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Slay Your Dragons - Malcolm Stern
"Slay your dragons with compassion"
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within." - Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
Having run courses for a number of years for Onlinevents, he entered into a collaboration with John and Sandra Wilson, to put together a series of podcasts which featured interviews with people who had found enrichment through facing into, and ultimately overcoming adversity. The intention was to provide inspiration for its listeners to map out and challenge their own adversity. Some of his guests are well known - others less so, but each has a story to tell of courage, insight and spiritual and emotional intelligence.
More than 50 podcasts have been published so far and include Jo Berry’s moving story of transforming her fathers murder by the IRA in the Brighton bomb blast ( Sir Anthony Berry) by engaging with Pat McGee ( the man who planted the bomb) and finding forgiveness and meaning and an unlikely friendship. Andrew Patterson was an international cricketer who has found purpose and meaning after a genetic illness paralysed him and ended his sporting career. Jay Birch was an armed robber and meth addict , who woke up to his true self and now mentors and coaches other troubled individuals and Jim McCarty, a founder member of the Yardbirds , shares his story of his wife’s death from cancer and the deep spirituality he found in the wake of her passing.
All the podcasts are presented by Malcolm Stern. Who has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He is Co-Founder of Alternatives at St James’ Church in London and runs groups internationally.
Sponsored by Onlinevents
https://www.onlinevents.co.uk/
Slay Your Dragons - Malcolm Stern
Losing A Singing Voice Became The Door To Healing
A lost voice became a doorway. When our guest—a former international singer—underwent thyroid surgery and fell into silence, a drumbeat led to a startling vision of a warrior and an arrow to the throat. That image cracked open a deeper inheritance: the teachings of a shamanic grandfather, a flood of memory that reshaped a life built on stages into a life built on service. We walk with her from backstage glamour to soul work, where the goal is not to fix the self but to listen to the parts that have been shouting from the dark.
We lean into Ning meditation, a practice named for the cocoon we weave from hurt. Here, shadow is not a label but a living being with name, age, and story. Plates are set for these parts, gifts are offered, and rituals return dignity to what once sabotaged. Through drumming, secret chants, and elemental sessions—especially the fire that reveals ancestral repetition—students learn to travel into the shadow’s point of view and witness the exact moments where loyalty to the past overrides freedom in the present. This is soul hacking and soul archaeology: transforming the narrative by partnering with the soul and the shadow, not overpowering them.
The conversation widens to the collective: a world shaped by unworked shadows and the humility of tending what we can—our small circles, our food, our breath, our gratitude. Legacy becomes a practice, not a pedestal. We explore what it means to be “immortal” through actions that inspire long after we’re gone, and how service, paradoxically, returns us to joy. If you’re curious about shadow work, transgenerational healing, and rituals that make change feel real in the body, this one will meet you where words usually fail.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find these conversations. Your reflections keep the circle strong.
This Podcast is sponsored by Onlinevents
Hi, I'm Malcolm Stern, and in conjunction with my friends John and Sandra Wilson from Online Events, we're creating a series of podcasts called Slay Your Dragons with Compassion. My book of the same name was conceived and inspired by the suicide of my daughter Melissa and the journey that took me on and the internal resources that I found. All of my guests will have a story to tell around overcoming and ultimately thriving through adversity. Special thanks to the band Stairway, Jim McCarty and Louis Chenamo, for the use of theme music from their album Medicine Dance, and my engineer Owen Santiago. I hope you enjoy this series, and thanks for listening. So, welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons with Compassion, which I'm doing in conjunction with my very good friends John and Sandra Wilson at online events. I have a range of guests coming through this podcast, and uh we have everything from the the weird, the wild, the wonderful. And um and basically how people's lives have been affected by adversity and how it's helped shape them into who they are. So I'm very, very excited to welcome today's guest, uh Aminasa, um, who does um who is is basically as has described herself as a soul hacker, working with soul archaeology, and has a very strong shamanic background. And perhaps we can unwrap a little bit of that, Aminasa, and just see where where we go with that. So uh welcome, lovely to see you.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you, Notenko, happy to be here.
SPEAKER_00:And and how has how has adversity how's how has adversity led you to be doing what you're doing now?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, I love to say that in the image, if you don't mind. Of course. It's because I loved to to talk through images. Like it's the it's the language of the soul, isn't it? So um a few years ago, I lost my voice. I was a singer, I was an international singer, uh songwriter, I worked with Massi Batak, I've worked with uh Greg Armstrong, you know, I've recorded, you know Living Large. Okay, personal drivers, personal, everything personal. So I lost my voice. I had a thyroid surgery, and I had to do the surgery. And then after the surgery, I lost completely my voice. I was speaking like a robber like this. So that was really why me? Why me? Why me? Humble, compassionate, why me? I pick up my drum, my shamanic drum, beat it like a fire. Why me? I saw myself in a forest. There was a warrior coming towards me. And I raised my hand. There was another man behind the warrior, the warrior, which with which I was in complicity. Because I I had to distract the warrior. So while he was walking towards me, I raised my hand. Hey, hey, hey, he looked at me in that instant, a irrow straight back from from from his um behind him straight from the his neck neck, sorry, from his neck to the throat. Exactly. Um the same place that I have lost my voice. I felt that I had silence. This always moved me. I had silence, the just the voice of justice. Not physically, but I was um complicity. I don't know why you say that in English. And the warrior in the vision was a brave warrior, warrior was respected by his his whole village. And I had silence, the voice of justice. So from that moment on. In the same vision, after this scene, I found myself in the cave with three shamans. I was the third. We didn't say a word, but I knew, I knew there was something powerful there. And from that day, Ning meditation was born because my grandfather was a great shaman. I start remembering all everything he was saying to me when I was a little child, when I was six, seven, you know, you know, all his words was it's like pouring through me. So I started writing, you know, like writing like I was always possessed by these memories, you know. And I say, um, to say it to explain this in the image, is it it was like uh um um a river, you know, that breaks the banks of memory, you know. So I start writing, start writing, writing, writing, writing. And I published my first um novel, of course, um, with the story of my grandfather, all this. Um and they become a best seller. So I lost my voice, my singing voice, but my path was different. I mean, not different. Now I sing, I use my voice to welcome a soul home, to um to be a soul hacker, to set the table for my shadow selves, and also the shadow selves of my clients, of my students. Because we work with each shadow. Each that's what that's what my grandfather teaches me. Each shadow has his name, his age, and his story. Each of them, you know, you have to know just them, the story of each of them.
SPEAKER_00:So you've been on a very wild journey from the sound of it. And um uh so you've you've started life in a very spiritual environment with your grandfather, as you said, as a great shaman. And you've had to go through being moulded by life. So here's this woman with a wonderful voice, playing with massive attack, who's one of my favorite bands. And and but actually, you've also found another way of expressing yourself. So it feels like your journey is still unraveling and leading you in different directions as well.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's not a different direction, it's just um now the healing is um is um passing through me, not towards me anymore.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:You're no longer in the way of the healing.
SPEAKER_01:So that's exactly, exactly, exactly. Because now it's like I have to um not only know my story, know also all the invisible loyalties that I was a hostage of. Invisible loyalties, transgenerational repetitions, you know, everything that's worse, because I mean some of them I don't know yet, but many of them I have recognized, I've seen, I've worked on it how uh uh transgenerational repetition can keep us hostage.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and so this is a bit like uh the Western thing of man know thyself. It feels like this is woman know thyself, and then you are no longer at the mercy of forces around you to control them.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly, and I refuse magic. When I say magic, I refuse um um superstition, superstitious magic. No, everything I'm uh everything I'm seeing now, I have experiences in my bones and in my flesh. I've experienced it. I have experience when an a personality who is always running, need to run, need to run, doesn't want to be stable, doesn't want to be, she's scared, she is scared to be stable. When she arises, I can feel it in my body. I can feel it. I'm more thirsty, for example, uh, because you know, when in the round, you're your body's on fire, right? And uh so, yeah, so other personalities as well. There was a one who always always, when I say was, because I have worked with her, I know her story, you know. There's another one who uh loved to humiliate men, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so now your journey is very much about educating others and also about following the path that you're you're treading. So you you you've you've created something called Ning uh meditation. Yes, perhaps you can tell us a bit about what the essence of that is.
SPEAKER_01:The essence of Ning Ning means uh um coon, a cocoon, because every negative emotions we experience it create around our aura, uh, you know, a sort of aura, uh layers after layers, you know, it keeps us there in that cocoon, um, without um without energy or will or whatever to blossom, you know, to so Ning, we need to go out of Ning. So Ning is Ming. The essence of Ning is the shadow work. Shadow work, transgenerational repetitions, invisible loyalties, because here in Ning, the shadow is not only a concept, the shadow has a pulse. The shadow is not a you know, not a definition, has a pulse, not a definition. So that's why uh I was using the expression earlier, set the table. I physically set the table for my, you know, physically, when I am eating, I just put one plate, you know, in front of me, she's there. This is for you. Or once in a while, I'll buy a gift for her, you know, like like the talisman I'm uh I'm wearing now, you know. So with my grandfather Grace Shaman teaches me to treat a shadow self like really um a living being, they are just invisible. They are just stuck in different different, how do you say that, different time, you know, because when we grow, when a child grows is a psyche, you know, uh different stages can can can have some personality to survive, to can invent, you know, to survive. But when you grow thy survival uh patterns that that doesn't have you anymore, so you have to be conscious of that, otherwise, all your choices in life would be guided by these shadows, and so it's destructive. Like go on, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:You know, what do you see the shadow as? I mean, because obviously we're we're in in my line of work, we work with the shadow as a in psychotherapy, um, and we're working with a sort of like a side of ourselves that's partly disowned, partly not known, partly will trip us up and do all sorts of things. It sounds like you've got something that's that's very ritualistic around your shadow work as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00:So tell us a bit more about that.
SPEAKER_01:Um the interesting things is um you experience the story of your shadow because shadow has always started self-sorry, shadow self has a different view than the conscious mind. Have a completely a different goal from the conscious mind. So you say, I know my shadow, I know my childhood, but this is the grown-up mind is talking about a little girl or little boy. So in my technique, with the singing, with the you know, with the secret chant, you grow up person now, travel in the world, in the story, in the story of your shadow. You encounter your shadow, especially if it is um, let's say it's a specific events that happen, trauma that happened, you still hostage of that trauma. You travel with the point of view of your shadow.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:The shadow shows you the story, and it's not something that you imagine, you see it. Like you and now you and now, you and I now talking. You know, you see exactly. So uh this is the uh technique, you travel in the soul world that opens your shadow story. Go on, sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was gonna say you described yourself before as a soul hacker, and that you do soul archaeology, and perhaps you can tell us a bit about that. What does that actually mean?
SPEAKER_01:Soul hacker, uh, as you know, uh the mean hacker that I enter in the information, you know, online or I steal it. Hacker, I steal your information. But in soul hacker, I don't steal information from shadow, from the story of the shadow or of the soul. Together, me, the soul, and the shadow, we work united in you know, you know, like um like an orchestra, you know, each instrument, you know, we work together to change that story, to transform, not even change, to transform that story, to heal that story. Because if this the original story of the shadow selves is a it's a trauma, let's say an event traumatic, traveling in her story as a soul hacker, the shadow self show you her point of view, her trauma. And she will tell you what you need, what she wants to be here. That's why we work together. And sometimes uh it's very it's really amazing how how how this works, actually. Otherwise, I won't be here telling you the this. I wish I wish my students were here now, like a testimony, and they are all they are all doctors and uh psychologists. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And how do you see this in relation to the world? The events that go on in the world, how do you see the shadow having its place in in these very difficult times we live in, for example?
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, oh my god. Collective unconscious is a shadow. It's a battle of shadows. When I say battles, you mean really I think the whole world should work with their own shadows. Everybody, each one of us should work with her, with her or his own shadow. The world would be a better place. Because I would know. I would know why you triggered me, why that's you know, why I'm acting like this. Why? So I have what I feel, I always say to myself, I can't change the world. You know, no, it has never had that that power, because that would be really an ego, because the unconscious, collective, unconscious shadow, it's too strong. But what I do, I um have my uh small circle, and uh I bless my food every time I eat. I am conscious of the miracle of life, the beauty of life, and uh yeah, so I I live uh you know to yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So you're looking to you are creating your legacy. How do you see the the the rest of your life unfolding? What do you see as your your vision or your task for the rest of your life?
SPEAKER_01:My vision is live in the countryside, in the small, you know, with a small land, have my garden and writing because I'm a writer, I'm an author as an author as as well. You know, have um my circle of students. Yeah, that's why when you work with the solo hacker, you also learn the essential. You know, what is essential for your life, you know, not all this, uh, you know, like I used to leave, you know, five stars hotels, you know, drivers, all these things, you know. Slowly, you slowly you say, okay, I'm not gonna take all this with me. You know, the only the only thing I'll leave here is um is my legacy. And this reminded me of my grand what my grandfather told me when I was six. I couldn't understand at that time. He says, he said, I mean at that there is mortal people and there is immortal people. Mortal people when they die after a while people forget them. Immortal people um is the is the actions of whom of whom generations has you know has been inspired or you know changed, etc. etc. That's why I always say I'm here to gain my uh my immortality. Better Italian, I must say. Um I've I speak really, really much, much better in Italian, so my English sometimes it gets broken.
SPEAKER_00:No, I think your your English is good. And um I'm I'm just this concept of of immortality that that of course most of us or many of us who are on a spiritual journey believe that there is an immortality about our soul. Our soul goes on forever, has been here forever, will stay here forever. And um then there was the movement in the in the in the late uh 20th century where people felt that they could have their whole body be immortal and they could carry on in the same body. And of course, you probably don't believe that. Um but but there is something about immortality that you've talked about, and I wonder if you could say a bit more about your thoughts around that.
SPEAKER_01:Immortality, I would I would I would try to say it first in Italian so I can try I can maybe translate in English. There are person mortales and person immortali. The person mortally when they se dimentica. The person immortali are inspirato impostery, and inspirate the generation. Um so I don't know how to explain this in in English, but the concept is there is immortal people, there's immortal people. When the immortal people died, after a while, people forget them. How many people we have forgot? Okay, immortal people, for example, um historic historic historical figures, some of them are immortal. Okay, like a Buddha. Buddha is immortal in in somehow, you know, uh same like a Christian in uh some sense, etc. etc. So um, yeah, this is uh meaning of um not the meaning, this is the um what I care, what I carry my body, my bones every day, every day. Although sometimes it's hard. Life is hard. You know, I'm not saying um yeah, it's hard. Sometimes I just want to give up, you know, just want to, but um I recognize going back again to the shadow, I recognize whose shadow is speaking and why she's speaking that way. Yes, she's speaking that way because anything I was doing, spiritual peace, uh immortality, for her is a danger. From her point of view, that means danger, that fright uh yeah, in her. I don't know, I don't know how you say. So she she she she backlashed me. See, you know. So in the past, I used to let her just overwhelm me, destroying everybody, it destroying all the relations, destroying this, destroying this, making decisions, you know, that uh that would always harm me, you know, later. Now I know I pose, I say, okay, I know why you you are scared. You are scared to be seen. Of course, you are scared to be seen. For your story, being seen that means death, that means danger. So, okay, let's go. What do you want me to what do you want me to buy for you today? Eh, you would like to, you know, ice cream, something, because I really treat her like my best friend, or you know, I just that I just don't concept, it's not a concept in Nink shadow selves. Treat her, and you know what? Ah, I feel better. I start, I start being, I start um being more uh creative, more energetic, more, you know, uh we work together.
SPEAKER_00:We are interested in it it goes against, it goes opposite to the um the Jungian concept of shadow, which is what most of the Western psychology is based on, which is the shadow is a disowned part of ourselves. And what I'm hearing is that you have a very much an owned part of yourself in your shadow. It's not it's not so hidden or hiding away from from the world.
SPEAKER_01:Ah, can you say that again, please?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the shadow is is is uh in the Western concept is is very much a hidden part of ourselves. It'll sabotage us, it'll cause us all sorts of difficulties as we go as we go through our lives. But what I'm hearing from you is that you are embracing and and dancing with your own shadow. Yes, you have to know her first. Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:First is hidden, is it is a hidden part that's still there in the dark hallway of the uncangies, and sabotaging you. Okay, sabotaging you, all your choices, relationship, etc. But if you know her, in she, because in my in my case, I'm okay, I know her. Um or it's better to say I know them. We have different shadows, different, you know, shadow selves, you know, different psyches, you know. So yeah, first it's hiding. When I know, I don't tweet her. Oh my god, who are you? What do you want? Leave me alone, or I just meditate to pull you away or to heal you, to fix you. Shadow doesn't want to be fixed because you fix something wrong.
SPEAKER_00:What does it want?
SPEAKER_01:Good question. The shadow wants to be seen, want to be heard, want to be heard. The story all she's been through, she she wants or he wants that to be heard. It's very it's very um tribal if you think about it. Because in the ancient time, when you are when a member of a tribe is struggling, there's a ritual, you know, where everybody heard here what he's going through. Yes. The shadow is most is very ancient, is most ancient than the mind. So he wants rituals, she or he wants rituals, want to be seen, want to be recognized. Does he want to be called shadow? Who wants to be called shadow? I don't want to be called shadow. I want to be called, I mean a th.
SPEAKER_00:And we often associate shadow with with evil, with with bad. And and and actually what I'm hearing is that that's not how you see it either.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. You yeah, you you you give a name. When I when I call, when I say, I know, I know you, I don't shall know you. I say, hey, Tina, I know easy you. Or Ami Rut, I know easy you. You know, and uh I used to fight them, I used to hate them when I didn't know their existence, of course. You know, and um yeah, yeah. When I say the the the the the ancient shadow selves is much, much, much more ancient than the mind because they came from our ancestors. They repeat, they repeat what our ancestors couldn't say. Yes, they repeat. So the shadow selves, so you see, you can't just you know, just um shut the mouth of this this energy, this this person. You have to really befriend her.
SPEAKER_00:invite her so she can speak more tell you her story yes and from that you can have dreams intuitions you know and um yeah and also with different sessions because I have a session with my drum with my secret drum and uh each session each session is open for example by the five elements water session shows the person what what is blocking him or her so in that case the shadow which is blocking would show herself and so on i don't want to tell you all the the but my favorite my favorite element is the fire element fire meditation elements why because um it shows the transgenerational repetitions yes or the shadow connected to your ancestors who is really repeating repeat repeating creating creating karma that's what for me is really crucial sometimes i say why uh i should have known this many years ago i wouldn't i wouldn't marry my ex-ma I wouldn't marry my my ex-husband we all have to go through those paths where we uh we we learn through uh the well non necessary mistakes i know that shadow that um that was that was madly love my ex-husband when i think i thought i said oh my god you were really blind but uh i know why we we're coming towards the end of our our our exploration together and um the question i always ask at the end is is um um what's the particular dragon you've had to slay in your life what's the the hurdle you've had to overcome to be who you are now i must say um i'm thinking there's the two things that come in my mind i think the harder the harder the harder when i lost my voice because everything for me you know uh particularly because you identified as a singer so that's that's it's almost like you lost your identity in some ways when you lost your voice exactly i exactly you know that part of me needed to be seen but seen to to f to to fill a hollow a deep hollow yes yes you know so when my i lost my voice uh for me it was you know like uh i wanted to jump from the last floor i wanted to you know and see for me that doesn't have a sense anymore and and ready to jump from the fifth floor a white feather enter my window I pick it up with tears in my on my knees I pick it up and in the mind um I do I say that in English a yoke in la mente in the eye of my mind I saw the white feather that my grandfather was using like shaman you know to heal people so effectively you were being watched over from the beyond exactly exactly but at that time I didn't care about this kind of being watched I want success I want to be seen I want you know uh this this this because I as you say I identify myself you know with all these things to fulfill a whole lot of loneliness um I'm reminded when uh when I'm speaking with you of uh Rabindranath Tagore's statement I I slept and dreamt that life was joy I woke and found that life was service and I acted and behold service was joy and I think what I'm hearing is your journey has opened you to a place of serving of doing what you can to to ease the load of humanity in your own way and uh and that actually there is a joy in that that goes beyond the individual joy of being a a singer with you know with a with a well known band and uh actually something has changed exactly so thank you very much for being with us today and and uh giving us your wisdom and um yes we'll be in touch thank you thank you all very much bye ciao
