Love and Finding Your True Purpose with Rebecca Quave

Announcer 0:31

Hello, and welcome to speaking spirit where we talk about all things spiritual. Your host, john Moore is a shamanic practitioner and spiritual teacher. And now here's john.

John Moore 0:50

Everybody, I'm going to say good morning, although I have no idea what time of day you're listening to this, it is morning where I am. It's a beautiful morning, and it's the day after the full moon, we had lots of great Full Moon energy. To celebrate this weekend, I am absolutely thrilled today to bring a guests to you. So you don't have to just listen to my voice.

Pardon me, by cough a little bit. I promise I'm not sick, I just having a having an allergy situation, it is beginning to be spring here. So my guest today is Rebecca qwave. And I am trying to remember when I met Rebecca, and it was at a seminar in Boston. And I remember that my children were infants, so it has to have been close to 14 years ago. So it's been a while. So my guess Rebecca qwave supports people around the world to rediscover and fully embody the love they are. Rebecca is a catalyst of transformation and expansion of consciousness. Her natural gift of activating you to your highest truth creates profound shifts quickly and easily. And after spending years caught up in the exhausting hamster wheel of striving for more, Rebecca began to you know, unraveling who she thought she was only to discover the indescribable life transforming love that was already there. Rebecca is here to lovingly guide and support you through your own unique process of awakening and transformation. And with that, good morning, Rebecca. It's so nice to see you.

Rebecca Quave 2:29

Good morning. It is it's wonderful to be here.

John Moore 2:33

ne today that we're you know,: 1000

Rebecca Quave 2:45

Yeah, we've sort of covered the north south axis.

Yes, yes. from one extreme to the other, to have

John Moore 2:53

to have to work on some West Coast guests and then some some overseas at some point to bring on today we're going to talk about finding purpose of finding your true purpose. And we're also going to talk about love and love, maybe from a perspective that some people are not maybe not familiar with, right, because we have this to me, we have this word love in English, which is super generic. And we use it for all kinds of things. And I know like, I've heard I don't know this to be true, but I've heard that in, you know, languages like Persian, there are 85 different words for love. Right. And I know that you know, in other in other languages, there are many different words for love. So I might say for example, I love my children. And I might also say I love a hamburger, but I don't love them in the same way I hope. Right? Right. Exactly. Right. Um, so when I asked this question, I think of the the old you know, the old song What is love? Right, you know, from the Yeah, I did the Roxbury right yeah. I can't sing more than that or I'm gonna get in copyright trouble. So when we're talking about love what how do you describe it? How do you describe love? How do you talk about love from your from your sort of spiritual perspective of what that is?

Rebecca Quave 4:29

So anytime you hear me use the word love I'm not referring to the emotion love in any of its degrees, right? So not about a person that that you love and it's this intense emotional feeling. Or that you know, feeling of like you said of extreme like have a hamburger or pizza or whatever. Right. So because of the emotion, love has an Opposite, it can just as easily turn to dislike or hate, you know, anything on that spectrum. What I'm referring to is an energy that has no opposite, is boundless, is all encompassing, and is all embracing. And the way it acts is just in accordance with its nature. So what the love I'm referring to does, is it just loves, right, that's, it's not capable of anything else. So it always embraces and it it's a gateway to really everything that everyone's looking for. And this love people have such an innate yearning for that's so incredibly strong, that they spend their lives searching for anything that they think is going to be sort of a watered down facsimile of that right? And, and then are disappointed. But that yearning is so strong, it, it goes beyond even safety or survival, right, because if someone feels that they're so disconnected from having access to that level of what I'm describing as love, they'll take their own lives. Right? So the pain of believing that you are separate from that love, that pain of believing that you don't have access to that love, even though it's all pervasive, is intense, and is what really is at the root of so many experiences for people.

John Moore 6:41

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting that you mentioned that I know, I'm not a, I'm not a proponent or a strong believer in the concepts of the traditional concepts of heaven and hell. But there is a description of from somewhere, it's an old one of hell as being separate from the light or the love of God, right as being separated. And that is the ultimate torture, right? The ultimate state of human suffering is feeling separate from that all pervasive love. And that really, that sort of, really sort of rang true for me, in a way in my own life, where I discovered like, I was my own, I was my own jailer, I was my own capital. Yeah, I was the one who was creating those impediments. not consciously, necessarily, but my beliefs. Of

Rebecca Quave 7:40

course, no one would do it consciously. Oh, all pervasive all embracing boundless love with no opposite, oh, I'll just, I'll just throw that away. You just chuck that

John Moore 7:51

away and live in my ego forever. And suffer, you know, that. And there's, there's another word, you know, in my take, it might be synonymous, or you might have a different take on it. Or you might say, you don't care about that word at all. But there's another another word I like a whole lot, which is beingness. Which, for me, when, when I'm practicing, and when I'm when I'm trying to connect. I'm resting in this, this state of beingness, which is a little bit beyond description, but I will say that it is. It's a sense of stillness that has kind of an ultimate peace, but also that interconnectedness. And I'm wondering if you see a connection between words are so limited, right? It's hard to describe these huge, these huge, all encompassing concepts, in words. But I wonder if you see a connection between the concept of beingness and this, this love, I don't know, how would you? How would you eat? I realize I'm going off on like, 9 million tangents here. But how would you describe love? Would you describe it as a field? Would you describe it as? Or maybe it's beyond description? I don't know.

Rebecca Quave 9:17

Well, ultimately, it is all beyond description. But if we're going to use words and point in that direction, then there's absolutely a relationship because what you're describing is beingness. That's a great word to point two and represent that just innate presence that is nearness of you existing as the totality of what you are. And so love points to an aspect of them. Right, because love is that love is inherently what you are. Since there's excuse me, it says there's no way to separate from it.

John Moore 9:59

Yeah, I'm mean, right? You could not,

Rebecca Quave: 10:03

you know, there's believing that you're separate from it, which of course brings what you describe that intense agony, you know?

John Moore: 10:10

Right, right. And another another word sort of. And this is, this comes from my cosmology, for lack of a better term of my demonic practice. But we talk about the spirit as this undying, unborn incorruptible piece of ourselves that is, is never affected by external circumstances, it's never affected by our beliefs. It's never affected by our thoughts or injuries that happened to our body or any of those any of those things. Any again, like that idea, to me is hard to describe. I have you know, I, you know, we

Rebecca Quave: 10:57

have because our whole language and our whole mind, and all of that is set up on opposites, right, it's set up in duality. So when you try to describe something that is changeless, that is beyond duality, then yeah, you'll run out of words.

John Moore: 11:15

Great, right? It's hard language is. So language is so limited, but it's the tool. It's the tool we have. And there's the old, there's the old Zen saying that, you know, Bruce Lee made sort of famous that, you know, you can look at a finger pointing at the moon, but you're not looking at the moon. Right. And when you focus on the finger, you're focusing on a pointer. But you're not having the experience of gazing, gazing at the moon. And exactly, and I think that's sort of describing the limitations of symbols, right, symbols are powerful symbols are, you know, representational, but they're just representational. They're there in their, in their? That's, you know, that is the ultimate limit is that they aren't the experience. The the, you know, even the word experience doesn't seem quite, quite right. Here. Yeah. So if we're gonna have a podcast in which I get completely tongue tied, and I'm able to talk about the topic, deep and complex, but that's, you know, I think I, you know, I'm grasping what you're talking about, and I hope that it's, you know, it's becoming, it's becoming sort of clear. And so in your, in your work with people. And when you're teaching and that sort of thing, you're really trying to get people to identify with that love that they are at their core, or or is it something different? How would you describe that?

Rebecca Quave: 12:50

Well, it's a process of exploration, right? The key component is curiosity. So what I see so often is people launch themselves into a spiritual path, that and it's really coming from the same places of expectation, and judgment and manipulation that they were doing before, right. So it becomes, oh, I have this new thing, that's going to make me feel better. And so I'm going to do it so I can feel better. And eventually, you're going to run into a certain limitation with that, right? It's going to, there's going to be a wall that you hit. Whereas when you're exploring from a place of curiosity, just for the sake of it, just because it's so alluring to you, and you leave behind the expectations about what your experience should be, or what you think this will produce, or what you think you'll find on the other side. That's when there's now finally enough open space and this fertile ground for what was there always right that changelessness to show itself to you. Right. So the process that people go through, and you know, you described it as reconnecting, and that's again, we're limited with words. Right. But it's Yeah, it's really just them becoming re aware of what's present. So it's a lot of questioning and exploring in a in a really open ended way. Because the point of the questions isn't an answer. It's you sort of letting yourself be pulled into the experience of that revealing itself.

John Moore: 14:59

I really Love that

Rebecca Quave: 15:00

that makes sense.

John Moore: 15:02

Does it does and I really, I really love that because I am, my nature is super curious like I have, you know, I have probably donated a library full of books at some point that I personally owned and probably owned 1000s more that are taking up a good portion of my home. I'm always wanting to explore, and sort of learn, and particularly my spiritual bent is about, you know, going inside and learning and sort of learning what's there. And over this weekend, I taught an intro to shamanism class, which is, which is always fun. It's always fun, really to get new people to come to come in. And one of the things I like about shamanism is that it's a path of individual revelation, right? So I may be your teacher, because I'm teaching you a technique. But I can't tell you what that means for you what you get from that. I can't, I can't put my meaning and interpretation on top of that. And so I know because I've taught intro quite a lot. You know, people are they're going to journey they're going to have experiences, and they're going to come back and say, you know, this happened? Is that okay? Like? Of course, it's not for me to judge if that's okay, did you explore it with an open mind? Did you? Did you? Did it have a profound effect on you? And if it did, then fantastic. And if it didn't, fantastic, you know,

Rebecca Quave: 16:39

well, and the flip side of that is people over emphasizing that, you know, peak experience or something, and letting their mind really latch on to it. And and look, right, everybody thinks that they're there after the what they expect is going to be instant gratification of the whole heavens opening and trumpet. Right? You know, everybody's kind of chasing that. And that's really not, you know, number one, it's not how it has to go for you. Everybody has their own way. So the second thing is that even if it happens that way, in this one moment, this one flash of everything, right, I can say from experience, it can then take years to integrate that, right. So there's never, there's never this instant way that people are expecting. And the emphasis doesn't really the experiences don't really matter at the end of the day, and experience is still just an experience. You know, what matters is? You know, and you're the only one that knows this is what's going on internally in you. And are you comfortable in your own skin in your world in, you know, in your experience? Or is there something else going on? Is there that push toward? Well, let's it needs to be something else. Right? That's at the end of the day, what matters,

John Moore: 18:07

right? Yeah, I think I think the the author, I guess, shaunti, who's a meditation teacher, and pretty popular author. I wish I could remember the name of the book, I think he has a book that sort of talks exactly about that about having these peak meditation experiences. Even being on sort of the edge of what they consider enlightenment, and then kind of losing it for a while. Right and going going back because you're not always going to have

Rebecca Quave: 18:36

Well, what seems like losing it, because what's happening is, it's this integration that has to happen. And that's what people tend to overlook, right? There's this expectation that you're going to hit some, you know, line that you cross that is the ultimate, and then that's how you're going to feel all the time as the way you felt in the throes of that experience. And that's just not what it's about.

John Moore: 19:00

Right? You're gonna get a certificate to hang on your wall. William lines now

Rebecca Quave: 19:05

certified, certified, whatever

John Moore: 19:09

we're gonna give you like, yeah, we're gonna give you a colored belt to where and

Rebecca Quave: 19:14

you see, you see how it is look at all of our systems and how they're set up to support that, because the mind really is comforted by that. Right? The ego wants to be told, this is your identity. And and because this is your identity, your now enough. And yeah, no matter what that identity is, you'll never actually feel like it's enough. Not really,

John Moore: 19:40

for sure. And I think, I think part of that is this sort of Western patriarchal cultural pyramid scheme right where you have, you know, there has to be somebody at the top of the food chain, and you know, you work your way

Rebecca Quave: 19:58

tell everyone else. What's what Maybe you could be that person. Yes. You just work harder to send

John Moore: 20:03

more money, send more money, put it in the envelope and you will you will be right. You will experience a blessing right someday. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. And I get questions sometimes from, from students because, you know, my path is, you know, I, shamanism when I when I practice in a group I frequently the only male in the room, that's a very matriarchal system. It's very, you know, more feminine than traditional spirit, you know, spiritual systems, in my, in my view anyway. And I get questions, sometimes they're like, so what are the levels of, you know, what, there's no levels? Did you just practice you go, you know, train with a teacher here and train with a teacher there. And you just, you just practice? There's no levels? There's no, you know, exactly.

There's not a body stamping, you know, certificate. Although I think, you know, I do think some people have tried, I think there's some organizations out there. It's just not my thing, and power to anybody, and whatever they're doing, but it's just not my thing. I can't, I can't hack. It's not my

Rebecca Quave: 21:17

Yeah, no, I get it. I same thing. I, I don't, I'm, you know, I operate outside of any particular, you know, tradition, yeah, method, whatever, whatever you would want to call it. Because it's, it's really about what everyone is, you know, and you don't need any particular structure for that. You know, you can you can and anything can be helpful to some degree, you know, right up until it's not sure, you know, if you were climbing a ladder to a to a second floor balcony, wouldn't really matter if you had a rope ladder, steel ladder, wooden ladder, any of that. The question is, would you just keep climbing up and down the ladder? For the sake of it? Because you got so attached to the liner? Or would you actually stand on the balcony and experience whatever was there that you were hoping the lion was going to give you this assist? You know, to reach?

John Moore: 22:19

Yeah, but I

Rebecca Quave: 22:20

see a lot of people just climbing up and down ladders really attached and married to the ladder.

John Moore: 22:25

Right? I years ago, that's a great analogy. And I had years ago, I had a meditation teacher who told me meditation is like noticing you have a thorn in your finger. And then you pick another Thorn off the rosebush and pry the original Thorn out of your finger. Once the thorns out of your finger, you throw the second Thorn away, right, that's what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to take you know, once once this is once you're here, once you

Rebecca Quave: 22:54

just keep poking yourself, don't just

John Moore: 22:55

keep jabbing yourself with the thorny, you throw that away, you don't need it anymore. It's it's you know, but it you know, it is a lesson about attachment to methodology or, or that sort of thing. And I think that's an interesting segue into the other thing that we're going to talk about today, which is about finding your purpose, right? And really, if you're, if you're stuck in sort of rigid systems, or you're doing things habitually, without really kind of examining what you're doing, and not giving yourself the freedom to explore, and the freedom to experience different things. How, how could you possibly be following your true path? Your true will, right? How would you get it right? How would you get in touch with

Rebecca Quave: 23:44

And currently, you know, in this moment in the world, there's tons of people who are about to be stepping forward in things that most people don't understand and won't understand. Right? And so it takes that that curiosity and then that that deep, deep clarity that's on a solid foundation of being rooted in that piece, and in that love that you are to be willing to step forward with it. No matter what the noise around it is, right? If regardless of anybody saying, I don't even know what that is, I don't even know what that means, right? Because that's the voices that go on in their head at first as well. When they come to me. They often times have kind of a sneaking suspicion about what some of their gifts are or what some of what they're like being asked to step forward with are but then there's all this other noise about what is that? How does that even look? How does that even show up? But we're at such a tipping point and such a transition point, that there's just there's going to be a lot of that there's going to be really valuable stuff that comes forward that people haven't ever heard of that doesn't make sense to people and that's the beauty of it right is that it is completely new so when people try to you know like pay their purpose from like a list of well you know we've got doctor lawyer firefighter and like well which one is it then they're going to come up empty handed because it's it's stuff is not already on the list

John Moore: 25:25

absolutely absolutely it's it's like please describe yourself using a label that i'm that i'm comfortable with that i have right please cram yourself into a shoe box that i can put on my shelf somewhere so i can understand what it is about you i actually some frequently have difficulty answering the question which is a really common one is you know what do you do right

Rebecca Quave: 25:52

i was about to say is like see you know me on a plane next to someone what do you do it's a different answer every time it's gonna come out in accordance with what they can understand like what it what their frame of reference is

John Moore: 26:09

right absolutely absolutely do you ever do you ever just want to make something up i'm

Rebecca Quave: 26:15

well i went through you know years and years ago gosh how old is my son now 20 so you know over 20 years ago before things you know opened up for me and change for me i would put just because i was a little bit of a smartass as well when i had to fill out forms because i was just at that time you know i had been a scientist before i was in genetics research but then i was staying home with him and when i had to fill out forms i would put i'm lactation engineer there you go that's what i felt i did most i spent so much time doing was nursing him 24 seven so rotation engineer and i would just watch people's faces with the form

John Moore: 26:57

yeah yeah yeah it's you know it's in in and harmful ways it's fun to mess with people sometimes

Rebecca Quave: 27:05

exactly no harm in that writing lactation engineer

John Moore: 27:08

right and maybe you gave somebody a chuckle or or or a thought at some point maybe that's totally fine so if i were if i were somebody who you know i feel like i'm somebody who i'm maybe approaching some understanding of what my what my what i would consider my purpose like i'm i'm almost 50 and i'm getting to the point where stuff that doesn't make sense to me at all and i don't don't feel like it is coming from that place of love is falling by the wayside or if i pursue it obstacles you know the universe or whoever or you know places obstacles in my path to say you can go down

Unknown Speaker: 27:59

so getting more aware of that natural alignment

John Moore: 28:02

right right so there's this there's this alignment is is there you know if somebody were like gosh i don't even know i have no idea what my purpose is and i realized like i'm not asking you to condense everything you do with everyone into you know the remaining minutes of this podcast but where would somebody begin where would somebody sort of start to suss out you know i just feel like i'm stuck i feel like there has to be more in life i feel like i'm not you know i'm not operating from that place of that place of love identification how would one begin

Rebecca Quave: 28:42

yeah so first of all with what you said of operating from that place of love identification that's really the primary purpose right that everyone has is to experience what it is to within this place of duality and physicality to to be aware of that simultaneously right that's what on a fundamental level everyone's come here to have the opportunity to experience so because inherently we all know what it's like to be 1,000% aware of that all the time that's what that's what our true being is is all about right so however to condense yourself into this extreme you know duality and limitation and and density of the physical world as as it exists currently and be aware of that is then this really new unique amazing experience isn't it so it gives it brings a whole new depth to our understanding of the flavor of that love right when we've now experienced it even through the limitation even through the density even through the physicality. So just to kind of throw that out there, that's really everyone's purpose. Then what gets layered on top of that the way that we, so everyone how I say and speak to this. So simultaneously, there's this universality to everything, right, and this oneness to everything. And that includes every every body. And then superimposed on that is everyone is this completely unique facet of this, you know, Kaleidoscope and, or the way I often describe it is like a symphony. You, you have this one sort of music that's coming out of this Symphony, that's incredibly beautiful. But you have all different instruments, and even amongst those instruments, the instruments are playing different notes, right. And that's what makes the symphony beautiful. So even though it's there is this oneness because it's producing this one music. It sounds different, and we appreciate it more than we do. If we hear one flute playing one note, and never changing. Right, right. So so then. So on top of that overall purpose that I just described, everyone is then here to bring their unique singular note through their particular instrument. And if they don't, then it's not this incredible Symphony, right? It's going to be, it's going to be dull, it's going to be off key, something's going to be interesting. So as far as them starting to connect with that, and your questions are, is to start at the center of their heart? Because they do know, there's nobody who doesn't know, there's nobody who doesn't have answers for themselves. It's just a matter of, are you listening? Are you aware? Are you letting it come through? Are you willing to connect with it? And does it scare you? Right? And do you have lots of other noise, you know, piled up around it, that now needs to be resolved. Because in the center of your heart, you know, there's something that you've all along been drawn to, and you've pushed it away in for dotnet.

John Moore: 32:27

I would absolutely concur with that, and I love your, I love your analogy of the symphony, I'm gonna steal that I promise, I will give you credit for it. I will remember to say where I got it from, I'm gonna, but I'm gonna use that. And the other thing you mentioned, which I think would might be helpful to touch on, too is the noise that creeps up around this right? And that is that plays really well, on, you know, talking about the symphony, there is a lot of noise. And the noise can be our own noise, we create our own noise, right, from our past experiences from the culture that we impress with. And then there's a there's an awful lot of noise that comes from sort of x externally as well. And I'm thinking of a question,

Rebecca Quave: 33:20

ultimately, then all the same noise.

John Moore: 33:23

Yes, yeah. It's

Rebecca Quave: 33:24

even the external noise. is the only thing bothersome or not to you about the external noise is if you have a reaction to okay. Yeah, right. Yeah, to two different people, the same external noise, one of them is not even going to notice it. And the other one is going to be deeply impacted by it.

John Moore: 33:45

Yes, absolutely. I was thinking, I was thinking specifically of this client I had recently who is an amazing artists. And his work is profoundly spiritual, like I, you know, I'm not an expert in art. But when I look at this person's art, I am affected by it myself. So I know I'm like, Wow, that's amazing. And, you know, his thing was, I have a lot of haters out there. were like, how dare you put this out in this way? And do this and do that? And, you know, all of those things, and you're absolutely right, the thing that was holding him back was that he was taking that stuff on. And especially if, if anything you do involves stepping out into public into the public eye. There's gonna be that, that noise on it. And my, sort of my take on it was, well, you know, do you think what you have to share is more important, impactful and loving to the world than what the haters have to share with you. than the haters shutting you down. Or do you think do you think the haters shutting you down is more important than you sharing this profound art with the world and it sort of I think it like clicked in at that point. And like he, he realized that like, this is what I'm here to do this is my, this is my purpose is to share this share this stuff. And the way that I do that is with art kind of thing. And that's not to say, necessarily that anybody's true purpose has to be stepping into the public eye. Right? It could be could be anything.

Rebecca Quave: 35:26

Exactly, exactly. So for some people, the the acceptance that they have to come to, you know, maybe their ego has been very fixated on that that's the only way to make a difference. Right. And their process is to find out that it's that it's not that right, that they're more seemingly behind the scenes, and that that has the exact same value. Yeah, so what you said about the person taking on I think, is the way you put it, what was coming from the haters, you know, when that happens, what's going on is what they're saying, has a resonance with what's unresolved in him. So for everybody, regardless of whether it looks like what's going on is internal is external, it's coming from society, it's coming from a loved one that's coming from a family member, any of that the exploration is to go deeply to the root of what interacts with that, and and resolve it. Because once that's fully resolved, then it completely changes.

John Moore: 36:29

Right? Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't matter anymore. I'm, you know, and I'm thinking of my, my daughters, when they were little, they would come home from school, and they would be upset, and you know, somebody, somebody said, Oh, you're stupid, or something along those lines, they would be upset about that. And I said, Well, you know, are you stupid? Is that a true thing? And they're like, no. And I would say, Well, why are you upset that that somebody? And I understand. And I like I did understand that? You know, social approval is really important that those ages, but it's trying to point out the sort of the folly of the situation. I said, so I said, are you? Are you a chair? And my daughter would say, No, I'm not a chair. So if I called you a chair, would that make you upset? Because it's not true about you, right? And then Oh, okay. And then it was, it would sort of, it would sort of it would sort of click, and I knew that it was about sort of pure disapproval. However, I wanted them to see the folly of of the, the folly of that of, you know, somebody calling you something and not, not hopefully taking that on board, especially at an early age where that's going to creep up later in life, where if you, the more you sort of buy into these messages that you are somehow broken or,

Rebecca Quave: 37:57

exactly, because that's what it comes down to right, it comes down to that awareness of love, right, and that awareness of your own access to love in any moment. So the reason she had a different reaction to someone calling her stupid than and I'll just speak generally, right, because I don't know her experience in particular, that generally someone has a reaction to someone calling them stupid versus someone calling them a chair, is that there's no judgment about will that if I'm a chair, I then won't have access to love. Right? There's judgement about if I am stupid, I won't have access to love. So your whole system is on guard against having any identity that is on the list of if you're this, you don't have access to love. Right. So even though she knew as you helped her help point out to her she rationally knew she wasn't stupid, that that part underneath that's looking to always protect her and and be on guard for her and try to make sure she has access to love said, Oh, wait a minute, what stupid stupid is on the list of if I'm that identity, I won't have access to love anymore. And of course, there's not going to be the same reaction for a chair because we don't have that kind of judgment against it. Right. So ultimately, that's what's going on so deeply with people just across the board, whether about in relation to that willingness to step out and their purpose or just the seemingly smallest day to day moment to moment interactions with people is there's this whole system that's built around protecting you to say, do I do I make sure that you're this certain identity to ensure that you'll have access to love?

John Moore: 39:45

Yes, that's that is. I think that's for me. That's the point of the day right there. Right? It's that. Yeah, I need to fit myself into this mold. That equals deserving of love. In in order to in order to have access to that

Rebecca Quave: 40:02

or even that even that concept of being deserving of love right is is inherently part of that whole system because remember love just loves there's no deserving it there's no earning it there's no being worthy of it there's none of that and so even all of that is just built from this place of that initial agony that initial belief that says that we're somehow separate from it and so it builds all of these crazy ideas about well how do i get back to it well i'll earn it i'll deserve it all

John Moore: 40:31

right no right right yeah i i borrowed a practice i think from eckhart tolay and it's been an important part of just my personal practice on a daily basis and of course COVID has really changed how many people i interact with on a regular daily basis and i'm an incredibly social person so i hopefully you know fingers crossed we get through this soon but as a mountain about with with people you know interacting with somebody at a grocery store for example they're they're ringing up my groceries or something i'm i'm making up effort to give that person at least a few moments of just absolute presence right and recognize just you know whether it's eye contact or through words or just hold the feeling in my heart that this is a this is a human being and you know this is a human being i need to give them they you know there's that word deserving just from the fact that they exist they deserve my presence and my and my love and it's something that i've tried to instill in students and and my children and that sort of thing and it i don't know if it makes i don't know how much of a difference it makes in the lives of the people i interact with but it makes a big difference in my life right because ultimately they're you know people interact with the reflections of me and if if i treat them if i treat everybody i interact with as equally deserving of love that i'm included in that circle right i'm included in the source of compassion and love like i deserve that too because it is my norm that every being that exists is equally deserving of existing and love

Rebecca Quave: 42:32

yeah and that they do right and so what happens when you decide to step into operating that way like you just described for you to be completely open and present to offer that to your interaction it means that you're completely open and present

John Moore: 42:53

right

Rebecca Quave: 42:54

right which yeah so a question i often give to people and i think i'm not sure if i gave you this link for it's a it's a little i don't know if you'd call it a meditation or what but it all hinges on the question does love love this and it's not even about getting a yes or no or any other answer it's just using that question as an opening to let love show you

John Moore: 43:35

i want to say i love that i do love that and i love inquiry as a form of spirit spiritual practice and i think that i'm gonna i'm gonna give that a try because that sounds definitely and

Rebecca Quave: 43:52

it's just so simple it's something people you know we've reported back to me that they if they carry it through their lives and it applies to everything so what you would call external and even what you will call internal so if somebody has had a big judgment about their own grief or their own fear and been long on a spiritual path to you know purge themselves of all of that or whatever and get rid of it all it brings a completely different curiosity to okay so my frustration arises my fear arises my grief arises does love love it

and you find out right or it's a situation you're presented with is love love this or an aspect of yourself you know for some people they they look in the mirror and they don't like what they see and the question is does love love this or are there some aspects of their identity that they don't like or a behavior or habit they've been fighting up down inside Ways to, quote get enough motivation and willpower to break, which never works, not in a sustainable lasting way. And so that's the question does love love this? And does love love me? Even when I'm in the midst of this?

John Moore: 45:17

I think,

Rebecca Quave: 45:18

ultimately, right, the reason they want to break the habit is because they think the habit gives them a certain identity. And if they have the break it then they're going to have a different identity that they've judged as has more access to. All right, so it always just comes back through that thread.

John Moore: 45:33

Right? Right. Um, yeah, I'm just from talking to you. I'm feeling I'm feeling more open and I'm feeling you know, just pondering the question in my brain. So I think that's, so first, I want to thank you for that. for that. That question that practice of inquiry, I just, I think that's beautiful. does love love this, I'm gonna, I am gonna practice that I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take that on. Challenge accepted, I guess?

Rebecca Quave: 46:05

Well, like I said, it's just, it's about that light, easy, gentle curiosity, that's, that's really fun, and becomes really joyful and just takes on a life of its own. And it's about the depths of what reveals itself to you when you do that. And at the same time, you know, if your mind is going to be occupied and busy with something, you know, let it let it have a question like that. So and that's the, by the way, another thing that people get very locked up in that I see over and over again, is the battle against the mind the battle against the ego. And most people's minds need a real, there's a there's a bit of making up to do and bringing flowers and reconciliation, because they've been in such battle, right? How often do you hear somebody, oh, my mind just trips me up. My mind ruins it for me, my mind won't shut up. And they've been trying to silence it and shut it down. And is there a silence? And like you said before that total stillness that's available for us? Yes. But it's, it's, it doesn't care about if the mind is making noise or not. Right, you know, so the mind doesn't have to be like, shut down and destroyed. It has to be embraced and loved and understood, for what its purpose actually is. And, and, and be allowed to fulfill that purpose in an appreciated way. And then when, when that's what it has, when it's completely loved and appreciated and acknowledged for what it does know how to do, then it doesn't take on these extra burdens of I'm meant to protect you and organize your whole life and and answer all the big questions for you, which of course it isn't capable of. Right? So then it's then it gets quiet on its own. Because it's noise was really just motivated by these underlying things.

John Moore: 48:08

It's, it's interesting that you mention that when I, sometimes I teach meditation, and the number one thing I get is, I can't meditate because I can't I can't stop my thoughts. And my answer to that is, congratulations, you're alive. And I guess I'm sorry that you're not the Buddha yet. But you know, they'll quiet on their own you don't

Rebecca Quave: 48:37

but if you look through even that story, right as an example of the Buddha, he didn't get there by force rolling gets there by force. Right,

John Moore: 48:45

right.

Rebecca Quave: 48:47

By control regulation, you more of the same old same turn

John Moore: 48:51

of the crank and tighter and tighter. I'm gonna push those thoughts out of my head really hard.

Rebecca Quave: 48:57

Yeah, this is a thought.

John Moore: 49:00

It's a thought and it doesn't work. It's Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, it's meant in my, in my experience, in my experience, there is a resting and being this arresting in love. There's a rare that that happens, and you start to like, stuff like that. I can't stop my thoughts stops to matter. And then they quiet down on their own. But it stops it it is about this concept, how things should be. Right. This is how it should be. This is how it's supposed to be.

Rebecca Quave: 49:40

Yeah, expectation is the number one obstacle.

John Moore: 49:44

Yeah, yeah. That's gonna w my next project, how to figure out how to get people to let go of expectation. That'll just Well,

Rebecca Quave: 49:54

it's just the same as everything else. Right. You, you acknowledge that expectation is there, and you get really curious about what the root of it is. Right, and why you're attached to it. And somewhere down along that line, you'll find that there's, there's the idea that I have to have this expectation, because of the judgments I have about what will give me access to love and won't give me access to loan.

John Moore: 50:25

Well, absolutely fantastic. Um, I feel like I could talk to you for 10 more hours, just on this topic alone, but I feel like we're, we're well, I don't feel like we're, you know, my, my external reality tells me that, that it's time to it's time to wrap up. Um, it's been really fantastic. And I want to thank you for coming on. And I know that I have gotten a lot out of this conversation. And if, if my listeners were to want to contact you and find out more about what you've you've got going on, I'm definitely I will add links in the in the show notes and that sort of thing. But how would How would I find out more about you were, were so inclined.

Rebecca Quave: 51:13

Yeah, well, you can just turn up to my website, which is RebeccaQuave.com. There's, I do have an account on Instagram and on Facebook, you know, you could search me on those are not, you know, it's they're intermittently active. So if you expect to be flooded, influencer style, continuous posting or something, that's, that's not what you'll find there. If you're okay, with sort of a flow of things arising when they arise, then then it'll be

John Moore: 51:53

nice. And do you have? Do you have a mailing list on your website? If I wanted to sign up for a mailing list of some sort? Yeah,

Rebecca Quave: 51:59

for sure. So right on my homepage, you can actually you'll see the does love, love this ebook, right on the homepage, and there's a little forum that you can put in your, and that'll, that'll connect you to what I call love notes. where, again, it's just intermittently sent out reminders, and if there's announcements about whatever's going on, and then there's also I think I gave you the link for the it's a little more in depth, which is the truth about love, sort of three part gift.

John Moore: 52:35

So I will I will definitely add all of those links to the show notes. Thank you so much, again, for coming on. This has been lovely and enlightening. And you know, hopefully we can we can talk again sometime soon.

Rebecca Quave: 52:51

You're so welcome. It's been it's been a real delight. And I would absolutely love to just let me know.

John Moore: 53:00

Fantastic. And here's here's our outro

Announcer: 53:31

You have been listening to speaking spirit with your host, john more. For more info or to contact john go to MaineShaman.com that's MaineShaman.com