SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Australia, call, men, retreat, boys, people, shaman, beautiful, live, love, years, started, masculine, Peru, breathwork, toxic masculinity, work, ceremonies, Bali, book, men’s work, men’s retreat, men’s circles, men’s workshops,Sacred Sons, Q’ero shaman
SPEAKERS
Julia Malcolmson, Shaun Kay, Martin O'Toole
Julia Malcolmson 00:00
Don't you want to die happy with the smile on your face, waking up laughing cuz you're free of all the things that Good morning, Shaun. Okay, so for our listeners and our viewers today, Martin and I are going to be talking to Shaun Kay. He's a shamanic guide, teacher, breath worker and mentor by Sean elegibles. Hello, Martin. Hello, Sean. How are you doing? Fantastic. You are more than welcome. Thank you for being here with us. And we just want to let the listeners know that today we are actually in Chela, which is kind of our favourite ever breakfast spot. It's a little bit noisy this morning. So bear with us. Sounds of barley. Yeah, well, it's not just sounds of barley. As it transpires, there are two building sites. So I'm really optimistic that this isn't going to sound too bad for the listeners. hope people can tolerate this. I'll do what I can in post production. But we also wanted to quickly apologise because we haven't done a podcast. I know what ages but we're back. Do you want today? We're going to be doing one next week. So we are back on it. So don't worry, there's lots of podcasts coming. So Shawn, yes, just quickly, we would love it. If you could just give us a little introduction to who you are.
Shaun Kay 01:40
What you do. My name is Shaun. Changed saying that a while ago. I am Shaun. But ultimately, my name is Shaun. I like what you did there. Yeah. Yeah, like many I've had a very interesting life up to the beautiful age of 33. And the more I reflect on who I am, I realise I'm a reflection and a mirror for others. Even as far as human design when my profile or my type is reflector, which is a rare 1% of the entire population, according to that methodology. But yeah, as we said, shamanic guide, teacher breathwork and mentor that. What I know to be true is that by shining my light and choosing to be a teacher and share and storytel And the reason I use the word shamanic guide is because it's actually guiding people to the shamanic teachings to shamanic medicine, to the shamans. It's not saying necessarily that I am a shaman. Although that definitely resonates with me. I basically in a sentence, like connecting people to their potential, so doing that as a reflection, doing that as being myself, having conversations, leading retreats, whatever it is, there's so much that I do, but I know ultimately, I'm just a mirror. And if I'm feeling good and positive, you're generally feeling good and positive. If I'm in a bad mood, people around me are probably going to be in a bad mood and not like my energy. So I'm a mirror.
Julia Malcolmson 03:27
So it's quite a powerful place to be.
Shaun Kay 03:30
It's a lot. And I don't say that lightly. Like, it's challenging, it's hard, it's lonely. At times. That's something that's been present for me recently, I get to impact so many people have beautiful conversations being involved in the community, but it's a lonely place to be sometimes where I know what I know, when I see what I see. And I feel everything like I really do. It's, it's not something I say with elevated ego, like I can feel and sense a lot. And it puts me in a really beautiful place. But it also has its fair share of burdens, which is, you know, if I if I'm choosing not to live in integrity and authority and taking care of my health, and making sure my mind state is positive, I know that I'm going to be affecting other people, my community, my team, my family. And so being a mirror comes with, you know, its blessings, but it also comes with its fair share of burdens. And I'm deeply grateful for the path that I'm on. But there are moments like yesterday's full moon where I'm depleted and, you know, vulnerable and roar and I just want to be hugged and held and there's no one there to do that all the time. So it's it's a blessing, but it's also a burden. Today, mira, I feel like leaning over the table and giving you a hug, energetically.
Martin O'Toole 04:56
I'm giving you one.
Shaun Kay 04:59
Thank you
Martin O'Toole 05:00
Just to give us an idea of how you, obviously without giving us the full 33 years story, but what got you on this particular path as a healer?
Shaun Kay 05:12
Beautiful question. Thank you for asking. I actually had another brother, and then circle here in Ottawa to ask me the same question two nights ago. And I believe that life is a series of initiations. And we go through these initiations, regardless of anything, really, they're going to happen. So, for me, I look back on the 33 years, and I can see so many points of my life, that I couldn't be a victim I could be blaming, I could be saying that it was this person or that person, or why did this happen to me, but I actually have such clarity now that these particular things were initiations into my path into the work that I'm doing. And so one of those big moments, which is very common for a lot of people is 27. So they have this 27 Club. He's like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, satin returning astrologically, they call it but it was the day after my 27th birthday, through a series of events a breakup, job, job insecurity, financial insecurity, that I love the sharpening of the knife single back in the background in my knife, because that's what initiations are, is sharpening you to be the best version of yourself. And so at 27, I ended up curled up in a ball in the foetal position at my parents place, asking my parents for support for help, because I was struggling with mental illness. The western world, the Western culture, you know, labelled me as generalised anxiety disorder, with depression, take the medication, see the psychologist, that's going to be your reality. You know, going as far as people saying, it runs in the family, this is genetic. This is hereditary. That's just your reality show. And you're just going to have to take the medication. And that's how you're going to live the rest of your life. That was a huge initiation and, and at that time, my mind was saying, I need help. I need this medication. My soul was saying, this is not your path. This is not your reality. This is not your destiny to be giving your power away to this story of the blackdog depression. So 27 gave me this big initiation to really have a look at why I got into that position. And I was fortunate that since I was 15 years old, I'd been obsessed with like Abraham Hicks law of attraction, Bob Proctor Les Brown, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, like all these mindset gurus. So I had the tools at 27 to delve into what was happening. And 27 was really what I see as like a big rebirth into becoming a man, which we're going to get into boyhood to manhood. But for me, 27 was that initiation that my culture, my upbringing, my society, my worldview hadn't prepared me for that transition into manhood. So the little boy came out and a little boy felt abandoned by my partner that left me he felt rejected by his job, he felt insecure, unstable, unsafe. And so that was the catalyst or the beginning of my healing journey. Now, it's crazy to think that's only been six years since that happened. I've just turned 33. And through the last few years, COVID was like a huge collective initiation for everybody. Everybody had other truth face, their shit per se, the shadow came up, the darkness came up, all those unhealed parts came up. Same for me. I went into another big period in 2019, of healing of, of shadow of darkness of repair of rebuilding 2020 when COVID hit my whole dream and vision was shattered, because I couldn't travel which was a big part of it. But then revisited again, more growth, more expansion, more healing. And then, you know, the healing is never done. 2022 I was on top of the mountain I was living my dream, beautiful relationship. Everything was like exactly as I'd wanted that today. And then the great universal run pool, again, breakup, heartbreak, abandonment, all that stuff came up. And I've just been on a six to nine month journey through the Andes of Peru, working in America with the men's group that I'm a part of. And again, I've just done an incredible amount of healing, but it's just been initiation after initiation after initiation. And that is the meaning of why you asked me to series of initiations and sadly slash, you know, unfortunately, people don't have the tools. And so when it does get intense, like the 27 Club, they choose to take their life or cause harm, because they don't have the tools to navigate it. That's why I'm so passionate about the shamanic work, because it simplifies all of this. The plant medicine has been a big healing part of my journey, especially coming off the medication, which we can get to. But it's, it's the eight pillars that I mentioned to Jules off camera, that I'm sure we'll get to these eight areas, or what I believe can lead us to self healing and liberation. There's a lot to unpack there. Yes, I want to talk we want to talk about all of those things just occurred to me though, some of our listeners, get in touch with me quite frequently to say, I love what you're doing. I love the stories that you're sharing.
Martin O'Toole 11:01
But I can't get past that first base. So I really want to do this work. But I'm still plugged into the matrix stuck in in a rut. I am depressed. I don't know how to add to overcome that. And something you said the beginning of that story, which I think I'd like to just unpick was relating to your observation that the little boy or that the broken boy came out? How did you observe it? What made you aware of your self and your your stuff?
Shaun Kay 11:37
Realistically speaking, it's because probably at this point, right now, in my life, I now have the awareness and the tools hindsight hindsight to see what was playing out back then. And you know, we have these two threads, one going into the future one going into the past. Now, in the present, I can see, by repeat those patterns, this is probably going to happen over here in the future. But when I look at, it was really my emotional response. At 27. It was the overwhelming, almost unconscious takeover of my psyche and my being where this blubbering mess just exploded out of me. And I couldn't stop crying, because like years of suppression or being told as a boy, you know, not by my parents, necessarily. They were amazing. And I've got some really beautiful acceptance around how they raised me, but just throughout life, you know, particularly in Australia, boys, don't cry. Stop that. Cut that out enough of that. Don't you dare beat crying, don't you dare be ungrateful. All of that was like, bottled down inside me at 27. Yeah, say for even 18 to 27. Like you still, if you were upset, you didn't tell your mates about it. If you were sad, you didn't go to a friend and say, I'm really struggling, you least of all went to your mum and dad and said Mum and Dad, my life's a fucking mess. And I don't know what to do. Can you help me there's so much shame and guilt around that. And it's not because our parents didn't want us to come and talk to them. It was just they didn't know how to do it either. And so the little boy I saw come up because he came up again in 2022, when I went through the same sort of period as 2017. Interestingly, satin returning beginning around 27, and finishing around 35. So it's like a repeated pattern of like, there's more there to look at. And, you know, having my heart broken by my best friend last year was actually one of the greatest gifts, you know, that I have ever been given? Because it's sent me out onto this healing journey again, but the little boy, it was just really that primal Animal Response of bursting out crying uncontrollably and wanting help me, help me, help me help me, like, I want you to help me, really looking for the mother energy. And that's where a rite of passage comes in. Within the men's work that we will allude to no doubt is because I didn't have a rite of passage as a boy, there was still a lot of these little boy, behaviours and tendencies in me, that was looking externally for somebody to come and save me. Does that mummy come and save me? Because I was 27 I was still attached to Mum, I was still attached to the mother energy. And a lot of men move and go into relationship, looking for the mother energy from their partner. So that's how I saw the little boy I saw him as needy, insecure, but and look after himself, you know, wanted help and needed help and wanted other people to do things for him. But I was 27 years old.
Martin O'Toole 14:51
That's not unusual, is it? Not at all. I think What's unusual is the awareness, observation and acceptance of Have it. You mentioned, use the phrase Boys Don't Cry earlier on, which is curiously coincidental. So I've got a friend in the advertising industry in Melbourne. And he recently shared a commercial made by a mental health foundation in Australia, with a circle of men sitting in like a town hall. I don't know if you've seen this TV commercial, and one, they're all sitting there Miss miserable, depressed, sort of looking down and one starts to sing the first verse of Boys Don't Cry by the cure, the cure, isn't it. And then by the end of this mazing rousing ad, I mean, I advertising I'm from the advertising industry, so I've got a healthy disdain for it. But it's rare that remembering something like this brings goosebumps to my arms. But it's a beautiful ad. And I wish I could credit the people who created it. But one by one, the entire circle starts to join him in chorus. And by the time by the end, they're all singing, boys don't cry, and they're all smiling, and they're all dancing. And I wouldn't do you think that's how much of that. And we're going to talk about this phrase toxic masculinity in a moment. But how much of that? That bizarre socio social phenomenon is specific to Australia?
Shaun Kay 16:20
Yeah, well, it's it's hard to gauge obviously only having spent a limited time in the UK, which you're obviously from, and let's say the US. But I was, I'll come back to the question. But I was also very surprised to travelling to South America again, and being here in Bali. Where you can just see how this western style of raising boys has infiltrated these cultures as well. And yeah, there's a lot of that. We'll call it shadow or unconscious masculine energy in these countries as well. But in Australia, like, what, when you look at the bigger perspective, or the grander view, like Australia has only existed for the last 200 to 300 years, like it was founded in 1887. And it was founded by boats full of convicts that had been separated from family had been raised in hard, harsh light environments. These mostly men, they came first I believe, had nothing. So they were just survival of the fittest. You don't show any weakness, you don't batter an eyelid, you definitely don't cry. And you just get on with it. That's a big saying in Australia, like get on with it, like chin up, shoulders back, get on with it. And so then, you know, we've also had all these other nationalities and it's very multicultural all come together. And so within 200 years, it's been like, here's a culture, Trump's Smash. Here's a culture that's built on drinking, that's built on fighting that's built on competition, sport, you know, it's huge. Money. So we talk about the four B's, you know, bills, money, balls, sports, babes, women, especially for men. And the last be is let me get this right. Bills, babes. Booze, balls. Yeah, for the fall sport. But that's the boys in Australia, you're constantly comparing yourself to other boys on who is bigger, better, faster, stronger, has more in those domains. And you can just see how this like perpetual state of like, you know, some people call it toxic masculinity. It's only toxic if you let it stay there and exist and it becomes poisonous. But it's that boys don't have anything else to base their self worth on where it's evolving. So that's why it just manifests. It's literally just a cockfight. Like here in Bali, two roosters get in and fight each other to the death. That's pretty much Australian masculine culture.
Martin O'Toole 18:58
I don't
Julia Malcolmson 18:59
learn England the sum? Well, I think so. I
Martin O'Toole 19:02
think so. Yeah, I don't think I certainly didn't mean to single Australia out. But I loved that observation you made about the history of the country.
Shaun Kay 19:13
Genetic remembering as well with Australia, which is huge, is the impact that this invasion of settlers had on the indigenous people. And there's a lot of like, they call it settlers guilt, where there's now you know, young young men like myself, like 20s 30s that are living there that do feel an immense amount of pain and shame and guilt for what was done to their brothers and sisters, the Aboriginal people, and you see it like I'm thinking with goosebumps, which means it's important. You just say that the pain and the ancestral like, disconnect with these people who are the custodians of our planet, who are the wisdom keepers of our planet, and they're laying on the street drunk. or overdosed on drugs, because that's what the Australian government allows to happen after this dispose of this displacement. And so we've just got this culture that is very much healing and needs to heal, not only just healing this, sorry, forgiveness with these Aboriginal people and like, it's just, it's painful, like the amount of ceremonies workshops, events that I've been involved in, both as a facilitator and a participant where there's deep ancestral pain comes to the surface, incredibly healing incredibly beautiful, but it's just not in people's consciousness. You know, they're living their life that go into work every day, and they don't even realise what this is built on.
Martin O'Toole 20:41
Yeah, but then the same can be said for all neuroses and societal conditioning. So So yeah, and answer your question. It's, it's the same in the UK, I suspect it is the same, or at least I've got friends from America who are here who have told me similar stories, I think it's the same the world over isn't it unless you are in a deeply feminine society that I would say, Bali might be different, because because of this wonderful energy in the Balinese boys, and I use the word boys, but I also hence, hastened to stretch due to young men. We've commented on this before. They love kids, and you'll be sitting in a restaurant or a cafe, and you will see a family coming with, obviously, a foreign family coming with their kids. And all of the young men working in this place. I've seen these guys do it, they all their faces light up as a little baby, and they take turns playing with the kid, so beautiful, nobody minds, the management don't mind, because that's, that's, it's just absolutely standard, these, these young men will just instantly disarm.
Shaun Kay 21:52
Well, I see that and, you know, as you're explaining it, I see that play out with in Australia and these other countries, but here in Bali, you know, the more indigenous places where they're still connected to the history, the roots, the traditions, is that saying have, you probably be able to rephrase it for me, where it takes a whole village to raise a child is the African proverb that they use. And you really see that here, it's like, maybe that's why they're doing it. But it's, everybody takes care of everybody. Yeah, a big thing for me at the moment that I've been sitting with is like the vision or the dream, or the goal of when my parents age of having them be with me, and whether I'm in my big retreat centre, which is the vision having them in their own little place on the property. And as they age, they age there and they stay there and they they're still with us. Same with here in Bali, you go to a Balinese home or village and the 95 year old mother is still there, sweeping and cleaning up and the kids are playing the other mothers, it's like a unit, the family unit. And that is probably one of the biggest things that is fragmented and fractured. In these western countries isn't every man for himself, it's like, you've got to go out and fight work hard. Build your own life, like it's not up to your family to look after you. And for me, my deep, you know, Soul frequency is like this family unit from like, How can my mom, my dad, my sister, our future families, like all work together all support each other? You know, if mums retired, and she can do my bookkeeping a couple of days a week, and I can get and look after her. And then they need anything. I'll be there in a heartbeat. But there's so much like, so much sticky resistance, which is all of the trauma between all of us that just even voicing that is really scary for me to be like mom and dad, like, here's my vision. I know, because I've got it on the wall at home, but it's like, here's my vision, here's what I deeply desire. It's to actually have you both there. I'm not gonna put you into a nursing home unless you choose. That's what you want. But it's for them to understand that and conceptualise like, it's not just all about you. Yeah, that's the whole thing in Australia. It's yeah, separation ego.
Julia Malcolmson 24:13
But we're absolutely we're so lucky that we've been able to not even just in barley in other countries I've been to, we've been able to witness that and see how communities live. And I know you were there too, when we went to the festival, before nippy and watching the village or take care of each other. So like the slightly older guys were looking after the even the little ones and it would kind of go up in age groups and just they did it with so much love and care. There was no there was no resentment, no. No embarrassment. It was just well, it's
Shaun Kay 24:41
it's interesting because I believe it could be could be slightly incorrect. But I believe that Native American Indians and Australian aborigines like you can be a child and they will call your grandfather because you like however the generations work. I mean, like, whether it's seven generations or whatever, but it's like as the child, you then become the grandfather and the grandfather becomes the child. And so he just has that, you know, I watch these shows, I think you have it in the UK, or it's like nursing home for four year olds. And if you've seen it, I need to
Martin O'Toole 25:16
know, anything. Reality TV,
Shaun Kay 25:21
but it's like, it's a documentary. And it's all these elderly people that are in a nursing home, you know, grumpy old, you know, buggers that have got no life left in him. And once a week, they bring in these four year old kindergarten kids, okay, I could watch them engage with no video at all. And it's just funny, like, seeing the inner child come out of these old men, and the life that it brings back to them,
Martin O'Toole 25:45
literally vivifies them.
Julia Malcolmson 25:47
That's why like, even here, often the the grandparents take care of little ones. A because it supports the family. But isn't that they talked about how, because the babies have just come into this world and the elderly are about to leave. So they're together. They're both in the closest together.
Shaun Kay 26:05
Versus I guess, yeah, babies just picking up on that.
Martin O'Toole 26:08
Yeah. And these are the things that we do not experience in the Maine in the West. I totally agree. I suspect in rural areas, it's less, it's less like that. I mean, I've lived in, I've lived in small towns, I've lived in big cities in the UK, I live in London. And I've also lived in in a tiny village. And actually, the sense of community in the village was was very much more notable. And there were several families where the grandparents lived down the street. And then you know, so people were, they had that, that closest sense of
Julia Malcolmson 26:44
well, actually, where my parents live, two doors down as some of our neighbours, I got the most adorable two little boys. And these boys, the whole neighbourhood takes care of them, they'll come and knock on my mum and dad's door, and they'll come in because they want to chat. And then we found that recently, they were going up even further up the lane, and they'd knock on the door and just stand there, and then they get invited in and just because they wanted to chat to the grownups.
Shaun Kay 27:03
Well, that was my childhood in small country town was, you know, I was rarely at the house, it was out on our push out on our bicycles writing, building like jumps and creating things, being at Friends places like mom could sometimes have no idea where I was the whole day. And I'd be the same, I'd stop at the petrol station and talk to the owners, I'd stop at the supermarket and talk to the owners. But now like I go back to that town, and kids are sitting at home on their devices, like the the local park in the skate park that just used to be an abundance of us buying during the day, there's now no children. So it doesn't know whether technology is stealing our consciousness or whatever it is, and our childhood and our childhood. So it's just really taking our power back and deciding how do we want to raise our children? Most parents are so busy, they don't evaluate that.
Martin O'Toole 27:59
No. And so that kind of just coming full circle to what you were talking about earlier on. We have a situation now where where toxicity is normalised where if you have an entire family, who doesn't communicate very well, then they would rather not communicate and just let sleeping dogs lie. And then of course, when they do try to communicate, there's usually a clash. Yeah. And if one of the family members attempts to do you, you're talking about doing and I'm speaking personally as well. Now, when you done this work, and then you go back to your family to say turns out I'm not the person I thought I was. And it turns out I've had some interesting lessons, would you? Would you like to hear about them? My even my father said he didn't understand what I was doing. He couldn't he couldn't get his head around it. And when his friends were asking him, how was I doing in Bali? He would say, I don't really know what he's doing. I can I don't get it.
Shaun Kay 29:06
Interesting to share that because I was just saying to Jules, I had some beautiful, vivid dreams last night about some relatives that have passed ancestors and my father's grandmother, from my great grandmother and my grandfather, who passed away, I don't know maybe 20 or 20 years ago. So I texted this morning because I know how much they mean to him and how sentimental he is with his with his ancestors and I just said I had some beautiful dreams last night about Nana Mali and and pop down and he wrote back mushrooms that I you know, work with medicine and mushrooms and have you been at it again, is good, like an understanding of why and how it'll it'll works and he's definitely had them when he was younger man in different contexts. Yeah, but yeah, just you know, even sitting down and being like, Dad, I was in Peru. For a month thinking the cactus every second day, you know, he would sit and listen and you know, interact, but whether or not you know, they, they can conceptualise why you would want to go and do that.
Martin O'Toole 30:13
I think it's the same. My dad's always interested to hear the stories, but I do wonder where he's at, because he's is quite an introvert man. He's very insular. And, you know, we've always we, as, as everybody who knows, my story, knows my mom was an alcoholic. So we had a very traumatic homestead for many, many, many, many years. And he did his best. But he was obviously out and about on the road all times he was working, it was a travelling salesman. So we didn't have this beautiful connection. Father, Son connection, as we grew older, especially I'm sure we did when we were children, I'm sure we did. You know, you have these, when you remember, a lot of negative stuff. Unfortunately, that tends to cloud the positive experiences as well, doesn't it. And if my dad ever did listen to one of the podcasts, Dad, I'm not saying we never had fun. But what I am saying is with a dysfunctional family structure, and try and get back on point with, with why we got you on, that leads with three boys, my older brother is eight years, my senior, my younger brother is two years, junior to me, that for our family that that led to three pretty fucked up young men. And we all in our own way, made a significant mess. My older brother and I was probably I was definitely the superstar when it came to the, the the, the, in inappropriate expression towards women, that is to say, searching for intimacy, through the miracle of the feminine, and as and as a result of being a broken little boy actually breaking a lot of hearts and minds along the way. But my older brother is at his own traumas, he married to a woman who was very, very unhealthy for him, to say the least. So we all ended up with this, with these these problems. And we didn't we didn't have the tools. So assuming we've got some people listening to this, who are affected by this kind of thing, this is why you and I spotted the chat wherever we started the chat in the first place. Because you asked us if you could come on the podcast. And when we when we checked you out? Yes, yes, we absolutely wanted this conversation. Because we have a lot of women who listen to the show, and watch the show, who who are dealing with with what is termed toxic masculinity. And and I think they're, they're looking for answers they're looking for, for ways to cope with this. Ultimately, I'm not sure what to tell them other than get out. Because unless, unless these men are willing to step up, and start owning and taking responsibility for their bullshit. And that is to say, they're going to have to have that moment that you had in the moment, I had that awareness that what we were doing wasn't actually serving us or anybody else. But unless you're willing to do that, I don't see how you how, how it's going to be healthy. But then you do have a solution for a D, you have a workshop process.
Julia Malcolmson 33:25
Before. Before we get into that really quickly, can we just unpack toxic masculinity? Because I think it's been one it's one of those phrases that's been thrown around a lot recently. Yeah. And I, I would say in many ways is, it's a really dangerous phrase to be using, and it's actually damaging the masculine which we need. So I wondered if you could just like, unpack that a little bit. And what the what people are referring to when they say toxic masculinity and why it's actually not a very good route to be going down when we keep using it.
Shaun Kay 33:58
Men aren't toxic,
Martin O'Toole 34:00
which is the first the end.
Shaun Kay 34:03
Men aren't toxic. You can say the same thing for a lot of women. Women are toxic, but it's just putting the blame on somebody else. But how you're feeling but ultimately, in terms of the men, there's a lot of we're not a lot it's on it's almost in every man shadow masculine, where the unconscious stories, patterns, traumas, you know, things that have occurred through life and created beliefs or created protection, survival mechanisms, through the primal ancestral part of the brain, the animal brain that just wants to keep you safe. And so to avoid pain, anyone men or women will do whatever it takes to avoid pain until they become aware of the behaviours that are masking the pain. So for the men we I would just call it unintegrated energy. So it's unintegrated parts of the self. I know for me, there's unintegrated parts around money and finances, and knowing that I am abundant. There is enough, I am worthy, I am valuable. But there's still something there that doesn't believe there is enough. But there's a part of me that's potentially back there in childhood where I didn't feel there was enough because my emotional body was saying, Fear danger. You're You're not safe, because you don't have enough right now. And so it's going back and reclaiming those parts and reintegrating, this is why it happened, and that for the men, and with the toxic masculinity term, it's it's about awareness. So that's what do you use the word toxic? You know, words are spells, right? We're creating something through that. So if you're a woman or a man saying that toxic masculinity this and I've, I've used it in the past, I've said toxic masculinity, this toxic masculinity that if you're using that term, well, then you're externalising this idea that men are toxic. So what's the universe gonna show that to you? Toxic men, you're not then giving these men the opportunity or the power to become the men that you want them to be. But, you know, a change of phrase, like I said, of whether it's unintegrated could be shadow shadow with people don't have the awareness, Shadow is just where there's patterns and stories and beliefs that you're not aware of, in your conscious awareness. You know, example might be if, you know, Martin was to invite me to a meeting and not telling me what the meeting was about. Shadow behaviour could be that I start to feel threatened. I thought I start to feel insecure. I start to like, you know, overthink and anxiety over analyse, why does Martin want to meet with me, when he's potentially going to offer me a million dollars, hopefully. But the shadow that comes up is I'm in fear and anxiety about this meeting, because I don't know what's actually happening. Whereas if you're not in the shadow, you're like, this could just be a wonderful opportunity, it could be a beautiful conversation, get to connect with somebody. And that really comes bringing it back to Bill's question with unintegrated, toxic masculinity. So men that are behaving as little boys, because they don't trust, it's when you don't trust yourself. So a lot of these men are suffering, usually in silence, because they don't trust that they can actually change. They don't trust that they can be the man that everyone's asking them to be. They don't trust that if they do that life is going to support them. And so if you don't have that trust, you are going to project your stuff and try and control the feminine abuse the feminine, talk down to your kids, you know, judge other people, because ultimately, you're not trusting yourself. So yeah, I find it's challenging to answer like that question around toxic masculinity, because all it's implying is that men are basically and there's a lot of shit men out there, we see it in politics and leadership and whatever. But ultimately, if you just boil it down to their little boys, that are trying to get their needs met, through controlling their external environment. No, if you're an integrated, man, you know that you have everything inside. Everything you need is in here. It's not in your partner. It's not in a woman. It's actually not in your kids. It's not in your career. It's not in money. It's not anywhere but inside. And so it's being able to find that and when you find that you become integrated, and you're no longer projecting out there. validate yourself was good, thank
Martin O'Toole 38:58
you. Very important. Yeah, it is and we talk about it often don't we? Because the reason why I wanted to use the expression on the podcast was because we're in this scene to just be in a time and space now where people are very quick to put a label on things
Shaun Kay 39:17
well, just look at the word toxic it's got an accent so it's like you're putting a cross through the masculine that's a little the women do this they man hate it's like, all men are shit. You know, they have been the station's about this guy. That guy this guy's an asshole. This guy's that this guy's this. Yeah. And it's like, but have you actually sat down with that man, and had a loving conversation and said, Hey, Martin, you know how you did that thing? That was really unkind. uncompassionate whatever it was. It's something that I feel you should have a look at to become a better man. If you haven't had that conversation, stop talking shit about man and stop blaming men because you've got stuff that you need to work on as well.
Martin O'Toole 40:00
Of course, it always takes two to tango, there's exactly everybody's co responsible for their relationships. And it's all well and good. One of us blaming everybody else, or, in my case, to a certain extent, falling on the sword and accepting the responsibility for a lot of these failed relationships and dramatic encounters. Because same as you with hindsight, I've gone back over it all and gone. Ah, yeah. Okay, so now I see that I was a wounded inner child, or rather, my wounded inner child was was coming out.
Shaun Kay 40:36
But that's also where that you know, the Rumi quote comes in of like, the wound is where the light enters. So it's, we only grow through pain. Man, woman, child doesn't matter animal, you only change through pain. So as a man, how painful does it have to get for you to shine a light on yourself, look in the mirror and say, I need to work on myself. So break up, fall on the sword, whatever it is, the immense pain has come up because you haven't taken responsibility. Then all of a sudden, like I said, before the universal Ron Paul, job loss, you lose your mother or your father, your partner breaks up with you, whatever. And then you're faced with the reality. Yeah, it doesn't have to be like that.
Martin O'Toole 41:19
It doesn't. But I think it's important to to just double down on your universal ripple point. Yes. Which you made. You alluded to earlier on. Newsflash, there is going to be a universal rub pole, every X Y, Zed day, minute, week, month, year. That's life on earth. And the and I obviously I talk about this a lot you and I've talked about impermanence. And the the message that I'm constantly trying to convey even in my book is to suggest that everything in this world is subject to the laws of impermanence. I said, again, everything in this world is subject to the laws of impermanence. So why are we surprised when something changes? And this is this is the work. And this is obviously some of the work that you do. Because if we can get to a stage where more people are equipped to be ready for change, then we're evolving. You know, and there's a there's a quote that I've utilised many times on this podcast, which is attributed to the Buddha, although some scholars say not pain is inevitable suffering is optional. That is to say, you're going to have this stuff, events are going to occur, how are you going to respond? That is the that's the life affirming. That's the life evolving piece of work.
Shaun Kay 42:47
And to bring it back to what you actually asked a few moments ago, which is how do we do this? Like, what do I offer and what to a lot of other people offer? what I offer is a framework of tools that you can use to be the hero of your story, or the hero and I get some time to get some flack saying the hero of the story, hero or heroine. But
Martin O'Toole 43:09
is it more men's work that you're doing at the moment is that
Shaun Kay 43:12
well, I work with both but at the moment, it's it's predominantly men's work. But you know, most of the retreats I run on mix, do you prefer
Martin O'Toole 43:19
heroin tools? I know.
Julia Malcolmson 43:24
If I'm really honest, it doesn't bother me.
Martin O'Toole 43:26
No, it doesn't. Because I use hero as a generic. Yeah, go to but
Julia Malcolmson 43:30
yeah, I mean, heroin sounds quite nice
Shaun Kay 43:32
framework. Core evolutionary drivers. So these are things that are free and readily available to every human being on the planet, independent of income, independent of location, you can access this technology, which is what it is, this is the real technology that I feel like, we need to come back to, you know, all of this technology that we're swimming in, literally, this podcast and tastic. But these drivers in this framework is what I'm working with and using myself helped me heal from 27 to where I am now. And it's helped. Like I've literally worked with 10s of 1000s of people in the last few years, including 1000s of school kids doing breath work and things like that. So number one is breath work, accessing the power of your breath for healing and transformation. So breath work, and you know, with breath work, it's not just Wim Hof, everybody knows better Wim Hof. It's conscious connected breathing, it's pranayama it's it's learning how to use your breath to ultimately regulate your nervous system. Because a lot of this shadow toxic unintegrated behaviour will come up when your nervous system is dysregulated so if you can regulate your nervous system, you already have a little bit of power back by breathwork shamanism embodiment, movement, peace, substances, music and sound. Dance. Okay is another one. So as you've seen on my Instagram, I love Having a bit of a dance and a bogey, a lot of ecstatic dance, these ancient cultures, these ancient technologies, all dance, they're all connected to dancing. We rarely have a structured or any type of like dancing ritual in Australia, you know, even even as going as far as saying, like, you know, the 70s 80s 90s, like our parents were regularly at dances where it was the wild church, like, whatever. Now let's just go to the nightclub, you get messed up, and you dance until 3am. Yeah, as a card. Yeah, doing this. So dance is a really, really important one. And the last one, which should be the first one, David will say it's the last one is mindset. So you don't have a programme for your mind. You're being programmed. I love that that phrase. So it's if you don't have a practice of meditation, or journaling, or, you know, just learning to have a conversation with yourself, because that voice inside your head is the most important voice to listen to. If you don't have a practice, for your mind, you're giving your power away to the world. So those eight things are really what I build everything around, whether it's a retreat, a workshop, you know, a coaching session online, those things are all a part of it. And they are what will help a boy transition to a man, a woman or a girl transition to a woman, a man connect with a woman, a woman connect with a man like they are ultimately teaching
Martin O'Toole 46:28
connection, and connection with self. Yes, first and foremost. Exactly. I love the fact you start with breathwork I don't think we ever talked about or we did we talked about on this. On the show, I think we had quite a well known Qigong master and meditation instructor called Lee Holden, who's a friend of the show religion print friend to us. And Lee did a docu series called searching for superhumans with anthropologists called David for DESE. So So the whole point of this show is because David's been travelling around the world for 30 years, immersing himself in in indigenous cultures. He's an energy worker and a martial arts master himself. And he has, through all of these experiences, from Aboriginals to Indonesia and energy workers to North American shaman to South American shaman the world over. And of course, all the yogi's in the middle, experience all of these practices with the yogi's and the Masters, and so on and so forth. And through all of that work discovered the centric, common practice amongst all of these people, Pan global, and of course, from different eras, these didn't all suddenly pop up at the same time, and arguably are all 1000s of years old. The centre of central practice was breath. Always breath work was breath, and I am happy that you've pointed out that Wim Hof is not the be all and end all of breathwork didn't have his amazing character, obviously, in it and what he's done for breathwork is brilliant that, but that's not the be all and end all of breathwork
Julia Malcolmson 48:14
pranayama, you know, that's, yeah. What's pranayama?
Martin O'Toole 48:20
Was pranayama. Yeah, what do you tell tell the audience
Julia Malcolmson 48:23
is is the is the exercises we use for the flow of prana. So and we work with our prana by working with our breath, which is why we that's how we channel the lifeforce energy, and that's prana in some in sometimes it's chi, or whatever it is, the you planner is so your force.
Martin O'Toole 48:42
Yeah, it's got many names, but I but it's important that people embody this, this idea that none of this is new.
Julia Malcolmson 48:53
I was gonna say what I love hearing those eight pillars is you might agree with this. I don't know. Do you see those eight pillars in a lot of cultures around the world? Yeah, because that's where you've where I've pulled
Shaun Kay 49:05
different things from. I feel like the, this is a tangent, but the path that I'm on is I've already run one training programme, with plenty people in Australia, and a couple of others from around the world, how to work with these technologies in the work that you're already doing. So yoga teachers, sound healers, coaches, just giving them the information, the breakdown of how to do it, doing it themselves getting familiar with it, because this is another thing that I watch closely is, as I just mentioned, they're all free and readily available. Now, the entire spiritual world right now is ramping with every man and his dog, creating a $20,000 programme teaching these three technologies
Martin O'Toole 49:52
I'm so pleased you're going here and it's
Shaun Kay 49:55
hard because off camera I was talking to Jules about you know, the the biggest challenge And in my life right now is maintaining the financial consistency of like, I'm offering so much I'm impacting so many people I'm working with, you know, I don't know, hundreds of men right now in one on one capacity group capacity retreats, but like my foundations are shaky, like, my income is not as abundant as everybody thinks it is. Because a lot of people that are coming to me really need the support and the help, but they can't, yet Hey, the money that I'm worth, I know what my worth is, I know what my value is worth. But I'm alluding to that, that thing is like this is all readily available, anyone can go out and learn it and access it. I've just pieced it all together from like, the breathwork, for example, that Stanislav Grof, was like one of the people that created breathwork, so rebirthing breathwork, and his deep transformational breath work where you can have a breath work experience that, you know, can be akin to a Oscar ceremonies or mushrooms. And so using that using what the shamans use and building it all into this, this programme, so the path that I feel I'm on or I know that I'm on is, is almost creating a school or a centre, similar to Aslan, in the states, if you're familiar with where people come and they learn this and you know, have this Silverstein prophecy vibe, where like, you know, people are having conversation with trees and using learning to work with energy and, and all of that, but these things are like, they're just there. Yeah, you can go on the internet. And you can learn to do that.
Martin O'Toole 51:33
Yeah. But it's one of the things I love about the way you're approaching it, because you are, you are paying due deference. Yes, as a shaman, yes, you're paying due deference to the traditions of all of this. And I, frankly, you do deserve to make them to make a decent living out of this. But as you just as you just alluded there are there are other people who are turning the wellness industry into a luxury product. Yes. That is to say that you can only you can only heal if you can afford it. Yeah, and we've talked about this many times, between us, there are in Portugal, there are a whisker centres where you will pay $8,000 for for two nights of Ayahuasca, and you and I. And you. We all know that that's not, that's not the way it needs to be. But moreover, it's not the way it should be either, because you were going to premium eyes healing. Yes, we're going to, we're going to create, we're just going to continue to expand this ludicrous gap that we have, instead of actually coming close together. I think, of course, you should be able to charge a couple of grand, whatever, three, four grand for a retreat, and if people know what they're gonna get, and they know full well, by the end of that week, they can come out absolutely transformed. And that is money well spent. Let's face it, people spend three, four grand on a lot of other futile things in comparison, and what price do you pull? Yes, on life changing event?
Shaun Kay 53:03
That's where I'd love to find this in the past. I'd love to have it worked out to a point where it's like, what can you pay? Yeah, it's like, here's what it's worth. What can you pay?
Martin O'Toole 53:16
Yeah. And actually, if if some of the people can pay for work, then they're actually going to subsidise you who can't.
Julia Malcolmson 53:22
Some of that kind of started coming in, during the pandemic didn't know that kind of sliding scale. I was doing
Shaun Kay 53:27
like, so just like a regular breath work event. Two hour three hour event. And I'd have three different prices. Yeah, I'd go this, like, you know, $88 $99 122. And I'd say, hey, what you can, and some people will like pet play. Message me being like, I'm not sure I don't understand, like, which ticket should I buy? which one feels
Martin O'Toole 53:52
right for you? Yeah. I'm actually handling the responsibility to be a good person back to you here. Yeah, that's kind of refreshing. Well, it's, it's, it's certainly an interesting time for us to be alive in this space and watching the wellness industry evolve as it is, but but I think you're right to highlight that many folks are taking what's already there, repackaging it to the phone marketing, and the exactly, and putting a big glossy Brandon,
Julia Malcolmson 54:22
we've had this conversation many times, obviously, as a yoga teacher, you know, I'm working with the majority of quite a lot of those pillars are coming into one class, yes. But somebody can take one of the pillars, and they will charge five times what I get, I'm allowed to charge as a yoga teacher. But the end result. I wouldn't say that the students are walking away with any more any less. Yes, but it's because of the way things have been labelled and repackage suddenly, you've got this huge divide in what you can charge and what you can receive.
Shaun Kay 54:51
Exactly. Yeah. And it's, you know, we're obviously in the thick of it here in Bali, as well, where it's ultra competitive. Everybody's trying to live the laptop lifestyle and, you know, charge their big money, which they can, you know, but I love what Martin was saying it's, I think we briefly had this conversation of for me, what I'm currently looking at and exploring is this idea of, I don't have to change the world. And I could change men all over the world and have these online programmes, because because I question I really do question because I've seen people in this space of zoom call coaching, I really question like, how well do they actually know the person how connected to that client? Are they because it seems very transaction seems very, like jump on the call, do the call. Off you go until I speak to you again, just replaced like going and having therapy sit in the chair, you talk about your problems for an hour, you go home, like how you justifying the like, two and a half $1,000 session, or even $1,000 session, when that person already has this like, answer within them. And you're dangling a carrot, it's actually a thing we talked about with the shadow magician energy, which is archetypal, especially in the men's work of this, this mentality of like, for me, I've got this eight pillar framework that I've been working on for three years. And it's purely transformational. And if you want to come and do it, it's 10k. But I'm not sharing anything about it with you, because it's purely transformational. And it's worth 10k. Instead of being like, here's what it is, here's what it does, here's where you can go and find it. If you want to go and do it yourself, go and have a look at Stanislav Grof, don't connect with this person, go and do that. Google whole there. But if you want to learn it from me and experience it through my lens of how it's changed my life, and I'll help you plug into those technologies, is, you know, my programme, let's have a call if you want to talk about it.
Martin O'Toole 56:59
Yeah. And there's, there's there is significant worth in that beginning, because you've put yourself through the journey.
Shaun Kay 57:06
And that was what my roommates said to me last night, when I told him like, this October, I've been invited to take a group back to Peru to work with the Kyoto shamans that I was working with in February, which is a huge honour and blessing and gift. And for me, I was like, It's the money if I go and do this, and I don't make $1 of profit, what I've received is like so much more. And he said, black, bro, like, the fact that you've even, like, locked this in, and you've gone and like paid the deposit and booked the venue and put all this together. He's like, That's, like, that's ballsy. Like, you've that's huge that you trust that much that this and I said, I just know, like, from a deeper place within me that this is what has to happen. Yeah. And I'm just a bridge of people from the west to come and connect with these indigenous wisdom keepers, who were then gonna go out into their communities and share this with their communities. But it's like, and it's the same with the shamans. It's like, this is the price. But what do you think? Yeah. And then we talked about that? Well, to be honest, that's gonna be a stretch, and it's gonna put me under pressure and strain to Okay, okay, let's do it for this. Let there's no attachment, which I am actually envious of. There's no charge. When it comes to the money. And when I say charge, there's no energy in the nervous system about like, oh, like, this is that much. This is just that. Oh, bro, like, 500? Ah, I can only pay 300 No problem. Like, it's just easy.
Martin O'Toole 58:49
The way should be done. It is. We are like it or lump it. We're all in the business of healing. Yes, you know, different ways. And I don't think we'd want to be doing anything else. Right. So. So there's that sort of fine line, isn't there? Yes, we all we want to we need to get paid for what we're doing. Because otherwise we can't keep doing it. Yes, at the same time, we will gladly suffer. And I use the word we don't actually suffer. But well, actually, yeah, we do. Occasionally, I suppose we all feel that pain of being a bit shorter money every once in a while. But we will continue to do that's where the benefits are in are incredible,
Shaun Kay 59:28
and huge. And that's where coming back to what I started with there, which was instead of trying to change the world, or have this huge impact on 10s of 1000s of people and build a multimillion dollar business and blah, blah, blah. Why can't you just impact your community? Wherever you are. So here it's all a lot to we're trying to reach all of Bali, but how can I just have an impact on the community here and all the lots and support them to heal? And then the other thing that that just come into my mind mind as you were speaking about serving and purpose was Bob Knowles, who was like, I don't know what you'd call him a mystic or, you know, philosopher, books about Dharma, and purpose, which is like a hot topic in the spiritual community is like, your dharma would be different to what you're doing as your work. So it could be that we're running these ceremonies and providing, you know, safe spaces for people to come in here. And it's by donation, then, like my shamanic teacher in Australia, was running sweat lodges for years. And he was a window cleaner. Yeah, they made, he made all his income through window cleaning. And then there was no attachment to what that looked like, in there's no stickiness with the money. And that's really what I have been working on recently is like, what, what am I going to do that I know as part of my path, then that's going to help me pay the bills and earn the money, so that this stuff can be more passion, more, you know, community centric reciprocity, which is the retreats. And that's, yeah, it's a challenge. And it's a work in progress of finding that balance. You know, I used to be a school teacher, which as I mentioned, I mentioned teacher, because I'm always teaching just changes power, but I used to work with kids a lot. And just in the last few weeks, the idea of my friend starting a little International School here in Ottawa to, you know, finally thought about it again of like, I would come in, and I do emotional intelligence and leadership and personal development stuff with the kids, like back that curriculum stuff. I don't believe in it. But um, get them doing real life
Martin O'Toole 1:01:44
skills are so funny. Were you were you with me the other day in the coffee shop where, where I met a lady called Erica, she came to meet, she came to get one of my books.
Shaun Kay 1:01:55
I saw it after the fact. So after she'd come and say she was
Martin O'Toole 1:01:59
she was a nurse who had who she was a cardiac nurse who checked out of the system because she she wanted to help people, but she didn't like the system in which she never slept. And then I met another chap last week of friends from Austria, who had also Austrian Yeah. Lovely guy, big heart. And he also wanted to buy a book. So he met me and I bought him a coffee. And actually he bought me a coffee. Thanks, Franz was a teacher for three years wanted wanted to teach wanted to help but exactly what you just said could not get on with the framework couldn't get on with it. He just realised archaic
Shaun Kay 1:02:37
rigid
Martin O'Toole 1:02:39
system, archaic is right. Dr. draconian is probably more appropriate is
Shaun Kay 1:02:43
preparing factory workers.
Martin O'Toole 1:02:45
Yeah. So yeah, you're obviously not alone. There are quite a few people in the opposition. But
Shaun Kay 1:02:49
speaking about those two just brings to mind like this work that I'm doing in the let's call it healing or spiritual space began as I transitioned out of teaching, and I started working just with school teachers, teaching them techniques to avoid burning out and mental illness, because that's what I'd been through. The first four retreats I ran over here in Bali, was all school teachers from Australia, that flew over for a week. They did all the holistic stuff. And then we did development around how to be a better teacher for the children. That was the first start of that journey. The business was actually called Smile teachers. And then also within that business, I was getting paid to go to schools, and then go into the classroom and run like a Mr. Wiggle like, you know, fun, playful, energetic workshop with the kids teaching them breathing techniques, teaching them mindfulness. I've got a children's book that's actually publishing soon, that teaches kids how to do the breathing techniques. Very cool. Yeah, it's it's like subliminal programming. So it's, it's filling their head full of the good stuff, so that they learn how to breathe. But the reason I shared that was because I met a guy over here, maybe 2019 When I was really sort of still coming out of that big dark night of the soul journey. And he was travelling the world with his book that was a mindfulness programme for busy people, teaching them how to manage burnout and stress and anxiety, because he was a clinical doctor that had gone through it. And so he gave me a signed copy of his programme and basically said, Take this, do whatever you want with it like so I then started building my programme for teachers. And then I've added to it you know, it started with breathwork and mindset, and then the shamanism has come in the dance and the embodiment and it's just all become this, this programme. And as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm thinking, like the number of corporate and entrepreneurial people that I've already reached out, but I don't actually have the package product to go to them and say, Hey, Here's what I could offer. I met a guy in the surf in Bali last year, who paid me 25k. upfront, to fly to Melbourne, Australia and teach breathwork to his staff. Just by like, not even thinking and just getting out of my own way, that that, for me is still very much fresh in my mind. I'm like, how did that happen? I just was surfing like
Martin O'Toole 1:05:25
surf more with business cards.
Shaun Kay 1:05:29
Surfing every day eating well, training in the gym wasn't doing much work at all you
Martin O'Toole 1:05:35
were aligned, I was aligned. Interesting. So you see, do you need to just laminate some business cards, take him out exactly. On the surfboard, you'd be laughing. But that's why
Shaun Kay 1:05:42
now like, at this point in my life, I know how important the men's work is for the community and for supporting more men. And I've got a good group of leaders that are now starting to step up alongside me. So nurturing them training them, because I know how important that work is. But I know my deeper purpose and my deeper calling is to keep integrating this shamanic work and sharing this with with people through retreats through trainings through, you know, bringing the key out or shamans, one of them in particular, he wants to come he wants to come to Australia, he wants to come over here. He wants to share his medicine work with people at SLAC. You know, that could be such a good opportunity and gift for me to be able to do that as well. On finding this this balance between you know, what is right now and what still building and evolving.
Martin O'Toole 1:06:36
Beautiful. Yeah. So you mentioned you'd been away? Should we dive into that little bit? What were you doing? Just recently? Yeah, you were so actually you reached out to me when you were still in Peru? Or no, you were in North America. Okay, so
Shaun Kay 1:07:02
November 2022,
Martin O'Toole 1:07:05
I was sorry, since you have so far you're going to eat that cookie, because they're afraid yours.
Shaun Kay 1:07:11
In this cookie is all yours carry. So I'll just give you the full spectrum. So June 1 2022, first day of winter in Australia, I got hit with COVID. Finally. And I'm not sure the listeners and yourselves what COVID was like for you if you've had COVID. And I had COVID. But it just felt like a full attack on my nervous system. I didn't have a flu per se. I just went into the dark night of the soul in a matter of hours. That was really the beginning of this. I feel 12 month initiation that was coming in hot. It was like, Alright, this one's a big one. And you know, it's time to go, it's time to grow. It's time to learn. You can't, you know, keep avoiding and escaping. And yeah, within that week, my again, beautiful best friend still lover still very close with a decided that that relationship was going to close, not imminently. But like you alluded to, in the next month or two, we're going to close this relationship and go our separate ways as friends that then just triggered this huge wave of abandonment again, that I thought had cleared. And I thought I'd done enough healing on my little boy and my masculine and I was in a really good place. So February 2020 tools, strong top of the mountain indestructible. So yeah, MIDI last year went into a period of deep healing and reflection again. There's some beautiful things that happened there. I had a very vulnerable and deep conversation with my mother about why all of this stuff kept being revisited. I couldn't quite understand. You know that Shawn, you just doesn't seem like you're okay. Like, you know, this. I don't want this to keep happening. And I'm like, ma'am, I know, this is all happening for a reason. Okay, I'm going to be fine. I'm gonna get through it. Right now. I just need time to heal time to focus on myself. I can't even think about the business. They actually helped me financially at that point to just pat me up and get me going. And then yeah, I came over to Bali. I seem to do a lot of healing when I'm in Bali, especially since this beautiful rock in the middle of the ocean is the purification point of planet I call it. They came over here and did a lot of cleaning, a lot of clearing a lot of time alone. And then the 25k came in the surf and that sort of took a lot of financial weight off my shoulders. And I thought I have I'm in a good position here. I've got, you know, money in the bank. I've got breathing room and take my time. And then it was in those moments that this big opportunity to go to North America came up which is with the sacred sons who you I would say the leaders on the planet in terms of men's work and community for men, brotherhood healing as men as a collective group. And like, for me, that was like Christmas because I'd been connected with another brother from Australia who's huge on social media. He'd said, You guys need to talk because the sacred science I've been exploring bringing it down under to Australia. So that was huge for me. But then the price was like, a lot like it was. It cost me probably close to 10,000 us to go and do that. flights and everything. But I just knew I had to do it. There was no if or what or anything about it, it's happening, this is happening. And I'll sell my car or a kidney, if I have to. And so I booked it in I had the payment plan, which was helpful. And then the idea just came to me again, it's like, I was feeling called to go back to Peru. Like if I'm going to that side of the world, I feel it's time to go back to Peru. And I didn't have a real plan. I'm not going to go into the full logistics of it. But as my one of my teachers in Peru says is that when you come to Peru, the doors will open for you. And so I just went there with no plan. I knew that I was going to work with medicine. And I didn't know that there's gonna be our scar, mushrooms, the cactus, whatever I didn't know. And I flew into Cusco after a period of time in New Zealand, and then got to Cusco. And it was it was in disarray, those riots, those protests, those gunshots on my street, it was wild. Everyone in Australia was like, You're crazy. Like, Were you okay, and you're safe. They just taken over the airport, the airport was shut down civil unrest and unrest due to corruption and corrupt government. But um, I was stuck in the apartment for three days. And yeah, I received an opportunity was like, from a lady in Australia, who said, I've got a retreat starting on Sunday. I just saw you're in Costco. Do you want to come and join me? I've just had a lady pulled out. There's one place available.
Martin O'Toole 1:12:10
And this was this was Wasco. This was
Shaun Kay 1:12:13
mainly working with the grandfather with tumour, and then at the very end of the week, and I Oscar ceremony to close it out. But it was, it was profound, like I sat with the idea for a day and just felt into it, then was like, Yes, I mean, but it was 10 days, there was dispatcher ceremonies most days, sweat until the chucka, or Andean sweat lodge on the even days, and then whichever journeys on the old days, so it was just constant layers shedding sweat lodge, watching my sweat lodge or tuning my sweat lodge with tumour, and then yeah, we're tumour in the last day, sweat lodge in the morning, a Oscar ceremony in the evening. And it was everything. Like, I've got my Bible at home, which is my journal from that whole experience. And I'm constantly reading back through it, I'm still very much integrating, there's still pieces that are landing, and then post retreat. I was then invited by two of the brothers, two of the Kyoto shamans, that lie quite literally, I've been reading this book for years, maybe four or five times. It's called the heart of the Charmin by Alberto Villoldo. And I'd read this book over and over and over. It just resonates with my soul. Pretty basic book. But to be honest, when I actually flick through it, I'm like, it's just like, anywhere anyone could write it. But reading about this particular group of shamans and specific names of shamans that have left this lifetime and whatever in this book, and then I get to this retreat, and we're in ceremony and they're talking and explaining in Spanish and my Spanish is like, Bear HOW Blum and Paco Espanol like very little bit of Spanish. And I'm hearing names and I'm hearing it's like clicking and I've got the book with me and I'm flicking through. And I'm like, What the fuck? Like this particular family it was the family that the book was about the shaman legends shaman legends that had gone way up into the mountains. When the conquistadors invaded and started decimating the Incan Empire. They went 6000 7000 metres up into the mountains. And it's only been in the last decade or so that they've started coming down and integrating into the Cusco community. And then now they're exploring, like going out globally and starting to share wisdom that so much we could talk about, but my interpretation of my understanding is like they're the portal or the gatekeepers to the cosmos. Yeah. And the work that they're doing with the medicine up there is like, bringing in information or codes or, you know, whatever white from an app above and they're grounding it into Pachamama. And that up there in the mountains, it's like, that's the new earth. If you ask me. Yeah, you go up there, and you see it, you feel it. It's like she's breathing. She's birthing and mountains, you know, just constantly growing up and up and up and up, where they're farming. Now, you can see they're testing the next little, you know, climate and then the next little climate, yeah, they're just moving further and further away from, you know, what we might call the poop down the bottom.
Martin O'Toole 1:15:32
Yeah, real life. So real real life.
Shaun Kay 1:15:35
And so that that whole journey was, you know, a six weeks in Peru, did the medicine retreat, then I was doing personal ceremonies with them in their own locations. And that was all to heal the masculine. For me, that whole journey was to go and heal the masculine in my wife in my community, my lineage. And you know, it was a lot the day before I flew to Peru, my dad's only brother was killed on his motorcycle. And him and my dad and his brother, like they had had it tougher than most people I know, as little boys, their mother left them when they were toddlers and just abandoned them. Their dad was an alcoholic, who was never home. And so feeling my father's pain, feeling my father's grief, feeling all of that, and then still choosing and knowing that I had to go and do this, and communicating to him like, Dad, if you need me to be there, I'll fly home immediately. But I need to go and do this. Because I know I love you. And I trust that you're on your path and you're doing what you need to do. But those ceremonies and medicine journeys, that was just like pulling these huge pieces out of my heart that I've been carrying my whole life. One in particular, that was like a spear in the back of my heart that I've had this pain for years, and the right side and the back of my back. And yeah, it was like energetically during a sweat lodge. The shaman just pulled this big spear out of my back. And I've had no pain, no shoulder discomfort. I love those steps. And it feels to me like it was actually like a past life situation. An actual step, an actual spear, BLS somebody had betrayed me or backstab me. Nothing had really integrated yet, other than my awareness. And then yesterday, one of the sacred sons leaders on a coal mentioned these, many of you are carrying the betrayal of the Brotherhood wound was that oh, that resonates and it was a lot of breasts, high priests, Shamans, medicine men that were killed for being magical and using your eight pillars. Yeah. You are then burned at the stake, captured, shot wounded. And many of us are still carrying that from past lives.
Martin O'Toole 1:17:58
Well, of course, the same thing happened to the feminine with the witches. Yeah, but we hear so much
Julia Malcolmson 1:18:03
more about it with feminine than we do with the masculine. I've
Shaun Kay 1:18:05
never heard. I've never heard that come up. No. I
Martin O'Toole 1:18:09
mean, I when I went to Peru, and walk the Inca trail with a wonderful shaman brother called Stefano. He gave me so much information about about the past and what had happened. And I don't think I don't think we take this on board. Most of us, you know, sitting in that curriculum through that history lesson, and we hear about the conquistadores. And we hear about the missionaries. You know, this, this, this spread of Christianity around the so called undeveloped savaged, or, you know, savage world filled with savages. And actually it was, it was criminal. It was absolute. It was genocide.
Julia Malcolmson 1:18:54
We don't learn about it like that.
Martin O'Toole 1:18:57
We learn about this some sort of glorified version of it these days. He's aborigines travellers, who, who were brave enough to go across the planet and you know, in their shoes, you
Julia Malcolmson 1:19:07
discover new lands, if you go on rediscover. That's
Martin O'Toole 1:19:10
right. That's a that's a great word, isn't it? We go online in
Shaun Kay 1:19:13
Australia and try to look up and research information on the stolen generation. And when the white settlers invaded what happened to the aboriginals. And the reason I learned a lot of this was because during COVID, living in a small region in Western Australia, and actually talking to the Aboriginal elders and the families and having come to the retreats, and facilitate was like, So say, for example, on the Australian Government Information, it'll say, there was a an altercation between this white family and the local Aboriginals living next door and three Aboriginal men was shot. And you talked to the aboriginals, and that's like 150 were massacred. Like, stuff like that, where that the population or the tribe in that area was pretty much much decimated overnight. Yeah, except for like a handful now that managed to escape. Yeah. And so we've got this huge cover up and you know, the world over world over. And so the same with the conquistadores in Peru, the Native American Indians, you know, it's happened everywhere Mayans
Martin O'Toole 1:20:15
is it's all it's the same story in it. And of course, well, in this particular story, it was the Roman Catholic Church
Shaun Kay 1:20:22
and what I actually believe and what I saw, or what I got to experience with the medicine is they're they're still right here with us. And they're coming very quickly back like, they're just emerging, they potentially use their magic powers use their shamanic powers to disappear into another realm or dimension. And, you know, working with the shaman of Machu Picchu, while I was there, some of the stories that he tells of things happening around Machu Picchu, as he was initiated into becoming the caretaker of Machu Picchu. Just, you know, hard for a lot of people to mind blowing your hand. But, you know, if you have the fully open mind, like what he tells you, it's like, well, there's a big reason why Machu Picchu has just recently been closed for quite some time due to the protests, but they've been working extensively energetically on Machu Picchu, to activate it, because Machu Picchu is a massive activation point for planet Earth. And then all the rules the other one. And so I'm going very wide. Yeah, very up 2020 I think it was the 20th of December 2020. There was the Saturn Jupiter conjunction, whatever relevance that has. But in Australia on that date, they had a huge like events and festivals all over where the intention was. The Aboriginal man, the elders, were going to Uluru into the sacred site, only men are allowed to go there because it's a masculine site to do this ceremony to activate what they say is this crystal bed that's under root as rock. And there was these events all over Australia, people sitting and gathering and meditating and sending their intention towards as rock because they needed a specific number of people to make it happen. And that was the first like activation, and the second one is Machu Picchu. And so it's like a masculine and feminine thing. And it's like the two pillars, two points of polarity. And so they don't tell you how to know what your experience is of the shamans. But I'm asking them like, why is it closed? Like, what do you think the reason is? Why is there all these protests? I don't think it's because they're the government like what's going on here? And they're like, it's we're just working on? Yeah, we're just
Martin O'Toole 1:22:35
powering up. Yeah, patch. The reentry Hall our entry into New Earth.
Julia Malcolmson 1:22:43
Like, I want to go back to Peru.
Martin O'Toole 1:22:45
Well, we were gonna we've been talking about going with you anyway. So I've been to a
Shaun Kay 1:22:50
weekend task is to get that retreat
Martin O'Toole 1:22:53
live. Yeah. And you're going to introduce me to someone who's going to introduce us to a very
Shaun Kay 1:22:57
97 year old old medicine woman,
Martin O'Toole 1:23:01
medicine woman, because I really, really want to start vibing with some female Charmin that that tall, and I'm sitting in the chair. Yeah. And you are very tall. Yeah. So before we wrap up, then what's next?
Shaun Kay 1:23:14
I'm flying to Australia. I don't know when the podcast will be released. But in two weeks, on end of April, we have a men's retreat down on country in the middle of the bush in Australia, probably 30 Men, maybe more. Going through this framework and process and, you know, deep work with the men and the masculine and helping them become men releasing a lot of that little boy stuff. Then I'll be back in Bali, probably into September. And once I'm back, we'll be running breathwork events, static dance, you know, men circle that I do here and all our two. And then yeah, back to Peru, probably around September, I'll do a month of my own work with the shaman. So my own training and learning. And then in October, we'll have the retreat up in the Andes. But only at this stage we're only drinking we're tumour on that retreat, which is San Pedro cactus, for those that aren't familiar. Beautiful heart medicine beautiful father energy, which is really favourite important. And that's, you know, for me, and that's what I'd love to just take more men to do that because it really is the father energy. And that's, that's really in men's work. The thing that's missing it's teaching men what is that father energy that grandfather energy, like? How would you treat somebody? If you were the grandfather, like the old wise grandfather, it's almost like you've got this beautiful feminine energy, but you'd also like, quickly whip somebody into line if they needed to be with love. And that's what the cactus is really for me. And just also how to be a caretaker for this beautiful Pacha Mama, that we get to live in on as a part of
Martin O'Toole 1:25:05
beautiful, and how can people find you?
Shaun Kay 1:25:09
So my Instagram Sean k one SHA un Kiowa one our website is Pat jha.cc so P ac h.cc That's where you can find out all about the retreats and the work that I'm doing with this growing community. Other than that, just say hi to me if you see me in the street I love to have a chat anytime you
Martin O'Toole 1:25:36
can usually see him a BGS so yes
Shaun Kay 1:25:40
if I don't feel like talking to too many people I guess that's the way that's me and Thanks Jules and Martin for having me. We finally made it happen. Yeah. Astrological
Julia Malcolmson 1:25:54
we're trying to do it the day after the full moon. Oh yeah, Don, I need to look more at my calendar when I make these appointments here we do because we just keep having these bizarre little technological glitches which as you've seen when you've got all this gear can cause havoc a lot of gear thanks thanks Jules for arranging it because worries was like the third one wasn't it? Yeah, that time we've maybe maybe second or third time lucky second time lucky. Well, thank you brother. really appreciate you. Yeah. So thank you so much, much love! it
