- Alisa
How deep do you truly want to change? Because there are levels of that. Are you willing to go through discomfort in order to embody the transformation that's needed with the planet? If the answer is no, then you make different decisions. If the answer is yes, then there's really big things that need to change. And that includes potentially giving up some of the things that you have deemed that you need when really maybe you just wanted them. Welcome to the Regenerative Work Life podcast. If you are ready to make the leap out of your corporate job. and into purposeful regenerative work, this is the show for you. As you've probably discovered, transitioning into regenerative work is a lot more complicated than going on a job board and sending off your CV. This journey you are embarking on means taking risks, going against the grain, overcoming challenges and writing your own script. It takes entrepreneurial muscle, powerful vision and a willingness to change. Having a mentor by your side makes all the difference. I am your host, Alisa Murphy. I have worked with hundreds of impact-focused businesses and individuals, and I am here to help you. Let's take things one step at a time as I show you how to quit corporate, find your vision, and successfully transition into regenerative work. Here we go. As you listen to the second part of my conversation with Ryan James today, I invite you to listen differently. This is actually something that Ryan taught to me. We always listen to understand, we listen to agree or disagree, we listen to assimilate and take action, and we rarely just listen. It takes quite a lot of practice, but just see if you can kind of let the words ebb and flow around you. Just connect with whatever meaning or sensation comes up for you. Just for once, try to just be. To just be with what Ryan is sharing with us today. I'll leave it there and I hope you enjoy the experience. Already you've been inviting us to explore the way that our relationship with words and terms and begin to think differently and feel differently in those. I would love to apply that to the word regenerative and I'd love to hear what your relationship is with that word.
- Ryan
Regenerative. That's a good word. I like any words with re because re implies non-linearity. So to regenerate, something had to be generated in order for it to be regenerated, right? Similar to the word resource. So what we're doing right now with what we're calling resources, they're not resources because if you don't take what you extract and put it back into the source, it's not a resource. It's just a source. So even if you're eating food and then you're going and creating harm, that food's not a resource. Food's just a source. So regeneration. is enabling the propensity of creation and life to move through you to the degree that you revitalize that life force that is caring for you. Because we can't, the fact we even have get to have this conversation today, I don't get to do that without water and all of the water I've ever drank. All the food that I've ever eaten, most of which have been cultivated and cared for by cultures for thousands of years around the world. Like the tomato, which some people say come from the Andes, which the Nahuatl people in Mexico cultivated and cared for. And then when the colonizers came and made it to Mexico, they brought it back to Europe. And that's how pizza happened in Italy. But the pizza doesn't happen without the Nahuatl and the farmers of Mexico or Peru. So like, I don't even get to have this conversation without all of those cultures, all of that lineage. I don't get to have this conversation without the metals, the stones, the things that get to make up our technologies, right? So regeneration simultaneously is being able to look at things in an interconnected fashion and seeing that, as John Muir says, if you pull one thread, you find it tethered to the rest of the universe. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, when I touch a piece of paper, I see a cloud. That's my understanding of one level of the regeneration process, is that we start to view things in a relational capacity to the extent that we can sit in the complexity of the simplicity, which is called grace. And then work in that fashion, utilize our own skills, our own threads in that capacity to weave it in. So regeneration for me is a multidimensional process. There's the physical regeneration, which a lot of people like rewilding is one of these things, ecological restoration. People say renewable energy. It's not renewable. There's a lot of different things that are coming on the physical realm. That's mostly where we live as humans because we've become obsessed with the visible. And this is why the discussion around mindset so many times is pushed away because we're obsessed with things that are visible. And we think that if we change those things, then that will change. But we know that if we change the outside of our house, that's not going to change the smell of the food that we're cooking from inside. Just by changing the shutters, it's not going to work. So there's the physical dimension of regeneration, which is relating to the ecology, soils, all of this sort of stuff. And that's basically where the consensus is right now around regeneration from what I've seen. I then bring it to there's a mental space of regeneration. How are you continually garnering inspiration? And. obtaining states of peace and contentment in your mental state. Are the systems enabling that, or are the systems creating distraction and harm and anxiety and depression and all of these other things? That ties into the emotional state. So how are we emotionally regenerating? And then spiritual, spirit being energy. And as I've mentioned before to you, we can't cherry pick quantum physics. You know, there's a lot of people who just want to change the physical world, not knowing that the physical world is informed through what we would call the invisible or the spiritual world, which is energy. I mean, Einstein's described this, every single physicist at CERN knows this, that the physical world is made up of energy, yet... Whatever we start to look at the energy stuff, it becomes strange because we can't see it, even though we're literally seeing it. So regeneration for me has to touch upon all of these and enable them to move not only circularly, but spirally. And I can get into these terms if you want me to, but I want to highlight something, for example, is that like the circular economy is a really big thing, right? It's starting to turn into a big thing, but it's operating linearly. We're building the circle from the creation and the use and the decomposition and the reuse, but it's still on a pursuit of linear growth upwards. So the way that the circular economy is functioning is actually linearly because it's not... It's not changing the way that it actually functions within the system because it's just plugging into the system that needs to continually infinitely grow. So that's not really a regenerative approach. For example. So that would be a circle. A spiral is something that continually evolves. A circle doesn't really evolve because it's just around and around in the same place. But a spiral evolves by moving and retouching a place from a different angle, from a different purview, and therefore not really being in the same place. which is the state of evolution, which is the trajectory that human beings are on. But right now we're just trying to, I think, make it so we can live here because we've kind of forgotten how to do that. I'll pause for now.
- Alisa
Well, actually, I think it's kind of really interesting how you brought it back to, you know, right now our work is simply to make it that we can continue living here. And we in the in the broadest sense. And I think that is that is kind of where a lot of people who are learning about regeneration, thinking about regenerative practices or generative work. One of the real kind of challenges is this sort of reality that at the end of the day, I still have to pay my bills. I still have to support my family. And I think. the one of the biggest fears is, you know, I, I feel I hear the call, you know, I hear the call. I, you know, I know now and I have to answer this question of what I'm going to do now that I know. But I also have to deal with the reality that I'm in. I have to deal with where I am right now, what feels real to me. And often what really feels real to people is, you know, I may not. I may not feel aligned within this corporate structure. I may feel miserable within it, but it gives me a paycheck at the end of every month and it sustains my lifestyle. I wonder if you could maybe speak a little bit around the financial side of things and around the money side of things, because I think that that is perhaps the... biggest mindset shift that people may need to explore?
- Ryan
Yeah, that's a really big one. It's a good question. And most people around the world now are feeling that pinch as inflation and all these other things continue to rise. So it's a real question. Bayo Akamolafes says paying the bills is sacred work. I like that a lot. However, Part of the issue here is that we have been fragmented. So the consequence is seen as the cause when really the causation is the fragmentation of us from community. So the reason why it's really difficult to survive as an individual is because it's really difficult to survive as an individual. You know, and all of us are individuals. with our little family units that don't rely on each other in our direct areas for any assistance whatsoever. And so part of this question, the way I would frame it is, how deep do you truly want to change? Because there are levels of that. Are you willing to go through discomfort in order to embody the the transformation that's needed with the planet? If the answer is no, then you make different decisions. If the answer is yes, then there's really big things that need to change. And that includes potentially giving up some of the things that you have deemed that you need when really, maybe you just wanted them, right? So at least for what I see from a pragmatic state that I often share with people is, let's say you're working at a job that you really don't like, but it pays the bills and it pays $10,000 a month. And you feel really good with that. And you can get sushi three times a week. And you know, you have a lot of pairs of socks and stuff. So If you're moving in that direction, yet you feel the calling now, this heartbeat thing that is moving your body and your energy, how do you begin to reallocate or redistribute? time and energy and resources from a place that you don't want to be into a place that you want to be. It doesn't mean that you have to tomorrow quit your job and throw a tomato at the building, but what it could mean is that you give yourself timelines, linear timelines, towards moves that could help you to shift out of your current place. into a place that you want to be so that you can start to plant and water the seed of where you want to be while you're in the place that you don't want to be. That's one option. The other option is to get really creative. And oftentimes you need someone to help you get creative, which I think is why a lot of people come into Rebiz and these different offerings that I have is to be like, give me like a new perspective, please, like something to change my mind. and my heart and un-atrophy it. So another way to do it is you can get really creative within the space that you're in to design the job that you have to the degree that you're able to, to make it more feasible for you to find enjoyment outside of that job, as well as inside of it. So there are things like people are exploring with different hours, with different work schedules, with different ways that they can redefine their roles with different anything. So that obviously is staying within the current job and altering it so that you can express yourself more within it. That's another option, but that one sometimes is a little more limited. So you might as well do both simultaneously and water the seed of where you want to be. learn the transitionary and transformational steps to get to that reality while simultaneously altering the one that you're in now while teaching your children ways for them to go straight to the reality that you wish that you were in so that would be that would be some of the the thoughts i have around that that's so good like that's so helpful yeah i love that and
- Alisa
I think also one thought that came up when you were talking is that the same questioning process or listening process that has led you to the point where you start to question the organization that you're in, the role that you're in, what it is that that organization exists to do. That if you continue to sit with those questions and experience them, you're going to be able to do the same thing. And those questions you may find that making those shifts in your lifestyle doesn't feel like a sacrifice it feels like you're moving in the right direction because we can have so much impact in the choices of what we buy and what we give our money to and you know you get the example of sushi three times a week and lots of socks you know I've got a feeling that when you really start this process, as you said, not in a one-dimensional way, but in a way that really starts with going inside and asking these questions, then you may just find that the socks are not all that important to you anymore.
- Ryan
You got to have a couple pairs.
- Alisa
Yeah. Let's meet your basic sock needs. But beyond that, I think this is the point, right? That it's all interconnected. It's not just a job. It's not just... what you do for work. You know, it's where you buy your food. It's the kind of holidays you go on. It's, you know, where you spend your money. It's all connected.
- Ryan
Absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes I ask people, I say, if you had tattoos all over your body of the place that you work and the places that you shop, how would you feel? you know do you want like a mckinsey tattoo on your on your neck you know do you wanna do you want a bp tattoo on your tricep or one of these grocery stores that hardly could be considered that they're selling food you know so think about it like that too you know because that's really Because ultimately, we've just monetized commodified time. So our greatest resources are time. You know, everyone says, I want to spend my time doing this. What you're doing through spending it, you're bolstering potentially things that you don't want to see exist, which a lot of times are the jobs that we work in. But we've been trained to compartmentalize ourselves so that a dad of three could be working for ExxonMobil and make a decision that's going to completely crush their future and then go home and be with his children. But that's just work. This is why the whole thing is really interesting. The work-life thing. No, no. Like whoever created that needs to be sat down and have the discussion.
- Alisa
Right. They're one and the same.
- Ryan
They're one and the same. And the more that we compartmentalize our heart and our mind and our work and our home and our hobby and our this, it's like we're in a labyrinth of our own making. And sometimes we don't even know where the doors are.
- Alisa
I'm wondering if you have any advice for how to start the start decompartmentalizing your thinking. I mean, I think you just gave a really powerful example, right, with the dad working for ExxonMobil, making decisions that's going to destroy his children's future. And I had an interaction this morning with a friend who I wasn't wearing sunglasses and it was really bright. And she said, you know, they're just really cheap. Just get them from Amazon. They're really cheap. And. It was really interesting to me that this friend is a human rights expert and was talking about, you know, products that are getting, you know, manufactured at ridiculously low costs, presumably in China. And it just really struck me that there's this total disconnect from what this this person does on a daily basis and what they're clearly very passionate and extremely skilled in. And then the choice they make when it comes to buying sunglasses. And, you know, it seems to me that that is the root of so many of the deep injustice that we are experiencing. And I wonder how we can start to open up those doors in a labyrinth and start to connect it.
- Ryan
Yeah, that's what I meant by disassociation. she's disassociated from that entire process of how the glasses come to be, even though she should have some insight into the process if she's doing something with human rights. But she's disassociated from the product, from the physical reality that she lives in. She doesn't see the threads of interrelationality and connection, which is exactly what climate is, right? Climate is an abstract term, just like nature is an abstract term. What it does is, and I mean by abstract, it obscures the relationality and interconnectedness of all of the parts. So like this disassociated reality that we're in is obscuring the relation. So part of the reassociative process, we can call it the remembering process because remembering is not a concept. The opposite is not forgetting. The opposite of remembering is dismembering. So we've been dismembered in these processes of life to the degree that we need to remember ourself into the process. So part of what that could look like, and there are a lot of obstacles and barriers because transparency is not something that is truly top of the docket, you know, maybe like in the way that they frame it or something like that. So how do you actually start to trace and learn about the things that you interact with? with, the things that give you life, the things that make it possible for you and I to have this conversation, the mug that I drink my coffee and cacao and maple syrup out of, how do I reassociate myself to these things, right? So that is a really important step is to look at what is in your room so for example in your room there's the shelves and the plants and the frames and the letter and the sofa and your sweater and so look at all of this stuff and
- Alisa
ask do i do i actually know where any of this comes from if the answer is no i feel like that you know that tattoo example that you gave i'm like yeah if everything sort of flashed up with the you know its its source and its impact i think it would be
- Ryan
Yeah, it would be very difficult. It would be difficult. And that's okay now because you can only do something once you know something. But there's dimensions of knowing. This is the interesting thing is people might come up to me and they're like, yeah, yeah, I know about regeneration. And then I could say two things and they've never even thought about that in their whole life, nor have they even cultivated a thought process to engage with a perspective like that. but they know it somehow. So there's this interesting thing of knowing, right? And I'm not saying this for guilt and shame and all this stuff. There's things that we interact with and we have and we've done in our life that we couldn't have acted any other way because we didn't know. And we didn't know to the degree that it was an embodied reality that we walked with. That's what knowing is. Knowing is not in the brain. Knowing is in the body. Knowing is in your action. Just like this word mindfulness, you know, mindfulness has been decontextualized from its roots. People think that they can become mindful. Once again, the I is centered there. It needs to be decentered because mindfulness is about embracing and learning and listening to the full mind. And the mind is not in our head. The mind is in the land. The mind is in all of these other things. We're in the mind. We don't have a mind. So to become mindful, it's not about me, right? So in that same way, this relational process of reengaging with the things that are here with us is a very simple way to start to strengthen the capacity to have thinking and recognition in that way, you know, but. Ultimately, we have to move beyond the realm of recognition. There has to be material transformation in our actions. So although this recognition is a first step, things need to change from there too.
- Alisa
And I think that recognition, when we apply that to the work choices that we make, I think it is an important stage to really be with. Because I think there's a difference between sort of making a logical, mind based decision that you want to change your job, you're not happy in the workplace, it doesn't align with your values. I think what you just described, there's a whole process around really sitting with that truth and sitting with the fact that you made different choices in the past, because you didn't know. or maybe you did know for a while and it's taken you a while so that I'd really be honest with yourself about that. I think that takes some time and it's not a step to skip over. There's a grieving involved in it to let go of the way that you thought it was supposed to work, of the role that you thought you were going to have. It's not as straightforward as just making that decision that you're going to change.
- Ryan
No, well said. And grief is not something that we can schedule into our day. Between two and three, I think I'll grieve today. You can't do that. It's not a linear process, like you're saying. And grief also is... is pushed away because it's viewed as sadness, when really it's a metabolism of disconnection back into connection. It's the enabling of ourselves to discontinue how we're living so that life can continue. And the process of the trail of this that connects all of us, you know, so, and it can't be skipped over at all. In fact, without it, we can't experience joy or contentment or nourishment. So the more that we suppress how we truly feel that might be coming up through this recognition, which actually is the grief, then the more that we suppress our ability to transform because we snuff out the possibility for joy and purpose. So without grief, there is no praise. And to live in that way, in a society that tells us to suppress our emotions or that they're too big or that they're not welcome in the workplace or they're not professional or whatever this is, it's a courageous act. It's a courageous act to feel. It's a courageous act to not look away from things that make us uncomfortable. And courage comes from core, which means heart in Latin. So to have courage is actually a reactivation of this part of our perceptive field, which is far more powerful than the mind. If you've looked into heart math and some of these other organizations, they've measured the perceptive ability of the heart versus the mind, and the heart is far more receptive. So making decisions based upon that sign, that arrow that's pointing us towards what we love, which we can call grief, is really, really beautiful and really important. And it's okay that we've made mistakes because mistakes is just an emotionally charged word that means opportunities for growth and learning. it's okay as long as we look at them reflect and then make a different decision but if we don't then we're in samsara and that's not a state that i want to be in so yeah grief grief is really really important and it this is why sometimes when i go from city to city i also host grief rituals or just circles for people to process these things that they aren't allowed to talk about or that no one in their friend group allows them to share about because they just kind of push it down and go drink a beer and watch the sports game, you know. So there's a really important thing here. Like everyone might have a gratitude journal. People don't have a grief journal, you know. But they're the same thing. As Francis Weller says, they're sisters. So you can't really have gratitude if you don't feel grief. And grief being the impression upon our souls that life makes in order for us to feel. So this goes into a whole other thing about really the recognition and these people who are feeling this transition come upon their life. They're pulling out of the anesthesia because to feel something means that you're lessening the anesthesia. which is a good thing. However, now you're going to be in a different place where you're going to maybe feel a lot. And that's a different thing. It's a different process, but it's a beautiful process and it's a step in the process. So it's a really good thing. You know, a lot of times people tell me that they're disillusioned and I'd say, congratulations, because disillusionment is a positive state if you don't want to be an illusion.
- Alisa
And one of the concepts that I talk about in my work is decorporatization and decorporatizing your mindset. And as you shared, this is a heart led transition that you're embarking on. And it's a messy one. It's nonlinear. It involves grief. It involves feeling more intensely than you may have done for a long time. It's not meant to be, you know, I often hear people say, you know, I just, I need it, I need it to feel, I need it to feel organized. I need to feel like there's a logical next step. It needs to make sense to people. And to me, that's a very corporatized mindset, you know, that you should be taking the next logical step up the ladder to who knows where that, I don't think that ladder ever ends, right? The ladder that just keeps on going. And I think that's, yeah, as you shared, that these, if it's feeling uncomfortable, if it's feeling messy, if it's feeling a bit all over the place, that actually that's probably really good indicators that you are beginning to shift.
- Ryan
Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, decorporatizing, that word really is decolonizing, because corporate, the state of that mind. that you're highlighting where like everything needs to be in order and clean and domesticated and not earthy and entangled like that's the colonized mindset which is why earth when you go to these like suburbs and different places like the lawns are perfectly trimmed there's no food there's no leaves there's no nothing it's like this weird sterile but nature environment and and and yeah like The motion isn't up. Like that's the whole thing with the growth, right? Like the motion isn't up. Why we want to go up and up this ladder is because Judeo-Christian religions have put God in the sky and made God a male, a man, who is delivering understanding down to you. Before that, when we were all tribal peoples, not that long ago, Earth was a woman. God was a woman, a feminine energy, and everything was God here. The trees, the earth, the land, the water, you know, so the motion was never up. There was nowhere to get to up there. You know, we didn't, we can never achieve anything by getting, by disassociating ourselves from earth. But earth has soil. People say they get dirty. Maybe they just get earthy. But there's this motion of getting in the mud, getting entangled, getting back with earth, with the elements, getting charcoal on your hands from being with the fire, getting back into these tangible, visceral realities. That's really, really important, you know, because it stops this trajectory of. trying to make everything fit into some level of perception of cleanliness and transcendence and escape. Like people are trying to escape the matrix. You can't escape. Matrix just means mother. M-A-T-R, matrix. It just means mother. We have to re-enter the matrix into a different field of it, not the shadow field, the actual field of the mother of earth, you know? We don't need to go up into the sky. What are you going to do out there? There's no oxygen. Where are you trying to go? Like, just be here. The earth is one of the most beautiful planets in the whole galaxy. Like, just be here, you know? So this whole motion that you're saying, the decorporatization, the decolonization, like what it is, it's a reconnection with earth, which is why I say that Rebiz is reconnecting business with earth, not to earth, with earth. I don't live on earth. I live with earth. I live in earth. I live as earth. You can't have peace on earth. Why? Because we're just on it. We're dominating. It's peace with earth. It's what Teocas and Ghost Horse says. And these words are really important because they change the way that we view ourselves and that we don't need to go above and beyond anything because that's what we already are at. Right now, above and beyond, like Buzz Lightyear, you know, we have to get back entangled.
- Alisa
Yeah. And I will link, put a link to Rebiz and your other offerings, Ryan, in the episode notes today. So let's finish on the note of entanglement and getting earthy. I wonder if you could offer just maybe one question or one invitation for the audience, something that people can hold on to today and take from this episode to get earthy again.
- Ryan
Yeah. Well, I'll share the one that I always share, which is about the water. So a lot of people, when they come into Rebiz or any of these, other offerings, I ask, how many people care about the planet? Everyone raises their hand. How many people care about sustainability? Everyone raises their hand. Say, how many people say thank you to the water every day or have ever said thank you to the water? Less hands go up, normally none. So to get earthy again, what that means is to re-engage with the things that keep us alive and that we are made up of. That's one of the interpretations. So what I've been told about the water is that it's a really important thing to say thank you to the water. And it's really important, not only because the water, and you can look into Masaru Emoto and his work around water, but so not only because of all of that energetic principles of the water, but because we're initiating an energy of acknowledgement and giving thanks before we're taking something. So every single morning I wake up with a glass of water next to me and I say, thank you. And you can eventually say a lot of other things, what you want as intentions for the day. But you just say thank you for the water every single day. I do. I say thank you every single sip at this point. It changes. It changes your life. It's changed my life since I've begun to do that because. Water is life. Yeah. In Lakota, they say mini wachoni. Water is life. And what that means is that life doesn't exist without water. Yeah. I mean, go to a place where there's no water. Is there anything living? The answer is probably no. So we can't care for the earth. We can't care for sustainability. We can't care for climate without... having a relationship with water? Because if we don't have a relationship with life itself, how are we going to go and fix things out in the world, wherever that is? Right? So for me, that's one of the core aspects that people can do to get earthy, to get reconnected with life, literally reconnect with life. I mean, we can even call water God, but it's a different story.
- Alisa
And I can say for myself, I remember that moment very clearly. I think it was perhaps our first meeting within Rebus when you asked that question, you know, who's ever thanked the water? And that question absorbed into my body more deeply and powerfully than anything else that we talked about. And there was a lot of a lot of deep and powerful material there but that question just lived inside me, so i yeah Ryan and I extend this invitation to you to thank the water and perhaps you thought that your journey into regenerative work was going to start with a job search or you know brushing up your cv but perhaps instead you could try simply thanking the water. It's a good start you know because the future is not o ut there. Like, it's not a line. It's not somewhere that we're going, you know, it's somewhere that is already here. And by our choices today, we remember that future, you know, so it's start start with that start with life itself, and then go and take care of life. But start with life first. Thank you, Ryan. Thank you so much for your energy and wisdom today and joining us on the podcast.
- Ryan
Thank you. It's always a pleasure to connect and looking forward to seeing you in the UK soon.
- Alisa
Before I leave you today, I just once more want to encourage you to take a look at the offerings that Ryan has. Both Rebiz and Project Tipping Point are incredible experiences. I've said before, my Learning or perhaps unlearning inside of Rebiz was just an absolutely transformational experience for me and in many ways gave birth to regenerative work life. So take a look at the links in the show notes. Take a look at Ryan's work and I'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the regenerative work life podcast. It's time to put what you learned today into practice. Remember, you were called to this work for good reason. Nature needs each and every one of us, and you can do this. If today's episode has been helpful, please take the time to share it with someone who needs a little guidance in stepping out of corporate and into regenerative. Learn more about how I can help you find your vision for a work life filled with purpose, impact and joy at regenerativeworklife.com and connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search Alisa Murphy. I'll see you back here soon for the next episode.
