Why Do We Keep Repeating the Same Painful Patterns?

Why do we repeat the same painful patterns, even when we desperately want our lives to change? 

In this episode of Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious, Dr. Sandra Marie welcomes licensed mental health counselor Ronnie Figueroa for a deeply personal conversation about addiction, trauma, healing, and rebuilding a life from the inside out.  Ronnie shares his extraordinary journey from childhood adversity, alcoholism, homelessness, disability, and profound loss to becoming a successful therapist, endurance athlete, and guide for others seeking lasting change. 

Together they explore why awareness may be the missing piece in healing, the role of vulnerability and trust, why success alone cannot fill emotional wounds, and how simple daily practices can begin transforming even decades of unconscious patterns. 

Whether you're navigating addiction, emotional pain, or simply feeling stuck in repeating the same life experiences, this conversation offers practical wisdom and genuine hope that change is possible at any age. 

Healing Doesn't Begin When Your Life Changes. It Begins When You Notice Your Life. 

Connect with Ronnie Figueroa 

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Transcript

speaker-0 (00:00.354)
Gathering production. I'm Dr. Santa Marie. Pour yourself a really tall glass of spiritual curiosity and join me for the Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious podcast. In the spirit of happy hour, cheers to some new insights, peace, revitalization, and perhaps an aha moment that may change your life. Hello, Dr. Santa Marie here. We're happy to have you join us for today's show. In this studio is Ronnie Figueroa, a licensed mental health counselor.

Speaker and coach, whose life is a powerful example of personal renewal. There was a time when Ronnie struggled with addiction, serious health issues, disability, homelessness, and profound loss. Despite being a therapist, he found himself searching for a deeper path to healing and a way to rebuild his life from the inside out. Today he runs a successful counseling practice, lives medication free.

and has competed at a world class level in endurance athletics. His journey raises a question, and it's an important question. How does someone rebuild life when everything falls apart? Ronnie, it's wonderful to have you here today.

speaker-1 (01:13.602)
Thank you. And and again, Samuel, I'm really honored. Thank you so much.

speaker-0 (01:17.858)
When someone looks at your life today, Ronnie, they see someone who appears healthy and thriving. But there was a time when your life looked very different. What was happening in your life that brought you to that breaking point?

speaker-1 (01:32.462)
Quite a few things. Growing up in a a stressful environment as a child of the city I lived in. Also the the arguments with the family members and all that and all the kind of stressors that would go on on with that. The alcoholism in the family, the drug abuse kind of things that were going on. And I grew up in that kind of environment. And I was always kind of a a kid who wanted to to do more, to have more, to give more.

And and these things kind of confuse me. Why are people fighting? Why why do they drink so much and argue and all these kind of things? Why can't we just get along? And so growing up in that environment, it had me confused. And in that confusion, that's where addiction can really come in. One part of you is saying, No, it it shouldn't be this way and I should feel better. And the other part is saying, No, no, no, you shouldn't feel better. You should feel this way.

And that conflict can cause a person to need to do something to fill in that confusion or that hole in our hearts, basically. So I turned to alcohol at a very young age, about twelve or so. My father was a bootlegger. He would bootleg alcohol from the south. And me and my friends would steal it. We would re we would replace it in these mason jars with water. We got so slick at it that after a while it was almost just water.

So, you know, growing up in that environment, and basically the bottom line of it was the the insecurities, the hurts that were inside, and trying to understand why that was there and trying to do better with it, but not finding a good enough answer. I grew up in in a a very difficult town environment. I joined the Navy during the Vietnam War. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in in fighting, I don't believe in any of that.

But I I wanted to join to basically get the benefits that come from it, as well as my f the friend and I who were gonna join together to have a business that we could start to help people. So we wanted to get into the construction battalion, the CDs. So anyway, getting out, it was kind of stressful, but it also was a good learning lesson for me to be involved with a community of people.

speaker-1 (03:47.522)
That community was very helpful. It helped me even when I got out. Did I drink? Did I start drinking again? Yeah, sure I did. But I had this sense that, hey, there's something better. There's something more that I can do. But growing up in this kind of an environment and having that piece of this community feeling, I felt, yeah, I need this. Well, what do I need more than anything else? I kind of saw that there was something inside of me that needed healing. I can't look at it.

I need to do this and I need to do this. And I started working hard while looking for something that could help me out a lot. The working started to take over where I started to become more obsessed with I gotta get this done. I gotta get this done. And it felt good. It felt like the right thing to do. It made me feel better in a way. By becoming that more a personality, getting this done, getting this done. I established you know, practice along the way. I went back to school. I've created a business since then.

But then it started to dawn on me, Ronnie, are these things what you really need? Because I started looking at my life and going, I'm accomplishing these things, but I really don't feel right. I really don't feel good. There's something missing here. What is it?

speaker-0 (05:02.328)
You were creating identities f that the world attached values to. So you attached value to those identities with what you were accomplishing in your work life.

speaker-1 (05:13.976)
But attaching it to the identity and even more so wanting to fit in so that I would be accepted by people. The environment situation so much, I can do this, I can get this done. But I want people to love me. I want people to like me. You know, because I was a very shy young kid. That's where the alcohol helps. It helps a lot of adults that way too, because it can make you feel invulnerable after a while.

And then the addiction sets in, and it's like you have to go to it in order to continue with that kind of format in your life. So anyway, after leaving the Navy, I started questioning more about what I truly thought I needed up until my 40s or so, you know, married, gone back to school, having degrees, children. I have a family now. All this should be better. Why isn't anything changing? Why am I still feeling this like missing of something? And I didn't know. And I kept questioning.

And then I started to get in more involved with, I guess what you would call alternative help or or holistic help. Getting involved with various other kinds of things, becoming a Reiki practitioner, for example, becoming a hypnotherapist, studying EMDR, studying EFT, the tapping methods and all those kind of things. And just researching what some of the success rates are with it. Like EMDR is is very successful these days. So I I've and I still use it, I incorporate it into my practice.

But I was like doing some of these things a little bit, and then I would stop for some reason. And I would go, why am I stopping? This stuff was helping me. Now I need a drink. Now I need to go do some more work. All of the anxieties that would come in from it. What I believe that is, it's a process where our unconscious minds are telling us something, and it's called unconscious for a reason because we don't know really what's going on there sometimes. And it is trying to keep us.

In a trap or in a prison of what we've been doing all our lives. I've read it somewhere where a person says, the unconscious mind would rather see us die than change. So that's where I think it's really important. And I started to see, hey, I have to look inside myself to see what's going on into here. The practices, the techniques, all those things are helping. But that was I was looking more on the outside of those things to be the answer. And do we need those? Yes, we need all of that.

speaker-1 (07:38.958)
You know, depending on what an individual might be.

speaker-0 (07:41.824)
You shared a lot about how this started with your early childhood and your early years of adulthood and what that was looking like. But you were working as a therapist when many of the struggles really started to come to a head. What did you understand intellectually that you weren't able to live personally?

speaker-1 (08:02.528)
I was understanding that there was something wrong with me more and more. Okay. I needed help. And what was good, I was started to look for help more.

speaker-0 (08:15.15)
What do you feel people most often misunderstand about addiction and self destructive behavior looking back at things now, Ronnie?

speaker-1 (08:25.048)
The thing I think people mostly misunderstand is the idea that we as a society are in need. That we as a society are suffering. And I don't think people realize it that much, especially in in westernized societies. Not that I want people to suffer, but we are in this almost protective bubble. These days, more and more people are waking up more. And that's

so because of fears, because of the confusion. And in essence that might be a good thing. You know, again, I don't want people to suffer anything like that. But it it's us being blinded to what's really going on, if that makes sense.

speaker-0 (09:09.866)
Okay. Because addictions and a lot of self destructive behavior can just feel so isolating as you talked about earlier, the wanting to belong. And sometimes someone might feel like they're just so different that it's unique to them being unaware that it's bigger. There's a community with it. Do you think that the need for community is why self help programs like AA and Narcotics Anonymous have been so successful?

speaker-1 (09:39.104)
I think that's secondary actually. Yeah. Yeah. I think the primary part is the person again taking the risk to trust something within themselves to eventually stand up there and go, Hi, my name is Ronnie. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Ronnie. Didn't kill me.

speaker-0 (09:42.496)
Okay.

speaker-0 (10:00.479)
Okay.

speaker-1 (10:01.858)
Yeah, because that's kind of the initial thing that I people I think people need. Community is important to have it's i essential to cause that to happen. But it still comes out 'cause there's many, many groups, many, many religions, many, many philosophies that people get together and they do wonderful things. But I just want people to expand a little bit more, especially if you're talking about an addiction, because we all are addicted to something, you know, I think to some degree.

speaker-0 (10:30.061)
I would agree.

speaker-1 (10:30.978)
So I believe also that there's a universal connection that we all need to come to, right? Whether you have alcoholism, whether you have other diseases, whether you have physical or emotional issues going on in your life. I guess I'll stick to alcoholism for for right now anyway. Because the idea of a person introducing, let's say, alcohol or drugs, that becomes more than a crutch. It becomes such an intricate part of their lives. Without even realizing it, it becomes a threat.

Becomes a thing that I can truly rely on more than anything sometimes. Some people get so involved in it more than anything else. Are they realizing it that way consciously? No. Some may, but most, it's just so deeply inrooted into that part of their unconscious that becomes more and more buried that they don't see it. And again, to me, that's a key part of being aware of what's going on and people learning how to be aware of what they truly need.

It's gonna be more difficult for a person who's reliant on drugs or who's reliant on alcohol. But it's pretty much the similar process of again learning to see who you are inside and then healing from the inside out. Going to those places that hurt, going to those places that you might have hid from. And in our society, it's really harder.

For men, to be honest with you, because you know, the men have to be I can't really show my emotions. I really can't be that, you know, sensitive to things. So all of these complications would hear, but the idea that simple practices can help us, and maybe I'm jumping too far ahead, but simple practices can help us tap into those things that are deeper within us to reveal them. Because the idea is it exposing them, taking that kind of risk to vulnerably expose these things that are going on.

And by doing that and with the other helps of of therapy or groups, AANA, whatever, it incorporates it and it makes it easier. And I believe it would help more readily for people to heal than even with all the groups right now. Quite honestly, the relapse rates are way too high. Way too

speaker-0 (12:41.474)
Just going back to your journey a little bit, I know we just scratched the surface because this was decades and decades of your life that started in your childhood. Was there a particular moment when you realized you couldn't continue living the way you were living?

speaker-1 (12:57.762)
Yeah, and it took a lot. It took a lot of me getting kicked in the butt because I was so stubborn. It took so much. And I would think in my mid-50s, and again, even then when I on disability, doing whatever, I said, Well, I can still survive. I can still do this. And this is what lot of people do in survival mode. Many of us are, and it's hard to get out of that. But then I I know something hit me and I think it was accumulation of things that were occurring in my life.

with me asking, with me looking for more alternative kinds of helps. And then what happened was there were these synchronistic events that did occur. Some people believe in synchronicity, some don't. And I just started to see when I needed it, wow that ha one ex one thing that I do remember. Some of these things are hard to remember. At seventy two, you know, it's hard to remember things. But I was driving one day and a nice area, but I was like, you know, like really hurting inside, almost like nah.

But still trying to do my coping and trying to get things done, make enough money to survive, you know, whatever. And I saw this bookstore. I went to the bookstore and there was this turnstile. And I was like saying, you know, yeah, let me see if I can get something interesting to read and whatever. And I bumped against a turnstile and a book fell down on the ground. I looked at the book and the title was The Power of Now. And I went, Huh, this what is this like when when you first came out with it, right? So I'm looking at it and I pick it and I went,

Wow, that sounds interesting. So I read it and if anything really was that thing that kind of made me go, Wow, there's hope. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't like any life transforming thing or whatever. And I and I was hoping for that. I wanted that because I've had the near-death experiences, you know, or experience one time. And I've had all these things going on and I tried the reiki and I tried all this. This was something that made me go, Wow, maybe there's something to this.

And then when I started reading it, I started going, Wow, I really think there's something to this. Again, you know, we have different things. I don't believe in any one process, any one religion. But that got me on a a a trajectory of healing quicker.

speaker-0 (15:13.098)
I'm a big believer in synchronicity. I don't think that things happen randomly. And it's interesting to me how small things can have such a big impact on someone on on their trajectory as they get into a different healing path or they go onto a different path. Ronnie, many people spend years looking for that breakthrough that will change everything. What have you learned about the role awareness actually plays in healing?

speaker-1 (15:42.136)
Within what I look at as what I call anyway a fourfold way of living, it's probably the most important I don't wanna even say the most important, but it's primary. You have to be able to learn to understand what that means, to understand it is one thing, but it's so, so important to experientially be there in it, to be able to be in any environment, no matter what you're going through, and to be able to see yourself being present.

Basically. Being aware of yourself with presence. And that should be a practice that we do all of the time. It is kind of like a meditative state to be in. You don't want to close your eyes and drive and be, of course not. But but you can be aware, no matter what you're doing. And one of the things that occur is people become

either needing to understand more than that, what does that mean? Or to understand it. And you need to understand it because w you know, just to say, hey, just be aware, a Buddhist concept of learning to be aware of yourself, being aware. To me though, it's more of the experiential nature through practice, but some of these practices that I've been doing more recently, to stay in this state no matter what you're going through, even if it's very difficult time. For example, this past month has probably been

More difficult than all those other things that have occurred in my previous dealings with thoughts. Seriously. And I'm not just saying that. I mean, people don't need to know some of the specifics, but I can let you know. But with this going on in my family life right now and in my work life and everything, I hear it in my voice. I hear the stress. I hear the the thing, but I'm watching it. And I'm not hiding it. I'm trying to be like balanced with what's

Awareness with with vulnerability. The vulnerability part, you know, that's why again I could say which is more important to people. It's hard to say. But that vulnerability part also is absolutely necessary while being aware of who you are, while you're doing whatever you're doing. And then taking a risk and exposing it. We are afraid to do these things. And then I guess the icing on the cape, maybe this is the most important.

speaker-1 (18:03.022)
To have the genuine degree of trust that we have within that moment, within this presence, within everything that we're going through. And the more I was doing that along the way, not as much as I'm doing it now, but even when I first the book fell and I started really working on me this way, things start to change very quickly. We're talking about like in my mid-50s or so, it started to turn around, but it still took a while for it to really dramatically start to change.

And I was learning experientially more so along the way. So I stopped smoking and I stopped drinking completely. In my fifties or whatever, when I was starting to change, it was still very difficult and I didn't stop right away. It was difficult. And it can be very difficult with it with that kind of an addiction. When I started to

Change, evolve, these things started to be easier to get out of. The cigarette smoking stopped and was like, Wow, I don't want it any. Hey, I gotta do more of this meditation. It's kinda work. I don't want to drink anymore.

speaker-0 (19:14.712)
Well, I really can see the importance and and the value of awareness. So just to go back to that for a hot minute, when people find themselves repeating the same painful patterns over and over and over, we see this all the time. Your thoughts on what's happening beneath the surface?

speaker-1 (19:32.514)
With that awareness, what's going on is that there's a battle. Because our unconscious mind does not want us to change. That we have the traumas that people have. Some of them they know that I I can't do this. And they're consciously saying that over and over again. But that's not the reality of the human being, right? Because when you get to a place with a connection, which I think we have a universal connection, when you eventually can tap into that, it helps you see.

See again. See I use the word see is synonymously with awareness. It helps you see what's really going on.

speaker-0 (20:09.016)
Give me an example of how someone can start noticing the patterns that they've spent decades living. I know that they're unconscious and they're not there and the seeing that resonates with me. How do they get to that step?

speaker-1 (20:21.516)
Yeah. The differences and I would say a majority of people need help with it, right? But a person can do it on their own. But a a majority of people need help along the way, whether it's that group, whether it's a therapist, whether it's a a guru or whatever a person gets into. But not to rely specifically on that guru, but to use that as a help and always realize that you have to learn and get that help when you need it. You can't do this alone. Fine, but you always have to come back.

To yourself and look for those underlying things. Look, be aware of those underlying things and practice that aspect of okay, let me whatever practice I do. Mine is I call the threefold breath techniques that I do. Okay, I'm feeling something. And the key part is more so than trying to understand it. I believe tapping into what you're feeling.

More so than thinking. We think too much. Practice more so than what you're experientially feeling and let it come up. Let it be exposed. If it's too much, and that's why I say to everybody, don't just jump into something, but incrementally. And that's why most people might need help with guidance in this.

speaker-0 (21:34.85)
I'm seeing the thread with all of this. Now you had mentioned vulnerability just a little bit ago. Why is vulnerability so important to the healing process?

speaker-1 (21:44.578)
Because most of us on our planet do not exercise it because of conditionings and traumas and media and society and whatever. We run away from it because it can be very scary to be that what open?

speaker-0 (22:02.06)
You have to take a chance.

speaker-1 (22:04.042)
Exactly. And that's the idea. That's the risk part of it. You have to take a chance. And when people get that or hear that more often, and especially if they're in an environment where they can do that and learn, because trust is such a hard part, especially when you've been abused, especially when we've been hurt. But if you can invite someone in and they see and they learn to trust if they're with someone, to trust the person, or to learn more so to trust themselves, that they can go through this process of exposing more and more some of those hurts.

Exposing, being open with it and then giving it out to other people to trust this one. Incrementally, I would say, for many people. Don't just try to rush out there and do everything that you can.

speaker-0 (22:46.52)
So to be conscious about it, Ronnie, can you talk about the difference between vulnerability and oversharing?

speaker-1 (22:53.228)
Yeah. Oversharing would be and many people do that. I've heard people say that. I just I share everything. I'm totally vulnerable. I'm sharing everything. What that really is, it's to me, it's just another defense mechanism and a coping mechanism for people to feel that they are doing that kind of thing. And we do that in various kinds of ways in a lot of the new agey kinds of concepts.

You know, you don't think about the negative things. You just kind of say that, hey, I can do this. You just consciously believe and it's gonna happen. And some people will fall into that. And what I say, there is a degree of confidence that you need to lean toward. That idea of awareness of you I s I say more specifically, awareness of the self inside the body. Even if if in the beginning you're practically doing it over and over again, it will become experiential. It's even if I'm using my hand, I'm in my body this way.

But to me, it's an experiential thing that develops over a period of time. The vulnerability becomes a part of that because you're willing to expose a more and more. And then what's really important, and this is where the scientific method comes into play, you need to see results. Person needs to see results. And if they take these risks and if they take these steps, I believe everyone will start to see results over a short, over a shorter period of time by being learning what vulnerability really is.

Just to get it to vulnerability and sell, we don't have time because th there's like been processes and and years of studies that have said, you know, did various things because you also need a boundary. That's one of the key things, too. yeah, I'm gonna say no, no. You need to learn what that truly is and have a boundary. One of the people that I respect very, very much so, and I'll be a name dropper in in this essence, is is Brene Brown. She has done she's incredible, done such extensive

speaker-0 (24:43.057)
my god, I love her.

speaker-0 (24:48.204)
Restart.

speaker-1 (24:49.046)
And research on vulnerability. So if people want to get more specifics about it, look into some of the things she's done.

speaker-0 (24:56.812)
You mentioned or alluded to this a couple of times, especially being a man. Many people really work hard to appear strong while inside they're truly just falling apart and struggling. What would you say to them?

speaker-1 (25:14.55)
I would say don't try to do anything dramatically with that. But make an effort to realize that you need help. See, that's one of the things. If you're really in this way, I don't need help. I'm fine. I'm fine. And then people live that way all their lives and and they will develop some kind of emotional issue or physical issues because you're holding all this stuff inside.

Look at our society right now. Look how many ill people there are by living that way.

speaker-0 (25:46.112)
Absolutely. And in your work you describe awareness in the body and the heart centered breathing as foundational to your healing. Yeah. How did you actually discover that connection?

speaker-1 (25:57.506)
Well, I look at it like this and and I've I've seen this for years and years and years, but I guess I'm trying to condense it more so because I'm lazy. I want things to happen quickly soon. Because I look at it this way. There's a lot of people who are my age now who've never been involved with this, but then they start. Do they have to wait ten years to heal? Some of them in eighties or ninties aren't gonna have ten years to heal. So it's not a thing where you have to have that. You c anybody can heal in a relatively short period of time.

speaker-0 (26:25.666)
What happens physiologically when people move out of reaction and into awareness? How does that look in the body? How did it feel for you?

speaker-1 (26:33.856)
It got to a place where I became more and more aware, cognitively and just internally, that I needed to realize that I'm comprised of, and I believe it now, I believed it many, many years. I guess that's what I wanted to say, that we are all comprised of a body, a mind, and something else. You know, you're calling it one, but it is something real. It's so real. And the more you you experience these three practices.

It becomes so real that nothing can shake you. Now, I again I don't believe any one specific religion. If other people are, that's fine. But I say it all needs to be something that you need, but you need not to say it is everything. It is a part of what we are. Individually, we have to see that we are, as the Bible would say, God-like, or you know, that kind of thing, spiritual beings, psychology-wise, self-actualized human beings. And learning to have that balance.

As soon as you can, that's why I say it that way, w without like, I have to have it like right now. No. You have to have all of these ideas of patience, whatever, but all I'm saying is it can happen in a relatively short period of time for anyone. If it happens to someone like me who's this thick headed and taking this long, it can happen for anyone.

speaker-0 (27:52.702)
I truly believe. I absolutely believe it's possible. You mentioned earlier the importance of developing a practice, simple daily practice. Are you able to walk listeners through a simple awareness practice that they could begin using today?

speaker-1 (28:08.206)
I'd love to. Okay. Some of us get kidding me around like this too, because I'll go, okay, now everybody close your eyes. But that or or scheme, okay, I'm on United Flight. Wait a minute, I gotta do this practice. No, no, you don't wanna do that. if you can be in a comfortable place wherever you are right now, and you know, you can close your eyes or not. And what I would suggest for everybody is for right now anyway, and maybe even the future, you might want to do it a little bit more so because I believe it's very important to learn.

speaker-0 (28:14.862)
Unless you' unless you're driving.

speaker-1 (28:38.616)
For us to do this more individually with what our voice is saying more so than what the other what someone else might be saying. Are there specific practices that you might need to do in the beginning? Yes, but you need to develop your own voice within this. Any practice, I think. Well, for mine, what I'm calling a threefold practice, there's three parts of it. The key part again is being aware as best you can of you being in your body. It doesn't have to feel good.

You just say, okay, I I'm thinking too much. This is going, okay, just be aware of your thinking too much. I'm really depressed. Okay, just be aware of your being depressed. I'm too anxious. I I'm overwhelmed. Okay, try to be aware of being overwhelmed. It's better to, if you can, close your eyes and it. But if you can't, slightly keep them open, whatever you feel like doing. It's not about getting into some super woo-meditative state. It's just you about be you being genuine with where you are right now. So you can close your eyes.

Take a breath, being at your own pace, and just release. We're just gonna do this. We're gonna build up on top of it. Do one more. Do one as you do three times. That's all. Another breath in and just release. Whatever you're feeling, don't try to make it better or worse. Just you're being aware. It's a key part of it, and it'll help teach you how to be more and more aware. One more. Breathing at your pace and then releasing. Okay, now we're gonna get in more of the specifics of it.

Remember these three things, with awareness being the most important part of it. One is going to be the breathing in. But what you're going to do as you're breathing in, you're going to bring it to your heart-centered, if you will, or awareness area, or even just your physical heart. Whatever makes you feel that you're bringing it to a place that you can really believe who you are as much as you can. Some people are so overwhelmed they don't know what's going on. Just breathe it to where you can see yourself.

You know you have everybody has a spark of something. You wanna bring it there and then with an outbreath you wanna release it.

speaker-1 (30:45.624)
So I'll demonstrate it first and then you follow along as best you can. Number one, the breathing in. I'm bringing it to my heart.

speaker-1 (30:57.39)
Cart three, release them.

And again, you know, above it all, it's that awareness practice of you and your body again. One more time I'll do it. You can do it with me at your own pace. You don't have to follow mine unless you feel you need to right now. It's again number one, in breath. Number two, bringing it to your heart area, your soul area, your belief area, whatever you want to call it. Number three, belief

Now, however you can get this, just do it on your own with that three practices. I'm gonna do it with you. I'll do it at my pace, but you do it on your own, trying to remember. It may take a little time to remember, just a little time, but there's only three parts basically. Awareness. Awareness, most important. One in, bring to the heart. Two, three, release. One, two, three. Ready? Go full.

speaker-1 (32:04.078)
Two more times.

speaker-1 (32:08.667)
making a sound can be good too. Just letting it out.

speaker-1 (32:19.18)
Just sit in that for a minute and see what's resonating in your body. Some people feel an immediate sense of just just this peace, or some people feel chill. Some people might feel this energy permeating in you. Whatever you are feeling, just allow it to happen. And if you're not feeling anything, that's okay too. But I can almost guarantee I don't want to say I would want to say guarantee anybody, if you continue to do this, it will be so, so helpful. The behavioral aspect of it.

By practicing something over and over again, especially the simple ones, retain better in our brain over and over again. So that kind of thing can be very helpful in that kind of simple practice. I hope everybody

speaker-0 (33:01.056)
Yeah, thank you for that. That was really special. That'll make a big difference for many people. I'm just sort of curious, Ronnie, do you feel the body can play a role in healing emotional wounds?

speaker-1 (33:14.082)
Yes, very much so because as I said before, we are three parts, but it's one thing body, mind and energy, soul, spirit. And all those things need to be incorporated to not try to separate them so much, but to bring them into more and more seeing and understanding that they're one. It's hard to conceptualize it intellectually, but when you're experientially living it more, you just know, yeah, body here. Not I gotta look good and it's all this so much. Don't get me wrong, it it's okay to look good. It's fine.

to have money. But the idea is that you have to learn to incorporate all of this into the most important part. What you have, your body, your mind, and this energy. You bring them together and you learn to practice. And the more you do that, even if it's more cognitively practicing, it becomes more and more experiential. And what you'll see, and I believe this so strongly, the more you do this and start getting it more and more, you'll see parallel like almost

What I call acts of synchronicity slash miracles.

speaker-0 (34:16.568)
That's perfect. I do want to revisit another part of the conversation because I think it's just that important. You've talked about how you rebuilt your life in your fifties and sixties. And there's a lot of people in their fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties that are ready to make changes. What do you say to people who believe it's too late for them? Like they've missed the boat.

speaker-1 (34:40.535)
hope that people can see the 72-year-old person who who was through that, right? I believe when I'm 82 or even 92, hopefully this will still be in pretty good shape, this body and this mind and this energy. But the most important piece again is learning to see that you have this. Now again, people who are really struggling because if they're just starting to want help in their 80s, nineties or whatever,

They're going to have a lot of beliefs inside themselves that, no, I can't I don't know if I can do this, whatever. And their unconscious minds is going to be trying, keep them trapped in that. What I'm saying though is that with some of the the more simpler practices, especially these days, folks, even with with your show, Sandra, I was listening to a few people and going, this is the same language. We're learning to speak a universal language.

speaker-0 (35:32.297)
Exactly. I totally agree.

speaker-1 (35:34.402)
You know, and if we you you have to find some place outside of the media, outside of just watching the TV shows that we watch all the time, the binge watching. Don't get me wrong, I still do sometimes. But but learning to see that you can change in a relatively short period of time. I did, if I can, as stubborn as I was, anybody can. And if I can do anything as an example, I want to help people see that and learn.

How to do that. Go right away. You know, us old folks, we need to have community, right? Like I have a group that I I started recently. If anybody ever wants to be a part of it, it to me it's been going pretty well. There's been some real miraculous things. I call them miracles, but you know, maybe people might just see them as synchronistic events. So you do need a community, folks. I don't care how old you are. Some people feel to become too isolated. Nah, I can't do that. I don't want to go out or whatever.

We need it. It's абсолютно несер тобі сандрев ком'юніті.

speaker-0 (36:37.282)
Where do you think self judgment plays into all of that? We've been programmed by so many different things in our lives from parents, families, churches, teachers, I mean, you name it. Where do you think the self judgment holds people back from like joining a an amazing group like what you're doing?

speaker-1 (36:57.964)
Bottom line, I believe that the thing that holds us back, because I still have an unconscious stuff I'm dealing with, and I think the thing that holds us back the most is again not practicing. I'm using the word practice, but not to force. We should never try to force, not practicing enough on a regular basis, day by day, moment by moment, to just get used to seeing you. Get used to coming back to who you are.

Were, are, will be. It's all the same thing. You have the pain there, you have the suffering. Some people don't realize that. Some of it's gonna have to come up, but you can do this thing in a way where it's not gonna be tremendously traumatic, where all your your PSD is gonna come up at the same time, all of the the trauma, the abuse. No. You can be guided and supported because we need that. Can you do it on your own? Yeah, but it'd be a lot harder.

speaker-0 (37:55.15)
Well, you talked about trust and the importance of trust in all of this. When would you say you began to trust yourself again? 'Cause you you went through decades of trust issues.

speaker-1 (38:05.528)
I just made a joke. I said yesterday.

speaker-0 (38:07.349)
Okay.

speaker-1 (38:10.254)
To truly get it in what I would call a balanced way, because there are a lot of people who narcissistically trust them as being able to do anything. But what I hope and what I I've been told and what I see people see within me is that I'm learning to trust by virtue of seeing the results of what I'm doing. Okay. So I have more trust, just with that alone, can develop this kind of trust.

And it helps a person to see though, but in order to get there, you're gonna have to really start looking deeper inside, learning how to do that. And whatever trust you have right now, because we all have some of it, even if it's a spark, even if it's a little spark of trust, that's who you truly are, the trust. It's a connection that we have, I believe, very strongly. However you want to define that, it's up to you. But everybody has something. Some people give up, and it's sad that we do.

But we need to really start to keep motivating each other, keep seeing that we can do this, that there is a trust. If I want to do anything while I'm alive, that's all I want to do, more so than anything else. Do I want for myself? Yeah, I want more money. I want more of this, I want a vacation more. I don't want to work as hard. yeah. Oops, I need to curse. Heck yeah. But I'm at a place now where I trust me by virtue of developing it with these practices. Do I need the practices?

Maybe not the way that I even have them now. Maybe they need to change. Everything needs to evolve. Our practices need to evolve.

speaker-0 (39:45.454)
So trust is its own journey and it waxes and wanes, I would imagine.

speaker-1 (39:51.33)
couldn't say it's own. I don't I don't think it's own necessarily. I think it's incorporated somehow into that what I call the fourfold way of life. It needs to be more developed within that. But you can't just do it alone necessarily. It needs to be incorporated with all those things. Just like we're mind, body, and and energy, that fourfold way is one thing also.

speaker-0 (40:13.102)
Okay, so what surprised you the most about your own transformation? What was like one of the big surprises you had?

speaker-1 (40:20.436)
Lately, just all the synchronistic things I've been seeing. I mean, I can give a real quick one if you there've been so many that I actually forget a lot of it, but they're so big and they just keep coming parallel wise. We were at our our last what what I call the it's an energy healing gathering where we do a little bit of of meditation in the beginning, just like some music. And again, without telling people don't get all spiritual, just be yourself, be genuine. And then we have a presenter. By the way.

Sandra, if you ever want to be a presenter, let me know. But a lady came on who had some experiences that she wanted to share. And she started speaking about her life, brother being shot, she had been in prison, her mother interaction. She got really specific about some of the hurts that her mother would say to her, and some of the specific abusive, physically abusive things, sexually abusive things that were done to her.

And there was a a a guest, there was a one of the members who comes more regularly, and she was just her eyes just and she just said, Can I can I share? She was in tears, and she said, What this lady was was speaking, Lo She is her name. She said, My brother also died three years ago. My mother has done this almost exact same things that you're saying that happened to you to me. And on top of it, she said, and the song we played, because I was saying we do a song in the beginning.

was a song that was made famous by Louis Armstrong. You know, What a Wonderful World, I think it was right. And so the music was done by Eva Cassidy. She sings that song in another one called Feels of Gold, if you ever hear of Stuffs, Beautiful Woman. That happened before that happened. She was with her child. She wasn't going to come to the meeting, but her son was was walking around the house. He was singing a song, and the song he was singing was a song called It's a Wonderful World.

And he was going, You don't know that song by Louis Armstrong? And she's going, Well, yeah, but why are you singing it? He goes, 'Cause I like the song. Because I was he I just heard the song. And then she remembered that her brother who passed away three years ago, his name was he was called World. What a wonderful world. And how and then she came to the meeting and then with Le Shea saying these things, all of those things cannot be coincidence. No. And everybody in the meeting went, Wow.

speaker-0 (42:42.412)
Yeah, that is a wow for sure. That's a great example. Thank you for sharing that. So for you, Ronnie, what does thriving mean to you today compared to what it meant to you 30 years ago?

speaker-1 (42:56.728)
Today, and I guess this is where the trust part is important. Maybe it is the most important part. I don't know. For me right now, it's like always coming back and being here. No, no. And and when I bring myself back here in the midst of everything that you have to get doing, I try to stay here even then. More difficult of course, and I hope all people understand what I'm saying here, the environmental struggles that we go through, all the different things we have to do on a daily basis, all in different

Things that we're feeling inside. Bringing bringing ourselves back here, bringing myself back here. I don't know. That that is the answer. It's trust, it's I can't help but trust it more, the more I can stay here. So the practice is so important. The experiential nature is much more important than just practicing. Once you really hear, I trust something. I hope the words that are coming out.

that hope is that word, that are coming from me, are coming from a place. Because I'm not really sure if all this is is going so well, but I'm trusting this voice is vulnerable and it's working to help other people.

speaker-0 (44:08.044)
curious about the after listening to everything that you have shared with us, your thoughts on what people are truly searching for beneath all the self-help books, the programs and all the healing modalities. What is it people really want?

speaker-1 (44:24.696)
They want a connection. They may not even know it, and maybe it's just too arbitrary to say it this way. But we want this connection that we've been lacking, that I think the universe, if you will, or this energy has wanted us all to collectively come to. And it's hard if you don't know it for sure that that's the answer. But that is, I think. We all collectively want to do that. We all collectively, deep down inside, want to be one, want to be a family, want to be loved, want to be this and that.

As a community. The way the world is these days, it's very difficult for most people. We need to be like starlings, like those birds. You know, that sometimes I I've looked at the sky and there's like hundreds of these things. They're like they blacken the sky so much. They're going and they're just going together and they never bang into each other or fight each other. Hey, you hit me, how dare you? And then they fall down and fight.

speaker-0 (45:18.68)
They're beautiful to watch. They're very mesmerizing.

speaker-1 (45:21.41)
We need to learn, I think, to get back to that, to see how real it is. And again, however you want to understand that, it doesn't have to be like a a god or spirit or whatever. Psychologists again call it, you know, being self-actualized. And however you want to perceive it, once you're there, truly there, you're not going to be able to help, but want to reach out to others. You're not going to be able to help.

But want to be more of a collective, you'll take more risks that way. You'll try to learn how to be more vulnerable. You'll put yourself out there more. And it happens more and more organically the more you can get to these places. I hope that is is answering your question.

speaker-0 (46:06.35)
Absolutely. Thank you for that. Ronnie, for people interested in your work, how do they connect with you and what would that look like?

speaker-1 (46:13.42)
Well, I'm doing the media thing, even though I don't like it. Oop, I shouldn't say that, right? With I have a YouTube channel. People can get to that. Ronnie Figaroa, R-O-N-N-I-E, Fi-G U E R O A, my YouTube channel. I never use the Instagram or Facebook that much, but I do have be on there. My website, maybe that would be easier to get in touch with via my email address. My website is www.ronniefigaroa.com.

And my website is T H E I 31111 at gmail.com. That's four ones. And just very briefly, and I like to say this part, it it sounds out the high, t-e-h I, the high, three, one, one, one, one. And it's it's that way because I had a group that I started called the Holistic Energy Healing Institute, which also spells that out. And the three is a magic number to me: body, mind, energy.

And I have four children. So again it's it's the high three one one one one at you.

speaker-0 (47:16.45)
Very nice, I love that. I have one last question for you as we're winding down our conversation. What is the most important thing that we didn't talk about today?

speaker-1 (47:28.056)
The only thing again I that I'm hoping is that for the masses that they get that we're not talking just about this spiritual group or the people we've got it together. I'm hoping that everyone, anyone, can get something out of this.

speaker-0 (47:45.816)
Beautiful. Ronnie, thank you for joining me on the show and for sharing your story, your insights and wisdom that you've gained through your journey of renewal. For everyone listening, I hope today's conversation encourages you to trust that change is possible, no matter where you're starting from. To learn more about Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast and the work we're doing at Wild Soul Gatherings, you can go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com.

Thank you for joining us. Until next time. Thanks again, Ronnie.

speaker-1 (48:20.238)
Thank you so much.

speaker-0 (48:22.882)
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please subscribe to the podcast and follow us on YouTube. And if you'd like to explore these topics more deeply, visit WildSoulsGathering.com, where you'll find free resources and guided practices designed to support your own journey of curiosity, healing, and personal growth. This is Dr. Sienna Marie, sending each of you.

Peace and love.