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The Place for Connection
Welcome to The Place for Connection, where I believe that connection is the CURE – the podcast where soul meets science, and healing takes centre stage.
Hosted by psychologist, breathwork practitioner, and all-around vibe curator, Melissa Beaton, this podcast dives deep into the art and science of connection – to yourself, your community, and the big beautiful world around you.
Each episode is a juicy mix of expert wisdom and heartfelt stories from healers of ALL kinds: psychologists, bodyworkers, doulas, yogis, spiritual guides, and even the ones who heal with music, art, and a bit of magic. We’re here to inspire, uplift, and get real about what it takes to live a connected, purpose-driven life.
This isn’t your average self-help podcast. It’s a space where radical authenticity meets practical tools, where curiosity replaces judgment, and where the real work feels less like a chore and more like a calling.
Why listen?
Because you’ll leave every episode feeling seen, heard, and ready to take the next step in your own healing journey. Whether you’re a professional, a healer, someone seeking growth, or just here for the good vibes – this is the place for you.
Want to work with Melissa?
Reach out via the website contact page at www.zensohouse.com or instagram @zensohouse
The Place for Connection
Doctors Told Her the Illness Was Permanent—Her Body Proved Them Wrong
Doctors told Krystal Ryan her autoimmune condition was permanent—medication for life, possible surgeries, and no chance of full recovery. But deep within, Krystal felt a fierce rebellion against this diagnosis. Determined not to settle for a lifetime of chronic illness, she embarked on a radical healing journey that changed everything.
Krystal's life once revolved around relentless busyness, achievement, and a constant chase for worthiness. Sound familiar? It wasn't until her body forced her to slow down that she discovered something revolutionary: True health isn’t just the absence of symptoms—it’s the presence of wholeness.
In this raw and revealing episode, Krystal shares how she transformed her autoimmune diagnosis into a powerful awakening. She introduces us to her gentle yet profoundly effective approach of reconnecting with the body's innate wisdom, shifting from a battle against illness to compassionate curiosity toward symptoms. Discover how treating your body’s signals with patience and kindness—much like befriending a cautious animal—can unlock deeper healing than conventional medicine ever imagined.
If you've ever felt trapped in cycles of busyness, battled chronic health issues, or simply yearned for a deeper connection with yourself, this conversation will blow your mind and soothe your soul.
Tune in to find out why your body isn't broken—it's speaking. Are you ready to listen?
Learn more about Krystal’s groundbreaking work at www.bhavabody.com.au and her transformative program, "You Are the Medicine."
You can find more information about Podcast Host Melissa Beaton & founder of www.zensohouse.com by accessing the contact page on her website or following @zensohouse on your favourite social media platform.
#Healing #Autoimmune #BodyWisdom #HolisticHealth #KrystalRyan #MindBodyConnection #Embodiment
Hello and welcome to the Place for Connection podcast, where I believe connection is the cure. I'm joined today by the incredible Crystal Ryan. I've had the pleasure of working directly with Crystal. Met her on a jetty myself. Crystal is a teacher, a student and a guide. She's a practitioner of somalinguistics and she also runs a program called you Are the Medicine. So I'm super excited to introduce Crystal to you all. She's helped me in so many incredible ways and is one of the reasons why I'm now working in the space that I'm working. So, yeah, just really wanted to introduce her to you all. So, Crystal, I wonder, could you take us back to when your healing journey really began?
Speaker 2:Thank you for such a warm welcome, mel. Yeah, hi, beautiful bodies, listening, watching, listening, oh gosh, yeah, yeah, hi, beautiful bodies, listening, watching, listening, um, oh gosh, yeah. To go back where, where I feel like there was, um, I guess, I guess, the emergent, uh, guidance to where I am now and the area that I'm working. Um, maybe some of you can relate that I was, yeah, constantly in this pursuit of of improving, constantly in this pursuit of, um, becoming better, um, I was listening to all the personal developments, the Tony Robbins um, and, yeah, this was, I guess, stacked from a lot of time in high school, a lot of time in uni, of trying to be and become, trying to become more.
Speaker 2:And I guess now, upon reflection I know, upon reflection, looking back that there was this longing to feel love, this longing to feel loved, and my mind perceived that as, in order to feel loved, I need to do more, I need to be more.
Speaker 2:There was this conditionality to love for me and, yeah, so that looked like working really, really hard all through high school, all through uni, this sweet little 15-year-old Crystal who was staying up to all hours of night with her studies and assignments and, yeah, isolating herself from friendship and connection and I guess I know, looking back as well, there was a resource that being busy also supported me in distracting and avoiding a lot of the feelings and situations that were going on in home and in high school that I didn't really have the resourcing to deal with or know how to be with. So, being busy, yeah, I remember making these conscious decisions in high school of, well, I'll just bury myself into my studies, yeah, yeah, yeah, I just reflect on. As kids we don't really get taught how to regulate, how to be with our emotions, how to be authentic in the world, and there's such a grief in that for me, such a grief.
Speaker 2:Yes and there's such a grief in that for me, such a grief, yes. And so, yeah, uh, coming towards the end of high school and into uni, this pursuit to become also started to to be in physical training as well, a lot, of, a lot of exercising um past where my body says hey, hey, hey. That's enough for the week.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Again with this pursuit of okay, how do I make myself more slim? How do I make myself more toned, more muscly, better, better, better, more than what I already am. Thinking that that was outside of me or beyond me? Yeah, oh, just give her a little cuddle.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, please, Please give her a cuddle yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so then I finished university and I was so overwhelmed with choice I think a lot of people prepare you for starting university like, oh yeah, university, ooh, it's a big journey, it's going to be massive. But I never got prepared for finishing university and all of a sudden it was up to me and I was looking over my shoulder thinking what? No one's telling me what to do anymore, no one's telling me what I need to study, how I can meet this mark, how I can meet this criteria. Yeah, and I didn't have the next tick box right Go to school, go to uni, get the job, get whatever conditional society tick boxes are after that. And so again I buried myself into okay, well, if I can't tick the box to be successful, I'll just do multiple things and I'll just work multiple jobs.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I studied marine biology, so I've got this background of, wow, biological science and anatomy and understanding how things work. It's always, yeah, I had a deep affinity for nature and um, biology, like functionality of things. And then so, when I finished university, started to feel really curious about the mind. So I started quite yeah, up in the mind, understanding beliefs and personal development and values and thoughts very much on a mind level and that was really fascinating. And even throughout that, there was still this pursuit of okay, I'll be the best at knowing my mind and and maybe, then, maybe, then it will be enough for for my parents which and I say that from my little girl heart, knowing full well that my parents love me unconditionally as well, but there's that cause and effect at my little girl heart, my little girl mind couldn't see. And, yeah, all throughout this pursuit there was this, um, yeah, this communication that was happening from my body. I would get sick very often, like like a cold, uh, like, yeah, runny nose or cough and, um, a lot of digestive, um issues, I guess you could say issues, digestive communication, um, a lot of, yeah, a lot of pain, a lot of bloating, um, a lot of gas really, um, and, and, yeah, my skin felt really angry. There's lots of like redness, um, and I would get injured a lot in my training and that often didn't stop me. I would just refine a little bit, but I'd still keep going.
Speaker 2:I had this real inability to rest. I remember being on a call once and this woman invited that everyone on the on the call she was a beautiful elderly woman that everyone on the call, um, she, she suggests everyone on the call takes 20 minutes out of their day to just do nothing. And I laughed, mel, I laughed. I said who, the, who, the I'm not sure if we can swear on this who has time for that? Who has time? Who has 20 minutes out of their day to do nothing? That's hilarious. I can't imagine. I can't imagine that, because right from the early hours of the struggle, because I was so wired or I would fall asleep and then wake up at two in the morning, wide awake again as well.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so going, going, going, going, um, I started to feel this little whisper of I think. I think I need to know how to slow down, but I didn't know how. And to my system, slowing down felt like a threat. Slowing down felt like, not consciously, but now reflecting back, slowing down felt like I wasn't gonna get love if I slowed down. And so I remember, yeah, wanting, wanting and feeling like I needed to, but not knowing how.
Speaker 2:And then I received a medical diagnosis of an autoimmune disease. And that was the guest at the door. That was like oof, okay, body, you're really telling me something now. You're really telling me something now. And body, you're really telling me something now. You're really telling me something now? And um, yeah, and and when I received the diagnosis, as the diagnosis came, with medical professionals giving me a, um, a, an offering of of their solutions, as they saw the body, oh, there's a problem, you've got to fix it. Here's what you need to fix it, which was drugs and surgery, and I would need to be on these immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of my life, as per their words, as this is a chronic condition, you can never get rid of it. You've got it for the rest of my life. Um, as per their words, as this is a chronic condition, you can never, um, never, get rid of it. You've got it for the rest of your life. And then surgery. You know, it may work, may not.
Speaker 2:Um, and there was something in me that was like no, actually it was like fuck, no, there was parts of me that were really afraid, so, so afraid, and there were parts of me that were so fiery in this, knowing that that's not my truth, and so began a very challenging journey of slowing down enough to really hear that truth inside of me, and I've been asked multiple times from people like oh, so how did you heal the, the Crohn's, how did you heal the autoimmune? And asking for you know what foods did you eat or what, what, what practitioner did you go see? And asking for this like list, which is like oh, if I, you know, really looked at all the, the, the, the things that I was drawn to, the things that I focused on, the things that I was drawn to, the things that I focused on, the things that I prioritized, because it was a complete orient back into myself. But I know now that that would be a disservice to them If I printed out and gave them everything that I did. It would be a disservice to them if I printed out and gave them everything that I did.
Speaker 2:There would be a disservice to them because what really that time was about for me and what really was my medicine, was that guidance, those little whispers of, I think. I think what's somatics like, oh, I wonder what inflammatory foods are and oh, I wonder what's possible if, if we actually stop everything just for a little while, these little whispers of little things, that started to pop in. And it's not only that, but it's also the timing that it popped in. For me, there was that onion unfurling of the things that my body, my being, was ready for, and no one can print that out and give that to you. They can, but then I imagine there would be some kind of manifestation later, because then you don't know the pathway to get there. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was the slowing down, there was the turning inward, there was the sensitizing and the remembering, the remembering, the coming so close to that which I wanted to be free from, coming so close to it and allowing myself to rest there. And throughout the journey there's been still times where I have expressions from my body. There's ear infections, there's wisdom teeth removals, there's COVID, like all these expressions of ill health that we might. I'm putting quotation marks here, and in that it's helped me remember that health is not actually the eradication of illness, the eradication of disease, which, if you look at the Google definition, it says that it says something like health is the absence of illness, the absence of illness.
Speaker 2:But if you actually scroll a little bit down in the definition, the root of the word health I think it is maybe German or I've forgotten the language, the origin but the root of the word is whole, w-h-o-l-e, whole, and so this health is the wholeness, and we can't have um just peace and serenity and um perfection or even lack of symptoms we could see as as numbness, and there's no communication from my body, no guidance, and in this, I guess, oriented goal of wholeness, there's this softening that my shoulders do of, oh, everything actually belongs, everything belongs, and if I can give that which is here a little bit of space and allow it to be here, oh, now there's so much freedom in that there's so much freedom, yeah yeah, I really love that notion of health being wholeness and I think this is what you describe really eloquently in your work and in working with you.
Speaker 1:There's this experience that, yeah, we don't have to rush or split off parts of ourselves, that all the parts of us are welcome, even even the tricky or the or the painful or the painful ones, and I think that's what I do as a psychotherapist or a psychologist. Right is support people to face all of their complicated parts, the joyful ones, the angry ones, what? What did you find? I mean, you know you had this autoimmune condition, right, that was obviously causing you severe pain and suffering and impacting on you in really difficult ways. Like, where did you move first on your path towards healing?
Speaker 2:I'm giggling as we start to talk about welcoming everything, and then there's all this construction going on in the background.
Speaker 1:So we're just welcoming it all and it's lovely god, it's like I've got like someone on the roof right now, which is why I'm muting myself. Were you able to hear me when I was speaking, or not? Really?
Speaker 2:beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But the roof is like crackling away as these. I think humans are currently waking up there. Yeah, so I apologise.
Speaker 2:No, it's so welcome. Where did I go to? First, I had the privilege of having some I think it was a week or two off work. It was, yeah, and I went up north to my family's and I still and I watched all these thoughts of still wanting to work while I'm up there and still do, do, do, do and oh, I've got all this time now to do all these things that I wasn't able to do because I was working full time and um and I, I started to really mess. I'm still messily practicing that. What's this? Maybe five, five years later, um, but sometimes we just need to start messily, start messily.
Speaker 2:And um, I also had the support and guidance of um one mentor, particularly at the time, um, which, yeah, was, was so profound in so many ways and in the most subtle ways, of this little sense of accountability as well, this little sense of accountability. So there was the sovereign knowing that it needs to happen, but there was the resistance. There was the resistance, which actually was a nervous system, safety protection. So to push past that, that's not a very sustainable pathway. So the support of a mentor around me really helped me to actually come to the boundary, or even a little bit before the boundary and sensitize to that boundary and and build relationship with that boundary so that there was a actually an opening into my system of the possibility to slow down, which then slowed into me getting that what? Doing that week or two off work and um, and going up at home, yeah, I say home, family, home, and again it's all well and good. Oh, just take a week off work and then all my problems will be gone when I come back. I think we were actually just laughing about this the other day that when we step away from things, they don't go anywhere, they being the things that we're challenged by or struggling with.
Speaker 2:But sometimes stepping away or coming a little bit back allows us to receive the resourcing or perhaps the capacity to then come back and meet it in a renewed sense or in a more I'm even going to say compassionate sense, in a more um wide sense. Right, even in a nervous system um state, when we're in this survival mode, our vision actually um tunnels forward. So there's this shortening, shortening of the width of our vision. That's just the one threat. I'm in survival mode, I'm just focused on the one threat.
Speaker 2:So if there's an issue or a um, a challenge in our life and it's really affecting our nervous system. We're going to be so centered and focused on it and sometimes somewhere there's a possibility for us to actually start to widen a little bit and it might even be as simple as widening our gaze to take in the room around us or take in the river, actually right behind the screen. It's really gorgeous. It's widening to take in beyond the screen, beyond the challenge, beyond the sensation or ill health or emotion in our body. If we can actually widen and give it a little bit of space, there's a possibility there and there's a possibility in there for us.
Speaker 1:I appreciate the recognition of capacity, because what I see sometimes is in that chronic stress response, is that, yeah, there is a narrowing of that gaze, of what we can see and what's available to us, you know, in terms of our own capacity to notice and for self-observing. So it sounds like even you know something that people can use is that very gentle kind of widening of their own gaze and taking in their environment. That it doesn't need to be huge or complex, it can be gentle and compassionate, because I think for people often, in terms of coming back into contact with their soma, that can feel alarming a little like you described, like noticing the body's threshold of wanting or readiness. I don't know what quite the right language is to use. I don't know what quite the right language is to use. What are your thoughts about how you or others can start to arrive within that process of kind of that?
Speaker 1:I tend to describe it as like that. I can't remember what they're called. You know those things that like open and close, you know where the trauma response, like we kind of just widen a little and then we contract and then the next time maybe we just widen a little further, and I think you might have used this metaphor in our somalinguistics process. I'll call it. Yeah. I'm curious how you might describe whether it's your experience or how you tend to describe this for the people who you mentor and guide through this about how that widening can unfurl over time. Cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess a lot of our mentality looks at same as how I shared with the Western medicine looks as okay, here's a problem, how do we fix it, and often the response is like I need to come and do this right now. There's this threat. I guess, especially if there's a health expression going on in our bodies, I can really empathize and really understand that feeling of time, that there's this time threat of something needs to happen. Now there's something going on in my body and I don't know what it is, or maybe I do know what it is but that scares the heck out of me and I need to get rid of it right now. And whether it's a health expression, whether it's an emotion, sometimes the feeling of fear or the feeling of sadness is oh, I don't know how to be with that. It can be really massive and often our response, unconsciously, might be some form of distraction. So maybe you heard in my experience, my story the resource of being busy was distracting me from what was going on inside of me. The resource of being busy was distracting me from what was going on inside of me and whether it's being busy, whether it's alcohol, whether it's scrolling, whether it's exercise, we can go and label oh, this is a good distraction and this is a bad distraction, but they're all distractions and and too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing anyway. And so what if nothing was good and nothing was bad and it was just is okay. So right now I'm distracting, and when we can have that reflection and that awareness, there's the sense of um, checking in with our capacity, checking in with our environment, okay, perhaps there's a way for us to actually understand the response that's going on in our body, that is protecting us. And so sometimes it's actually really valid to not touch into the alarming sense of doom and threat in your body when you're riding the bus home from work. Right, the conditions, the environment, the capacity to feel a sense of safety even might not meet that context, and so awareness is the the first, largest and hardest step, right, to have that sense of awareness. So I'm really noticing this massive experience in my body and there's a response that maybe I am distracting, maybe I pick up my phone, maybe I call a friend and um again, these I'm using the word distraction and sometimes that we can call them tools. Right, sometimes we can call them tools, sometimes we can call them distractions. Um, so having that awareness of what's emergent, whether we actually have the environment and the conditions to be able to meet it, is a really great discernment for us.
Speaker 2:And sometimes, if you're riding the bus home and you start to sense and you have to pick up on something really large in your body, and then there's a sense of hey, well, we can't do this right now. Sometimes there's a little gap of space where you can have a little conversation with that, that which is within you, like, hey, I hear you, I'm acknowledging you. Right now is not the best time for me to be able to fully be with you. I'm going to come back to you, I'm going to come back to you and then there might be some other resource. It might be you turn to talk to the person beside you, or you pick up the phone, or there might even be a capacity for you to widen right, how we talked about just before taking in. I'm going to keep going with this bus example, taking in the interior of the bus, taking in the exterior of the bus, so that there's this widening out from within you as well, giving in a lot of space, and then, when there is a time where the context is right again doing quotation marks there, the context feels like it is conducive for meeting something within you, whether that's in the support of a mentor or whether that's in the support of your own loving witness.
Speaker 2:There's this still this, this, uh, necessary need to give it space, and that can sometimes look like first setting a resource for yourself. So that might be finding somewhere in your body that just feels okay. It doesn't have to feel good, it doesn't have to feel pleasurable, because sometimes we don't feel our body at all at all like gosh. I remember longing to know what it feels like, to feel pleasure in my body, both physical and energetic or emotional, rather like I yeah, I remember, um, being so desensitized to my body that I was in a pleasure practice and started to freak out because I actually couldn't feel anything, even though I was doing all the moves and the tricks that I knew there was no sensation. So I just want to really acknowledge that sometimes the feeling in our body isn't there and that's okay.
Speaker 2:That's also a message, that's also a sensation. Numbness is also a sensation. It's also communication from our body. So we can meet that numbness with the same curiosity and compassion that we would meet any other sensation in our body too. So, yeah, awareness, checking the context, maybe having a conversation, if we need to, with that sensation and then creating the context, creating the conditions to meet it with that sensation and then creating the context, creating the conditions to meet it, creating a resource for ourselves.
Speaker 2:That might be an inner resource, where I said, you know, there might be somewhere in your body that just feels okay. Maybe it's your big toe, maybe you just feel like you could hang out there in your big toe for a little while. You feel like you could hang out there in your big toe for a little while. You feel like you could, you could maybe rest there even. And if there's nowhere in your body that feels like that, it might be that you look around the external body around you. So the room that you're in, or maybe you're out in nature somewhere, is there somewhere that you could just rest your eyes on, might be a particular color or a particular texture or shape pattern that it just feels like. Oh yeah, I can, can hang out there for a little bit.
Speaker 2:And so, again, we're stacking these, these conditions, these, these, um, these support mechanisms. That's a good, so one's a bit mechanical for what we're trying to talk about here. But these support mechanisms that's a good thing, sounds a bit mechanical for what we're trying to talk about here. And then there might be a possibility to widen yourself, to welcome the sensation to come to meet you. You know we've all had had. Well, maybe we've had this experience where there's this really cool dog that we just want to love and we just want to pat and we just want to.
Speaker 2:Maybe this is, maybe you don't like dogs at all, um, uh or some other animal where you could be a cat, yeah, it could be a cat, could be a cat, right, yeah, I think cats may be in a better example, because cats are sassy, um, and when you rush up to it wanting to, you know, give it all the attention.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it freaks out well, hey, well, this is too much and it might back away. But sometimes if you hold out your hand and you allow I'm going to use the dog as the example you allow the dog to come up to sniff your hand. Then sometimes there's a permission piece that happens where your hand is welcomed to stroke the dog, not with words. Dog doesn't say, hey, yeah, man, all good, give me a pat, right, but there's a sense in you, maybe for it. Oh, okay, I'm welcome to to be here now, um, and so maybe with our sensations, either health, expressions or emotions, or even thoughts, beliefs, everything that gets held in our soma, in our bodies, that it also has an intelligence too and it also needs to be in relationship with us. So how can we start to treat that like it's, like it's a living, breathing experience too?
Speaker 1:I'm making the yummy noises. The yummy, oh, delicious. This is something that in in session with crystal will do a lot of like. Is the mm. Yummy, ah, delicious. This is something that in session with Crystal we'll do a lot of like. Oh yeah, because there is really.
Speaker 1:I appreciate the example with the animal because I think for people who perhaps struggle to pay attention to themselves, that being perhaps with an animal might be an easier path to noticing. It can be less activating in terms of people's physiology to pay attention to another being whilst noticing our own internal being. But I think it gives the mind something to to distract or attach to, whilst having presence with the body and and that trust of noticing the animal's energy and paying attention to one's own energy. And then, and then that gentle approach, that gentle kind of mindful presence which I think even people with quite complex trauma do very well. It's almost like an oversensitization to others and other beings and a lack of self-sensation. So I appreciate that exercise because I think what that bridges is the individual's sensations, too right that that's also an important part of the process. What do I notice in me in the presence of this being, which I think is quite delicious, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think, yeah, hearing you say that it really helps me remember that we can also tend, with that same gentle curiosity or soft fascination, to our whole body as a whole as well.
Speaker 2:Right, so maybe there's this longing to to feel so intimately connected with yourself that we might rush in like, okay, I'm going to know myself now, I'm going to do three personal development, soma, embodiment practices a day, and, and I'm going to, and I'm going, I'm gonna, you know, be the best and be able to figure all of this out, and and then I'll know myself, and, and then we might rush right past the point trying to get somewhere that we're not already. Um, so, if we can, yeah, maybe, marry that same intention into meeting our whole whole soma as well, our whole body, our whole self, um, the divine within us as us as well, again, it it welcomes in this, um feel greater capacity and greater intimate connection because there's a relationship. It's not just one way, there's no forcing and fixing and trying. Yeah, there's relationality there which maybe, if you've ever had a one-sided friendship before, they're quite exhausting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but right, but when there's two pouring into it, it's so much more fertile for growth, and by growth I mean becoming yeah, I like distinguishing growth because I think, like you, I was very much in the achievement-based identity teacher's pet, almost identifying who I was with this list of certificates or achievements or accomplishments, and yet it never gave me a sense of completeness. What do you think you know is, I guess, a message that you would hope listeners could receive in this journey, in this conversation about this process of coming home to their bodies and to their own innate knowing.
Speaker 2:Oh, that I get it. I get it. That, yeah, that it feels like you need to, to do more and be more in order to, to receive um, in order to feel like that's enough or you're enough. I really understand and it sounds like mel understands too um, and and again it. I I would hope that that process of um unlearning that connection is a gentle process as well, because in some way, in some way, that um belief system has supported and sustained you. So, rather than a message, I would offer an invitation of getting curious to to where or how in your life, that belief system, that um, that pattern, is supporting you, right, okay, how is it? How is it sustaining you? How is it? Um, actually, yeah, how, how is it supporting, sustaining and um, providing for you? That's the word I'm looking for providing, because if you're just going to attempt to rip out that belief system, I'm just going to do my positive affirmations I am enough, I am enough, I am enough, right without actually coming into the embodied sense of where in your body that's supporting a pattern, supporting a protection or possibility. Even it's like ripping a teddy away from a baby. Supporting a protection or possibility, even it's like ripping a teddy away from a baby that that belief system is in some way supporting, and if we can start to have an understanding and an appreciation, like an actual sense of gratitude and a sense of acknowledgement of wow, okay, that has fueled and sustained me in many ways, and then we can start to have the sovereignty of okay, and is that still needed now? Is that still needed now or was that a pattern belief system that supported me when I was five? And if it is still supporting me now, okay, what are some other more conducive, more supportive ways that aren't conditional? To remember and know within myself that that I actually already am everything that I wish to become, and I, from experience, know that when I am rested because when I'm most connected to that knowing it's quite a paradox, really Every great spiritual truth confuses the heck out of our frontal lobe brain. And isn't that so glorious? Isn't it so glorious that we get so confused? Right, because again, it widens us. It widens us.
Speaker 2:I remember sitting in circle at a gathering at the ashram. I lived at the center of yoga for about five months. Just recently, and towards the beginning of it, we sat in circle with one of the swamis, a spiritual teacher, guru. Recently, and towards the beginning of it, we sat in circle with one of the smamis, which are a spiritual teacher, guru, and she asks why do you meditate? And straight away within myself, to know myself. I heard this voice inside me. I meditate so that I know myself. And um, and that was the truth.
Speaker 2:For a very long time I meditated so that I could become familiar with myself, and that is so supportive and has sustained me for many, many years. Um, and it's a yes, and some of my two favorite words, yes and yes. Meditation, uh, can and could be to become familiar with yourself, become familiar with your, uh, your patterns, your thoughts, your sensations, your protections, your tendencies, um, and in the circle that we're sitting on, um, she started to, to share, I think from memory I didn't even say anything, it was just picked up in the ether about the art of hanging in the questions that, yes, the answer is great, the answer is in this context, I'm meaning knowing yourself, or knowing your body, or having that discernment, and there's something that weaves us so intimately with the divine when we're in the unknown, when we're in the question, and we can sit in the question not needing to fix that discomfort, not needing to rush to the answer, but to hang out in the longing a little bit. And yeah, there's a fine dance between that, and I've had chats with one of my mentors about this. Yeah, his name's Neil. He's a beautiful, beautiful man of Native American descent and he talks about when we're too much in the question.
Speaker 2:There's pain and there's suffering and there's oh, how do I know myself, how do I figure this out? What do I do? And then, when we're too much in the answer, there's this like stagnation, like, like it's like a river that stops moving. It becomes hypoxic, right, it dies. So there's this like end point, right, and what? What happens when a, when a heart beat, what are those things? Called that measures? If you're watching the video I'm doing my fingers like it, but maybe you get a sense of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I can't remember, but I guess it's like waves or any patterns in nature, right? Even feelings rising and falling like the ebb and flow of life forms, right.
Speaker 2:Totally yeah, right, and when that's a there's a flat line, it dies. So then there's this. There's art between okay, how can I sit in the space between? That allows me to to flow and touch into the state of knowing and discernment and um and self-wisdom, and also this, these really big questions that we sit with, like who am I and what do I want to? What do I value, what do I want to do with my life? Like yeah, I met this beautiful, um 50 year old guy the other day and he's like I'm still asking myself the question of what I want. What do I want to be when I grow up? I love that. I love that so much because these poor 17 year olds, 15 year olds, gosh, 10 years that get asked or almost perhaps made to feel like they need to have an answer of what they want to be for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:As if we're meant to be something like other than human right. It's kind of quite yeah, dumbfounding yeah.
Speaker 2:And to choose one thing. To choose one thing. To choose one thing right. When, how small, to confine us to only being one thing, to only having to be, you know, no symptoms or no, no emotion. Emotion or just peace, right, but where is the aliveness, where is the suffering that opens you so much that perhaps is the reason that we're all here? Right these depths within ourselves and to let them open us rather than close us in fear of future pain.
Speaker 1:I like the exploration of the dialectic right between pleasure and pain and all the complexity in between, and I guess that's something that a well-integrated mind can hold. And yet, when you're in those kind of like depths of despair, it's really hard to contemplate being able to hold that degree of complexity, or to be able to hold pain and pleasure concurrently and see them as helpful forces. Right, it's just like, oh, I can't see the forest through the trees, like, I guess, what I'm wondering for someone who's listened to this and thought, oh my God, I want to work with Crystal. How can they reach out and find out about how to work with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, firstly just wanted to touch on something that you said there about that dialect of trying to remember that there's beauty when you're so deep in the pain and, yes, there's a dialect and also there's beauty in the pain that they're separate, but they're not separate and when we can start to have that, I guess, allowance of possibility, which might even start by practicing saying yes, and so often we might say, oh, yeah, I feel really sad, but it's a blue sky day and the swans are out and I let live by the river. So like there's our feeling here of, oh, I feel really sad, but oh, I'm all good and everything's positive and I've closed and right.
Speaker 2:So if there's a possibility for us to acknowledge that both can exist at the one time, even just in the languaging that we use, that I feel really sad and everything's beautiful, yeah, yummy sounds coming out of my mouth um, yeah, so yeah, I guess, if, if there's a curiosity, uh, if there's a holding a hand out to a dog within you, um, you, yeah, you can find some more um, information or um, I guess, keep, keep snacking on your curiosity on my website, um which I wonder if Mel might link somewhere. But also, it's bhavabody, b-h-a-v-a body, b-o-d-y, comau, and bhava is a Sanskrit word that has two translations One is our innermost feelings, our innermost being, our state, and also it translates be and become, which again, is one of those beautiful paradoxes we might think. Being and becoming are separate.
Speaker 1:What if the becoming is within the being? You have a gift for language, which I also love, and and there's this passage on crystal's page which I think is really beautiful and I hope will inspire some of your own being and becomings for anyone who's found this and wants to explore it more deeply. But it reads I found freedom in the remembrance of my own inner connection to my body and to the body of the world. I learnt through an embodied experience that, when given the right conditions, our bodies know what to do. Our beings guide us through our bodies, as I was led to where and whom and when I needed for my healing and for my embodied liberation, and I think it's just like a really, yeah, beautiful way to summarize how you work and support and mentor and care and love people and beings and bodies and, uh, and and I know when I met you I certainly had that that deep felt experience in your presence and, yeah, I would just um, absolutely I've.
Speaker 1:I speak crystals uh, praises from the rooftops. I think the work that you do is incredibly helpful, especially for people who tend to be overly cognitive, and, at least in my experience, I found that especially helpful to move back into my body and to be present with it. So, yes, I will put all the links um in the description below. Um, this will be available on podcast and youtube. And, yeah, I just want to say thank you so much, uh, for joining me today. You're just incredible and the work that you do is, uh, incredibly supportive, uh, and and deeply welcoming and welcoming just however people arrive, which is different and, I think, sets you apart and has people experiencing themselves more fully as you hold the spaciousness for that to take place. So, thank you for my experience and thank you for coming on the Place for Connection podcast I deeply appreciate it and for tolerating the roof noise, which is quite extreme. Sorry, listeners, is there anything that you want to leave listeners with before we finish up? Hmm, hmm.
Speaker 2:That's really funny. I'm sitting and resting and pausing and seeing if anything comes, and there's nothing, it's just silent. And I've seen then there's a thought crap, you've been silent for so long, you should say something smart. And then I'm like maybe it's the pause, maybe that's what I want to leave with is um, yeah, just that little pause and and perhaps a gentle reminder to, yeah, snack on little pauses, little moments of um, not needing to fill, not needing to fill this day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you so much, mel, thank you oh, you're so welcome and isn't pausing like, yeah, a nice snack to finish with that. You know you can pause and that that's also. You know, beautiful, beautiful and loving and inviting and yeah, so we'll finish there. Thank you so much. You're just fabulous and yeah, and I'm excited to keep doing my own personal work with you and yeah, thank you so much for joining us on the Place for Connection podcast, Crystal Ryan.
Speaker 2:Thanks, beautiful Mel. So lovely to be here.
