Ep.45 – When I Locked Eyes with the Dalai Lama… Guest Sophie McLean.

@4:25 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Sophie McLean, welcome back to Leading with Curiosity.

@4:38 – Sophie McLean

It’s great to see you again. Nathan, I cannot tell you how excited I am to be here.

@4:44 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

I so loved our last episode. It’s been a year and a half since episode 25 launched. If people haven’t listened to it when you’re done listening to this one, go back and listen to the other one because one line sticks with me from that

@5:18 – Sophie McLean

That’s right.

@5:20 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Let’s start there. What do we mean by you’d have to be an idiot to want to be a guru?

And then we’ll get to the fascinating work that you’re doing now with the guide you’ve just published, awakening all sleep blockers.

You’d have to be an idiot to want to be a guru.

@5:33 – Sophie McLean

Go ahead. I divide people. I don’t divide really, right? But it’s easier to put people in two different groups, the sleep workers and the awakened one.

And when I speak about awakened, I don’t mean enlightenment, right, And enlightenment is being one with a divine. It’s Buddha, Christ, so gratis, you know, whoever you admire.

That is able to operate in different dimensions all the way to the work I call the divine, by which is a mystery.

So I’m not talking about those people. I’m talking about people like you and I that awakened. And then there is a sleep walkers and the sleep walkers with all my love.

really don’t want to sound judgmental.

@6:26 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

I have many, many friends that refuse awakening.

@6:31 – Sophie McLean

But from time to time, as I chose the road of awakening, from time to time, I look at them and I said, Oh, I think it’s much easier to sleep walk because it’s everything is a bit dull, know, like your emotions, your feelings.

It’s like if life is an ice skating ring, the sleep walkers have the ice covered with earth. But when you awaken, you.

So that means the smallest pebble will just get you to fly and crash, right? But if your ice skating ring is covered in earth, then it’s okay.

You can do all sort of seeing some assault and you won’t hurt yourself that much. So that’s why I say, okay, I use share.

You want to choose a spiritual road because everything is intense. Everything is much You it by a million. You need to be responsible all the time everywhere with everybody.

You have to be the originator. And sometimes do you think, oh, it will be so good to be a victim again.

But really, the truth is not really fascinating.

@7:50 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Fascinating. So the way that it has impacted my life in the work that I do with leaders in industries that I might be unfamiliar with.

I’m here with. Is this idea that to be curious with those leaders and help them think through where they’re at and where they’re going and be really open minded and hold them capable as coaches do of being able to get there.

Versus coming to this work, thinking that I have all the answers for them, which is the opposite of what a coach does.

The pressure and anxiety I feel when I put expectations by myself that I need this, that I have this magic wand I can wave at my, at my clients and just tell like the complexity of their work requires this open mindedness and that’s what I’m there to help them explore.

So, that’s the practicality of the work that you did and I warned you, warned listeners and warned myself the last time we talked that some of what we talked about would really challenge my learning and thinking.

I’m so honored. I think at the start of what you were saying. In the camp of being on the on the awakened side, which is not her.

@9:06 – Sophie McLean

You know, the moment you ask yourself question, I was trained as a philosopher, right? But everybody, when I say I’m a philosopher, everybody’s like a little bit intimidated.

But in fact, the moment you ask yourself question and you are curious, right?

@9:25 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

This is the name of your podcast.

@9:27 – Sophie McLean

The moment you ask yourself question, you are a philosopher. It’s all about the questions, not the answers.

@9:39 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

You’ve had a fascinating life living around the world. When we talked last, you had just arrived on the small island off the coast of Spain, which is where you are now.

Tell me, there’s just a little bit about how you’ve arrived after over three decades of this work. To this moment, exploring what we’re about to explore in your recent guide.

@10:00 – Sophie McLean

It’s I have lived in very big cities, right? London, Washington, Zealand, New York, for the last past 30 years, 35 years.

And suddenly, about two years ago, I had another epiphany if you want or break through. It was the word is easier, right?

But I, and it’s not intellectual, it was an experience, which is what makes a difference. know, we can all understand, and telepathy, everything, but it won’t make a difference until you experience it personally.

But I experienced the flow of creation, meaning I didn’t need to only add Put my energy. I could call force people to me now.

I could call my students to me. And the moment that direction of energy balance itself out, I could get back as much as I put in.

Then I could choose where I could live because people do find me now. I don’t need to be in the hub, but the noise and the…

So that’s one of the main reasons I chose. I love the Mediterranean Sea. adore water. I meditate in water.

write next to the water. look at the water. It does something extraordinary for me. So I packed up my bags and moved.

Congratulations.

@11:53 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Fantastic. So where we are now with, as you mentioned in our pre-interview 35 years of experience in this space and all of this in your head, tell our listeners what you have given to the world with the Wakeningsley Walkers.

@12:12 – Sophie McLean

So as I was writing my book that you have to be an idiot, you want to be a guru, my students came to me and you see people want what I have because being the experience of being a human being is being in a virtual cage.

You don’t see the cage but you do definitely feel a cage. know you have something absolutely extraordinary inside of you but how do you get it out there?

Right? I don’t think exactly, oh yes yes I remember, one of my students said Sophie, you need to give it all away.

And do you know me? And the fear when you’re so vulnerable and so generous that you don’t hold on to anything.

And I had one of those thoughts. said, what do you mean? Why would people do my courses if I gave it all away?

But then 30 years of teaching abundance and generosity and that we are one. And that you always reap what you sow.

And I thought, okay, this is your challenge. You are going to walk your talk to a whole new level.

So I wrote a guide of 35 years of finding about what it is to be a human being. It is called a Whitney or sleepwalkers.

I have withheld nothing. It is written in bullet points with drawings and explanations. there is templates and you can take it.

And do it with a friend or by yourself, and you can actually understand how you created your page. And I did it.

And it’s really great.

@14:11 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

I feel really good about it. And I go even further in the work that you do as students. This is an entry point into seeing what’s just outside of our own cage and increase our desire to want to go there.

It’s fascinating.

@14:46 – Sophie McLean

Go ahead. It’s just that, you know, if writing a book was enough, we would all be transformed by now on a weekend.

And because it started with so-called soul before him. And you know, you can read. There is everything available for you to read and study.

But there is this magic of interaction. When someone is trying to be a mirror for you, I think that’s what you must find with your clients, right?

If you can just be someone with no opinion, no judgment, no interpretation, and just have the generosity of being a mirror for somebody, then that’s where the magic happens in conversations.

@15:35 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Yeah, yeah. That language is highly aligned with the coaching space. And even that you use the cage as your metaphor, when I share my origin story, how I got into the work that I do, I describe being a professional hockey player, sitting on the bench in the middle of the game, totally out of my control the amount of playing time I was getting.

I’m a this particular coach and I said, whispered out loud to myself, I feel like a caged bird and I must have more to offer the world than this.

And the work that I do now has allowed me to open that door and get out of that cage.

What do you make of that comparison to your metaphor?

@16:19 – Sophie McLean

You know, I have a question for you, if I may. know you’re the one interviewing me, but it’s so fascinating what you say because this is something I’ve been asking myself for 30 years and I’ve never found the answer.

What is it that has you and you and I take the plunge and take a risk saying no, there must be more and I’m going whatever the cost, right?

I’m going to find out whatever the risk. And why do some people don’t do that? What is the thing that makes a difference?

Is it courage? Is it being used to taking risk? Is it, I don’t know what happened. People say, no, I’m going for a awakening.

You know, I still haven’t find the trigger.

@17:09 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Let me share what I think, I believe, about that. The journey that I took working really hard to be this athlete, know, dedicating decades towards it.

Every year enduring new things, searching for a new contract, moving to a new country, starting over, starting over, starting over.

Hard moments in my life, finding myself working for terrible, a small amount of cash under the table in New York City after all the other adventure heads were to come to an end.

I rely on moments that were challenging to say, this thing I’m facing now, this exciting thing I’m considering trying, can’t possibly be as hard as these other moments.

I’m not sure what I’m talking about. I’m not sure I’m talking about. I’m not what I’m I’m talking about.

about. I’m not about. not I’m about. not what not sure what I’m talking about.

@18:27 – Sophie McLean

I’m not I’m about. I’m not sure I’m about. sure what I’m talking about. not what I’m talking not sure Great!

Not bad! And just good. What could motivate them to engage in awakening that is what I’m still, still wondering.

@19:11 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Yeah, and that’s also kind of me. think things were good, but some of the low points that I endured, I didn’t lose a partner, but maybe it was when my mom got cancer when I was at an age where I couldn’t quite process that.

She’s recovered well. But it’s using low moments and everybody’s low is different. Everybody’s perception of low is different. using low moments almost as fuel, almost as the spark.

Yeah.

@19:44 – Sophie McLean

You see, finding opportunity and challenge. You know, I used to hate suffering. I used to look at people suffering and say, okay, I’ve got to do something.

can’t let them suffer. And then with wisdom, I realize, no, if you suffer consciously. Meaning you have the conversation you and I just had about what you’re going through and what you can learn.

Suffering is actually useful. So it gave me a new always conversation, but a new peace with being with people suffering.

Just what you need is to think consciously, know, think automatically and survive. You just need to use the circumstance to learn and give up, learn and give up something.

@20:38 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Then it’s… My wife and I, we have an eight and a ten year old and we’re constantly talking about the current state of parenting.

And this extreme end that parenting has gone where we remove all suffering and strife and challenge from our kids.

And we’re really conscious about what that level of discomfort is that we can expose them to that is healthy.

So there’s… Many listeners who can relate to what we’re talking about. so episode 25 is titled, Can Wisdom Be Taught?

And you’ve used the word wisdom here again. so 35 years of wisdom, growth in wisdom, tell us a little bit about your view on the word and the practice and what wisdom is.

And then I have a couple questions diving into your guide.

@21:31 – Sophie McLean

Wisdom for me is what education should be centered around. It includes thinking. What does it think consciously? includes being the originator of your life.

Having closed the door to being victimized. It includes accepting to not know, to be with the mystery of life, to be with uncertainty.

Don’t look for answers, give up control, all that is part of wisdom. And ultimately, as I said on the last episode, I have a very simple definition of wisdom, is when you know that your experience of being alive comes from your view of life and nothing else.

Regardless of what happens to you, it’s your view of life that will determine your experience of being alive, then you can call yourself wise.

@22:37 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

And you can’t put a timeline on it, but it comes with time and it’s the thing that in whatever your area is in life, because of those opportunities to suffer and move on and fail and learn and keep going, it can’t be Googled, right?

can’t be found instantly. On a phone, it is what typically an older generation can sometimes provide to younger one is those time and experiences, right?

It’s an accumulation of experiences that live somewhere between the conscious mind really making decisions and the subconscious that is a sum total of all those experiences.

@23:23 – Sophie McLean

I close? Yeah, I think life is an experience. So that’s what if I had describe, it’s all about an experience, whatever experience it is, experience it.

So the broader your experience from despair to joy, the bigger your aliveness, right? then so an experience is, I think there is a word in English, some people use it says, I get it, I get it.

You know that experience is that it’s difficult to understand, but something shifted. You’ve got to be aligned and rearranged and you’ve got it.

It’s like when you get on the bicycle, you get on, you fall, you get on, fall and suddenly you get balanced.

And you never forgot about it, right? You cannot ride a bicycle for 20 years, but when you get back on the bike, it works.

@24:20 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

You got it.

@24:22 – Sophie McLean

So all of life is an experience and the broader your experience, the richer your life. And I think I’m looking at my elders, people that are older than me, and I listen to their stories of their experience.

And I remember being younger and saying, oh, they always tell stories, they always tell their stories, but they always wisdom in their stories.

You see, we used to be storytellers way before we started to write anything, right? There is a magic in stories.

I have people in your life that tell stories, listen.

@25:03 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

There is always wisdom in it. So storytelling is very powerful. I wrote that down the word, beside me here, choice.

And in your intro to your guide, you talk about how so much has changed in the world over time, except the human condition.

And humans are capable of you list all these wonderful things that we’re capable of. And you list all of these horrible things that we’re capable of.

So this idea of awakening and transitioning from the sleepwalking group to the awakening group, I feel like we have a lot of control over this, even though the victim mentality is that we don’t have control.

But we have choices to make that can influence this. What do you make of my

@26:00 – Sophie McLean

Well, Einstein said it before us, right, Nathan? said, our technology has surpassed our humanity. And that is dangerous, right?

what year was it? mean, it was a long time ago. So I did my thesis in philosophy on the idea that nobody said that’s eight century before Christ.

The way speaks about human being, Nathan is exactly the way I could speak about human being today. So we have been driven to survive.

And we really have accomplished extraordinary things between the 21st century. It’s time to wake up because our technology is so advanced and we have accomplished so much.

So much. If we go on being separate and hating each other and using violence and conflict and wars, it’s not going to go well.

It’s time. It’s time to learn about love and generosity and altruism and co-creating and intuition. know, this is fun to be at this time.

It’s really an extraordinary time to be alive if you are willing to wear If you don’t, then it’s terrible.

@27:33 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

What is a common thing you see that is standing in the way of disawakening for people that you have with you?

@27:41 – Sophie McLean

They are an apathy. the main question one needs to answer for oneself, I think I put it in the guide, so we capable of the best and the worst and that has been the pattern for us far back as we can remember.

Here’s a question one needs to answer for oneself. Are we doomed to repeat that pattern over and over and over again?

Or is something else possible? And the people that say yes, engage in awakening and being the source of their life, and they go on the spiritual road and it’s, you know, the road, you know.

And the one that says, no, no, nothing can change. We are capable of the best and the worst. I’m going to take care of myself.

This apathy and this denial, the cynicism, this resignation is what maintains a statue quo.

@28:34 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Here’s a question you ask in the guide. Could the source of human despair simply be a persistent confusion about the nature of beings?

@28:43 – Sophie McLean

Tell me about the nature of beings. Well, we, you know, based on my experience, we, it seems that we incarnate and very soon after we’re incarnations, within a year, maybe two, but between one two.

And two years old, you forget who you really are, fear arises, and you start to protect yourself. At that age, I mean, with my students, I go back, even if they don’t remember, we go back and they eventually remember.

The very moment when they fail into survival. And the moment you do that, you forget who you really are.

And you become a sleepwalker, right? you identify with something that is not who you are. So it’s an absurd life of thinking you are who you are not.

And it’s not only at third, but it’s painful and you suffer a lot.

@29:44 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Denial, apathy, and then you said survival. So is there something about protecting ourselves?

@29:52 – Sophie McLean

Yeah, you know, when you are… When you are faced with adventure. Like, if I put you in front of a butterfly, there is no danger.

So, you’re going to be able to look at the color of the movement of the wing, you’re going to be present and enjoy the exquisite beauty of the butterfly.

But if I remove the and put a rhinoceros, forget about the beauty of the beast, you are going to get into survival.

And you should, right? You are either going to attack, which I don’t recommend a rhinoceros. You’re going to run away, or, unfortunately, you’re going to freeze and probably not make it.

So, survival is a reaction to perceived danger. For human beings, there are some situations where you are really in danger, right?

If somebody comes at you with a knife to your throat or a gun to Go ahead, please survive, attack, run, do something, right?

But it’s rare for most of us. It happens, of course, but for the people listening to that podcast, hopefully you didn’t have a gun pointed at you recently, right?

So what are we surviving then? We survived being an imagined danger.

@31:27 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Mm.

@31:28 – Sophie McLean

And that’s the illusion the Buddhists speak about. We think we are in danger and we’re not. And that’s the absurdity of the situation.

know, I worked with a dilemma. He loves all the time and that’s what he loves at. He loves and loves and loves as the survival reactivity of human being when they read no sweat, but we think they read.

He loves a lot today.

@31:55 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Oh, yeah.

@31:57 – Sophie McLean

Oh my, look at any of his videos. You will see. I have never looked as much as I did with the Dalai Lama.

Okay, we must dig us all the time. All the time.

@32:10 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

I can’t go on without asking more about your opportunity to work with the Dalai Lama. That would be like, okay, listeners are thinking, Nate’s not listening to what Sophie just said.

@32:20 – Sophie McLean

Hang on.

@32:21 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Tell us more about working and learning with the Dalai Lama.

@32:26 – Sophie McLean

Well, I made it happen. So first he comes to New York, and then he sends him an awful sleep.

He was so intense and so enlightened. I was so embarrassed. I had been engaged into awakening. I tell you, I just fell asleep.

I was so offended. So then I went to one week conference in Belgium where it was a most extraordinary conference.

It was with many leaders of spiritual leaders. And the topic was care. And there is a whole movement of what is called care, which is based on caring, but it’s much more than that.

And it was the most extraordinary week of testimonials of people that have chosen to lead based on caring. On seeing another human, not for the result, they produced not for a number, not for an employer, but as a pure human being with need and fear and joy.

it was really extraordinary. So, having given that, I thought, okay, I want more. So, I went to pray with him for peace for two weeks in Leidach, Smoltebet, on the Himalaya.

we prayed for peace. These simplicity, depth, love is humbling.

@34:10 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Wow. How has that experience shaped the work you do now?

@34:26 – Sophie McLean

Well, I tell you, is one moment that shaped it even more. then I go to, I leave the, after two weeks, I leave, go to New Delhi.

And there is, do you remember it was like eight years ago, there was a volcano that exploded in Iceland somewhere?

So anyway, the planes couldn’t fly, so I’m stuck in New Delhi. Right? I happened to be stuck in the same hotel in the Dalai Lama, which I didn’t know.

@35:06 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

I didn’t know, right?

@35:08 – Sophie McLean

I didn’t know. So I’m in the lobby and suddenly the elevator doors open. And who comes out? Is the Dalai Lama?

So, then there is, I don’t know, 15 or 20 people that run to bow and reverse him and greet him and all that.

So I thought, okay, I just got together. Two weeks, right? I’m not going to be greedy. I, I was, I went on some steps and I was higher than the people.

So I could look at him from a higher point. And he left the lobby and on the way out, Nathan.

He suddenly starts, turned towards me with an extraordinary intentionality. And our eyes love. I don’t know how long it lasted because time disappeared, everybody disappeared, everything disappeared.

So I don’t know if it was a few seconds or a few minutes, I don’t know. But that interaction in that science altered my entire life and I cannot explain it.

I think it was the closest I can use is a recognition. A recognition of something that I cannot put words to, but he knew and he knew, I knew and I knew, he knew, all that in silence.

@36:40 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

And I got that experience of the power and divinity of silence in that interaction. Of silence.

@36:55 – Sophie McLean

Where does that show up in the work that you’re doing? You’re teaching a course, you’re with students and then there’s this moment where that comes back.

Tell me about that. Well, I. It may experience the more noise you have around you, the less present you are.

Anything that is noisy or harsh or people talking too much or too low music or you know all the noise will stop you from connecting to that silence I’m talking about.

And in fact it is simply designed to feel that void because in my experience people are very nervous about emptiness.

And if you can let yourself literally merge into that emptiness, you will see that in nothing everything is possible.

But you need to ease into the nothingness first. But all the thoughts, the little voice in your head, noise, the occupation, busyness is all to avoid that nothingness and fortunately.

But you see, the teacher can make you safe because in every single one of my courses, I give my students the first experience of that nothingness and then once you get a test, then you find, know, say, oh, I wasn’t scared of it, but it’s actually okay.

@38:34 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

It’s like that cage we built around ourselves, the teacher helps you open the door and take a step out and realize that danger is sometimes perceived that we said earlier.

@38:51 – Sophie McLean

I love what you said about imagine danger.

@38:56 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Yeah. Yeah. Sophie, to bring this to a close. Close, while I would like to talk for hours, we won’t.

What have you given the world by publishing the guide, Awakening All Sleepwalkers?

@39:14 – Sophie McLean

I have given everything I have, Nathan. So I get to be moved. I, as I said, it, it, you know, surprises me how much we want to hold on to things.

And I’m clear that I own nothing. So I don’t know if I gave anything. I just wrote anything that was given to me.

The giving away of everything I have learned has given me a new level of humbleness. And I am actually grateful for it.

More than expect people to be grateful for what I wrote.

@39:54 – Nate Leslie (nateleslie.ca)

Well, if you own nothing and it’s given you humbleness, I’m going to promote you for you. You don’t have to do it.

There’s Yukon Fine, Sophie McLean’s new guide, Awakening All Sleepwalkers, an essential guide to expand awareness and bring forth a new culture for humankind on her website, sophymaclean.com, slash books on Amazon.

Quick Google search of any of that, you’ll find it. Sophie, it’s been an honor to speak with you again.

And I am a advisor for a happy And been having this time with you.

@40:33 – Sophie McLean

Thank you.