Real Life’s Adventures in Living: Keeping an Open Mind and Saying Yes with Guest Alastair Henry – Part I | EP 62

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Dr. Judith: Holder, your host, coach psychologist, fellow seeker who enjoys

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diving into the connections between spirituality, psychology, wellness,

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and your everyday life's adventures, all preparing and polishing you

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like the facets of a magnificent diamond to be your best self.

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If you're craving more from your life, you are in the right place.

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Come, let's journey together and transform what you know into who you really are.

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Mastering Life's Adventures begins now.

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Hi, I'm back and I'm here to talk with Alistair Henry, my guest.

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We're here to focus on keeping an open mind and saying yes.

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Hmm, sounds interesting, huh?

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Just think about it.

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Keep an open mind.

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And saying, yes, I would like, um, Alistair to introduce himself and

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tell a little bit about himself.

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And then we're going to jump right into this topic area.

Alastair: 00:00:57

Thank you.

Alastair: 00:00:58

Yes.

Alastair: 00:00:58

I'm a retiree.

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I'm an author.

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I'm an adventurist and I'm a double lung transplant recipient,

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quite a hodgepodge of titles.

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Dr. Judith: Yes, all of your experiences that you've had probably ties into your

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mindset to begin with about keeping an open mind saying yes, tell us more about

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that and where that came from and how you've evolved into who you are today.

Alastair: 00:01:25

Yeah, well one thing I believe Judith is we're a product of our

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upbringing and environment and everything.

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I was born in, uh, well, I grew up in Bolton, Lancashire, England.

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I left school at 16.

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University was never an option.

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And at 17, I bumped into some friends from school who had a rock and roll band.

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They were looking for a bass guitarist.

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And, uh, I jumped at that.

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So the next day I went down to the music shop, bought myself a bass guitar.

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I was playing bass for Paul Venture and the Rebel Beats.

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This was 1962.

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In that part of Britain where all the British rock and roll was coming out.

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So it's a very exciting time.

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And when I was, uh, 18, I had a girlfriend.

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I fell in love with this 17 year old, madly in love.

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And then when she told me that she was going to Canada, Because

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their parents were emigrating.

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Wow, what a decision to make.

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Funny how we reflect back, but at the time, uh, I didn't

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see it as a big decision.

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I thought, well, no, I have to go.

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And, uh, I don't know how I went home and told my parents and my

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siblings, I'm leaving you all.

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And I may not see you for a long time, but I did.

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I mean, today I think I'd have too much compassion and empathy

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to, to do that, but I didn't.

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I was so madly in love.

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I think, you know, that was a part of the first conditioning in saying yes.

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Dr. Judith: Yeah, but it's also your heart.

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Your heart was kind of tapped in on some ways that gave you

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that kind of inspiration or desire to say, I'm doing this.

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Yes, I also had a happy family.

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It wasn't like my family were, um, dysfunctional and life was hell.

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It wasn't, but I had to make a decision.

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And, uh, I think also maybe the adventure of going to Canada.

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So I went, got a passport and four months later, I showed up

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on a doorstep in London, Ontario, and, uh, the parents welcomed me.

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Then I got into a guest house and got a job and went from

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there, and then I got married.

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Because back in those days, you know, it was the early 60s, 1963,

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64, that's what we did in those days.

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Everybody was getting married at 20, 21, immediately having

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a family, putting down roots.

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It's very different today, but if you didn't do that, people look to you and

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say, what's the matter with you, you know?

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You don't have a girlfriend, you haven't, you're not married.

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And by the time I was 22, I had three children.

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And that sheer responsibility of having to provide caused me to say, okay,

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what am I going to do about this?

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I decided to get my accounting degree, but I did go back to university full time.

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I had to do it after supper every night.

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And that was a long slog for five years, every night after supper.

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It was like 26 subjects I had to get through.

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Anyway, I did it.

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So that's when I learned, you know, you can achieve things through sheer

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determination if you set your mind to it.

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I found I was visioning, I was thinking maybe I've got this and I've got that

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and I found that helped to stay positive.

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So nowhere in there did I ever allow myself to be negative and throw the

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towel in and say this is too much.

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I just plodded on, got there eventually.

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Dr. Judith: It sounds like because you were raising a young family, and that was

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kind of a part of the equation that you wanted to provide the best to the family.

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And give them the best as much as possible.

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And that's what actually our soul wants.

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Our soul wants to plug along and not stop and not detour.

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But instead, keep focused as you were saying and look at this as

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more of an adventure that it's going to have its ups and downs.

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Cause the soul will have its ups and downs too.

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But at the same time, you don't veer off, you know, of the path and you

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just try to keep moving forward one step at a time, trying to do your best.

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Yeah.

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I've always felt driven.

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I've never been one to take lessons.

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I've always been self taught.

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I taught myself to play the bass, taught myself to play tennis, to play soccer.

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I've never had a lesson in my life.

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Even downhill skiing, I do it my way.

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It works best for me if I do it my way.

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Dr. Judith: So there's something in your way that you're doing things

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that it sounds like you have an innate ability to learn through

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the experience that you go through.

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Yeah.

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And that innate ability to learn as you're going through that experience.

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And then it's like an iterative process.

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Well, that wasn't quite right.

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So I'll do it this way.

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And then I'll do it this way.

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And then I'll do it this way.

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And that allows you to move forward without getting discouraged.

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And I think that gives me confidence.

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To say yes, because I find every time I say yes, it's very exciting.

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I'm never disappointed, always wonderfully surprised at how

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life turns out when you say yes.

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It's like looking across the room and seeing a door.

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And wondering what's behind that door.

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Well, you have to cross the room and open that door to see what's beyond.

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You can't guess who knows what's behind.

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But for me, I have to cross the room and open the door.

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I have to see what's beyond.

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You know,

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Dr. Judith: that seeing beyond is something that happens with

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the word that came to my mind.

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Is courage.

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It's the courage to be able to say, I have an interest.

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And I love the word you used earlier about adventuresome, unlikened adventures,

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because it allows you to not get into the fear factor that many people can get into.

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And fear tends to put a straitjacket

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on you.

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Yeah.

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And I think for me, Judith, leaving home at 19, I had to immediately

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stand on my own two feet.

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If things didn't work out in Canada, I couldn't go running

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home to my mom and dad or anybody.

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I left all my friends, everybody.

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So I had to mature very quickly.

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And I think that caused me to, uh, feel comfortable making big decisions.

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Not being fearful of them, you know, and when I started taking my

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course, um, I mean, I became very, very ambitious, very goal oriented.

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And, uh, every couple of years I was changing jobs for

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more money, bigger position.

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And my goal was, I mean, I started with nothing, but I wanted to be a vice

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president of finance by the time I was 40.

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And that happened.

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I did become a vice president of finance.

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But all along this, there was a part of me that was always restless.

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I was always anxious.

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And even though I was successful, I always felt, you know, there's something missing.

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I'm not content.

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I'd like to be more, more satisfied.

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More personally fulfilled.

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And that

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Dr. Judith: is the same thing that happens with our soul.

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We don't realize that restlessness sometimes is our soul saying,

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okay, there's something more here.

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This is not all what life is cracked up to be.

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It's just not this to achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, but it's more

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learn, grow, have experiences that allow you to be able to kind of use

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them as stepping stones to strengthen who you are, the trueness of who

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you are as a person, truly getting into what really is happiness here.

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Because I did accomplish this particular goal at 40, being, uh, Vice President.

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You achieve that, um, but at the same time, it still didn't quite hit

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that inner urge for something more.

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And that's the key that sometimes happens with people, that we think,

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yes, we want to be successful.

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We want to achieve, and we think that that's the only way

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that we're going to be happy.

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But when we get there, we realize, Hmm, this is not quite happy either.

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What else do I do here?

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Yeah.

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So I, you know, I looked at it and I thought, okay, well maybe if I

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work for myself, maybe that's it.

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That's what's missing.

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I found an opportunity.

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I went into business with my son who was 20, the two of us.

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And we ran that business for 12 years and it was very successful.

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But then again, we worked very, very hard.

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We did everything that, uh, we had to do to be successful.

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And I was able to sell the company and retire at 57.

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And I had this nice place out in the country.

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50 acres, 5 ponds, 18 acres of bush, and the Rocky Saugeen

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River ran through the property.

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Beautiful.

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Idyllic.

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But after 2 years, I was still feeling empty.

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Is this it?

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Is this all there is to life?

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I'm only 59.

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Is all I'm going to do for the rest of my life is play golf and cut grass?

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It wasn't sufficient.

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Now, it might have been for many other retirees.

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It probably would have been heaven, but it wasn't for me.

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I needed to make a change again.

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I needed something different.

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I didn't want to go back into the corporate world.

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Didn't want to go back into the city.

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So I went looking for an adventure and I found it in

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Canada's Northwest territories.

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So I went to live and work in a small hamlet, a little fly in

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location on the east arm of Great Slave Lake with 300 Chippewan.

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These are Indians, North American Indians.

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In Canada, we call them First Nations.

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Just a little community of 300 people.

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And they were looking for a development, a general manager to

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manage their development Diamonds were discovered in 1992 in Canada.

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So there were diamond mines up there.

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One of the roles of this general manager was to help the band negotiate

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some agreements with De Beers.

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De Beers had two properties on Snap Lake and Kennedy Lake.

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These were diamond mines, but before they could proceed, they

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needed to negotiate these agreements with the Lutzukai Denny Band.

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And that was one of my jobs, to help the band.

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So that's what really attracted me up there.

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It was wonderful.

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When I went in there, I went in there with the mindset that I'm the seasoned business

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guy to run these corporations, Monday to Friday, and on the weekend, I'll have fun.

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I'll go fishing and hunting or whatever, but this community of 300 people, it

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wasn't like great big subdivisions.

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They all, it was just one little community and they acted as a community.

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There was a community hall.

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It was like one great big 300 people congregation.

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It Very different.

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In Canada here, right?

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We were so very independent.

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We go to work, but we just wave to the neighbor.

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We don't really do anything with the neighbor.

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You know, we don't socialize with them, really.

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We have our own friends.

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But there, in Le Touquet, I mean, everybody was related because they

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believe in this pure bloodline thing.

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But what I noticed was, um, I was changing.

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I went up there with these best practices, goals and objectives,

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expectations, none of it, because they weren't, they weren't conditioned.

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I mean, I, I'm a product of Canada of North America.

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They're not, they live on a different planet, even though it's still Canada.

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They live mindfully in the moment, always have, and they don't

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have any goals or expectations.

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They just live mindfully.

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It's wonderful because I went in there and I found that, um, like

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I had a couple of fire crews.

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We had a fire base up near the airport.

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So I had 16 people on payroll.

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And then I had other people that went in to be janitors

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and cooks at the diamond mines.

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So I had a payroll and I would say to them, you know, okay, so we're going

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to get paid on the 1st and the 15th.

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Okay.

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Well, the day after they came to me and said, can we get an advance?

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It's like, no way.

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I can't give you an advance.

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Everybody would want an advance.

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So I sent them away and I didn't feel bad.

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But then next day they came and they said, Johnny really needs

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some diapers and we have no money.

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And another one needed some food.

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And then it dawned on me.

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I mean, they've worked.

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They've earned.

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We owe them this money.

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Who am I to say you're not going to get your money for two weeks?

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I mean, what's that, what's, what's that all about?

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What gives me the right?

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That's just an administrative thing to make my job easier.

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I thought, no, that's wrong.

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That's one of these things from the South that it doesn't work up here.

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So from that point was I had a, I had a visa card, but they didn't.

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And in Lusoke there was only one store, the co op store.

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Nothing else.

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Or you could get there with some food and, man, it was high priced.

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But sometimes they needed things from Yellowknife, which was an hour

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flight, and, uh, about 250 bucks.

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Got a Yellowknife return.

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So I started to buy things with my visa for them from

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Yellowknife, have it shipped in.

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I just, uh, reimbursed myself out of the payroll.

Alastair: 00:15:16

No problem.

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But when I saw how happy it made them.

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I realized by sharing what I have, not only my skills and knowledge,

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but my views of God, I can make a difference in their life.

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And that's where, that's where I found my fulfillment in working

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with people, helping people.

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Because in the corporate world, it was all meetings and spreadsheets

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and budgets and reports.

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I really, I had colleagues, but I, I really wasn't working with people.

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But up there I was, and they invited me to their homes.

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I went checking the trap lines.

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I went fishing with them.

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I really became part of their community.

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And they were so welcoming.

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And that's what was so fulfilling.

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Yeah, and it's

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Dr. Judith: that quality, that of caring.

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That blossomed within you and those same qualities of caring, compassion

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and empathy is that we get more in touch with our soul because those are

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the qualities of the soul as well.

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And it taps into the greater good of wanting to serve and to give back.

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In ways that it does now become more fulfilling and we're not even aware of

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the fact is because it taps into the essence of the soul, not only our soul,

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but the souls of those individuals in which you're giving graciously to because

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they also are giving something back.

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They're giving back to you.

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It's like a figure eight flow of energy flowing back and forth

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that gets that bond of connection that feels like this is real.

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I can live in the now.

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I can be mindfulness in the now and not get distracted by all this other stuff

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because you were in a community that learned innately how to live presently.

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But the funny thing Judith is how I learned that I was there for two

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years and I, and I evolved without knowing it, just everything, cultural difference.

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And when I went there, my daughter gave me a journal and she said,

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write in this dad, cause we know it's going to be very different up there.

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So I did.

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Initially, I had a sense of obligation, because I knew she'd be saying,

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how's the writing coming down?

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I didn't want to disappoint her.

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But so much was happening and so much was new and exciting.

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I wrote and I wrote, and I wrote in all of these books and notebooks.

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And after two years, which I felt like I'd been up there a

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long time, more than two years.

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Time is a strange concept.

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I used to stop and try to remember, what did I do before I came to Lützowke?

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And even though it was only two years, it seemed like a long, long time

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ago, because so much had happened.

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Anyway, I took all of these notes, and I thought, I can't just give these to

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my daughter and say, here, read this.

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It really was unintelligible.

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So I decided I would put it all into Word, Microsoft Word.

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So what I did, I went to Costa Rica.

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To a little town called Coweta, on the border of Panama.

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For a month, I booked into a guest house with my computer.

Alastair: 00:18:21

And I typed all of these notes into Microsoft Word.

Alastair: 00:18:25

And then I started to go through.

Alastair: 00:18:27

Delete stuff that didn't go anywhere.

Alastair: 00:18:29

A lot of it didn't.

Alastair: 00:18:31

It was just a one off.

Alastair: 00:18:32

But there were threads.

Alastair: 00:18:34

I started to work with it and that's when I realized how, um,

Alastair: 00:18:40

I had changed from the beginning.

Alastair: 00:18:43

Like when I went in there and people came and said, can you help me?

Alastair: 00:18:47

My reaction was no way I'm the businessman here.

Alastair: 00:18:50

I don't help people because I'd never volunteered or done anything in my life.

Alastair: 00:18:56

And then after two years, it's like, how can I help you today?

Alastair: 00:18:59

You know, total change.

Alastair: 00:19:02

So, I, I, I call this writing Awakening in the Northwest Territories.

Alastair: 00:19:07

It was my awakening.

Alastair: 00:19:09

It sounds

Alastair: 00:19:10

Dr. Judith: like it was also the awakening of your soul.

Alastair: 00:19:13

And because one of the things that the soul, the

Alastair: 00:19:15

soul wants.

Alastair: 00:19:19

Dr. Judith: It wants reflection.

Alastair: 00:19:21

When we can have reflection time, that means we're able to see the greater

Alastair: 00:19:25

span of what's going on in our worlds.

Alastair: 00:19:27

You could see your evolving process taking place.

Alastair: 00:19:30

Also, it moves into refining, because it's like your reflection and then

Alastair: 00:19:37

refining, and being aware in the writing process that you did, and then it

Alastair: 00:19:42

moved into looking at all the rewards.

Alastair: 00:19:45

It's like R, R, and R.

Alastair: 00:19:48

The rewards that came from that experience, because you did reflect and

Alastair: 00:19:52

you did be fine, and now it's moved you into rewarding and going to a greater

Alastair: 00:19:56

awareness of, Hmm, this is what I want

Alastair: 00:19:59

more of.

Alastair: 00:20:01

But by saying yes, I'm going to go and search for something, no idea what it is.

Alastair: 00:20:08

I'm just going to look, and the universe is going to send me what I need, and

Alastair: 00:20:13

it sent me to Lutoké, and I was the right person for the job, because

Alastair: 00:20:17

it's, I, I, I gave, but I got back.

Alastair: 00:20:22

I, I, the reward was, it changed me, and that just, the rest of my life after that.

Alastair: 00:20:29

When I left Lutoké, I was all enthused.

Alastair: 00:20:31

What really made me happy was helping other people.

Alastair: 00:20:36

So I found this opportunity in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Alastair: 00:20:39

Working with a small NGO, working with the abjectly poor in rural and coastal areas.

Alastair: 00:20:47

I was a volunteer there for two years.

Alastair: 00:20:49

They were setting up micro credit programs for the villagers because

Alastair: 00:20:54

poor people can't get loans.

Alastair: 00:20:56

So this microcredit program is a way for them to work together as a community.

Alastair: 00:21:02

You get like 20 people together.

Alastair: 00:21:03

They all put in 10 cents.

Alastair: 00:21:06

So you know, you've got 2 and somebody borrows the 2 and does something with it.

Alastair: 00:21:11

It's fantastic.

Alastair: 00:21:12

And it's lifted thousands out of poverty in Bangladesh and well, Southeast Asia.

Alastair: 00:21:20

. Dr. Judith: Mm-hmm.

Alastair: 00:21:21

. It's in that process of transitioning from, it's like you're going from one

Alastair: 00:21:25

community, growing and learning from the community that you were in Canada,

Alastair: 00:21:30

and then when you bank the desh, it gave you an opportunity to expand your

Alastair: 00:21:34

heart even more through the service, through this micro credit process that

Alastair: 00:21:38

was going on to help the the abject poor.

Alastair: 00:21:41

And so it's as if you're continuing to evolve not only in

Alastair: 00:21:44

the outer world, because our soul sometimes knows what we need.

Alastair: 00:21:48

Our soul actually knows that yes, that'd be great.

Alastair: 00:21:51

We go to that remote area because it gives you a chance to slow

Alastair: 00:21:54

down and get new experiences.

Alastair: 00:21:57

It actually gave you an opportunity and the sole opportunity just to

Alastair: 00:22:01

recalibrate that, recalibrate expectation, recalibrate who you are or who you

Alastair: 00:22:08

thought you were, and then it starts to transform you like a wonderful diamond.

Alastair: 00:22:14

Absolutely it up the, the d different angles of that diamond

Alastair: 00:22:17

or facets of that diamond.

Alastair: 00:22:19

And then you take that as aspect and then you go to the next community of, of

Alastair: 00:22:24

serving and helping maybe in a different way through the microcredit, but it's

Alastair: 00:22:29

evolving you another level of awareness.

Alastair: 00:22:31

Mm-hmm.

Alastair: 00:22:31

. And also tying into that desire for having some level of

Alastair: 00:22:35

adventure, which his soul is great.

Alastair: 00:22:37

It loves adventure.

Alastair: 00:22:39

Oh,

Alastair: 00:22:39

yeah.

Alastair: 00:22:41

When I was in Bangladesh for two years, I went backpacking in India.

Alastair: 00:22:46

I went to the Taj Mahal.

Alastair: 00:22:47

I went to Varanasi, Sarnath.

Alastair: 00:22:51

Yeah, I went up to Cherrapunji.

Alastair: 00:22:53

So all of this was, uh, as I say, I'm an adventurist.

Alastair: 00:22:58

It's all part of the package of enjoying life.

Alastair: 00:23:02

Life shouldn't just be, uh, like it was all those years in the corporate world.

Alastair: 00:23:06

I just went in there and came home exhausted and went back in.

Alastair: 00:23:12

And the thing was, I thought that was success.

Alastair: 00:23:16

I was there with the rest of my colleagues.

Alastair: 00:23:18

That's what we were all doing.

Alastair: 00:23:19

We work like dogs and the whole idea is to retire and take it easy.

Alastair: 00:23:25

We never questioned it.

Alastair: 00:23:27

That was the, that was the whole purpose.

Alastair: 00:23:30

And it was only after I did that I realized, no, this, this isn't living.

Alastair: 00:23:37

This is, you know, but the corporate world teaches you that.

Alastair: 00:23:41

You see in our world, our society, it's all about winning.

Alastair: 00:23:46

Without knowing it as children, all the time we're being pushed

Alastair: 00:23:50

to win, to be top of the class.

Alastair: 00:23:53

We're being pushed into sports, and it's all about winning all the time.

Alastair: 00:23:58

Now, when I went to live with the Dene, the Lutsoke, they live

Alastair: 00:24:03

on a totally different planet.

Alastair: 00:24:06

They don't, there's no winning.

Alastair: 00:24:08

They just live mindfully, share what they have, they go fishing and they

Alastair: 00:24:12

come back and they put some of it in a big freezer in the community for the

Alastair: 00:24:16

elders, the elders come and take it.

Alastair: 00:24:19

We can learn so much from them.

Alastair: 00:24:22

And I realized having expectations only made me feel disappointed.

Alastair: 00:24:27

Why?

Alastair: 00:24:29

When I didn't achieve all of the expectations, I focused

Alastair: 00:24:33

on what we didn't achieve.

Alastair: 00:24:35

So I got rid of that and he used to go to work and say, okay, you know, whatever

Alastair: 00:24:39

we achieve, I'm going to celebrate.

Alastair: 00:24:42

And even if Joel didn't do a great job today because he was

Alastair: 00:24:45

hungover, he still did his best.

Alastair: 00:24:49

So I realized you do your best.

Alastair: 00:24:52

You can't always be brilliant and be first, but as long as you do

Alastair: 00:24:55

your best, that's all that matters.

Alastair: 00:24:58

And when you start to think along those lines, you feel calmer,

Alastair: 00:25:03

more restful, more satisfied.

Alastair: 00:25:07

And happier.

Alastair: 00:25:08

Yeah.

Alastair: 00:25:09

Dr. Judith: Yeah, exactly.

Alastair: 00:25:10

And when it came to my mind, you said that you do your best and let go of the rest.

Alastair: 00:25:15

Absolutely.

Alastair: 00:25:17

Also, that means you're letting go of the worry.

Alastair: 00:25:21

I have another saying, Judith, and it's you go with the flow.

Alastair: 00:25:25

You make it up as you go.

Alastair: 00:25:30

Dr. Judith: Exactly.

Alastair: 00:25:30

And that creativity and that innovativeness and that, uh, adventuresome

Alastair: 00:25:34

allows you to be able to kind of make it up and do it well, because

Alastair: 00:25:38

remember you said earlier about you learn best by just trying to practice

Alastair: 00:25:42

it, be it skiing or be it playing an instrument or what it may be.

Alastair: 00:25:46

That's something that's innate to you.

Alastair: 00:25:48

And that's where I think it's the preciousness of what you're

Alastair: 00:25:51

talking about is, is that you tapped into that at an early age.

Alastair: 00:25:54

Yeah.

Alastair: 00:25:54

Knowing that you could trust your inner self to work through

Alastair: 00:25:58

whatever it needed to work through.

Alastair: 00:26:00

And you could have some trust in that, in that process.

Alastair: 00:26:04

And that's what the soul is actually wanting us to do,

Alastair: 00:26:07

is work it through, trust.

Alastair: 00:26:08

If you didn't do it right, so what?

Alastair: 00:26:10

Try it again.

Alastair: 00:26:11

Exactly.

Alastair: 00:26:12

Try it so critical or hard on yourself, but know that life is for growing.

Alastair: 00:26:18

Life is for living.

Alastair: 00:26:19

And

Alastair: 00:26:20

I've always realized that, Judith, that life is a, it's a journey.

Alastair: 00:26:24

And, uh, it's comprised, it's like a book.

Alastair: 00:26:26

It's just comprised of different chapters.

Alastair: 00:26:28

And when we get old, we can't do the things we did when we're 25

Alastair: 00:26:32

because the body just isn't the same.

Alastair: 00:26:35

So this is the whole thing mentally, emotionally, physically, as we

Alastair: 00:26:38

go through life, we just keep going through different stages.

Alastair: 00:26:42

And if we embrace and move on, but a lot of people get stuck

Alastair: 00:26:46

and they refuse and they hang in there, refuse to accept reality.

Alastair: 00:26:53

But it's beautiful if you accept reality, you just say, Okay, well, now

Alastair: 00:26:57

I'm on the next stage of my life, and the next stage, and the next stage,

Alastair: 00:27:01

and each stage, every time there's change, you have to compromise,

Alastair: 00:27:06

you have to let go of something.

Alastair: 00:27:09

You can't drag it all with you.

Alastair: 00:27:11

It's all baggage.

Alastair: 00:27:12

So you have to know, just let it go, move on, and grab a hold of the new stuff.

Alastair: 00:27:18

That's wonderful, exciting.

Alastair: 00:27:21

But I know a lot of people that are stuck, they just.

Alastair: 00:27:24

Won't let go.

Alastair: 00:27:26

It was a life.

Alastair: 00:27:27

They don't know how

Alastair: 00:27:27

Dr. Judith: to, they don't know how to let

Alastair: 00:27:29

go.

Alastair: 00:27:29

It's just stuff, you know, it's just stuff.

Alastair: 00:27:33

Dr. Judith: So that letting go is a process of mentally, emotionally, even

Alastair: 00:27:36

sometimes spiritually, there's things that we need to just let go and be open to,

Alastair: 00:27:41

you know, what is the next door, the next window, or the next experience that we be

Alastair: 00:27:45

open to us if we're trusting ourselves.

Alastair: 00:27:47

And so those are our spiritual path.

Alastair: 00:27:49

Consciously or unconsciously, or seekers, they, you just do it

Alastair: 00:27:53

because you have the faith that things will work themselves out.

Alastair: 00:27:56

You have the faith that yes, you get, you may get your knee scan, you may

Alastair: 00:28:00

not work out the way that you wanted to, but you keep on at it because

Alastair: 00:28:04

you know, you're here to grow and to continue to learn in advance.

Alastair: 00:28:07

And that seems like what you've been able to do just very innately in your

Alastair: 00:28:11

life.

Alastair: 00:28:12

I call it the universe, Judith, for some strange reason, karma, whatever.

Alastair: 00:28:16

The universe keeps sending me wonderful, wonderful opportunities,

Alastair: 00:28:20

like when I was in Bangladesh.

Alastair: 00:28:22

As I say, I got a chance to go to India to see the Taj Mahal and

Alastair: 00:28:27

all sorts of wonderful things.

Alastair: 00:28:29

And then later on, I volunteered in Georgetown, Guyana.

Alastair: 00:28:32

I was working with the young leaders of Agricola, these 10 young Afro

Alastair: 00:28:38

Ianans, came from a little community that was very damaged and they

Alastair: 00:28:42

wanted to heal the community because the elders were, they were all

Alastair: 00:28:45

just so dysfunctional or whatever.

Alastair: 00:28:47

So I worked with these 10 young people.

Alastair: 00:28:49

It was wonderful, but my assignment ended early.

Alastair: 00:28:53

So I stayed on as an accompanying partner to my wife, Candice,

Alastair: 00:28:58

who, she had a volunteer position there with the disability, anyway.

Alastair: 00:29:04

And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, a little opportunity came up

Alastair: 00:29:08

to go into the Amazon rainforest.

Alastair: 00:29:10

Wow!

Alastair: 00:29:11

The universe sent me that.

Alastair: 00:29:12

There was four eco lodges down there.

Alastair: 00:29:15

That had been given computers, but no training.

Alastair: 00:29:19

It's weird.

Alastair: 00:29:20

Some, somewhere in the world, they came up with this idea.

Alastair: 00:29:23

Oh yeah, we'll give them computers.

Alastair: 00:29:26

But there was no training or anything.

Alastair: 00:29:28

Microsoft Office was loaded on the computers, but they had no idea

Alastair: 00:29:32

how to open or do Word or Excel.

Alastair: 00:29:37

So I was sent down there for four weeks.

Alastair: 00:29:40

So I spent a week at each lodge.

Alastair: 00:29:43

But as I was there, all these wonderful opportunities came out.

Alastair: 00:29:47

I went up the river to see the giant river otters, and then it

Alastair: 00:29:51

was the caimans at Yuppakari.

Alastair: 00:29:55

So you never know.

Alastair: 00:29:56

When you say yes, You never know what wonderful opportunities

Alastair: 00:30:00

are just around the corner.

Alastair: 00:30:02

And they, they always are.

Alastair: 00:30:04

Yeah, and

Alastair: 00:30:04

Dr. Judith: that is a nice way.

Alastair: 00:30:06

And I think I would like to just have you come back for part two with this, you

Alastair: 00:30:11

know, keeping an open mind and saying, yes, it's how, how your life has evolved

Alastair: 00:30:15

into these wonderful opportunities.

Alastair: 00:30:18

And maybe, you know, we can talk about what we want to do in the next segment,

Alastair: 00:30:22

but I would like to continue because there's so much more to, How your life

Alastair: 00:30:26

has evolved to being where you are currently that has allowed you to be

Alastair: 00:30:31

able to be adventuresome Allowed you to be creative allows you to serve Allows

Alastair: 00:30:38

you to be able to give back and in every place that you've gone, which is so very

Alastair: 00:30:44

nice and very precious to be able to do

Alastair: 00:30:46

emotional to be happy.

Alastair: 00:30:49

Yes,

Alastair: 00:30:49

Dr. Judith: that's the piece I want to talk about is that happiness component

Alastair: 00:30:52

of what's been able to be created.

Alastair: 00:30:55

So if there is kind of a word or a statement that you want to

Alastair: 00:30:58

leave at this part one segment.

Alastair: 00:31:00

What would that be for our seekers?

Alastair: 00:31:03

It would be

Alastair: 00:31:05

to be fearless, to think about all the what ifs that never happen, but

Alastair: 00:31:10

it stops us from being all that we can be.

Alastair: 00:31:13

Our society conditions us to be fearful because it sells products.

Alastair: 00:31:19

And without knowing it, we're conditioned.

Alastair: 00:31:21

So we, we're fearful of this, fearful of that.

Alastair: 00:31:25

And I think about when I was growing up, you know, we, I was 7, We would

Alastair: 00:31:30

just leave the house, play all day.

Alastair: 00:31:32

My mom and dad had no idea where we were.

Alastair: 00:31:34

We just came back at supper time.

Alastair: 00:31:36

Well, today, man, you wouldn't, you wouldn't do that with your children.

Alastair: 00:31:40

We're living in such a fear, fear ridden society, it's so bad because

Alastair: 00:31:45

there's no liberty, there's no freedom.

Alastair: 00:31:47

It's sad.

Alastair: 00:31:47

It's sad.

Alastair: 00:31:48

But as an adult you can choose to be fearless.

Alastair: 00:31:51

Everything I've done, very seldom has there been any bad stuff arise.

Alastair: 00:31:57

There really hasn't.

Alastair: 00:31:58

So that just proves it's all, it's just mentally fearing.

Alastair: 00:32:03

Yeah, you're so

Alastair: 00:32:05

Dr. Judith: right.

Alastair: 00:32:05

And part of that is the kind of the fear based in our society and some of the

Alastair: 00:32:09

circumstances that we find ourselves in.

Alastair: 00:32:11

But as an adult, as you're saying, we can live a little bit more fear

Alastair: 00:32:15

listly because with our soul and mind, because it helps our soul to

Alastair: 00:32:20

continue to evolve in advance as well.

Alastair: 00:32:23

If they want to reach out to you, Alistair, where can they find

Alastair: 00:32:26

you?

Alastair: 00:32:27

Well, I have a website, and there's a lot on my website.

Alastair: 00:32:30

As I say, I'm an author, so my books are there.

Alastair: 00:32:33

Excerpts from my books, reviews.

Alastair: 00:32:36

The website is www.

Alastair: 00:32:39

alastairhenry.

Alastair: 00:32:41

com.

Alastair: 00:32:42

So it's A L A S T A I R H E N R Y dot com.

Alastair: 00:32:49

And uh, you can contact me on that website.

Alastair: 00:32:53

There's a contact us button there if you have any questions that

Alastair: 00:32:57

you would like to ask me anything.

Alastair: 00:32:59

I'm always willing to discuss or talk with people.

Alastair: 00:33:04

Indeed you

Alastair: 00:33:04

Dr. Judith: are.

Alastair: 00:33:05

You're very much people oriented and it's been a delight to have you in

Alastair: 00:33:09

this first segment and I look forward to have you back in our part two.

Alastair: 00:33:13

Thank you, Judith, for seekers.

Alastair: 00:33:15

Bye for now.

Alastair: 00:33:17

Thank you for joining me for this episode on Mastering Life's Avens, being

Alastair: 00:33:22

your best Self through Soul evolution.

Alastair: 00:33:25

If you have enjoyed what you've heard today, I would be delighted if you

Alastair: 00:33:28

would share this episode with others.

Alastair: 00:33:31

Leave a thumbs up and subscribe to my Mastering Life's Adventures podcast.

Alastair: 00:33:35

Look forward to your joining the next episode.

Alastair: 00:33:38

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Alastair: 00:33:42

Bye for now.