Join Henri and Camilia as they uncover the courage to shed societal masks and embrace authenticity, exploring the transformative power of inner child work and generative trance. Discover how Camilia's journey from corporate burnout to self-made freedom can inspire you to back yourself in making bold, life-changing decisions.
In this conversation, Henri and Camilia discuss the reasons why people pretend to be something they're not and the courage it takes to be authentic. They explore the concept of inner child work and how it relates to removing masks and being true to oneself. They also delve into the power of generative trance in connecting the conscious and unconscious mind, and how it can help in self-expression and creating one's desired reality. Camilia shares personal examples of how this work has transformed her life and allowed her to back herself in making bold decisions. In this conversation, Henri and Camilia discuss the importance of creating space and being true to oneself. They explore the process of removing masks and reevaluating one's identity after leaving a corporate job. Camilia shares her personal experience of feeling drained and unfulfilled in her previous career and how she found freedom and agency in creating her own path. They emphasize the need to connect with oneself and make time for self-care and introspection. The conversation highlights the power of choice, integration, and transmutation in living authentically.
Takeaways
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About Camilia Berrada
Camilia is a vehicle for change. She has spent the last 8 years professionally specialising in the mentoring, coaching and advisory of top-level (Chief Executive, Ministerial and Permanent Secretary) executives in public, private and charitable organisations worldwide, using Deloitte London as her primary vehicle. She has also devoted over 13 years of her life consciously studying, exploring and expanding human consciousness at individual, collective, and systemic levels. From shamans to boardrooms, Camilia is continuously tuning herself to become the instrument she needs to be for the people she meets and elevates. Every commitment is carefully evaluated from this viewpoint. When leaders are open to change she is their vehicle.
Camilia's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/camilia-berrada-49b66879/
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Overview
02:11 The Courage to Be Authentically Yourself
08:55 Uncovering and Healing Wounds
11:48 Connecting with the Unconscious Mind through Generative Trance
30:57 Every Chapter Shapes Who We Are
36:38 The Best Investment is in Ourselves
Henri (00:00.11)
You're listening to Living Beyond Expectations, a podcast dedicated to exploring what life could be like if our strongest relationship was the one that we had with ourselves. I'm Henri Emile, your host, and I'm a recovering people pleaser. On today's episode, I'm joined by Camilia Berrada, and we're going to talk about the courage that it takes to be authentically yourself, to be you, to live your truth in a world that doesn't want you to do that, in a world that really cherishes and upholds the status quo.
Camilia is an embodied vehicle for change. Being a mentor, coach, and advisor, specializing in guiding some of the top level executives in public, private, and charitable organizations on a global scale, she has over 13 years dedicated to exploring and expanding human consciousness. She seamlessly bridges the gap from shamans to boardrooms, becoming the instrument of change for the leaders she supports in their elevation. As always, I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you haven't already, please subscribe to Living Beyond Expectations.
wherever you get your podcasts. All right, let's get into it. Welcome. I'm really excited to have you here. I know that we've been trying to do this for a little bit now, but I'm glad that we're plague free, no, no anything going on here. But today we're going to have a really interesting conversation. So I'm really looking forward to what we create today. I would like to start with a question to kind of get us into the space. And so my question for you is why do you think that people pretend to be something they're not?
Well, thank you for having me. And this feels like perfect timing. So yeah, I trust in it. Why do I think people pretend?
Because it takes balls not to. It takes a lot of courage to be in relationship with truth. I had a session this morning with someone on my team who I also coach and he said to me, he wants multiple wives. He wants to have children with lots of different women and there's currently two in his life and he's felt like a horrible person for.
Henri (02:11.63)
a while now feeling guilty because of these desires that he's obviously not yet gotten to the bottom of. There's deeper needs for safety there. But for many years, he was in a relationship with this woman as her provider. And he's provided a lot of reassurance that has led her to make decisions that
have made her quite codependent, reliant on his support. And he's now resenting that commitment. His intentions weren't bad, right? But now that he's realizing it, it takes a lot of courage to to right that wrong. So why people pretend I think we're all doing the best we can, but we can only act.
at the level of awareness that we presently have. And there's just so much more that we don't know underneath the surface than what we do. So there's an evolution as we uncover those truths, we're having to create change and we inevitably will face resistance in our bodies to shifting away from that status quo and those habitual conditioned patterns that are ingrained because it's tough.
as fuck. How is she going to react? If she's not open and mature and self -aware, she might take it personally. She might get offended. There's high stakes going on, right? So it's not easy to be ourselves and the culture we live in certainly doesn't help us. Yeah, definitely. So just to clarify, so he wants an additional wife in keeping the one that he has today. Okay. Yes, he would like to be...
in relation to more than one woman at the same time. And some of that is because of how good I think he feels being the provider, making other humans feel safe. And my personal opinion is it's a cop out from providing safety within his own system. So the younger little him needs a lot of safety he's never gotten.
Henri (04:39.918)
And he's choosing to scratch that itch by the way he shows up in his romantic life rather than giving that to himself. But he's on a beautiful journey and he's come so long in the last few months. This is one of my youngest clients. Wow. Yeah. And I even want to touch on that a little bit. So part of what you just said was about basically inner child work, right? When you're talking about tending to that little boy and that wounded part of him. So I'd love to get a sense of.
When we think about that in relation to taking off the mask in relation to being more authentically ourselves, where does that all kind of come in play in that Venn diagram? So when we come into this world, all of us have come through a woman's body, right? Like that's been our portal into human life and existence. And the purity of our baby consciousness when we were all born.
was unwoundable, untouchable. It's so in awe, present. We hadn't even had a developed brain map at that point. So thought and distancing ourselves through dissociation wasn't even available to us. We were just here, completely dependent for our life to be fed and looked after and nourished, right? Like we're the only mammals on the planet that
need 18 years before we can cook without parental support. But to answer your question, it feels that the wounding happens through our interactions in the world as we experience things. So we come completely open, completely enlightened.
completely aware and knowing of what we're made of and what our nature is and our physiology and the fact that we're animals and nonverbal communication and responding to our senses. So our experience of the world is through our body as an instrument, as a tool, and our senses get heightened. And then we face rejection or we get scolded.
Henri (07:03.854)
or we're abandoned, we're told what to do, we're left alone, we're compared to somebody else. We're told that the right answer is outside us and it's this perfect grade that is meaningless, that we need to strive for on this made -up path that has nothing to do with our internal compass. And so we kind of lose ourselves because we need to belong as human beings. And so we adapt. We adapt and we internalize those feedbacks.
that we're getting from our parents, our teachers, our lovers, our siblings, anyone really that we come in contact with. And we're like sponges until eight years old. So all of those experiences almost formed the pillar of how we sense make in the world. And the reality map that gets created as, this is the truth that I believe in, which is not objective in any way. It's just your total subjective representation of reality.
And through that, you'll have created distance between you and that baby that was born. And so a lot of the work is cleaning that up so you can gain access again. It's not about creating anything that's outside. It's about removing a lot of the gunk to reconnect to that level of experience. And it sounds like kind of the way that I saw it as you described it was like.
baby. It's almost like the princess and the P right. The princess of the P was all these different mattresses and blankets and things on the top, but it's like the baby. And then it's this layer and this mask and this, this trauma and this no, and this abandonment and it just layers and layers. And then it's like how far removed are, is the baby from like actually being the thing that's being presented to the world. I love that so much. I often will, this is not a light bulb, but imagine this was a light bulb.
This is the pure light consciousness that we come into the world in. And then with every difficult event or experience, it's like you're layering paper on paper and it's, you know, like the light can't get through anymore. It can, but it's like a lot dimmer. And then there's just so many layers and we're just removing those one at a time to come back to the source. Yeah. So it's coming back to source. It's coming back to that more true version of who you are without all those various layers covering up that light.
Henri (09:26.606)
Yeah. And where does, where does, you know, we have a background, a shared background in Generative Trance, and I've talked about it here on the podcast before. And I'd love to understand where that then kind of can weave itself into that taking off of the mask or that, you know, we'll go with the analogy of removing all the different layers. Where does that kind of come into play when you're wanting to do some of this work? To me, trance is one of the most powerful.
modalities out there. One of the things I love the most about it is it's inclusive of the conscious mind. So we're respectful of all the parts within our human being body. There's previous waves of hypnosis that would say, okay, your mind is dumb and it's constantly self sabotaging. So we're going to bypass that. And then we're going to
get to your unconscious mind, we're gonna tell it what to do, because it's dumb to, right? So it's like complete disempowering of the infinite wisdom that our bodies hold for ourselves. And then it evolved and Ericsson came along and then it became, okay, your conscious mind's still playing tricks on you, so we're gonna bypass that monkey that controls you up here and your unconscious mind's super intelligent, so we're gonna work with it.
in order to guide your life and void of consciousness. Exactly. What I love that Stephen Gilligan did with Generative Trans is he came along and he went, your conscious mind is brilliant and your unconscious mind is also brilliant. So let's create a state where we can get both of those intelligences online and we get to connect them and we see.
what emerges. So to me, trance is one of the most powerful tools out there for all going around the world. The earth work, corporate cities, noise, friends, parties, whatever day to day difficult human existence. Speaking English, right? All these normal things we do English language. What trance is, is like Spanish, right? It's like a different way to feel and perceive and navigate things that are more true.
Henri (11:48.334)
than we ever knew, but we don't have access to unless we're in a particular relaxed, open, centered, safe environment and state and magic can be created from there. So I use that and some other modalities too on a daily basis just to tap back in to my truth, just to tap back into my body outside of the constructs.
and the complexity that I'm always running around like a headless chicken and trying to do and achieve, right? Like it's what's actually like, where is my awareness right now? Where am I? And how do I feel into that and act from that place rather than just think my way? Yeah, what I love about trance too, you know, and the way that Stephen Gilligan describes it, even in his book on generative trances, trance isn't.
you don't necessarily have to be sitting in your yoga pose or sitting, you know, and like, you know, you don't have to be doing that. You could be daydreaming. You could be stirring your cup of coffee and enter into a place where those two con the conscious and unconscious elements are interacting and kind of, you know, dancing with one another. And so I, if we're talking, kind of continuing down this, this path of connecting the conscious and the unconscious when it comes to that self expression.
What happens when you connect to your unconscious? So I'm the conscious version. You and I talking right now, we're conscious. We're forming our reality with our very conscious conversation. So when I connect to that unconscious, what's there?
Henri (13:33.038)
Everything and nothing Space right like when you go there You free yourself from the super narrow limited reality you've constructed that you live in and it can be both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time because you realize just how little you know and how much unknown there is and I
It can be terrifying for someone who's been in some kind of control pattern for most of their lives. And we reward control and predictability in the world a lot. And at the same time, it can feel exhilarating because it's like, you know, when you look at a river stream going through, right? Like it just is. So you're losing the identification piece and you're in the land of infinite possibilities.
So none of your limiting beliefs or kinks or patterns exist there because you are that river. You are that tree. You are nature. You are connected to the mycelium network around you. And it feels so good and nourishing. And this is the kind of thing that unless you've had an experience like that, like it sounds crazy. And when you do, you know exactly.
what we're talking about because it's just, it feels like coming home. Yeah. It always, you know, I love the movie, everything everywhere all at once. I thought it was, if some people didn't get it, I felt it was very profound because it literally brought in themes of everything everywhere all at once. And so it kind of always reminds me of this, like that's the anchor that I kind of go to because it, especially when I'm talking about this to some people, cause it just, it, it does sound like this.
woo woo kind of thing at times, but really it's like, if we bring it down to that, it's all the realities that could exist for you are all there at the same time. There's to your point, there's no limiting beliefs there. It's literally like, Hmm, what if I could just imagine this for my life? And that realm of possibility is there. And what you're doing is connecting that realm of possibility to this very real.
Henri (15:58.19)
reality conscious mind and you can then decide kind of what you want to do and creating that reality out in this 3d, you know, you and I talking on this podcast world. And I'd love to hear some examples or some experiences that you've had, like how has it helped you? Right? Cause you've gone on quite the journey from, you know, being at one of the top four,
being in the really corporate world and then now emerging out into this coaching, this healer, this facilitator space that you're in. So how has it worked for you? What have you been able to create and pull forward into your 3D reality?
That's such a good question. And it affects every area of my life all the time to the point where I feel so many of those possibilities have been plucked in and birthed and physically manifested into this world that I'm on a completely different plane now than I would have been had I not committed to this path. And I can give you an example from this morning as well as a journey, but.
I was on a medicine retreat last week in Sedona. It was extraordinary. And to help with the integration, I'm microdosing psilocybin this month. So it's just day two, took the weekend off, soft landing in Los Angeles this month. And this morning I was, I didn't have much time. I didn't have two hours to do some full on rituals. My meetings are starting early because now like I've got an eight hour time difference with a lot of the people in my world.
even though global now. But I had a meeting at like 7 or 8 a and I woke up and I held the box of the microdose, the pill box, and I held it to my heart and I connected to it and the intention that came through was quantum leap. And I was like, today is going to feel like a quantum leap. And I don't have any sexy plans today, right? Like I'm so excited to be back at work.
Henri (18:12.59)
Like I'm finally in one physical location for a month without having to pack or travel. And it's been by design. I had travel fatigue and this is exactly what I wanted to hunker down and focus on my work and go to the gym and eat really healthy food and just go back to living a really normal, disciplined life for a couple of weeks to push things forward. And one meeting that...
had been scheduled two months ago, right? I had forgotten I had in my diary after I met with my team was an inbound LinkedIn lead. And we're just beginning to create an online brand. And like we're at the very early days of that beginning to take off and that being a channel, because most of my business was word of mouth and referral. And we bought my highest level package, which is a...
private package worth a hundred thousand pounds and it includes a bespoke retreat. And that was the first time I connected with that human being. And to me, that felt like a quantum leap because I was under the impression that in order to sell my higher level offerings, I needed to spend an enormous amount of time with the person and connect really deeply and do all sorts of things that led to that point. This was one call done.
Right. So that's one very practical example that happened today, which without this work, I don't see how I would have had the capacity to hold those level of shifts in my nervous system. But yeah, it's given me freedom on the inside. It's improved every single relationship in my life. It's helped me create amazing results in my corporate days. It's helped me give me the courage to leave.
Like I left Deloitte because I realized energetically it was draining me. I was in the perfect situation. There was no reason for me to leave other than every single day that I stayed, I felt the energetic drain of the unconscious message I was feeding my body is you don't back yourself enough to leave. You don't back yourself enough to leave. You're afraid you're not going to make it. And I could...
Henri (20:33.134)
I feel that it was a safety. I got comfortable. It was perfect. I could have kept it, but I had to leap. I had to leap for that reason to actualize and live my most fulfilling life. So, so it's influences literally everywhere from my love life to my sleeping routine to who I hang out with and my friendships to where I am in the world. It's there's not a single.
aspect of my life that it hasn't touched. And what I love about what you said was if you didn't take the leap, you weren't backing yourself. And I think for a lot of people, the, as we talked about at the beginning, right, is this pressure to conform this pressure to, you know, you said status quo. And so it is the pressure, you know, you're at Deloitte. Why would you ever leave Deloitte?
you know, why would you do that? Right. And your answer was, because if I don't, I'm not believing in myself. And at the end of the day, if you don't believe in you, right, then no one believes in you really. and so I love that idea of backing yourself. Not even, even that, that sounds fucking scary. Well, it is.
in the sense that you're burning bridges or you think you're burning bridges. I could always go back. I never will. I don't want to. Right. Like I'm saying this in the public forum that's going to go out there. I never will. I'm never going to want to regress, but any place you've acquired in your life, any stage you can always go back to. You can always go. It's there for you. It's acquired. Like there's no way I knock on their door and they're like, sorry. No.
You know, it's like, yeah, absolutely. Come back, right? Like, so we think we're burning bridges, but are we? I think we're burning bridges for ourselves because we know we're never going to want to go back once we've evolved beyond that level. And to me, this is where the greatest transformations have happened, is when you make a decision that comes from your heart.
Henri (22:52.398)
And you back it with your life. And it's terrible. Even just as you said that my whole body was like, whoa, yeah, fuck yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's what it's about. Right. But when you back it with your life, that means like that means showing up for yourself. You're the good, the bad and the ugly, because it's a roller coaster reality. Right. Like when you're in Deloitte, you're much more delusional.
I was much more delusional. You know, it was like, this is my reality. I got tunnel vision. It's really easy. It's really easy to lie to yourself. As an entrepreneur, immediately there's more uncertainty, right? On all the levels. And then it's like, but I'm expanding to hold that. Okay. What does that mean? Who do I want to be when I'm angry? Who do I want to be when things aren't working out? Right? Like what decisions do I make? And that level of detachment is healthy because you stop focusing.
obsessively on the external outcomes and you get a pathway to the inside. And the irony I found is the more I go vertical on the inside and how I feel, the more my external reality effortlessly rises to match me. So I'm creating more than I dreamed possible at this stage without obsessively trying like I used to. Yeah. And especially as you're talking about leaving.
Deloitte, suddenly you have, I would imagine you had more space, right? To even say, okay, without this thing, without Deloitte over here, without whatever that identity was, whatever that version of me that I was in that context, now I have to reevaluate. And I think that that's where the process of this mask, right? Like removing the mask and being more true to who you are starts to come into play. Cause now you have all this space. Like at Deloitte, I was this way.
at, you know, I got up, I did this for breakfast, I did, I went to the gym or I did this walk or, you know, you had the very specific routines that aligned with that reality. And then you're out of that. And as you said, the uncertainty of an entrepreneur, but it's also now suddenly your whole day is open. Your whole day is living in your adventure, essentially. Right. And so with that space, I think even that can be really tricky for a lot of people. Totally. And my personal experience was so funny because...
Henri (25:18.222)
My final two years at Deloitte, I had really cracked corporate. I already had the spaciousness from a physical time and capacity perspective. What I didn't realize, though, where you're spot on with your space point is energetically. I didn't realize how much I was being drained, even though it was only a couple of hours a week, even though it was just a little bit of this and I was at full autonomy, full freedom. I was being so drained at a soul level and I wasn't.
being true to my heart in all the ways, because there was always someone who would find something, right? There was always something to comply by or adhere to, even within the range I had created. And so for me, it was like, I'm free now, right? Like I'm completely free. And with that comes a shed load of responsibility, because it's all this energy that you get to use to create.
And it's like, what do you want to be known for? Because there's no more parameters that you have to fit within or respect. You're creating it all. You're building your own table. You're training yourself. You're finding your people. Like, I mean, this literally, this painting is literally what I've been doing. I mean, I didn't expect to become nomadic. I came to the US for a two month.
You know, philanthropist conference in New York and a trance training in San Diego and California. And I never went back to London. It's been a year. But it's this flowing back to center and understanding that you have agency and you're not in control of anything and then constantly coming back to center to do the true thing and the true thing and the true thing. And...
to hell with the consequences. Like the first three months when I realized I wasn't going back to London, I was getting very senior, important, influential executive clients saying, well, you know, we used to meet at this hotel and what about our workshop? And like, what do you mean you're not coming back? And that felt like pressure at the time of, am I going to lose my clients? And you know, I ended up hosting a retreat in Hawaii completely spontaneously.
Henri (27:40.974)
and invited them. And now when someone wants to see me physically, it's like, come to where I am and we'll do a VIP day in person and we'll be in nature and like, fine. But it's really helped me integrate all of it together. I don't have to choose. It's like, yeah, we have online containers and you know what, without them, we wouldn't be able to have a global diverse continuum over time of a six month or 12 month collective zoom journey. And we get to...
come together in crazy, natural locations in the world for a three day intensive retreat. And it's both of those things. Yeah, and what's interesting, the way that you talked about it, it almost sounded like when we talked earlier about the generative trance and the unconscious being literally everything and nothing at all, and then the consciousness being kind of that narrowed path. What you said is basically when you're at Deloitte or you're working for someone, you have a path set in front of you. Like you have to do XYZ throughout this...
you know, throughout this time that you have with us as your employer. But then now when you are out of that, you're basically standing in front of all of these doors that can literally go anywhere you want and you have the responsibility to choose. Cause otherwise you just stand still. Right. And that's not how life works. Life moves forward. So I just love that. Like, you know, it's, it's when you, when you make that decision, you start to choose your own adventure. And I think that that even,
When it comes to expressing and living more authentically, choosing your own adventure really is the crux of where you have to get to, right? Because you start to, at least in my personal experience, I started to realize that I had all, you know, all back to the layers analogy. I had all of these layers and all of these paths that were set out before me from strangers, from family, from friends, from all these external pressures and.
recognizing them and recognizing them because I was on that path, I reacted or acted in a certain way, but it still felt very foreign to me. And then once I started to say, you know what I want to choose differently, right? You said earlier, like choose how you're angry or choose how you feel or choose where you find your bliss or your joy, right? Suddenly all of that is possible for you. And for me it was,
Henri (30:03.342)
choosing that adventure that I think allowed me even just to get to this podcast, just to start creating, right? As someone who I've also done medicine journeys and as a creator, right? That was a big part of my first journey. My big part of the message was the creator. And it's like, yeah, I'm created and I'm also the creator.
Yeah, and I love that you've said create five times in the last 30 seconds because that's the resounding feeling I have in my body that we are constantly creating our lives, constantly creating our reality with the tiniest micro decisions of what thought we just had and how we spoke to the cleaner and what we had for breakfast and what clothes we put on our bodies and...
You know, what we're doing, that's of service and how we choose to rest and what you're saying about choice and sovereignty and the pressure of people constantly taking that away of, you know, speaking to somebody else today about the importance of saying no and how hard it is when you're a pleaser, right? Because you want to keep these people happy. You want to help. You want you want to keep the peace and you're constantly abandoning yourself by not.
being ruthless with those boundaries and choosing. And as you start to reclaim that sovereignty and that choice, what happens, this is why we use all these modalities like trance is to things that we don't understand or that feels super sped up. We slow down and we're like, hold on, how did I end up drunk again? Hold on. How did I end up bullying my secretary again? Hold on. How did I end up?
having mindless sex or eating the brownie or and it's like it just happened and it's like well if we slow that down we'll find literally like 50 micro decisions and it's like huh there's a pattern there's a pattern okay and it's like at what point did I choose to go down that way and it's like and once we see that it's like well what if I go left next time what could happen then?
Henri (32:21.486)
And like that, we're like artists, all of us in different ways. I never thought of myself as artistic. I have a really artsy sister who's in fashion and is a painter and is objectively creative and artistic. And I realize I'm artistic in a completely different way, right? In my fearlessness of the unknown. How many people came to me and I didn't even think it was a big deal, but they're like, how do you travel alone?
Like, aren't you scared? Don't you get lonely? What do you do? How does that work? And it's like never crossed my freaking mind, right? To just be alive and the adventure of it all. So. It's about putting that energy out into the world. And for you, that travel, that nomadic experience, that going into the unknown, that is the pure creation energy, you're creating your life.
And that's fucking awesome.
Henri (33:25.038)
Yeah, yeah, I want I have a vision that we're all aware of that power that we have. So we're all consciously creating our lives every day, every morning.
Henri (33:46.382)
I think sometimes when we think about all the layers and all the crap that's been put on us, it can feel really daunting. Where do we start? Where do we, you know, which layer do we pick out? Is it just straight from the top? Right. Or is it which layer is the more acute one? Which one is the one that's more up for us right now? And how do we start to look at that when it feels like, you know, we've just been piled on all this crap?
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. It feels so overwhelming when when you realize you're stuck and trapped in some life or some reality or some path that You don't feel free. You don't feel happy. You don't feel at peace and it's like what do you do? It's like I don't know how to get out of the relationship. I don't know how to Leave this job. I don't know how to whatever
it might be. And you just start. You don't have to burn your bridges today. Right. You start by asking yourself and holding the right questions, allowing yourself the time to be with that. You start by putting yourself in environments where there are better models. Right. Like when I was in London, I was ruthlessly crafting.
my environment. I was spending 90 minutes a day at my yoga studio just to balance out the hectic intensity of the city. That just got me to, I'm okay. It's not chaos inside me. Right? In ways that I don't need to when I'm in Costa Rica, because I just go outside and it's like, okay, I'm in the jungle. There's an ocean. Right? Everyone is healthy versus the constant, like, it doesn't feel good to my body what we've built.
around us as impressive as it might be like this over consumption, overstimulated, constant, just ruthless drive for more. Just stopped feeling good. And so there's really if you're just overwhelmed and daunted by the idea of creating change, it's like what's the smallest thing you could do today? And how can you sign yourself up like your future self to have?
Henri (36:09.902)
the mastermind or the coach or the retreat to look forward to that are in your diary so that you're making it easy for yourself or all you have to do is show up because you've created this pockets of spaces without regular pockets of spaces to connect to myself. I wouldn't be here. Yeah. And I think that that's, that's probably the crux of a lot of what we've been talking about here is.
in order to do that work, in order to live more authentically, in order to live in a way that is ruthless about your time, it is about connecting with yourself. And whether that's through gendered or trans or other modalities or mindfulness techniques or whatever it is, connecting with yourself is the only way to do that. And we live in a place which you kind of talked about earlier where it's we're taught to outsource all of that. Our connection is to the outside world versus our connection starting with our inner world.
And then whatever's left over connects to the outside world with community, with, you know, things like that. But it's about connecting with ourselves. We have to do that in order to reclaim our life. So many people live by other people's fucking agendas, right? Even I heard this once, even checking your email when you first wake up in the morning or checking social media, you immediately energetically put yourself in somebody else's agenda for.
your thoughts or for your actions, right? If you like, imagine you check an email and there's a sale and you're like, I have to get a sale. Suddenly now you're in the agenda of that e -comm shop going and buying something that maybe you needed, maybe you didn't need, or maybe just wanted fine. But you did that early in the morning and then, and then you get up because you spent 45 minutes on that site and then you immediately go get your coffee and you immediately get in the shower. You brush your teeth, you go to work.
And now your whole day, your whole first 10 to 12 hours were dedicated to everyone else. And then you get home and you got to cook dinner. And if you have kids, you got to take care of the kids. And if you have a husband, you have to entertain them or a partner or whatever. Right. And it's like, where in there did you create any space for yourself? And so many of us, including myself, I've done that. I did that for fucking years, especially during COVID. There was no me time. There was no me.
Henri (38:33.006)
I was just a workhorse. I worked 16 hours a day, would numb out on Netflix, go to bed at three, wake up at six, start work at seven. Like that was my life for a very long time during COVID. But there's a lot of people that live that existence every day. Where in that schedule, was there any bit of you connecting with you? And I think that that is where, if you want to start somewhere, just start with that and whatever that even looks like, whatever you think.
whatever you might think that could be for you, you could probably start there and it would be better than what you're doing now.
And I just think, you know, I'm all for integration and action usually, but what you've just said is so powerful. I think the simple shift in perspective and awareness can be transformational in itself. I'm still personally guilty of the phone in the morning, especially when I'm in the US. When I'm in Asia, it's easier, but like, you know, my whole team's like many hours before me. So usually what I'll do is I'll wake up and I'll just answer my team.
Right. And every time I go on a retreat, I promise myself that no phone in bedroom. Right. Because I don't have my phone and I realize the impact it has on my attention, on my body. It's crazy. And still, even doing that, which I'm working on, I have loads of pockets of space. Like, there's not a day that goes by where I don't spend one to two hours.
moving, meditating, breathing, whatever, some energetic practice in these spaces, right? And then my work is also actually constituted to feel a lot and do a lot of that. So I've deliberately by design created those spaces for myself. But I remember how much more challenging it was when I was 24 seven pre covid days in boardrooms and glass buildings all day long. And.
Henri (40:32.846)
I remember people looking at me weird for taking my shoes off and going into a desk to just sit and find two minutes of peace to not be on that rat race. And I couldn't agree more that that's the ultimate goal. It's cultivating this relationship with ourselves and shifting it on the inside in a really deep and subtle way. And most clients, they come to me with external things. They want higher performing teams and...
They want to fix this huge budget deficit or they want to raise X hundred million of investor money for their fund or businesses. And actually, there's a deeper part of them that drew them to me because they know they want to heal. It's like executive healing, you know, because they know they want to learn to feel again. And a part of them intuitively feels that even though they're a bit.
reticent and reluctant and a little bit afraid. Right. I'm still afraid sometimes of those unbearably delicate parts of ourselves coming to the surface. They want they crave that freedom. They crave that relationship. They crave that feeling without, OK, I'm going to buy a portion 20 minutes later. I'm going to feel empty again. Or that promotion led to nothing. Right. Just being OK.
with you and feeling good and being healthy and being able to be a vessel of love in the world. I really feel that's the most valuable part of this work and people just don't know how to get there. So I, I love this podcast for that reason. And I think what you said is it's important to point out to, for that CEO, for that executive, all of the things that it took to get to where they are, like they're still gifts, right?
they needed, you needed to go through that experience in order to get to you or they needed to get to that experience so that they could feel safe. Right. So, and of course everything kind of has the shadow side and, you know, and the gift side, but like, we don't have to beat ourselves up for where we're at today. We don't have to look back and just regret everything that we've done that's led us here.
Henri (42:49.422)
I can't feel, I don't even know what feelings I'm feeling are and, and, I'm beating myself up because I decided that I wanted to be a killer in my job and I just wanted to really fuck it up and rise up that ladder. And then I got here and I have no access to my emotions. Right. And instead of looking back and being like, look what you did to yourself. It's like, I'm at a place now I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. What I did to get here was exactly what needed to happen in order to get here. And you just move from that space.
from that reality and just move forward instead of looking back while you're trying, you know, it's like trying to by locate where you're looking forward, but you're like got a mirror here that's kind of looking at the rear view at the same time. You don't have to do that.
We're on an infinite journey of becoming and every chapter serves to forge who we are today. It's all a gift. And one of the most impressive human beings I've ever met met him last November in Barcelona at the Nexus European Summit. So Nexus is a community of philanthropist investors globally. And.
He looked different. He looked like a hippie. He had long blonde hair. He had like that surfer look going. He's wearing like what looked like recycled clothes and in pretty much a full boardroom of investors in suits. Right. We were all having dinner. Everybody was drinking wine. I don't drink alcohol anymore. And he was drinking this weird green thing like powder that he's putting in this water and knocked on his shoulder. I'm like, what are you drinking? What is this? Like 11 p at night at this conference.
And he's like, that's my matcha herb thing. And I was like, OK, that's interesting. Cool. Next day, I'm like, how in my head, I was like, how is this guy here? The next day, we were in one of the conference rooms and he was the expert, the panelist on regenerative agriculture, talking about the sustainability of food, the future of food, the future of human bodies and humanity. And he was so well versed in it.
Henri (44:56.27)
He was in complete flow. I was in awe. I was like, wow, I've got to speak to this guy. I go and approach him after his talk. And I'm honestly dumbfounded. He tells me that this guy, OK, hippie looking surfer dude who talks about the future of food lives on some kind of farm in Ibiza and hosts a hospital treats. He spent 15 years of his life.
at JP Morgan. And then seven at a private equity fund. So 22 years of this guy's life was spent in the high flying finance industry, right? Which is one of the toughest when it comes to conditioning and brainwashing and burnout and expectations and financial incentive. Like it's crazy. Okay. Shareholders and it's wild, not sustainable. I, I,
My God, we could talk about that for a whole other hour. He spent 22 years there and that was this guy's richness because now he understood how to make the models on the farm for the plants. Like he's it's not it's I'm not impressed by the yogi who learned yoga when they were 12 and just hated on the corporate world for 20 years and it's claiming some kind of spiritual label.
Right. I'm much more impressed by people who have developed range in their fluidity of being so that they've been really good and excelled and mastered different environments and then created space and went behind all of it and questioned, well, who am I underneath that? What do I care about? How does that fit together? And how do I take a little piece of this that was really good?
because I learned so much at Deloitte that serves me today. And how do I take a little piece of this that was really good? Because the neuroscience and the psychology and the behavioral economics part of my upbringing mattered. And how do I take this and the shamanic stuff and the energetics and the non -cognitive linear stuff? And how do I weave that? And that's camellia right now, right? And that's my richness. It's both weaved together, not me.
Henri (47:17.102)
Exiling parts of myself so I can make way for the new thing. It's it's including everything that came before it so I love that It's all yeah, it's weaving weaving the tapestry. That is you Yeah, yeah and all those threads and every single thread is is a bad thread every single thread creates that whole picture
We can't get rid of anything. I mean, that's how deep energetics works, right? Like we're, we're, we're, we're creating space and we're growing our capacity, but we're never exiling. We're integrating. It's like the movies. Even transmuting, like it's taking something and changing. It's this thing that we said is bad. And instead of saying, no, I'm going to get rid of it. I'm going to cut this thing off of them. Literally going to cut this thread and get rid of it. Instead of doing that, you're saying, no, I'm just going to weave it over here this way.
I'm going to change it into something really beautiful and really powerful for myself.
Yes, transmuting is right. It's like changing its forms because when you cut, when you, when you, when you cut the cord, you're leaving a part of you on the other side. So it's not making you more whole. It's making you more fragmented. We're trying to reclaim the parts of ourselves that we've lost. I just had the vision of Edward Scissorhands. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I think that's really powerful.
And so I think it's good to actually just leave it there. And so if you had kind of a, if you had to kind of sum it up and talk directly to someone about their interest or their curiosity or this moment or this inflection point that they're at with taking that time with being fucking ruthless about the time and space that they make for themselves, what would you say to them?
Henri (49:17.55)
I would say no matter how impossible it looks from where you're looking right now, it's so much closer than you think. And the best investment you will ever make is the one you make in yourself.
Amen to that. Amen to that. I fully agree. Well, I thank you. And I would love for people to be able to connect with you. Where can they find you? LinkedIn is the best place at the moment. We are really we're really putting a lot.
of the business into the brown there. I'm on Instagram also, but yeah, my, my full name, Camelia Barada, C -A -I -L -I -A -B -E -R -R -A -D -A. And we put out a lot of free stuff on there. So yeah, come and join them. Yeah. And of course I'll, I'll include that in the show notes. So that will, all that information will be there for anyone who wants to reach out. Cause I think that in the time that I've spent with you, there there's something really beautiful and powerful.
about the way that you create in the world that I just, every time I'm in your presence, it just, it feels so good. So I highly recommend it for others to try to get that experience if they can, if it calls to them. So I so appreciate you being here. This was great. I know we, you know, threw this together as a reschedule and it was at the last moment, but this has been a really great conversation. So thanks for being here.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And for everybody else, stay tuned for the next episode of Living Beyond Expectations and I'll see you later.