Journey Through Shamanic Breathwork and Inner Knowing

Walker Bird [00:00:04]:
My Inner Knowing, empowering you to find your compass for the journey. We are dedicated to supporting you to rediscover and trust your natural ability to navigate life. Each day by sharing insight and experience through the lens of two professional communicators and their guests, we intend to prompt internal inquiry that supports all those willing to explore a unique path. Hello.

Theresa Hubbard [00:00:33]:
Well, hello.

Walker Bird [00:00:34]:
We like to drop in with that.

Theresa Hubbard [00:00:38]:
Yeah. How are you, Carley?

Carley Mattimore [00:00:41]:
I am. I am great, actually. Very excited to be here and sharing with the both of you and with the audience that is listening in.

Theresa Hubbard [00:00:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Well, we always dive right in and then we circle back around to things later. So when you think about for you what your inner knowing is, what it feels like, how can you best describe.

Carley Mattimore [00:01:08]:
That it is such a work in progress to let you know this piece? I feel like in reflecting on that question, what I've come up with is that it is such an organic process of alchemy that goes on in my body, you know, that it's working with learning how to trust that inner knowing. And even though that inner knowing might come up and it might be very present for me, because it really. It's like. How do I want to say this? It's like so many. So much of the. The dense, heavy energy that has been there, holding it, you know, maybe in a more detached way, you know, harder to access, that is sort of breaking away. And it's much more easy to access that inner knowing and yet still involves an organic process of being physical. You know, the physicality of being in my body, digesting and processing and feeling into what that inner knowing is.

Carley Mattimore [00:02:21]:
And as that starts to happen, there is this trust of knowing. And it's a feeling. It's like it's in me. And it resonates with a frequency, you know, of a feeling, you know, that often comes with goosebumps or ears or, you know, you know, a physical sensation in my body that is so much more accessible now because it's not just in this place of being detached. It comes and I sit with it and go through the process of digesting it and honoring it and knowing that it is there and it is guiding me and to trust it. It's a process of trusting. So it's an interesting. I don't know if that answers your question, because it's been such a place of understanding that it is definitely an alchemical process of working with physicality and trusting that inner knowing, which is the truth.

Carley Mattimore [00:03:30]:
It's understanding that that truth is there, and it resonates through A feeling you.

Theresa Hubbard [00:03:37]:
Mentioned several times, Carley, the word trust. How do you. As best you can recall, how did you go about building that trust in yourself?

Carley Mattimore [00:03:53]:
You know, I think part of it is that it's probably already, you know, throughout most of it, it's there, but we're not aware of it. And every single choice that we make, but we're not conscious of that trust. It guides us, you know, and what I think of this example for myself, you know, when. And I can give it as a clear example. It's like every part. In my 50s, I started opening to an. I had a new level of freedom, having raised my kids and launched them into the world. And I have five daughters and a blended family.

Carley Mattimore [00:04:28]:
And there's been definitely loss in that family coming through loss of a parent, either through divorce or through death, you know, so my. My focus was on raising those kids. And then when that, you know, when they were launched, there became an opening, you know, a little bit of a channel for me to be able to, you know, to listen a little clear. But so much was shut in my body. I had so much density and so much resistance there that I wouldn't even. I wouldn't even been able to call it resistance, but it was like heavy, dense energy. But there was a moment when, you know, my husband, you know, shared with me. He went through a process and he came back all excited and he said, I can see you and I do this, doing this work together, which was the shamanic realm.

Carley Mattimore [00:05:18]:
It was doing breath work, shamanic breathwork. And I'm like, you know, I needed too much control over my life to allow something like that into it. You mean, like lie on the floor too loud shaman music and breathe and have visions? There was a lot of resistance, you know, but I, you know, but in spite of that, when the opportunity came up and I was really wanting to go to Chile with some. Some excursion and adventure that was opening me up, you know, my body led me to do the shamanic healing initiatory process, to do ship, even though every part of me said no. So, you know, I think that the detachment, you know, was there and the resistance, but the truth, the trust, still led me to the next right step, and it allowed me to show up there. And, you know, I'm a. You know, I grew up trying to make sure everybody was happy and, you know, people, my people pleasing and making sure nobody was upset with me so I wouldn't be abandoned or rejected, was so strong that for me to show up at this workshop, this training, which was A whole month long. And to show up and actually say out loud, I don't want to be here in a group of people was like.

Carley Mattimore [00:06:44]:
It was an antithesis. It was not me. But it let me know that my soul guided me to that next step, even though I was resistant. So I think we often have that. We go, but we're detached. We shut down, but we follow it through. And I think the process, as it unfolds, is melting, releasing, working through and digesting all of that resistance, all of those things that have been our blocks. As we begin to heal ourselves, those things begin to open the pathways to trust that inner knowing stronger, but so much defense.

Carley Mattimore [00:07:30]:
We've had so many defense mechanisms blocking it that we've, you know, not easily been able to access it, but we still move forward.

Theresa Hubbard [00:07:41]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's lovely. Yeah. What do you think?

Walker Bird [00:07:47]:
I love the melting metaphor. It just. It really resonated with me. And the other thing that you said that I thought was great, too, is honoring that knowing once you see it. Having a, you know, an intentional recognition to me just sounds so important to be able to put myself back in that space more and more often.

Carley Mattimore [00:08:15]:
Yes, yes. You know, and that's where I think it's continually being an alchemical process because we learn to trust it, or more and more, you know, even though our head, you know, our thoughts are like, I can't do this, or, this is too scary, or whatever it is we. The more that we begin to release and melt or digest or process those wounds, the density begins to dissipate. The defense mechanisms begin to soften. They don't have to be so guarded and protected. They learned. We learned to trust that inner knowing, and we learned to find a way to balance risk with safety in a brand new way.

Walker Bird [00:09:02]:
Nice.

Theresa Hubbard [00:09:03]:
Yeah. Upon reflection, Carley, when you think about the resistance, what do you. What are you aware of now that you were struggling to let go of control? Control?

Carley Mattimore [00:09:22]:
Yeah, control. You know, growing up, you know, with childhood wounds, you know, and particularly for me, a great deal of loss, you know. You know, loss of control of things, you know, that were hard, you know, with parents dying and a sister dying and, you know, and other things, you know, accidents that happened where someone, you know, one of the sibling almost died. And. And then for myself, you know, I lost a husband with two small children, so there was a lot of loss. And with that loss becomes, for myself, was unprocessed and having to step right into life without digesting it, my, you know, my way of managing that was to try to Control it to make sure that I had, you know, that I was the only driver in any car, you know, to make sure that I was always one step of my kids in terms of their going out into the world, you know, how can I make sure that they are safe or anybody in my life is safe. So there were, you know, there were ways that I was even unconscious with that were over controlling and that manifested in more dense, heavy energy and less ability to consciously access that inner knowing. Even though I know it was still there and it still guided me, it wasn't as clear.

Theresa Hubbard [00:10:54]:
Yeah, thank you, that's so helpful. And then you go on this month long experience and what were you aware of? I mean again, as best as you can recall, that started shifting things or uncovering things or releasing things.

Carley Mattimore [00:11:16]:
It was realizing the resistance to going through change, you know, and as things began to move and one of the tools that I was able to access was the shamanic breathwork tool which initially my husband first introduced it to me. I'm like, oh no. But it was. It's the most amazing tool and it's so aligns with my body and what it needs to move energy. It's like a. You know, a friend of mine, Ruby Faulkner said it's like the Roto rooter of energy work. And it takes on a metaphorical journey to access whatever wants to come to you. So it's physical, but it's also metaphysical.

Carley Mattimore [00:11:56]:
So archetypes come and visions come and. And it started opening me up at such a profound level that I could no longer deny that I am interfaced with the world around me and that there are all of these messengers and messages that are constantly working with us on a daily basis. So my vision of the world just totally expanded and I began to see that there is a bigger picture here than I could have ever possibly imagined. And everything, everything's in right. Everything's in right relationship. It's like both understanding the physicality and also that there's a higher perspective.

Theresa Hubbard [00:12:41]:
Yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:12:42]:
So I moved that dense energy, you know, related to the grief held in my body. And I think that was one of the most profound ones is to when I started to move that energy to see how it was lodged physically in my body and how it moved through almost like sludge as it was released from my body. Totally not, you know, totally foreign. And out of my awareness of understanding that this experience, particularly the loss of my father when I was 21 years old, took up a space in there. And through this process of doing breath work and the Shamanic healing initiatory process, because it's designed as a process of working through the elements and working through a birth process, essentially a rebirth process. You know, I moved that dense energy and it was like. It was. I mean, I could feel it.

Carley Mattimore [00:13:40]:
It was. When it came out, it was like stuck in my field, like this fog. But I had so trapped it internally that I didn't even know it was there, affecting how I navigated in the world, you know. So, you know, it just came out, you know, and then the magic of it all, it's like the very last day of this whole month long, you know, when I'm, you know, essentially working with the energy of the dragon, because that's what came up for me is going into the dragon's cave, which was where this energy of loss, of death resided, and recovering that, bringing that back. It was such an amazing piece because what happened was the day that I did that ritual happened to be the 35th anniversary of my father's death.

Theresa Hubbard [00:14:35]:
Wow.

Walker Bird [00:14:35]:
Wow.

Carley Mattimore [00:14:36]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:14:38]:
No.

Carley Mattimore [00:14:39]:
And then a year later, because in that process, then I opened and that intuition came in. A direct call for me to go to Africa to be with the white lions. That's when the intuition said, you can't. You know, not my intuition. My intuition said, you need to go. You know, I got a call, the white lion said, you need to go. And every part of me is like my head. You can't go.

Carley Mattimore [00:15:06]:
You don't have the money for that.

Carley Mattimore [00:15:08]:
You.

Carley Mattimore [00:15:09]:
Who do you think you are? You're not good enough. You're not, you know, you won't be safe. What will it be expected of you? All the things that we can, you know, put in front of our faces, you know, to block us, to try to keep our safe, are these old stories, right? These are stories that have kept us small, stories that have kept us safe. Stories that we have actually maybe were put on us and we took in to feel safe. So I had to work through all those and to just trust that inner knowing, you know, which then became very much associated with the inner lion. We all have this inner authority, and it is our inner lion. Or as Star Wolf might say, it's the inner shaman. It's this inner guide, you know? You know, listening to that and then making that choice to go.

Carley Mattimore [00:16:07]:
Because the strong. The call is strong.

Theresa Hubbard [00:16:11]:
Yeah, yeah.

Walker Bird [00:16:12]:
It is fascinating how themes come up in our conversations with people because the last person we interviewed touched on the same. The same area. So the universe, I think, is. Is, you know, there's some learning for all of us in, in that particular aspect, for some reason, just fascinating. But, you know, why is it, do you think, that we put those barriers in our own way? For some reason as humans, you know, our brain wants to react to that knowing with a barrier of I can't or I'm not good enough or there's not enough money or whatever it is that keeps us from doing.

Carley Mattimore [00:16:57]:
You know, that's a great question. You know, I don't think that it's done consciously. I think it comes from a place inside of us that really wants to protect us. Some might call that our ego, you know, and some might associate the ego with being bad. Ego isn't bad, you know, and how I see it, the ego has been overdeveloped and it comes from a place of trying to keep us safe. So safety becomes the paramount and it blocks anything else, you know, in an attempt, you know, to keep us safe. And if it's been very well developed with most of us, it has been, you know, staying small or staying contained or staying isolated seems to be safer because we're operating from that probably. And if we wanted to look at it, it's where that trauma first happened.

Carley Mattimore [00:17:52]:
Essentially being in a place of regression, you know, and not, you know, and again, not demonizing or, you know, saying regression is a bad thing. It's understanding regression was a place of keeping us safe, you know, so our five year old might say, you know, you know, it, it's afraid to speak up in class or it's afraid, you know, to share its opinion. It will do whatever it can to make sure mom and dad are happy or teacher is happy or siblings are happy, or it may do the opposite. It may be the catalyst in the family that is the rebel and will act out all of that in attempt because that's how it sees itself as being safe is to be the anger representative in the family or the rage representative in the family. So the barriers get developed and then our job as adults is to essentially go in and reparent them.

Walker Bird [00:18:50]:
I'm, I, I agree. And you know, just the thought occurred to me, maybe we, we have, we are being put through a lesson of moving energy. You know, I don't know, but I think I love the question and I love the way you answered it because I, it just, it makes a lot of sense.

Carley Mattimore [00:19:13]:
So can you, can you elaborate? Like a lesson in moving energy?

Walker Bird [00:19:19]:
Yeah, you're just. My thought process is right off the cuff as just. We are, I think we come here to learn. Right. And if, if we are Going to take on greater responsibilities in the energetic world, the spiritual world. Then we need to learn how to move past barriers. So maybe we create the barriers for that purpose, you know, or maybe they're put in front of us for that purpose. I don't know.

Walker Bird [00:19:53]:
I think we have a big part in it, maybe all the part in it. But that's just where I am this morning. You know, it just. That's what it feels like to me.

Carley Mattimore [00:20:04]:
And I.

Walker Bird [00:20:04]:
Because I can't understand why we would do it otherwise.

Carley Mattimore [00:20:07]:
You know, it's a tr. I mean, I see it as a trauma response. And we're in a right now, you know, where we're seeing how trauma, which is in my interpretation of it, is unprocessed. Unprocessed things that have happened generation after generation in our lineage. And it has set us off course. We are out of alignment, you know, with the natural world. We have disconnected from each other and from the natural world to, you know, in an attempt to either, you know, express ourself as a tyrant or the victim. And essentially we both.

Carley Mattimore [00:20:46]:
We hold both of those because they're really aspects of our stuff that are undeveloped. And one. We and it. And it really is that. Right. And left brain, too, right. You know, we call it masculine, feminine, but it's essentially, you know, life force energy with, you know, consciousness. And how do we bring these things together.

Carley Mattimore [00:21:06]:
And it is energy. And I. You know, it's like understanding. We are energetic beings in a physicality, and even that physicality is energy. And now as we access, as we. As we. As we, you know, make it conscious, because I think a lot, I got goosebumps as we make it conscious, you know, then the energy fields begin to open and we begin to dialogue now with the frequencies in a whole new way to. To make then a purposeful action in the world.

Theresa Hubbard [00:21:41]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:21:43]:
Beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful. I love it. I. I want to go back really quick before I lose this, but when you said, I got the call about the white lions. Can you tell us more about getting the call on the white lions?

Carley Mattimore [00:21:59]:
You know, it's interesting how things kind of come, you know, to us. You know, I did that work, you know, I did a whole month long and. And just opened up some deep, deep healing in my body, particularly related to my father and my sister dying, but then also my husband, because all three of them died suddenly in a car accident. So it was really a big process for me of healing in addition to my own childhood stuff. And, you know, so having graduated or, you Know, from that program, you know, I could choose to be a master facilitator. And I actually brought this program. We became an umbrella of Venus Rising here in Springfield, Illinois. We are a hara spiritual community, a congregation of it.

Carley Mattimore [00:22:49]:
So we started a congregation, but I also needed to do my master practitioner work. And part of that was they were having a guest speaker at Venus Rising named Andrew Harvey. And he is a mystic and wrote numerous, numerous books. He's a scholar, he's just an extraordinary man. And he was going to be speaking on the Inner Beloved at one of these workshops, that workshop on spirit, because there's five different initiations and one of them is spirit. And a friend of mine said, carly, you, you ought to go see him because you don't want to miss an opportunity. So, you know, I'm like, okay, I will sign up for this one and I'll do my master practitioner work. And so it was in a very small space that Andrew was doing his teaching.

Carley Mattimore [00:23:38]:
But before I actually, I wanted to know more about him. And I saw on a YouTube video him interviewing Linda Tucker, who is the keeper of the white lions. And she wrote the History of the White Lions, which is an extraordinary book. But I saw just a little brief interview of her being interviewed by Andrew about the time that her jeep broke down in the middle of the bush and what that was like, you know, anticipating, because they went out into the jeep and at dusk to see if maybe a white lion had been born because a cub was pregnant and there hadn't been one in, I don't know, over a decade. And so the jeep broke down and they were faced with this catastrophic, you know, you know, like they were in the middle of a pride of lions. And you know, that this touched me. I mean, I've been to Africa. I lived in Nigeria briefly for a year when I was younger.

Carley Mattimore [00:24:37]:
And so Africa, I love Africa. So this story and to know that they were trapped and they were, you know, in this process, that was life or death really, because the lions were encroaching. That story touched me. And the biggest piece of that story was that out of this came a woman who was a local woman with a baby honor strapped on her back, wearing the local colorful dress. And she had a young boy, a teenage boy and a seven year old girl with her. And she walked through the pride of lions and climbed into the jeep and lions became pacified. So there was a huge, wow, you know, there was something that happened. And Linda talks a lot about that.

Carley Mattimore [00:25:22]:
Linda talks about it and it's A big story, but it touched me, so that informed me. So I'm sitting here with Andrew as he's teaching about hope in a time when everything. This was in 2011, October, when everything in our world is falling apart. And you can actually see that now, you know, and, you know, and his teachings are about, like, how do we have hope when all of this stuff is going on? I'm sitting in the front row with Andrew on the floor, you know, and he says something, and I'm like, okay, you know, I want to comment on this. I don't even remember what it was. But before he comments on me, he says something about the white lions. And in that moment, after he said that, he called on me. And it was like there was a transfer of energy in such a way that it blasted.

Carley Mattimore [00:26:13]:
I mean, I could feel that energy connection to my heart space, and it just blasted open. So when I opened up my mouth to speak, all I could do was sob.

Carley Mattimore [00:26:22]:
Just.

Carley Mattimore [00:26:23]:
I couldn't speak at all. I had some awakening moment here in this transfer event. And then I went into a breathwork later. And in the breathwork, two of them, you know, back to back, within a day apart, I got a strong message. You need to come to Africa. You know, in this breathwork, I, you know, I met that. That woman. She came to me.

Carley Mattimore [00:26:49]:
Her name is Maria Coso, lion, queen of Timbavadi, came in the breathwork. And then the white lion, Mara, came, who was the one that was predicted to come to Earth at a time when the Earth was going through huge ecological changes. I didn't know it was Mara, but when I drew it later, I could see that it was this lion and that call. And it was a little frightening, to tell you the truth, because I had no idea what this would mean. And I think this is intuition. You know, we are called to whatever it might be. There is an urging, and sometimes it's really big. Like this one was, you know, and I'm like, sharing it with my husband, and he's.

Carley Mattimore [00:27:30]:
Now I'm already back home, and I'm like, I think I need to go to Africa with this group. Because actually, Star Wolf and Andrew. Andrew was taking a group, and Star Wolf and Brad, you know, and Brad is no longer living. But they were going to go on this trip, and I felt like I was supposed to go on this trip. That was one way that I could make this happen. And my husband's like, can't you just, like, work with it? Like in town, you know, like with your. Your imagination? Do you have to spend all this money to. But he went into a breathwork with that question, and he came out like, if you were called, you need to go.

Carley Mattimore [00:28:06]:
So that. That his permission. And, you know, not. Not permission, like, I need to get my husband's permission to do this, but his, like, acknowledgement that if I have a call, I need to go, you know, allow that to happen. And it turned out that I went. Starwolf and Brad were not able to go on this one, but I went with Andrew Harvey Harvey in March of 2012. And I, you know, that. And then I've been seven times since.

Carley Mattimore [00:28:32]:
This will be my eighth time. I've got a journey that I'm leading next March, which will be my eighth time to South Africa. And, you know, everything. I cannot. And I urge everyone to know that you can't know what that. I mean, you know what the next right step is, but you don't know what that's going to lead to. And my mind created all kinds of scenarios of what that meant. None of them came true.

Carley Mattimore [00:28:58]:
It was literally a calling of that inner knowing each time to the next right step. And with it came, and I think you said this a little bit, you know, that a challenge. A challenge to break through some perception that I had, that it was supposed to look a particular way. And I was met with an obstacle, a barrier. And I had to work with that barrier to understand that there was something else. And that. That is the. I think that's the alchemy, you know, we can't have growth without there being some impetus of a challenge, you know, for us.

Carley Mattimore [00:29:37]:
And, yeah, we want it easy, you know, because we don't want to go through the pain. And yet the pain is a part of the alchemy, right? Yes.

Theresa Hubbard [00:29:45]:
Yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:29:45]:
So anyway, that's a long qu. Long answer to your question.

Carley Mattimore [00:29:48]:
That's.

Carley Mattimore [00:29:49]:
That's the calling. No, I guess that was the biggest one. It's, you know, there have been more that were smaller, you know, like, I got an invitation from a friend, said, you need to come, Carley. We're going to go see the humpback whales. And I'm like, well, this isn't one of those big profound ones. But I knew in that inner knowing that I needed to go. And it was profound. Going to the mountain gorillas was another one.

Carley Mattimore [00:30:22]:
I knew I needed to go to the mountain gorillas and connect with them energetically. It was critical, even though I didn't know why. So it became not about the lions. It became about, you know, they were the. They were My inner authority. They were the apex predator, the guide, but it was also connected to all of these other steps to connect other beings in a relationship that understood they were all here supporting the world through changes.

Theresa Hubbard [00:30:54]:
Yeah. Carley, will you share with us what is the work that you do now? What are you sharing with people?

Carley Mattimore [00:31:11]:
That's a very good question because this is the work that I'm sharing and I can feel the emotion of that, you know. Yeah, it is, you know, these, these teachings, these connections, as I bring them back, they inform me and they inform others. So we are now in relationship, co creating with these animals, with this land, with understanding the bigger picture, why Africa has called to me in the first place. You know, it is where we all came from. You know, this is in our DNA. There's a bigger picture of understanding Africa itself. You know, if you divide this continent in half, there is an energetic line. When the land masses were all one, when we were Pangea, it was like the earth land masses were one.

Carley Mattimore [00:31:59]:
The center of that land mass is the 31st meridian, which is the energetic longitudinal meridian that connects these sacred sites that I have been to, you know, with the white lions. They are on this energetic meridian. It's called the Golden Scene. It is the spine of our Earth. It's to see Earth, a living, breathing entity with her own energetic spine. And that all of these, all of these meridians and, you know, energetic lines and nadis are coming from the earth and they inform our whole planet. And they all have barriers. And we are in the process of releasing these barriers that the teachings that I teach now are that when we work on our own bodies and open up these meridians and these areas where we have had these traumas, dense traumas, not process and digest that as we open them, we open the earth's meridians and the Earth's meridians and us begin to dance together.

Carley Mattimore [00:32:56]:
We could begin to find right relationship again with the Earth. So it's, you know, this is part of that work. And so I do the shamanic healing initiatory process, which is this process that was created by Linda Starwolf. And you know, we operate, we're in our. We just are entering our 12th year of offering that. It's a, you know, every other month, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, deep dive into these elemental pieces. Water, earth, fire, spirit and air, you know, and connecting with a whole new birth process. Going from understanding how we move through change, to working with family of origin, to working with the shadow, to working with loving ourselves, the inner beloved, to then working and understanding our Purpose in the world, you know, why we are here.

Carley Mattimore [00:33:42]:
And so that's one of the works. And then I created, along with several people here in our community, through a crisis of my own where I ran up into an obstacle that caused me great pain and I thought I was being strangled. You know, it was like an old memory of my body and what birth was. That was a warriorship program, you know, a shamanic warriorship and a path so others can work with these beings like that. Inner knowing through the lion is the very first one. There are four core ones. And then we've built on that to include the other animals. So we have.

Carley Mattimore [00:34:23]:
The core ones are our lion, dragon, which is interesting because that was such a big part of my first, you know. And then we have tiger and eagle. And tiger came a little bit later. But each of those are associated with the elements. And the second tier involved whale, elephant, hyena and mountain gorilla. And so working with these animals we are co creating because they're teaching us and we are also supporting them on the planet. So we're collaborating with each other and igniting a new kind of warrior energy inside of us. And this warrior is not the warrior.

Carley Mattimore [00:35:01]:
It's a warrior that can hold the other with love and compassion and holding an energetic field that allows us to, you know, not try to force change, not try to control, not, you know, it's like really it's about being centered in our own, you know, heart, you know, and strength and inner knowing to hold that, you know, and hold the other in that reflection of, of love, light and truth, you know, essentially. So those are the two major ones. And then we also take people on psycho spiritual journeys, mostly to Africa to be with the energetic frequencies there. And I'm also, I do, I'm energy worker and so I see people for energy work and I'm a psychotherapist, so I still have my private practice, but this work has so informed it. And yeah, and it's most recently I'm just going to add this, and I know I'm probably saying a lot, but more recently I'm working on a deeper understanding of family constellation work or systemic constellation work. And I just got back from a intensive training in Lisbon. You know, it's really helping me understand how we can access those morphogenetic fields, you know, and learn so much as we do. Because this is again understanding energy and where those barriers or blockages have been in our energy field.

Walker Bird [00:36:28]:
So you are busy and it's amazing.

Theresa Hubbard [00:36:35]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Walker Bird [00:36:38]:
If somebody was looking at your Your offerings, your programs. Would you suggest they do the shamanic healing? Shamanic healing initiatory process.

Carley Mattimore [00:36:48]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:36:49]:
First before the warrior program, or does it not matter?

Carley Mattimore [00:36:53]:
But you don't have to, you know, if you've done, you know, some other of your work, people come in, you know, to either one of them, it was initially designed because people go through ship and they're like, what's next? So this then helps develop us. And it's been amazing to see how it is complemented and supported people and finding that inner strength through that, you know, through that process of connecting with a warrior in a new way. But you can enter them either way. You don't have to attend ship, so.

Walker Bird [00:37:22]:
Either one, you know, and I'll let you get a question in here this second. I'm fascinated. So breathwork, it's. It's coming, I believe, more and more into mainstream, at least in. In my observation. And I was hoping you could just describe it briefly for our listeners so they understand if they haven't been exposed to it.

Carley Mattimore [00:37:44]:
Yeah, you know, I, you know, have been certified in shamanic breathwork, which was, you know, trademarked by Linda Starwolf. But there's a lot of different kinds of breathwork out there. This one initially was in part developed through holotropic breathwork with Stan Groth. And Stan developed it. You know, in addition to others, she also worked with Jackie Small. But the holotropic breathwork was initially started because, you know, Stan Gloth, as a psychiatrist, was doing, you know, that's when a lot of experimentation they were using, you know, like LSD and other, you know, drugs that help people access these. These states of consciousness that aren't. That we don't easily access.

Carley Mattimore [00:38:28]:
And when they can no longer access, they could no longer use them anymore because of the legality around using them. You know, and he's a psychiatrist, so he's doing it in a very medicinal way. And we see a resurgence of that right now. There are a lot more medicinal practices that are coming from these substances to help people access those states of consciousness where sometimes those barriers are so constricted that we can't access them. And I think what. Maybe part of what it does is it releases that egoic. Those egoic barriers that want to keep us safe and allows us to access the information to see how we are these spiritual beings in a human body. But so breath work ended up coming as a result of not being able to use that.

Carley Mattimore [00:39:11]:
He started, you know, visiting different, you know, you know, tribes and indigenous wisdom you know, from different countries and, you know, and created the holotropic breathwork as a way to access it. But it's really to understand that we've always had this ability to do that. Yes, we can access plant medicine, it can be there for us, it can help us access this, but it's also within our own bodies that we can access this. And breath is one way to do it. And with shamanic breath work, it's like doing hyper oxygenated breath. And in doing that, then there's some drumming which connects us with the earth, you know, because it also holds us energetically to the earth and grounds us into the earth. And then we have, you know, loud, evocative movie soundtrack music that's played. And it takes you through the chakras and, you know, starts with those lower chakras and there's no, there's no words with it, it's just music.

Carley Mattimore [00:40:10]:
And usually. And when we do one, it's about an hour long, but I can do one that's 10 minutes. And people have an amazing experience or I've done them when they've been two hours, you know, but it is that taking people through, you know, this and their bodies, they're just, they just go. It's like something inside of them will take them exactly where they need to go to access information that's going to support them in that next catalyst for growth. It will provide them with some information, you know, and we won't necessarily know all of what it's going to mean because the first time, I mean, I can look back now and see how it's all connected to where I'm at right now. But I could never have gotten that from that first breathwork. But it does give you enough that, you know, you, you travel essentially, or you go inward, you go inward or you go outward. Some people go to the stars, some people go in their body, some people have a somatic experience.

Carley Mattimore [00:41:03]:
Experience, you know, sometimes there is the releasing, you know, through the body itself wants to purge, you know, something, but it gives us information. It's a wonderful tool to access, you know, what we might be resisting, what might be there waiting for us to connect with. And it moves energy in the body and it's important. I think that what's really important is that it's. The breathwork helps, but it's equally, if not even more important for them to process. It's important to process that information with. Somebody can hold space for you, to support you and figuring this out for yourself, you know, and then it Begins you begin to trust and learn to trust, because it's really. How do we relearn trust in our own bodies? You know, open that inner knowing.

Carley Mattimore [00:42:01]:
Okay, I can trust this. This is coming to me for me. And yes. Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [00:42:06]:
So, yeah, yeah, yeah. We did an episode called Can I Trust Myself? And so trusting ourself is something I talk about a lot. What's interesting, you know, Carley, as you're sharing, is I did a session with Linda of the Holotropic breath work six years ago at a conference in Sedona. And what was interesting is what came to me during that was white buffalo. And then what was even more interesting is we got home from that and we.

Carley Mattimore [00:42:50]:
We.

Theresa Hubbard [00:42:51]:
We walked into Walker's space and I had bought him this print, like the year before of a buffalo covered in snow. And it was like, oh, well, white buffalo's been around for a little bit, so. Yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:43:09]:
Yes. And how cool is that? You know?

Walker Bird [00:43:12]:
Yes.

Carley Mattimore [00:43:13]:
And the white buffalo, like the white lions or the white bears or the white reindeer, you know, it's understanding that they, you know, they have been held in a sacred place. And there's many, many different ways. White crocodile, you know, these are, you know, carriers of light, is what we understand, and the frequency or avatars that are here to hold space for us as we begin to, you know, go through these times of very fast, rapid evolution on the planet. And so they are these sacred beings that. And it's lovely that you had the white buffalo come to you and you already. It was already there, right?

Theresa Hubbard [00:43:55]:
Yeah, already there. Yeah. And just keeps showing up. Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:44:01]:
I'm interested. When you've been to Africa and you're. You talked about establishing energetic connection, so you. You gain learning from the animals. How do you. What's the process for establishing an energetic connection with animals?

Carley Mattimore [00:44:17]:
It's, you know, one of the things, you know, you know, that I learned through, you know, going to the white lions or, you know, going on some of these excursions is, you know, to essentially be in a place of love and respect, you know, and that is. That is key. So being in, you know, and being very, very present, you know, so one of the things, you know, that we have done and I still really adhere to is as much as possible when you're out there and connecting, you know, to not have any distractions. You have your phone and you want to take pictures, which, of course, I am, you know, guilty. I love to take pictures of these animals. I want to capture it. But the more present we can be and that we drop down into our bodies and we open our hearts and we essentially establish a connection in our hearts from our heart to this animal's heart, you know, and, and in that also we're communicating that we are here as you know, to be of service. Not.

Carley Mattimore [00:45:23]:
Yeah, because that's the another thing that's really important. It's like I'm not here to take. Because that's another thing that we have really. You know, we tend to want enlightenment and it's never, you know, it's always reciprocal. And that's one of the things that have come to me through the years. It's like you can't have. It's not, it's always reciprocal. Can we make it conscious? Can we be in relationship with this animal and be in a way like I am here to support you and you know, and know that we are co creating together.

Carley Mattimore [00:45:58]:
So I'm going to open my heart and I'm going to connect with your heart and establish a current of energy that is communicating that this authenticity is here because the purer our motives can be. It's like, you know, that comes from a place of receptivity and you know, union and love and respect, I think is probably the best way to do it. Then we begin to receive messages, you know, we begin to, you know, open up some of these barriers to that have blocked us from understanding the language frequency. That has always been there for us, you know, and we think of like, you know, we used to have the ability to communicate real directly through being able to read the frequencies and interpret, you know, but it's been more blocked. So in that moment, for us, if we can go into it consciously and that's what we bring to that moment and we're going to bring in March this year, it's like having a respectful relationship with the animals, with the land, because there's a frequency in the land with the trees, with the plants, with the rivers, you know, with all of this, it will be being in right relationship, being in a place of honoring and respecting where they are. And then, and then we get, you know, people get messages. Different people have different gifts and abilities, but we all then receive. The hard part then is to trust what we get because, you know, can we receive it without being, you know, in our own, you know, messiness of that ego's interpretation?

Theresa Hubbard [00:47:38]:
Yes. Oh, we talk about the messy a lot, for sure. Yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:47:46]:
Yes. So, you know, that's essentially what it's doing is being present and then it's watching for the signs because they communicate with us, which is just phenomenal. You know, they will show up. The most profound one. You know, it's like we wanted to be with the elephants and not most profound. There were so many profound ones. But I told this one yesterday, and I'm only trolling it briefly, but it's like our group was like, we had. We wanted to be with the elephants, they wanted to be with the elephants.

Carley Mattimore [00:48:14]:
And when we spoke into doing it consciously, all of a sudden no elephants appeared. And we were dealing with just the disappointment the members had. You know, like, you know, we wanted to do this consciously and not just barrier into the middle of a herd of elephants. We wanted to communicate with them heart to heart, with presence, and then they don't show up. So processing our emotions was such a big piece. And then this surrender to say, okay, they may not show up. What do we need to honor in each of the participants? And so essentially, we start. We broke up into different groups, you know, once.

Carley Mattimore [00:48:50]:
Once we all went through this really big process, and one group really wanted to go back out to search one more time to find the elephants because it was our last night. And the others said, no, I want to energetically connect with them, and we're going to build an altar and just connect with them. But we essentially allowed for right relationship.

Theresa Hubbard [00:49:10]:
Right.

Carley Mattimore [00:49:11]:
You allow for right relationship. In those moments, as soon as we made that decision, the lions started roaring. The lions roared and roared, and it felt like they were really. Could get goosebumps on.

Walker Bird [00:49:23]:
Yeah, yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:49:25]:
We were in an open area and lions were roaring. A group took off in the Jeep. The other group sat. We sat and we. On the outskirts of this huge open plain, you know, sort of, you know, with. On the other side was where the actual national park was. But this is. There's a big watering hole there.

Carley Mattimore [00:49:46]:
So we sat and we went into ceremony. I closed my eyes. I closed my eyes, and in that moment, I closed my eyes. I'm like. That inner knowing got activated. They're coming. And I opened my eyes and I saw in front of me 17 elephants. I counted them.

Carley Mattimore [00:50:07]:
17 elephants running in front of me, stopping right in front of us. You know, I don't remember how, you know, it's like maybe it's not real close, obviously, but, you know, where we could see them, you know, Right. They stopped so suddenly. It was like they kind of all fell into each other. And then they went into formation. They went into a circle, each with their heads together, all 17 elephants. And all the while, the lions are roaring and, you know, there's more to the story, because, I mean, they were informing us, they were working with us to communicate directly with us. Something that was really important for us to take in, even if we didn't understand it at the time.

Carley Mattimore [00:50:55]:
And it's continuing to work its way of how do we put our heads together here? This is also a medicine wheel, you know, understanding circle. Right. 17. So it's also about. This is a very sacred number, also about balance. Seven plus one is eight, which is about that balance. So there's just so much there and that we were continually supported with the. With, you know, after the elephants left, the lions came back and they were with us the whole night right outside our huts, roaring.

Carley Mattimore [00:51:29]:
And in the morning when I woke up to go out to see them, there was. Because I felt like they were so close to. We couldn't. I couldn't sleep. They were like. The little hairs on the back of my neck were like. They are right outside our window. Yeah.

Carley Mattimore [00:51:41]:
But the next morning, out in that watering hole was one dark maned elephant lion. And this is the area where Cecil the lion was killed by the dentist in Minnesota. I don't remember exactly what year that was, but this was the area where Cecil was killed and he was a dark main lion. So here, one dark main lion turned its head and looked back on us after it drank the water and went off into the. The park. There's. There's this intentional peace, but we need to also be really working with our own bodies and expectations and be conscious.

Theresa Hubbard [00:52:24]:
Yes. Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:52:26]:
That is a beautiful story.

Theresa Hubbard [00:52:28]:
It is just.

Walker Bird [00:52:30]:
I love it. I love that. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I'm getting some tears in my eyes. It's just so beautiful and so profound.

Carley Mattimore [00:52:42]:
Yeah. It truly was, you know, a trusting learning moment, a teaching moment for me, you know, and for all of us. But how do. How do we work and navigate this inner knowing, you know, and it is a. It's a. You know, alchemy is a process. We have to continually work with these feel, you know, this is ongoing, you know, Process. Process.

Theresa Hubbard [00:53:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. The journey.

Carley Mattimore [00:53:15]:
The journey, yeah.

Walker Bird [00:53:17]:
You know, if we could step outside of ourselves enough to be able to create that energy space that is allowing. Without all of our expectations and plans. Right.

Carley Mattimore [00:53:31]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:53:32]:
It is astounding how the animal world will respond and. And maybe they wouldn't have come, you know, and you could still have learning from that too. But they did.

Carley Mattimore [00:53:45]:
Yeah, they did. Yeah. And we just don't know, you know, being able to hold both, like it's a possibility that they're not that's right and accept and honor that. And the group that went out into the third jeep, they, too, encountered a herd of elephants and had the most amazing experience. So when they came back, they were, like, so excited because we both. Both choices were honored. Right. In the sense that we were.

Carley Mattimore [00:54:16]:
We were. We were connected. And I think this takes us back to that inner knowing. How do we trust the inner knowing? You know, it's important to stay clear and process the emotions and the feelings that come up and make them conscious. And as we do that, we can then say, yes, you know, and move through that into, you know, into trusting our inner knowing.

Theresa Hubbard [00:54:44]:
Yeah. Oh, Carley. The time goes by so fast. Two things. What is your current process that you use most frequently to help you be present when you are aware that you are not.

Carley Mattimore [00:55:10]:
You know, to slow down. It really is important for me to slow down. You know, you mentioned how busy I am. I can use busyness to, you know, that keeps myself disconnected, that when I take care of myself, to give myself some simple moments of silence or reflection, you know? You know, to. To take that time to go inward, and it's really an important one. Or to do a breath work for myself, but really to slow way down into. To breathe into it. You know, I could think of the most recent decision, like, to go to Lisbon, to be a part of this workshop.

Carley Mattimore [00:55:57]:
You know, life was really busy, and it took me a moment to start to connect the dots, you know, like, why? To listen and then respond and then to trust. But in order to do that, I had to slow way down. And. How do I want to say this? The pieces began to come together, and then as they became together and I slowed down, synchronicities made it very easy for me to know that it was the right answer that I needed to go. But the process itself was to go inward, you know, to close my eyes, to breathe down into my belly, you know, to pick a card, but from a conscious place, you know. Yeah. Oracle card. To get a message.

Carley Mattimore [00:56:56]:
Open that heart center, you know, to see the bigger picture. That, you know, even though part of me is like that old. Those old stories come up, you know, you can't do that. You know. You know, it is going back to that trust. But I think a big part of my process now is just to take a moment to slow down and to listen, because it's there and it's guiding me.

Theresa Hubbard [00:57:23]:
Yeah. So thank you. Anything you would like to share in regards to how people find you or the books that you've written that you would like the our listeners to have a little bit more information about.

Carley Mattimore [00:57:46]:
I do have one book. I have it actually out so I can show it to people. So it's called Sacred Messengers of Shamanic Africa. Oh, you've got it too. Yeah, because I've been referring to it lately. It's like I, you know, sometimes I have to look back and reread things that I wrote and I wrote it along with our wolf. But a lot of it brings in that shamanic healing initiatory process and as well as the significance of Africa. To find me, you know, carlimattimore.com c a r l e y matamore.com or you can find me on the Aahara spiritual community and it's harass.

Carley Mattimore [00:58:27]:
Aahara is https://www.aaharaspiritualcommunity.org/ and Aahara means to breathe. So it's a Sanskrit word to mean to breathe and it lists all the different offerings that we have. You can sign up for our newsletter and it comes out, it's an e newsletter, comes out once a month, you know, to know what kind of offerings they are. But if you just googled me, you, you could find us. And we have a workshop coming up, an online one actually for anybody who's interested. I'm not sure when this going out, but it starts next week. The lion, those core elements, it's lion and dragon. Sign up with for one or both or they don't have to be in any particular order.

Carley Mattimore [00:59:09]:
If you, if you can't get the week off because it one starts in the middle of the week, the other one is on the weekend. Dragons on the weekend, you know, you can sign up for dragon. And then we have, you know, our March trip to Africa. We're going to a week at Kruger national park and then a week in Zimbabwe to some of the sacred sites and working with Amandoro, a medicine man who's a good friend of ours, who is in constant prayer with the ancestors and the water nations and earth nations. So those would be the easiest ways to connect. And those are some upcoming things. Ship is also coming up in we in the. In November if somebody's interested in coming and doing that with us.

Carley Mattimore [00:59:52]:
It's a beautiful process and we have a wonderful community from all over. So thank you.

Theresa Hubbard [01:00:01]:
And then last thing, if there was an offering or a mantra that you would want to share with our listeners for them to, you know, come away with this experience, listening to you today, what might that be?

Carley Mattimore [01:00:30]:
What comes to mind again is that, you know, is learning to trust. You know, you carry the wisdom inside of you and it's always been there and it will always be there. And the more we can drop down into that and to learn and to find that balance between that risk and that safety, it will bubble up to the surface and it will be your guide. It is a thread that connects all things in one's life. And so each step, understand that each step is the right step and. And you are on the journey of your life and more will be revealed as you begin to trust.

Theresa Hubbard [01:01:16]:
Agreed. Thank you so much, Carley. This was wonderful.

Walker Bird [01:01:22]:
Thanks Carley.

Carley Mattimore [01:01:23]:
You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me and thank you for all the listeners you know listening to these reflections and appreciate all the great questions. Thank you both for the work that you do and trusting our knowing.

Theresa Hubbard [01:01:38]:
Yeah, yeah. Thank you too. We it is really powerful work to learn to trust ourselves. Thank you for joining us today. We are excited to explore life with you. We encourage curiosity, self growth and we strive to be more compassionate every day.