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Erin McCullough

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

people, life,

emotions thought, create, Erin, quiet, moment, conversations, challenging,

stressed, joy, meditation, beholden, client, business, world, beliefs, deep

dive, super

SPEAKERS

Ed Watters,

Erin McCullough

Ed Watters 

00:00

The Dead America podcast is really about finding yourself challenging who you are,

understanding what you want to be. To do that. You really have to get in tune

with yourself. Sometimes, We need help doing that. Our next guest, Erin, is

going to help us do exactly that. So let's not waste any time and get into this

episode of the Dead America podcast.

Ed Watters 

00:35

To

overcome, you must educate. Educate not only yourself but educate anyone

seeking to learn. We are all Dead America. We can all learn something. To

learn, we must challenge what we already understand. The way we do that is

through conversation. Sometimes we have conversations with others. However,

some of the best conversations happen with ourselves. Reach Out and challenge

yourself. Let's dive in and learn something right now.

Ed Watters 

02:33

And

today, we have a special treat for you. We are with Erin McCullough. She is a

thought leader and a spiritual advisor. Erin, could you please introduce

yourself and let people know what you do and how you got to where you are

today?

Erin McCullough 

02:51

Well,

first, I want to say thanks for having me. And it's super important to have

these platforms so that we can talk about the things that I think are the most

important that nobody talks about, or very few people talk about. So thank you

for having me. And thank you for having a platform for people to learn about

this life and what's really going on. So as I mentioned, I am a, you know, it's

the labels that kill me. I am a thought leader and a spiritual advisor. I am a

coach, a mentor. I work typically with entrepreneurs because I have been one

for 20 years. And I've been consulting businesses and business owners for about

16 years. And most people would not put that together business and

spirituality. But the reality is, as much as we like to be separate from our

business and our personal lives, they're intertwined all the time. That's just

who we are as human beings, and there's no way to do that different. And the

reason that I got to this place is because I had a business that I sold a

couple of years ago that was very successful and had a lot of moving parts,

lots of clients, hundreds of clients, lots of employees. And my experience of

running that business was one of stress, anxiety, worry. I was constantly in

stress over clients, employees, beholden to all those things, and I really

couldn't take it anymore. Basically, I just was so stressed out.  Prior to that, I have had an anxiety disorder

years before that, that I had recognized. Why it had happened on some level,

but I wanted to go into a deeper dive on why that happened. Because for me, I

felt like I was recreating that anxiety stress level again. And the reality is

is it's just like any addiction where you could stop drinking or doing drugs, and while you're not doing those things mentally, you're still all those

behaviors that lead to that are present. And that's why things like AA and

those sorts of things where you go through steps, and you go through a journey,

and you really take a look and unpack all of those things that led you to that

place are so important. And so what led me to being an entrepreneur was that I

had had this anxiety disorder, I had overcome it chemically. And I thought, if

I move to Hawaii and start my own business, I would have a simpler life. And

what I want to tell people is that simpler, anxiety-free and worry-free and

overwhelmed, free, does not exist in a location. So you can move to paradise,

you can move to a deserted island. And guess what, you're still there. So the

work really is internal. And so that's why I work with people the way I do.

Because if I could show you how to have an impenetrable internal experience of

joy, no matter what was going on in your life, wouldn't that be amazing? You

would no longer be beholden to people or circumstances. And you'd be able to

really understand who you are and what's going on in this world. That make

sense?

Ed Watters 

06:22

Yes, it

does. To me. It's a wonderful, actually, the platform you just outlined. We

need tremendously in this world, especially today. There's so much visceral

hate and destructive nature, just within our own selves, finding that inner

peace, and that joy within ourselves just being free from everything and being

able to cope with who you are. That's important for us all. How did you find

yourself within that realm of a new beginning?

Erin McCullough 

07:02

  Course, just like everything has an evolution

of things, right. So I had the anxiety disorder chemically got over it

mentally, still there, creating like super stressful life did my business for

about 10 years, high octane, completely stressed out. And while it was

successful, I was miserable. And I finally I learned there was just a moment,

10 years in that, I just went, Okay, I'm going to start to try and navigate this

business slightly differently. First of all, I'm not going to allow a client to

come into my business that doesn't appreciate me, my staff, and the service that

we're providing, period, and I will just, I will have that conversation on the

phone from moment one, and let people know. And then I got super clear on who

we were as a business. But then, while that was going on, personally, I was

doing a lot of self-development work, I was going to seminars and reading a

whole lot. And I got involved with a seminar company. And it was a beautiful

foundational piece to understanding that there's more to this life than what

we've this bill of goods we've been sold about happiness, being in locations

about happiness being when we have, you know, the car, the house, the

relationships or whatever, then you'll be happy. And so I started to recognize

within myself that I was like,  felt

like I was on fire all the time. Like, I've always been super goal-oriented,

but I would just, you know, set an audacious goal, grasp it, be happy for a

moment and then be off to the races to the next one. And that started to become

super exhausting, like only because I would do not only financial goals,

business goals, personal goals like I found myself. I was training for a half

Ironman. I was completely exhausted. And I remember like that voice inside my

gut just going like, you are so tired, quit working out so hard quit, you know,

and I ended up getting a concussion. And so I started to have these little

moments of like, what are you doing? Like, why, why are you killing yourself; literally, you know, trying to attain these goals. And so that started the

evolution. And then, shortly after that, I was going through a divorce, and it

just leveled me, which had nothing really to do with a divorce. It was just the

opportunity for me to take a look even deeper. And so I had decided that I was

going to do that book. I always have a hard time remembering the book anyway; it'll come to me. But basically, the book is it has 365 passages. It's meant to

be done over a year you read a passage. And then you each day, and then you,

you know, take that in. And the experience I had was I would sit every morning

at the beach and read the passage. And it was almost as though all I could read

in that book. Were these bold letters coming off the page that said, The path

is joy, you're meant to be in joy. Joy is the answer. And I literally and I,

after that experience, I went Okay, enough, I hear you. I hear what you're

saying. It makes sense to me. But I don't know how to get there. So from there,

I I went to what's called A Course in Miracles is the book, which you know

aptly aptly named. So from there, I had gotten an email from Mike Dooley, who

is also a thought leader and somebody that I had followed; I've met him through

a seminar company and seen him speak several times. He sent an email saying

that he was going to be on O'ahu. And he was going to have a seminar, and would

I be interested in going. I signed up not knowing what it was; as it turns

out, it was a seminar on the visualization process that he teaches, and it's

similar to the one that I teach as well now. And I went home and I, my entire

life just lined up, I started the visualization process and everything that I

had been working on and wanted to happen like literally happened within a

matter of weeks. And I just went, whoa, that's so crazy. And then he sent

another email saying, Would you like to become a trainer and come take the

course on how to teach my course. And I did. And I came back, and I put on my

first workshop, and five minutes in, I ditched my notes. And every It was a,

like a moment where everything I had ever learned came to me all at once. And

I just went, Oh, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to help people

recognize that this life is beautiful. It's beautiful right now; it doesn't

have anything to do with amassing, you know, wealth or stuff or. It has to do

with creating a deep, meaningful relationship with yourself and healing those

parts of yourself that don't serve that future that you want to create.

Ed Watters 

12:24

That

journey is hard for some of us to even take by myself. I went through an

injury. And I always felt like I was on top of the world. And when something

puts us through this tumultuous area that we've never been, it devastates us,

man, woman, child, whatever, these neural paths that are firing on us. They are

definitely something that we have to deal with. So I know self-discovery, for

me, was a big deal. And facing those things that I thought I knew. It was

really challenging. How hard was it for you to get past the things you already

knew? to free yourself? For the new thoughts, the new foundations? The new

life?

Ed Watters 

13:24

Yeah, I

mean, first I'd like to say nobody's life is easy. It's it we're here to be

like, as Gary Zukav says, on the earth school, we're in the earth school. This

is a school; it's for the benefit of our evolution, spiritually. And we've made

it about all these other things. But this is the this is the work. And it is

work. And it's not work as in a four-letter bad word. It's work as in; this is

delightful because this is when we create true freedom for ourselves. When we

can understand that we have underlying beliefs that are running the show for us

without us even challenging them, and get recognition around that and

understand that when you have a belief that tells you what this world looks

like, the lens or the filter in which you see everybody and everything, then it

becomes a whole different ballgame. Right? It becomes more about I am empowered

to create this other thing, but it really is about the freedom, right? It's

about the freedom to knowing that you get to have emotions and be in reaction

to people, but understanding what it means versus thinking that that is who you

are. The deepest essence of who you are. is not your thoughts is not your

emotions are not these circumstances that are coming into your life. You are

the essence of something greater, And so somehow, like we came into this world,

knowing that you see little kids, I mean, they're amazing. They're beautiful. I

love watching them because they're free. They're not worried about the future,

they're not worried about, you know, they don't have as many responsibilities

as we do as adults, but they're unencumbered. Like, what happens is we begin to

like formulate in this world is we add on all this junk. And we think, and it's

not our fault, let me just start with that, like, please do not go to the

blame, shame, any of that stuff. It's not about that. What it's about is

recognition that you can change the thoughts that are creating our reality; you

can recognize that your emotions are signaling that your beliefs have been

poked. That's it. And when you create separation between yourself and your

emotions and your thoughts, then you can have that true freedom. And let me

tell you why, you know, you are not your thoughts and emotions, it's because

you can think a thought and know what that thought is you can have an emotion

and label that emotion. So who is that that's doing that, that's who you are.

That's the essence of who you are. But these belief structures, what they've

done is they've said; This is what life should look like, if I give you a gift,

you should say thank you, if you don't say thank you, I'm offended. That's a

belief structure. You may call it rude or impolite. But it is a belief

structure. If I give a gift, and you don't say thank you, that has absolutely

nothing to do with that other person. If I'm giving a gift, I should be giving

the gift to be giving a gift because it makes me feel good, not for the

response of thank you. And so when we recognize that all of this stuff is

playing in the background, and can really like single it out and work on these

individual emotions, and really dig in, then we can release them and begin to

experience this life very, very differently. Does that make any sense?

Ed Watters 

17:17

That's

excellent advice. I like how you put that. And, you know, learning to do

things, because you enjoy them instead of having to do them. That can change

lives right there. If we try to do things that we enjoy and surround our things

with the things that we enjoy, a lot of that negativity doesn't even come into

existence, the power of positivity. It's, it's a work of art when you apply it

properly. Do you have tips for people to overcome these negative feelings that

they have, and how to transfer it to a positive outlook into life?

Ed Watters 

18:10

Yeah,

and First, I want to say we have survived this disease here in America; I don't

know about other countries. But this idea that we're not allowed to have a bad

feeling, we need to cover it up with something positive. And I'm all for positive,

don't get me wrong; I'm 100% all-in. But what I want to say is if you go to the

positive before you acknowledge what's actually going on, then it's just a band

aid, it's just might as well be a drink might as well be a drug, it might as

well be sex might as well be any kind of addiction, shopping, whatever to cover

up that deeper emotion that is coming to the surface. And so there's many

different strategies that I teach people in terms of, you know, getting to the

positive of each of the things, but one of the things I'll say is one of the

things that I teach is EFT, which is tapping the Emotional Freedom Technique,

it's using the meridians, the energetic meridians in your body that like

acupuncture and acupressure use to tap into the subconscious mind and release

these old beliefs.

Ed Watters 

19:24

The

first part of that is always about acknowledging where where am I with this

, right? Before you release it, instead of just going, let me Insert all the

positive affirmations? No, let me get rid of this thing. And then put in the

positive things right, because that energy still exists that coexists with the

new that you're putting in, and it's less pure, sort of in a way. So you know,

and then other strategies I use are just, here's a strategy that I love to

teach people all the time. A very simple it's taking each moment that you like

when you start your day. And being in like, an enormous amount of gratitude for

every little thing that you're doing, right? So I wake up in the morning, I

open my eyes, I say thank you for the pillow and the comfortable bed and the

warm covers and the heat in the house, and the shelter and the fact that my

body moves, and I can get up and for running water, and I can brush my teeth.

And so that I can make coffee and have food. That's fantastic, Right? Because

the most people are spending the majority of their day in reaction to the

things that aren't working out in their lives. When there are like, hundreds

and thousands of things that are working, right? I woke up; I'm alive, I...