10: Zoran Todorovic on understanding anxiety, depression, fear, addiction, and self-esteem

Discover more about Zoran:
zorantodorovic.space
tnmcoaching.com
Instagram
Youtube

For further research on those mentioned:
Gabor Maté
Gabor Maté – Compassionate Inquiry
Brené Brown
Stan Grof
Eckhart Tolle
Charles Eisenstein
Otto Scharmer

Giancarlo: Hello, welcome to the, I think, is Episode number 10, of the mangu.tv Podcast. Today, I’m very grateful to have my friend, Zoran Todorovic. Zoran is a one-of-a-kind coach, way-shower, strategist, author, speaker. With more than 20 years in the field of coaching ranging from life, business, and corporate coaching, to the pursuit of inner peace, positive thinking, emotional and spiritual intelligence, meditation and conscious living, Zoran is equipped to support you in whatever you aspire to achieve. Zoran has had an enlightening and successful journey that all began from a genuine desire to help people unlock their potential, and strive to be equally happy and successful in both their career and personal lives. That’s quite a mission, huh?

Zoran: [laughs] 

Giancarlo: Let me ask you, what does it mean, ‘wayshower’?

Zoran: Wayshower. 

[laughter] 

Zoran: It can be wayshower. Wayshower is somebody who shows the way. 

Giancarlo: Ah, I thought it was something to do with the shower. [chuckles] 

Zoran: No, no. I love wayshower, it’s a good spin on it.

Giancarlo: No, of course, you’re showing the way. I understand. 

Zoran: Yeah.

Giancarlo: If you don’t mind, I would like to structure this conversation, 45-60 minutes, around three main topics. The problems, the solution through healing and psychotherapy, and the solution through coaching.

Let’s jump straight in with the human problems. I see five of them. I see anxiety, depression, fear, addiction, self-esteem. Maybe we can go one by one and see what’s your take on this human condition, where they’re coming from? How do they manifest? Let’s start from there.

Zoran: Well, thank you so much for inviting me, I’m so grateful to be with you today and to discuss these amazing topics, and hopefully help people who are listening to overcome some of them.

You started with anxiety. For me, anxiety is a byproduct of the way we live nowadays. The way we live nowadays is in the space of overactivation. Most of the time, we are stimulated too much. Meaning, our nervous system gets so much imprint and so much stimulation from outside, that our nervous system really doesn’t know how to handle all of this overload of the information. For me, when I work with the clients, the basic anxiety comes from activation of sympathetic nervous system. Meaning, we are so bombarded that our nervous system doesn’t know how to process the information and then nobody teaches us how to activate parasympathetic nervous system. For me, that’s this balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. We are not taught how to handle those in a good way. That’s the starting point of anxiety for me.

Giancarlo: Maybe can you clarify those two systems that maybe not everybody’s familiar-

Zoran: Yeah, absolutely.

Giancarlo: -including me, to be honest?

Zoran: [chuckles] Exactly, that’s good to learn. [chuckles] Sympathetic nervous system is nervous system that it’s activating you to go to achieve, to accomplish, to move through life, to have a goal, to have a purpose. Every morning when we wake up, basically, if you’re lucky enough that our sympathetic nervous system is activated, it will be the one who says, “Today, you have to do this.” A lot of the people in this society are overachievers, and so they activate their sympathetic nervous system by drinking coffee, for example, because if you don’t feel that energy inside, you need some kind of stimulants to start drinking in order for you to activate sympathetic. So, this is, “Go, go, go, go, go, go go.” 

The parasympathetic nervous system is the one who is telling us to rest. This is the space when we are calming down, slowing down, taking a siesta, meditating, breathing, resting and really getting into peace. Now, you can already see that in our society, not so many people are actually activating parasympathetic nervous system because we get, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.” Life takes over, children, business, family, projects, social engagements. Then, we have very little time basically to devote to activation of parasympathetic. It’s like a parachute. Parasympathetic needs to fall into yourself.

Giancarlo: Yeah, but then you see, I say, “Why we feel anxious?” You say, “Because we do too much,” but that’s another symptom. So, why do we do too much?

Zoran: [laughs] Why do we do too much? That’s a great question. To be very honest with you, I think that we belong in the culture of overachievers. How the society is structured right now to success, through wealth generation, to accumulation of material goods, to us mapping ourselves with other people through social media, everything around us tells us, “We need to do more.” We need to be more, we’re not enough ourselves, and we need to consistently strive to become somebody else. So, I think that’s one of the reasons. We as human beings, we are actually quite simple, Giancarlo. We model behavior that we see. If you see the society is going one way, we will try to fit because we want to belong, and then we will model that behavior. So, I think that’s one of the reasons why we would like to be so active all the time.

Giancarlo: Yeah. But I know a lot of anxious people that don’t do much. 

Zoran: Yes. 

[laughter] 

Zoran: You know, the lazy people. I know, but again, if you really look into physiology– you can look at them for a psychology and physiology. If you look from the physiology of people who are not doing too much, but they’re anxious, again, this is the disbalance between the nervous system. I literally coach people to get to the breathing exercising, to get to the meditation when they consciously activate their parasympathetic nervous system and then literally anxiety disappears. So, it doesn’t need to be that you’re one who is busy, busy, busy, go, go, go, to be experiencing anxiety, but anxiety, it’s an outcome of overactivation parasympathetic nervous system. That can also come from trauma. It doesn’t need to be from us overdoing. Maybe somebody in their life had a traumatic experience, their parasympathetic nervous system got really overactivated, and now they’re in flight and fight mode. Even though they are not doing that much, it’s still working behind the scenes.

Giancarlo: Yeah. That’s where I want to go with trauma, but let’s cover the other ailment of contemporary society, depression.

Zoran: Mm-hmm. I’ll give you from coaching perspective. My lens, how I get into this is from coaching. I’m no psychologist per se. For me depression, it’s lack of connection to your meaning, to the purpose of your life. When we are not in relationship to our true essence, meaning we haven’t done enough work with ourselves to really discover, “What am I here to do? Who am I? What is the purpose and meaning of my life?”, then you are not in a relationship with your authentic self. When we are not in relationship with our authentic self, then we can experience the beginning of depression. And this is lack of connection, and lack of connection to yourself, and lack of connection to the purpose. Usually, people who are depressed that would say to you, “What is my life for? Why am I here? I don’t understand the meaning of this. I’m giving up. I’m resigning. I’m letting go.” You see what I mean? It’s the connection to that.

Giancarlo: Completely. What about fearful state?

Zoran: The fearfulness. It’s a faith issue for me, [laughs] because the fear usually comes from our inability to be connected to something bigger and to have a faith that we are actually taken care of, that we are somebody that is always guided, always protected, always loved, always appreciated. So, there is a disconnect between source, God, deeper self, however you call it, whatever religion, your experience in spiritualities, and you. If you don’t have a faith, the unshakable faith, then the fear creeps in to actually call you back to faith. I see fear as a positive mechanism, because if you don’t have a fear on that level, you will never remember that you’re disconnected.

Giancarlo: Nice. I can see already the common thread between all this condition. What about addiction?

Zoran: [laughs] The addiction, what do you think about addiction yourself?

Giancarlo: You know I had an addiction problem. [Zoran laughs] I’ve been very public on this podcast about my cannabis addiction. 

Zoran: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: I come to your podcast, then you ask me the question. [laughs] 

Zoran: Okay. I’ll ask you [laughs] in my podcast. For me, addiction, there is a part of us that is unfulfilled that needs something. From a coaching lens, whenever we have the needs that are unfulfilled, need to be loved, appreciated, cherished, understood. We kind of shy back into the addiction because they give us illusion of the need that we actually haven’t fulfilled ourselves and that becomes a comfort zone. That’s the reason why it becomes a repetitive behavior because you’re actually resting inside of your addiction because your needs are being met. But not for real, they’re just the illusion of the..

Giancarlo: Temporary filling of the hole.

Zoran: It’s a fix.

Giancarlo: Of the perception of the hole, which it’s not really there. 

Zoran: Exactly. 

Giancarlo: And self-esteem.

Zoran: Ah, self-esteem. Self-esteem for me, I always redefine it to self-love. You see, the self-esteem issues come from a lack of self-love. Usually, people in coaching industry or in psychotherapy, in psychology industry, they come into self-esteem directly by saying to people, “You have to increase your self-esteem. Your self-esteem is low.” And that’s, for me, a wrong take. The self-esteem, it’s basically absence of self-love. When one understands how unique, special, divine, amazing they really are, then that self-love generates inside of themselves and then, self-esteem becomes a natural byproduct. It’s always an issue, “I don’t love myself. Why don’t I love myself enough? I’m not good looking. I’m not good with the company. I’m not successful enough.” Projections that you make for yourself. Then you lose that self-love, and then self-esteem suffers. 

Giancarlo: Yes. Amazing. As you heard yourself talking, anxiety, depression, fear, addiction, self-esteem, you almost use the same words, but-

Zoran: In a different way.

Giancarlo: -in a different way. But if you had to summarize it, I would say it’s a disconnection with self and disconnection with source. Where I would like to go with this is that, what is the solution? Okay, you are disconnected with self, you’re disconnected with your purpose, you’re disconnected with source, you feel alienated. What is the solution?

Zoran: [laughs] 

Giancarlo: No, it’s a big topic. Contemporary psychiatrists are struggling–

Zoran: Of course.

Giancarlo: They’re failing. If you go to medical science that give you serotonin inhibitor, they give you an SSRI, which basically artificially closes your synapses, so your brain can be bathing in serotonin, which obviously doesn’t work, because there are all these side effects, because serotonin is designed to bind to the synapses. If you leave them around like that, then you have all the side effects of lethargy, obesity, lack of libido. Yes, if you’re suicidal, maybe it’s better to be a vegetable. It’s a big question, I know.

Zoran: It is. It is a big question but all the big questions can be tackled by step-by-step milestones. That’s what I love about coaching once again, because when people come with a huge question like this, and you look into what is the solution here, it’s always broken into measurable, doable, smaller chunks. For me, the most important thing to understand right now is that as a society, we are in a crisis of connection. Usually, people would say we’re in climate crisis, so to say, but I see it as crisis of connection. And then, each and every of us have to find the way back into connecting, first to ourselves, and then to one divine creator or that we call source. Let’s call it the source. When people begin practicing the steps or activities to connect to themselves, and then connect to the source, most of these conditions will actually cease to exist. They will disappear and become obsolete. How do you connect yourself? 

Giancarlo: Yeah. What are the steps? 

Zoran: Yeah. 

[laughter] 

Zoran: I know you, results driven, you see. [laughs] Connection to yourself, there are many ways, but one of the simplest ways forward is to really understand yourself and the level of your essence. If you think about yourself beyond your personality, beyond the conditioning, as you know, most of our kids are conditioned by the age of four. Usually in Tibet, or in different teachers that tell you, “Show me the boy until the age of four, then I’ll show you the man.” By the age of four, all the synapses are already formed. So, we are basically from the age of four conditioned and predictable. Most of us are after the age of four, because we’re conditioned from society, from our parents, from our culture, from our upbringing, from what you’re seeing modeling in the world, we all can absorb, absorb, absorb. We keep on disconnecting from ourselves, because we keep on externalizing that connection to our ego. We forget about our essence. 

If you look into the child’s eyes, and you really, really look and connect, behind their eyes, you see that essence, you see who they really are. For me, the deeper connection starts from you recognizing that you are divine blueprint, your divine essence in the human form, connected to the bigger source, and you begin remembering yourself as the essence on the essential level. How do you remember that? It’s through what makes you feel good, what is the joy. Because the essence always connects to joy. You see children, I’m using that analogy, they’re always joyful, playful, willing to have a banter, willing to laugh, willing to overcome any difficulties without any struggle. They fall down, they pick themselves up, they move on. Somebody upsets them in the school, 10 minutes later, they can laugh and hug that same person moving on through joy. So, the connection to yourself, to the essence is what makes you feel joyful. How can you bring that joy inside of yourself and what generates the joy? That’s the gateway into the essential connection to yourself.

Giancarlo: Yes. That requires a big leap of faith, though, because this idea that you are a divine being is something that may be, if you’re traumatized or depressed, and you had this childhood trauma, and you had this emotional rupture, like neurological rupture– Gabor Maté says that, “Every human has two basic needs. The need for connection and the need for authenticity,” because evolutionarily, you have to be authentic in the sense of trusting your gut, not to be eaten by the saber-toothed tiger. And then you need the connection, because as an infant, the first few years, unlike a horse that you’re born and  just can run away, you’re completely dependent on your mother. And he says that what happens is that usually when you lose the connection, or the attachment with your parents, because they are distracted for their own thing, nothing to do with you, then you lose your authenticity, because you want to get that attachment back. At that moment, there is a neurological rupture, which is like a neural circuitry tear that then causes all these diseases that we mentioned. 

You said from age zero to four, you have this natural joy, and then the conditioning, which probably you meant, lack of love, lack of positive reinforcement then condition you into these conditions. This is something we understand intellectually. When you have a client that clearly says that, “I’m either depressed or anxious or fearful. I don’t trust in myself,” what do you recommend?

Zoran: It’s a facilitation process of connection. I think it’s not that difficult. I understand everything that you said about Gabor Maté, I love his work, and the ruptures, and that creates physical divisions and then you stop being completely authentic. But authenticity, it’s your ability to express your essence, to express your blueprint, your soul, basically, beyond/ before your ego. So, that’s for me through our authenticity, when you are able to feel the flavor of your soul, feel the flavor of your essence, and then you express it. 

With clients, this is exactly where we would go. We would go into facilitating conversation when they can reconnect backwards into that essential part of themselves. It will be a guided meditation, visualization, embodiment work, when they really feel it in their body, memory of their childhood, anything that will activate them to remember themselves on the essential level. For each person, it is different. For some people, it’s just silence, stillness, just being with somebody in complete and total quiet. For some people, it’s talking, talking, talking, talking a lot until they don’t have to say anything any longer and they can drop into that connection as well. For some people, it’s connecting to animals, because animals really remind ourselves to connection to the essence because they connect essence to essence. They connect soul to soul. They don’t connect from personality self. What I’m saying, different people have a different take into connecting to their blueprint, to their essence, to their soul. But for me, we are now in the state as a humanity that this is not an option any longer. [laughs] Like some people say, “We don’t have any option any longer with the climate crisis,” I would say we don’t have any option any longer to connect to our essence, to our soul and they live from that space.

Giancarlo: Anyway, what would you call the climate crisis is a disconnection with the biosphere, is the same thing. I really want to stay on this because it’s also been my personal experience with coaching. I had a Tony Robbins coach, and I started a few years ago. I think that this coaching was in some way obstructed by some of these conditions. What really helped me– it’s not one thing, it’s a process of practices that you mentioned, the somatic or the meditation. One thing that I’d love you to comment on that really helped me is the work of Brené Brown. 

Zoran: Brené Brown 

Giancarlo: She says that, basically, what really blocked us in achieving our full potential, is the inability to– the fear of embracing vulnerability, because of the shame. I saw that in myself, and I see that in people I know that have a lot of potential, but they’re just too fearful to put themselves out there for the fear of being vulnerable, because they’re ashamed. That’s a huge neurological imprint that very few people even see. What are we going to do about it?

[chuckles] 

Zoran: Shame, blame, guilt. I think shame is the collective issue. We all experience it individually. But you nailed it there, Giancarlo, because this is a collective issue that people are not aware of at all. And they don’t understand that lack of vulnerability actually goes to of me being ashamed or shameful to be able to be vulnerable. Brené Brown‘s work is really interesting, because her take on this is that in order for us to transcend this, we have to be able to experience all the emotions inside of our body. The spectrum, she calls it “the spectrum of the emotion.” Most of the time, we want to experience high-frequency emotions like joy, happiness, excitement, laughter, exhilaration, bliss, but we are reluctant to go into the lower frequency emotions like tiredness, sadness, melancholy, and so on, and so forth. What she says that part of this, being in relationship with shame, transcending the shame, and then being able to be vulnerable is that we have to allow ourselves to experience all the emotion, the full spectrum, because if you don’t experience full spectrum, you cannot experience any of these emotions to the full capacity. Meaning, if you don’t allow yourself to be melancholic, you will never be able to experience full frequency of joy, because you will be tempered. You see what I mean? It’s very interesting.

The healing path, or coaching and healing path in that direction, it’s allowing ourselves to experience everything, and then relating to those experiences, is just the emotion. It’s just the emotion. Emotion, it’s like a wave, it has a peak and then it moves on. We feel melancholy, but we’re like, “I don’t want to feel that. I don’t want to feel that. Let me do something, whatever I need to do, just to feel joyful.” You’re not allowing this wave of emotion to come up, to escalate, to come down. And then naturally, you can move into something else. Again, we’re trained not to allow yourselves to those. But if you start saying, “Okay, cool. Emotions are just emotions. This is absolutely amazing. Let me experience them,” then we will be able to be in relationship with our shame. And then, we will be able to be vulnerable, because what is shame? What is actually energy of shame?

Giancarlo: Fear of not being accepted, fear of being disconnected, fear of being seen, or fear of not being seen, which is the same thing.

Zoran: But you see the holistic approach. What I love about this conversation, and her specifically, the holistic approach, it’s about embracing all the spectrum in order for that spectrum to self-regulate, and then for you to be, “Okay, now I’m feeling shameful. Okay, cool. How do I transcend this? How do I transform this feeling?” 

Giancarlo: Understand. It’s like a gym of feelings. This is very interesting, because I see that around me. People would say, “Oh, I’m not going to go to Los Angeles and pitch the script now at my age.” This is a self-limiting belief rooted in shame, because you think you’re too old, and so you’re not even going there. But that’s the one, I think, of the major blocks. Blockage in realizing your full potential as your coach would say.

Zoran: Exactly. But you also mentioned something very important there. In addition to shame and our ability to be vulnerable, I think, vulnerability, it’s the most beautiful state. You also mentioned, the beliefs. The beliefs, those are the mental instruments in your mind. What I was saying that we’re all shaped to believe certain things by the age of four, and our wiring inside. Our defining belief, what do we believe about ourselves is the only limitation that we have in our life, including transcending the shame and being vulnerable. I would boil it down to– it’s really, really true. After 20 years of spending time with people talking, coaching, it’s always about the beliefs. What do you believe about yourself? Basically, what is your internal dialogue? What defines your internal dialogue? What do you say to you when nobody’s listening to you, when nobody’s hearing you? What is that believe that it’s bubbling inside of you?” Am I good enough? It’s one of the belief. “Can I be successful enough? Am I attractive enough?” So on and so forth. Everybody knows that internal dialogue inside of themselves. So, how to shift that further, it’s becoming aware of what you believe about yourself in reality, and then choosing a belief. Many people don’t even know that they can choose what they want to believe about their life. 

Giancarlo: Because you’ve been optimistic. People don’t question, “Am I good enough?” They actually think, “I’m not good enough. I can’t do that. It’s too competitive, it’s too difficult.”

Zoran: But if they say, “I am not good enough,” that’s the belief, this is what I was referring to, where does this belief come from? Who told you that? Why do you believe this? And what do you need to do to transform it? Because belief creates feeling. Belief, it’s masculine way. It’s very, very linear. Belief, it’s linear, but it creates reality. Then, it creates feeling because if you believe I’m not good enough, you will feel not empowered. Feelings are magnetic. Meaning, they will attract or not attract situation in your life. So, you feel I am not attractive enough, I’m not good enough, then the feeling and the belief will create action. So, now I’m not acting because I believe this, I feel not well, and I’m not acting towards that direction and that will create result.

If you reverse it backwards, the moment you change the belief, that you change the way you feel, you change how you act, and then the result is completely different. So, for me, this is the mechanics. You then challenge people, like I would do in the coaching, “Okay, what do you really believe about this and how can you choose most empowering belief?” You shift it, and then reality changes.

Giancarlo: Yeah, but it’s easier said than done, [Zoran laughs] because that feeling of insecurity is rooted in your neurocircuitry from childhood, from when your parents didn’t show up to your art performance when you were six and all your friends’ parents are there, and you see the two seats of your parents, Zoran’s dad and mom are not there. When you’re six, seven, eight, rather than thinking, okay, something happened, you think-

Zoran: They don’t love me.

Giancarlo: They don’t love me. In that moment, there is this neurological rupture, which creates– like in cross-country skiing, they create these tracks, where then that initial trauma get reinforced when the girlfriend leaves you, when the friends, you have the fight, and you have this constellation of trauma that reinforces the narrative that you’re not lovable. And then, when someone comes to your coaching studio, the tracks of lack of self-esteem is so deep, that you need to persuade them to go out of the tracks long enough to make new one. But this is so hard. It’s telling someone with fear of heights saying, “Don’t worry, you’re not going to fall.” It’s like the example of the art show, or just like a dog barking. You’re four, you hear your dog barking, and then it bites your leg, you go to the hospital, you get 20 stitches, you’re five years old, and that’s deeply ingrained on your neurocircuitry, that barking equals pain. So, you go through life, every time you hear a dog barking, you have this memory of pain. The touch, what are the tools that you use to rewire your brain? We know from neuroplasticity that this is possible, and that’s already very empowering but what tools do you use? 

Zoran: Before I talk about the tools, I just want to share a few things, observations of what you shared. People come into the coaching or therapy or healing modality when they feel they don’t have any other choice. That’s one of the things. Usually, people will come and the pain or the trauma or whatever happens in their life is so unbearable, they don’t have anything else to do, but this is the final frontier. When people do that, they also have certain level of willingness. In order for anybody to transform, they have to have willingness to transform. If somebody comes, I’m talking from coaching perspective, I’m not going to get into therapy, and says, “Well, I would love to transform my life,” but they don’t have any motivation, any energy, any willingness, that’s a completely wrong choice for them, because what they really need to do is go to the deeper healing, understanding of the trauma, understanding what created ruptures. Going back backwards in time, healing that, and then going forwards. There is no bypassing.

Giancarlo: But how you do that? With trance? With psychedelic? With meditation?

Zoran: Yes, with 30:30 trance, with psychedelic, with meditation, with therapy. Whatever the trauma is, there are different modalities right now. I would not personally, as coach, engage in healing trauma. I would say, “Well, you have trauma. Here is how this is impacting your life right now. Let’s see what you can do in order to heal and restore. And once when you restore your trauma, then you can get into more of the coaching.” But they have to be willing. From the coaching modality, when it comes to trauma, it’s about witnessing. So, the coaching uses one of these practices, that it’s about observing and witnessing, and looking into it together with a coach. Really, really, really looking into that situation. Not reliving it, not re-energizing it, but just becoming aware of it. And becoming aware of that shadow, because trauma creates shadow side in your personality, that we don’t want to see, because it’s the shadows behind us. So, how do we do this? Coaches illuminating it, bringing light to it and then choosing, okay, can we restore this trauma to the positive reinforcement, practicing willingness, breathwork, psychedelics, whatever the methodology is suitable for that person, or you need to go to a deeper healing and deeper process of restoration. 

Giancarlo: Yes, because for me, and this is a little bit more my agenda here, is that coaching is so important, but it can only be effective if there is an understanding of trauma.

Zoran: Hmm. [chuckles] 

Giancarlo: Because otherwise, maybe I’m speculating, but sometimes professional success might become an addiction.

Zoran: Yeah, of course.

Giancarlo: To solving the trauma. It can become like a radical expression of ego, and so it can murk the water. The question what do you really want, if you still feel that you have the wounded child inside, and you go to Tony Robbins, and I feel that a little bit in that organization, there is excessive desire for success and recognition, which is basically a cry for being seen. And then, also it can expand the pathology. So, we’re not going to heal the planet if we have a generation of empowered by coach, wounded people. 

Zoran: Yeah.

Giancarlo: Does it make sense? 

Zoran: Of course. I’m completely with you. For me, coaching is much more deeper than that. It’s not only about success and overachieving. You can see this because coaching profession was positioned like that. Like, “You can do anything. You can become anybody. You can be successful. Yes, go, go, go.” And then, coaches work alongside. That’s one of the function of coaching, it really is to help you achieve what you want. But for me the question, it’s not what do you want in coaching. The question is what wants to happen through you and with you right now? What are you here for? It’s not about you, what do you want? It’s what wants to happen through you. How can you be at service to yourself, and at service to others? Can you see what happens? It changes the dimension completely, because now you’re in relationship to your deeper purpose, in relation to the deeper meaning. Maybe you don’t need to be successful. Maybe you don’t need to have a house in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles. What wants to happen through you is having a little amazing place in the middle of nowhere and meditating all day. Maybe that’s your journey. But somebody told you somewhere that this is how you’re going to be successful in life. 

Also, I have to put in this conversation, the society in itself, how our economic system is structured, some people don’t even have a choice, because they need to survive. Survival equals success, therefore, I need to make money. If I need to make money, therefore, I need to be super– You see what I– [crosstalk] 

Giancarlo:

Zoran: 

Giancarlo: That’s why you’re here today [chuckles] because I think that what you call Evolutionary Coaching is this new paradigm of coaching, which is not associated to traditional professional success, is associated to the holistic wellbeing. So, you mentioned it’s not about what you want, it’s about facilitating some sort of cosmic consciousness through you. For our listener, because that’s where the conversation goes a little bit woo-woo, and people would say, “What do you mean cosmic consciousness? What do you mean ‘it’s not about what I want?’”

I want to quickly touch on what Stan Grof, who is a Czechoslovak in psychiatrist and author and philosopher, and he is one of my heroes. He says that, “We’re going through a paradigm shift. Like we did from geocentric to heliocentric.” Galileo and Copernicus, when they had dinners with friends, they were laughing at people thinking that it was the sun at the center of the universe and not the earth. All around people were laughing. Like today, when we mention divine consciousness, people laugh. But then what happened is that it was discovered that it was the sun at the center of the universe. In the same way, we had this paradigm shift from heliocentric to geocentric, we think, or Stan Grof thinks, that we’re going to go through a shift from the scientific materialism worldview– which is not people think materialism, things about material accumulation. Scientific materialism is the idea that consciousness, self-awareness comes from our brain. The Big Bang, the single-cell amoeba, then when the brain became sophisticated enough, poof, it creates self-awareness. That’s how our world, this planet is based on that. Medicine, food, philosophy, everything is based on this fact that mind came from matter. What Stan Grof is suggesting is that maybe self-awareness and consciousness are not created by the brain, it’s regulated by the brain, that it came before the Big Bang. Mind comes from matter. It is source, that creator of self-awareness.

So, why is that relevant? If we start believing in this idealism, rather than scientific materialism, then there’s something we can tap before life on this planet. This is what you feel in peak experience, that sense of awe that we have either with psychedelic or fasting or dancing or nice or vision quest, or when we go out of body, we have a sense of the mystical experience, it’s a sense of feeling this power bigger than you, but benevolent. And you feel small, but you feel so happy, because you feel a sense of trust and love. In one of my psychedelic experiences, I really felt heaven, this abundant ocean of compassion. Forgive for this rant, but–

Zoran: No, I love it. You just synthesized it in the most beautiful way. Yeah, go ahead.

Giancarlo: Once you have this understanding, and that’s why I think peak experience are important. Now, I’m not promoting illegal psychedelics but in a way, I am [chuckles] with the right guide, with the right facilitation, or, again, fasting, dancing, out of body experience, because then, once you have a sense of the existence of source, then you can try to express it.

Zoran: Of course. I think it’s absolutely necessary to have those peak experiences. Again, going back full circle to the start of our conversation, to reconnect. If you don’t know what you are reconnecting to, you never had that experience through peak experiences. You will not know what that feels like. So, there is a map. Some people have this naturally. If you look into the evolutionarists, philosophers, and guides and spiritual teachers, gurus, they’ve never lost the sense of connection. When somebody asked me in my interview, “How did you come into coaching?” I tell them through excruciating pain. When I was child, I maintained my connection to source because I didn’t have any option. Because my life circumstances at that moment in time, they were so challenging that as a child that I understood, “Okay, I have to stay connected. I can never, ever lose that connection.” So, that’s my personal experience. 

Other people maintain that connection as well through being lucky that they have parents who are enlightened and people who are guiding them and so on and so forth. But the majority loses connection, and they forget about it, and they’re beginning identifying with the ego. The ego becomes the governing force, the mind. And then, they would ask, “What do you mean when you talk about source connection about creator, what is that?” For people like that, the peak experiences are absolutely necessary in order for them to be able to remember. And then once when they remember, then they will be this, “Aha, now I get it. Now, I remember. Now, I can relate. Now, I know what it is.” And those peak experiences as you said can be beautiful, connective, transformational moments in your life and you feel the vulnerability, you feel excitement, you feel bliss, you feel something bigger is taking care of you. You feel actually taken care of because actually, we all want to be taken care of on a certain level, and can relax and play. So, I’m with you.

Giancarlo: What can be a more accessible form of connection with source? Like a walk in the woods or a long swim, or–?

Zoran: Intentional practices. Let me just go backwards first into this. The source and the connection to yourself needs you to engage. The source is benevolent, and it never forces anything upon you. You will not have, “Now, you have to connect to me.” You will not have that. How do you start this? It’s by intending to connect. The first thing I intend to feel connection to myself, I intend to feel connection to the nature around me. I intend to feel connection to the world. I intend to feel connection to the source or the God, however you call it. That’s an intention. Within that intention, that intention can manifest walking the dog. You walk in the nature, you begin connecting to yourself through your breath, through the nature around, you begin witnessing everything.

Swimming, same thing. While I’m swimming today, I’m intending to connect to myself and to connect with everything, that’s next level. Meditating, meditation is overused. Even though now, as you can know, Giancarlo, gazillions of meditation apps are popping up, so it’s becoming popular. But meditation means basically to sit in a silence with yourself. With intention, I’m connecting. Lovemaking, sexual experiences. I’m making love to my partner, but I’m connecting to themselves, to myself to the source. So, the sexual experiences can become peak experiences of connection, but it needs to be an intention. It’s not only now I’m going to have sex, it’s now I’m going to make love and I’m going to have an intention to connect and reconnect to myself into my partner, and to God.

You see what I mean by that? Intention. Intention, it’s extremely important. Intention will come if you’re miserable enough, if you don’t have any other choice, so you feel disconnected, or if you have a will to evolve yourself and you say, “Okay, part of my journey is to evolve, to grow, to become more aware, and my element is intention.”

Giancarlo: Just some practical advice for our listeners. For someone who has never meditated, what would be your advice? Which one is the easiest step one meditation for beginners?

Zoran: The easiest step one meditation for beginners for me, it’s the one when you sit with yourself and you calm your mind. The reason why people cannot meditate is because their mind is too busy. We process around, I forgot, 10,000 thoughts in the moments of the mind, it’s very busy, we breathe but my mind keeps on fluctuating. Meditation, when you connect to your breath and with intention to calm down your mind, to really get into that space of the mind is a calm, still lake instead of busy volcano [laughs] or a river. And how do you do this? There are gazillions of guided meditations out there, that’s the one. Calming your mind, breathing, calming, breathing, letting go of your thoughts, letting go of your thoughts, emptying out, emptying out until you have only just one thought, which is you. And that needs to be practiced. Again, spiritual bypassing here, for people who are not aware of that term means that you want things quickly right now, right now. You sit in one meditation and that’s it, you’re done. [chuckles] You know you’re done. It needs to be practiced. Let’s say 21 days, which is the minimum of the practice, you just practiced releasing the thoughts from your mind and calming yourself down. That will be the beginning for me.

Giancarlo: That’s a good advice. The 21-day challenge. People google ‘meditation 21-Day Challenge,’ pick one that fit for you and do the 21 days. And then, be aware as you go through life that when you’re lost in thoughts, when you have the inner critic, like Eckhart Tolle calls it “The Bedroom Mate” in your head, which is always commenting on everything you do. And be aware that that’s a voice is not you. If you don’t give it attention, the voice will go away. It’s only by start engaging with a voice. They know it’s not true, but then you give it power. I personally had that. When I went to rehab for my cannabis addiction and I started working on my voice, I really realized that I didn’t have a voice, just one voice. I had a committee in my head, commenting on everything I did. You can’t connect with source, you can’t connect with your deeper purpose, you can’t connect with others, and you live in a state of misery. These are the presence, cultivating presence, being aware of when your mind is going on a tangent. Critical thinking is very important, but the looping, it’s corrosive, it’s the cancer. I’m sure that has a negative biological effect on your body.

Zoran: Of course. That’s the first step, really. Mastering one’s mind or working with one’s mind and harmonizing the thoughts. I also want to say something that I always say to people, is that we need to be kinder to ourselves. [sighs] How can I say it? I have a big compassion for myself and big compassion for humanity.

Giancarlo: That is very important.

Zoran: Yeah, we need to be kinder to ourselves because if you’re in this overachieving– and we have multiple thoughts, yes, we do, but it is okay. Loving and accepting oneself, or being kinder, this is our conditioning, this is our journey. Instead of saying, “Oh, my God, I have to overcome all of this. I have to be perfect.” 

Giancarlo: How do you reconcile? There’s two opposite forces. On one side, I want to accept myself. On the other side, I want to evolve. So, how do you reconcile?

Zoran: They have to be a dance. [laughs] They have to be a dance.

Giancarlo: They have to be a dance. That’s a good–[crosstalk] 

Zoran: It has to be a dance, it has to be a movement of both at the same time. You have to dance with life. It’s a dance, acceptance and evolution, acceptance and evolution. You accept yourself through the love, through self-compassion, to really understanding that we are AMAZING. We are as humanity, we are absolutely amazing. There is nobody else in this universe like us, and we have embarked into this journey of choosing to experience third-dimensional reality of disconnection and polarity consciousness. And we are here and we are dancing, and we’re choosing to evolve. For me, personally, when we exercise that deeper level of compassion to ourselves and everybody else around it, then everything becomes much easier.

Giancarlo: Well said. I’m satisfied with the way this conversation is going. We clarified what for me was very important. The dance again between psychotherapy and self-knowledge with coaching, that’s what you’re doing with the Evolutionary Coaching. There is one topic, which I think is critical for me, which is one of the most important tools humans can develop to find their purpose and their center is creativity. Tell us a little bit, what is it for you? How does it come from? Where does it go? How do you cultivate it? Why people think they don’t have it? 

[laughter] 

Zoran:  When I teach Evolutionary Coaching, I say in one of my opening statements, “Everybody’s a creative genius.” When I say this to people, everybody freaks out in the room. They’re like, “What do you mean everybody’s a creative genius?” I said, “Well, listen, it’ll be very boring if God made one Dali, one Michelangelo, one Mozart, one scientific genius mathematician, and everybody else is mediocre.” I don’t see this as a creation that will really make any sense to me on an intellectual level. That will never make sense. There’s only a few people who are creative geniuses. They’re extraordinary. They’re amazing. They tapped into something special. Everybody else is mediocre. What I say when people say, “No, no, but how can I even possibly believe that I’m creative genius?”, I’m saying, “It’s not about believing, it’s about tapping into the potential that inside of you there is a creative genius that you didn’t find, because you were not educated in a way that it’s unlocking your potential. Or nobody told you or you never even thought about it.” For me, everybody’s a creative genius. 

For me, creativity is the most important force available to the humankind right now. When I talk to my kids, for example, who are in school, I tell them, “Forget about your education. The only thing that you need to cultivate is creativity and imagination.” Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Imagination is more important than education.” Him, that we see as somebody who has a scientific mind, who has actually done so much, he’s also talking about the creativity imagination is the most important thing. Tesla said that all of his downloads came from his creativity, creative soul that he never actually thought about his research, that everything was done from the pure space of creativity. For me, in this society right now, [laughs] creativity is number one thing. The most important quality of the human nature that needs to be cultivated, loved, given space to be appreciated and practiced.

Giancarlo: Give us some concrete steps for people to develop to be in touch with their creative–?

Zoran: From the coaching perspective, one of the most important things is morning journal. When people don’t know where to start with creativity, they start with writing in the morning. They start really connecting to that space. When you wake up in the morning and before your mind kicks in, it’s a very, very important space of you being in the alpha waves of your brain, and that’s the time when you begin writing whatever comes to you. Writing, writing, processing, writing. Again, like what we talked about challenge for meditation 21 days, it needs time for your instrument to start writing. When you are writing or recording or modern generation can do it on a– And there are selfies, you can document it any other way. You start to beginning a relationship with your creativity. 

Again, there, you need to have deliberation. Why are you writing? You’re writing because you want to unfold, you want to get in relationship with your creativity. And then creative thoughts about your day, about your business, about your family, about your creative endeavors will come through that writing. That’s one channel, writing. 

The other channel, it’s moving, motion. In the morning, I love morning practices, being able to play some music and move in any direction, not even think about moving, just allow your body to move, allow your body to source the creative energy, which is not linked to any thought. It’s just pure thinking. When you begin moving, then suddenly you will activate your intuition, you will activate your instinct, and then the creative impulses will come from inside out to you. So, that’s motion, movement. 

The next thing, it’s about understanding and surrounding yourself with the creative people. Who do you feel inspires you? Is it art? Is it YouTube clips? Is it books? Is it geometry? Is it architecture? Is it nature? Who is your inspirational creative partner? For me, for example, it’s nature. I love observing nature. The details of the flowers and the constellation and the soil and sun that comes through the soil, that really, really inspires my creativity. What I want to do is draw it. When I look at that, I want to pick up the thing and I want to draw something. So, creating the space for inspiration for your soul to be inspired. We always say the artists inspiring your soul. That’s the step number three.

And then, choosing something creative to play with. Not to do, but to play with. What is it? What is your creative expression in your life? What is it? Is it writing? Is it sculpting? Is it dancing? Is it talking? Is it being a good friend? What is it? What is your creative expression that will get you in touch with your creative genius? And then, creating enough space in our busy life to be able to express that creativity. So, simplified steps. 

Giancarlo: Very good. These are the things very, very useful. Morning journal, dance. Be exposed to people that develop your interest, and then go deeper with people you’re respecting that. 

Zoran: And then asking yourself, “What is my creative expression right now?” It changes all the time. It can be, “Today, I’m going to cook the most amazing meal. I’m going to use the substances I’ve never used before. I’m going to open the cookery book. I’m going to be creative and try something new.” Or it can be, “Today I’m going to write a poem to my wife.” I’ve never written poetry. I’m a little bit shy and ashamed because I don’t know how to do that really well, but let me try it out. Or, “Today, I’m going to call my friend and together we’re going to move this rock here and create an installation.” It’s important to give the space to creative potential to be expressed.

Giancarlo: Yes, and transcend your vulnerability because you will fail and you will learn.

Zoran: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: Okay, let me push a little bit the boundaries out of the coaching-

Zoran: Universe. [chuckles] 

Giancarlo: [chuckles] –out of the universe, because one thing I forgot about Stan Grof paradigm shift is that the scientific material really creates the sense of separation. We’re separated from nature, we’re separated from each other. Whereas the opposite idea of idealism is that we all come from the same source. One of my favorite contemporary philosophers is Charles Eisenstein, and he talks about this transition from the age of separation to the age of connection. So, how does it look to you, this age of connection? Specifically, professionally, business-wise, what do you think about competition versus collaboration? How does the future of work look like?

Zoran: Hmm. Future work for me, it looks like an interconnected ecosystem. Ah, it’s a big leap that we need to take. I think it’s an exciting leap. In the essence, it’s the ecosystem theory of Otto Scharmer. He is one of the MIT business professors that created the Theory U. The Theory U, it’s all about connection versus competition, collaboration versus competition. Creating interconnected ecosystem, when people are being able to be themselves 100%. For me, that’s that number on a human element, because before we used to all pretend and act and bring different personalities to our work life, and then show different personalities in a social life, different personalities in our family life, and that created distortion, because we’re not able to be authentic. People will put on their suit, they’ll put on their tie, they will go to the office and they will become somebody else, most of people, especially people who are not aligned to their values and the integrity and so on and so forth. This is not going to stand any longer, because the energies on the planet right now, where we are at our level of evolution, if you see our planet as an extraterrestrial from a galaxy far, far away, and then you look at the humans and say, “Where are the humans right now?”, we are in a pivotal moment of evolution where a lot of the old systems are collapsing, the new systems are showing up. The business is an old system that has to evolve itself to the next level. 

What I’m saying to you, and to listeners is that the self-organized ecosystem, when each and every individual can be 100% authentic, they can be 100% in relationship to their core values, meaning they’re truthful, they’re not lying, they’re not deceiving, they’re not pretending, they’re not being something they’re not, but they’re truthful. Meaning, they’re truthful to their strengths and weaknesses they know themselves and they can be themselves. This is what we’ve seen in the Z-generation, the millennial generation right now. They’re really, really pushing for that, really, really pushing to be authentic. If they’re not able to be authentic, they leave the job. Self-organized ecosystem and everybody can be authentic, 100%. 

Then, collaboration, it’s there as the predominant energy of exchange that capitalizes on each individual’s strength. There is a competition. I think that we are not ready to leave competition behind us because competition can be fun. If it’s positioned in a good way and used in a good way, it’s [crosstalk] an incentive for creativity. It’s not like, “Okay, I’m better than you.” No, it can be a lot of– if it’s facilitated, it’s fun activity–

Giancarlo: Like in sports.

Zoran: Like in sports. It’s great. It’s fantastic. But for us, we got a little bit too strong with competition in business, like too individualistic and too comparison. It was more about the distortion and lack of self-esteem, and this is how we competed. But I think competition will stay. It needs to stay because it creates this playful way for ourselves. The ecosystem, it’s governing by itself, which is very challenging for people to understand because it gets us back to communism, self-governance. I come from that space as well, due to my background, but it’s not about communism, it’s about the ecosystem knowing what it needs to be able to express its full potential, and then all the members of that ecosystem, which is the organization being in tune with that need, and trusting the collective coherent energy of the ecosystem and following the energy through.

Giancarlo: What was the name of the MIT professor?

Zoran: Otto Scharmer.

Giancarlo: We’re going to put it on the show notes. This is perfect. We just reached one hour. I would like to repeat the practical things. If people resonate with the beginning of the conversation about anxiety, depression, self-esteem issues, I recommend Gabor Maté. He started an academy and he trained psychotherapists in what he calls Compassionate Inquiry, CI. So, if you feel you’re struggling with one of these issues, google ‘Gabor Maté CI’ and find a licensed therapist. Meditation, look for a 21-day challenge. And then when you’re ready, call Zoran Todorovic for your Evolutionary Coaching. 

Zoran: [laughs] 

Giancarlo: Where can people find you?

Zoran: They can find me at tnmcoaching.com, like Thomas, Nicholas, Marcus dot coaching–

Giancarlo: The new millennium. 

Zoran: The millennium.

Giancarlo: Here we are. You see? [laughs] 

Zoran: Yeah. 

Giancarlo: The [crosstalk] connection.

Zoran: Exactly, but it was more like the new millennium, it’s too big a word to put in the domain. So tnmcoaching.com, and then zorantodorovic.space. And then, social media, I’m very active. [laughs] 

Giancarlo: Fantastic. Thank you for coming, and we’ll continue the conversation, I’m sure.

Zoran: Thank you so much for having me. It was lovely. Thank you.