Essential Steps to Awakening with Divya Darling

In this Episode

• [00:39]Stephan introduces Divya Darling, an enthralling storyteller with a profound message about human potential. She is devoted to illuminating the wisdom within.
• [04:57]Divya expounds on the cycle of awakening: the shakeup, wake up, ego death, cleaning up, growing up, and showing up.
• [09:45]In the cycle of cleaning up, how can you clear the charges within your body?
• [14:06]Divya tells a story of how she acted upon the messages she received from her guides during meditation about her marriage.
• [19:05]What is the distinction between ego and essence?
• [24:14]Divya defines liberation and how charges are being formed in your body.
• [28:55]Divya points out how your charges or triggers can’t be released if not activated and stated that only when anger arises can we release the anger.
• [32:51]Stephan discusses the best approach to avoiding taking away the opportunity from someone who can transform from their own triggers.
• [36:06]Divya and Stephan talk about how every individual’s capacity is within themselves, and obstacles in life help reveal them.
• [39:59]Visit Divya Darling’s website at divyadarling.com to learn more about her, and visit the Intrinsic Brilliance Institute website at intrinsicbrilliance.com.au, to check out their free tools and resources to elevate your consciousness.

Jump to Links and Resources

Divya, it’s so great to have you on the show.

It’s great to be here with you, Stephan. No matter how many times I hear my bio read at a podcast or any time I’m introduced, there’s a part of me that still feels a little cringe in my belly each time that is read in that way.

Really? Why is that?

I don’t know. It’s the biofeedback of the idea of, “he’s talking about me.” That’s what that is pointing to, so it gets activated in that little moment, and then it’s like, settle down.

Speaking of ego, I’m curious, what’s your position on the ego? Is it something to push against, fight against? Is it something that is a gift from the Creator? Is it something that you experience an ego death and re-emerge as a beautiful butterfly? How do you see ego?

Resistance creates persistence.

I love that you started with that question. Something to push against and fight against, no, absolutely not. I feel like the more we push against or fight against anything, resistance creates persistence.

I have a five-day challenge actually called Befriend Your Brain, and that is all about how we relate with ego. A lot of people think of ego as the enemy, and that it is something to push against and fight against. Of course, that just makes it bigger and stronger in that regard. Our approach is just recognizing it as a part of the self and it has a function.

It is an aspect of our consciousness. When we are in essence, we are in the aspect of our consciousness that can experience connection with all. And then when we’re in ego, ego’s job is to create separation. We need that. We need to have single-pointed consciousness, have a sense of self that is unique and individual. That the function of individuality is what the ego does, so we need that. We couldn’t function as humans without that.

We need the contrast.

We need the contrast, so we also need to be able to perceive that, recognize that, and notice that, and just be like, “Oh, that’s that.” It’s just a signal. The same way if the bladder is full and there’s a signal, “I need to go empty my bladder.” You don’t have to act on it at that moment. You can tell, “I can hold it.” Let’s say you’re driving in the car. We’ve all had this experience. 

We’re driving the car, got the signal from the bladder. I need to empty the bladder. Well, I can’t pull over for another 20k’s, so you’re going to have to hold it. It’s just feedback from the body. It’s just part of the system. Recognizing ego as a gift. All aspects of consciousness are a gift. All aspects of ourselves are a gift if we have the ability to perceive them that way, absolutely.

Have you ever experienced an ego death?

When our reality is crumbling, there’s the shake-up then there’s the wake-up.

Many, many, many, many times and I write about that in my book EnLIGHTen Up. It’s not out yet. The concept in EnLIGHTen Up is recognizing that transformation is a cycle. Anybody who has been on the path of awakening will recognize the cycle of the shake-up. When the thing that worked doesn’t work anymore and our reality is crumbling, there’s the shake-up then there’s the wake-up. And that wake-up is like an ego death where we see the world from a different perspective than we ever did before.

Then there’s the cleanup that has to happen, the clearing the conditioning, and the beliefs that we used to have. Then the growing up aspect, maturing ourselves so we step into that, and then showing up in that space more fully.

I would say I go through one of the cycles regularly. Anyone who is on the path of expansion—I love how on your website it was “Learn, Grow, Elevate,” those keywords. So I imagine you would also be quite familiar with that experience of transforming the identity because the ego is just the identity of self and it changes. It has to shift and change over time. So the ego death is very much like a caterpillar dissolving into the chrysalis before it reemerges as a butterfly.

It’s a beautiful analogy. I’m curious, what would be an example of maybe from your life of a cleanup of?

A cleanup? The first five years I was in partnership with my husband was a lot of cleaning up happened on my part. They showed up in different ways because there had been a big wake up before that in that context because, of course, these cycles happen in all kinds of different contexts. This is in the context of partnering in intimate relationships.

I had received in meditation the instruction, love this man, and this man seemed like a far stretch from anybody that I had ever been in partnership before. Polar opposite to me in many, many, many ways. Having the awareness that I did of universal tools and remembering it’s not out there—anything that you think that you’re seeing that is creating the charge, the charge is on the inside. 

The metaphor that I often use is he’s the ocean. You’ve got the paper cuts. It can’t sting unless you have the paper cuts. So if you were free of cuts it would not sting. There was a lot of stinging mostly the first year, and as these wounds healed, I used that space as an opportunity to clean up these misguided ideas of self. So cleaning up is when we’ve connected to the false identification of who we think we are and gotten tricked into thinking I am this and that this being a small limited finite aspect of self, which does not remotely capture the truth of who we are.

The charge is just biofeedback saying, “Hang on a minute, that’s not true.” The little visceral feedback that I have in my body when there is this bite, it’s just a bit of biofeedback that’s like, “Don’t go thinking that’s true of you. You are much bigger than that awareness of thinking separation in that context with him.” 

Most relationships have friction points; an ego versus ego thing.

That’s why most relationships have friction points; it’s an ego versus ego thing. My partner and I were actually just speaking about this yesterday. From the ego’s orientation is what can I get because it naturally comes from an orientation of scarcity, and it’s fine. It’s just important to observe and know that that’s what it does. The bladder’s job is to excrete liquid waste, and the bowel’s job is to excrete more solid waste. Be aware of the function.

So cleaning up is just noticing the places where there’s charge in us, clearing that, and just letting it be neutral, and that’s fine.

So when you clear it, are you clearing it through rebirthing, meditation, acupuncture, or prayer, all the above? Some things that I haven’t thought of?

What haven’t I done? I will say, every modality is just a tool to bring consciousness. At the Intrinsic Brilliance Institute, we have our own amalgamated modality, yet still, all approaches will work for the person that’s committed to having them work. For me, I’ve done everything from kinesiology, self-clearing from tapping, yoga was a big way in which I’ve done lots of clearing. Ecstatic dance, I’ve done so many different kinds of modalities, Reiki, cord-cutting. All kinds of stuff, meditation being a key one as well, of course.

Underneath all of them is the same concept of bringing consciousness and the intention. What I’ve discovered through all of the dozens and dozens of modalities that I’ve experimented with over the years is that it’s the intention with the attention that does the clearing more than anything else. It doesn’t matter that I’m a trained hypnotherapist. It’s the intention, the attention, and putting that on there, and that’s what will clear it.

To have the consciousness to clear that conditioning and open space for something else to emerge. There is already something being ready to emerge, otherwise, we wouldn’t be waking up to that awareness. There’s something already there that is ready to be seen.

I like to think of our job, not just being aware, but to be aware of our awareness. It’s kind of a meta-level. When you walk around thinking I am in a body, this body is my vehicle and I’m going to give it a shower, I’m going to feed it, and I’m going to take it to the gym kind of like I take my new car to the car wash or to the mechanic to get an oil change, right?

We use that metaphor a lot in terms of the vehicle that needs to be regularly serviced. Even if we put petrol in it once a week, it’s not a replacement for servicing the vehicle. When we invite people to retreats and they say, “Oh, I’m too busy to go away on a retreat. I just had a session with you last week.” Servicing the vehicle is still important, always.

For sure. I’m curious about what you said earlier—receiving in meditation, a message to love this man. How do you receive messages in meditation, and what do they come in like? Is it clairaudience, clairvoyance? Is it just a hunch, a feeling? How do you get this?

Every person receives their guidance differently.

Well, I’m going to preface this by saying every person receives their guidance differently. This is by no means the way to receive guidance. It’s the way that guidance tends to communicate with me, and it’s different each time. 

For me, the tone of voice is very clear when it’s guidance speaking. It’s like a matriarch that’s gentle yet firm. It’s very clear and distinct. The image that I hold is like Te Fiti from Moana. It looks a little bit like that if it was to be put in an image, and it takes different forms but the instruction was clear—love this man. And it took me years to learn the nuances of the guidance. The guidance is as clear as it can be because our guidance is trying to communicate with us in a way in which we can understand it, and yet we don’t always understand it as fully as we can. 

I imagine I’m not the only person who’s had an experience where I’ve received something in meditation—I’ve heard something, seen something, or felt something—and then years down the line I was like, “Oh, this is what you meant when you said that.” Five years later or three and a half years later when I was told, you need to be willing to leave. The guidance was you need to be willing to leave. My interpretation of that—because of the egos clinging to concepts that were like, “This is the right way and this is the way things should be done”—means start having couples counseling rather than recognize the guidance that’s being given.

That’s where growing up comes in around maturing these younger parts of ourselves that are stunted in some ways, and helping them to recognize the things that our wiser self knows. When they also are fully mature, that’s when the whole system is able to make wiser decisions. In that particular instance, one of the things that were clear to me was the word ‘husband’ had always had a bit of a charge for me before that where it’s like that just didn’t feel appropriate. 

Even my previous partner who I was married to, I didn’t like the word ‘husband.’ I never liked the word husband. I’m like, “He’s my spouse” or “my partner.” And then within a week of Michael and I being together, my brain started calling him ‘my husband,’ and that was very weird to me. It was like, we were together for a week and my brain referred to him as my husband.

Strange things like that where I feel like my sense is we’re never not being guided. Are we aware enough to pay attention, are we aware of that guidance, are we paying attention to that?

Now, when you’re hearing your brain say “my husband” and you’re hearing your brain say “love this man,” are you able to differentiate when it’s coming from the source, from the divine, versus when it’s coming from your subconscious, or do you believe that it’s all just synapses firing? I’m curious what your distinctions are around this.

What is your understanding of source and subconscious? That will help me find a metaphor and analogy that is more relatable I suppose.

I’m just learning this stuff myself. I’m a toddler when it comes to my spiritual path, but my understanding of receiving guidance in terms of intuition is that it just stays with you. It doesn’t leap to the next thought, to the next thought, to the next thought. It also doesn’t have an emotional charge to it. It’s charge-neutral, meaning you’re not going to get anxious, fearful, or excited about it. It just simply is. And then it often comes in unexpected. 

Those are distinctions that I’ve recently learned, and so that helps me to distinguish an intuitive hit versus something that’s just coming from my own subconscious. Does that help?

Those are really key distinctions. It’s a qualitative difference when something’s coming from ego or essence. The acronyms that my business partner and I use, we refer to “the one,” the collective consciousness, all of us, the one as “TO.” 

So I use the metaphor of a cookie dough. We’re all one big cookie dough. There’s a little bit that was pulled off and shaped into a star for this particular cookie, and a little bit that was shaped like a gingerbread man for this cookie. They’re in different shapes, and that’s our essence. Our essence has unique qualities about it. 

So the acronym we use for that is “HAOTO,” Here Aspect Of The One, or “TAOTO” Their Aspect Of The One to refer to the differences in essence. And then the sprinkles, the frosting, and all of that, that’s the ego decoration that’s there on the top. Your cookie might be decorated differently, in different colors, and different things than mine. That’s just the ego adornment, so Divya has her own little adornments that she does. I can kind of tell the difference. 

Most of the time, I’m noticing more and more what I’m exploring is that with the ego, when it’s found out like a strategy, one of its strategies is revealed, it gets more and more clever, cunning, or subtle. Earlier in the path, it was very easy for me to tell because the voices were like chalk and cheese, particularly because the charges were quite significant and the settledness that’s there when something’s there in truth and essence, I could really feel the contrast and I really, really knew. 

Whereas now, the charges are often so minuscule and the ego is very clever in its ways of masquerading as truth that it takes more discernment, and that’s why it’s really helpful to have a coach that’s more sensitive to attune to that and to help calibrate to that. Those distinctions in right now, this is essence, this is ego, can you feel the distinction, and to continue to drawback to that. That’s a big function of what my coach does for me. Those 0.03% that I couldn’t be able to feel on my own, but she’s even more sensitive and attuned than I am and can reflect that back to me.

Interesting. Do you think there’s maybe some spiritual ego in there? You’re getting all advanced in your evolution, your transformation, your metamorphosis, and you’re thinking, wow, I’m doing pretty well. Because that’s something that I’ve been trying to guard against as I’m evolving and expanding. I don’t want to perceive others in a way that is anything other than equal.

Absolutely. So it’s the energy of that, I totally agree with that. Everyone is equal. And in our soulful evolving community, one of the tenets that’s there is we’re all equally divinely connected to source. Everyone is equally capable of downloading infinite intelligence in an instant, and all equally capable of being tricked by illusion as well.

Sensitivity is trained.

The reality of it in my experience is some are more sensitive than others.  Sensitivity is trained. In the yoga practice, we tune the instrument to become more and more sensitive, and more and more aware of the most subtle shifts in the body. It is a practice that happens over time, and it is possible to be in a space of totally wholly completely recognizing you are equally divine, brilliant, and amazing, as is every being. And there are beings that have practiced quite a bit. That practice can be an asset in your development. That’s my approach.

If you see somebody who has a lot of anger, hatred for no reason, victim consciousness, and so forth, you see them as equal, but you also see them as a learning opportunity perhaps, or somehow as having a reason for showing up in your movie.

How would you describe it when seeing somebody who is just a hater, a troll, or whatever they call these folks on the internet and this person comes after you? There’s a reason this person is in your movie, in your reality, in your universe. I’m curious how you see it and how you use it as a growth opportunity?

I can see it, I can feel it, I can clean it up.

Firstly, when I remember that if I’m perceiving it and particularly when there’s a charge associated with it, what are they revealing to me about me? Perhaps what’s going on there is the 90% version because I didn’t notice the 90% that was in my body, and the universe is so committed to my liberation, so committed to my expansion it’s like here, let me show you a reflection so you can see. This is so you can see you. Thank you for that, I can clean that up now that I know that that’s there. Now I can see it, I can feel it, I can clean it up.

When you’re talking about liberation, what is liberation to you and how do you go after that liberation on a daily basis?

Liberation to me is being free of the conditioning. The charges are all the conditioning. The more that we neutralize anything that arises in the body and bring it to equanimity, that’s my relentless pursuit of just observation. Being aware of the awareness that is noticing what’s coming up, what arises. Ninety seconds is what neuroscience says for a present state experience. If it’s a feeling, it’ll last 90 seconds. Feelings will last 90 seconds and then it’ll go, and there’ll be something else there in a new moment.

So if anything lasts more than 90 seconds, then that’s a charge. That’s an emotion, that’s stuck energy that’s been stored from a time in the past where there was the belief that this is too big for me and I don’t know how to be with this or release this. My work is to relentlessly release those charges in as many ways as possible for all.

Charges, when you refer to that, is that synonymous with triggers?

It’s synonymous with triggers. It’s basically any experience of constriction because when the body doesn’t feel loose and there isn’t a quality of expansiveness, when there isn’t a feeling of free, spacious, and expandedness, the heart is open, the belly is relaxed, and everything just feels spacious. There’s a certain quality of expansion.

When we’re in trigger, we kind of constrict, and that’s what I call a charge. We’re charged in that way. There’s an electrical charge running through the system at that moment, and when we meet that with consciousness, when we meet it with presence and awareness, we have an opportunity to open the heart, let that go, and totally transform our experience of life. Because the more that we do that, the more they stop. The more that we clear and clear and clear and clear, the fewer they arise.

My relationship is a living testament to that. I look back on who I used to be when we first got together and how easily triggered I was relative to the way that I am now and I am in awe. This is the process of transformation. When we look back at our earlier self and we’re like, “Wow, I was like that, I thought that,” and “I can’t believe that,” because it seems so foreign. That’s when something has integrated on a deep level. It’s almost like I can’t relate, I can’t identify with that me that I used to be.

Charges are just feedback, and feedback is always a gift.

So to recognize charges are just feedback, triggers are just feedback, and feedback is always a gift. It’s always welcome and to embrace it in that way.

When you’re talking about this, it reminds me of an episode where I interviewed Debra Levine, the co-creator of the PRINT®️ assessment. She described triggers and the unconscious motivators, and how with her partner decided to create this diagnostic tool to figure out what your unconscious motivators and your triggers are.

She said that she and her husband took the assessment that they had created and took their trigger list that was like on page six or whatever, printed it out each of them, put it on the refrigerator, and they’ve had it on there for years as a reminder to not just be aware of their own triggers, but the partner’s triggers too. I thought that was really, really thoughtful and aware. Just really cool.

I’m curious if you see other people’s triggers like your partner’s triggers as something that you don’t want to necessarily trip over, at least not intentionally, or do you see it as “It’s their own problem. They need to clean that up. If I’m triggering them, that’s on them.” I’m curious what your position is on this.

Yes, and yes it is valuable to be respectful of another’s triggers. This is valuable. This is kindness, this is compassion, this is joining with someone. I don’t want to step on my toes over there because that will hurt. There is a balancing act between the human ego that is mindful because it’s the ego that says “That’s your problem, not my business. Not my business, that’s your business. You sort that out.”

In essence, that can see we’re in this together. Your charges are my charges, your triggers are my triggers. We’re one consciousness, you evolve, I evolve, we evolve, we do this together. How do we marry those realities is that approach of recognizing that holding dual awareness, split awareness of the trigger is the path to liberation. When someone is triggered, then and only then do they have an opportunity to release that charge, and that charge is like stuck energy in the body that doesn’t need to be there. It’s creating friction in the system and it doesn’t need to be there. And yet, it can’t be released until it’s activated.

So it’s a bit like a CD most of the time is read-only and it will play, and then if you format it in a certain way it becomes writable. The trigger is what makes it writeable because that neural ensemble is activated. It’s only when the anger arises can we release the anger. 

It’s easy when you’re in essence. I’m in essence, and everything is lovely.

So it’s being able to hold that awareness of like, ”Oh, I just gave them an opportunity to release some more of their charges.” And to hold that respectfully with the human that might not be so happy about that because, of course, to have that anger triggered, they’re in the ego and it’s these moments that require a lot of awareness and grace because, of course, it’s easy when you’re in essence, I’m in essence, and everything is lovely. Let’s all hold hands. Too easy to get along. 

But it’s when someone’s crap is stirred that it requires particular awareness that’s like, “Oh switch on now.” Now’s the time to really hold space for that person to do their work. They’re about to do some big work here, some big cleaning up, and hold space in a skillful way.

I feel really blessed that I’ve trained my partner well in the first year we were together. I taught him my behavior is never about you, it is always about the story that I’m telling myself. So if I’m behaving in a grumpy way, then you can relax and know it’s got nothing to do with you. Leave me to sort that out. 

We have an understanding of our partnering. We’re not here to protect each other’s wounds because when we dance around them, they never get an opportunity to get healed, and a lot of partnerships are like that. It’s like, you don’t press my buttons, I won’t press your buttons, and we’ll spend 20 years together avoiding each other’s buttons. At the end of our lives, have we done what we came here to do? Probably not. 

We’re here to expand and grow. So my partner and I are skilled at pressing each other’s buttons in the ways that we do, and then holding space for each other to transform from that.

I think this applies not just in an intimate relationship but every relationship, every interaction. If somebody is coming from victim consciousness, instead of being proactive and coming from a place of love, instead of reacting to that or on the flip side facilitating it, dancing around it as you said or trying to rectify it as quickly as possible so that they don’t stay in that place and get further triggered, we’re robbing them of an opportunity.

We facilitate or enable victim consciousness or being in a place of lack, negative energy, negative vibration. It’s our job as a loving part of oneness, the whole to hold space as you said and let them learn and grow from it.

I think the key orientation for me though is recognizing I’m not deliberately wanting to expose anyone’s wounds, I just go about my business. And sometimes, me going about my business will accidentally trigger someone else’s wounds. When it’s like, that thing that was the right, honest, and authentic for me to do, you felt hurt by that? Okay. And how do I be in those moments?

Got it. You said that the trigger is the path, and that reminds me of a book by Ryan Holiday. It’s called The Obstacle Is the Way.

Yes.

Are you familiar with that book?

I’m not familiar with the book. The concept of what’s in the way is the way. This pertains to the concept of spotlighting, which is very truthful that has come through my business partner, which is obstacles, contrary to what’s popular mainstream language on this concept is that we grow through challenges, we grow through obstacles, right? It’s like the metaphor of you go to the gym, you lift heavy weights, then you get strong, and it’s through the obstacles we grow. Whereas this concept is slightly different.

The concept of spotlighting is that we have gifts and talents in us already fully formed. And because we are wanting them to emerge, we attract to us the obstacles or challenges that enable us to reveal them or unleash them. Like Harry Potter, at that moment, discovers the powers that are already there inside. It’s not like he has to learn or develop them, they’re there fully formed and waiting to be discovered. That concept of spotlighting, which is a very, very different way of seeing the world.

When we hold that frame, we can meet those obstacles with a quality of almost eagerness because the idea of this is too big for me, how am I going to do this? This is what the ego wants to say. The ego is like, “How could I possibly?” Because it can seem like it’s too big, and then we can have this awareness of hang on a minute, no. I have called this to me because I have the capacity. Not that I need to develop it, it’s already there. Your capacity is within you fully formed and the obstacles reveal them.

This relates to something I’m discovering just now, just this year, and that is I have psychic abilities that I didn’t know I had. I just need to practice, I just need to develop them. And we all have psychic abilities, we just don’t realize it. We are cut off from it. And when we awaken to that possibility and to our capability, we can do amazing things.

Well said.

I don’t want to expose anyone’s wounds, I just go about my business.

I’m curious, do you have any psychic abilities that have awakened in you or that you’ve noticed?

Oh, absolutely. And when people come on retreat with me, they’re amazed that within 24 hours, there’s a feeling of like, I have ESP and I didn’t even know it. Absolutely. As you said, we all do, and it’s a skill that just can be trained. The more attention we put on it the more we intend to allow that to develop more fully, absolutely.

I feel that could be a whole episode right in itself, that whole topic. I know we need to bring this episode to a close. I’m curious, if you had anything come to you in the process of our conversation that you thought, “This would be a really good question for Stephan to ask,” and I didn’t do it. What should I have asked but I didn’t is what I’m asking?

I would love it if you answered that question because you’re asking. Here’s the thing that people don’t know, the question is the lock, the answer is the key. Some people will walk around with the answer. The answer is yes or whatever the answer might be, but they don’t have the right lock to put it in. What is the question? So that’s your question. It means you already have the answer to that because the unconscious, if it’s asking the question, the answer is inside you. So what is the answer to that question? I’m curious. What might you have liked to have asked that you might not have yet asked?

One thing that comes to my mind, just off the top of my head, is what is unconditional love to you?

It’s an orientation that looks inward and knows. Love is essence, pure, exists wholly, completely, and fully, already there inside. It just spills out.

That’s beautiful, and it’s a worthy goal for everyone to get to that place of unconditional love. And not just an act of unconditional love, but the beingness of it.

I wouldn’t quite say it’s a goal, I would say it’s the truth that it’s there inside you at this moment as well. It’s the thought that it’s a goal that makes it feel far away. It is not a goal, it is the truth of who you are, and that you’ve asked that question reveals an awareness of being ready to integrate a new level of understanding when it comes to unconditional love.

Wonderful. Well, thank you. All right, well this is a great place to end this interview. Of course, we got to know where to learn more from you and if we can engage your coaching services or what the pathway would be for our listener who would like to learn more from you and work with you?

You can find me over at intrinsicbrilliance.com.au. That’s the site for the institute, and feel welcome to join our community, Soulful Evolving, for free. There are lots of goodies there, lots of freebies on the Intrinsic Brilliance site. Everything from guided meditations. We have a Tao Te Ching Study Group that meets once a month and a Mindset Matters Book Club. Lots of ways to get involved. And if you are interested in working with me one-on-one, you can find information about that at divyadarling.com.

Wonderful. Divya, thank you so much. You are a bright light in the world and I thank you for sharing that light with my listeners.

Thank you for having me, I really appreciate it.

Thank you, and thank you, listeners. I love that you listen to this podcast and that you are open to receiving this sort of message and applying it in your life. We’ll catch you in the next episode.

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