SoulPod: Your Guide for Connecting with the Mystical with Crystal Cassidy

Meg Kearney (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Root to Rise Seeds for the Soul. I'm your host Meg and today I'm interviewing Crystal Cassidy who is the founder and CEO of the SoulPod app. She also hosts the SoulPod podcast and they do retreats with SoulPod which sound incredible. If you're interested I would definitely recommend taking a look. But

The conversation today covers all things spiritual, meditation, community, and so much more. I really enjoyed talking to Crystal today. I can just tell that she embodies the wisdom that she teaches. So I'm so grateful that I got to have her on and I'm sure you will enjoy listening to her as much as I did. Thanks again for tuning in and enjoy the episode.

Meg Kearney (01:09)
Welcome Crystal to the podcast, I'm so excited to have you on today!

Crystal Cassidy (01:14)
Thank you, Meg, excited to chat with you today.

Meg Kearney (01:16)
Me too. So first I want to start off with your background. So I know you're the founder and CEO of SoulPod, which is sort of a spiritual wellness app. And I'd love for you to just talk about how you got there and sort of what SoulPod is.

Crystal Cassidy (01:36)
Yeah, so very long story short, ⁓ my career has been in biotech. So I have a very analytical side to my mind. I love the science of meditation and of consciousness and have a deep fascination with understanding what makes us tick and the nature of reality and quantum physics. I love all of that. The other side has been my spiritual journey and I got introduced to meditation when I was 12.

through martial arts and I did martial arts. It was like my life for over a decade and traveled the world and ⁓ was operating in a very high like physical capacity and meditation helped me enter those states of flow that you look for as an athlete and I eventually understood as a human and your experience of life. And as I got older, lost meditation a little bit in my 20s, it was understandable.

and then came back to it and I started having mystical experiences. started having Kundalini awakening and perceiving ghost and, ⁓ all these realms were kind of opening up and I got extremely curious about how to explain that. And when I had the opportunity to, I wanted to build a platform that was

Kind of beyond mindfulness, mindfulness is a very important and powerful foundation, but SoulPod both balances the science explanation where it's helpful, but also helps people access the mystical state. This is the state of depth that I think so many are looking for. We wanted SoulPod to be a tool and a journey tool to help you access those states. So SoulPod is structured into

Spiritual journeys we get a good idea of where you're at in yours and pair you with meditation breath work that develops over 21 rituals and we also have pods which are small groups of people that are also on potentially a similar journey as you because For me, it's a little lonely when you're awakening and you're having these experiences and your weight You're like has anybody ever experienced an out-of-body Meditation or

these vibrations or you have a deep insight, we wanted a space that people could share that. And so that brought me to SoulPod, which we've been out for about a year now, still very new, and we've got some really exciting stuff we're building this year.

Meg Kearney (04:19)
I that and I have used the SoulPod app. got the heart like loving center. Yes, Soul Loved. Yes, I got that one, which I felt was so accurate ⁓ for what I needed. Can you talk about what the other paths are aside from Soul Loved and kind of how they target maybe just a few, but how they target where you are in your journey?

Crystal Cassidy (04:26)
So loved, yeah.

so fun. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I love that you got soul of that's one of my favorites. Yeah, it's loosely based around the kind of skeleton of your energy system. So you can think of that as energy centers and some of the main themes. And I like to think of it more as levels of consciousness than themes. I think of each energy center as being its own like mini brain, its own consciousness. And so

Meg Kearney (04:49)
Yes.

Crystal Cassidy (05:15)
those journeys are really built around that concept of uniting your physical and your non-physical experience. And so each journey has its own very unique, sometimes in some cases more ⁓ foundational and in other cases more unique breathwork you might not have come across before and mantra and I call it unfocused expansion. So where you can start to build that muscle of

letting go of all the guidance, letting go of all the kind of structure, which is very helpful. But we also want people to have space for that. And we're about to release a whole other set of content, which will be kind of like Journey Light. And there'll be many experiences that you can go even deeper into some of these themes that can help you. Once you embody that

wisdom, it can really help you reach that next level of your spiritual development if that's what you're looking to do.

Meg Kearney (06:16)
I love that. think it's definitely important to kind of taper off of the guidance at a certain point, as you mentioned, because that's the goal, right? Is to be able to connect with our own internal wisdom and be able to reference that throughout our whole lives. So I love that. I think that's really cool. And before you mentioned that you have started a meditation practice very young and then

Crystal Cassidy (06:25)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Meg Kearney (06:45)
kind of lost it and then came back around to it. So I know for me, sometimes it can be, it can feel difficult to do meditation when I know that's exactly what I need. So how has your meditation practice evolved? And how did you come back to it after losing it for a little bit?

Crystal Cassidy (06:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, and sorry, my husband's in a meeting. I don't know if that ends up impacting. You can let me know if it gets too loud. ⁓ But yeah, I just want to pin what you said too, because I think this is so important. All of this wisdom, all of this information is always available to you. So meditation, breath work, all of these tools in whatever form they come in are really designed

Meg Kearney (07:11)
⁓ that's okay, I can't hear him. Okay, sounds good.

Crystal Cassidy (07:34)
to not necessarily to give you the answers, they're designed to help you along your path, but with the ultimate destination of you learning to access this wisdom on your own and access that field where all of these experiences exist, which I really do believe to be the case. So I love that you mentioned that. yeah, so meditation, I know for so many people is challenging. And I think

I think of it as just like going to the gym. You know, if I haven't been to the gym in a long time and I go in, it's like, you know, it's going to be a little challenging at the beginning. You're not going to be lifting the 200 pound weights right off the bat. So I encourage people to go into meditation practice, releasing some expectation and bringing more curiosity.

to the experience than anything else with a little dose of courage because meditation at its most core is building awareness. And so when you start to turn that light inwards into the caverns of likely what you've not been aware of as far as thoughts and beliefs, the ego doesn't like it. And so your mind,

and these thoughts, which we all have experienced, are gonna work over time at the beginning. And even your body will start to throw all kinds of things at you. It's really amazing. I've sat with my body for hours at a time in meditation, and I've meditated every day for over 10 years now. But it gets so creative. Like your mind and your body gets very creative. I remember in one meditation.

my entire body was on fire for no reason. Like literally felt like I was burning and it was nothing. It was just energy moving and my body not wanting to go and follow me into the unknown. It's wired for the known. And so giving yourself a lot of grace and knowing that each little win where you stay in it,

Meg Kearney (09:41)
and

Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (09:55)
And I always try to not end my practice until I've reached some sort of barrier and I stayed with it. Even if it's a little bit of spaciousness on the other side of that challenge, there's always something on the other side. And so I encourage people to get really curious and almost excited when you come up against some restriction in your, some crunchiness in your practice.

Meg Kearney (10:02)
Mmm.

Crystal Cassidy (10:23)
I now at this point, I get excited and I'm like, ooh, there's something there for me to move through. So move into it rather than away from it.

Meg Kearney (10:32)
Yeah, that's so important and it kind of reminds me of yoga, which I know is sort of a moving meditation, but the practice is to really push yourself to the edge, not to the point where you hurt yourself or you can't come back from it, but to sit with that discomfort. So I love that you mentioned that and that you shared that experience of your body.

Crystal Cassidy (10:47)
Mm-hmm.

Meg Kearney (11:00)
having sort of this reaction to you going deeper because to your point, the ego wants to survive and the body doesn't want to be uncomfortable. I think, you know, one of the things that you talk about in your podcast, one of the episodes I listened to was this idea that once sometimes once we have this spiritual awakening moment, we can kind of like backpedal and

Crystal Cassidy (11:09)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Meg Kearney (11:30)
it's sort of like this dark space of like, I had this moment of awareness and now all of these subconscious things are coming up and I'm completely off track. And I've had a similar experience and I sometimes feel like I'm still in it. So can you talk about why that happens and how we can mitigate the amount of time that we're sort of back into?

Crystal Cassidy (11:40)
Yeah.

Meg Kearney (11:59)
the darkness let's call it, I'm not sure what exactly to call it, but that more unconscious place.

Crystal Cassidy (12:01)
Mmm.

It's such a good question. Such a, yeah, really great question. I think so many people, myself included, experience it. And I think, I think that part of that experience, it's almost like you're stretching a rubber band. And the further you stretch it, the more tension there is between who you've been and who you can be. And especially if you're going through

time where you're really stretching, which is so important and courageous of someone to do. And whether that means you're doing a spiritual retreat or the your life circumstances are stretching you, you're consciously stretching yourself. The rebound can be a little challenging, but I don't necessarily see it as. ⁓

I wouldn't call it like a bad thing or like you're doing something wrong. I think it's natural. again, grace really comes into the equation. And I'll give you an example. When I did a 10 day meditation retreat and I was just noticing both my own experience and the people close to me around it that were going through it. And all this stuff bubbled up at the very end of the retreat the last day. And

I think it's because you go so far. You've opened a portal into possibility and you've taken a look at something that you can choose to bring deeper into this dimension of space and time, but it takes some work. And that's when you hear people talk about embodiment and integration. I think that's what we're talking about here. And it takes time. I think it takes intention and

Meg Kearney (13:41)
Mm.

Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (14:04)
whatever's coming up for you, whatever that darkness is, whatever you're starting to have more clarity about, first of all, know that simply because you're aware of it, you see the darkness, you're already transmuting and embodying it. You're already well on your way. If you weren't seeing it, then that's a different experience. So I'd often tell people, you're already doing it. So give yourself some... ⁓

space and compassion, because by becoming aware of it, and you know, some people then fall in back into the subconsciousness of it and they don't want to do that work at that point. They don't want to face those things. And that's also okay. You know, it's to each person in their own time, what they're ready to take on, because in order to step into the next version of you with those elevated states that you're looking to experience more of,

it does require you to leave some things behind. And those moments that you talk about, it's the practice of leaving those things behind so that you can move into that next phase of being, I think.

Meg Kearney (15:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think especially if you've been operating a certain way for so long, like I was and I didn't even know that the awakening experience was possible and I wasn't looking for it necessarily. It sort of just happened from showing up to meditation 10 minutes every day. was something that was a guided meditation and it was just so

It was so unexpected, the experience, and I had a few in a short period of time where I just felt so connected to this energy of love and just anything is possible and just one with the universe and it was so beautiful. And I think throughout the past few years, I've almost been looking to recreate that experience and I don't know how. So.

Crystal Cassidy (15:54)
Mmm.

Mmm.

⁓ yeah.

Meg Kearney (16:13)
And I know you mentioned you've had some mystical experiences as well. So how do you find a way to just appreciate the process and let go of the expectations or the desire to keep having these, you know, big moments that you can point to and say, look, I've made it, you know?

Crystal Cassidy (16:32)
Yeah.

that's such a beautiful question. And I'm so happy for you with those experiences. I would love to hear more. But yeah, so you'll have these moments on your inevitably they show up. And it's interesting that you mentioned it was unexpected because the mystical is unexpected by definition. It's the unknown. So that's such a paradox, because once you experience it. ⁓

that oneness, becomes no longer a belief that we're all connected in one, it becomes a knowing. That's a big shift. It sounds simple, but it's a big shift. And once that starts happening, you really can't go back, nor do you want to, but your worldview has changed. really for me, that's why I continue to do practice every day is because I want to have increasing access to that.

Meg Kearney (17:11)
Mm-hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (17:34)
state of being. And the more that you can bring your soul, which is this oneness, into this dimension, the more your life is going to shift. I've also learned that your external circumstances will shift. Sometimes it will be very confusing, but it's because your point of attraction, your vibration, your frequency, your level of consciousness is shifting. So your life has to shift with it. And that can be discombobulating as well. But

Speaking to your question about wanting to touch it again, I think that becomes a motivating factor in doing spiritual development is that. And what I have learned, I've certainly been there where I'm like, my gosh, how do I recreate that? How do I get back to that state? And unfortunately, you have to let that go. And you need to embrace and remember the fact that the mystical is the unknown.

Meg Kearney (18:26)
Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (18:34)
And you can access that state, but it's going to be ⁓ when you least expect it. And it's going to be in a very different way. I remember I went into a long meditation, one particular type that had really launched me into this wild experience before. And I was going into it again and I had all these kind of expectations. I was like, am I going to be able to time travel again? ⁓

And somebody said to me, I was like, just hope that it's, it's as powerful as it was last time. And they said, maybe it's going to be even more powerful. And so what I like about that is that it's releasing expectation around it being like it was last time, but it's opening the door for it to be exactly what you need now. And sure enough, I had a really powerful experience.

Meg Kearney (19:22)
Mmm.

Mmm.

Crystal Cassidy (19:33)
but I traveled in a different way and entered a different realm of understanding and connection. And so that's what I've learned is like the scientist in me wants to figure out what the algorithm is, if this, then that. And there is a little bit of that as far as walking you up to the door of the mystical, but ultimately it's jumping off the cliff and knowing that you're.

Meg Kearney (19:47)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (20:01)
that you're supported in the air. It's this trust fall experience that happens.

Meg Kearney (20:07)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I do love that and I agree with you. There is no it's set algorithm and you know, it it just happens and it's hard as humans like we have we want to know the solutions to everything and how to get X Y & Z and I know you alluded to there is some science that can get you close. Could you talk a little bit about what's

happening in our brains or how we get to the place where we're open to these mystical experiences.

Crystal Cassidy (20:43)
my gosh, I love your questions, Meg. These are so good. They're really, I love them. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, there's a few things that we know. The more that you meditate, even after a few months, the more that you're dialing down the default mode network, which is this kind of rumination network in the brain. And we know that people with high anxiety and ⁓ I believe depression as well will have a really active DMN.

Meg Kearney (20:44)
⁓ thank you!

Crystal Cassidy (21:13)
And it's not necessarily a bad thing to have this ability for your mind to wander. I think from my perspective, you just want to be able to mold that in a way that serves you. And so the DMN, as you meditate more and more, it becomes less and less pronounced. And so you're accessing increased capacity for presence and clarity. And

You're moving your brain instead of high beta, which is usually associated also with anxiety. In beta, we're probably in beta right now because we're in conversation, but you're moving into alpha, theta, which is the door to the mystical once you start to get into those brain waves. And then the most interesting thing for me is the gamma brainwave state. So we're seeing that monks have a really high resting rate of gamma, not even in meditation.

But when they go into meditation, these gamma levels are like off the charts. And people who have been meditating and say they have a transcendental mystical experience are off the charts gamma. So it's really high frequencies in the brain. And I talked to a quantum physicist about this because we're also discovering that there are quantum states in our microtubules.

And so that opens up a whole conversation around, this how we explain consciousness as not localized to just our biology? That becomes a very exciting conversation around physiology and the nature of reality. So I think as you practice and as you get better and better at altering your brainwave states on your own and through guidance, you're going to have

Meg Kearney (22:40)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (23:03)
an increased capacity to meet the mystical. It's like more shots on goal. And that is, I think that's where the work really sits, is in that buildup to the door.

Meg Kearney (23:06)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

That makes a lot of sense and I do find when I'm more, it's easier for me to take a pause in between my automatic thoughts and maybe choose something different and a different explanation for why things are happening. And I wanted to ask too, I know that there are a few different types of meditation, like I've tried transcendental.

there's you know just sitting and following your breath, there's the loving kindness meditation. Do you know if there is a specific type of meditation that helps to facilitate the quieting of the default mode network or is it kind of just about your intention and making the time to just sit and be?

Crystal Cassidy (24:10)
I think intention is like over 50 % of the way there is if you really stay connected with your intention. And if when it comes to meditation and this work, if you can zero in on an intention that is really meaningful to you and evokes a deep response from within you, like for me, it's to self-realize or I like to say soul realize in this lifetime as much as I can.

Meg Kearney (24:28)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (24:40)
That's simple, that's why I do what I do every day, and that's how I make decisions about what I spend my time on. And so if you can find an intention that is exciting for you in this lifetime, that will carry you so far. Like the tools will come to you, the teachers will come to you, the circumstances will come to you to help fulfill and align with that intention. ⁓

Meg Kearney (24:48)
Hmm.

Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (25:07)
I think as far as types and modalities, I've tried and experienced so many different types. But I think the simplest of just sitting with yourself and trying to extend the amount of time that you're able to do that, gives you, it's like going to the gym, you're building that meditative muscle. I still think it sounds so simple and I would sometimes wish it was more complicated.

Meg Kearney (25:36)
you

Crystal Cassidy (25:37)
But that's really where it is. Combine that with your intention and come back to that in your practice. I think breath work is really powerful. Helps you come into your body, helps to shift your brain waves and get your biology set up for accessing these altered states. So I'm a big fan of breath work. I always do some before my practice. Big fan of intention and starting to work with your non-physical guides. I'm a big believer in that.

You'll have your ancestors, you'll have beings that are in your energy during certain times of your life, and they can guide your practice as well. So I oftentimes call in that support in my meditation and I'm, you know, experiment, be the spiritual scientist, try a bunch of things, try soul pod, try other modalities, see what resonates for you and trust that

It tends to come into your sphere when you're ready.

Meg Kearney (26:38)
Hmm. I love that. And I'm curious, what was your first experience with your guides and how did you know that you were connecting with them? Because I know for me, sometimes I'll have experiences and I'm like, ⁓ am I making this up? Like, it's hard to say, but a lot of times I have just had this knowing where it's just, you just know. So

Crystal Cassidy (27:00)
Hmm.

Meg Kearney (27:07)
What was your first experience like and how do you call in guides when you need them?

Crystal Cassidy (27:07)
Mm.

Good question. First experience, I think I first got exposed through psychics that told me that my great grandmother was on my left side. And I had multiple people say they saw an older woman off on my left side in a blue nightgown. And I was like, yeah, that's her. So I was pretty young when that happened. It kind of opened the doorway to the possibility that there is support.

Meg Kearney (27:25)
Mmm.

Crystal Cassidy (27:47)
And I think I deepened my relationship with my guides when I was very sick and I didn't have a lot. I had to release the help in this realm because there was only certain so many things that could be done. And I really had to surrender to the realm, the non-physical realm. And it was amazing. Like when you surrender and it sounds so simple again.

Meg Kearney (27:54)
Mmm.

Crystal Cassidy (28:16)
and ask for help, how there was an immediate response, an immediate response in my physical experience and in my spiritual experience, there was something there. And so that just blew my mind, my human crystal mind. And I realized that it had always been there. It was just waiting for me to ask for the support. So that for me was very much an integration and embodiment of

Meg Kearney (28:40)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (28:46)
knowing that that's there. you gotta, know, free will is a big thing. That's the thing in this realm. surrender, presence, and ask for it, and they'll show up.

Meg Kearney (28:51)
Mm.

Can we talk about free will a little bit and fate and how those two play into one another? Because it's so fascinating on the one hand to think, okay, everything's predetermined. It doesn't really matter what I do in this lifetime. And I know on one of your episodes, you talked about how sometimes people can know that there's a greater spiritual path that they could go on.

Crystal Cassidy (29:05)
Yeah.

Meg Kearney (29:31)
but they have the choice to say, no, I just want to keep things as they are. I don't want to go there. And it's all fine. So how do we reconcile the two ideas of fate, the universe or whatever knows what we're going to choose and like us choosing the path.

Crystal Cassidy (29:36)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

⁓ Juicy, juicy question. No big deal. Does free will exist or not?

Meg Kearney (29:54)
Yeah, it's so juicy. Yeah, no pressure.

Crystal Cassidy (30:01)
I was listening to some physicists argue about this the other day, and it was fascinating, even from a scientific, very practical view that is very much up for debate. ⁓ From my perspective, how I define fate or dharma or destiny is from the perspective of the soul.

Meg Kearney (30:14)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (30:29)
which came to learn certain things in this incarnation. I think lifetimes are all simultaneously, you know, that's across time and space and it's all happening now. And so there are like guideposts or there are moments in this lifetime that you were destined to come and meet and there could be a variety. If something happens, then maybe there was gonna be another option.

But on some level, it's almost like you have a lesson plan and you know the general bullet points that you're going to be exploring. But it's also malleable and the malleability comes from the free will. it doesn't resonate with me scientifically or spiritually that free will doesn't exist. I think free will is the backbone of an expanding universe.

Meg Kearney (31:08)
Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (31:26)
It's more of oneness experiencing itself. Why would it be experiencing, trying to experience itself if everything was predestined? I just don't, it doesn't line up for me. And maybe that's because I'm in my human mind, but it doesn't resonate that that would be the case. you know, and then you can talk about what form does choice take? You know, one option is many worlds theory from a physics perspective, which is that

Meg Kearney (31:42)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (31:55)
you could view choice as a branch into different parallel realities. And so there is a reality where I didn't survive my illness and what was my life like with that? I ended up incapacitated or I didn't meet this person and I chose a different path and all of these kind of quantum...

trees of experience is actually all being had, all different possible roads are being lived through my consciousness that has kind of been like fractaled into many different experiences at once in order to learn and experience and expand as much as possible. So it's a really good question. I don't know if being in our human form, we will ever fully understand it. I don't know if it's meant to be understood, but

Meg Kearney (32:38)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (32:49)
That's kind of how I think about it at this point.

Meg Kearney (32:53)
getting like a little even trippier with this. Do you think that our soul is experiencing all of the possibilities at once? and then we're just like, it's taking all these different human forms of consciousness, if that makes sense.

Crystal Cassidy (32:57)
Yeah, please. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think about it as like these diamonds, the soul is like a diamond and you have all these facets and each facet is a lifetime or an experience. And some of them are dirtier than other facets. You're learning more in certain areas than others. And in certain areas, you're doing more service. You're helping the collective consciousness, which is its own big diamond. And it's kind of like

Meg Kearney (33:41)
Mm-hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (33:44)
⁓ containers upon containers of consciousness. And you're moving in between those different barriers, if you will, between experience. And so I do think, yeah, I do think it's all happening in this present moment. Like when I got really sick, I started having visions of a past life that started to come into my experience. And I realized it was all happening now. And he was going through

very big challenges in that life. It was tied to the challenges I was going through in this life. And we were kind of helping each other across space and time figure it out. So I think that's probably the case. And the more and more that you enlighten or awaken, the more brilliant your crystal is getting until it kind of becomes pure light. It becomes its essence again.

Meg Kearney (34:40)
That's such a beautiful image and I know it's what the spiritual journey is kind of all about is just getting back to that sense of wholeness and just oneness with everything. so I kind of want to shift gears a little bit because for me at least on the spiritual journey, it can be difficult to, I think it can be difficult to let myself just

walk my path without so much pressure to get it right or get it perfect, because there is no perfect. it can also be challenging to let other people walk their paths, specifically, know, family, close family members, significant others sometimes too. So can you talk a little bit about soul contracts and also just how

to show up with more love and just acceptance for the people in our lives.

Crystal Cassidy (35:44)
Again, such a good question and so relevant to right now. think this is where at a collective level, this is really our work right now is this conversation, this exploration as far as relationships and awakening and expectation. And ⁓ this is it. This is the game right now as far as awakening together. And it's so hard. mean, I have to say like personally,

my human experience, that's been challenging. And so first, I think it's just to acknowledge that it is challenging. ⁓ And it's part of the conversation right now for a very good reason. We're all learning so much right now, individually and collectively, and we're getting the option to choose who do we want to be as individuals? Who do we want to be in our relationships? Who do we want to be as a species on this planet?

And those are some big questions. And I think we all really need to be sitting with it or can have the invitation to sit with it if you want. So I think the first thing is giving yourself a lot of compassion because your capacity to love yourself and give yourself compassion is going to be

That is, that has to come first. That's your capacity to love yourself is your capacity to love and hold others with compassion. And so number one, work on your self love, work in your heart space, work on forgiveness. Forgiveness is such a powerful, powerful medicine. And it doesn't mean anything needs to happen, but I do forgiveness work quite a lot.

It's giving yourself forward to this present moment. It's releasing tethers to the past so that you can be who you want to be and who you're intending to be. And others can be who they want to be and who they're intending to be. So forgiveness is energy to work with to help release those tethers from the past to the present and the future. So those are some of the things that come up first to me and developing patience.

Meg Kearney (37:36)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (38:07)
Working with judgment. Judgment is always an energy of separation. And it's as nuanced as when you're in, for me, when I'm in meditation and I'm in a mystical experience. One of the things that can bring me out of a mystical experience is judgment. And it's judgment of anything. Like sometimes I get nauseous if my power center is activating because that energy is bleeding into the tissues around your digestive tract. And so...

You really learn to just be with the nausea, be with the physical experience and release the judgment of it, just allowing it to be what it is. And that will continue your ability to expand. I think that is synonymous with what we can access for each other is to simply witness people where they're at, accepting that we are all where we're at.

Meg Kearney (39:00)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (39:04)
right now. And with that acceptance, which you can access through self-love, forgiveness, and compassion, finding the presence, then your capacity to become who it is you want to become is increasing. And I think it really is true, and it sounds so cliche, but it's so true. As you heal, you heal the world.

It's all about our individual healing. And honestly, that's why I built SoulPod, because I was thinking about getting into climate justice and all these other areas. And I was like, you know what? think what comes first is the inner experience. It's your own heart. And so rather than focusing on what's going on with everybody else, and this is what I do every day, I'm really focused on what's going on in my own heart. staying focused there.

Meg Kearney (39:47)
Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (40:02)
and then bringing those elevated states into my experience of life. And also, I mean, this is throat chakra work. This is tough. The throat space is a notoriously difficult one for so many because you have all these lines of your being coming up into, physically is even a narrow space. And then you have this information coming down this way. Everything gets purified at the throat.

But I think speaking your truth is also really important during this time. And having the courage to speak your truth, knowing that it's your highest understanding at the time. And that will really activate the throat center so that you can speak and you can show up in a way that's aligned with your heart. And it's your highest current understanding. That's really powerful stuff right now.

Meg Kearney (40:57)
Yes, and I think it's so important to, like you said, to be in that alignment before you speak your truth because it's so easy to come at speaking your truth with that layer of judgment or a little bit fiery and then it just shuts down the whole thing.

Crystal Cassidy (41:18)
Yep.

Meg Kearney (41:23)
because the other person gets defensive and then you're defensive and it's just, it's tricky.

Crystal Cassidy (41:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, egos and egos.

Meg Kearney (41:31)
egos and egos and it seems like that is such a theme right now and for the past few years and it can feel so daunting, especially if there's not a lot of people in your life that you feel like are doing similar work. So I know SoulPod is one of the ways where you can connect with people who are interested in being on this journey.

And I'd also love it if you could talk about how retreat can help too, because I know you host SoulPod retreats as well, right? So how can these group settings also help us to not feel so alone in the journey?

Crystal Cassidy (42:07)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

I feel you, I really do. It's hard. think there's a lot of judgment and separation and pressure on relationships at so many different levels. And allowing yourself to feel, mean, another thing in the spiritual, in the meditative experience that I don't think is talked about that much,

is allowing the emotions to move. I cry in meditation all the time. There's been a few times where like rage has come through and sometimes you need to get off your meditation cushion and punch it. And so I'm a big fan of meditation isn't always calm. And so when those emotions do come up, frustration, ⁓ resentment, fear.

Meg Kearney (43:03)
Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (43:12)
Like really, really feel those now and bring it back to your heart space and allow it to move. And you'll notice that it's not as daunting as maybe you thought it was. But the, to answer your question about community, I think community is only gonna become more and more important to be with others who are also holding similar values and who want similar things for themselves and this planet.

is going to help lift you up. And I know for me, it has been so, so important to my own personal journey to have those spaces. And so, yeah, we have Soul Pod retreat in August, end of August in Joshua Tree, which is such a portal for anybody who's who's never been. It's very magical. It's ⁓ it's very unique, the energy there in Joshua Tree. And that's why every year we have it there.

We have a beautiful house, there'll be beautiful people, beautiful food, but it's really about creating a container where you can go deeper safely and start to stretch your meditative muscle and to go deeper into the subconscious and breath work and to have conversations that aren't just surface level with other human beings who are also looking for this depth and this healing and this expansion.

And it, you know, we now know, we have a pretty good idea that meditating and being in community, there is a field that's created. And I can certainly feel it when I'm leading those events and you can feel the collective group deciding to move forward into certain things or maybe holding back a little bit. It's a really powerful dance that you can be a part of. And so I would encourage anyone

Meg Kearney (45:05)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (45:11)
at least once or twice a year if you can, to find some dedicated time where you can do that work and give yourself permission to explore. That's what I do for my own personal journey and it's life-changing, making sure you have that space.

Meg Kearney (45:23)
Mm.

Yeah, that sounds beautiful. I think I read in, I think it was one of Joe Dispenza's books about the, the field that's created when there's a collective group of meditation and it's so fascinating and it's yeah, it's just, it's really cool, cool stuff. And kind of continuing on the community aspect of things because I love that there is so much

online and ways to connect with people from all over the world. think that's beautiful. However, personally, I think I'm missing it in person locally where I live. So aside from retreat, which is a great way to be with people physically, how do you go about cultivating your community and finding people that can lift you up in your physical experience?

Crystal Cassidy (46:13)
Mmm.

Yes, yeah, so important. Yeah, I think we're thinking about this a lot at SoulPod and thinking about some new features that will launch this year that will hopefully help with that. I think especially, see, it's different in certain cities where you have a little bit more access to in real life spaces and you can kind of, ⁓ you can go to the yoga studios and the ashrams and.

and see what resonates with you, but I do know it can be challenging to find those spaces. I mean, I think that retreats are really good, whatever retreat you go to, the cool thing about it is that you meet people probably who've come from other places and you can continue those relationships afterwards. And you can start to kind of build this momentum as far as how you all show up together and what you choose to do.

Meg Kearney (47:20)
Hmm.

Crystal Cassidy (47:28)
And, but I think these communities exist everywhere in some form. It might just take more digging in some cases than others. And a really good place to start is, yoga, yoga studios. That's, that's kind of like the gateway into deeper spiritual community. ⁓ if you don't have it easily accessible and then

I think that there is something cool about the technology that connects us. And there's a reason why this technology has evolved to be able to support our awakening is so that we can hear from somebody that's on the other side of the world that is also having the challenges and the breakthroughs and the triumphs that we are. And so think there is, there is a interesting balance there between the in real life experiences and the, and the, and also

I think I would love to mention this, become a leader. You might be called to step into your spiritual leadership and you do not have to be a guru. I think the age of the gurus, even though I do have one, he's a spiritual teacher, but I think of the spiritual path as reaching a handout beside me, behind me.

There might be people that are a little bit in front of me and it's we're really like together. I want to give people permission to step into that if it calls to you. You don't have to have reached enlightenment on a mountaintop to help others. If that's something that's calling to you, pull together a group in your town ⁓ and start meditating and do soul pod meditations if you want or YouTube or whatever it is.

But you could, I think now is a time where there's many being called to help facilitate that journey. So I think that's a really exciting thing to think about.

Meg Kearney (49:30)
That's such a good idea and I think it's easy to have this imposter syndrome because knowing what's possible, knowing the type of person that I could be and then looking at where I am now and feeling like I'm so far away. But I think to your point, there's so many people who are in a ⁓ broad range of spots on their journey and we can all learn something from one another.

Crystal Cassidy (49:36)
Mm-hmm.

Meg Kearney (49:58)
I might have to take that away and see if I can start something that would be really cool. And I like to end with this question sometimes, but what do you think the world would look like if we all embodied the wisdom of soul pod, of meditating, of connecting with our truest selves? What do you think our world would

Crystal Cassidy (50:00)
Yeah. Yeah, I could see it. could see it.

Meg Kearney (50:26)
could look like if everybody was speaking their truth and living in their authentic essence.

Crystal Cassidy (50:33)
Ugh, I think about this a lot.

I think the world could look like peace, cooperation, mutual care. ⁓

Harmony, think harmony within ourselves, within our relationships, within nations. I actually don't think nations as they exist now will continue to exist in a enlightening, awakening world. I think this idea of divides and borders will naturally just come. It's just like the borders within ourselves fall. I think the borders in physical reality fall.

And I think that we start to perceive ourselves as a planetary species, not a nationalistic species. And then we can really start to live in harmony with our world. And I do think there's gonna be all kinds of technologies that enable energy that doesn't require destruction. And I think there is a possibility

Meg Kearney (51:28)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (51:48)
that all of our basic needs are satisfied and that we have increasing access to our own awakening because these other things have been taken care of. So many people talk about what are we gonna do when all the jobs are gone because they've been taken by automation or AI. I think there will be a transition that we'll have to navigate openly.

But the possibility there is that the, we call them the lower energy centers have been taken care of. Your support system and physical reality could be taken care of. What would we do in that case? I think we would become more creative. I think we would awaken to our inner technology, which I do think is a technology. And then I can keep going into like galactic relationships ⁓ and we can...

Meg Kearney (52:31)
Mm.

Crystal Cassidy (52:46)
maybe join ⁓ others that are also awakening.

Meg Kearney (52:51)
So cool. I love it. It's such a good visual for people to just kind of sit within, you know, I do think we create our reality. So if enough people focus on what's possible for us, then someday it will be. So thank you so much for all of your wisdom that you've shared in creating the SoulPod app. And for listeners that are resonating, would like to get SoulPod, would like to check out your retreats, where can they find you?

Crystal Cassidy (53:07)
think so.

Hmm.

Yeah, you can find us at soulpodapp.com and Instagram soulpodapp and you can find the app itself on the iOS app store. We will get to Android at some point, but we're not quite there. But yeah, that's where you can find us and Meg, looking forward to seeing your in real life pop-ups maybe.

Meg Kearney (53:43)
Yes, definitely. And

you also have this whole pod podcast. Don't forget about that.

Crystal Cassidy (53:47)
Yes, sorry, SoulPod podcast. This is new.

We're having so much fun. We'll have to have you on and continue the conversation. But it's, really a space to talk about all the kind of crazy stuff that we've talked about, even quantum physics, extraterrestrials, awakening. Yeah, we're having a lot of fun there.

Meg Kearney (54:06)
So good. Well, thank you so much, Crystal. Have a great day. Thanks. Bye.

Crystal Cassidy (54:09)
Thank you, Meg. You too. Bye.

Meg Kearney (54:23)
Thank you so much for tuning into the episode today. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. I honestly felt so inspired by Crystal and really enjoyed talking to her. So definitely would recommend checking out the SoulPod app, the SoulPod Instagram, the podcast. I will link everything down below. And if you're enjoying these episodes, I would really appreciate it if you could leave me a review.

subscribe and other than that I hope you all have a great week stay tuned for the next episode and much love to you all