Malcolm Stern: 0:46

Welcome to my podcast, Slay your Dragons With Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my friends at online events, having a range of very interesting guests, and today is no exception whatsoever. And, andrew, you've got a very interesting story. I don't know where the story is going to lead, but I think the main thing is the one is that you're a profound businessman, so you're not a flake, and yet you also run wizard training and uh, I don't know if that's accurate, but something along those lines, and perhaps you could tell us a bit about that and what, what makes you a wizard and what is a wizard training out there?

Andrew Wallas: 1:21

well, I I created the school for wizards, which is a, a brand I love, and we we had two trainings every year, about 18 people in each training, and the two pillars of that training is that everyone is already a wizard, so everyone has the capacity for creativity, for magic, for alchemy, and the course is basically about clearing what's in the way, about clearing what's in the way, clearing the mental constructs, the emotional, the spiritual baggage that is getting in the way of people living a life as alchemists or as wizards, and so that's very simple and it's based around a quadrinity of the physical, the mental, the emotional and the spiritual very interesting.

Malcolm Stern: 2:12

And and and what led you towards wizardry? You didn't presumably wake up.

Andrew Wallas: 2:17

Well, no, I know it was actually quite a funny story because I was I. I trained as a psychotherapist, I'd done a lot of different trainings in psychology and body work and did some wacky stuff in India, and a journalist once wrote quite a long piece about me for no less than the Daily Mail, actually, which was and she phoned me up before she submitted her piece and she said look, what do I call you? I don't know. She'd been to see me and she said it's like nothing else. I don't know what you do. What do you want me to call you? And I said well, I don't know what I call myself and in fact I don't call myself anything. You're the writer, you decide.

Andrew Wallas: 2:59

So she then wrote this piece and said he's like a modern day wizard he shifts people's energy. And at the time, malcolm, I hated it. I thought, oh my. At the time, malcolm, I hated it. I thought, oh my god. And then, about six months later, somebody suggested to me why don't you rebrand as the modern day wizard? And I thought well, I like that because I'm not an old-fashioned wizard. I like the idea of being being modern day yeah and it all flowed from there.

Malcolm Stern: 3:24

Really, because often one would see, or I would see I don't one, I went just to sort of like just as myself, but I would obviously see something that called itself wizardry or something like that, as probably quite flaky. You're the last thing I know of flaky. I mean, you're very grounded, you have a good career, you're an entrepreneur, you're lots of things, and yet this wizard is quite an interesting sort of parallel path that you're taking well, I think that's a really fair comment, malcolm and I.

Andrew Wallas: 3:56

I think there's two aspects to it. What, what I discovered, is it attracted and alienated people in equal measure. So I saw I, you're right, I saw a lot of people that said, oh, I want to go and the Wizard. And then they shared it with their children and they turned up at my door and said, oh, you're not wearing a you know, a peaky hat. And then a lot of their husbands and businessmen thought it was ridiculous and it sort of slightly alienated them. So it was interesting to see who was attracted to that and who was repelled by it.

Andrew Wallas: 4:32

But I think the other element of it for me is all of my life, since I was about two years old, I've really been a rebel. I've been a nonconformist. I've always wanted to work out ways of doing it differently and I got to a place in my life where I felt the outer constructs and the categories. So, for example, I didn't want to be a psychotherapist, I didn't want to be a coach. There was a whole lot of options that put people in boxes and then you had the whole regulation piece. That suddenly regulation became a big piece and I thought I, I don't want to fit into any of those categories, and what I said on my website and what I said to people is when the government starts to regulate wizards, I'll call myself something else so I've often thought that, with with psychotherapy, I could call myself a mentor, for example.

Andrew Wallas: 5:32

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting and I think mentor is fine. I think you are a mentor and I quite like the word elder. You know I'm I'm now in a a particular stage of my life, like you, and I do value mentoring and eldering. You know other people and communities. I think that's in in other societies. They do that so much better.

Malcolm Stern: 5:54

You know they do, because I often feel that the title psychotherapist sort of shrinks me into a particular box. Yeah, and actually I yeah essentially because I'd have to come out with some arrogance, but I don't feel arrogant about it. I think I have some wisdom that I'm able to adapt to people's scenarios and it seems to work, and I've got some tools that I work that wisdom with. Now I'm thinking about am I now a wizard? You?

Andrew Wallas: 6:23

are. No, you're. You're definitely a wizard to me. You're one of my top wizards, I think I think so. For me you definitely are and you know it's like everything, all of my work and in in the uh, clinical room, I use humor a lot. So for me you know people. I don't really like the word spiritual or spirituality, but but anyone who thinks they're spiritual or anyone who's on that path, if they haven't got a good sense of humor, I'm suspicious of them.

Malcolm Stern: 6:54

That's really interesting. I went to a sort of an evening with quite a well-known spiritual teacher, yeah, and I came away from it going. Everything you said was really profound and wise, but it didn't touch me, and I thought the reason it didn't touch me is the humor wasn't there, didn't touch me and I thought the reason it didn't touch me is the humor wasn't there. And so, even when I'm working with quite deep trauma with people, I will often use humor as a way of actually diverting, not not of walking away from it, but of diverting it in order to allow some lightness to come in. Yeah, and I think what you're saying is really important, the use of humor in in our work is really important.

Andrew Wallas: 7:32

I do that a lot, Malcolm, like you, and there was a moment, many, but probably 12 years ago, when I was in my course room and there was stuff happening and we reached that moment where we we both sort of dissolved into uncontrollable laughter. And in that moment what I realized and I don't mean this completely literally, this is a statement that has some truth that we can explore but in that moment I realized that in one sense, it doesn't really matter whether we're raging and hitting a mattress with a baseball bat, whether we're sobbing and there's snot on the end of our nose or whether we're laughing uncontrollably, because all those things are shifting the energetic field around us, and so for me, humour and laughter is desperately important.

Malcolm Stern: 8:25

I like that, andrew, that definitely goes along with it. I mean it doesn't mean it's right, because you and I both agree. I do get that sense of without humour. We become very po-faced or we can easily spiritually bypass and I've seen a lot of that in my time at Alternatives is that people would get up on stage and you would see that they're naming great achievements.

Andrew Wallas: 8:48

Yes.

Andrew Wallas: 8:48

They don't seem to be embodying it in the same way and of course, the other pitfall is that it leads to a form of asceticism or denial. So in all the great religions and spiritual practices there are pathways where people take seriousness or asceticism to extremes and, by the way, I definitely have a good ascetic within me. I can go down that pathway and I spent years experimenting with asceticism and hedonism and I eventually thought hedonism was probably more fun. But so I think you know a mixture and a lightness. The Buddhists have this expression wear life like a loose garment, and you can't always do that, but actually the extent to which you can have a sort of laity or brevity about what's going on, however difficult I the the pathway through it becomes so much easier and I think that's really profound, as long as we also go for the depths and don't just lift it into the the, you know the sort of like the sweet and lovely no, a hundred percent.

Andrew Wallas: 10:05

So so all of my work. There's a beautiful saying by Carl Jung that says we don't become enlightened by dancing with angels. We become enlightened by going into the darkness type thing. And so all of my work is really shadow work and I deal, like you, I deal with trauma a lot, but again, what.

Andrew Wallas: 10:25

I found, and I don't know what's going to come out of my mouth. But in the midst of trauma, when people are reliving very, very difficult situations, sometimes humor just shifts, and so you've got to deal with the trauma. And to me there's only two options with trauma you either live it and you're bitter for the rest of your life, or you transform it into wisdom. So you know, when you talk about being wise, wisdom comes from transforming trauma. For me that's. You know.

Malcolm Stern: 11:05

Okay, that's lovely. That sort of leads me into where we're heading now.

Andrew Wallas: 11:09

Oh, okay, I like to oblige.

Malcolm Stern: 11:11

You do, you do. You've got a very good segue job here. So the podcast was inspired by the suicide of my daughter 10 years ago. Yes, and I wrote a book called Slay your Dragons With Compassion, and I now run the podcast called Slay your Dragons With Compassion, and what I learned in the process was that by going into and allowing the trauma to mold me and shape me, I became a bigger person. I didn't go, oh, hello god. I'd like to sort of go through a real trauma and tragedy so that I can grow, but somehow it happened, despite me yes.

Malcolm Stern: 11:47

I'm wondering whether you've had I'm just thinking about personalizing, because I love your philosophy and I think you are definitely a wise man, andrew, and I'm not for you, but I've always found that in knowing you and but I'm just wondering how your, your own personal trauma challenge has shaped you and what's led you to where you are.

Andrew Wallas: 12:08

So, if I may, I'll tell you two brief stories. One's a bit longer than another.

Malcolm Stern: 12:13

They can be long, it's all right.

Andrew Wallas: 12:16

I once had this therapist who flew over from Germany to see me and I do three hour sessions. So I do a session in the morning, a session in the afternoon and I did this three hour session and it happened to be particularly crazy or wackier than most, you know. We did breathing, we did psychodrama, we did all sorts of different role play etc. And as he was leaving he said can I ask you something? And I said sure, and he said where did you learn to do all that stuff? And I paused and I said 30 years of pain. And that was again. I didn't know what I was going to say. That's what came out and the beginning of all this, malcolm, when you asked me, you know why, was I a wizard or et cetera? I could have gone back to 1984, which obviously is just over 40 years ago.

Andrew Wallas: 13:06

So I had a very successful business career and I was making a lot of money and I was flying around the world first class and I was drinking very heavily and I was taking drugs, but it was more alcohol than drugs. It's a very well-trodden pathway and I got to the point where I couldn't carry on. So I gave it all up and I had three weeks of euphoria and then I became clinically depressed and I was quite paranoid, very anxious. I was seeing a psychiatrist and I literally ran away to America and my world was getting smaller and smaller and I was madder and madder and I was staying in a little flat at the top of this building, a tiny little room, and I was having a particularly bad time and I was definitely suicidal and I always felt and I don't want to offend you in any way, but I felt for me that my suicide was quite rational, because I remember lying on a psychiatrist couch and saying even I'm going to live like this for the next 20 years, I don't want to be here, and that felt like an incredibly rational thought.

Andrew Wallas: 14:22

So I was in that place where I didn't want to live, didn't want to die, and I have no idea why I did this. I mean, I in one sense I do, but but I went into this bedroom, I knelt down by the side of the bed in a very sort of childlike prayer and I said the most honest prayer that I've ever said in my life, before or since, and I said if there's a God, for fuck's sake, do something now. That's what I said, that was my prayer.

Malcolm Stern: 14:48

Right.

Andrew Wallas: 14:49

And it came from every sinew in my body and, like other people have have um have written this. There's a great book by William James. The variety is a religious experience. I'm sure you've read it. But instantly I felt this peace that I'd never experienced before and I felt the presence of Now. I wouldn't want to give a lecture or even talk for two minutes about what the presence of God means, but that's all I can say. That's what I felt, and I don't know whether I was on my knees by that bed for two minutes or two hours. I still don't know. But that experience is as vivid to me now as it was then and it changed everything. So a psychologist might say it was a collapse of the ego boundaries and something shifted in the egoic field, and that's fine. But for me it changed the direction of my life profoundly what I'm hearing actually in this interview.

Malcolm Stern: 15:51

It's quite interesting because I'm a psychologist so I could easily yes, yes, that's absolutely accurate. Yeah, but what I could say to that is that I actually believe that your prayer was this is from my perspective yes, and I believe that your prayer was actually transmitted you actually reached the point where you genuinely hit, had hit rock bottom. Yeah, that you genuinely meant please show me yourself or I can't take it anymore. Yeah exactly.

Malcolm Stern: 16:18

And I think there is something about going to the edge. Yes, so I had a heart attack about three years ago. Okay, I'm in the ambulance thinking I'm going to die. Yeah, I'm sitting in the ambulance and it's like I'm in quite a lot of pain and discomfort and suddenly I came to the place where I might die and there was suddenly some peace came over me and some bliss came over me. It sounds very similar to what you just described. It was OK. It really was OK, and I thought this is so weird, but I went with it.

Andrew Wallas: 16:50

Isn't that beautiful. Because the thing is malcolm, as you and I both know, we're all going to die, you're going to die, I'm going to die, we're going to die and actually I genuinely, intellectually and I think also existentially, I have no fear of death. I, I think when we die it's going to get exciting, you know, I think all sorts of things are going to happen. And Osho, who a lot of people will know, but Osho once said death the ultimate orgasm, and I ran a workshop in Sussex. I ran two or three workshops, two day workshops on death, the ultimate orgasm, and on the first one my 84 year old mother turned up with her best friend. It was quite an experience, but actually, once we really confront death, which we sort of wrongly present as finality, it really worked, piece, because there's nothing. What else are people gonna throw at us?

Malcolm Stern: 17:52

it's very true, but it's quite a journey to get to that place where it's genuine, and I think that's that's the key. I know that you're genuine, I know that you do not bullshit. It's interesting because I said to you at the beginning if there's anything you want to edit out, let me know. And you said no, and I genuinely get it. You're speaking your truth, yeah, and and unless we get into a fisticuffs which you won't be able to do online, anyway you're going to. It's going to bring the dialogue, it's going to create an exploration that we're both on this. That's what I love about these podcasts is that it's getting to a joint exploration. Yes, so actually you're bringing up a really important subject here, because death is the ultimate thing that people fear.

Malcolm Stern: 18:31

Yeah, and I've interviewed some people who are dying on on this, on this podcast, um, to see what their process is, and I worked with this guy who was, who was in one of my ongoing groups, who was dying, and he and he wanted to meet each person in the group and look them in the eyes and talk to them about what dying felt like, and we received him and it was one of the most beautiful sessions it could have been oh my god, this guy's dying. You know what can we do? But no one felt like they needed to fix him, no one felt like there was going to be some magic formula, he was going to get better and he did eventually die. But he, he got fully met by our group, and and so I love what you're saying about death, the ultimate orgasm yeah, it is that. We are on journey. We're on a journey through eternity, obviously, unless we are blind to that as well. And what can we do with this one wild and precious life?

Andrew Wallas: 19:23

well, we're already on that journey, aren't we? Because the eternity stretches backwards and forwards. So, basically, you know, we, we are spirit, we are eternal and this experience in our body, even as beautiful as your body is, malcolm, and my body is, is even more beautiful my head's got a bit fat these days me, me too, but it's still.

Andrew Wallas: 19:47

It's still just a sort of it. It's a short period of time and, like you, I I share two things with you. On Wizard School, we had two people dying in completely different trainings and that opened up the group and opened up the individuals in the group in a way nothing else could. So to me there was a magic in that that was unbelievably profound, and I've forgotten what the other thing is.

Malcolm Stern: 20:18

I was going to say it's gone and that's a good one anyway, and I just want to reflect on that. We had some very, something very interesting happened in my last two one-year groups. Yeah, so my last, the current, my current one-year group. One of the guys in the group died, not in the group but during the course of the group, but he'd reached the point in his life where he retired. He was drinking, he didn't have much going for him. I'm not making that right or wrong, I'm just saying that's the way it was and the group were upset. We, you know, we missed having him in our midst, um, but the year before I had this beautiful man called Matthew Pruin, who's actually done one of these podcasts with me, um, and he was a Hoffman trainer. You probably know the Hoffman yes, I've done the Hoffman all right.

Malcolm Stern: 21:00

So he's a. It was a Hoffman trainer and a profound man and a Palestinian and he helped put across the Palestinian cause in a way that would really educate the group and his life was so full and rich and he got pancreatitis, died, quite you know, three months in intensive care and died and the distress in that group at the loss of this beautiful soul was enormous and I think there's something about living our purpose that makes it. Let's really give it our all, because once we find out, people often say to me you know, are you going to retire? Well, I have no concept of what will I do. I can go for walks and shopping.

Andrew Wallas: 21:39

Yeah, so I've remembered my other story, which is, again, is a wonderful segue to what you just shared, malcolm. So I had this client that came to see me once and I can't remember his name and I sat with him for two hours we even had a slightly shorter session and I've never seen him again. And he was dying, he had cancer and he was a beautiful soul, like the man you talked about. And he walked in and he said the reason I'm here is, he said I've got a dilemma that I can't resolve. And I said okay. And he said I was given this terminal diagnosis four months ago and over the last four months, he said I discovered a depth of love within me for my wife and for my children that I didn't know was possible. Beautiful, yeah.

Andrew Wallas: 22:29

And he described the relationship with his wife, with his children and with his friends. And he said I didn't know that anyone could experience this. And I said what's the dilemma? And he said if I had to choose again, would I choose to die and go to leave them before and or whatever? And it's so beautiful. And in the end I suggested to him. I said why do you need to resolve the dilemma? It's a dilemma. It's like there might not be an answer, but you can't change reality. So, but he, he was so grateful for the experience that his terminal cancer had given him, because without that he wouldn't have known, he would not have had that experience which is you've just raised a really important larger point in that as well, andrew.

Malcolm Stern: 23:25

So that's um, and that is that often when we hit the, the trauma where we can't escape from that trauma, like a death diagnosis or someone you love dying- yes it takes us into, it seems to me an altered state of consciousness where we actually become who we truly are.

Malcolm Stern: 23:43

Yes, stripped naked, and I think that's that's absolutely fascinating, that we are in a time in the world, on the largest world stage. Yes, a great deal of trauma and and difficulty. Yes, you can go. Oh God, this is such a terrible world. I don't want to be in it. Or how can I really live fully despite the pain and the struggle?

Andrew Wallas: 24:02

Well, it's almost aligned with the pain and the struggle, not despite, because, for me I think you're right We've created all these cultures and these societies where we get hung up on and conditioned into that. We're here to be happy, or here to be joyful, or where you know, and I don't know where these ideas come from, but they're very strong and very prevalent, and and the cultures we've created, I, I call them, you know, collective hypnosis. People are wandering around that they're, they're, they're, they're not really living, and so for me, in a generic way, one of the reasons that we're here is to evolve, is to awake. I like the term we need to wake up. I need to wake up. I'm a work in progress, and so, for me, the greatest catalyst for waking up is crisis.

Andrew Wallas: 24:55

That's what we've been talking from the moment we got together today. And so all this trauma in the world and the mess in the world Joseph Campbell once said the world's a mess, it's a perfect mess, and it is a perfect mess. It's supporting our collective evolution, it's supporting our collective awakening. And you know, I had an experience on Monday of this week where I had a very nasty fall, seven o'clock in the morning, pitch black, in the woods with the dogs. I'd gone out to early and I had excruciating pain and I was lying with my head in a muddy puddle.

Andrew Wallas: 25:37

And that experience has enriched me immensely in the last four or five days and there'll still be things that I'll be learning from it in the weeks and months to come. So, whatever experience you have and I could never speak for the people in Ukraine who are watching their mothers raped or children's rape I'm not. It's not my job they will have to speak for themselves when the time comes. But in my life I've had trauma. I've had, you know, crises, et cetera, et cetera, and what I know to be true is that over time and in many times it's taken me 20 years because I'm defiant and I'm resistant but over time I'm learning to transform each one of those traumas and wounds to wisdom. Yeah, Lovely.

Malcolm Stern: 26:35

I think that's actually a really, really succinct statement of our evolutionary process and it can lift the spirits of us and the people who are watching this as well. But actually we can go oh my God, why am I being punished by God or by life, rather than what is it? You know, the early Christian mystics used to say more suffering. They used to beg God. They knew it would wake them up. Say more suffering. They used to beg god. Yeah, they knew it would wake them up. Yeah, and I and I can see that you know my suffering if I look at it. For a long time I had a pretty bland not bland, but it's like quite an exciting life, but, yeah, not full of suffering, and I felt like I was sort of puttering along quite happily, yeah. Then you get the big trauma that comes and you go. Either I'm going to rise to this and allow that I didn't do this consciously, allow this to transform me or I'm going to be swamped by it.

Andrew Wallas: 27:26

Yeah, and I think that somehow those resources seem to come for me when that happened, and what I'm hearing is that your, your journey, has led you through similar spaces where actually you are now embracing what happens to you and not fighting with the process yeah, and I I don't want to be picky with you, malcolm, but but one of the things I thought, as when I logged on and I had a few moments, I thought I, I think for me, in my experience, I've shifted from slaying the dragon to befriending the dragon. I think we have to befriend our demons, we have to befriend you know. You know, when I was a seven, eight year old boy, I was beaten until my bottom bled and it was a very traumatic experience and it stayed with me for 20, 30 years. But I can honestly say, if I think about it too much, I begin to tense in my body. I can feel it's there, but it doesn't really impact my life in any single way, shape or form.

Andrew Wallas: 28:30

And so I've befriended that experience and I no longer, you know whoever was doing the beating or the raping or whatever. I no longer blame them because they were fulfilling their role. That was assigned for me to have that experience, so to speak, and I don't do that lightly. Like you know, I've been into the trauma of it. I spent years sobbing and complaining and ranting about it, but eventually I think we need to befriend our demons, because we all have them, and the dragons and the nine-headed monsters and whatever else is there, and once we do that, we're at peace. And then, in my experience, we're at peace for a while and then the next one comes, comes alive exactly, exactly.

Malcolm Stern: 29:18

we don't get an easy ride. No, no, but I think we weren't designed to get and you know, if we look at the design of humanity, we weren't designed to have a lovely time. I mean, there's that great HG Wells, the Time Machine, where it goes forward 80,000 years into the future and the people there are all dressed in white and playing harps, but there's no challenge anymore. And I think it's the challenge that keeps me alert and alive. And I'm hearing very much that you have actually you've wrestled with your dragons? I definitely have. You've learned to defend them, and I actually think slaying is. For me, slaying is step one. Yes, face whatever it is. You've got to face and really uproot it, but then come to a place where we go. Or, as ramdas, who I studied with quite a lot, used to say also, come to a place where you go. Also, this is the way it is, I'm not fighting with it anymore. Yeah, but I think that's, that's a step on. So I don't think you're, I think it's great to know, I agree with you.

Andrew Wallas: 30:14

I think they're two different chapters.

Andrew Wallas: 30:16

Yes, exactly yes, and I I think I was talking to a young man yesterday who's a client on the telephone, he's 24 or something and, um, you know, he was complaining that he was struggling and struggling with something and it wasn't changing. And I was saying that it seems to me that life, that every species, not just the human species, every species, not just the human species, every species and even every plant species evolves through struggle. This sort of resonates with what Darwin said all that time ago. But the way we evolve, the way we develop resilience, the way we develop wisdom is through the struggle. And if you take the struggle away, you have weak plants, weak trees, weak animals and nothing evolves. So I think resetting and reframing the way we look at trauma and struggle and all of these things is really important, because otherwise we feel a victim. You know why has this happened to me?

Malcolm Stern: 31:18

because otherwise we feel a victim. You know why has this happened to me? And I think that's certainly where I'm coming to in myself as well. Originally, when Melissa died, my daughter died, I felt like, you know, there was a bastard god up there. I was raging against life, but bit by bit it educated me. And the thing is, I think we can't rush the education process. The struggle has to be gone through. We've got to go all the way in.

Andrew Wallas: 31:46

You have through there's no shortcuts, and the unfortunate thing is we live at a time when, when we've developed culture to such an extent that that wants it now and you know I'm as guilty as the next person I sit at my computer at 10 o'clock at night. I order something from Amazon. It arrives on my doorstep the next morning. It's like now, and one of my favourite stories, which comes from your cultural tradition, the Jewish, judeo-christian tradition is I love the story where we start out in the Garden of Eden, we start out in paradise, which is really oneness. We start out in oneness and we walk around naked because there's nothing to hide and it's all lovely.

Andrew Wallas: 32:36

And then there's a decisive moment when we're separated from ourselves. We're cast out of a state of oneness and we create separation for the first time. And the first thing we do in the story is we blame God. We say God expelled us from the state of oneness, just like you did with your. You know the bastard. God created this separation, when in fact, the only person that can ever create separation is me. We step out of oneness to separation and then, in a way, I think all of our lives and evolution is getting back to that state of oneness. So I think the experience that you described in the in the ambulance going to the hospital, when you thought I'm going to die, you you just suddenly you're in oneness with everything because there's nothing.

Andrew Wallas: 33:28

You know, yeah, the experience I have when I'm kneeling by the side of the bed, now I, I would say in my life, it's difficult to talk about. But I, I would say every week or every month, I have little moments of oneness, of touching oneness, and they're not always in meditation or something. Sometimes they're sitting at a kitchen table with a hot cup of tea, feeling completely sated, and then, the moment you have the experience, it's gone again.

Malcolm Stern: 33:55

Yes.

Andrew Wallas: 33:56

But I think evolution is really getting back to where we started, which is this sense of oneness because, but because when we're there I see that hurting you is hurting me, or or you know, it's like there's no point in any separation. So I've read books about it, and and there's great books about it, but but the books mean nothing without the experience.

Malcolm Stern: 34:23

I think that's the thing we could be philosophers and sort of stand back from the experience. Yeah, we can actually throw ourselves into onto the stage and allow the experience to basically break us open yes and um, uh. Michael mead says that, um, um. In order to become who we truly are, not only does the heart have to be broken, it has to be broken many times. Yes, the only heart heart worth having is is a broken heart that we learn how to heal.

Andrew Wallas: 34:53

I completely agree. And there's a woman whose name I've forgotten, but there's a paragraph she wrote about multiple heartbreaks and eventually it breaks wide open. But you know, but until you go, and if you're not willing to go through that, then you'll never get there. It's the only way out is through, and it's difficult to go into the trauma, as you know, malcolm, and you think, after you've been doing it. I've been doing this stuff for 40 years, as you have pretty much, and you'd think it gets easier, but it doesn't. I always say to people that the next thing for me to work on I must have hidden incredibly well, or I would have got to it before now. So actually, the resistance is still the same, the temptation to blame others is still the same, but we learn some tools along the way, as you talked about.

Malcolm Stern: 35:49

And I think there's also a temptation to allow ourselves to follow addictive paths to escape from it. And it can be quite subtle. It doesn't have to be getting mind mindlessly drunk or stoned brains. It can be eating sugar that actually takes you away from your feelings, yes, it can be blobbing out on television or whatever. Yeah, and I think what I'm feeling inspired by by today's talk is that actually this dialogue, because I feel that this dialogue is beautiful. I'm really enjoying engaging with yourew.

Malcolm Stern: 36:20

So it's, um, it's really lovely and and I think when I'm I'm coming away from this because we're coming towards the end of our, our time, but what I'm coming away from this dialogue with is a renewed reminder that actually, I am on an endless journey through eternity and that that waking up is the only thing worth having it is and everything else could be a distraction, but I don't want to distract myself.

Malcolm Stern: 36:46

I want to embed myself in the journey of evolution, yeah, so, um. So I always ask my, my guests, this at the end of the podcast, which is um and I know we've talked about the slay and the and the tame or the slay and the befriend, um, but I asked which dragon have you had to slay? What hurdles have you had to overcome in order to be who you are today?

Andrew Wallas: 37:12

wow. Well, there, there are too many really. The ones that come to mind are, you know, judgment. It's so full judgment, and that's a good example of just befriend my judgment. I'm never going to live a life without judgment. Envy is another big one, you know egoic. You know I catch myself thinking I'm actually quite good. You know the ego.

Andrew Wallas: 37:35

You know, and so it goes on. And I think, if I had to pick two and I think these are underrated in people's psyche or the work that they do I think one of the most damaging and dangerous ones that I've discovered in myself that is very prevalent is the desire to be special, it's specialness, and I used to have some. I don't know if you remember emma cannon. She, she died recently. She was just a beautiful soul and and she was in my wizard school and and I, I called her out on specialness and and ever since, for years, she and I used to laugh about specialness, that we want to be special, and someone once said that the only thing that God cannot do for us is to say that we're special.

Andrew Wallas: 38:28

You're not more special than me, I'm not more special than you, and so specialness comes up in all sorts of forms. And the other thing which I was going to say, which is the same, is the other side of the same coin, is I've noticed in me time and time again, and it's a cycle that comes around Is that part of me that wants to be worse and badder than anyone else? It is, you know. No, no, no, I'm really. You know, you're vile. You're vile, you're a heap, you know I, no, no, no, I I'm I'm really.

Andrew Wallas: 39:01

You know, you're vile, andrew, you're vile you're, I a heap, you know you're, you're a saint compared to me, mark. So I I think that's another form of specialness, you know, and I I encounter this in myself and particularly in addicts, and you know a lot of I've worked with a lot of heroin addicts, a lot of cocaine. They, they deep down, they have this thing and I just say, oh, you want to be special and they're sort of right, no, no, no. They said we're in agony.

Malcolm Stern: 39:27

I said, no, no, you're just trying to be special, you know I think it's really lovely and sort of that's what I would call slaying your dragon when you come to the place and you actually you go for them in that way. Yes, so I really want to. Um, I'm really grateful that you've come on and it's really lovely to re-engage after many years.

Andrew Wallas: 39:44

Yeah, I haven't seen you for ages for ages.

Malcolm Stern: 39:47

but we were in a peer group together at one time where we were exploring wisdom it was called the wisdom group, yes, and and I really felt like, um, I watched you sort of like, sort of unerringly, go to the jugular of people who are in the group, challenging in a profound way. But there's also, I think you do slay your dragons or, in your case, befriend your dragons with compassion. I do see that there. Yeah, you won't let things slip so that you, just you, have an easier life. I think that's the way to just want to ask you have you written any books? Just you have an easier life.

Andrew Wallas: 40:20

I think that's that's the way to just want to ask you have you written any books? I, I just finished a book, actually, but I don't think it's going to come out, um, for sort of nine or twelve months. Um, I I basically because I get into alchemy a lot, and I started working with businesses, um, and I developed this program for transformation for businesses because I got to this point where I thought that actually you're not going to change the world by changing individuals. If you're going to change the world, you've got to work with business. And I worked very intensely with this one company that we transformed culturally in a very special way and then, of course, phenomenally, all the financials just went through the roof. So I've written a book about how we did that, which is more of a business book actually, and then before that I wrote my book on intention. So that that's a short read and I think it's. I've had good feedback from that.

Malcolm Stern: 41:21

Well, I think you, I think you've genuinely got something very real to say and I think you also, you're in arenas where many of the people who are exploring personal development are not in, and I think there is an opportunity for you in business to make a real difference in the world.

Malcolm Stern: 41:37

I remember one of my early therapists I'm going to come to the end of the video. I could chat, but one of my early therapists said to me um, I used to say money's evil, you know, although I was in a very sort of like, sort of like, you know, sort of white, white clothes and all this sort of stuff, he said. He said you know. He said if you had money, he said because you care about the environment. He said, um, if you don't have money, you can sign a petition about the rainforests. He said you have. If you become a very wealthy man, you can actually buy the rainforests. And I just thought it stayed with me that my thinking was skewed. Yeah, and what I'm hearing is that you're in environments where you have the possibility of altering the stage state of mind of people who truly can make a difference.

Andrew Wallas: 42:21

Yeah, immense possibilities. And one of the things that I practice all the time is I talk about this field of infinite possibility. So, every morning, sitting in silence, sitting in stillness not for long periods of time, but tapping into that field of infinite possibility, because that's what we've been talking about, malcolm, and in every given moment, anything is possible yeah, that's lovely and that's a lovely place to finish.

Malcolm Stern: 42:49

So thank you so much for coming on. It's been. Thank you catching up with you again, all right wonderful to see you.

Andrew Wallas: 42:55

You're looking younger than ever, if I may say so I'm reversing the aging present.

Malcolm Stern: 42:59

I've become benjamin button in the end yeah, all right bless you. Thank you, we'll be in touch, all right.