Not all that area.
Okay, beautiful.
Wow, Augustine Fong.
Welcome to the Feelings Pod.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
You're my first guest on the podcast,
and I'm super excited to talk to you today.
I can't wait.
I'm so honored.
Augustine is a subconscious and identity coach.
He's from Sinaloa, Mexico,
and he lives and works in Germany currently.
So let's just dive right in.
I'm curious to hear about what's most alive for you today.
Yeah, I mean, I wish this would be a very happy end of lifting podcast,
but I'm a person who uses a lot of shadow work.
So I mainly use the sort of say negative emotions as a gateway to get into that positive state.
Therefore, I tend to focus a lot into put a lot of value into what is negatively present.
So I'm going to start with that.
Yeah, I was briefly telling you before the official recording,
briefly how these last three days have been for me such an exercise of surrendering,
because I feel a lot of sadness and grief and sorrow is kind of coming to the surface for me.
And it is something that I felt it has been there for so such a long time,
and I was not facing it or maybe talking myself out of it.
To not feel it maybe or to not accept the situation, even though almost every single day I check in with my feelings to try to find the deepest feeling.
This was not coming to the surface, you know, and I feel now that is finally coming.
I feel is such a release in one hand.
So in one hand I'm feeling very relieved that I'm going through this experience,
because I deeply know that this is very healing.
But in the other hand, I feel, I mean, I have three hands now.
In another hand, I feel so much resistance and fear to feel that as if part of my subconscious is fighting that,
that as if I'm trying to hold on into that, into that, I don't know what is it, maybe it's that version of myself,
maybe it's the people that came with that, maybe it's the lifestyle that came with that.
But that's part of me is resisting and trying to hold on and as if I'm clinging to survive.
And another part of me is just insanely in pain and sad and sorrow and in that space.
And then there is this other part, I just realized I have four parts here in play,
and they just feel deeply compassionate about that part that is sad.
And this compassionate part is the part that is sort of holding everything together and holding maybe the space for the sadness,
the tears to come, the feet out positions to cuddle, the resistance to be there,
also the dropping the resistance. So I feel like this,
there is this circles inside my body right now that came from this sadness that came to the surface and compassion is being the moderator,
that is kind of helping me to navigate through this experience.
That's so beautiful, thank you. And yeah, it's like that when these emotions surface, it's almost like,
what is this feeling? What is coming? Is it sadness? Is it grief? Is it like,
you know, why haven't I seen it before? And it's kind of learning it, right? It's a process of like,
getting curious and wondering. So when that resistance comes up, how do you, well first of all,
what does that resistance look like and feel like for you?
For me, that resistance feels, how to say, as if something is pushing me down,
and I'm trying to stand up. It feels a lot like there is this, I'm trying to go somewhere
against what is coming to me. Does that make sense? It feels like an emotional friction for me.
And the way it gets manifested for me is I escape, I fly in terms of not only about the situation that makes me feel like that,
but emotionally I feel like disconnect, not disconnect per se because the emotions are still there,
but that I keep myself busy to not feel those emotions or distracted with something.
So that sounds a little bit like a flight response.
Yeah.
And are you, but it sounds like, I heard you say that you're feeling things that you haven't,
you have a practice of checking in every day.
Yeah.
Things that are surfacing right now, it sounds like they're kind of taking you by surprise.
It sounds like you're going a little bit deeper and uncovering things that have been really,
there's been a lot of strong resistance to it.
So, are you able to notice those moments when you're kind of in flight and are you able to shift a little bit?
Are you able to turn towards?
Can we talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
It has been a journey for me.
So I don't think it's something like it's a black and white response that I could give you,
but it's a little bit like a spectrum and it's all the time a little different.
But in general, I feel it has been a journey for me to from the past that it was like almost never feeling or not being able to even know what I was feeling.
To now turning the things around quite rather quickly, because then I implemented this sort of daily checking with myself in the mornings,
to really tune into my body and really like allow whatever sensations there.
Also, when I catch myself on the day to day, there is a point where I'm like, I'm running here from something.
So a little later, a little later, a little later, then it's time to check in.
I also give a little bit of time to the resistance because I have found for myself that resistance is also a feeling and it has also a message.
So it is important for me to understand and allow that resistance a little bit as well, give the space to it.
But yeah, for me, right now, I feel I'm in a position that I'm able to turn things around by taking a couple of minutes and just going deep into it.
The point that this got me by surprise is that whenever I was checking in before, it was like a very subtle emotion.
I feel it was very, very deep, but I was not able to reach it with the practices I was going so far.
This came to surface. I feel after my second hypnosis session, we were with something I think is the deepest level you can work with the subconscious mind that is called the super conscious mind.
Without getting too technical is basically whatever you are before you develop any sense of identity.
Before you develop any sense of I'm not worth it or I'm not safe, which is what I normally work with those subconscious identities.
There is this layer that is underneath that is let's say your essence.
So we work with that. And to my surprise, all of a sudden it came like a bulldozer, first of like super activated energy hidden in my chest.
I was feeling really, really powerful and I was like, why is it all this energy? I don't know what to do with it.
It doesn't feel like anxiety because anxiety gives you this worry. It was like that same activation of anxiety, but with a super peace inside.
So I was quite happy. But then it started to reveal these other things like sadness and grief and sorrow and desperation and ever more intense.
So I was like, what to do? And there are some cases that what to do but to surrender.
Yeah, I love what you said about resistance and there being wisdom there like that resistance comes up for a reason right it's like, it's, it's a protection.
It's like, Oh, is it safe to go there? Can I really go there?
And it sounds like the, I think a big part of surrender. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this is, is like building deep trust within yourself and like knowing that face the enormity of it.
However, slowly with as much gentleness and self love and self compassion as you were talking about.
Yeah, do you have more to say about that?
Yeah, it just came to my mind that I feel so many people is unable to go on their own to such intense experience or to surrender that because they don't have the practice.
And as you say, they don't have the confidence. Yeah, that they are able to navigate the situation, because maybe they have never dared to do it. It's a self self fulfilling prophecy. No, it's like, okay, you are not confident that you are going to do it so you never do it so you
never build a tools to do it so you don't have the confidence that you are going to be able to manage. And that's why I think it's so, so, so important for people to learn a little bit of emotional management, and for them to start building the trust on
themselves. That as you say, first of all, you are going to be okay, you are not going to live because of that. You are not going to stay in that state forever. That means is something that is is going to pass.
And three, that whatever happens, you're going to be there for you to walk with yourself through that experience.
And that's where the work of many people, like yourself starts to become very, very important. That people is a little bit guided into, okay, there is this emotion, like, projection or like self love or like sadness.
Okay, how do you navigate it, what to do when you feel like that and then how to juggle those sensations that are going to come so that when they come and they are on their own, and they come very much more intense that they at least have some practice
on, okay, I, this is a territory I already know. I can do it, I can try. And with enough of that practice, it becomes like a riding a bicycle.
I'm curious, when did you start making friends with your emotions, when did you start learning and how did you start learning to listen to your emotions?
Not so long ago, surprisingly, because even though it's now one of my main focuses, it became one of my main focuses in my work and in my life, because it became the roadblock.
I was doing a lot of personal work, I was working with the mind a lot, but it could just take me so far, you know.
I also know that if you work only with the body, it will only take you so far. Like we are holistic beings, we are body, we are mind, we are spirit, we are something beyond that as well.
So I believe it's very important to look at those aspects of ourselves, to be able to integrate those, reconnect those aspects of ourselves. And for me, because of my upbringing, it was one of my protection mechanisms to let's say disconnect from my feelings to kind of remain neutral.
You talk about flight response and other response that I had was like freeze, let's say hide, not make any trouble because then you attract the danger towards you.
I grew in Sinaloa, which is one of the main narcosities in Mexico.
Yeah, so I think it was one reason for me not to like connect so much with my emotions as well.
But then when I started to work a lot and with my mind, and even with my consciousness in terms of consciousness, trainings and so on, I realized that I just couldn't move forward.
Like, I, my mind will understand it in terms of the main thing that I worked for myself is like my work, like my main let's say subconscious belief was that I was not enough.
And my mind will understand it, my mind will clearly see that it's alive when it came from, it didn't make any sense, but my body just couldn't feel it.
And the problem is that the body is the subconscious mind in a way.
So it was a journey for me to say like, honestly, excuse my English, but all this effort, all this training, all this focus on the mind, yeah, with my mind I can do everything.
Then I love a certain it became a journey towards, no, then let's start leaning more into the emotions.
And one of the main catalysts for that was my girlfriend, that she was my polar in that sense.
For her it was like super intuitive body sensation.
And I think that's a beautiful quality of women in general, you guys are so to with your body compared to men, or at least general men population.
So she was mirroring to me a lot of where I could find gold in myself.
So that was kind of one of the first explorations. And funny enough, one of the first things that helped me to connect with my emotions and my body was to start doing yoga.
I was to start moving my body and to really stay just feeling the body sensations that strengthen. I cannot emphasize enough how much improved it improved the connection I had with my emotions in my body through moving my body in a mindful way.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's, there's just so much there, and it's incredible you've kind of referred to this a couple of times now but there is a lot of work that we can do on our own.
But as social beings as social creatures, we we heal really in connection to one another in community with each other. The some of the most profound deepest healing happens with those who mirror, who hold up a mirror to our wounds and
off with relationships where it's really hard to hide in a relationship, at least I mean a deep and meaningful one.
Yeah. So, yeah.
I think it's such a true and beautiful insight that you what you just share there because I believe that even if you are not doing any kind of personal work, just by the fact of going on your day to day through your relationships, you are going to heal
you know whether you do it consciously or unconsciously or through a lot of repetition of the same situation you are going to eventually overcome at some point.
And the beautiful thing about that is that if one of the persons or you are the ones who is who is who are doing the healing, then your healing spreads to your community without them doing anything as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's just, yeah, we, they're just invitations their portals to go deeper and the same lessons keep coming up because we can, you know, perhaps one relationship doesn't work out.
And then we move into another relationship. There seems to be patterns or like, and I'm not even just talking about like romantic relationships it's like, you know, you know, family of origin, your relationships with your coworkers your relationships with your family, I'm like, I'm
12 years old and at these these on making these connections. Now like, Oh, it's interesting. This is a pain point I experienced a lot with my sister, and I'm seeing my partner and then something with my mom feels a little frustrating with this co worker.
bit trippy. Yeah, so I want to ask you a little bit like about some of your like specific go to
tools like you mentioned your check ins is you mentioned your check ins and yoga so day to day
it sounds like yeah tell me more about like your tools and your practices.
Besides yoga and meditation because I think those are really really self-explanatory and
I do a daily somatic practice and that looks like let's say doing a grounding body scan just
like grounding into my body going deep inside and just feeling whatever was present for me.
I start with whatever was present into let's say the positive side and I just let that feeling
intensify by going deeper and deeper into it moving my body with whoever whichever way that posture
or what's that sensation will come to my body you know and also what kind of noise will come
through my mouth with that and then I do the same but with whatever sensation was
let's say on the negative side or like the painful side and I also like use the postures
and the movement to let's say express a little bit more that emotion bring it a little bit more
alive give it a voice give it a noise and then I let those two parts have a conversation
and I'm always surprised about what comes in that conversation because it's not so much what is
being said but what I understand while those things are being said. The beautiful thing
about this process is that at some point I understand what is the deeper feeling and fear that is
behind my let's say negative emotion as well as what is the desire that it has
and then the let's say positive side can do something about it like can ask okay
what do you need from me today how can I give you and how can I give it to you specifically today
and then I go towards my day and execute based on that. So I think that's my one of my main main
main tools for it. Yeah and those are those are really powerful reflections because at the end of
the day our emotions a lot of times we kind of put them in these positive negative categories
but I I usually like to think about it more in terms of oh this is a feeling that doesn't feel
so good in my body it's not so pleasurable it's kind of unpleasant and uncomfortable and there are
the emotions that are more that feel more expansive and pleasurable and like feel good in my body and
so neither is good or bad but all of it has wisdom and information that wants to come forward.
Once I started seeing all of the emotions as like messages and
then learning how to decipher just as you said like just getting curious and being like okay
this feels like sadness kind of identifying where it sits in the body giving it space giving it space
like breathe simply just like breathing into it and asking what is it that you need today that's
a really really powerful question. Yeah. How can I how can I nourish you how can I witness you how can I
hear you and see you and and one of one of the most healing things is is being heard and seen
and understood and when we learn to do that with ourselves and create that safety within ourselves
it creates more space like you said in in our relationships and like and it kind of expands
outward and it's scary work it's not easy like it's beautiful and butterflies and unicorns but
like the stuff in your body buries deep down it it does that for a reason. Yeah. But to go in with
with a deep reverence and a deep honoring and and like that self-love for for for the wisdom of the body
instead of like kind of shaming things and pushing them away and ignoring them like
yeah that's it it's a powerful it's a powerful practice. Yeah and as you're saying you know like
there is this point when you start to understand what is it that you need and just find ways of doing
it to yourself then you also start noticing how you can bring that to your relationships and your
relationships start mirroring that to you as well. Yeah. You know we were talking about your co-worker
and the pattern with your mom and so on so I I can imagine that at some point you realize
uh actually it's not about them it's about how I was feeling it because somehow I was
feeling this way but now that I understand this feeling better then there is no so much friction
with you anymore. Right and isn't that so much more empowering than just blaming somebody else
and thinking that they're the cause of all your problems. Yeah so much more empowering.
It's so much more freeing you don't you're not trapped in this idea that other people
are causing your experience really like
tapping into that is is such a there's such a awakening available there. Yeah.
It's liberating because Alofa Soren I recently had a client telling this like it's like the
mean that when you look at the mirror and you see the one that has been causing all your problems
and it's there you so Alofa Soren is very liberating but it comes with a lot of responsibility
because then there is no one to blame but you and that's also not true because you have neither to
blame like whatever you have been you have been doing is not your fault because the fact that
you speak English and not French that doesn't make you a bad person is the language you learned
the same way with the emotional language and how you manage your feelings so it's not your fault
but it's your responsibility now that you know it. And once you start to uncover those layers it's
like it's this never-ending process it just gets deeper and richer and more beautiful and your
relationships get more expansive and more loving and more dare I say sometimes even more painful
and more triggering because you just kind of go deeper into that infinite experience of humanity.
Yeah. So usually when I come usually at the end of each episode I offer like a mindfulness
practice or a grounding practice and you talked about like a very grounding somatic body scan
and would you like to share what that practice looks like? The body scan is kind of an easy one
but yeah let's do it and maybe we can play a little bit there what else comes to body comes to mind.
Beautiful. Beautiful then. All right then let's find a comfortable place to sit or lay.
Maybe let's just take a very deep inhale filling up the lungs
and drop through the mouth. Let's do this a couple of times.
Exhale through the mouth.
And let the next inhale be the biggest inhale of the week. Inhale with the lungs,
feel, feel as much as you can hold and let it go.
Injure, let your breathing take the natural rhythm.
Feeling the ripple effects of that through your body, through your heartbeats.
Notice
where you are touching the ground, what is grounding you,
feel the floor beneath you, maybe it's with your feet, maybe with your glutes,
whatever it is just feel the ground beneath you carrying you,
feel the weight of your body in that body part.
Let's start doing a quick body scan. Just checking in, we are gonna check in
what is present. I'm gonna be guiding you in a moment
but no need to check or label or understand or internalize any of the sensations.
This is an exercise of noticing what is present.
Take your attention to the top of your head,
feel your hair, notice which sensations are in that area of your body.
Maybe you can feel the position of your hair,
maybe you are wearing something like headphones or a cup or a hat or something,
just feel that.
And feeling to your forehead.
Notice if there is any sensations, any tensions,
any problems, any feelings, anything stored in your forehead.
There is no need of naming anything, it's just about feeling it.
Feel your eyebrows,
feel your eyelids, feel the weight that they have,
your eyeball,
the center of your head, they are very deep inside your brain.
Now feel your nose, put attention on where the air is coming through,
notice the temperature, any other sensation that you are feeling there when you are inhaling and
exhaling air.
Now notice your lips,
open your mouth and inhale, breathe through your mouth,
move your tongue side to side, just notice what is there, what is present in your mouth.
You are going excellent.
Now gather some saliva and swallow it, feeling how it feels in your throat,
what sensations are in your throat, what emotions do you feel there,
often we store a lot of sensations, a lot of words get stuck in our throat,
just feel what is present for you right now.
This is the muscles of your neck, your collar bones,
take a deep inhale, maybe the first deep inhale of the day, conscious inhale
and notice your shoulders, do they feel like you are carrying something,
do you feel any pressure, do they feel contracted or expanded, don't change the position of your
shoulders, just notice how they are. Now feel your armpits, your elbows,
your forearms, your hands, the tip of your fingers, which sensations do you feel,
get curious about which one is the sensation that you feel stronger in each hand,
what is present for you there. Now bring your attention to your chest, your heart, your lungs,
that chest area is a very powerful area, a lot of emotions are happening in that
area, just feel which emotions, which sensations do you feel,
notice your heartbeat, notice the sensations with your lungs inflate and deflate,
take your attention to your stomach, there is any sensations in there, maybe there is some
tightness because of your clothes, just notice what is there, just ask what's present for you today,
feel your abs, your waist, your intestines, your guts, there is a lot of things happening there as
well normally, just feel what is there, does it feel expansive, does it feel current,
does it feel irritated, tight, soft, what is what sensations are there, just feel into them,
notice the characteristics,
going down into your hip area, your genital area, there is a lot of energy also there
for both gender but especially for women, your womb is there, there is such a power in there,
there is a lot of things that get stored into that area, maybe move a little bit your hips
from side to side, maybe you want to open your feet a little wider, just play with it a little bit,
notice what is it that you feel in your hip area,
notice your tights,
your knees,
your calves,
your toes, the bottom of your feet,
just notice how it feels to be in this present state witnessing what is going on in your body today,
and I want you to call
a sensation that you identified that was pleasant, what felt good in this body scan,
maybe it's excitement for the day, maybe you feel joy, pride, happiness, whatever
came for you, what is coming to you right now, just I invite you to feel into that sensation,
breathe into it,
go deeper to the center of that sensation, just witnessing it,
we're going to invite that sensation to take over our body
by following the body to a posture that will represent that feeling for you,
if this sensation was a character in a theater, you're going to play that character,
what will be this character posture, how will be the spine, the chest, the chin,
the face, I invite you to take this character posture, move with it, play with it,
how will this character breathe,
breathe, what will be the gesture in the face of this character,
how will this character hold the arms,
there is a specific posture that this character will do, I invite you to take it,
and just notice how it feels for you to take that with your whole body,
and I will invite you
to let this sensation come through your throat,
as a way of a sound, a noise, a word, to start playing with it,
feeling into that sensation in that posture, do whatever noise comes through you,
feeling in your throat how it feels when that vibration comes through your throat,
if no word comes just make a noise, play with your throat,
and that's how you can embody the light,
or whatever motion is present inside of you right now,
you can take a deep breath, inhale,
just shake it a little bit, exhale, you can do that again, inhale,
when you are ready just come back to the episode,
it was beautiful, thank you so much Augustine, thank you,
so tell us about your upcoming offerings, where can people connect with you,
learn more about your work, I'm in a very exciting point in my business right now,
and I'm about to launch my membership program, so far this membership is consisting of this
kind of somatic practices to help people check in in the mornings throughout the day,
check in with whatever is present and guide them into processing it,
as well as having very specific examples of okay this is how you liberate control into surrender,
okay this is how you accompany yourself in an emergency situation where the emotion is just
way too much, this is how you liberate anxiety or freeze into action, so there is this living
library that is just growing every single day through the feedback that I'm getting from clients
and what is it that they need, so this membership is about to launch and is for people that is
interested in learning the language of the body, not only to understand their emotions,
but also to do a deeper work into using those emotions as a portal to require their subconscious,
to require their belief systems and step into the embodiment of the person that they actually
desire to be, so this is about to launch, I'm still working on a few details here and there,
but I already got some sign-ups for it, for some people that already knew that it was in the working
and it's not only the practices but there is also the community that is going to be an aspect that is
so many somatic workshops that are there that are like an hour, hour and a half
for you to dive in, there is already like eight press in there and there is going to be a monthly
live call like a new moon ceremony for let's say closing the cycle, doing a little bit of a ritual
there that is going to be a surprise but it's very beautiful with candles for everyone to basically
close the previous cycle, set an intention for the new cycle and putting you in a head start
in your path, so if anyone listening is interested into this, you can find me on my Instagram,
I will see in phone or you can also visit my website, I will see in phone.com, I offer these
in both English and Spanish, so if anyone prefers that to listen to this in their mother tongue
and that's Spanish then they are more than welcome. Thank you so much for these offerings,
thank you so much for this beautiful conversation and the gorgeous practice that you shared,
I'm just grateful, thank you. Thanks to you for the invitation, honestly like we have been
like trying to make this work for so long and I'm so happy that it worked out, yeah you are such a
kind soul, you are doing such a beautiful work here in your podcast, I honestly listen quite a
lot of episodes from you and I really think that people is getting a lot of value from here and
so yeah thank you for shining your light to others, sharing your learnings, thank you so much for the
invitation, thank you so much for holding the space and guiding this conversation in a way that makes
sense for people and yeah I hope you also got as much as I got from this conversation. I really did,
I'm feeling very... it's hard to put words, beautiful, thank you. Beautiful, thank you, absolutely,
I absolutely love it and yeah we can do it again at some point if it works for you.
I would love that, absolutely. Yeah me too.
Okay so we can like stop the recording, I think. Okay.