Idara Bassey
Episode 31 23 August 2021
Spirituality and the corporation
Audio
Video
Idara Bassey
Lawyer, author and expert on lawyer wellbeing
Idara Bassey is a lawyer and expert on lawyer wellbeing. She is an author of Reflections of a Mystical Sistah, a channeled book, and her new book on rethinking the rules of lawyering is due to be published in 2022.
We talk about the place of spirituality in the modern corporation, how leaders need to do inner work to lead today's corporations, and how lawyering is changing to meet the growing demands of people who are awakening to their deeper spiritual needs.
Bio:
Idara E. Bassey is an expert on lawyer well-being. She has been a personal advisor to corporate professionals from various industries and been retained by legal professionals nationwide on matters of executive performance, personal growth, values alignment, stress reduction and wellness since 2002.
She has a J.D. and an LL.M in Public International Law from the University of Georgia School of Law where she was named a Ford Foundation Fellow. She also has a Doctoral Degree in Metaphysical Counseling from the University of Sedona.
She is also author of the award-winning essay collection Reflections of a Mystical Sistah along with serving as a Contributing Writer to the best-selling American Bar Association book, “Lawyers as Changemakers”.
She has an upcoming book When “Thinking Like a Lawyer” Fails: Rewriting the Rules for Your Lawyer Life scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2022
Show notes:
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[2:18] Idara shares with us how her first book Reflections of a Mystical Sistah came about, after she moved from Washington DC to California, the day before 9/11 occurred. That book is a channelled book,
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[6:24] It was in law school that Idara sharpened her connection to her intuition, when she began to observe the energy there and how it transformed people to behave in self-serving ways.
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[9:44] Idara decided that if she would survive law school, she would cultivate inner energetic strengths.
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[13:29] Self-reflection and not necessarily doing what society tells you to do are important when everything around us is being re-evaluated.
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[15:46] After law school, Idara finished her LL.M then ended up in Washington DC working with a non-profit that was a sub-Saharan Africa relief agency. This also gave her the chance to observe how attached people were to their titles and roles.
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[19:21] After 10 years in academia, and moving to California, Idara enrolled herself in a doctoral degree in metaphysics. Her thesis focussed on the manifestation of energy in corporations. Parts of Idara's doctoral thesis were channelled.
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[23:37] We talk about the Great Resignation of 2021 when large numbers of people are expected to resign from their corporate jobs, up to 40% by some estimates.
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[28:29] Idara's new book is about the limitations of the traditional way of thinking like a lawyer and the new ways to be a lawyer in this period of mass transformation.
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[34:26] Idara sees this period of lockdowns, restriction and limitation as an opportunity for personal growth.
Links:
Idara's website, IEB Legal Wellness: ieblegalwellness.com
Reflections of a Mystical Sistah
Eckhart Tolle's website and his bestselling book, The Power of Now.
Martha Beck's YouTube video of The Pyramid and the Pool, demonstrating her sugar cube pyramid and how the pool of enlightenment can form from it.
Transcript:
Geraldine 0:12
Hello, everyone and welcome to the New Earth lawyer podcast. My name is Geraldine Johns-Putra and I'm your host I'm speaking to you from Melbourne, Australia, which is Boonwurrung country and so I wish to pay my respects to their Elders, past, present and emerging. Today I'm speaking with Idara Bassey. Idara is an expert on lawyer wellbeing. She has been a personal advisor to corporate professionals from various industries. She's been retained by legal professionals nationwide on matters of executive performance, personal growth values, alignment, stress reduction and wellness since 2002. She has a JD and an LLM in Public International Law from the University of Georgia. And she also has a doctoral degree in metaphysical counselling from the University of Sedona. She's an author, she's written an award-winning essay collection called Reflections of a Mystical Sistah. She also has an upcoming book that's entitled When Thinking Like a Lawyer Fails: Rewriting the Rules for Your Lawyer Life. And that's scheduled for release pretty soon, coming up in the first quarter of next year. So Idara, thank you so much for joining us.
Idara 1:29
Thank you so much, Geraldine. It's a pleasure to be here.
Geraldine 1:34
I wanted to talk first about the books. So I actually didn't mention in the intro that you've also contributed to a book that was issued by the American Bar Association called Lawyers as Changemakers, which is a book that I've actually spoken about on this podcast before I had Kim Wright as my first guest, and she's the author of that book. So you've done quite a lot of writing.
Idara 2:00
And something I really enjoyed doing. It's one of my ways of making the world makes sense, helps the world makes more sense. So I've been doing it for a long time.
Geraldine 2:09
And so Reflections of a Mystical Sistah was not a law book, per se. Can you tell us about that?
Idara 2:18
That was an interesting book. It, there's a story behind how it came to be, to begin with, as there is with many of the things that I get in get involved in. It is a channelled book, the entire book has been channelled. And it was a situation where I had just left Washington DC on an intuitive sense that something was going down. And so I wrapped up my life there and moved to across the country to California, a state where I knew, a city where I knew no one. And it just so happened that I wrapped up everything in time to depart Washington, DC the day before September 11. So yeah, so that was that timing was pretty, it really made me think obviously, as it would anyone that somehow this intangible knowing or understanding that something was afoot would lead me to take that type of action. And so you can't necessarily just go along as business as usual after you go through, an event like that. And the intention was to continue my work as I had done in Washington, and my attempts to get something going did not really yield any fruit. And I didn't necessarily have to work right away because I had sold my house before I departed. So I had some funds to live off of before I figured out what I wanted to do. And I sat down and thought, you know, one thing that I really wanted to do was write and so my guides, my spirit guides, literally sat me down and said, hey, sit down. And every morning for about a month, pieces of the book just kind of tumbled out. So it turns out to be a collection that speaks about the value of listening to your heart and touches on aspects of my journey from being a corporate lawyer to a spiritual seeker and creative spirit. And the way that the book is organised, it's such that you can divide it up into different topics and decide, you know, what subject area you want to hone in on. It really lends itself to, well, to deep introspection if you are in the market for such. But it was such a incredibly powerful transmission that my job was to stay out of the way, and just let it flow. And so that turned out to be my first book.
Geraldine 5:09
So there are a few things that happened at around the same time - you were moving jobs or moving cities, moving away from a job. You happened to do so at the most monumental, momentous time. Just before anyway. And then you started channelling, or had you been channelling up to that point?
Idara 5:34
I've been working with my spirit guides since the late 90s. So we definitely, yeah, so we definitely had a conversation going, it really started off with when I adopted a regular meditation practice in 1996.
Geraldine 5:47
So that's pretty early, I mean, earlier than most awakeners that I speak to, so I'm a late awakener there compared to you, because I got, I sort of woke up around 2008, 2009. But you okay, 90s? What was that like?
Idara 6:03
Well, you know, I think it really has to go back even further. Because I feel like I went through, I came through law school, I went through that experience and came out the other end more intuitive than when I went in.
Geraldine 6:18
Okay, that is unusual.
Idara 6:19
Yes it is unusual.
Geraldine 6:21
It's the opposite of everyone I've had.
Idara 6:24
And the reason why I would make that claim, even though I may not have fully understood it at the time, is that during my first year of law school, I almost felt like I adopted an observer stance. I saw all these things happening around me, a lot of frenzied energy and I just made a decision that, you know, I'm not going to let this experience fundamentally change what I feel about myself as far as my inherent worth, and also change me into a person that I do not recognise. Because the pressure of the competition, I noticed around it was changing people into people they probably would not have recognised if they did a comparison. I mean, for example, there was always the group assignment that relied on one book in the law library. And inevitably, it would either get stolen, or somebody would rip out the relevant page with the answer or whatever.
Geraldine 7:31
Yeah.
Idara 7:32
And I was always curious about what is it about this energy of this experience that's turning that person into somebody they might not even recognise, if you understand the question.
Geraldine 7:46
I do, because it happens also, after you leave law school, and you get into certain.
Idara 7:48
You see, that's the same.
Geraldine 7:52
Corporate environments.
Idara 7:55
Absolutely. So I had that question in law school. And I have that question now, where people feel like they're kind of entrenched in this way of doing and being in the world and are not cognisant that there are alternatives.
Geraldine 8:12
Yeah.
Idara 8:12
That there are other ways to be.
Geraldine 8:15
Yeah.
Idara 8:15
It's like the fish in the fishbowl doesn't realise there's an ocean. It's like your world has gotten so constricted, and your ways of being have been so calcified.
Geraldine 8:25
But it's also an impact of other consciousnesses on the individual consciousness. So it's, it's like this, you create this collective consciousness within a law school or within a law firm, or within the whole practice of law.
Idara 8:42
Absolutely.
Geraldine 8:43
Where the individual isn't guided by themselves anymore. They're guided by this group think.
Idara 8:48
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And oh, gosh, I could tell you what I think about groupthink, but that's a whole another conversation.
Geraldine 8:57
So this was your realisation in law school, that oh look there's actually people are being changed, their personalities are being changed.
Idara 9:06
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, literally my first semester, I just saw this disconnect. I felt this disconnect. I saw these people around me, you can think of like maybe like rats running around them, but they just happen to be wearing blue suits. And they happen to be chasing an associate job. Because that was that was that was the golden
Geraldine 9:29
I know. Same in Australian law schools, we change our trainee positions or articled positions as we used to call them. So were you in contact with your intuitive side at this point? Or was that developing?
Idara 9:44
I don't think I would term it quite that way. But I think I've adopted an attitude of, okay, if I am going to get through this experience, I have to adopt some inner resources or cultivate some inner resources or I am going to get eaten alive, basically. So I don't know whether I'd call it intuition, but I just knew, and then I, you know, I'm a woman of colour. I'm going to school in the south, males everywhere, there was not a built in constituency of people who were cheering me on, per se saying, okay, we're good, we wish you the best, and we're pulling for you. Oh, no, in fact, I wasn't, I was not necessarily very welcome there, you know, so I just knew that without the support from outside or externally. I have to depend on myself. I need to cultivate some strengths, internally. Now, while that kind of manifested in meditation practice, and study of actual energetic modalities after I had gotten out of law school, but the orientation practice of regularly looking within I think the seed was planted while I was in law school.
Geraldine 11:07
Well, this really resonates because I am a migrant, to Australia, when I went to law school, people who looked like me, I was an international student, a fee-paying international student people who looked like me tended to go back home to wherever they came from. And I didn't, I stayed in Australia. And then I went through the progression here of finding that job that you were talking about. And I found that I became quite independent minded and very, very different in other ways. So I didn't follow the usual path of getting married and having children which all of my peers were doing. I decided to stay single and childless. And that in itself kind of marked me as different. And then I started to look at jobs overseas and stayed overseas after being in Australia for a while. What I'm saying is that I developed what you're talking about, because I wasn't really, I didn't really have that cheer squad, either or that expectation that I was going to achieve certain things. But because I decided to achieve those things, I became independent minded and just followed my own path in other ways. Is that what happened to you?
Idara 12:28
I think it's the concept of becoming self referencing.
Geraldine 12:32
Yes.
Idara 12:33
Which is not something society necessarily encourages you to do,
Geraldine 12:38
Particularly not in a conventional job like law.
Idara 12:41
Absolutely. Absolutely. We're looking for the title or we're looking for the money. We're looking for the what-have-you external validation.
Geraldine 12:50
Yeah.
Idara 12:50
And if I had been a white male, with a path that was already pretty much set for me, as far as my career progression, I would had a different experience. But what I was forced to do, because I didn't fit that mould. And this is one thing that I absolutely love about, I don't know if you're familiar with Eckhart Tolle.
Geraldine 13:10
Yes, I am.
Idara 13:11
The Spiritual way. Yep,
Geraldine 13:12
Yep.
Idara 13:13
And that his book, The Power of Now, he wrote, he writes about being an outsider.
Geraldine 13:19
Mm.
Idara 13:20
And the gift of being an outsider is that it shakes you out of complacency by default.
Geraldine 13:27
Yeah.
Idara 13:29
If there's any gifts to be to be had, even though it's a difficult path to follow, once you decide that the path going towards the blue suits, the associate positions or whatever, once you decide that that doesn't resonate with me, you were forced to ask the question, well, what do I stand for? If I don't stand for this, what do I stand for? And it's not an easy inquiry. But by golly, having that practice early on, really has been very, very important and useful for me. Because right now, we're in this time where everything is being re-evaluated. And the folks that have been following the class, the societal past that has been this well worn trough, who aren't used to looking at alternatives or evaluating alternatives, or navigating situations where the progression isn't linear. Hmm.
Geraldine 14:33
The assumptions are removed like a rug under their feet.
Idara 14:36
Yeah, I mean, they're in the soup, per se, because they haven't cultivated that skill set.
Geraldine 14:43
Yeah, yeah.
Idara 14:44
Oh, and as life becomes more ambiguous and we're getting confusing messages from our supposed leaders if you're used to kind of doing what somebody tells you to do?
Geraldine 14:58
Mmm. yeah, you're lost.
Idara 15:01
Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. It takes [inaudible] to cultivate the ability to navigate situations that are not linear.
Geraldine 15:10
So when you left law school, did you go down the so-called well worn path? Because I did. And then I, what happened was this dissonance got louder and louder and louder, because I already established that I was different from people. But then in some ways I did try to fit in. But how I did try to fit in was I did pursue the ambitious associate and try to get to partner etc, etc. at large law firms.
Idara 15:38
Sure, I didn't quite follow a traditional path. But I tried to.
Geraldine 15:43
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Idara 15:46
Every way I could, I, I stayed on to do my LLM. I did international law. And I specialised in US-Africa international development relations. And so from there, obviously international law's a little bit of a different bird anyway. But it's still under the umbrella of, you know, all that's right and respectable. And let me try to give this a go. And what I wound up doing after I did a year long internship at a foreign policy think tank, here in Atlanta, which got me deeper into the research between the two geographic areas. And then I moved to Washington DC, where I was recruited to run a support programme for African diplomats based in Washington. Fine, whatever. A lot of ego management involved, but well, what can you do? And then my boss, in his infinite wisdom, saw my legal training and said oh, you know, we need an in house legal adviser. So I became an in house legal counsel for the organisation that was a non-profit, that non-profit humanitarian relief agency that did work in sub-Saharan Africa.
Geraldine 17:06
Okay.
Idara 17:07
So, you know, so I do bits and pieces of it that were kind of traditional and I did spend some time in academia.
Geraldine 17:16
Traditional in that humanitarian non-profit world.
Idara 17:20
Sure.
Geraldine 17:21
Especially in the capital. Yeah.
Idara 17:23
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I spent some time in that world, which was interesting. Again, still feeling like an observer of sorts, because you're seeing people with these titles. And you can see that they didn't know how to establish their own value outside of these titles. I mean, people these are grown men. Oh, my goodness, your whole sense of meaning. Oh, I mean, I have to tell you, when I went to a function, and I saw diplomats, and a woman approached me and she gave me her business card and she was the wife of one of, of the ambassador, she had actually a business card that said wife. I was just like, oh, you, oh my gosh, I couldn't laugh in her face, but I'm just like this woman is serious.
Geraldine 18:19
A business card that says wife.
Idara 18:23
She has the business card title of wife! It's nice to meet you, too. I did spend some time in academia, almost 10 years teaching international law as well.
Geraldine 18:35
Okay. So yeah, it is extremely...
Idara 18:40
I tried.
Geraldine 18:41
Your CV is very impressive in a conventional way, as well as, now I want to get to the part of your CV that's different.
Idara 18:48
Yes.
Geraldine 18:49
Because the part that pops out reading it is that you have a Doctoral degree in Metaphysical Counselling from the University of Sedona, which, as I said to you before we started recording is a place I'd love to go to, and just how magical it is. So tell us, how did that happen? Because you've started to tell us about moving away from the Washington scene?
Idara 19:11
Well, yes, I would like to pick up at that point. Because at the time when I tried to replicate my career in Washington when I'd been, when I was in California.
Geraldine 19:20
Yeah.
Idara 19:21
And obviously nothing was panning out. So I started writing and you know, which yielded the book that we were just referencing, and I had time on my hands, obviously. So I thought, well, I've always wanted to do more formal study of metaphysics and I certainly have time to do it. So that's when I enrolled in the doctoral programme at that time.
Geraldine 19:44
And what did you, what did you get out of it, was it, did you in studying metaphysics as a subject, did it enhance your own metaphysical capabilities?
Idara 19:58
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because what I was doing I mean, my thesis research in particular, was I was looking at how energy manifests in different corporate settings. I was looking at corporations as an energetic entity, because I wanted to see how people can live out their spiritual truths in this environment. Is it possible? How that happens?
Geraldine 20:33
Yeah. And what did you find?
Idara 20:37
I was I just was having a blast with it. Really. I mean, I had no idea where I'm going with it, where it was going to go. But I was deeply invested with looking at these, these entities as an energetic statement, basically.
Geraldine 20:55
Exactly. Yeah. Because they are just like a country has its own, very much energy, its own collective consciousness, a family does, town or whatever, even neighbourhood, a corporate definitely does. Definitely. And I can vouch for that having been in different environments.
Idara 21:13
Indeed, indeed.
Geraldine 21:14
We call it culture, but it's it's actually a collective consciousness.
Idara 21:19
Yes, indeed. And what happens is, in fact, one thing that was very interesting is that there are portions of my thesis that were channelled.
Geraldine 21:31
Oh, so that is a first.
Idara 21:33
Yeah. So I made that clear to the panel that was evaluating my thesis to say, hey, look, when you see these portions of the thesis that are in italics, these are from you know, channelled entities, they don't wish to be identified at this time. But I want you to know that, you know, this is going alongside, you know, the traditional research, and, obviously, because of the company, I was in that wasn't a problem. But these ideas, the ideas that I was exploring, were channelled, and then I picked up, you know, supporting research to expand upon them, or what have you. But there was one quote that really kicked things off, and I'll read it to you, because I still remember because they hit me like a tonne of bricks. It's like, the downfall of a corporation is a potent example of what happens when unhealed individuals hold leadership positions.
Geraldine 22:33
That's many places that I know, and we it see repeat time and time again.
Idara 22:40
Yeah, yeah.
Geraldine 22:41
You're right, that's quite, that's very powerful.
Idara 22:44
It just, I'm just like, when I read it, I looked around to see is the world spinning? Is anybody. So then it might be out? It makes so much sense.
Geraldine 22:56
Yeah. Because you extrapolate it to not just one company or one firm, you extrapolate to whole industries, as well as the whole way our economy functions, especially in these times you talked about, the uncertainty, but also as people become more and more awake and aware of what really goes on underneath the nature of reality. It can't hold.
Idara 23:26
talk about you know, the concept of seeing how the sausage is made. I don't know whether that translates in your
Geraldine 23:32
Yeah, it does. We have plenty of sausage factories here.
Idara 23:37
What's happening. Yeah. I don't know if you've even heard of this concept as well. The great resignation of 2021.
Geraldine 23:42
Yeah, yeah. I have heard of it.
Idara 23:46
Literally.
Geraldine 23:47
Mass numbers.
Idara 23:48
I mean, I'll explain for those who have not heard, but literally within, they're expecting about 40, up to 40% of the current working population is planning to leave their current positions within a year.
Geraldine 24:02
Yeah.
Idara 24:04
And, I mean, people, I mean, companies are freaking out, because they're just like, okay, let's throw more money at this, or what can we do or what have you, we've been working at home during the pandemic for over I mean, almost a year and a half now. And people are deciding, you know, I would like to see my family more.
Geraldine 24:24
Yeah.
Idara 24:25
This commute, and this commuters commute, you know, contributing to my blood pressure, skyrocketing. Um, you know, I just had no time for exercise or taking care of myself. And it won't be solved by throwing more money.
Geraldine 24:40
Yeah, because people have already made that switch. They've switched off from being motivated by that, the money, the prestige, whatever, you can throw at it.
Idara 24:49
The toothpaste is out of the tube.
Geraldine 24:51
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah.
Idara 24:53
And again, the inherent limitation of these collective entities, is limited by the person who's at the top of the hierarchy, and his level of consciousness.
Geraldine 25:05
Yes.
Idara 25:05
And if his level of consciousness has not expanded, or if he's not engaged in inner work, I'm not saying that people in leadership positions have to be perfect. But if your way of being in the world is calcified, for lack of a better word, life is going to evolve.
Geraldine 25:23
Yeah.
Idara 25:23
And you will not be as well equipped to address the shifts.
Geraldine 25:28
And those tools of control that we used to rely on, that leaders used to rely on no longer work. And what was happening in the interim, was trying to use softer tools, trying to engage the workforce, all of these engagement surveys, you know different channels for speaking to their people, and so on, so forth. But it was just a band aid. Because.
Idara 25:53
Yeah.
Geraldine 25:54
Because, like you said, the genie's out the bottle, and people are standing up and going no, because this feels constrictive. I can't do this anymore. And because the awareness of the workforce is growing, the consciousness of the workforce is growing and actually outstripping the consciousness of the leadership of the particular company. They just couldn't keep control anymore.
Idara 26:18
Yeah, yeah. And they're just like, Okay, everybody has to come back to the office. And people are saying, Well, I think I'd rather quit.
Geraldine 26:25
Exactly. I'd rather quit, I'd rather take a job without less stress, with less stress. So that's, that is interesting, because it's the great resignation or the great standing up, right? Because everything is a pyramid structure. And everybody at the bottom stands up, or the bottom tiers stand up, then everything tumbles down. So is that what you see unfolding?
Idara 26:54
It's so funny, I don't know, if you are from Oh, I can't think of her name. But there is a model of societal evolution. It's a series of sugar cubes.
Geraldine 27:05
Okay.
Idara 27:06
And they're in a bowl of water, and the water is being poured from the top. And the folks on the bottom, they're... the folks on the top are the last to know, but the folks at the bottom are shifting and changing and altered, making alterations. But it's the folks on the top, who are most invested in the hierarchy, as it is called, they're the last to know. That's what's happening. It's the last to know note and I can oh, my goodness, I can't, Martha Beck. In fact, I'd love to send you the, it's fascinating, it's very encouraging to know that societal changes are happening. It's just the folks that are most invested at the top are the last to know. And so that is cause for hope, actually, things are changing.
Geraldine 28:04
Yeah.
Idara 28:05
It's just, you know, as they're dying, they're making a lot of noise on the way out.
Geraldine 28:15
So tell us about now what you're getting into, which is your new book. So your upcoming book sounds like it's going to be really interesting against the backdrop of all that we've been talking about, which is rewriting the rules for being a lawyer.
Idara 28:29
It's a book that's been percolating for the past 20 years in some shape or form. After I wrote Reflections of a Mystical Sistah, I had every intention of following up fairly immediately with something else, and I would start something, and then, you know, the juice would just run dry. So I put it aside. So at least three or four attempts around my house of ideas that I tried to develop. But as as the case may be, the best way is to allow it to flow, rather than try to impose some kind of, you must write something. And so this also predictably, came out fairly quickly. The initial drafts probably took maybe about two months or so. But it's 150 pages they're about. But the idea is that now that we're in this period of re-evaluation, it's worthwhile as a profession, to realise the limitations of thinking like a lawyer.
Geraldine 29:41
And what do you mean by thinking like a lawyer, I have an idea what you do mean by it but.
Idara 29:46
Okay, well, we've all spent a lot of time, energy must I say money becoming steeped in this way of evaluating situations beforehand. You know, the logical, linear thinking capability. In fact, in the United States, we have this IRAC, now you've got your Issue, you've got your Rule, you've got your Application and your Conclusion, this is how we problem solve. But the kind of questions that we are being forced to encounter now make it very clear that that way of problem solving has its limitations. And that can be a little bit that can be a big, very difficult for people in our profession to swallow. Because you've invested so much time, in cultivating this way of problem solving or thinking or being in the world, society has rewarded you so handsomely for being in this way. But by golly, the profession is in a bit of a crisis, if you haven't noticed, as far as chronic stress, depression, suicide. So these are questions that we all of a sudden have to face. And we haven't cultivated a skill set that would help us meet a challenge, the current challenge. So thinking like a lawyer, it failed, it has failed you on some level.
Geraldine 31:30
So what are some of the different ways we can think to make sure that we're meeting the challenges of the times we're in?
Idara 31:41
Well, I'm a very big fan of cultivating, cultivating one's intuition. I had started to do some local CLE courses here in Atlanta, about cultivating your intuitive abilities. The idea being that if you're strictly coming out of your left brain, your logical brain, your analytical thinking brain? Well, you will definitely come to some answers. And I'm never going to advocate that people throw that capacity out the window. But if you bring in the right brain, and alongside of it, you have more of an ability to fully assess what's on your plate holistically. Yes, so you cover more of the bases, you expand your definition of what constitutes information. And to that end, you can become a better lawyer. And you can become a more fulfilled, fulfilled person.
Geraldine 32:40
You're joining up all the parts.
Idara 32:41
Absolutely, absolutely. And that is, again, that can be kind of a difficult proposition for people that are used to being in the way or the world one particular way. But there is a wonderful quote by one of my favourite quotes by Albert Einstein, and I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit here. The level of consciousness that created a situation is not the level of consciousness that's going to take you beyond it. So you think about all the skill sets that you've cultivated up to this point, all the practices, the habits, or what have you, everything that's in your toolkit, your life toolkit has gotten you to the point that you are now if you're interested in moving beyond that, taking your life, take your work to the next level, you're going to have to do something different, you're going to have to add something new to the sauce or cultivate a new tool. So that is where I think it's worthwhile to have this conversation about, there're different ways of knowing that you need to partake of, avail yourself of, to add to what we've got going,
Geraldine 32:45
Is there any part of that book channelled?
Idara 34:05
Not technically,
Geraldine 34:07
Yeah. I get you.
Idara 34:08
But in the sense, we're all serving as conduits for something greater.
Geraldine 34:15
Well, that really brings me into a question of how often do you check in with your guides? And are you finding any changes in how that information is coming to you in these times?
Idara 34:28
That's a very interesting question. Because when we're in a situation like we're in now, during the pandemic, it's very tempting to just say, hey, look, how long is this gonna last? I want to know. And that's not the right question to ask. That's, I mean, that's definitely the intent. That's definitely the impression that I've gotten in dialogue, not the question to ask, and there's this phrase that just cracks me up. Every time I hear it seems like, you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. That's not, that's not a good game to be playing. It's not a good question. It's not an empowering question.
Geraldine 35:15
That question is, what else do I need to grow?
Idara 35:19
Absolutely. I mean, if you come from a place of trust, that the universe knows what it's doing, the focus really should be, what am I meant to learn from this situation? What kind of person am I going to grow into in this situation? Not, is this going to be over by March because I have tickets to see, you know, Elton John, and I wasn't sure.
Geraldine 35:46
Yeah.
Idara 35:48
That was a question. I mean, that's definitely an impression that I've got, which I've noticed, and I'm just, I'm trying to come to some peace about that. That, who knows?
Geraldine 35:59
Well, I'm looking forward to reading that book. It sounds like a fantastic book. And I actually think that a lot of what I talk about on this show, will be addressed by by that book, because this is exactly it. You know, we've seen lawyers en masse, say, we want a different way of doing things. A lot of people who have spoken to me after hearing episodes, or watching episodes of this show, say, you know, that really resonated because I've been thinking I want a career change, mostly young lawyers. So yeah, congratulations. I'm looking forward to it. I'll put a little plug of it in the information below, if you're watching it on YouTube, and I wish you all the best too with your journey with the guides. I'm absolutely sure they've got lots more that they're probably not quite letting you know, right now, if they're anything like the guides that we all have.
Idara 36:53
I think the key is to be okay with that. That you are being given exactly what you need to know at this particular time.
Geraldine 37:05
Yeah.
Idara 37:05
And if it's not in your awareness, either you can't handle it right now, or you got other things you need to attend to. It's almost as if you're looking at the world from the top of, I mean, looking down on the world, Spirit, universe, whatever you want to call it, can see the big picture, but you can access only one little slice of it.
Geraldine 37:28
Yeah.
Idara 37:28
And you probably might be very attached to how that slice should unfold and how it should look and the timing and whatever. And that's all fine and good. But you know, attachment is a recipe for suffering, as we all know,
Geraldine 37:44
That's the basics. Back to Buddha.
Idara 37:46
So if we can kind of withdraw and we can kind of pull back a little bit and say, okay, I trust that I'm being led or a way will be found or the answers will be provided, when it needs when it's necessary. And we can go from there.
Geraldine 38:03
Idara, thank you so much for sharing space with us. It's been a pleasure.
Idara 38:08
Yeah. I had a wonderful time.