Casey Berglund:
There's a moment in this episode where today's guest, Chus Cartes, says, "Imagine a wave is trying to manipulate the whole ocean," and it stopped me in my tracks. Something just clicked about what it really means to surrender to my wholeness and to the perfection of life. Chus has lived both extremes, the chaos of chasing success and burning out and suffering, and the simplicity of remembering that we are already whole. Now she helps women lead from a center that cannot be shaken. In our conversation, we explore what it really means to suffer, why silence makes us available to grace, and how the very tools we cling to can both keep us stuck in a healing loop and gently guide us home.
What does it really take to create calm, purposeful success that feels good in your body? I'm Casey Berglund, TEDx speaker, author, coach, and your host of the Purpose Map podcast, brought to you by Worthy and Well.
Welcome back to the show. Settle in with this episode with Chus Cartes. It's raw, philosophical, and grounding, and I think it will remind you that there's nothing to fix and everything to remember.
So Chus, I have to say that in this moment right now, I feel grounded, I feel present, I feel open in my body, I feel a relief of tension. But just an hour ago, on my way into Juno House, I was feeling this contraction in my chest and a lump in my throat, and to be honest, some nausea in my stomach and a lot of discomfort with the heat.
And based on what I've taught and done and learned about listening to the body, it's like such a contrast. So I'm feeling open and present and grounded right now, but was feeling contracted and like something was off, like I just needed to get out of the house this morning. And sometimes, oftentimes, I wonder if my own wisdom is flawed, because what I make that mean is something is off for me to be feeling this discomfort, and something is aligned now for me to be feeling this presence and this openness. It makes me feel like, of course, podcasting and using my voice is so aligned. It is the one thing that is bringing me back into that peaceful presence these days. And yet, I can sometimes drive myself crazy with making meaning out of the sensations I feel in my body. And I'm curious on your perspective on that. How are we, in your opinion, to relate with the sensations that we feel in our bodies?
Chus Cartes:
For me, listening to you, hearing you, the first thing that I take my attention to is that you separate and you somehow make a judgment with what is happening. And for me, in my experience, when I remove the judgment and I see everything for what it is without a label, or "this is good" or "this is uncomfortable," although it's uncomfortable, it neutralizes itself.
Because now, from where are you bringing the contrast? From memory, right? Because you remember that before coming to Juno, you felt this and that in the body. But it's not anymore here. You are holding it in the body as well because the memory, when you bring the memory here, at the same time, the body feels that as well because it's the whole system.
Casey Berglund:
True. And the body doesn't necessarily tell time. So even me remembering the contraction I felt in my body, I'm feeling a little bit of it now, even though—a taste of it now, even though my predominant experience in this moment is grounded presence that feels peaceful. So I hear what you're saying.
Chus Cartes:
What speaks to you, that reflection that you come to share with us?
Casey Berglund:
Here's what it speaks to me and here's what I feel like I'm being guided to over and over again: let it go. And let it all go because it's already gone.
So I can feel myself hang on to parts of the past, just like this is an example, bringing this memory into the present and getting a taste of the contraction, even though my overall state is expansion. In a similar way, moving from Canada to Spain, there's this tension, this pulling, this "two feet in different worlds" sensation that I feel where it's like part of me is still holding on to how everything was in Canada. That's keeping me from being fully present to how things are in Spain. And I'm aware to let it go and be present. But sometimes it's hard. And for the person listening who is also going through a transition, big or small—we're always changing, we're always transitioning, right?—they might be going through a divorce or separation. They might be going through a job change. They might have just lost a loved one, like I've lost my dad prior to coming here. And I think I see often in the folks that I work with, it's so easy for me to see into other people. But it's like, I need the reflection for myself. I see this tendency to be holding on, and it creates a bit of a split between what was and what is becoming. And it just causes so much suffering. And I see it in other people. I am experiencing it in myself. And even with the awareness, it can feel hard for me to just let go and come back into the present.
Chus Cartes:
Yes, because "let go" is overestimated. You cannot just tell someone, "Let it go." No, exactly. Exactly. This is a big responsibility, not even responsibility, but a wave. You know, it's too much. So I always prefer to invite folks to say, try to neutralize, because neutralize is subtler. Doesn't require so much effort. Because what does it mean to neutralize? It means don't judge. Don't judge. Don't move. What does it mean? Don't move. Don't make a move to say, "This is it" or "This is that" or "This is good," you know? Because you say something important for me that takes my attention. You talk about somehow—it's my interpretation—about separation. You separate yourself. What happened? What is happening? What can occur in the future, right? So the moment we make that, we project, we split our wholeness. So the experience is not pure because we are not here. We are in our minds thinking what happened, what is happening, and what will come, what happened in the future, right? So the moment we separate ourself or split the mind in time, we suffer because it's not natural for us, because we are not grounded. As you say before, what does it mean to be grounded is to be fully here. But without effort because you already are here. The moment you touch mind and linearity with a story, with a story—this is important—because you can touch linearity and time, but if you don't buy the story of what is happening, what you are sensing in the body or even subtler things, the thing is just happening. But when you touch the story, you involve yourself. You want something from that, or rather you want to—either you want something from that or you want to push out something from the situation, right? So you are moving yourself.
Casey Berglund:
Yes. I understand. What is coming to me is how I think perhaps we have a flawed perception of what self-awareness and elevating our consciousness actually means. Because what I'm hearing from you is to experience what is present without judgment and without creating a label or a story or anything on top of that, but to purely experience what is in this moment and in this moment and in this moment. But I think in the self-awareness or self-development or consciousness space, there is a focus, whether it is intentional or not, on being able to not just witness, but also articulate what you are witnessing as a way of maybe projecting your self-awareness. If you're just listening to the audio, I have "self-awareness" in quotes. And does that feel true? I think we're maybe looking at what self-awareness means in a flawed way or in a way—I don't even want to say flawed, but perhaps not the truest way. It's so wild whenever I speak with you, Chus, I start to become very aware of my language and I start to see how when typically I feel like I can articulate exactly what I mean, I start to question if that articulation is even right or necessary.
Chus Cartes:
I want to be honest, I always do with you in every facet of my life, right? Perhaps sometimes it can be a little bit too direct, but doesn't matter.
Casey Berglund:
Okay, give it to me.
Chus Cartes:
Doesn't matter what happens in the attic. In the attic, you know, in the mind. Doesn't matter. There is not a correct answer or question or way to be or to be as a beingness or as a person moving in life, right? Everything is allowed. The misconception and the issue comes when we try to understand something that is not understandable. And if you want to make sense of something that is happening or even of your life or your beloved ones or life in general, you can do it, of course. But I will say without trying too much to make sense. I don't know if it makes sense what I'm trying to say now. It's the investment what is making us suffer because we are so in what is happening rather than allowing everything to be as it is. And doesn't mean that if you are not involved, you are not human or you are not sensing or feeling things. Not. But there is something that is not so much seen for what it is, that if you are not passionate or into that, you know, you are very detached, you are dehumanizing yourself. And this is not true. But there has to be clarity. You can be in this world, but don't buy everything, you know. You have to know what is this world, this game. For me, the thing that comes is the moment you want to really understand what is happening at some level, you are going to be lost if you are not fully equipped and you don't know very much who you are or what you are not, right? Because you are trying to figure out everything when you are not fully equipped with wisdom, introspection, inner work and what it's meant for you, right?
Casey Berglund:
Yeah, I understand. I've found myself in a position where I have tried to figure a lot of things out in order to make decisions that feel aligned. And I know that when I say that, there is someone listening who gets what I'm talking about. Like when you are in a moment of change and you feel a bit confused about what comes next or lost, it's almost like that sense of lostness or confusion can instigate this incessant need to figure it out by journaling, by pulling oracle cards, by seeing a therapist, by hiring a coach, by going to breathwork, going to yoga, trying to equip yourself with the tools and the introspection in order to find your way. And so on one hand, I see that introspective tools are helpful for allowing, for being okay with the unknown and playing with infinite possibilities in that space. And yet in other times, the introspection or the tools keep someone stuck in a loop of suffering.
Chus Cartes:
Yes, but sometimes we need to suffer and to try every tool that is available for us in order to exhaust ourselves. Yes, surrender. Yeah, it's surrender. For me, everything is perfect as it is. We make use of what is available for us. So for me, I don't reject any tool. If you are happy and you feel more calm when you are journaling or you are meditating or you are doing your practice of yoga or whatever it is for you, this is what it is. This is beautiful because we have to follow what is available for us. But what is important is to work on discernment. In my experience, discernment flourishes when I was very in silence. For me, silence was the place where the garden can grow, right? Because there is so much distraction. Because sometimes journaling, yoga, and this and that, although they are very beautiful and useful, we get, as you say, stuck in this "next, next."
Casey Berglund:
What else do we need to do or effort in order to get somewhere?
Chus Cartes:
Because although it seems that you are doing things to expand your consciousness and your beingness, you are in the same pattern, right? Next thing, next thing. So it's like if you are eating a lot of food, you have a lot of food in your mouth, but you are not able to swallow.
Casey Berglund:
Swallow, and digest.
Chus Cartes:
Swallow, exactly. The nutrients and the energy that is coming from the food is never gonna explode in yourself and make use of that because you don't allow time and space to make the whole process. So maybe if you do less and trust, because trust is very important—you trust that it is already done—the whole thing is gonna flourish by itself. But we don't make space and time. So it's one thing, another, another, another, and this is, as you say, a loop. It's like a hamster.
Casey Berglund:
Hamster wheel. Yeah. It is very clear to me that my path or decision in this moment is not to receive more input, but rather to strip away as many inputs as possible.
And I know that for me, when I step out of the city and back into nature and where it's quiet, it's just so much easier to hear my inner voice, which is always there and is always talking. And I have had access to this voice inside of me since I was a very little kid that has saved my life, that has redirected me, that has given me these lightning bolt moments of clarity. And I can see how in the time that I've been in my new reality here in Spain, it has felt harder for me to access the silence that I know brings that. And I simultaneously don't want to judge all of the inputs, you know? Like the noise of the city or the conversations or the social media or what have you. And I know that there's a time and a place where what I feel is to let go and to come into that peacefulness of quiet. And in that space of truth, I can hear the truth. I can hear a truth that does allow things to unfold.
Chus Cartes:
What I'm taking from you now, although it's beautiful what you say, you are putting, I don't know if you're aware or not, a condition on your happiness right now. Because you say, "When I will be there in nature, nature can help." Of course, silence helps, right? Stillness helps. I want to clarify why silence and no movement, so to speak, helps. And for me, it's my invitation first, my first invitation rather than journaling or another practice. It's because of the way energy works. So it's not the fact that you are sitting and doing nothing, it's the fact that when you sit already, something is in you ready and communicating with the universe that you are emitting signals that you are, as you say, surrendered. You are available, if you want. The energy that you hold and you are is available. It's available. So it's like you are all the time going and walking, so you are vertical, right? You are moving, you are walking, you are vertical. Your body and your energy is vertical. This is a metaphor.
Casey Berglund:
Understandable.
Chus Cartes:
Yeah. When you sit or when you lay down, when you choose to be quiet, you are not anymore vertical, you are horizontal. You are merging with the energy field. So you are not taking a portion of the consciousness that is or that you are—your vessel—and you are merging, you are putting an intention and an act, in fact, that by sitting and paying attention or not paying attention but being quiet and allowing, you are making yourself available. So right there, you are more flexible, or for the universe or the other portions of the whole of the energy or consciousness, it's more easy to work with the energy that you hold. I don't know if it's very abstract.
Casey Berglund:
I'm following you. Yeah, I'm following you. What I'm hearing you say is that when you stop, if we're to—I'm going to try and just really simplify and articulate what I think you said and then you can tell me if it's accurate or not. What I love about you, Chus, is that you always remind me that it's way simpler. It's way simpler than we're all making it. Like it is way simpler. So what I'm hearing you say is when you stop, you make yourself available to be, experience, see what is in that moment, what energy is already present. This is reminding me of—it's from actually my yoga teacher training—about Atman and Brahman, like the self and the whole and the metaphor that was used there was the wave in the ocean. Okay. Right. I see that. The water is the whole thing. Like you are the ocean. Yes. But when you think that you're just the wave, there's a forgetting that you're the whole thing. The whole thing. Does that align? Does it add an easier metaphor?
Chus Cartes:
Yeah, completely. And on top of that, imagine the wave is trying to manipulate the whole ocean.
Casey Berglund:
Wow.
Chus Cartes:
Is it possible? And how much trouble and how much loss of energy and suffering?
Casey Berglund:
Because I think that conversation is about suffering, how to get out from that.
Chus Cartes:
I have full body chills right now. You just articulated it. Like when you said, "Imagine that one wave in the ocean thinks that it is in charge of the entire ocean." Like what a fucking heavy burden. Yes. Right. And so what I think you're saying is the ocean—you're not, you can't control it all. You're just, you're a wave. And why even bother? Like why would you want to when you can just see yourself as the entire ocean and sit down?
Chus Cartes:
Yes. It's so much pressure on ourself and it's so impossible to make something beautiful from that because when there's so much friction, trying to do something that is not organic, not natural, there is no point. That is the first thing.
Casey Berglund:
It's useless. It's useless. We're going to try anyway. We're going to try so, so hard until we are forced into surrender. Yes.
Chus Cartes:
Because it's the destiny, if there is some. It's a poetic way of saying, right? It's the destiny of all waves to surrender to the ocean that they are. I remember my process, if it's to say, to label it, right? It's not even a process in truth. I remember that the whole thing is gone.
Casey Berglund:
Okay. Well, let me—I think this is important. I love it. I think this is important. I love how in the moment you are that it's like, "Okay, it's gone. Bye." Like truly, it just is moment to moment.
Chus Cartes:
It's not even a hesitation. I remember before, I don't know, time ago that, you know, the uncomfortableness with the, "Oh, the thing is gone. I know, I don't know what to say." But now it's not even in my system, so to speak, the hesitation. "What is the other thing?" or even "the audience" or whatever. No, because I'm so here with you now that for me, there is not a reality that someone is going to hear that. And even if someone is hearing, I don't know. My mind is not—it's never a split, you know. But it's not a second thought. It's so much here that the whole thing is gone.
Casey Berglund:
Okay, let's move. Oh, you know, okay. Let's move. Yeah. Or let's not move, but the whole, the thing is not here. So what? Yeah. Well, I can imagine that someone listening would be like, "Okay, wow, this is philosophical, truthful, you know, like the wave in the ocean. Okay. Who is this woman and why should I trust her and her perspective on this?" Right?
Chus Cartes:
Please don't trust me. Yeah. Please don't do it.
Casey Berglund:
But also what I think invites people in is knowing that you also have been a human caught up in chasing success and having it and working with celebrities and having businesses and probably a hot husband and probably all the things before whatever shift or awakening happened that brings you into your certain level of consciousness or awareness. And I think it is helpful for someone listening to—I think you said this to me before, maybe it was someone else, but like, we're not that special. Like it's not just, it's not just you.
Chus Cartes:
No, of course not. Right. There is no one that is special or everybody is special. Exactly. Both.
Casey Berglund:
Both. Right. Yeah. And so to hear that you have also been where maybe a listener is right now or where I have been in the past, and I know I'm bringing the past into the present.
Chus Cartes:
It's beautiful. It's a normal thing. We can articulate and relate to each other with time. Time and space is present. So of course.
Casey Berglund:
But it's helpful to hear sometimes how you were about to talk about the process, you know, the process of maybe remembering that you are the ocean and that maybe the way is to be, you know. So what can you say about that? Like about your pathway from forgetting, let's say, from forgetting that you are a wave in the ocean to the remembering, or your process of waking up to these truths?
Chus Cartes:
Okay. I don't even remember who I was, you know. What does it mean? It means that I have to make an effort to bring here all the story, you know. But in my case, so to speak, what happened was that I was in suffering very much. I had a very bad mind, so I was very insecure. But all the things that I'm going to share now, they were very magnified. So when I say that I was in suffering, I mean in hell because I would not move a thing without a second or a third or fourth thought. It made me, I don't know how to express that, but everything that I was touching was harming myself, you know, in the emotional realm and thinking in relating with people. So imagine the whole person in the universe or the flaws that we can label like this. Everything was in my system. So I was envious, a lot of competition. I wanted to be the first, but not just that. Only that you fail, you know? So it was very evil.
Casey Berglund:
Like you wanted to be the best even at the sacrifice of others.
Chus Cartes:
Very exaggerated, you know. It was like a competitor, but a bad competitor.
Casey Berglund:
Like you were just pushing, pushing, pushing to be the best.
Chus Cartes:
The best and putting everybody aside because I was in my universe the only person that matters, you know? So it was very like a bad movie, but this kind of actor, right? Or the persona or whatever. The villain. Totally.
Casey Berglund:
I can't even imagine it, Chus, but I'm going to take your word for it.
Chus Cartes:
But you know, that allows me to now be very, I'm going to say it, but I don't take it personally because it's pouring from myself automatically, but it's like compassionate.
Casey Berglund:
Yes.
Chus Cartes:
Because when I see someone that is a very bad person, so to speak.
Casey Berglund:
Like narcissistic or egotistical or selfish. Yeah. You have compassion for them.
Chus Cartes:
The first thing that comes in myself is compassion. It's not that the first thing that comes is, "Oh no, this is a very bad person." No, it's like an expanded look. "Look, okay." The first thing that I see is that person is in suffering. And so something awakes in myself, like, "Okay, compassion." What happened? Not that I'm going to go with that person and be friends with them, but what happens is that it helps me, so to speak, to neutralize the situation. Even if I'm in contact with the person, because here there is not friction. There is not rejection.
Casey Berglund:
Right. Yeah. There's a complete acceptance that this person is in suffering and the compassion in you comes out to neutralize that. There's nothing right or wrong or good or bad. They're simply in suffering and I can offer my compassionate heart to their suffering because I know it because you've experienced it in a way.
Chus Cartes:
For me, I understand what you say, but for me, the way that I can explain is if you have two hands trying to make a clap, but what does it mean, that the clap—the hand that wants to make a clap is the person that is the bad person, right? They are very friction, reactive. But the other, in this case, the other hand is myself. What happens in myself, arises a compassion because there is an understanding, an automatic understanding, so to speak. There is not a reaction here. Right. It's flat, right? So the hand is not trying to clap back, right? So if only one hand is trying to clap, at the end it's going to finish because nothing happens if you are not the contrast to make a clap happen.
Casey Berglund:
Yes, I understand that. You can't clap your hands with one hand.
Chus Cartes:
Exactly. So even in yourself, there is no reaction. There is not a judgment because reaction is a judgment. You are judging, maybe rejecting what you don't like in the moment, right? But when you have walked that path because you recognize yourself in that kind of emotion or reaction from evil or whatever, a behavior. So it's like you have transcended that. So it's like you put that color in your team, right? In the team that you are. So that color, the yellow color, that means that you are an evil person. That color I have. So there is not going to be a reaction because I cannot react with something that is myself or part of myself, right?
Casey Berglund:
Got it. I think I understand that. I'm imagining this other metaphor. I love the metaphors. I love them. Thank you so much. I love them. It's like if someone has yellow in themselves and you already have yellow, there's nothing to react to. You don't need to hook into that energy, for lack of better words.
Chus Cartes:
It's something that you have already surprised. So it's something that is not going to find in yourself a reaction because it's home. It's something that you recognize. So you react when you feel that you have to protect or you don't inherit or you don't have what you are seeing or what you are making contact with. When you don't know what is in front of you, so to speak, your system is in protection mode because you don't know what is going to happen. It's something unknowable for you. But when you recognize the color, in this case, following the metaphor, it's something that feels home.
Casey Berglund:
There's nothing to react to. There's nothing to judge. It just is. It's not unknown. No.
Chus Cartes:
Do you see what it is? So you don't get caught in the story that that person is behaving violently, for example, to see what it is. The first thing that arises is not reaction. It's something—maybe it can be compassion that automatically is going to—the whole field is going to neutralize. So that person is going to calm down sooner than later because it's what happens with energy. It's not a person-to-person thing happening. It's the way energy works. Doesn't mean that if someone is behaving badly, so to speak—imagine making harm to a dog, for example. Doesn't mean that all that thing that I express here, that compassion and everything doesn't happen, that I'm not going to go there and stop the thing that is harmful to the dog, for example. I don't know what is going to happen or my reaction, but I want to clarify that the humanism in myself is here, of course, because it's what we are. It's like a dancer. It's like you move with the music. You don't think how you dance. You just dance. The thing that is a little bit weird when you see someone dancing is coming from counting the...
Casey Berglund:
The beats, like when they're dancing with their head versus their body?
Chus Cartes:
For me, it's what humanity is doing. Yes, it's true.
Casey Berglund:
It's counting the beats instead of just dancing. Instead of just living the moment.
Chus Cartes:
Yes, it's a kind of metaphor that I hope helps because I think it's so easy to see it, that it's just dancing. It's not counting. Counting—what does it mean? It's going to the attic again. It's going to the mind. You are trying to figure it out. It's the same thing that you are trying to count the beats.
Casey Berglund:
I guess to bring an embodiment or nervous system lens to the table and maybe to also connect to your color metaphor of if you already know yellow, there's nothing to protect against because you're okay with yellow. You feel safe with yellow. I think a lot of times that we unconsciously choose disembodiment or being up in the head or counting the beats, so to speak, is because of a lack of safety or a trauma or just a common human experience to move away from pain or toward pleasure. In a world where I think a lot of us have experienced really difficult things or experienced traumas or don't feel safe or are uncertain about that yellow, like, "I don't know if I'm going to be okay with that yellow." I think it makes perfect sense that we've left our bodies and left the present moment in order to be in our heads trying to control our circumstances so we don't get hurt. We're protecting ourselves. I think with most of the people I know, it's actually challenging for them to know how to drop from the head into the body or from fixing or figuring things out to just being in the present and trusting that this is a safe place to be. So what advice can you give to someone where it just feels so hard to be? It doesn't feel safe to just dance. Like someone who's counting the steps doesn't feel safe to just trust their body to dance. So what then? How can that person experience less suffering?
Chus Cartes:
I don't have an answer. I have experience that is coming up right now. I remember that I was very in suffering. It was unbearable. It means that I feel that it's not a human or a person that chooses to stop suffering. It is life that stops you. You don't have power to do anything. We have the miracle and the illusion that we are something with autonomy. And this is the miracle. But you have to surrender or to suffer very much in order to allow life to show you what really life is. So I don't think that it's a personal choice. It's a very high level of suffering that you surrender because you cannot move anymore. Because you have to try everything. You have to try everything and everything fails. So you lost your health, your family, because you are not operating from a good place, right? Because you are in suffering. So you are reacting all the time. So you don't have the intelligence to relate with your beloved ones and with your partners or whatever. So you are destroying, so to speak, everything. I speak from my experience what happened here, right?
Casey Berglund:
What were you destroying? Specifically, how specifically was that showing up?
Chus Cartes:
For example, I was very in suffering, so when I was married a decade ago before the whole change and transformation, so to speak, happened. So I was in suffering. So I was unhappy with everything. I could not help or hold—thank you—that I was responsible for my happiness. So everybody was—it was everybody's fault for my unhappiness. So you know when you are 10 years married with someone, how do you say that?
Casey Berglund:
You're punching a punching bag. Your partner is your punching bag.
Chus Cartes:
So I was very unfair with him, right? And with my mom as well and with everybody in truth. Because I would not see the reality of things or the fair or the neutral situation, right? Because you are coming from "everything is bad. I'm in suffering." You focus only on the bad things and the unhappiness that you are experiencing. And that brings more unhappiness and you see only bad things in the world.
Casey Berglund:
It's like when you're in suffering or you're in the consciousness of victimhood or blame, you're in the bottom of a ditch with blinders on and the ditch is dark. And so you just see more problems, more reasons why you're the victim to your life, more reasons why it's other people's fault. And it takes some sort of maybe, I think what I'm hearing from you is almost like by the grace of God or by a miracle or by the ocean coming to remind you that you're a little wave, but you're also the ocean, to pull you up out of the ditch and onto an open field where you can see sunlight all around and maybe see like, "Wow, life is actually beautiful," but it's impossible to see when you're in the bottom of a ditch. So did I hear you right that for you, it really was sort of by the grace of God that pulled you out of that hole? Like what did that look like? What did that transition out of the state of suffering look like?
Chus Cartes:
It looks like I was living in Madrid by myself after the divorce and I had at that time a company. I was a founder, so I could work everywhere, right? So I chose Madrid because it was far from my husband and from my family and from everything, from the reality that I was experiencing at that time, right? So I went to Madrid and yeah, the same thing happened there because you are who you are and you have the suffering in yourself. It's not that if you change the scenario, the suffering is going to disappear, at least forever, disappear forever, right? So the whole thing arose after a year being there and I was so much in pain that I called my mom and said, "I have to come. I lost everything. I lost my health. I lost my team. I lost the people." People don't want to work with me because I never showed up, you know? Very chaotic thing because I was very depressed. I didn't know at the moment, at that point, right? But I was very, very depressed. So I went to my mom and I stayed in my room where I was born for a year. Wow. And a year—sharing that information here, it seems like a year is a year. It's not 10 years, but I can assure you that a year is a very, very long time to be in a very small room and it was not easy. It was like I remember eating disorder emotionally or something like that, right? It was like that. It was also looking on the internet about what to do. Yeah.
Casey Berglund:
There's a desperation to it.
Chus Cartes:
Desperation, desperation, desperation. And it was, I remember myself putting my—I feel that this conversation in this moment is hard, heavy because it was very heavy. It was very heavy and it's worth it to make that tangible because we have to—I don't know if "we have to" is the correct sense in English because it sounds very mandatory, but it's the way that I can express myself. It's like heaviness is not something that is bad or good. It's something that we have to master and to be okay with uncomfortableness. And that is the main reason why any process is not successful 100%. It's because we don't have the patience, the patience or the willingness or enough suffering to bear the uncomfortableness, the whole thing, you know? The heaviness. The heaviness is not bad, it's not good. It's something that belongs to life as well, right? And if you don't judge and you just allow the heaviness to be.
Casey Berglund:
It's so hard not to judge when you're in the heaviness. It almost feels like it's the nature of the heaviness to bring judgment in, you know? But I hear you. If you can just be in the heaviness, then what?
Chus Cartes:
Then the heaviness is going to disappear sooner or later because what happens is that you are not putting friction, you are not putting your hand to clap back. And once you see that, because this is a pattern, when you use this tool, this pattern in reverse, you can apply it to every situation in your life because you don't need a lot of tools. You need to understand first, to understand and then swallow, then you embody what you first understand in the mind because the mind has to make sense in order to swallow. And when it's in the body, so to speak, or in the beingness, it's going to ignite and put in place automatically without thinking, right? But for that, you have to walk through the fire. The fire is not the enemy. Uncomfortableness and heaviness and all these kinds of emotions are not the enemy. They are what they are. But we take a position and we believe. And belief is something that has also power because belief is something that you defend and you are very attached to that. But I lose track again.
Casey Berglund:
We were talking about surrendering to the heaviness and part of where this came from was a question of in your own story, you say that it was like by the grace of God that you were able to come out of the ditch or out of that deep level of suffering where you're in your childhood bedroom for a year struggling with, like you said, an eating disorder but like emotions and suffering. And then you started talking about how we need to fully surrender to the suffering and that's part of the pathway of, I guess, allowing by the grace of God some sort of awakening.
Chus Cartes:
Thank you for helping me to get on track again. Again it comes that thing so clearly that it's not a personal choice because if you ask me, as you said, as you did, "What happened in that room?" I don't know. I wasn't conscious that I was making decisions. I was surviving. We can say doing what came at that moment, doing the thing that the body was capable of doing because energy wasn't in the body too much because it was so much waste in the mind about the depression, about the same life, very heavy and very grave and very sad. You are in this kind of frequency so it's very deep. But I mean heavy, right? So you do what you are able to do. Actually I slept and looked for ways to get out of the depression. It was so much depression that I was not aware that I was depressed because back then I didn't know about consciousness, the rising of the frequency of the planet earth, all these things. I was not spiritual. I was not religious. I was not in any practice. I was very in the superficial way of living. It was amazing. It was amazing. My life has been not a common or regular one so I had my lights and my very big moments of celebrating, to be with people that you see just on the screen. Like celebrities. Like you worked with celebrities. It was because I was in the communication and PR industry so I worked and led a big team working with big accounts like Pirelli, Swarovski, Revlon. So it was an event after another event and the hook is always a few celebrities in the event so you move in this kind of reality, right? But it was so empty for me because if the core of you is not sitting in the right place, nothing's gonna fulfill what you are lacking, right?
Casey Berglund:
No accolades or no hits to the ego or no number of celebrities that you know or work for is gonna fill the misalignment of not sitting in the seat of your soul.
Chus Cartes:
So I want to bring again that it's not a personal choice. What can make the persona, the people, not as individuals, what can we do in order to be happier, right? So what is in our power, so to speak, is for me to talk to the universe or to talk with God, so to speak. At the end of the day it's talking with yourself, right? The whole thing. It means that you trust. You are putting in place or bringing in place a frequency of surrender, surrender, and that is a higher frequency. Next is—I will say that the key to heaven—because the moment you trust, you humble yourself. You merge the energy that you hold or that you are with the whole energy that is, right? So from that you make again accessible. So life, so to speak, can work through you as you, right? You become more flexible, more moldable, easy, right? Because human when is operating from the mind is very rigid. It's like "it's in the way that I want, it has to be this way." So you see my body is tight. It's tight because you operate with an agenda. So you limit yourself. Your energy is very contracted. "It's this way or not." So you are making friction with your environment, with the whole thing. You are not in dialogue with life. You are not dancing. You act like counting. For a while you can survive, but it's meant to fail because it's not the nature of life to be rigid and to make sense.
Casey Berglund:
Yeah. So there's two things happening for me right now. One is still this part of me that's like, "But Chus, what happened? How did you come out? Like what was the grace of God moment? Tell me about the moment." I feel like we get there and you share some beautiful philosophical wisdom. But I'm like, something brought you out. Yeah. Is it an energy? Were you down on your knees praying or what?
Chus Cartes:
I did that. Okay. I remember I've never said that, but I remember that I was very in love with the movie "Eat Pray Love." Yeah. I remember I did that because I was so lost, so desperate, so, and kind of imitating, but some kind of wisdom was there, you know, or maybe to bring in this conversation or to myself years later that the important thing is not the story of what happened. If you replicate what you see in a movie, whatever, it doesn't—the important thing. The important thing is that you were so desperate that you make use of everything that happened in your memory, in your system, that I put myself like desperate on the floor. Right. So from there I was finding myself going to an ashram in Portugal. Okay. Yeah. So how did that happen? Because I saw, I don't know if someone in your audience knows Mooji. Mooji. Do you know Mooji? M-O-O-J-I.
Casey Berglund:
I'm not sure. Probably someone in my audience does.
Chus Cartes:
So it was very by the grace of God, but it's not the truth. It's what happened in my story. Of course. You can go there and make a strike with the wall, you know, make a...
Casey Berglund:
You can fight your head against a wall.
Chus Cartes:
And you change your perception, right? Yeah. So there is no manual. Of course. Yeah. So in my case was that I was looking on the internet for what happens with depression and everything. And I saw a man, a Black man, a big one with dreadlocks and speaking in English. As you can see, my English is not so fluent. And my understanding of English at that moment was zero. But when I saw that man, I started to cry. But I realized that there was no one crying. It was so evident that the crying happened by itself.
Casey Berglund:
Yes.
Chus Cartes:
There was not an emotion attached to that. Yes. But at the same time, emotions were very present because it's like I recognized something. Yes. It's so very clear that it was not the understanding, the meaning of the words, because I didn't understand English at that moment. Yeah. There was the frequency of something there, right? But I'd never experienced that. I could not stop crying. And there was not a reason why the crying happened, right?
Casey Berglund:
Yeah. I have come to call when that happens for me where it's like tears sort of just out of nowhere or because I see something or hear something, I call them "truth tears," like truth tears and truth tingles. They just come not because something happened or there's an emotion that's being expressed. It's just an energetic openness or release or something.
Chus Cartes:
But in this case was—not at the same time, but the emotions were there as well. Not while the crying, but it was present also. It's like unlocked. Yeah. It's like no person was there. The body was crying, so to speak, but the emotion was present as well, not attached to the body, but no person was there. Yeah. It was not Chus there. It was like emotion or a connection that I belong here.
Casey Berglund:
Yeah.
Chus Cartes:
Kind of truth because it was the first time that I realized that there was no person attached to that. I don't know if it makes sense.
Casey Berglund:
It makes sense. It makes sense. It's like you got to touch pure energy moving in the form of emotions, in the form of the remembering or truth tears or belonging. I don't have the right words for it, but I'm trying to meet you in that space of finding the words, but it just sounds like there was resonance in a way where you had a knowing.
Chus Cartes:
Yes. Kind of when you know, so to speak, that you are in love and you recognize that in-loveness. Yes. It was like that, but he was not my lover. He was not someone that I know. So it was the whole scenario by itself.
Casey Berglund:
Yes. Got it.
Chus Cartes:
So a few months later, by the grace of God, so to speak. Because I don't want to attach a religious concept to that, but it was grace. Grace for me, I tend to see white light. This is poetry, but kind of brings together that with a very special perfume that you can recognize and it's surrounding you in order to elevate your energy to surrender. So I went to the ashram and it was very high frequency that happened there. I didn't know about frequency, energy, God, anything. I didn't know anything, but I remember when I stepped into the ashram, I relate to that moment. And I justified in that moment that happened, that my tears and that happiness and that, I don't know, bliss was because of the kindness that I saw in people's eyes. But it's not true. That was to make sense in that moment for truth, for myself there. But now I see that it was really tangible. The frequency there was palpable, right? And it was like heaven, because heaven is not a place, it's a state. But on top of that, I was in a place full of graceful beings with this willingness to make something in a truth field, so to speak. For me, everything is truth. But in that moment, I recognized that space as a container to elevate or to wake up or whatever.
Casey Berglund:
To be lifted out of your suffering.
Chus Cartes:
Yes. So I spent three months not looking at anyone, not even the surroundings, only seeing the ground. Because I remember when you sign up to go there, the recommendation is "you want to get the best out of that." One thing that I remember was "don't look at the master, don't look at the people, don't look at anything, don't engage with anything." I took that very to the core of my...
Casey Berglund:
Because you're like, "I don't want to go back to that hell I was in. I'm going to take this seriously and I'm going to sign that I'm not engaging with anyone or anything and I'm just going to look at the ground for three months."
Chus Cartes:
So desperate I was. Yes. Imagine you buy everything. By the grace of God, I was in the right hands, right? But when you are so desperate, if you don't have discernment, everything can happen. Exactly. So for that reason, I emphasize or amplify the thing that "by the grace of God," because it's something pointing that it's something that is not a human decision. It's the third time that I said that because it's so obvious. I don't carry this belief. It's not even a belief, but it's so obvious that it's not by human decision. The only thing that you can do is to make yourself available. And as I said before, make a dialogue with God or with the universe and ask to be guided, to be sped up. Doesn't matter if it's going to be a lot of burning or making things happen in a speedy way. But I remember that when suffering came and I was more attuned to that new wisdom or whatever, because I was very unaware of all that, I was very grateful for the suffering. So you know what happens when you are grateful for the suffering. You are not coming from the pain in itself. You are coming from a bigger picture. You see that this is helping you to get out of the suffering. So it's in reverse, it's transforming, reconfiguring.
Casey Berglund:
Yeah, it's like dots connecting backwards and sort of healing backwards the suffering because you have a new higher consciousness or lens through which to see it, which is a lens of unconditional love, truth, non-judgment, probably the essences of those things where the suffering, there's no way it was bad.
Chus Cartes:
Because you cannot transform something from the same level, right? Someone said, "Matter cannot change matter," right? So you have to know better or to see the bigger picture in order to, so to speak, transform or to be transformed or to alchemize or to not get stuck in the suffering. So you have to put yourself in an expanded position if there is position at all, right? So I was there in the ashram and it was not easy. It was like fire, more fire, more fire, you know. But I bathed myself in this new perfume where new words and concepts, although they were concepts, they were more elevated, right? So you start like that. For me, it was that scenario. For other people it can be—because they have not the chance to go to an ashram—to stay at home. I spent a year by myself in my childhood room. So there is not a better or worse place to be if your willingness is true, right?
And I want as well to highlight that nowadays you don't have to suffer in order to get into wisdom or higher consciousness. There is not a requirement anymore. At least what I bring to the table is that this is not a condition. It was my condition, but now you don't have to suffer much in order to have a chance, so to speak, to elevate or expand your consciousness, right? It's not anymore a condition because if I bring that to the table, I'm not being coherent because you can change everything at any moment just by the willingness to do it, right? And there is not only the condition to suffer that can awaken that in you. There is another way to do it because now there is more accessibility. The planet Earth has also elevated the frequency and if you are going with that, everybody is going with that. The ones that are suffering more right now is because everything is sped up and you are catching up, so to speak, right? And so you have to come naked and if your garments are not clean, you have to clean up first and clean your eyes as well, for this reason, right? But you are going to find a lot of peers and beings that you are conscious or not, it's going to work for you because it's the way energy works. It's not people helping people. It's energy. I rather prefer to say love loves to love.
Casey Berglund:
Love loves to love. Beautiful. Thank you. Dear listener, right after Chus said "love loves to love," our recording just stopped on its own even though we kept talking. It was almost as if energy itself was saying "that's the place to end," so we are going to trust it. If you'd like to connect more with Chus, you can find her at chuscartes.com and on Instagram @chus.cartes. Her links are in the show notes. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you'd like more conversations like this, make sure to follow the Purpose Map podcast wherever you listen and if you're feeling called, help us out by sharing your rating and review. Thank you so much. Until next time, ciao ciao.
