Purpose Lab

"I think if people are not excited, then there are older issues in their lives, some psychological barriers, or trauma. People who have experienced trauma are disconnected from their true self. I recommend soul retrieval, where you go back to the moment that you had this split. When you have trauma, part of you remains in the past at that moment of trauma. You have to call that part home through recapitulation, soul integration, journeying. When you tap back into those moments in your life and pull them back home, you're filled with something that gives you the drive to pursue your unique individual ideas, passion, skills, excitement."

I just started doing something. So my wife, dear Dre, said, you know, you walk around often with a scowl on your face. I'm like, really? And she goes, yeah. So we were at this thing for the film festival yesterday and it was early in the morning and I got up and I didn't get much sleep and there was a way in which I didn't really feel like going. So this is all set up for Mr. Grumpy Post, right? So I just got this notion that I was just going to put, at first I called it a stupid smile on my face. I refined that a little. I call it now the mindless smile. I was just going to smile. Just a mindless smile. Mindless because I'm not really thinking anything. I'm not smiling because of anything. It's just an arbitrary mindless smile. And I did that and I got to tell you, I had a much better day and people were really nice to me. It was different. So now that's my new thing, the mindless smile for no apparent reason. Why not? Dre was telling me, my wife was telling me, that they've done studies that if you just smile, you will feel better. The good news is, it is that simple. You want to feel better, just smile.

That evolution on the hero's journey has been hell at times. There is no avoiding this. Three months after I had this experience with the mystical Christ, and I had these metaphysical gifts, like being able to speak a soul language, the ability to see the future, and other abilities, I realized that the true gift is actually sitting with people and being with them where they are. My real gift is setting people free, not through force, but through loving kindness. Three months after I met the mystical Christ, I went off to my first university, and I was tortured by the church for three years. I have experienced hell. I have experienced heaven. On my hero's journey, I have recognized the gift of being able to relate to people who are in their own hell, not to judge, but to sit down and say, I understand where you are right now, and bring gentleness, hope, and inspiration.

There were years that life had some hard lessons to teach me, and even one that led to a brain tumor and brain surgery, and having to actually just turn the whole festival over to my managing director for almost a year, and really taking a look at why there was illness in my life. And I will tell you this though, that I was fortunate enough to have a miraculous recovery from that brain tumor and that condition. And I know that the universe came in to co-create that miracle with me. I also know that I had a part in that. And that healing journey could have only happened, and it did only happen, because I had programmed five years of the most powerful, paradigm shifting, empowering films about health, about healing, about the mind-body connection, about nutrition, about energy, about self-awareness, about inner inquiry, about emotional release, about the connection between all of that. And that's when I realized, right, that I didn't just start Illuminate to help everybody else. Apparently, all of that was for me too.

Oftentimes people will come to Biocybernaut and they might want something like relief from insomnia, relief from the constant worry, elimination of a depression that's been with them for 50 years. So that's the reason for coming. And so what we've learned is that when you change the brain waves, you change your consciousness, you change your experiences. And in the process, they may have experiences like out-of-body experiences. And so then something that they would never have been interested in before now becomes a passion, might even become a life purpose. Chief Willie Littlechild said, if you have been abused and you haven't forgiven, you will become an abuser. So when everybody's forgiven, there aren't any abusers left. And wow, now we're talking golden age for all humanity.

I am able to go into their realities, drop into the subconscious, and eliminate what is unconscious there. Scientists have proven that the subconscious creates reality. When that shifts, their whole reality changes. It is instant, dramatic, radical, and permanent. There was one girl who had just gotten off drugs. She was in a very dark place, and it felt like she was not coming back from that. We cleared it, and her frequency shifted completely. I called her my Cinderella. We called her Cindy for short. She ended up getting pregnant right after her body was clear and clean. That was the being ready to come in, but the mother needed to be clear. There are so many stories like that. People came back saying, I listened to that two, three, four years later, and they are still receiving the clearings we did and still receiving the benefits they received at the time.

I realized the secret to becoming your best self and the secret to living your purpose and your passion, whatever that may be, is to remove limiting beliefs, to heal the trauma that we have, to let go of the pain, and to feel the fullest expression of our soul, to feel happy, light, free. Helping people remove pain, beliefs, and limitations opens them to pursuing their life's purpose. That's how I did it for myself. There are limitations or lack of confidence from other people, and helping people to heal really helps them to pursue their purpose. That's why healing prayer came through when I was writing my latest book. I wondered, why am I helping people heal? I'm an artist, I know, that's why I came here, so why am I doing healing work with people? Why am I helping people discover limiting beliefs?

The way I came to this conclusion was that I really struggled in life early on. My childhood was pretty good, but then from 10 till 20 I struggled with eating disorders. I really led a double life and had basically no friends, just isolated myself, and was battling this disease or addiction. I remember when I was 15, I felt like I was 70 and I was ready to die. Part of me wanted to give up, and another part of me really wanted to live and find my soulmate, have kids, and have a normal life. When you have an addiction or an eating disorder, or any kind of addiction, for over 10 years, statistically your prognosis of ever recovering or getting better drops to about 5%. So at 20, my prognosis for living was higher, but for recovering it was at 5%, and for living to be 30 it was also at 5% because I was doing damaging things to my body. I think because I struggled so much with just having normal and then finding a way to healing, everything else became easier. Because of my history, I had to do a lot of healing on my physical body and I did it mostly through food, energy work, and family constellations.

The “Twelve Steps” are the core of the A.A. program of personal recovery from alcoholism.

When you're born, it's clean. It's pure. It runs very efficiently. It's perfect. As you experience life, we collect cookies, scripts, code, rules, boundaries, things we're told we can and cannot do. So that becomes what our operating system is running on, and that becomes our ego, our identity in this reality. For me, my ego served me very well for a period of time, but my operating system was running on some very bad data, some faulty scripts, and some codes that needed serious debugging. So in Reboot, and I talk about it in my book, you have to clear the cache, you have to get rid of the resentments. It is a lot of 12 step work. A lot of 12 step work, but it's not all 12 steps. But you're going to do a lot of it in the book if you're willing to. This is where it got me. In treatment, when I finally surrendered, I had been doing a lot of things prior to the surrender. I had been going to AA, and what a beautiful, divinely written book that is. There is beautiful knowledge in it.

Many people struggle with health conditions and become fantastic practitioners. As an asthmatic all my life, when the opportunity to get a master's in applied breathing sciences came about, it resonated and felt aligned. If I could get through this myself, I could help others, and that gave me purpose. That was not my thinking at the time, but the trajectory led me to helping others with similar conditions. I also realized this is a spiritual hack. Understanding the breath, coherence, and the parasympathetic state is deeply needed if we want to be closer to divinity. I consider myself a relative expert in this because I went from asthma to mountain climber to where I'm trying to run a 5-minute mile at age 60. We'll see if I get there.

For me, I guess the biggest struggle has been depression. I like to use seasonal terms for my different energy states. I went through about a five year winter soon after my very existential period when I was about 15. I think part of the reason the five year winter dragged on so long was that for most of it, I did not want to let myself sink too deep into depression because I was afraid of never coming out of it. When I finally did, I had the privilege of being able to quit my serving job and basically do nothing in my grandpa's apartment in Milan, other than be in my room, scrolling and crying all day. I had this sense that I needed to let myself go all the way in, really feel the depression, in order to let the cycle finish and be ready to feel something different. I did that this time as well. I did my own little darkness retreat in my room, where I completely blacked out everything. It was pitch black, and I stayed in there for three days and reflected on the chaotic evil summer that I had. I sensed that I needed to forgive myself on a deep level, forgive my inner child, in order to feel like I could move on and apologize. I am so grateful to be feeling like I am on the path to doing things that feel like purpose.

I've discovered my purpose through trial and error. I mean, I've had ups and downs. I've had the most awful trauma with my addictive personality and I've come through it. And I think it was all a journey. You know, you got to go through the rough to get the smooth. And because I've got all the war scars, I think people trust me. After battling addiction and losing her health, Davinia dove into the science of the body, discovering how food, light, hormones, and a mindset can completely rewire a life. So when I lost my mother, I didn't pick up alcohol. I picked up junk food, or what I now know is junk food, you know, breads, granola, sourdough, pizza. I mean, I couldn't stop eating it. What I didn't realize was these were addictive foods. And then I got into another trap, an entrapment. I felt lethargic and shattered. But it was when I discovered this molecule, this just in the humble coconut, this medium-chain triglyceride that helped me say no to the world's most addictive foods. That for me was a relief and a revelation.

In the eating disorder treatment that I created, at the foundation is full acceptance of the body and an understanding that the body is not the self. We have been taught, especially women, that we are equal to our bodies. We are how we look. We are how much we weigh. We are how old we are. All of these numbers. We are reduced to objectively measurable things. But we are not a thing. We are a being. And when we think of ourselves as how old we are, what our dress size is, etc., we are denying our true divine conscious beingness. And so, to recognize through the recovery of an eating disorder that we are not our bodies, that we are so much more, that really is the goal. And that is borne out in so many different ways. There are so many different techniques, but all of them are really in service of understanding that we are so much more than the sum of our parts.

They always tell me, 'Oh, Ela, yes, because you cured my cancer or you cured this.' I didn't heal you. I am taking care of my humanity, my life, trying to get my rest, trying to deal with my emotional needs and shortcomings. The moment I stand before that person, the only thing I do is open my heart, open myself as a channel, and simply let love do what it is meant to do. I am not doing anything at all. And when a person opens up to their inner self, they heal themselves. Imagine a person who has gastritis or an ulcer in their stomach. The heart opens, and my heart is asking your heart this question: Do you truly wish to surrender to that pain and declare, 'I am so tired. I no longer want this.' At that very moment, you automatically step into your own darkness. The darkness truly hurts. You cry, you scream, you vomit. Once you expel all of that, your organ begins to heal because that emotion is no longer deeply rooted within that organ. A person heals on their own when they accept themselves, when they truly love themselves.

I overcame a 30 year drug addiction after experiencing the loss of my child. It was in that grief that I found myself. I found love. I found healing. It was the best experience I could have possibly asked for. I am so grateful that my son chose me to be his mom, to teach me and guide me. I have a special kid. Yeah, a special kid. Kevin, my son's name, taught me what love is. That is healing. That is growth. That is powerful, because you can connect to anything and everything to find love. That is growth. I think I can help other parents who are going through a grieving process find connection. I think I can facilitate and offer healings through themselves to find connection to the other side. To have that connection with Source, with God guiding me through this, with Kevin, my ancestors, and galactics, to know they have me and I have them, and we are in direct communication.

When you're born, it's clean. It's pure. It runs very efficiently. It's perfect. As you experience life, we collect cookies, scripts, code, rules, boundaries, things we're told we can and cannot do. So that becomes what our operating system is running on, and that becomes our ego, our identity in this reality. For me, my ego served me very well for a period of time, but my operating system was running on some very bad data, some faulty scripts, and some codes that needed serious debugging. So in Reboot, and I talk about it in my book, you have to clear the cache, you have to get rid of the resentments. It is a lot of 12 step work. A lot of 12 step work, but it's not all 12 steps. But you're going to do a lot of it in the book if you're willing to. This is where it got me. In treatment, when I finally surrendered, I had been doing a lot of things prior to the surrender. I had been going to AA, and what a beautiful, divinely written book that is. There is beautiful knowledge in it.

There is no such thing as a healer. You inspire people to heal themselves. Everyone has to do their own work. It's the relationship between you and the person on the other side. I learned that maybe 30 years ago with Reiki. I'm not sure that it wasn't the therapeutic alliance at that time that helped people or actually the Reiki, because most people don't get the attention they need and have someone who is patiently and presently listening to them. When they do, great transformations happen. The worst thing a healer can say is that they heal people because you don't. Yesterday I had a stage four person with cancer, multiple cancers. Two of her kids tried to commit suicide last year. She was a total mess. How could I heal her? You have to give her the tools. I worked with her for two hours and gave her a bunch of tools and she felt great afterwards, which is nice because she can understand that she could feel better than the state she was in when we started. But if she doesn't continue using those tools, nothing's going to happen. So, as a healer, you can show them the way, but they have to do the work. I think I help to empower people to be the best they can be. I don't heal people. I empower them to take care of themselves, to heal themselves, and to understand that they are great creators. And there's nothing to stop them but themselves.

"The only thing that would quell that fear, that anxiousness, outside of a very strong will to live, was music. It was not rock and roll music. It was really about sound. There were lots of harmonies and natural sounds that touched my core and really penetrated on a cellular level. It was what I locked into, what I could focus all my attention and energy on, so I could heal from within while the doctors tried to heal externally. I knew it had such a miraculous effect because every day the doctors would come in and say, we cannot believe how much your bone has grown back. We cannot believe that your blood work is coming back with all of this amazing data. I would demand to see my lab work. I would demand to see my X rays. I would say, this is low, let me focus on this. When I was focusing and meditating, it was this music that I focused on. It really created a sound path for me to bathe in and stay in so I could reach a level of ease and distress while all the stress was happening in my body."

"I have always learned that when a person or a group connects to higher purpose, that brings you the energy to be a better person. People that are in addictions, depressions, or any sort of trouble, the moment you tap into a higher purpose, that will bring you the energy every morning to stand up, wake up early, do exercise, go and study, go and work. We need emotional education. Any unhealed emotion moves to an addiction, and that could be an addiction to food, to work. It doesn't need to be alcohol and drugs, but it could be many types of invisible destructive habits."

Offering Mindfulness & Compassion Practice and Support

Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is a scientific research center and direct-experience lab specializing in the intersection of science and human experience.

"You see this in leaders, in gurus, people who are trying to do really wonderful, creative things. You'll see them get completely off track and kind of possessed by something that is working against the very purpose that they're trying to promote in the world. I've been very lucky to have the opportunity to manifest my purpose in so many ways through work at The Institute of Noetic Sciences and my work at UC San Diego, where I'm now directing the Center for Mindfulness. I work on the science of imagination and the science of psychedelics. If I had told my 19-year-old self that that's where I would end up, she might have been blown away."

He looks at cellular nutrition, getting adequate exercise, good restful sleep, emotional well-being, and he also looks at the spirit. We're not selling a product, we don't have anything to sell. We're coaching people, we're changing their lifestyles. My purpose is my next patient, it's never changed. My goal is my next patient. People say, but what about your family? Yeah, that's there, that's my responsibility, that's my love, but this is my purpose. And if I'm able to fulfill this purpose, everything around me gets better."

"Personal growth is something that I highly recommend for everyone on the planet because we are not taught that at a young age. We are not taught that our soul is evolving, that we are here for a purpose, that we are here for a reason. It is never too late, but I do feel like as a society we are not exposed to it in the way that we should be."

"When I was in my first career as a model, the most beautiful, stunning exteriors walked through the door, sat next to me. If there was any kind of envy, jealousy, I thought very quickly early on in my career that I have to change this. There's something I don't like about myself. I could see the mirror. Instead of medicate, meditate. Hands down, line up all those demons every morning before the sun rises, because that's when they come out. Self-love, self-care is work, but it's possible for everyone, no matter what the condition. This has helped me find my purpose. Believe me, I'd rather run out the door, see you, ciao. It's a lot of work, but it's such pleasurable work because it really turns itself around pretty quickly, instead of sabotage."

I discovered my purpose to be a facilitator of individuals, to help them, empower them, to release wounds or conditions, anything that keeps them blocked from reaching their fullest potential and purpose. I do that by helping them identify and acknowledge these issues, and then through various tools I help them release it. I've learned through experience, through working with people and my own life, that when we hang on to emotions long enough, they will manifest on the physical level and create a disease. Then they focus on how to get rid of that disease. Normally, they're looking outside, typically outside of themselves, and I help them look inside themselves to clear that. Then they're able to really look within, start trusting their inner selves, and release what no longer serves, healing themselves, to create a space for them to reach their purpose and potential. I just have had such gratitude for helping people release what no longer serves them and actually seeing them melt in front of my eyes when it's released, and that they can move forward now and be unrestricted in what was holding them back.

"My sister was becoming chronically ill. She had some endocrine issues and kept seeing doctors, but no one had answers. I became partly her caretaker because some days she couldn't get out of bed. We ended up moving home to San Diego with my parents. On the flip side, I was learning and growing more as a person. I was getting healthier, and we were starting to find solutions for my sister's health. Through her health journey and through getting healthier, I started to recognize the things about the stop motion industry that were the reason I ultimately left. I had no idea before; it just wasn't something I thought about in my life at all. It was like that final piece of the puzzle came together."

"Then a little spark within myself lit up, and then some crazy magic and synchronicities appeared on my journey, which led me to find a holistic healer who actually became a godsend for me because he became my guide and helped me wean myself off all the drugs and medication. It was a very long process because I was in such a crazy hell, it was insane. Blessing Ross really helped me. Then he took me to the Amazon. This was the early days of people working with plant spirit medicine. It wasn't only about working with ayahuasca. We actually worked with all the healing plants, especially in my case of healing. We prepared three months before I went to the Amazon. I was there for a month, and we were there for two weeks even before we were introduced to the individual parts of ayahuasca. Then we had 13 consecutive nights of ceremony, which blew my mind. That got me into holistic medicine, alternative medicine, shamanism, mysticism."

I think one of the struggles that I faced in finding my purpose is that it came out of my son's murder, but I am so grateful for that silver lining, for that gift that I found there, and then come to find out that that is where purpose can come from, through pain, finding purpose in pain. Through my research on what happened to my son and how to prevent it proactively, I came across a term called post traumatic growth. This is a scientific term that describes how we are designed as human beings to grow through difficulty, roadblocks, and challenges in our life. That is how we are designed. So now the Choose Love movement is teaching kids, giving them that understanding that yes, you are going to feel pain, but it is there for a reason. It is to help you grow. That takes some of the fear away from the challenge in your life because our natural inclination is to resist and avoid pain. Finding my purpose in life, and that is a tremendous way to heal and to live.

Why I believe people are not connected to their purpose, not aware of their purpose, or not following their purpose is because we are living in a perfect storm in a culture that is afraid of, and doesn't mention, illness, dying, death, grief, and loss. It becomes this waxy buildup of unacknowledged and unaddressed grievances that becomes the most powerful stealer of people's brilliance and their awareness of their purpose. I actually created this four-step process that is phenomenally effective and actually awakens and unravels the grief that is tarnishing people's access to their purpose. I see it over and over again. When you help people unburden unaddressed grief, what happens immediately is they start to become sensitive to who they are, what matters most, what makes their heart sing, and what they most care about. Whether it's the beautiful awakening of children, supporting elders, or caring for the environment, people start waking up to, that's who I am. It was after their grief work that this awakened. I have to say, 95% of all violent acts and deeds come from unaddressed loss, and all the experts acknowledge this. I really do believe it could solve world peace, creating world peace one heart at a time.

It took a year to have the light body completely reintegrate with the physical body, to the point where he was now able to be, I would say, functionally communicative. So yeah, it took that long, and during that year-long process, what was also happening was that there were all kinds of skill sets that I did not even know I had, or I had forgotten that I had, that came rushing back to the surface.

"When we get crisis in life, we don't like them, it's painful, it hurts, but that's exactly when we grow, it's absolutely needed. Certainly it took time to realize that when it hurts, we don't understand much, all we do is survive. I have to witness, I am a very different person from who I was, and I'm looking forward to that. I like it, I actually love my challenges. Not that I love pain, but I know it's a very important process in life."

Dr. Casey asserts “Hurt people, Hurt people, but Healed people can Heal people.” She has set out to do just that with her latest development of UnGUN Institute, focused on disarming Trauma in individuals, to heal from collective trauma events which plague the black communities.

"I created this method, and I used the arts to do it. Broken people can't hold all these pieces together and move forward. You've got to stop and mend those broken pieces so you can be whole to have purpose. I would say we need to help people heal so that they can move forward. Honestly, the answer is you have to become whole. If you really want to walk in purpose, you have to be whole. That was me. I looked like a wall of broken, shattered pieces until I became whole. Once I became whole, I could do anything. That's when I believed in Marty, probably because I saw the rest of her. At first, I was just seeing myself."

"What we realized was using isn't the problem. Using is just a symptom. For me, I used for so long just to self-medicate, and it worked for a long time, then it stopped working. When I got clean, I thought I had a problem with a certain substance, and I realized that I didn't have any skills - basic communication skills, how to budget, how to keep my life together, how to be a parent, how to be a father, how to be a son, how to be an employee. There was so much I didn't know. I realized, oh my gosh, I need to do some real work if I'm going to stay clean. Getting clean and staying clean are two different things. You can stop using, but how do you stay stopped? That's where all this other stuff comes in. It really comes down to fear, trauma, abandonment, neglect, whatever is driving that. If they can heal that while giving them a purpose or career that they want to be in, that they feel fulfilled in, that they're making a difference, it changes everything."

"Often, it's, well, I became a doctor because my mother wanted me to be a doctor, or an architect. That was the last gentleman I was talking to. He actually wanted to be a doctor, but his mother said no, be an architect, and there was not a lot of thought that went into it. Until they get to that place where they feel it's a pain of sorts. I know there's more. I can serve more. I can feel more alive. We always start with, who are you at your core? The raw part of it is getting to those things that you've had in place maybe since you were five years old, that are so comfortable and well-worn that you don't even realize they are a wall to your heart or to your true essence. I have done my share of personal growth work by necessity, but it's possible, and I will say if I can do it, anyone can do it."

"There were real challenges with our beautiful home. There were toxins. Her health was severely affected for a while, as was my son Dylan's, because of a DNA body type that could not rid itself of toxins easily. They were both incredibly challenged for a period of years. That led us to therapists who were conscious and guided us in discussion. In therapy, as we talked about conscious living, the therapist asked how often love is expressed between us. That triggered action in terms of sharing love and doing things, not just saying it, but planning nice things."

"It hasn't been easy. I've faced many challenges, many dark things, many things that make me go why me, why am I facing this challenge? But as you keep facing challenges, and you have to get up and move forward, and you want to keep your light, you start understanding that there is a home base that's internal, that's inside of you, and only you can find it and only you can hold it."