Special Guest Expert - Paul Gotel: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Paul Gotel: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
What does it take to create a vibrant, thriving life? First, the sad news is that Thoreau was right. Most people are leading quiet lives of desperation, lacking in meaning, fulfillment and vitality. But we choose more. We choose to create extraordinary lives. And The Art of Vibrant Living Show entertains you with inspiration, empowerment and education to create your life into a masterpiece. It's time. Let's vibe up. Hello, Hi, y'all. I am so excited to be with you today. Honored and privileged that you are investing some time here. Whether that is live or by rebroadcast. We have an amazing show with a phenomenal guest who I know you are going to love and even better, you are going to see the world differently after he is here. And I will say more about him in a moment. First, though. The Art of Vibrant Living Show. What the heck? What does that mean? Well, it's all about us, you and me. Creating vibrancy, creating extraordinary lives. And it doesn't tend to happen by accident. There are forces that pull us back. And so we need inspiration, education, empowerment, to create a different way of being in the world. And that's what this show is all about, to empower you to live the most vibrant, thriving life you possibly can. Today's guest is an amazing dude by the name of Paul Gotel, and he's done so much in his life, traveled so much from a long standing, very successful career in the music world, to leaving all that behind in some disillusionment, to having a spiritual awakening, traveling the world. I think it's 92 countries he visited on a five year spiritual pilgrimage, you know, And just like the hero's quest, he went out, he transformed and he brings back to the village some amazing gifts. And now he's the author of a fantastic book called The Big You. He's a life coach and he's a renowned speaker, traveling the world, speaking and helping people revolutionize their own experience. So y'all are going to love this. I'm so excited that he's with us. Please welcome to the stage, Mr. Paul Gotel. Paul Thank you. Thank you.

Paul Gotel:
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Daniel. Welcome to everybody watching live from wherever you are, whatever time, whenever you're seeing this. I'm so pleased to be here. It's great to be invited on a Vibrant Living Show because ultimately the whole of life is your vibration and what you send, you know, what what frequency you're running is the frequency that you're experiencing. I like to say life is a is a is like you're experiencing the life of your the past of your own imagining. So the experience that you're actually having has actually happened within you in your energetic field. And then it gets projected out into what we call reality and then you get to taste it and then you go, Whoa, what's all this? But ultimately, you're the one who actually sent that vibration out. So I love the idea that you're doing this, this show and this podcast and bringing that to people's attention that ultimately it is your own vibration that is creating and the experience that you are then taking in.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, beautifully, nicely said. And Paul, one of the things I love about you and your work is you, like me, are a philosopher, right? Absolutely. Beautiful thoughts that for a lot of people are like, Whoa, what's that? And so I want to get into some of that with you and the the new operating system as you describe it. First, though, would you be up for just, you know, I gave people a little overview of your life story, but would you expand that into, like, you know, a minute or two of just what brought you here and what's, you know, why you're doing what you're doing now?

Paul Gotel:
Absolutely. I can totally share that. I mean, honestly, a minute might be a bit pushing it, but, you know, if it is just a minute, then we'll get very clear on that. What brought me here today to share with you or to share what I'm sharing and what's coming through me is basically a life of, uh, um, let's say, extreme challenges. I like to call them my life deaths. And that's when you go through life and situations happen to you that are so challenging that an aspect of your identity, something that you've invested in and created and feel strongly about, and that is part of you. I mean, this is mostly subconscious for most of us. Um, and you identify that that is you, and then an experience or a series of experiences come to you and they basically break that apart. They deconstruct that aspect of you. And essentially this happened to me from starting from a, like literally I died with E.coli in hospital. I had this like near-death experience and then I came back, had ten years where literally every major, let's say I had an emotional death, I had a financial death, I had a legal death, I had a social death, which was mind blowing because I really didn't realize how much we all invest in our social identity. And then to make sure I was listening, I had another near-death experience. So over these ten years and it's almost like the, the, the last the second one was like, were you listening? Did you take note? And what was very profoundly obvious was that that which had died, all these aspects of myself that we are so invested in that most of us literally, literally spend most of our life sabotaging ourself to gain and build were actually as they were taken away, there was layers and layers of weight and relief. And essentially I came through this experience understanding that my purpose from this point onwards was to share this realization, was to share the the fact of the matter is that, you know, I talk about self revolution, but essentially and I'll go into that more but essentially it is it is your own identity that is the prison. And so through these life deaths, I got to see that there was an aspect of me that was more authentic and real and available when these aspects of myself that the world sees as valuable, that I saw as valuable, died and were taken away, what was left became more was like it was like an act of purification.

Paul Gotel:
And so why I'm here is that I have this perspective that's almost like the opposite of pretty much everything else I hear out there. And honestly, if somebody else was saying what I was saying, I probably would be like, Great, you go, go, go, You go do it. You know? But there's something in the experience and my experience with existing beyond my, let's say, my identity and the presence that I got to be and hold and that peace, witnessing the identity then coming back into the identity and slowly deconstructing it through these what life would call traumatic experiences, life deaths, that then then come through that and understand that each layer that gets removed is like it's almost like a river. And a river has banks and it's like our identity is the banks, it's the, it's the we think of it like a container, but it's actually a conduit. So when you think of a container, you try to add to yourself. But when you're a conduit, it's actually the more you remove of yourself, the more that source creator, God, the universe, whatever form energy, whatever word works for you can come through. And so life becomes this journey where you take opportunities, where I take opportunities, where life removes another layer of what, let's say Paul might be restricted by, such that source can come through in a more grander and wiser and let's say, unrestricted way. And and honestly, it's the most it's the most fun and the most entertaining and the most joyful experience that I can have.

Daniel Aaron:
That. That's awesome. I love what you had to say with that. And I think we'll go deeper into that. And, you know, and it's so good for our audience to hear, you know, if they look at your life now, you know you're doing well, I think on all levels. From what I can tell, you're traveling the world, you're having a great time. You're influencing people. You've published a successful book. You've got a great family situation. You have a beautiful home here on Maui. And it would be easy for people to look and say, well, isn't he lucky? But to hear that, you know, actually you had some really rough times in your life and and in some way we're going I don't want to say the wrong track, but you're going down a track that was not leading you to inner fulfillment, if we call it that. And you had to get the what I call sometimes the divine wax from the divine on the head, the near-deaths, the stripping away of things that you valued in order to shift your track. And I love that you used the metaphor of stripping things away, because one of the ways I look at life and my work often is so The Art of Vibrant Living And the call is make your life a masterpiece. And, you know, I often think like when we think of the masterpieces in sculpture, right, What David say, you know, what would Michelangelo say? Well, I just took away the parts that were not essential. Right. And it sounds like that's what you're describing in some way is, is God the universe, the higher self is taking away the parts that are not really serving us. So what you know, like we can go deep into this topic and I know you got so much to share. What would you say, though, for someone right now who is in the midst of some challenge or, you know, some things are being taken away or they're not getting to what they want, What's a practical way that you work with people in terms of how to understand and raise their vibration with that?

Paul Gotel:
So this as you said, this is a this is a very deep subject. But also one of the wonderful things about the philosophies that that that I say come through me, so to speak, is that is that they they simplify. And so I'm always looking what is simple, what can directly apply to anybody that's exists and has existed in human conscious form. You know, I'm not quite I mean, I believe actually that that the the operating system I've discovered actually applies to anything that exists. But, you know, at the moment I'm occupying human form and I'm using a human brain. So obviously that's part of the dynamic. So I try and simplify it. And so what I was looking at was what is the you know, when you're saying someone's going through a hard time, someone's dealing with, you know, like suffering in some contexts, whether it be emotional, whether it be intellectual, whether it be spiritual. And suffering is always, uh, basically the what we think about something as opposed to the something. So whatever the something is, it's how we interpret it. And so I was like, Well, what's the root cause of our interpretation? And what I recognized is that the root cause of interpretation is language and mental processing. So we have language, but we also think in a language. It's like when people have two languages, they go, Oh, I'm thinking in Russian and I'm talking in English, so I have to translate in my head. And then when you get fluid, you go, Oh, well, I'm thinking and talking in English or whatever it is. And so what I understood is that at that base level, how did language born, what was it born from? And it was born from this this singular, literally the first stage of separation. And so the first stage of separation is that we think there's good and bad, right, wrong or even good and evil, as we call it. And so everything is then dynamic into this dynamic, like into this paradigm of separation. And one of the general ideologies around spirituality that came about a few decades ago was, well, it's what serves you and what doesn't serve you. So what could be you could see as good somebody on the other side of the world in a different situation could see as bad and vice versa.

Paul Gotel:
And so we have this sort of interpretation based on your own experience as to whether you see something as good or bad. But what I discovered at its at its core was that we think gain is good and bad is loss. And so or you know you know good is a gain and and and the most loss would be like say the loss of life and we call that you know in those extreme levels of loss we call evil. But essentially what's really interesting about the word evil is that it's live backwards. So live is live and vile is evil. And so that mirroring that that paradigm had me dig into that. And I recognized that actually we come in like as this conduit, like we come in as this amazing like opening experience. It's a child and it just expression just comes through and the identity doesn't. You don't come in with an identity, and identity is slowly adopted. And so what I recognized is that we create. So the things when you're talking about the Michelangelo's like creation, right, the the fact that you maybe have a block of wood and then you carve it away as humans, what actually happens is we come in and we add, let's say it's almost like we add all these, we adopt programs, we make conclusions. And so things happen. We go, What did that feel good? Did that feel bad? And we adopt that to us. We adopt it so we make a judgment. And then so the observation judgment becomes a conclusion. We adopt that conclusion. And sometimes as a kid subconsciously, and that goes into our programing, the collection of that programing is what we call identity. So then we are then building. So we're almost we're covering up that pure source with this levels of identity. And then what happens is you get to a certain stage in your life and then you then you start the carving and, and so actually the carving is the removal of the identity that you've adopted, which, you know, sounds a little strange, but the point of it is that actually for you to experience who and what you are is only available in the context of the removal of what you're not.

Paul Gotel:
So by creating a, let's say, a mask of what you're not, then when you remove that mask, there's a sense of relief, there's a sense of understanding of what you actually are. And this is why it's a circular game. So there's a sort of born create the identity and then start being challenged, have the removal. And as the removal happens, so then you each stage becomes a stage where you understand who and what you are and were always. But you can understand it in the loss. And so what I started to understand is that what we see as good, which is gain, was actually an act. Anything that you tried to gain had the mentality that what you were wasn't enough. And so we as children, the first thing that all children have is they come in and there's big and they're huge and they're like and then then the parent or, you know, some carer goes, Hang on. Calm down. That is too much. And so essentially what happens is that we then adopt what I call the dimmer switch. So we put this dimmer switch on and we tone ourselves down. And if we're really lucky, we get to be, you know, when we're really good with a dimmer switch. We say, okay, now you can be an adult. Now you can sit at the adult table and we start adulting. And then what happens is that we we go into every situation and we go, Oh, hang on. Am I going to lose something here or am I going to gain something here? And so his authentic flow, like from a child's perspective, right. But now as an adult, you go, oh, hang on, and you have a border control and the border control says, Mm. Could this embarrass me? Could this upset someone? Would I. Could I lose something here? Okay. Don't do that, babe. Yet. Or hang on. If I change my behavior, if I shift this, could I potentially get something? And so every moment we edit our authenticity. So we pay for what we get with our authenticity. And so what we get doesn't match us. It matches the identity that is actually in a lack mentality because it thought it was too much.

Paul Gotel:
And so we suppress ourselves, hold ourselves back because we hold ourselves back. We can't feel the expression of the power and the love and the authenticity we are. And so we have to then have to try and gain. And that's why Gain even started. And so now we trade. So every game is like this trade. So we trade our authenticity in order to get some value that is actually less than what you are. I mean, basically anything you added to yourself your whole life made you less than what it was, less than what you came in with. What you came in with was actually is your authentic value and quality. But because you thought it was too much, you suppressed it. And the fact of the matter now and now when you're if you're lucky and you get to this point, you know, so people are doing this and they're starting and they start reading self-help books or listening to this kind of stuff, they say you're you're enough. And they go, Yes, I'm enough. But I actually say, that's not true. You're actually more than enough. You're actually this amazing expression. And so you have two choices. First choice, you suppress it, and now you exhaust yourself every day, which is why you want to try and get approval from everybody else. You want to do things to get impress people, money, fame, power, success, whatever it is to you. It's just trying to alleviate the fact that you don't feel worthy because you actually are doing the self-sabotage of holding yourself back. You actually think the thing that you think is the worst thing about you is actually the gift that you came to share with the world. That's what's so crazy. So when I work with people, it's this it's this complete reversal because actually when you start this process, you recognize that it isn't good gain, bad loss, it's good loss, bad gain. And so actually, as anything you lose couldn't be you. So those extreme circumstances that I talked about earlier, even losing my life and yet having a presence of being aware of it made me understand that that actually wasn't me. There was a let's say there was a presence that was beyond the creation of the identity.

Paul Gotel:
And when we can see that, when we can start understanding that every loss is actually an act of purification, you could only lose what you're not. So when life starts taking things away from you, it's taking away the things that you added and you sabotaged yourself for. And so what you got was something that matched what you're not. And so then it becomes a cage, a trap. And so essentially it becomes, you know, you shift this whole thing and then life becomes about what can I lose today in that context? In other words, what can I actually let go of that I that has me being inauthentic to keep it? And then it doesn't mean that you don't have anything. What it means is that what comes, that come, what stays, let stay, what goes let go. This is a very Vedic philosophy, but essentially you don't do any grasping and you don't do any holding because they're grasping and holding will have you be inauthentic. And so, yes, you might get fame, money, power, success people in your life, but that will require you to not be yourself to keep them. And that's why we get these people who are celebrities or famous, etcetera, and then they start to get depressed or they take drugs or they look for escapism and people are like, But you've got everything. And you're like, Ah, but it costs me everything to keep it. And so it's that whole switch and obviously it's quite radical, but when you start to see how that really works, it creates this amazing sense of reversal in your life, and life becomes about noticing that when you're in insistence. So this is back to really answering your question. If you're in this situation, how do you do this? Well, when you're trying to grasp, you're in insistence. When you're in when you're trying to not lose something, you're in resistance. And so what I say to people very simply is that when you're in insistence, lean back, when you're in resistance, like, I don't want to do this, lean in. Because the part of you that doesn't want to do it is your ego who's trying, which is trying to protect you. You've programed it to look after you and it's saying, No, there's loss here and you've told it.

Paul Gotel:
Loss is bad, gain is good. So your ego constantly will will basically have you be inauthentic to gain because that's the programing. When you reverse the program, you say, Oh, loss is good. He goes, Oh, okay. Oh, I don't want to do oh, okay, let's lean in, because it's going to. It's an act of purification. And then when you. When you lean in towards getting something and you start feeling you're in insistence and you're starting to not be yourself to get it, that's actually your ego leans back because now you've programed it and you say it's an act of pollution. Yes, I'll get this thing, I'll get the money or whatever, but what will it cost me? You know, you suddenly recognize I say the act of self revolution is when you recognize the cost wasn't worth the payoff. And then that's when you start to understand that you are you all the decisions you've made in your life to be inauthentic, to pay with your authenticity, to gain something and to not lose something, has created this cage which creates this restriction and it's down to you and everything outside of you is reflecting that. I wasn't sure that wasn't a short answer. But as you can see, it's a complete paradigm shift for sure.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah, it is. You know, it goes against so much of our training and, you know, and your explanation of it shows, well, you've given a lot of consideration to this. You're a deep thinker. There's I think I counted 437 different things you brought up that we could dive into deeper. Right. It brings up well.

Paul Gotel:
You did say you did say it was a philosopher. And that's that is true. It's it is at my heart, I'm a philosopher. And then in the world, I'm a visionary. So, you know, it's like with me, I'm a philosopher. And then, you know, my the the the vision is, is what what drives me to interact.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, you know, it's interesting. Let's talk about philosophy for a minute, because when I was I went to college to be a symphony musician and then did.

Paul Gotel:
Another.

Daniel Aaron:
Yeah in the first in the first year, I realized like, man, I just don't have the discipline to practice six hours a day. I'm not going to. I got to be realistic. I'm not going to do it. So then I was like, All right, well, what do I want to focus on? So I switched to philosophy, religion and English, and of course, all of my family and the, you know, the parents are like, what are you going to do with that? What kind of job are you going to get? And but I figured then, like, I got to understand life and that's really what what philosophy is all about. And then I was on the edge at one point of going back to get a PhD in philosophy, and something held me back and I wasn't sure what it was. But then later I realized, well, philosophy tends to be a taking things apart to analyze them. And then a little while after that I got into I had a similar near-death experience, a different one, but a similar experience of losing everything and waking up. And then I got into yoga and then I put it together. I was like, Well, yoga is a art and science of putting things together, right? And but I didn't really I didn't really come back to thinking about philosophy as, as a practical thing. Part of me was thinking about, well, these are, you know, old men in ivory towers and puffing on pipes and talking about stuff. But how does that apply to the real world? But in the last few years, I've dived deeply into stoic philosophy specifically. And part of what I realized is philosophy is so practical, right? It's about creating a way of understanding ourselves and the world that helps us to live better. Right? Helps us to create great lives. And and I bounce this back to you in a second here. I'm thinking about one of the things you said about how we're we're programed to not want to lose things to to resist the loss of things, things being taken away. And there's a in behavioral economics, there's a term called loss aversion. And it's been studied extensively.

Daniel Aaron:
And it's such an irrational thing like, you know, if somebody says, well, here, I'll, you know, I'll give you 50 of these or I'll take 75 away of these, and it's the same thing. And well, logically you'd say, well, so no, the other way take I'll take away 50, but I'll give you 75. People will hold on to the thing even though it's less than the thing that's given to them, because we're wired for this aversion to losing things, you know, which as you were speaking, I realized, well, that's just clearly part of the primal brain, the limbic brain, the survival system. So, you know, it's such a powerful concept that you present in a in a holistic, articulate way in terms of weight. Losing is good. Gaining is bad. Well, that goes against everything we've we've learned. But here's a question I want to bounce back to you because you gave the example of we might look at celebrities or people that seem to have it all. And and part of what you said, as I understood it, is well, do they really and or maybe that's all taking away from who they really are or their their innate positive experience of life. So would you say, though, is it possible to have it all and live a vibrant, thriving life and have a full expression of one's self and authenticity?

Paul Gotel:
Absolutely. I mean, the the the the thing about it, I mean, let's just just take a little step back around the concept of all so imagine that every food in the world was on this giant smorgasbord table. You were on this amazing cruise ship and you go up to that that place and you know that you know that that all the foods included. So like, here we go. Like and you go into that room and in that room there's this every food there. And, and and you can have everything. You can have it all and you pick up a plate and you start putting things on there. And then at a certain point, you know, and then maybe the first day, like it's quite often it's a breakfast or something, right? And you put everything on your plate, but you're there for a few days, and then the next day you're like, Oh, well, I'll put a few bits less. And then and by the third or fourth day you're like, I don't need to stuff myself. I'm not really tasting it. I'm not really having the experience, you know? In other words, we have the availability of all, but we choose the limitation to have the experience of taste of specific. So in the same way, I could give you another analogy, which is a camera, so you could have a super wide angle. So let's imagine you're the camera, but you can have you can put a lens on with a super wide angle lens and see this amazing landscape. But if you want to zoom in and see the back of that beetle, you'd need a very macro lens and zoom in and you'd have to take your attention away from all the other infinite things that are in that landscape. And so limitation is not a restriction in the context of it doesn't serve you. It's actually a very useful thing. But the context is it's understanding being conscious that you have the choice to switch. And what happens is when we get stuck, we think we're limited to an amount. And therefore and that limitation is a limitation of containment. So we believe we're a small container and we're trying to increase our value by adding to it.

Paul Gotel:
But actually the as I explained earlier, we're a conduit. And so actually at a certain point we'll have a it's like the river banks are this wide and we're experiencing this and it's great and that's what we can deal with and we love it. And then at a certain point we're like, okay, I want more. And so to get more, you actually have to let go, let go of some of the limitation of that identity. In other words, remove that lens, put a wider lens on, which actually is you have to lose aspects of yourself that previously helped you focus and have a specific experience that now are no longer serving you because you want a wider experience or you're ready for, let's say, an upgrade. So then what will happen is you will start to feel limited. The what I call the big you. You know, when I say the big you, the big you is the same in all of us. So it's the big unification. So it's a play on words. So we are all one unity. And so in that context, the part of you that is part of that big unification understands that and then sends you experiences to deconstruct that, that restriction that you previously had served you to focus in so that you can remove aspects of that you remove aspects of your limited identity such that you can take, let's say the source or the expression coming through you is like a wider like, so the river gets wider and then your experience of life gets wider. And so ultimately the all was always available to you, is always available to you, but your context of your journey through the widening and the acceptance of that is basically so that you can taste things specifically. All colors are like white, light has all colors in, but there's no color. It's it's like it's not the absence of color, it's the presence of every color. But the presence of every color means you can't experience red, blue, green. So by limiting or refracting white light, you then can have all these experiences of different colors and collectively you can make beautiful art or pictures or visually see the world. And so limitation or restriction gives us the opportunity of experience.

Paul Gotel:
The problem is when we think that that limitation is static, when we think our identity is a singular thing that is traveling through. What's actually happening is you are a fluidity. You are always changing. You're not a constant and so you're holding on is where the suffering is. You're holding on to what seems like people, places and things, but also yourself is what limits that experience. Because when you start in the context of vibrant living and when you start living as a fluidity and you recognize you stop restricting the vibration that wants to come through now, then you allow yourself, Oh, I'm now in wide angle. Oh, this is really interesting. I'm now going to zoom down into this focus. Oh, now I'm going. And you allow yourself and anything that served you previously that no longer doesn't serve you or is not necessary is a hindrance. It's like if you had to walk around with a hammer and a drill in your hand all day, every day, you couldn't pick up a piece you couldn't eat. You need to put those things down and pick up your knife and fork. And then you put your knife and fork down and you pick up your phone or whatever it is. And so it's being fluid in the context of the tools that are not actually attaching yourself to any anything constant, because ultimately. As we all know, five years ago you were different. Five years in the future, you'll be different. You're not. The idea that you're an identity is actually the restriction and all the suffering is you trying to hold on to this identity that you never were. And so ultimately the all is available, but it's available in the context of it moves through your experience. You wouldn't want to experience all at the same time because then you can experience nothing. The actual peace is the absence of experiencing anything. And then and in the absence of experiencing anything, then you experience everything. But there's no specific anything to it. So I like to say that God or source is infinite potentiality. So that what that means is that there's a resource of energy that is undefined.

Paul Gotel:
And so that's why the deconstruction, the loss is actually entropy, the force of entropy, which is taking apart that which no longer serves so that it becomes goes back to the resource of an infinite potentiality. Everything that we have, ourselves included is finite actuality. It has it is only in existence by our attention to it. But then when we shift our attention, it releases back. And so when you start understanding that providence is the actual way of the universe, that actually and it comes through you, not to you, then you again, that shifts that whole paradigm. So it's not just good loss, bad gain, it's actually this is a reflection of what's coming from here. This is the screen that your movie is projecting on, and there is no limitation here. The limitation is here based on what you want to see so you can have it all. But the truth is that you wouldn't want it all at the same time. You would. You want to have an existence that has this life, life, this human life, but could potentially from my experience, when my body was dead, I was still having a presence, an experience of existence that that my belief now is that this existence happens. We're operating. This is like a skin suit. This is not who we are. This is a skin suit that actually changes all the time. I mean, we were talking about the good loss aspect of it. If your body doesn't die every day, in other words, if your cells don't die every day, what happens is it kills you. So your you know, the point is for you to live actually physically. So this this my philosophy actually runs all the way through. In other words, when I discovered this, I'm like, wow, this runs all the way through. Because if your body gets the message from fear that you don't want to die, what are cells that don't die? Cells that don't die are cancer cells. Cancer cells are simply your cells that have said, that's it, we don't want to die. And so what happens is that that emotional frequency, that vibration comes into your body and becomes you. Your body actually starts to die because you won't allow the individual cells to go through their process of being, you know, dying and then their conduit parts go into your system and then from in your system, then new cells are born.

Paul Gotel:
So your actual physical body is constantly rebuilding itself, dying and rebuilding itself so that you can constantly evolve. It can serve you as at its greatest capacity when you allow it and not hold on to your existence in that way. More lots more stuff there. I don't know if I specifically answered that, but I think I did weaved in there.

Daniel Aaron:
Well, I mean, it's all super useful and interesting everything you shared there. And it brings to mind a couple of things for me, which is well, two related to breath. And I know you're a fan of breath work also, and I've been reflecting on this lately for myself in my own practice, in my own practice is always evolving, right? And I'm working a lot with with declarations lately. And part of that is, is what I mean by that is declaring in writing and through language who I am and who I choose to be, what my being is. Right. And we can go back and talk about language because you brought that up early on in our discussion, which is great. And here's what happened for me as I'm going through this process of saying, All right, well, if I am putting my the definition of my being into words and then speaking them out, well, man, I'm going to be really considerate about what words I use. And so the process I had and this relates directly to what you're saying is I'm like, Well, I don't want to leave anything out. I'm going to write this and I am this and I am this, and I am amazing and I am bright and I am kind and I am loving and I am wealthy and, you know, and then my list was like 35 statements. And I'm like, Whoa, that's a mouthful, man. How am I? To say all that. And then part of what I realized like, okay, I need to hone this down. And, you know, just like writing a book, we start out with, wow, you know, this is manuscript this big. And then the process becomes, well, how do I get it smaller? How do I get it smaller? So for me, as I'm working with my declarations, I realize, wow, okay, I there's a part of me that's afraid to let go of certain statements because I'm afraid that if I lose those out, then I won't be the fullest expression of myself. So and then I caught it and I was like, Oh, wow, that's brilliant. And then I realized when I was a little kid as a boy, I had asthma, right?

Daniel Aaron:
And it wasn't until years later that I got into Breathwork that one, it actually healed. And two, I realized what what asthma really is, is it's there's some part of us that is afraid. There's not going to be enough breath, oxygen, air. So what we do is we don't exhale everything. Of course, all of this is subconscious. We don't exhale everything because I better just hold on to some in case there's not going to be another one available, which then creates the cycle that, well, I can't take a full breath because I'm not empty. Right. And then the beautiful thing with language around breath is to inspire is the same language as to breathe in, which is also the same as in spirit. Creating life and to breathe out is translated as expire. So what we're really doing is, you know, living, bringing in life, dying, bringing in life, dying with every breath now. I got another question to toss back to you before that, though. I know one of the things that's coming later and while Time's flying along is you've got a really cool offer for people here, a free gift. And so I hope people are going to be I know people are going to be excited for that. And since you and I both work in part as life coaches, I take a moment here to let our viewers and listeners know that while part of what Paul is talking about might sound complex and philosophical, part of the way we work with people is to take that the ideas and the philosophies and embody them and put them into action. And to me, that's what life coaching is all about. And and this show is particularly sponsored by my practice as a vibrant life coach. And I'm excited for the gift that you're going to give people around that in a little bit. Now, part of what you just described and I love that that metaphor of the cruise ship, all you can eat buffet. Right. So true. I mean, who hasn't had the experience of, oh, I can eat at everything, Let me pile all my plates this high and you know, and then by the end of it, I feel horrible.

Daniel Aaron:
Right? Everybody knows that experience. And I think of the one of my favorite lines from the Bible. And I love all spiritual traditions, but the the Bible statement that comes to me here with what you're saying is seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added on to you. Right. So this what we're talking about is, well, can somebody quote have it all and still be in oneness or still be in still be in in joy and authenticity? That's kind of the question we're at. So when you hear that statement, seek first the kingdom of heaven and all else shall be added onto you. Does that does that feel like it relates to what you're saying?

Paul Gotel:
I mean, it's interesting because in the, you know, the vernacular of the Bible, I am actually, uh, you know, was brought up Catholic. I as you as you said before, I then spent many years really educating myself on every religion and philosophy and that I could find and my actual philosophy, my construct that I call humanity Version three is 3.0, you know, is basically based from studying all these different religions and seeing where whereas you have this this religion saying this and it's heading this way and this religion is saying this and heading this way, it looks like they're at odds. But when you recognize it's kind of like a circle and it's like an old fashioned wagon or something, and this person is going to the center and this person is going to center. They will actually meet in the middle. So although people it's opinions and all over the world, there's different. What I saw is that everybody as you're coming closer to the center of the circle center of the circle actually has like in the center of a circle is no thing. There's nothing has to be in the center of the circle for the circle to turn. And so actually what happens is all the philosophies, all the religions, even science and, you know, with quantum physics, as they get closer, they all start to agree. So you've got the quantum physics, you've got the the, the gnosis, the Vedas, the Sufis. So all the different religions have this sort of heart of their philosophies that really boil down to something very simple. And they actually all align. And that's what surprised me. I went from traveling all over and going, Wow, everything's so different. Everyone has a different opinion. While they say it's up, they say it's down, they say it's black, they say it's white. And then suddenly you start understanding, Oh, it's because the the starting points are infinitely variety. You know, if you went out forever, then you have an infinite amount of starting points, which is basically the context of each one of us. But where we're all heading is the same place and where we're actually the to arrive is actually to disintegrate. In other words, what you're doing is you're is you're basically taking yourself apart so that there is less limitation for you to experience that which you are.

Paul Gotel:
And as you when you actually arrive, let's say at that space, there is there is an absence of experience. And that absence of experience is actually the goal or the understanding or the of what we are, and that is peace. And so all of us have known these moments of utter peace. And what's really interesting is mostly peace comes after loss after loss or after suffering after there's or after a big cry, you know, a catharsis. And then there's this sense of relief. There's this sense of surrendering totally this this holding on to this identity, to this restriction, to this thing. When you finally what I call the open hand approach and you're allow what what what's to come through you to just come through you and you stop trying to edit it and hold on to it. There's this sense of peace and that actually ultimately. So when you say all these different things, I'm joyful and all this, all these things, ultimately I am I am at peace. I am peace is would basically mean that all those other things are aligned. And and the interesting thing is our experience of peace, our understanding of peace is actually what joy is. So when we're joyful, it is actually because the past disappears, the future disappears. It's like every little kid when you see them playing, they are so in the moment. They have got they're not bringing the past with them. They're not they're not going to the future. I call it. I have an acronym for fun, which is fully unencumbered now. And kids live in that place where they don't bring the past, they don't bring the future, and they're just there. And so there is there they're at peace in themselves. They're not interrupting the expression that's coming through them and they're delighting in that. And so ultimately, the when you know, things that are caused from an exterior place are not are not authentic, authentic peace is when you are intrinsically motivated. It's when you're fulfilled in the action of. So that and then I would go so far as to say is that every action of gain that we were talking about earlier is to try and substitute is to try and get love.

Paul Gotel:
So approval, gratitude, money, fame, all these things are because we are in a deficit of love. And why are we in a deficit? If you go back to understanding, remember his authenticity, his the expression of love that wants to come through you and here's you going, Oh, that's too much. And so actually what's happened is now you are exhausting yourself this way. And so because you're exhausting yourself this way. Now you do this behavior of trying to get. But what you're trying to get is that will never actually fulfill you. That's why it doesn't fulfill you. That's why having it all ultimately does. Oh, my God. What's what's crazy about when you get it all in that sense, you go, Oh, shit, this isn't the answer. Why am I still having sad days? Why am I still a little depressed? Why? Why now am I so scared of losing it all? Shit, this isn't peace and joy and. And acceptance. This is this. It almost becomes. Now it becomes this thing you've got to hold on to even more so the fear of losing it all. It starts spiraling you. And the crazy thing is that people talking to you, they go, But you have it all. You should be this way. And so now you have this mind talk that I should be happy, I should be fine, everything should be good. So then you go out into the world and you become even more in the inauthentic by going, Yeah, everything's great. How's things? Oh, yes. And then you list exterior world things that the world thinks mean you're happy. And so you and yet true happiness, as I say, is in the intrinsic moment of the expression of who of what you are, which is love. And so you can't actually get love because to get love would mean you're not love. You would. So you actually have because you're restricting the expression of what you are. You now don't have the experience of love. So now this is why you're everything you're trying to get is the substitute for trying to get the love that you're holding. Because ultimately you're not enough.

Paul Gotel:
You're more than enough. You actually are this conduit for source. And you either have to suppress yourself which exhausts you, or you express yourself. When you express yourself, you discover that every moment is not for you to get something from it. It's for you to give something to it. And in the giving, in the expression as it flows through you, through your riverbanks, that's how you feel. Love you feel love in the loving. We've all been like as teenagers or whatever. My son's a teenager at the moment and he's in his first sort of loving relationship and you can just see this energy. He is feeling so good in the loving. It's not the, Oh, somebody loves me, you know? But what happens is when we block the loving, now we turn into love, into a trade game. Now we look for somebody who's going to appreciate us, tell us we're worthy. Tell us this because we are blocking ourselves, which is basically saying we're saying to ourselves we're not worthy. We're saying we're not worthy of true expression. So now we want somebody else to say, well, this thing that I'm doing to you, this thing I'm doing for you, will you tell me that that's worth me suppressing my authenticity? But we all know the people that we feel the best with are the people that we are the most truthful with, the people that we are most authentic with. And so whether you use the word term love or authenticity, it's the same thing Your authentic expression is fulfilling in the action of you are intrinsically motivated. You stop doing things for a reward or you stop doing things for a punishment. Because most of us, every day we will edit our true expression, our authenticity, because we want to get a reward or we don't want to get punished. And so ultimately you start understanding that your navigation through life is completely, you know, opposite to what it needs to be that you will. This is why you will exhaust it and eventually go, Wow, I don't it doesn't seem to be whatever I do for this person or this situation or this job. Why is it doesn't seem to be enough?

Paul Gotel:
Why am I never truly valued? Because you don't value yourself. Because you literally suppress yourself. Because you're like the risk of losing that which you've invested in becomes the fear that stops you actually doing it. But the true aspect of life is that you you literally give away, you give it all away so that you can be upgraded every time. Like it's like an operating system, right? Oh, but this operating system works and all my programs work in it. I don't want to upgrade it, but the upgrade is actually offering you, well, we've got all these new ways of doing things and people don't want to go through that process. And so this is this is the stickiness. And then the more you don't go through this process, eventually it becomes harder and harder to hold on and you become more and more restricted. And so life is trying to help you out, says, we'll send some angels, whatever you want to call them, but other people or other situations, and we'll take these things from you. So life will actually constantly trying to get you to that peace will start removing things for you will start taking things, which is this good loss. But in the context of you're like, No, oh my God, this thing is being taken from me. And then that's when we call those people those situations evil, because we don't understand that they're actually allowing it. They're trying to help us remove that which is holding us back. And so in the context of the Kingdom of heaven, in the kingdom, the kingdom of heaven is the infinite. Potentiality of love. And it's the understanding that the that your your opportunity, the reason for your existence is for you to experience love, expressing through you in all these different forms. And essentially every question in every moment is, can I love this too? Because essentially what you're looking at that looks like another person or another situation is an aspect of you, is an aspect of you that you have judged and therefore suppressed and hidden away. And the reason it's showing up in this extreme way is to see, Can I love this too? Can I hold compassion for this being?

Paul Gotel:
Because ultimately we've all heard this hurt people, hurt people. And so ultimately, can you hold compassion for that? Because when you hold compassion for another's anger or another's pain, another's seeming atrocities in the context of you have your heart open to it, you are forgiving yourself and you are inviting that in yourself which you have judged to come in. And what happens is the polarity shifts. And so when you truly show up authentically, when you really bring your heart without agenda, remember, no reward, no punishment when you stop editing yourself and you're present. This is when you finally get, let's say, the reward of existence, the reward. Why is there separation is because when somebody truly when you truly are authentic with someone and you're allowing that love to hold them in compassionate state, they the veils drop normally, tears will come and they will see you and see through your identity. And they will. And in their eyes you will see yourself because you cannot see yourself. I can't see here. So it's only when I what I'm always seeing is the reflection of what I'm bringing. And so when I am able to get over my judgments, which seem to about others but are actually about myself, then the veil shifts and two people simply dissolve. And there is a oneness, there's a unity. And I'm sure you've had that experience. I know I've had it with my children. I know I've had it with some powerful experiences around the world. And every one of us has those moments. And the the invitation is, can we live that every day? And that is the kingdom of heaven.

Daniel Aaron:
It works better if I turn my mic back on.

Paul Gotel:
It's going to say I was going to say good loss, bad gain. I was like, Oh, I needed a moment of silence. Yeah, just breathe into it. Yeah.

Daniel Aaron:
What you said was beautifully said and those moments of realization in the Buddhist tradition, that's called satori. A moment of enlightenment or a moment of oneness. And I'm with you. Everybody's had that. And that's what compels us forward to say. I know that this pain, this suffering, this attachment, that's not who I really am. Right. And. You know, years ago when I was leading yoga teacher trainings, I prescribed prerequisite books. Only a few. One of them was a book by Byron Katie called Loving What Is. And, you know, from the outside perspective, well, that's got nothing to do with yoga. There's nobody in tights. And no, you know, not nothing like there's no yoga. The word yoga is not in it at all. And I was so happy about that and was happy about giving people the opportunity of that book because, you know, one, she's such an amazing teacher and luminary and what she shares is so much what you just said, which is if we could simply love everything that is then, then that's freedom. That's enlightenment, that's the revolution. And you know, and I like the practicality of what you said, too, in terms of what are we doing with the other person? Can we have compassion? Can we accept what's there? Can we accept their expression, which going back to yoga again, that's the essence of the first injunctive of yoga in the scripture is ahimsa, right? Which means do as little harm as possible or create as much love as possible. And it's based on the the truth that, well, whatever is over there, you know, whether that's a person or a cow or a dog or a state or a country, that's us. So if we're hurting that well, we're hurting us. And if we can love that, then we're loving us and we're remembering that it's union and time is flying along. So. Paul Yes, I.

Paul Gotel:
Think we're about to we're almost at wrap up, aren't we?

Daniel Aaron:
So we are. So tell tell us how, you know, for people that want to connect with you more, what's the best way of doing that?

Paul Gotel:
Um, I post pretty regularly on most platforms. I think, um, you know, Instagram is probably where you'll find me easy enough. I have a website that's at the bottom there and Facebook. Facebook has has a sort of a wider variety of things. But I would say Instagram is very pinpointed and the website has has all my blogs in there. So if you go to my blog page, I pretty much post little videos or things. I mean, essentially the idea is that the difference between how the programing of how we live, which I would call OS two, is, is almost like Monopoly. So everyone's out there trying to buy things, build things, protect things, invest in things, stop other people taking them from them, Repeat. Right. And there's a limited pot and we're all fighting for it. So that's OS two and that's reward and punishment. And that's if you look at your life, that's how you operate every moment. This is these are the motivations, trying to avoid pain and, you know and trying to get, you know, gain. But OS three so is this intrinsic motivation, is this expression of love, is this being fulfilled in the action of and so it's a very and it's the good loss, bad gain that every loss is an act of purification and every gain is an act of pollution. So essentially what I would say is if you follow online, literally there's, I think, 1600 there where I delve into how this comes up in my everyday life and how to actually practically do this.

Daniel Aaron:
I'm going to. Perfect. That's that's great. And I'm going to give you the ultimate challenge now, which is I'm going to ask you the final question if you're up for it, and then you've got less than a minute to answer it, right? So you've got to hone it all down. Are you up for it? Sure. All right. So the final question is, you've said so much. You've experienced so much, you teach so much. If there was one thing that you could say to our audience to do or not do that would help them to create a vibrant, thriving life, what would it be?

Paul Gotel:
So I will repeat here what I said earlier. But it's it's the question that happens at the end. How do we live this? And what it is, is that you look at every moment, there's there's either peace or there's insistence or there's resistance. Insistence is about you trying to alter change, get something. Resistance is about you trying to lose or protect or keep something. And so every moment you get to choose truth requires risk. What's at risk is a lie about you, something that's false, that you are holding on. Because truth is the truth, whether you like it or not. In other words, it still is the truth. And so every moment you get to choose truth, which is the risky path, which means the path where you will lose something, something will be taken away, which will evolve you, which will purify you, or you choose the safe path which has you retain something that keeps you polluted. So in every moment I would say check in. If you're an insistence, lean back. If you're in resistance, lean in. And when you're in that middle spot, you're at peace and then authenticity will flow from that.

Daniel Aaron:
Awesome. So cool. Paul, what an incredible gift you've given all of us today. Thank you so much for being with us and for our audience. Thank you. Right. Because again, you being interested in this, you applying this information, you upgrading the vibration of your life, that's not just good for you, that's good for the entire world. So thank you for your courage and your commitment to vibration. Thank you, everyone. And we will see you next week for another amazing show. Aloha.

Paul Gotel:
Thanks, everybody, for listening.

Daniel Aaron:
Mahalo for tuning in to The Art of Vibrant Living Show, y'all. I'm Daniel Aaron and may you live with great vibrancy.

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