there. And that was my first time also experiencing warmth and friendship.

6:19 Not well. I experienced friendship in Thailand, too. That was a different flavor than what I grew up in. And that made me interested in Western culture. And so I started watching YouTube videos and movies and learning English.

6:38 And then I went to International University in Thailand where I met more people and actually starting, I started my drinking era back there and. In in Thailand, in Thailand when you went back. Afterwards when? Yeah, when I went back afterwards meeting other exchange students and. University culture, basically.

7:01 Yeah, university culture, well, they're broad. Most of them were UC students and UC, like California, right? And they're brought to drinking culture with them. So it's not university culture, it's California culture. And Europeans too, right? Right.

7:20 But yeah, meeting a lot of people from around the world expanded my perspective but also made me feel more at home because growing up I always felt like an outcast somehow. Like I had a lot of fun bonding with my friends and had good times like cosplaying and drawing manga and hip hop cover dancing. But all of my childhood I spend in dysfunctional family, and so I would say that a lot of it was spent in survival mode and just trying to make sense of the

7:59 world. And I always felt alienated only until I met people from around the world. Then I felt that I belong more. So I started, yeah, talking to a lot of people and seeing many perspectives, and one thing led to another. I like traveling both outwardly and inwardly. And I was also introduced to psychedelics. Psilocybin was the first one.

8:30 And so that got me more curious in the inner world. And yeah, these Californian students, they successfully convinced me to visit them after my graduation. So I did my first America road trip back in 2016. Actually got a tattoo of that too.

8:57 It's from an actual photograph of my naked bud. Oh really? Oh my God that's so hilarious. Standing on top of Mojave Desert looking out into the sunset and I ended that road trip moving to Portland, OR. So was that a photo that you turned into a tattoo?

9:16 Basically, Yeah, Yeah, That's that's pretty awesome. It's basically we're like basically like in case you're wondering what we're looking at, it's like a picture. I can see like a road looks like some trees, some grass and stuff like that. And then ping facing the other way naked. Then I can see her a little bit.

9:33 I see some stars and things as well. Yeah, it's a kind of mirroring tattoo where the top and bottom. I see it's. Upside down, right, Right. Yeah. This is Mount Hood from Oregon, where I ended up staying at the end of that road trip.

9:50 And I decided to move more north, so I went from California to Portland and Seattle, and then I ended up in Vancouver, where I lived the past eight years of my life. And yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that. I have a lot of little questions, but yeah, you said basically what I heard was, you know, Thailand or growing up in Thailand was very different from what you experienced once you started to kind of like meet people from from Western world or from different parts of the

10:26 world. And you mentioned like feeling warmth in a way that was like there was something that you really gained from kind of this connection to the world. The people are, I should say, more of a global aspect. So it kind of opened your eyes a little bit, opened your world and then you started to get curious about like what else is going on kind of thing. And then being exposed to the, you know, university culture and, you know, all the things that come with that. And then kind of being curious

10:53 about not necessarily psychedelics, but you did say psilocybin. So and then exploring that and you mentioned kind of going into the inner world a little bit. So I'm curious if you want to share a little bit more about how you feel your inner world was shifting a little bit through all that. Yeah.

11:11 Oh, actually circle a little back to my childhood. So most of my life I always resonated with death because I had emotional struggles at home. I remember vividly when I was 7, that was the first time. Should I put trigger warning?

11:39 But that was the first time I had the thought that maybe it's better if I'm not here. And but for me, dad felt more like home, felt more welcoming and like relieving, as if there's nothing to worry about anymore. And so I've always been curious of the other realm and I've always had vivid dreams. And so that because that piece of me feels like home, I've always wanted to revisit, not in the sense of like trying to make it happen, but more in curiosity

12:16 about psychedelics and. I'm glad you chose that. Of consciousness. Yeah, I'm glad you chose that path instead of me. Too. Yeah, without saying it. But anyway, go on. So psychedelics, that's kind of the way that you felt you could explore this other world, this other realm, or this inner world. Yeah.

12:36 And I started with psilocybin and also explored with RSD and I heard that I heard about NNDMT that our bodies naturally produces when which is Ayuaska to when we're born, when we dream and when we die. And I was more curious of that, yeah. From the lens of me trying to going back to death as home, to actually experiencing that near death experience through DNT, it made me realize that life is so rich and beautiful. And by being able to quote, UN quote die, I wanted to live more.

13:38 And so yeah, I was really inspired by how much it transformed, it transformed my pain. And I started finding more communities who are like minded with the same curiosity. And I ended up finding first it was the Vancouver Psychedelic Society and then the Flying Sage with which is huge community in Vancouver now consists of therapists, newer neuroscientists, nurses, like minded individuals who want to find a way to healing and find more holistic approach to psychotherapy and living a more

14:29 rich life, more colorful life. Yeah. So when, because when you said you had this kind of DMT ayahuasca ish experience where you, you know, we don't have to go too much into details, but it sounds like you felt like you were approaching a stress of death to the point.

14:45 I actually died like many times. I felt like you were. You died. Yeah. I I went. So how how old are you? That's what I my question. Was I'm 31? No. No. How old were you when? You did that. Because you said seven or something at one point and then I, I was like, I don't think it was 7, but I just want to check.

15:03 Time skip I was in my 20s. More like mid 20s late 20s. OK, cool. Thank you for asking. Yeah, no worries. It helped my brain. Right there. Yeah, yeah. OK, cool. So that you were going to say something about that like dying multiple times?

15:19 Yeah. So during the trip I experienced the the classic waiting room of kaleidoscopic interdimensional colorful Mandela rapidly moving. Yeah. And then I met 2 entities which this is kind of like a the classic story that most people who did DMT experienced.

15:48 They were like, Oh my gosh, finally you're here, welcome back home. Opening with like welcoming open embrace. And and then it shifted into a narrative of me being carried to be buried, and I was buried underneath the ground. And I just observe as this human consciousness waiting as time went by and a tree grew on me.

16:21 And then it was kind of like a time lapse movie of the land I was in turned into a someone's backyard and the family moved in. And then some kid was running around and he pooped on me. Wow, you like transformed into the future of your death and what happened afterwards?

16:42 Oh my God. And yeah, that was the first time that I did, I was buried. The second time I was cremated so I experience multiple that's in there, but it was more like a a narrative, a story, not very visceral. It was not scary later on in life actually did experience actual near death experience in the hospital as also another story. But that was the first time where my curiosity about that realm, that specific experience, was quenched enough for me to, you know, when I was coming back

17:25 online. Layer by layer I could sense my body, the temperature, the senses, my emotions, my protectors, my anxiety, my ego. Like all parts of me that at first it was too much for me to experience. I was kind of running away from the pain.

17:48 But being able to have them back online layer by layer, slowly, it made me really grateful for this. Both body, mind, personality, past experiences, memories. And because of that, I felt if my brain could produce and see all of that, I want to live in this body.

18:15 I want to live life more. And that was the moment where it changed from me trying to go quote UN quote home so much into like, oh wow, OK, let me actually experience life with this body in mind and see where it goes. Wow, that's a beautiful transformation.

18:37 Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that's OK. And then since so that maybe we can bring a little bit more of like what happened after this point. So now you feel like you've basically, you know, you had your experience throughout your life and then you started to basically feel more alive. You started to feel more excited about life. And then you got even more curious about this and you started to move more into this space a little bit more. Yeah.

19:08 Yeah. So tell me a bit about that. So I found a community in Vancouver and we had a discord where a lot of people would share their findings, the insights, the breakthroughs. And luckily it was more about healing trauma than anything else.

19:28 And there were a lot of psychotherapeutic modalities being shared around Parts work, IFS, somatic experiencing. Gaber Mate also lives in Vancouver. And his name, he's the physician who works, who specializes in trauma. He was a family doctor but now he's an educator and just really great teacher on how people cope pain with pain. And how the society, the normal society, doesn't have enough space to heal our pain.

20:21 And so we're all trying to find different ways. And even though we're healed when we come back into the system, there's no nourishing source for us to like. Yeah, it's like hard to integrate. Yeah, yeah. So, so he, he wrote a book called The Myth of Normal. It's really hard to summarize him in like a few sentences, but yeah, he he also worked with people had issues with addiction, heroin addiction.

20:58 In Vancouver, there's a street called Hissing Street where there are a lot of homeless people and just people with pain struggling to experience life. And he spent a lot of time with them. He wrote, also wrote a book, The Realm of the Hungry Ghost, which really touched on like what actually caused addiction and how people coped pain.

21:27 Like there is all trying to get away from pain and how we need a better system to support people. Yeah. So did you work like with him? Was he like a mentor to you? Did you just kind of study alongside or read his books like? I read his books, I went to his talks and also took a training, somatic psychedelic facilitator training. It's online and he was one of the guest teachers on there too. But yeah, I think I downloaded a lot of wisdom from from him and Rick Schwartz, who is the

22:09 founder or creator of IFS Internal Family Systems. And yeah, all these modalities really helped me integrate my big psychedelic experiences both solo with partner, with friends. And so that just expanded my healing journey and spiritual journey alongside of doing yoga. I've been doing yoga for 10 years now. And at first I was doing it because I have scoliosis and it just didn't feel good to be in my body. I think like what Byron said or someone else said this, he didn't like yoga at first.

22:58 He like after yoga. That was me. Like. Like, yoga for me at first was uncomfortable, but I like how I felt after the session. So I started with that. That kept me going. And before I knew it, it became my new sanctuary of the mind where I can just go and rest and I guess I would call home like this. New home.

23:28 Yeah. New home. The spiritual home and yeah, so with the help of psychedelics, the psychotherapy modalities and yoga, everything just led me to my spiritual paths and many awakenings. Many awakenings. Multiple many ego deaths.

23:56 Yeah, a lot of ego deaths, it sounds like. Cool. So this is this is interesting to me. I'm curious to where are you drawn to this work for mostly you? Or are you starting to like expand this that word like are you like, why are you so interested in it?

24:14 Besides the obvious reason of like this is helping you but like is there more to it? Yeah, because of the community, I could see that it really helped other people too. And we just came together and and started hosting events, going to the seminars and finding facilitators, just doing it in groups, but also reflecting each other's wisdoms and insights. And it really we all felt that we found a home for the outcast in the world, that we finally feel that we weirdos belong somewhere.

25:03 And because we were going through the same path of trying to overcome our sufferings and enjoying life more, we have trauma bonding. Basically trauma bonding but also. Sounds nice actually. But it's like camaraderie of like, hey, I know your battles.

25:30 I know your pain without knowing specifically what happened to each other. But like, instantly we recognize each other, that you've been through this. Me too. Like, hey, I caught you. Like, we're walking together. Like Ramdas said, We're only walking. We're just walking each other's home. And yeah, US finding home within with ourselves, finding a sense of belonging and having a huge community where this very like regular breath work, conscious relationship workshop, Microdose Academy, and all these things

26:17 was a huge foundation and resource for us to keep healing in the direction that works for us and keep expanding and growing and supporting each other. And that led to a community of people who started stepping into their knowledge and power and facilitating for others at first by donation. And they started hosting retreats and workshops, sound baths.

26:50 And I was fortunate enough to Co create and work alongside these people as well. So I also started to host psychedelic retreats or it was more 5 MEODMT, which is before a virus, same one as toad, but this one is synthetic.

27:12 And yeah, starting started to help people who who came to me. I was not really like looking for clients, but they came to me to for me to help them sit through all the trauma that they wanted to work with. And I was sitting, but also like an Angel, guiding in their trips.

27:41 Started working with various medicines. So facilitating and holding space for their experience, which I assume because someone had done that for you, or at least you experienced the benefit, you wanted other people to have that opportunity as well.

27:55 Yeah, that's cool. That's really cool. So when before you mentioned mini awakenings, was that referring to your experiences or is that something else? My own experiences. Do you want to talk about that? Sure, you don't have to. I have another question but.

28:14 Where to start? I guess I could start with so that DMT the flip switch of like death and life was the first. But with that was like initial I had another big one where I was already coming down from 200 microgram LSD trip.

28:47 It was at the cabin that me and my friends booked together for a long weekend. And so the this is our tradition that the first night we would do MDMA together or three MMC to bond and work out any relationship issues that we have for each other. And then the second full day we would do LSD or any other medicine of choice and in that evening I was already coming down.

29:19 But during the trip, I some triggers came up that I decided to sit with the discomfort and see what it had to tell me about my past trauma and stock patterns. I was fortunate to be with someone who had very similar shelter trauma as mine. And we just sat across each other eye gazing and witnessing each other as five years old and crying together and being the friend for each other that we didn't had when we were five. And yeah, we were just sobbing a

30:04 lot. And at the end, we kind of tapped into like the emptiness without the ego after working through so much emotions and from that emptiness of the eye gazing, seeing the Cosmo in the other person's eyes. I was curious to do that with myself, so I went to the bathroom. I looked into the bathroom mirror and saw myself and I think I I gazed into my own eye in the mirror for only 5 seconds before Sadaq, the ghost girl from the ring appeared as my reflection the.

30:50 The girl from the. Movie The Ring. Yeah, yeah. The ghost The ghost girl from the movie. The ring. I'm just kind of like shivers. And I have really like irrational fear of ghost, OK. I mean, it's pretty rational in that moment for me. I'm feeling the fear and I wasn't even there. Go on.

31:11 I was really spooked, but luckily my best friend was there and he guided me through it and he said that's my shadow actually. And so I like mastered my strength to face her again. And this is not hallucination. It was really weird for me that I was mostly sober at that point. So I faced myself in the mirror and I looked into my own eye, this one eye, and she came up again in detail. It was it was still me, but my face was all pale and my lips were blue and the white in my

31:55 eyes were red. And she just looked very sad and damaged. And so it was scary for me. But I sat with that fear and I looked into her and asked her what does she want to tell me? What does she want to show me? And I or her started breaking down in tears of relief.

32:26 Like finally you see me, finally you accept me, finally, like I can be here with you. And in that moment I also realized, oh wow, she's a part of me that I try to avoid that I try to run away from my whole life by finding external validations through, you know, being a perfectionist and finding relationships and through everything else to associate disassociates myself. So I sat with her and tears is turned into laughter of like, how silly am I to try to seek

33:17 the other, try to seek the half of myself externally where I've always been here all along. And she glitched. Like my face became patchy and it turned into like one side with human face and the other side is her. Like A2 face. Yeah, yeah, OK.

33:41 Like half and half. This is like a movie. And so I shifted from looking into her eye to the human side eye and suddenly my whole self turned black as if I was actually the shadow. It felt as if like the parts of me that I believe was my personality got shaken.

34:11 And after that I so I switched back into her eye and my whole reflection disappeared and I just saw the bathroom wall. It's really hard to explain, but it was the visceral feeling of like I'm not who I thought I was my whole life and the parts of me that made of me or actually stories or narratives or there are parts, but I don't have to keep holding onto these parts.

34:43 What is me fundamentally is nothingness, and not in the pessimistic way, but I am the environment. I am the bathroom wall. I'm here and I'm not here, but I am everywhere. It's more of an awe sense and a relief that I don't have to keep holding onto this identity of personalities anymore. I can just reprogram and rework myself and drop all the stories that I told myself and become a new me who is actually me at core, not the coping mechanisms that helped me survive my childhood.

35:36 So yeah, that was the second big one. Jesus. OK. And then thank you. Thank you for sharing. I'm just going to, I need to absorb that a little bit. I feel like you're still integrating it, but maybe I'm integrating it. I'm just projecting that on you as you're sharing this story. I'm just imagining this whole situation. I think I just need a second now. This is.

36:01 Thank you for sharing this. I mean, this, you know, this is a big thing that happened in your life. And I don't know, maybe other people have had similar things or maybe they can relate to this aspects of it where they just feel, you know, this disconnect with themselves.

36:15 And it sounds like from your experience, you actually connected with yourself to the point where you actually recognize some truths and that kind of almost set you free. That's what it feels like. Yeah. Yeah, and it was the emotional work that I did before then too that allowed me to be in an empty space of non duality.

36:40 I don't even know that can be called non duality but right I I dropped my narratives. Yeah, you're you're no longer pink. Yeah. You were the bathroom wall apparently. And everything else that's that's yeah, it's curiosity provoking. I'm kind of like, should I try something like that? But it would it, you know, it'll be different, you know, it'll never be the same.

37:04 But it's just, it's such a it's such a unique experience that I'm just kind of like processing it in my brain right now. So I don't really know what to do but. And you can't expect it to happen either. It just kind of came out of nowhere.

37:17 Yeah, but I want to say after that I I shouldn't have, but because I was in such destabilized state of like, Oh no, who am I? Why am I still working 9:00 to 5:00 job that I didn't like? And why am I living in the lifestyle of loops that was not fulfilling for me.

37:44 I decided to quit my job and booked a one way ticket to Bali where I met you and Byron and Paul. Oh, so this happened right before all that? Right before. That shoot, now I feel like I'm part of the story immensely. Yeah.

37:59 So actually another awakening that followed that was during 200 hour. It was Amara's workshop after the voice and vulnerability that opened everyone up, which is my favorite part of the training if you're curious. I'm not going to spoil it, but you should take the training if you're curious. A lot of people that are listening probably already took the training, so they're probably familiar with it, but I'm sure there's a lot of people that haven't and they're like, what is this stuff that they're

38:32 doing over there? It sounds like a cult. Oh no, it kind of is, but in a good way. Yes, yeah, in a good way. Cult with all the freedom. Anyhow, go on. I kind of interrupted you there. Yeah, it was. It was Amara's workshop where Byron had everyone come to whisper into my ears like angels, saying all the good things about myself.

38:57 I never believed that was myself. And yeah, this is the whole experience of the training, going through such intense, labor intensive first week and the second week where everyone laid bare their vulnerabilities and having people support me. While I was heartbroken at the time too, I also let go of my relationship.

39:25 So I quit my job, like go of my relationship. I just wanted to empty myself as much as possible. Yeah. And it was such a big transition for me. And so my Ridge was not stable at all. And having all the classmates to be there for me, receiving all the love and care in such a gentle and empowering way. It healed some of my abandonment wounds and the belief that I'm not good enough that.

40:06 I don't want to say it totally healed it, but it healed really big part of the wound that believe I was not good enough and that shifted something in me fundamentally and that was another awakening for me as well that my life changed since then.

40:26 OK, that one's not as intense, but it's still very impactful, sounds like. Yeah. Very, very impactful. OK. So you mentioned duality or nonduality. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? Sure, I guess it's the way I integrate these experiences.

40:49 Mystical experiences or. What some people might consider voodoo. Yeah, yeah. Or crazy. I know. Actually, I didn't believe in like these things before I experienced them. I had always be in like the skeptical scientific goal. I was not raised religious at all, even though I went to a public high schools where we would pray every morning and Thailand is a pretty religious country. Right.

41:15 Probably felt more forced, maybe more. Yeah, because obligated. Yes. Because it was so forced to me, I tried to run away from it as much as possible and just go into like, science, yeah. So non duality is where we're going.

41:38 After experiencing these mystical experiences that I it was very opposite of what I believed in. I needed a lot of tools to integrate and to make sense of it. And I think the so I tapped into a shadow work, Jungian's shadow work as well.

42:06 And in that framework there is the duality of us. So there's the ego, but also the feminine, masculine in us, in everything, the two sides, the polarities, the opposites of all things that make up oneness of things. And in that oneness it actually lies on top of nothingness which is the 0 or the actual truth which is non duality.

42:37 And having this framework help me look at myself, my pain, my emotions, negative positive emotions, relationships, conflict resolution, like all things that I had a hard time processing or processing the triggers. And now I have the tool of like looking at things from two sides. What is my part in this?

43:09 What is their part in this? Because there is no one truth. There are subjective truths that we can see from each other's perspective. The truth made-up the whole of all sides and also coming back into the body as well. Like, yeah, there, there are a lot of people out there who will pursue or seek spiritual awakenings that they would actually, I would say from my, my own journey, since I found such profound sense of belongingness with this community, before I knew it, I developed a spiritual ego

44:02 because I was trying to get rid of the ego so much. And there was a sense of identity that, OK, I'm not who I thought I was. Now I found my new gifts or whatever and I want to serve people, but now there's a whole community of people who serve and some of them on Instagram look cooler than the other. Now you're kind of kind of build competitiveness and like comparing yourself to others subconsciously. And that's also a trap of the spiritual path as well. I feel like I went on a tangent

44:47 here. No, no, I'm still with you. I'm still with you. I mean, the duality thing was the basically to me that like it's not the same, but like I think of like yin Yang theory a little bit with that. It's like one thing doesn't exist without the other.

45:02 Yes. So like, you know, sadness, happiness and all these types of things, which for you it sounds like that actually helped you with like your process or your integration to be able to recognize truths, as you said, and also accept probably certain truths of you.

45:21 Where it's like, OK, if there is this one side that I see, well, according to, you know, this, there's something else. There's another side, there's another perspective of everything which is extremely valuable, right? So, for example, having something like pain, pain doesn't exist without pleasure, right?

45:41 So when we're in experiencing pain or we're experiencing challenging moments in life, then while it is not so fun in the moment, recognition that in order for this to exist, there is another truth that you know, this will probably be temporary and we can eventually experience the other, right?

46:00 So experiencing pain allows us to actually experience pleasure or as experiencing sadness allows us to experience joy. But when we're experiencing those undesired emotions or these undesired feelings or states of being, we're kind of get caught up in it. And it's like, this is me now, or this is my life or this is all I feel.

46:19 But bringing in that understanding like this is just a, this is a temporary thing that can, that is going to lead you to liberation to that other thing. And then also that other thing, sad or joy or or pleasure is also a temporary thing which could eventually shift the other way. So that concept in itself called yin Yang theory, call it, you know, non duality or whatever, just helps us to make sense of of acceptance, I'd say more of our overall experience of life. Yeah, that's what it sounds like

46:47 for you as well. Yeah, especially because I'm a highly sensitive person and I have CPTSD. Whenever I get caught up in my own negative loops, I wouldn't kind of dwell in that emotions by reminding myself that not only is temporary, but it has the benefit for me to look underneath it to find joy, to find the things that didn't get to express because it was suppressed with the emotion on top. And yeah, whenever there's an oscillation of life, the ups and downs, whenever I'm so down low,

47:36 I know there's hope that things will get better. And whenever it's so high up, I don't try to attach or try to make it last forever. And that helped with integrating not knowing who I am and letting go of expectations of how should be or life should be. Basically like living life more consciously. Very impactful, Like I can kind of feel it off of you. Just like this whole, this whole conversation, I can kind of feel your energy from it and how it's

48:17 just so real, right? And you know, we're talking on a podcast, so you might not pick that up from the audio, but I can feel it just from you sharing these things. And like, it's just so like, that's why I said like it almost feels like you're kind of integrating and as you're talking about even still, like you're still kind of in that process, even though it's happened, you know, a while back, which is very real and authentic.

48:37 And I love that. So I really appreciate you sharing this and actually coming on and you know, because I'm, I'm sure people can resonate and, and connect with some of these things that you're sharing. Absolutely. So it's extremely valuable for others as well. So thank you.

48:50 Yeah, yeah. If someone is or has been able to relate with some of your story, whether it be just like, you know, some of the disconnections from like earlier in life to realizations and then out there in their process. Because we're all in our process, right, of trying to figure things out. And how do we kind of, you know, produce or minimize our traumatic experiences that we're are being triggered throughout life and trying to like move through that and kind of move towards more pleasure and

49:17 hopefully less pain, even though there is the duality. And but often times people do feel lost. So they're not really sure what to do. And you know, we're talking about these extreme experiences that you had. And maybe some people might be thinking like, oh, maybe I should try that or, or maybe that's too scary for me. Or like, what would you say to someone like that who's kind of in the stage?

49:37 Like, I don't know how how to like digest this information? Like, what should I do next? Or. I'm curious, you know, first of all, we'll let them reach out to you if they want to. Is that OK? Yeah. OK, cool. We'll put that in the show notes.

49:47 But before we get to that, yeah. What would you say to someone who's kind of like, yeah, it's like I resonate with your story and like, yeah, what do you think I should do kind of thing? For me, what has helped the most is coming back to the body because the body doesn't have narratives and witnessing the raw truth of what you actually experiencing without attaching stories to it. Because I think stories are what made us stuck in the loop. For me personally, it was what

50:25 made me feel like life was too much and I didn't want to be here. But by knowing that you have the power to change and by knowing that doesn't stay forever, and maybe that's not even true what you're thinking, it gives a sense of relief. And like you've been carrying on a backpack without knowing you've been carrying.

50:51 Like, why don't you just put it down and actually feeling that you're, like, feel that you're tired without beating yourself up for being tired and actually, like, look around and observing. I think that's the first point of, I would say, grounding and coming back to a sense of self, observing your body.

51:19 Yeah. Was that like, was yoga was one of those things for you? Yeah, yeah. Yoga was big grounding practice for me to experience flow without the mind or the mind. Well actually the in the empowerment flow, the mind is in there too.

51:41 But instead of trying to figure things out, it was more in the flow state where you just let things happen and things arise. There is no control of trying to make anything and therefore it's like when you exhale completely, you don't try to inhale back.

52:01 The bodies just inhales back automatically and that's surrendering into the experience for me without the tight control of trying to make it something. I think eventually the answer is just arise for you. Yeah, the truth.

52:17 The truth cannot be hidden for long. Actually, I think I recently read a quote I don't know who by, so maybe if you know what you can tell me. But there's three things in this world that we can't hide. The sun, the moon, and the truth.

52:33 Yeah, that sounds familiar, but I don't remember. Yeah, I don't know either, but I recently caught that and it just sprung to me. Amazing. Thank you for that. Is there anything else that you'd like to share? We're getting close to the end, so I'm just kind of being mindful of time, but also giving an opportunity to, you know, use this platform to, yeah, share something. Just imagine someone who's listening to this and they're just like, this is really

53:02 helpful and really inspiring. And, you know, I want to know more and I do want to connect with Ping and I want to talk to more about it. But I'm also kind of like, yeah, what do I do? Or I'm also feeling a bit lost in these types of things. So I like how you said, you know, coming into the body is a great way to start.

53:20 But like, what else? Maybe try like trying something like if they're like, oh, I'm curious about psychedelics. I mean, you seem to know a lot about it, but it's a, it's a scary thing for people to like, want to enter into.

53:31 So it's like, what would you say to someone who's like, I kind of want to try, but I'm also like, I don't know if I want to do it. Because I've done so much and I've facilitated so much, I'm cautious on encouraging people or anyone to try it and there's so many of them. Each thing for specific journey that you want to work with. I would say if you're curious about experiencing the classic psychedelic experience, the tryptamines like mushrooms, LSDDMT, ayahuasca.

54:10 Find a proper guide and ideally find a therapist who can help you integrate the journey. Psychedelic aware therapist as well, but if that's not feasible because there are very few therapists around the world who work with psychedelics, I would say like a proper guide who is trauma aware.

54:37 Not just any trip setter, but a guide that could be really helpful. And they can mitigate these stabilizing experiences after. And finding a community to help each other out and like reflect, mirror back the insights and breakthroughs and hold each other is essential.

55:00 OK, Yeah. Cool, so do your homework. Yes, find someone that you feel connected with possibly that feels trustworthy enough to facilitate the experience. Secondly, have some sort of integration plan, whether it be with a therapist or maybe a community could be part of it.

55:20 But I think integration being a huge, very important part of basically all the stuff that we talk about on this podcast. And you had recently, you just finished basically do the empowerment training, empowerment flow, if you're not familiar with it, it's a whole new style of yoga that basically allows us to go deeper. And again, that part is also really important to have the integration of processing the things that come through often truths.

55:45 And then the third one, which I kind of already mentioned is the the community aspect, having people to kind of feel supported with that can connect with and have like a similar experience. That sounds like a great, great advice.

55:55 Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So starting small. And if someone doesn't actually want to try to like do some of this, like if someone's like, actually I don't want to do that. Like it sounds too much for me. What would you say to that? There are other like so many other tools like breath work, cacao right Cacao is a great heart opening medicine as well cacao and ecstatic dance, yoga, meditation but. If someone's like, but I already do that stuff and I don't experience those things, what is

56:28 it that they're missing? Why are you trying to experience that thing? Like what are you trying to get out of? Because I don't think anything that we chase will come to us. It will only come when we surrender and stop chasing. There you go.

56:50 There you go, Tom and Jerry. That's what makes me think of that right there. Stop chasing. It's also a law of attraction. If you want something in life then you have to be the flower that attracts the bees. Change from within, change how you think of yourself, the lens you view the world in, and that will shift the vibration that you're on, and that will attract people with the same resonance and things and like opportunities in life as well.

57:26 And that's the state of surrender. Whatever comes, don't worry about the means. The answer will come when it belongs to you. Well said. Amazing. Thank you, Ping. Thank you, Michael. Yeah, this has been great. I mean, I know I've known you for a while, but I now I know you more, so I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, sharing your insights and allowing me to feel this with you in this room.

57:56 I'm sure a few people might have felt that as well through the microphone, but yeah, I really appreciate you. I appreciate you too. Thank you so much. If anybody does want to reach out, you said that's OK, Yeah, we can put, we can put your whatever it is, Instagram or something like that in the show notes so they can reach out, ask you a question or just share a comment, feedback.

58:16 We're always welcoming that kind of stuff. As always. Otherwise, thank you so much for tuning in this week. And yeah, without any final words, you said so many nice things, but maybe I'll give you one last opportunity. Do you have any final words?

58:32 You just put me on the spot. Yeah, I like to do that sometimes. I guess it's more of like my most recent insight, whoever that I used to judge is actually the part of myself that I still judge. And so like, a lot of people would identify themselves as, let's say, spiritual, and then they still judge people who are not. What in that evokes the feeling of denial in self? And for me, when we start looking at other people as part of ourselves that we disown and

59:18 deny, the heart can expand more and we can drop the narratives of like, what are the requirements for you to feel loved towards the other person? And in that way, you can have more compassion for other people whose lifestyle doesn't match what you think should be the correct lifestyle or whose perspective is not the same as yours.

59:53 And yeah, that's how I approach non duality as well. I can hold so much of what I believe and disagree with others, but their view is also valid and if we all can appreciate each other's perspectives, I think the world would be much more peaceful place.

1:00:21 OK, that was good. See, that's why I like putting people on the spot. Thank you, Ping. OK, thank you everyone for tuning in, and we'll speak to you next week. Take care for now. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the goingproyoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days, where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queuing, sequencing, yoga anatomy.

1:00:47 So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn ractice and grow, this latform is definitely for you. So I definitely suggest checking it out goingproyogacom right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.