How To Live Your Most Authentic Life Through The Power Of Surrender With Kute Blackson

[00:00:00] Jeremy: one of the most difficult lessons in life is learning how to surrender. We struggle to let go of broken relationships, jobs, homes, our past, even parts of ourselves. We feel like surrendering means we're quitting or giving up.

[00:00:13] Zach: But our guest today hopes to redefine the idea of what surrendering means from something seen as weak or passive to the most powerful thing a human being can do.

[00:00:23] Jeremy: Coming up on the fit mess.

[00:00:25] Kute Blackson: We may not be able to change the entire planet, but what we can do. Begin to bring peace in our own hearts to begin to be a bit more compassionate with ourselves, to begin to be a bit more kinder to ourselves, to begin, to bring ourself into more integrity and more alignment and more ness and more harmony.

[00:00:41] If we all do a little bit, then I think the projection in the world will also shift. 

[00:00:49] Zach: Coote. Blackson he's a transformational teacher and bestselling author. Today. We'll talk with him about harnessing the power of letting go to discover more purpose and meaning in our lives.

[00:01:00] Jeremy: But first I'm Jeremy.

[00:01:01] Zach: and I'm Zach we've spent years pushing ourselves to learn more about our own physical, emotional, and mental health, and picked up a few coaching certificates along the way.

[00:01:10] Jeremy: Really we're two guys who got sick of our own shit and started making changes to be healthier, happier, and live more meaningful lives.

[00:01:16] Zach: And each week we talk to world class experts with advice to help you do the same. 

[00:01:21] Jeremy: So Zach, I wish we had done this interview a few weeks ago because as we were wrapping up the kid's school year, I also picked up some more work at the same time. The combination was completely overwhelming. And I fell into old habits of trying to control outcomes, control behaviors, control the people around me.

[00:01:35] And it's so frustrating when I do that because I know, and I preach to others all the time, the importance of letting go. But there, I was trying to convince the stupid river of life to flow in another direction. And that, of course I get angry when it doesn't listen.

[00:01:49] Zach: It's funny, you try and put that dam in and like, make the water go a different way. And, , something about that just makes life clobber you, 

[00:01:58] Jeremy: Yeah. When you're trying to push water up a hill, as it turns out, that's, uh, that's kind of a losing battle. You need a really big bucket.

[00:02:05] Zach: Yeah, no, I I've been having the same thing in the last couple of weeks. I've been thrown out of all of my routines and I'm really struggling to like, , get a workout in, get to yoga and do all the things that I normally do. And I'm beating the shit outta myself for not doing that stuff. Part of me is just like, you suck. You're not performing to the image that you have in, in your head,

[00:02:26] Jeremy: Yep.

[00:02:27] Zach: but I got life.

[00:02:28] Like , I could probably step it up a little bit in a couple of different areas, but for the most part, like I have reasonable obligations that I need to take care of. And that's, what's getting in the way here. , so. I just need to be okay with that and be like, okay, this is my life.

[00:02:45] We'll figure something out. Life will figure it out. I will find a way to get to the gym and eat the things I need to eat. But for right now, I need to eat this almond bar with chocolate drizzled all over it. Cuz it's the only two seconds I have to eat today.

[00:02:57] Jeremy: Get out of my head, I've been doing the exact same thing. I haven't gone to the gym and every day I was just like, oh, just can't stay steady. I can't stick to it. What's wrong with me? Why am I such a piece of shit? And I can't just stick to this stupid commitment that I made to myself. And then finally, like, I did have some time today where I probably could have gone, but I was like, dude.

[00:03:15] Okay. Let's be real. Okay. Tomorrow, you're going to Las Vegas for a week. You're not gonna go to the gym while you're on vacation. What is the point of squeezing in one more workout today when you really don't have time, but because you tell this story to yourself that this is a thing you have to do all the time, you're gonna, you're really, you're gonna take time to go jam that in with everything you have going on in your life only to then not do it again for another week.

[00:03:38] Like get, let go, dude. Come on. It's fine. It's one

[00:03:42] day. 

[00:03:42] Zach: I think under normal circumstances, I would say, you know what? No, get that one workout in because every single one workout you're good. But in this situation, that would be your first workout after not having worked out in a little bit and going to Vegas. So you're gonna be really, really sore in Vegas.

[00:04:00] No, Vegas is not a place you wanna be

[00:04:01] Jeremy: No, no. And it's just, it's just done. And, and it's just because, you know, I made this commitment to myself. When I've already dropped the ball for seven days in a row and eighth day is not gonna, you know, it's not going sink the ship.

[00:04:15] Zach: Besides when you're, when you're, when we're talking about being in pain and Vegas, it's on the way home that you are in pain, not when you're on the 

[00:04:23] Jeremy: just, I mean, just quick sidebar, this is gonna be my first time sober in Vegas. So it's, it's gonna be interesting to not have that pain all the time. So 

[00:04:30] more about that later.

[00:04:31] Zach: I so even though like my, my eating is not outta control. Like I'm eating relatively healthy stuff. It's just not as healthy as I want it to be. Um, my exercise is still there. Like, you know, I walked a bazillion miles, , in New York city at the, , pride festival the other day and I'm getting exercise.

[00:04:49] I am moving. I'm just not doing the things that I necessarily want to do, but through all of this, all of these issues that I've been having with keeping to my schedule, one thing has remained and I think has actually been keeping me grounded and giving me actually the energy that I do need to do all the things that I've been doing.

[00:05:06] I've been taking athletic greens every day.

[00:05:07] I started taking athletic greens because I really needed to have a sufficient. That tasted great, gave me all the things that I needed. , and I didn't want to have to take 10 pills a day or, spend all of my time cooking all the meals.

[00:05:21] I try and get my nutrients from food, but let's face it. We don't get everything we need every day from food. So athletic greens was a great solution for me. It tastes great. Gives me everything I need for more energy, better gut health optimized immune system. 

[00:05:36] It has less than a gram of sugar and there's no nasty chemicals or artificial anything. And it actually does taste good. And for what you get, it's less than $3.

[00:05:44] and right now is the time to incorporate better health and athletic greens is a perfect start to make it easy.

[00:05:50] Athletic greens is going to give you a free one-year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com/fit mass. Again, that's athletic greens.com/fit. Mess to take ownership over your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance.

[00:06:09] that link will be on the show notes and it's plastered all over our website@thefitness.com. 

[00:06:14] Jeremy: All right. Well, Zach and I are working very hard on letting go of all those things we cling to, to help ourselves feel better. , And someone that can teach us a thing or two is our guest today. His name is Coote Blackson, he's the author of the magic of surrender, finding the courage to let go. And we started by asking him why surrender is something more of us should be leaning into, especially now. 

[00:06:31] Kute Blackson: Wow. I think that surrender is the most important thing we can do. I really believe that surrender is the most powerful thing we can do. I really believe that surrender is the key to our next level is the key to greatness. If you look at the truly great ones, whether it was Jesus, whether it's bud, whether it's Bruce Lee, whether it's Muhammad Ali, whether it's Mandela, whether it's Martin Luther king.

[00:06:53] I think at some point they all surrendered themselves to life, to their purpose, to their soul. And in surrendering, they transcended their own human limitations and they tapped into a dimension of their potential and dimension of life and life was able to flow through them. And so I think that surrender gives us access to a whole nother level of our potential.

[00:07:15] And, you know, I. Right now, as we look at the world and the uncertainty and the changes in the planning, and we just went through a, , two year, you know, madness pandemic and, and people questioning what the hell's going on and who am I? And what's happening. I think that we've all been put into a surrender seminar, so to speak as a humanity.

[00:07:37] And I feel as though as a humanity, we are being. Initiated really into a new way of living. And so I think unless we are truly surrendering, , we're going to go crazy. I think, unless we're truly surrendering, we're going to be frustrated and we're going to suffer. I like to surrender or suffer. It's just the nature of life is constant change and much, much of it we can't control.

[00:08:02] And, and I think part of surrender is letting go. I'm gonna say of the illusion of control because we think we have control, but perhaps the last few years have shown us as, as a humanity. Maybe we're not as in control as we thought we were control being a master addiction. I mean, we can talk about that, but we're not as in control.

[00:08:24] I mean, life happens in ways that we couldn't have planned and can't predict. And, and so surrender is really when we stop trying to force. Life to fit our limited idea and manipulate life to fit our limited idea of what we think it should be. And it's when we let go of the idea of who we think we should be and, and the way we think life should be.

[00:08:44] And, and when we get so attached to those expectations of what we think, think how we think things should be, how we think people should be. That's when we set ourselves up for suffering. And so I think, especially in this time, when so much is uncertain, when we truly live surrender, we're going to be much more free because.

[00:09:02] So many things that we expect aren't happening the way we expected them to. And so I think in our culture, though, we have this misconception that surrender is weak. That surrender is passive. That surrender means giving up that it's like waving the white flag. So who the hell wants to surrender? That, that if you surrender, you're gonna be a victim, you're gonna be a doormat.

[00:09:23] You're gonna be taking advantage of you. Won't manifest your goals, dreams, and desires. You you're gonna get less than, and really what I. People to maybe reframe in their minds as, and see surrender as something active in it. And. Inspiring is that in surrender? What if you didn't get less, but you got more like actually in letting go of your own limitedness and ego's attachments and controlling nature.

[00:09:50] What if you actually ended up getting more than you could have planned and imagined and intended with your own ego's limited perspective. So I think surrender is, I think surrender is the key right now. , I'm gonna make an assumption that you haven't always believed this. So I wanna ask, you know, like, you know, when did you realize that, , surrendering was important to you and I, and I, I really do love the way, , you kind of put it there.

[00:10:16] , I always took surrender as giving up, right? Yeah. You like, you lost the battle and you're laying down, but that's not it. So like when did it first come into your life? When did you first realize that this was really important? Yeah, I could go in a few different ways and I going all the ways. Okay. So, so, so let me just say.

[00:10:38] On some level it's been in my entire life the entire time, but like the magic of surrender book was, this was not the book or the topic I thought I was going to write about.

[00:10:49] It was not the book or topic I wanted to write about. I had all of these other plans and my own agenda and , the book I thought. Would be a New York times best seller the book. I thought publishers would want the book. I thought my audience would want the book I thought, you know, would make me, , reach more people.

[00:11:03] And, and I, I had an entire white board of ideas and none of those felt aligned. None of those felt in integrity. And the only word that stood out for me in my brainstorming was the word surrender. And I was like, hell no, don't write about surrender because you know, it's the thing that deep down as human human beings, we know we kind of should do.

[00:11:23] But we don't wanna do. And we resist for reasons which we can go into as well. And I just felt the rightness of it. And when I surrendered to the book that was seeking to be written, the, I had to surrender to the book about surrender, then all of my entire life. Just began to make freaking sense everything I went through from my childhood and how I was raised, and my parents started to make sense, but I would say more recently in 2016, my mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer and that's what really focused this theme back into my life.

[00:12:00] I mean, it was something I'd been working with and practicing, but this is when it really beca came into focus. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer. I was li I'm living in LA. She was in London. I basically started flying back and forth every month to be with her and be with her chemo session. So, uh, a week a month I was in London just taking care of her.

[00:12:21] Basically it was, was brutal. And I had every intention to. Make her well to heal her, you know, alternative therapies and supplements. And after about three or four months, I think I, I realized pretty quickly that no amount of prayer, no amount of meditation, no amount of, of alternative green juice, nothing was going to save her life.

[00:12:43] And I basically surrendered. And in that surrender, it really just freed me up to just. Be with her. And there was no like future, there was just this moment holding her hand and that moment could be the last moment and could be the last moment of sitting in chemo with her last moment to look into her eyes, the last moment to have a cup of tea.

[00:13:07] And it just, I don't know, it, it, it changed my life when I just stopped resisting. And about seven months into the process with my mother, the doctors basically, , looked at us and they said, there's nothing else we can do. You're going to die. And it was a very emotional moment and they said, you're gonna die. So get your affairs order. And I think I looked my mother in the eyes and I said to her, are you afraid? And she said, my mother's Japanese, this little Japanese woman, she said, no, I'm not afraid.

[00:13:40] And I said, why? And the first thing she said was, cuz I know I'm not this body, but this body is a temporary vehicle for my soul. And I know that even when I die like this body will die. But, but when I die, I'm gonna be with you from the other side. And so there was a fearlessness that she had, and then I looked to her and I said, and this is when I think surrender really started coming into focus.

[00:14:05] I looked to her and I said, what can I do for you as your son to make your final days easier? And what do you need? What do you want? And she looked to me and she said, And I'm not like a religious person, but, but, but I'm very spiritual. And, and she said, you know, there's nothing I need. There's nothing I want.

[00:14:22] The only thing I want is what God wants for my life. And in that moment, I realized that she was free even in the most raw, real situation. Like, you know, it's easy to live surrender when you get what you want. It's easy to live surrender. when you have a million dollars, it's easy to live surrender when you are in the Himalayas.

[00:14:42] But when you're faced with your mortality in a real raw situation, my mother wasn't attached to living. She wasn't attached to dying. I looked in her. And I saw that she was at peace truly at peace with whatever her soul's journey was. She was demonstrating surrender. And this entire year she didn't cry.

[00:15:04] She didn't feel like a victim. She didn't complain. She was just being where she was experiencing, what she was experiencing, whatever was happening. She was just being with it. And, and, and that showed me the power of surrender, you know, and, and. And that's what really inspired me and, and made me reflect in my own life in many ways.

[00:15:24] Jeremy: Sometimes, I wonder if the extreme situations like that, where, where you really don't have a choice, it becomes easier to, to surrender because what else are you gonna do? You know, flail and, and scream and, and be angry.

[00:15:36] Kute Blackson: Which we do

[00:15:37] Jeremy: we do, we do for sure. But, but why do we, then, you know, when it's just the simple things,

[00:15:43] like, you know, the 

[00:15:44] Kute Blackson: I can answer 

[00:15:44] Jeremy: screaming life.

[00:15:45] Won't the job won't work out the thing won't ha why do we struggle against it so much?

[00:15:51] Kute Blackson: Right, right, right. It's a, I think it's a found, it's a foundational question. And what I will say is. When you understand the nature of something, it actually transforms your relationship with the something. And I think because we don't understand the nature of, of who we are and what we are, it creates a lot of suffering.

[00:16:16] You see, surrender is our natural state. Just just to kind of set a context. Now I will say, yes, we do resist. This is normal and it surrender can seem hard, but really it's our natural state. , if you look at, let me start here. If you look what resists it constantly resists. We are resistance machines as human beings.

[00:16:41] What resists is the ego? The ego. Is our perceived sense of self ego is what we perceive ourself to be. And what we identify as, as name, as body, as form, as person, as stories, as history, as memories from the past. And the more we identify with ourself as that thing, the more we are an. The more we're identified, the more tight we are and the E and we believe ourselves, and we're conditioned by society, by parents, by religion, by media, by life and everything.

[00:17:20] And everyone around us to believe that we are this ego thing. So we believe we're the ego and the job of the ego is to reinforce its existence. And the job of the ego is to protect us, to make sure that we don't get her. And so the ego means well, but it's limited. See, as children, we were surrounded. would run naked through the, the, the, the garden.

[00:17:52] We didn't care, like am my little fab. What do it look like on Instagram? We were just be, we were completely surrendered being what we were. We would jump on the table and sing. We didn't care if we didn't sound like, you know, Bruno Mar Celine Dion, we would just be beaming essence life. We. Cry then we would laugh.

[00:18:13] We would hit our heads. Then we would cry, get over it and just move on. We wouldn't be wallowing about it. 14, you know, weeks later we were just being present in the moment. To me, that is surrender being with the experience as it's arising and being, and embracing whatever's happening in the moment, pure surrender.

[00:18:29] So what the hell happens? I think it's important that we understand the nature of how we get conditioned so that we understand the mechanism of the ego so that we can see through it. With these bright beings in, in free flowing S. We incarnate into the human experience. We meet our parents, our parents, you know, interesting characters.

[00:18:48] We all have interesting parents. They're just doing the best that they can do based on their life and their upbringing and their childhood and their parents, and you know, their grandparents and society media. So now as children, we incarnate, we're born into a preset. Pattern or framework of conditioning, maybe dad was an alcoholic.

[00:19:05] Maybe mom had mental health issues. Maybe they're crazy. Maybe they hate each other. Maybe they're fighting all the time. Maybe they're there's abuse, mental, emotional, maybe there's alcoholism, addiction. Maybe they're great people, but they just didn't know. How to meet our emotional needs and that was painful.

[00:19:20] So two things happen, and this is where ego gets created. And this is where we learn to start controlling ultimately to function and survive. First thing is we learn to often unconsciously to disconnect, shut down and not feel. And we start suppressing, controlling, suppressing our feelings, emotion, suppressing the pain suppressing before, you know, it lays and lays and lays and lays and lays and lays and lays of unfelt unprocessed feeling begins to build up an nowt.

[00:19:46] True. Light. Our true essence gets kind of buried underneath the layers of decades of unfit feeling and emotion that we have to control control in order to like, not feel the pain and survive because we feel it's gonna be overwhelming. And then we kind of contort ourselves into a certain shape and we erect walls around our hearts and our sensitivities in order.

[00:20:09] Not feel the pain again. And now we hold on to a certain way. We go into our mind become overly analytical disconnect and we, you know, our, our, our heart gets very guarded and heart. Not because we're bad, not because we're controlling people, but ultimately it's survival. So now the way that we learn to survive when we were five, we do, we do when we're 10 and then 15.

[00:20:32] And it worked for us when we were five, but now we're 20. And now we're 35 in relationships, you know, and, and, and falling in love. And now we're 45. It, it now starts limiting us. And so the mechanism with which we learn to control the ego thinks that if we can control everything and everyone around us, I'm gonna be safe and I won't get hurt again.

[00:20:54] And so we learn a way of being in order to not get hurt. We also learn. The sense of who do I need to be in order to get love and validation and approval. If I can, you know, if I respond a certain way, dad loves me. If I don't respond a certain way, mom, you know, gives me a pet on the head. Good boy, good girl.

[00:21:11] So we start developing a role, a mask, a persona, an identity based on who we think we need to be to get love, to get validation, to get approval, which again is survival. So we. Unconsciously contort ourselves into a certain shape, a pattern that is really a, a set of, of condition patterns that we think we are.

[00:21:34] It's like, ah, it's cool. It's John. It's Donald it's Susie. It's like, this is who we've become. We've become nice. We've sweet. We become the yes person. We become the caretaker. We become the responsible one. We become always appropriate. We're always smiling, always happy. All of which is great, but in so many ways, we develop these roles that we hold onto that gets reinforced by those around us.

[00:21:58] So we become the shape of a person thinking that the version of ourselves that we become is who we are not realizing. It's really a. Condition set of patterns that we've learned to hold onto as ourselves. So really what I want people to understand is, is like, is who you are, who you really are is, or is it simply who you've been conditioned to become?

[00:22:21] And this position, this version, this set pattern that we've become is ego is not a. We think ego is a thing and we think ego is us. And then we hold onto, like, this is just who I am. Ego is a process. It's a process of identification that has happened from very young that has been reinforced, but we think it's a thing because all of society reinforces that.

[00:22:48] So we hold onto that. . And so for the ego, whose job is to make sure we don't feel helpless. Like we felt when we were five, to make sure we don't go through that sense of, you know, fear when dad was raging and, and it was so much uncertainty. So we just kind of shut down, disconnected and, , learn to numb ourselves. . And so for the ego, when you talk about, Hey, go with the flow surrender, let go. It's like, hell no, that that's like terrifying because like what might happen? And that's why ego doesn't want to change ego. Doesn't wanna reinvent itself. Ego. Isn't open to, to new ideas because new ideas might. I have to question what I currently believe.

[00:23:32] I have to question who I thought I am and that's a little scary. And so we don't question, we're not open. We just, we want ego wants everything and everyone else to change, but it doesn't wanna change. And that's where we, so, so all I'll say is when we understand the nature of ego and when we start understanding that it's a pattern and a process, not a thing.

[00:23:55] And then we understand that we are not. What we are, is so much more. Then we can begin to observe the pattern that we previously over-identified as me. And we can start seeing the dance and the pattern like shit. I always do the same thing. My wife responds a certain way. I react the same way my boss responds certain way.

[00:24:18] It's the same freaking reaction. And when you start up up until that point, we're so identified with it. We, we don't see it. We don't, there's no freedom. We're constantly being reacted. But when you really step back, you can start seeing the reactions and the pattern that you previously thought was you.

[00:24:32] And here's the thing, because you understand the job of the ego to keep you. Not only can you start observing it, which creates some space and freedom, but then you, then you can start meeting it with compassion. Part of the surrender is to begin meeting your ego, which is the mechanism that resists surrender with compassion.

[00:24:57] Because when you can meet the ego with compassion versus judgment or force, then the mechanism of the ego, which is rooted in fear. Can begin to relax. And to me, real healing happens when we can meet ourselves with love and compassion. And that's when true surrender can happen because the part of us that's resisting can begin to relax.

[00:25:19] So anyway, that's a kind of a whole

[00:25:22] explanation. 

[00:25:23] Jeremy: I'll just say when, when, when I was five, were you in the living room because you basically described what it was like for me when I was five. I mean, that was, that was how I grew up. So, uh, there's a little bit of my, uh, drama, but 

[00:25:35] Kute Blackson: yeah.

[00:25:35] Yeah. I, but I, I guess, I guess I really wanna fast forward a little bit in there. Sure. Okay. So I've got my 700,000 layer cake of feelings that I've put away. Yeah. Um, that I'm not feeling. And, and my ego is, is driving my life and

[00:25:52] Jeremy: And you're literally bearing it by eating that cake on a daily basis.

[00:25:55] Kute Blackson: Yeah. yep. I hear your story, I hear your message.

[00:25:59] And I want to start taking those steps to, , understand my ego and understand who I am so that I can surrender so that I can have that life. What can I start doing like this? Isn't something, I guess maybe if you have like a, a really tough situation, like you did, it can be a, , game time decision where it happens. You know, how, how does somebody ease into this? Like this can't be a one, one and done kind of decision. Yeah. No, I think it's a lifetime process, you know, mm-hmm I think so. I think we are all in the process of surrender because we're alive and life is really the process of surrender, cuz you know, we can't control a lot of this stuff out here.

[00:26:42] It's just happened, , you're born. And then you age and, and you die and, and, you know, hair falls out and no matter what you do, the body does things, you know, when you're 90, 80, 70, a hundred. And so I think it's not about whether you're gonna surrender. It's just about how we participate in the process of surrender.

[00:27:04] That is life itself. , in this game of life, None of us make it outta here alive. And that's the, you could say the ultimate surrender. And so I think if someone's wondering, okay, where do I start? How do I start? I think there's a, there's a, maybe a, a couple of places. , one might be to just begin gently questioning yourself.

[00:27:27] You have to self, you don't have to do anything with that. Just start questioning. Okay. I thought I am who I am, but I'm hearing maybe I'm not. And just begin questioning, like who am. What am I, what do I believe all these be? Because cuz ego in our sense is held together by a set of beliefs that we identify and hold onto.

[00:27:46] That is the construct of who we think we are. And so if we just even begin questioning who am I and what do I believe? Do I really believe that? Do I know that to be truth? Is that my truth? I know I was told that by my parents and I was told to believe that by my uncle and my dad. I never really questioned.

[00:28:04] And so many, many times we just haven't questioned ourselves. I mean, as human beings. And so just begin questioning, we, we often not question our stories and our thoughts. We're constantly telling ourselves things like I'm not enough and I'm, I'm unlovable and I'm, you know, because we have experiences in life that we think.

[00:28:23] Prove that point that maybe I'm not lovable. And we don't really question our, our, our beliefs and our stories. And so I just invite people to really question, is that true? I'm not lovable. And how, how, how do I know that to be true? And, and so I think something starts happening when we really begin questioning ourselves.

[00:28:41] So that's one. The other thing I would invite people to do is look at like one of the things that keeps us stuck resisting and from, from truly surrendering are all the lies. That we tell ourselves. I think as human beings in many ways, because of the reasons I shared about the ego and the construct in many ways, we like to ourselves and we don't even know that we're lying to ourselves.

[00:29:07] We're just lying to ourselves about who we are, about what we feel about what we want about. About so much. We're many times we're afraid of, if I am who I really am, then you won't love me. And so we've learned to hide who we are, betray parts of ourselves in order to fit in, get love, be validated in the world, you know?

[00:29:25] And so we stay in relationships that we know aren't right or unaligned, you know? Well, we're not in love anymore. We, we, we work jobs that we know. Compromise out integrity. And this is not the true purpose for why we were born and put on this planet and wonder why we feel pain and why we feel unhappy and why we feel miserable.

[00:29:45] And so I think if someone wants to begin, begin by telling the truth to yourself and just ask yourself maybe the question, okay, what lies am I telling myself? Let me just start there. What lies. Am I telling myself the way the ego resists and keeps things kind of together is we live in denial. You know, we live unconsciously or in denial, we don't wanna know, we don't wanna see cuz then I don't have to change and don't have to change.

[00:30:13] So then we resist and one of the ways we do that is lying. And so I would just invite people to sit, to sit with what lies am I telling myself and just be with the question innocent genuinely. What lies am I telling myself? Wow. Sometimes it can, like, there is no real transformation without truth, and you have to want the truth more than you want what you have.

[00:30:36] And you have to want the truth more than you want, what you think you want. And, and so when you just sit with that, it can feel scary because sometimes we don't tell ourselves the truth because we're afraid of the consequences of what will happen. Wow. If I tell myself the. I might have to let go of my relationship.

[00:30:52] If I tell myself the truth, I might have to leave my job. And so, and so what ego does is we begin to create a kind of smoke screen sometimes of confusion. Like I'm confused. I, I don't really know what's right for me. I don't really know what my purpose is. I don't really, cause if I don't really know, let's say what my purpose is, right.

[00:31:11] Then I don't have to really. Risk and put myself out there. I can always live in the comfort safety zone of where I am, and I can always have the future fantasy of having that purpose, but I don't have to put myself on the line and risk the rejection and the failure if I don't really know if this relationship is right for me, then I, or if this is the one or this is not the one, or then I, I don't have to do anything about it, but deep down, I.

[00:31:36] There's a part of us that knows. And so one thing that I found helps when it comes to acknowledging the truth is taking, take the, I always tell people, take the pressure off of yourself from having to take action, because if you just take the pressure off of yourself from having to action take action, then that means if I, if you can just start acknowledging the truth, you know, I'm not in love with this person anymore.

[00:32:00] I haven't been in love fricking 10 years and it's painful and I'm afraid, and I know it, but I'm no longer in love and just feel that it's, you don't have to leave. You don't have to break up. You don't have to divorce, but just start feeding the energy of the truth. I hate my job. Scary to say that because, oh shit.

[00:32:21] Well, how am I gonna survive? And I don't even wanna acknowledge, I hate my job because what does that, I hate my job. I don't have to leave, but let me just feel that that starts a process inside. And so the th the next question you can ask yourself, like, okay, what lies am I telling myself? And what are the lies that I'm telling myself, costing me?

[00:32:39] What does it. Really it's ultimately it's painful. So somebody might say, but how do I know if I'm lying to myself? If I'm, if I'm lying to myself, because you will feel. There will likely be a level of pain that you will feel in your life. And that pain is a messenger. That pain is a blessing. That pain, I believe is your friend.

[00:33:01] The pain is just trying to give you feedback that there's a lie that you're telling yourself, or there's a part of yourself that you're not in integrity with that you're betraying that you're not acknowledging. And that pain is just trying to get your attention so that you can cause correct. The issue isn't that we feel pain in our lives.

[00:33:17] The issue is that. Distract from the pain. We drink it away. We sex it away. We drug it away. We smoke it away. We shop it away. We meditate it away. We social media it's away just so that we don't have to feel the pain, but the pain we feel is a messenger. And so when we lie to ourselves, it will tend to manifest as an emotional pain.

[00:33:38] Depression, lethargy, lack of aliveness apathy. It, it, that's giving you a sign. Like some think you are suppressing, not dealing with it might manifest as a temporary, let's say physical ailment. It might manifest as a. Let's say more serious ongoing disease where the body has an intelligence and your, and your truth is unconsciously manifesting through your physiology.

[00:34:02] And so all of these things are I believe, messengers that we get to pay attention to. And so I think where people can just begin is, is, is starting with the truth. You don't have to like sell everything and, and move to, you know, India or to bed or, or Peru. It just might be just saying, you know what? I'm not really in love with this person.

[00:34:25] And that scares me. Let me just, let me just be with that a moment and just feel that I'm not gonna take action, but I'm gonna just be with that and just see what happens. And, and so starting with the truth, I think the truth, truth is real spiritual practice. Truth is real therapy. Well set us free, but it can be a little scary at first, but I think if we start there that begins a process inside and there's no way you can not transform it.

[00:35:00] If you begin going down the path of truth. That's what I found.

[00:35:04] Jeremy: I have 4,000 more questions. Uh, one of them is about your free seminar. That's coming up, but can I sneak one more in before

[00:35:10] Kute Blackson: yeah, please, please go for it.

[00:35:12] Jeremy: I keep thinking about this concept of surrender and giving up. And

[00:35:16] I, I, I recently moved from the United States to Canada 

[00:35:20] and I worked in the news media. And so I was very much in plugged into every fight and every.

[00:35:25] Social movement and thing that was going on in the world. I can't help, but think of the people right now with what just happened with the Supreme court in the United States and, and the fight that everyone is in there right now, the fight that we just went through over masks and vaccinations, the fight, everyone's gotta be fighting for this thing.

[00:35:43] That is a part of who they are and the future of the world depends on it. How do I, how does that person, me, that person, whoever there, how do you balance giving? I shouldn't say giving up. That's not the right word. How do you balance surrender with advocacy? Because it sounds beautiful to say whatever whatever is meant to be will be, and, and I can ride this, wave it and go where it needs to take me.

[00:36:08] But if I don't like a world where abortion is illegal, if I don't like a world where people aren't vaccinated. I don't, I don't wanna sit by and wait and see if that works out. So how do you balance surrender with advocacy?

[00:36:21] Kute Blackson: Um, so yeah, it's, it's a multi-layered question I think. And I wanna access it from different places as well. And give an answer. I would say. Surrender is not giving up. Surrender is not advocation of responsibility. Surrender doesn't mean you don't take action just to be clear. I think that surrender requires that you feel, truly feel your deepest integrity.

[00:36:48] Your deepest truth, your deepest truth beyond your, you know, attachment beyond your conditioning, beyond just what you want and you feel what's most true. What's most sincere, what's most authentic. What's most seeking to express through you genuinely authentically, you know, in terms of your true purpose, your true essence.

[00:37:12] And then you align with that. And when you align with that, to me, it's like when you catch that vision for yourself and your life and you align with that, then. Just to be clear, then you move in the direction. Then you align your personality, your ego, your personality, your thoughts, your thinking, your resources, your money, your vote, your belief.

[00:37:32] Then you align your action with what is authentic and what's true. Then you are going in a direction of what's true. And so sometimes surrender might mean you work harder than you've ever worked. You know? In pursuit of a cause that is an alignment with your truth, just to make clear, like you look at people like Gandhi and mother Theresa and, , Mandela.

[00:37:54] I mean, they worked nonstop for a cause that was true and authentic for them. They were, they, they were being lived by a mission and a purpose that was bigger than them. And so it doesn't mean you sit there and do nothing, but, but what you are pursuing. Is real and authentic and aligned with, with, with your soul, something deeper than just your ego.

[00:38:15] Right? Um, that, that's kind of one thing I would say. The other thing I would say is now this might be a little controversial, but, but I think at least for me, . Being on a spiritual path, uh, being around many, many, many, uh, enlightened my mistakes people far more enlightened than me. Uh, gurus teachers.

[00:38:39] What have you truly like enlightened beings that have been privileged to be around? They always seem so free. You know, and, and, and like happy despite the way the world was, they were happy, peaceful, serene radio. I'm like, what the hell is the deal with these people? You know, like the world is messed up.

[00:38:59] People are dying, people are starving in India, people are dying starving. You guys are just sitting around at our peace 

[00:39:04] Jeremy: Right. Can I get you some more tea? Are you good?

[00:39:06] Kute Blackson: like, what's the deal, uh, you know, here, I'm crying cuz I'm seeing a homeless person and they're just like beaming. And, and so what I understood. That really helped me. And this is kind of more, is a spiritual angle to look at something is for me, that understanding that I came to was realizing that we live in a 3d world. We spiritual beings, but we live in a world of duality. It's just this realm, this domain, this dimension that we live in as human beings is not a mystical, you know, transcendental world. It's not a utopia. It is a world of duality interdependent, polar opposites. It's nature of this life. It's the vow. It's the yin.

[00:40:00] It's up down. It's the good, bad, it's the left, right? It's the black, white, it's the tall shore. It's the male female. It's the interdependent polar opposites that, that create it's physics, you know, it's light, dark. And so in this dimension, the nature of the world, it's the physics. And it's the Dow inside of, if you look at the Dow de chin inside of the, um, the Dow.

[00:40:29] Is in inside of the white is a black dog inside of the black is a white dog. That, that to me, this is life. And so I think for me, that understanding really helped me surrender to the way of the duality of this world. And when I surrendered to that, it shifted my relationship with. Where there was less, shall I say, resistance and judgment to the dualistic nature of this dimension plus minus positive negative it's it's the duality of this world.

[00:41:15] When, when that shift in my relationship to it, there was no resistance to it's. This is what it is from that place. Non-resistance I think when we can understand the nature of something, it shifts your relationship with something from that place of non-resistance when you embrace it for what it is, then that's what I believe you can truly.

[00:41:43] Move into a situation, not from a place against us, not from a place of judgment, but from a place of acceptance. And from that acceptance choose because when you, you can't shift something at the same level of consciousness, I'll give you an example. , one of my mentors who I spent. I was privileged to know for 20 years I met him when he was about 80 and he was a former disciple of Gandhi and he built 300 schools for the underprivileged kids in the poor estate in India called beha. Behar is a place where, like, I know the, I, I dunno now, but at then the illiteracy rate was maybe 70.

[00:42:31] It was so high. It was crazy. In fact, when I caught a train there from deli, the, the, the guy selling their tickets said, why the hell are you going there? Like that, that that's where, , The illiterates live, you know, he called he, the guy at the train station called the people and then Behar subhuman.

[00:42:48] I'm like, what do you mean I'm gonna? And so I got, I was privileged to spend time with this man of peace, you know, a real man who didn't write about it, but spent at least at that time, 50 years of his life, every day, 24 7, dedicating his life to being of service and making a difference. And I'll never forget.

[00:43:08] He came here when George Bush was in power. And, you know, we didn't like George Bush and you know, the war and what have you. And so I took him to a peace rally in San Francisco and I'll never forget. I took him to the peace rally. He was invited to speak. The war was happening, you know, everyone's like F George Bush, F George Bush, F George Bush, that it was like in the audience.

[00:43:33] I mean, it was intent F George Bush and his name was DCO. I said, D could you, how do you feel? He said, I feel good. Anything you wanna tell me before you go on stage? No, no, no, no, no. He went on stage thousands of people, F George Bush, F George Bush. This moment changed my life. looked at everyone in the audience and maybe he had a right to do, cuz he was eight years old and people, you know, he had some, some, some credibility, but this moment changed my life.

[00:44:05] He looked at, he looked at the audience, audience went silent and he said, do you love Bush? Everyone's like, and he said, do you love Bush? Because here we are at a peace rally. And I feel a lot of hate, but you can't change something or bring love with hate. And I really got what he was saying. I really understood the essence of what he was saying. And he, and he said, and he went on to give this whole talk, but he said, must love his soul and see his soul.

[00:44:45] Because if you just change something with the energy of hate, you just kind of perpetuate that energy and, and you feed into. The duality of this realm. And so then it goes from left, then it swings to right. And then it swings back to, and it just keeps swinging. And at some point we have to transcend that, to find the, the shared being the shared oneness, the shared humanity, where we can meet.

[00:45:13] Otherwise, it's just gonna go left to right up to down. We're all gonna be stuck in the duality. So. Sore doesn't mean you sit there and do nothing sore. Doesn't mean you sit on the sidelines and just like, let people trample over you sore doesn't mean you don't go protest Sorin doesn't mean, but I think it means we, we, we, we move into it from a different place within our own selves.

[00:45:39] And the last thing I'll say, just to add to that. Might sound controversial. But one thing I'll say is the world that we see right now, 2022, we're having this conversation, divisiveness war, you know, Roe versus Wade getting overturned. George Floyd, the world that we see to me is a me manifestation of the collective consciousness of all of us, all of us. Every single one of us, our consciousness projected out there has created this world.

[00:46:18] To me. The world is a mirror of our consciousness, combined. The leaders that we see, we can look at Trump. We can look at by them. We can look at Boris Johnson. We can look at whoever, just pick them, the world that we like. If we look at the leaders, if we look at the war, if we look at Ukraine, if we look at, you know, racism to me, we have to ask ourselves if the world is a mirror, manifestation of the collective consciousness of all of us combined, what does the world reflect to us about ourselves?

[00:46:49] And if we just, if we just focus on changing, what's out here, changing what's out there, changing a leader, getting how many times in Africa, for instance, have we changed? How many times in America have we changed leader? Nothing really changes. And so to me, if the world is a mirror of the collective consciousness of all of us combined, if you can't, let's say, change the world out here, what we all can do individually is change ourselves.

[00:47:17] And maybe we can start by just to me, surrender is by starting by asking ourselves the question, okay, this president, this leader, this mayor, they're a jerk. They don't have integrity. They're like, how is that? Where do, where do I lie? Do I not? Well, they lie. Do I not lie? We talked about the truth. Where do I lie?

[00:47:38] Where do I cheat on my wife? Where do I cheat on my, this? Where do I tell little? Where do I betray myself? And so to me, part of surrender is the full responsibility. For ourselves and being that change, it's like, okay, if I want, if I, if I want more integrity out there, how can I live more integrity in here?

[00:48:01] Okay. War, where do I drop bombs? Well, I'm not a terrorist, but where do I drop bombs of self-judgment self hatred inside of my consciousness every day. There's a war going on inside of my own mind. Every. Because that gets projected out here division. Where am I divided in terms of my own, you know, parts of me all over the place, parts of me suppressed in my shadow, where I'm not whole in myself.

[00:48:33] And so I think if we really want to change the world to surrender this thing, okay, we may not be able to change the entire planet, but what we can do. Begin to bring peace in our own hearts to begin to be a bit more compassionate with ourselves, to begin to be a bit more kinder to ourselves, to begin, to bring ourself into more integrity and more alignment and more ness and more harmony.

[00:48:55] And I think that is really the surrender. And if we do that, if I do that, you do that. She does that he does. If we all do a little bit, then I think the projection in the world will also shift. So that's, that's just kind of my 2 cents.

[00:49:11] Jeremy: and if we wanna learn a little bit more about how to do that, I understand you have a, at a seminar coming up or a summit, uh, uh, that people 

[00:49:18] Kute Blackson: Yeah. 

[00:49:18] Jeremy: more about this.

[00:49:19] Kute Blackson: Yeah. I have a five day. It's a free five day online event and I really want people to get access to just this, this information it's called the surrender summit. Five days free it's online. If you can't make it live, you can watch the, the replay, uh, www the surrender summit. Dot com I'm bringing together.

[00:49:38] Also I'll be teaching, but I'm bringing together. Some of my, some of my friends, people like, uh, Neil, Donald Walsh, who worked conversations with God, uh, Michael Beckwith, uh, Martha Beck, uh, she's been on Oprah, John D martini, who was in the secret. Um, who else? Barbara John Gray, uh, 20, uh, inspiring teachers from all angles and all disciplines.

[00:50:02] Cause I really love bringing people with, with a, with a wide range. Perspectives to share about how to live, surrender in your life and also how to use the principle of surrender so that you can harness it and, , fulfill your true potential. So that's July the 12th through the 19th.

[00:50:20] Jeremy: It's beautiful. We'll have that link in the show notes for this episode. Where else can we learn more about you and your work online?

[00:50:25] Kute Blackson: Yeah, co blackson.com. My name K UT E coop blackson.com. Um, Instagram coop Blackson Facebook coop Blackson uh, twice a year. I do a very special 12 day event in Bali, uh, www bound list BLIS, barley.com.

[00:50:40] Jeremy: Beautiful. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. 

[00:50:43] Zach: Our thanks to coop Blackson Author of the magic of surrender, finding the courage to let go. You can find links to him and his work in the show notes for this episode@thefit.com.

[00:50:54] And that was a really powerful story that he had, , about his, his mother and, , it really hits my heartstrings when I hear things like that. , but then also really makes me, , almost feel bad about myself, of like, do I need to wait until something that traumatic happens before I can shift my life?

[00:51:13] Like , why don't I just shift it?

[00:51:16] Jeremy: And like you said, and this is one of the key takeaways from that interview was that that your ego is a process. And that's something that, that as long as I've been studying, you know, Dharma and meditation and, and all this stuff, The idea of letting go of ego is really difficult because everything that we are in this life or this, this realm, this dimension, as he put it is an accumulation of experiences and ideas and beliefs.

[00:51:40] And so you work so hard for most of your life to develop a sense of identity. And like he says, it's really just. Series this process, it's this, this accumulation of stuff that you hang onto to convince yourself that that is who you are when in fact that's just the stuff that the world sees you as, and you can change that at any time.

[00:52:05] Nobody's saying it's easy because if you've spent years building that up, I would reason from that, that it will take years to take it apart again. And it's something that, in my experience, I built it up really, really well. And then I started taking pieces out and then like Jenga, you'd take a piece and a whole bunch of it falls out and then you panic and you put it all back up and start rebuilding that wall because it's, it's really scary to let go of.

[00:52:31] Like he said, and, and like I've experienced in my own life. The more you can surrender, the more, the truth of what your experience, what you want it to be, I guess, becomes apparent. And it becomes just a simpler way to live rather than constantly trying to impose your will on other people and, and life in general.

[00:52:56] Zach: I don't know, Jeremy, I really tried to put the square peg into the round hole. I mean, it, it causes so much pain in our lives trying to do that. 

[00:53:07] Jeremy: Yeah, I think just his point about pain being a message, you know, when, when we get stuck in our comfort zones and don't really put ourselves out there and try to experience new things and try and live that life of purpose that we very comfortably imagine one day achieving the pain that comes with getting out of that comfort zone is very much a message that you are growing. 

[00:53:30] Zach: Yeah, I, I struggled so much with getting out of my comfort zone and I gotta tell you, like, you know, the thing you need to do, you know, what you like just for work, like, you know, even today, like I had to deal with a contract and. I didn't want to, I just didn't want to, I knew it was gonna be painful.

[00:53:51] I knew I had to have arguments. I knew I had to like go against the grain and I put it off. Like I put it off all morning. Like that's when I usually get all , that kind of stuff done. And I. You just have to know it's gonna be uncomfortable and put systems in place to help you along. Right. So like, you know, I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this and it's gonna be uncomfortable and I'm not gonna like it.

[00:54:11] But I put my headphones in, I put my neural beats on. Right. And I just like tried to set the stage and put myself in the most comfortable place possible and just grinded it out. I mean, that's , what it comes down to is. Those things that you don't wanna do where you're gonna grow. Like in this particular thing is just like a little outside of my comfort zone. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna be painful, but that just means the reward is that much bigger.

[00:54:37] Jeremy: All right. Well, those and lots of other very powerful lessons , in that interview with Cote Blackson, you can find out more about him in the show notes for this episode@thefitmess.com, but don't let the conversation end there. Join us in our Facebook group, where you and fellow fit mess.

[00:54:50] Listeners can connect for monthly challenges, accountability to reach your goals and connection with others who are on a similar journey. That link is also on our website, the fit mess.com, where we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Thanks for listening.

[00:55:02] Zach: See everyone.