[00:00:00] Speaker A: I really believe that surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. I feel it's the real secret to true manifestation, the real key to the next level of our lives. I think surrender is the password to freedom. Surrender in a simple sort of context is a letting go of control. It's a letting go of constantly trying to force life to fit our limited box and paradigm.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: An idea hi, I'm Deborah Rosman, and a warm welcome to our listeners each month for our ad Heart podcast, I have the privilege of interviewing individuals who are contributing to the creation of a more heart based world.
And this month I'm talking with Koot Blackson, who has been called a next generation world leader out to awaken millions, to love and to living their inspired destiny.
I've known Koot for many years as a fellow member of the Transformational Leadership Council, and I would have to say he's engaging in fun and has followed his heart's direction from a young age.
He's the son of a revered spiritual leader in Ghana, but by the age of eight, he was already speaking to his father's congregations in more than 300 churches.
And then he was ordained in his father's ministry to carry on the family's spiritual legacy. But his heart drew him to come to Los Angeles in 1995 with two suitcases and a dream of seeking out and learning from spiritual and self help icons. And through his journey, he created a process he calls liberated living to free ourselves from conditioned responses and find real freedom.
And he actually has something called the liberation experience where he travels with clients one on one across India for 14 days. They don't have any idea where they're going. They carry no money, they have no identity, and this changes the life. So I think it's quite exciting. And Krut has authored two books, you are the one. A bold adventure in finding purpose, discovering the real you and loving fully, and more recently, the magic of surrender, finding the courage to let go. So welcome, Kud. I'm so glad you're here.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: So your newest book, the Magic of Surrender, tell us what you mean by surrender, because that's a scary concept for a lot of people because they don't know if they're surrendering to someone else, they're going to lose their sinner or surrendering to their ego. Tell what do you mean by surrender?
[00:02:48] Speaker A: I think, you know, in our culture there's many, shall we say, misconceptions and myths about surrender. Surrender's got on a bad rap. We often see surrender as weak. We see surrender as passive. We view surrender as giving up, as waving the white flag.
We have this sort of mistaken notion that if I surrender, I'm going to get left behind. If I surrender, I'm going to be taken advantage of. I'm going to be abused. If I surrender, I won't manifest my goals, my dreams, my desires. And so with that kind of definition, why would we want to surrender? Right? And so I'm actually saying no. Like, if you really understand the true essence of real, authentic surrender, what if you didn't get less? But what if you actually were able to manifest more, more than you could have imagined, more than you could have projected, more than you could have even intended, with the limited linearness of your own logic, mind, and ego. And so I really believe that surrender, and I've seen this through the lived experience in my life, how I've lived my life, day in, day out, from my earliest memories, really has been a process of surrendering. And I didn't know it at the time. And so I really believe that surrender is the most powerful thing that we can do. I feel it's the real secret to true manifestation, the real key to the next level of our lives. I think surrender is the password to freedom. When I look at the really great ones, whether it's a Jesus or a Buddha or a Gandhi, in his own way, a mother Teresa, Martin Luther king, a Mandela, a Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, you know, my childhood heroes, I think at some point, all of them were reached a level of greatness, because at some point, they reached their own ego's capacity, limitation to create and manifest and make things happen. And at some point, they surrendered themselves. They had to let go of the idea of who they sort of thought they should be, the idea of who they planned to be, or how they thought their life should look. And they open to a bigger impulse, they open to a bigger intention, they open to life. And in that surrender, they open to the deepest impulse of what we're seeking to express through them. And I think they transcended their human limitations and life. God, the divine intelligence, this intelligence that is living and breathing us all, was able to express through them and use them and manifest through them, I think, in ways that they could not have even imagined. If you look at a mandela, 26 years in prison, this is not something you could have planned or strategized or put into a certain goal list. I'm gonna go to prison, come out, be the president, become iconic, and change lives. This is not something I think you could plan with your mind in your logic, I think he had surrendered to a point where life was guiding him and life was leading him. And so in that sense, surrender, in a simple sort of context is a.
Is a letting go of control, right? A letting go of the. I would even say the illusion that we are in control in the first place. So it's a letting go of control. It's a letting go of trying to force and manipulate life to fit our limited idea of how we think it should be and how we think a relationship should be. And I think so many of us, we're constantly trying to force life to fit our limited box and paradigm and idea. And so it is a letting go of forcing and resisting and fighting. And it is an opening to, shall we say, what it is that is seeking to unfold.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: And I think, let me ask you, that's all inspiring and wonderful, but what about our day to day? How do we.
I mean, your day, you hit a wall. You have a relationship challenge, a communication challenge. Let's take it right down to the street.
We talk here about. And it surrenders a challenging word because you're really surrendering.
We suggest to the light, to your heart, but you have to be able to access that, because otherwise you don't know what you're surrendering to. In the practical moment to moment, day to day, when challenges occur, how do you address that?
[00:07:34] Speaker A: I don't think there's a step by step 123456 formula. I think it depends on the context. It depends on the situation. I would say that often what it is that resists surrender is the ego.
I think surrender is our natural state of being. If you look at a child, and again, I just kind of have to address this before we kind of dive into certain nitty gritty. Because if we don't understand, well, why do we not surrender? Because I think surrender is natural. A child tends to be surrendered. Right. And so I would just say we all have the capacity to surrender. Surrender is the nature of life, is the nature of what we are.
But because of our conditioning, we develop all sorts of mechanisms and roles and Personas and defense strategies that create resistances in the blockage of our capacity to surrender. As children, we're in touch with the light. You talk about the light, we're in touch with the light. We're radiating the light. We're in touch with our innate flow. We're following this innate intelligence as children. But maybe we incarnate into human experience, where we meet our parents, and there's pain, there's trauma, there's hurt. So on some level, we learn all sorts of strategies to shut down, disconnect, and not feel. And we learn to suppress our feelings, suppress our pain, suppress our truth, suppress our feelings to have some kind of control. But we also learn to develop a role, a mask, a Persona, a way of being of who we think we need to be in the world in order to get love, validation, and approval. Oh, if I'm sweet and nice, then dad loves me. Oh, if I don't really be loud, then I get validation. And so we learn to sort of lie to ourselves about who we are as a strategy of control. And so we, as human beings, we develop a way of being, and we kind of contort into this version of ourselves that we think is who we are, but it's really a conditioned version of who we are. And I think the degree to which we're identified with that is ego. And so we've become so conditioned to believe we are the ego, this mind body mechanism, our beliefs, our ideas that we don't have the freedom to let go, the freedom to flow, the freedom to trust our heart, the freedom to listen to our intuition, because our true connection to the light has gotten sort of clouded underneath the layers of unfelt feeling and emotion and clouded underneath the sort of distorted way that we've learned to protect ourselves. And so I think we have to realize that when we talk about surrender, surrender, even though it's natural, surrender, surrender feels like a death. And this is, I think, why it's so scary. It feels like a death to the ego, which is our perceived sense of self, right? To the version of ourselves that we've become.
And so I think that in daily life, I think we have to learn to meet our resistances, right? Because it's the ego that resists to try to have some kind of control. The ego is a reaction to certain things that happened in childhood and certain memories and experiences. And so we made up this sort of idea of, well, I don't want to experience that again. And so. And so, as a result, if we're able to recognize that who we are and what we've become is not what we really are, it's just a collection of conditioned patterns that if we're able to just recognize that and meet ourselves with some grace and some kindness and some compassion and some tenderness, then I think some of those resistances and patterns that tend to not want to surrender and let go can begin to melt. And so I would say the first step is just the willingness to meet oneself with grace and a bit of ease and a bit of compassion. Just starting from there.
[00:12:00] Speaker B: I couldn't agree more on the ease and grace and compassion. Well, I find in how we teach people working in organizations and individuals and healthcare, people need to be able to shift what we found to their heart, to even be able to slow down, to activate like heart focus, breathing, be able to calm the autonomic nervous system, even choose. Wait a minute. This has gotten me the path of pain. Let me listen to my heart's guidance in order to find a path towards something that's going to work for me in the wholeness. I mean, it's like slowing down the mechanical habits like you're talking about, to be able to even access another part of ourselves to make new choices. And as we do that, we start to develop our own trust in our own heart, to surrender to what heart guidance is. And it's a process. It's, you know, it's a learning and growing process, but slowing the mechanism down, the operating system down so we can actually build that power of surrenders to our hearts. Guidance is what I've learned over the years. And I think that a lot of people are scared because their heart's gotten them into trouble. What they think is their heart where distinguishment between what the ego or the desires or the conditioning is saying and what their true heart really knows. It's a process of learning and growing. And so, you know, again, surrendering to the light, to the heart, to your higher self, that to me is an awakening, awakening, an unfolding process. So I'm just fascinated by what you call the magic in swindler. What the magic to me is what happens when you do that and how life changes.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: I think when I, when I. The reason I called the book the magic of surrender and not, let's say the power of surrender, right? Because I chose that word very specifically. And when I say magic, I don't mean like a hocus pocus, you know, David Copperfield, it's magic is like that which is beyond our ego's capacity to visualize, to see. It's beyond our current capacity to even imagine what is possible.
I think that to me, that is the magic. It's the more joy, it's the more, you know, if you look at the best things, at least I look at my life when I look at the best things in my life that happen, you know, meeting my wife, having my son, meeting a best friend, right.
Most of it I didn't plan with my mind because the ego is conditioned by past experience. And so most of the time, when we live life from the lens of the ego. And the ego's job is to keep us safe, to protect us from getting hurt, and to reinforce its existence. The ego's job is survival.
And so when we live life simply motivated or driven from the grip of the ego, we will tend to live a limited life, and we will not experience as much magic, because we will tend to just recreate more of what we already know because it's familiar and it's safe. And so this is what we end up manifesting. And so when I say magic, it is beyond what we can imagine. And so when I look at the best things in my life that have happened, I didn't plan it. I didn't even see it. It wasn't necessarily on my poster board or in my goal chart. It was. It was beyond what I could have imagined for myself. Things happened in ways I could not have even possibly predicted. And I think that's where the possibilities are. That's where the magic is. That's where grace is. That's where the miraculous is. And so the old, I think the. I don't say old paradigm, but let's call it the old paradigm way of, I think creating is.
We're taught to ask the question, okay, what do you want? It's a valid question. What do you want? Get clear on what you want. You have to know what you want. Write it down, plan it out, and you can manifest and create this way.
You can create amazing things this way, and I think there is a place for it. However, to me, the ego based model of creating life ends up being limited. And I think for many of us, the ego has become the leader rather than the servant. And so, for me, the question I invite people to ask is a slightly different question. First, it's not simply, well, what do I want? Because I think if we're also not in touch with who we really are as the light, if we're not in touch with who we really are, as consciousness, as energy, as infinite spirit, then many times the goals that we set and the plans that we intend and pursue will be offered an expression of, we could, say, unmet needs from childhood, and then we'll end up manifesting a goal, a vision, a dream, a plan. And then it's like what we thought we wanted was not what we really wanted. It was just what we thought we wanted based on who we thought we were. Right? And so, for me, the question that I invite people to ask themselves is not just, well, what do I want? The question is, it's a different question. First, it's like, what is it?
It's a deeper feeling sense of, like, what is it that is seeking to express through you?
What is life seeking to manifest through me?
What is my heart? What is my heart seeking to manifest? What is my heart guiding me to create? What is my heart guiding me to write? What is the deepest impulse of heart, of life, of the divine intellect? What is this deepest impulse seeking to create and manifest through me? And I think when we can become still, when we can listen and attune ourselves to feel the impulse of what life is seeking to express through us, and then when we can align our ego with that feeling, that movement, then we can bring ourselves into the flow of life, and then we can plan and strategize and put our resources and marketing and planning behind that. And then I think we're truly living in the flow. And I think when we're living in the flow is when we are not creating from the ego or the past. And in that zone, we're not limited to the past. We are, you know, we're open to infinite possibilities. And I think that's when.
That's when the magic happens. You know, like, I'll give you an example. The magic of surrender book. This was not there, but this was not the book I planned to write. This was not the book I wanted to write. I had every intention to write every other book other than this book. I sat down after my first book was a bestseller, and I thought, okay, I'm going to be intelligent. I'm going to be strategic. I'm going to plan. And I started dissecting all the bestsellers lists, and Tim Ferriss and this woman, Marie Kondo, I just basically studied all the bestsellers list. And I thought, okay, what books does my publisher want? What books does my audience want? What books would sell, what books would be a New York Times bestseller. And I had an entire whiteboard of very intelligent, you know, sort of logically intelligent ideas of books I thought would.
Would be successful. And the truth is, if I was really honest with you, none of those topics and none of those ideas felt, if I was honest, that they didn't have a resonance. They didn't have a feeling. None of those felt true. None of those felt like, in my heart, none of those just felt right. If I was honest, and I could have lied to myself about it, but when I was really honest, when I looked at the bottom of this whiteboard, the only word that I saw that I felt something truly was the word surrender. And when I saw that word, I thought, oh, shoot, that's. That's. I felt the pull. Let's put it though, I felt the pull. I didn't know that was the book I was going to write about. I didn't even want to write. I resisted it. But when I just let go of the book, I thought I should be writing, and I just opened to the energy, the surrender theme pulled me. And when I just leaned into it, and this is what I invite, I just leaned into, like, okay, like, what if, as I leaned into it, I sort of caught this stream of inspiration, and everything about my life began to make sense. So much about who I am and my parents and my upbringing in it all started to make sense. And a stream of inspiration and ideas started to flow as to how I could take this concept and make it simple for a new generation. And so I had to surrender to the book that was seeking to be written, not simply the book I thought I should write. And I think in many ways, it's the same with life. Many times, there's an idea of what we project we should be and how life should be and how things should be and how our life should flow and how a relationship should be versus what is actually seeking to happen. And so I think part of surrender is not so much in, like, you making and pushing and forcing and sort of pushing life. It is allowing yourself to feel into the flow of life and follow the flow, follow the field, follow the energy, and allowing yourself to be guided and allowing life to lead you, rather than you sort of trying to lead life. And I think that's where I found the magic, because I found that life has an intelligence, you know? And if we are open, right, if we're truly open, then we'll tune into the flow. And I think that's where the miraculous happens.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: You know, everything you're saying when you said that thing so expressively about listening to your heart and allowing your heart to speak, that's really the research and the experience that I've had as well, of what the power and intelligence of the heart is.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:23:02] Speaker B: And people need. Well, we created tools and techniques for people to practice accessing that.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: I love that. Yeah.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: And that can also be accessed during the day, moment to moment. And you're creating your flow, then you're not just waiting for the flow.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: As you collaborate with your heart, your ego mind is designed to facilitate that heart's intelligence, that heart's intuitive guidance, those promptings that just so, you beautifully described how you feel into it with your heart.
That is really the role of the heart that is needing to be reawakened. And it is in so many people, because the stress is so huge for people. And like myself and perhaps you, when the stress gets so great, you finally go, what is it about? What's life about? And you go to your heart for the answers. All these metaphors of the heart. Listen to your heart, follow your heart, go deep into your heart for the answer. They're not metaphors. There are real connections with the part of ourselves that is connected to an information field outside of time and space, like you were describing. So that if you open to your heart, you can draw in that inspiration, that intuition, the next practical step, even your day to day, making those pauses to connect with your heart and really guide you and in the flow and co create the flow. And I. And that's what I really, from the heartmath language, hear you saying. And then it's like, okay, how do we come together? Because that's love to me. That's love. It's awakening. The ability to have that connection is loving ourselves, and it allows us to unfold the love for each other.
And I know that you're about that love, too.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: So how do we help?
[00:25:01] Speaker A: One thing that you said and then maybe dive into that just triggered, is, I think, that we all sense and feel that flow. The flow is always there.
We're not always in sync with the flow. And so I think there's two things. The one thing I want to say is we all feel the flow. The intuition in moments, the guidance in moments, like, oh, don't go there. Oh, something's off.
Many times, I think our intuition, that sort of unconditioned flow of energy, that inner intelligence that arises from the unconditioned dimension of our being, it often will arise for us, but because of the state of our nervous system and our conditioning and our patterns. And, you know, I think many times, either we won't be able to correctly discern the energy and the information that is arising, and so we will sometimes misinterpret it. That's one. But I think also many times when that intuitive, unconditioned information arises and tells us we sense, do this. Go here, right. Don't go here. Pick up the phone, call Deborah, email. So and so many times, it doesn't always make sense to our mind. This is what I found. It often doesn't make sense to the logic in times. And so I think one of the ways we disconnect ourselves from that flow is the ego kicks in and then tries to, like, I have to understand everything that I'm being guided to do. And if I can understand everything, then I'll do it. And I think this isn't, this is another ego strategy to have control, because we feel if I can understand it, then I can control it. If I can control it, then I won't get hurt again.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Right?
[00:27:09] Speaker A: And so I think this is one way we sometimes can disconnect ourselves from the flow of information and intuition. So look what I've learned. And I can just speak from my experience.
And I love what you're doing at heart, math, because it's like you're technologizing it. You're giving these real practical tools for people to live it in everyday life. I think one thing I've learned is more and more I feel the information, the guidance, the intuitive. Turn left, turn right. And I have so many examples and more and more. I don't question, I just take a step. I don't question, what does this mean? And what is this? No. And I just like, okay, I lean into it and I just take a step, and then I take another step, and I take another step and I take another step. And I think many times life simply reveals itself, has revealed itself to me in the process of living, even though it didn't make sense up front.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: But, you know, you built the trust in that. You built your. You said this works.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: Yes, but I would tell people, when you feel the nudge, because we all felt the nudging. No one listening here can say they haven't felt the nudging. Maybe the nudging, it doesn't always arise as, like a loud siren bell, like, turn left, but it might arise as you feel a clench in your stomach when you're on a date and something tells you something feels a bit off with this guy. Right? I think if we can just start paying attention to the body sensation to something feels off, which we often feel but we dismiss, if we can just start to pay attention. Wait a second. I did feel that something's nothing quite feeling right. And maybe I'm trying to override it, but if I'm honest, something doesn't feel right.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: You know?
[00:29:08] Speaker A: If you can just begin to pay attention, I think that's a start. And if we all go back in our lives, I think we've all had those experiences where we're like, something fell off and we didn't listen. And only after the fact we said, I knew. I knew it. I knew something wasn't right. But often in the moment, we weren't able. So even if you went back and reflected on those examples as a reference, that might give us a bit of.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Courage and opening our hearts, practicing love, care, kindness, compassion, all of those heart qualities tunes us to that radio station, tunes us to that inspiration, that nonlinear, and we build our connection with that. And that is what we call the heart. It's heart time on the planet because everything else has been tried. But what you're talking about, even if.
[00:30:02] Speaker A: People did it in small ways, like, okay, email, Deborah, we often go, well, why would I, that doesn't make any sense. Just follow that small inkling, that small breadcrumb nudging where the stakes aren't even high and see what happens. Even with you. I was literally thinking about you a couple of months ago and boom, one thing led to the next thing. It's like, ah, but I don't think I reached out to you then. You reached, I think you reached out to me, but I swear you popped into my mind. And if I was following my own advice, I would have messaged you, hey, Deborah, how are you? And then there would have been a connection, right? And so there's nudgings, there's senses that we feel, right?
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Absolutely. Well, this has been an exciting dialogue. We could go on for another hour, I'm sure. Let's close now with a heart meditation to surrendering to our own hearts. Guidance, intuition, wisdom, promptings, nudges, as you said, and see what our own heart has to tell us. So let's focus in the heart and get still in our heart and just breathe in love.
Breathe in heart qualities to open the heart, because that's what gives us access to those inspirations, those intuitions.
And as you breathe out, just radiate love into your mental, emotional and physical systems.
As you do this, see your heart, brain and nervous system coming into alignment in harmony and coherence.
Now, as you do this, envision people opening their hearts to each other, getting along with each other, practicing heart qualities of love and care and compassion, gratitude and day to day life, and attuning to their heart's intuitive guidance.
As you radiate this love now through your system and out into the energetic field environment, listen to any feelings, promptings, nudges, heart guidance you may have about anything in life. Sometimes it's a thought, a feeling, an idea, an attitude.
And if you get an inspiration now, make a commitment to step into it, to follow it. And sometimes these insights come later as we stay tuned to our heart and the best way I found to do that is to continue to practice heart qualities of love, care, compassion, kindness throughout our life, throughout our days.
Now, let's close by radiating the collective heart energy we have here that we've built into a reservoir that we can all draw on when we feel stressed or need inspiration. Over the next month, let's build that reservoir of heart energy we can tap into to help access more of that intuitive inspiration and guidance.
Thank you so much for sharing that little heart meditation with me. Each other.
Hoot, is there anything else you'd like to share with our listeners in closing?
[00:35:24] Speaker A: Yeah. If you want to experience more magic in your life, the key is to surrender.
And surrender is the password to freedom.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you for sharing your inspiration and your magic with us. Thank you. And as a free gift to our listeners, I want to remind you, you can watch the interactive Heartmath experience, an online video course.
You can download
[email protected] experience or check out the amazing new Heartmath app at your app store. And I want to remind you that the third Tuesday of every month, we publish a new ad heart podcast episode. So be sure you subscribe so you don't miss our next guest and topic.
Thank you. Take care.
[00:36:22] Speaker C: Thank you for listening to the ad Heart podcast. Be sure to subscribe so you can catch the latest episodes. If you're wanting even more heart inspired content, find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. Look for Heartmath and also the Heartmath Institute. Both organizations are committed to helping activate the heart of humanity.
