Kute Blackson

I think there are different ways. There are various processes I’ve created. We can talk about that.

I think it’s important to people understand just a little framework.

Kute Blackson

When we’re born as children, we’re born free. If you look at a child, a child is in touch with their authentic nature. A child is in touch with their divinity, with their essence, with their free flow in expression, with the love of their being.

A part of the reason why we just melt when we look into a child’s eyes is that we are reconnected with the power of ourselves.

A child would jump on a table, sing, scream, and shout. It doesn’t care if it can’t sing like Adele or Bruno Mars or if it’s a little sad. It’s just free at least at the precise moment.

Then, a child is born. It meets its parents who are just doing the best they can do based on their conditioning and their past programming, and their programming from their parents, and their parents, and all the way back generations. And so, that is now passed down to us, and then we’re born into this environment with our parents where there could be pain, abuse, trauma, divorce, hurt, or certain emotional needs were neglected.

Kute Blackson

As these bright, magnificent beings that were in touch with our voice and our full self-expression, then we’re born into this experience, slowly, we start to shut down. We start learning all sorts of strategies and mechanisms as a way to disconnect and function so that we don’t have to feel the pain. We start developing what I call survival strategies and mechanisms.

As a result, we start shutting down parts of ourselves and parts of our feelings and emotions, so we don’t have to deal with the pain. It’s just a survival mechanism, and then all of those layers start building up.

We disconnect, start developing walls and start numbing parts of hearts. We start suppressing emotions, and walls start building up another wall, another wall, and another wall. We slowly lose touch with our true authentic self and our real voice.

Kute Blackson

Then we go out into the world, and we start learning a way of being in the sense of, “Who do I need to be to get love from my dad?” “Who do I need to be to get love from my mother?” “I need to be the nice girl.” “I need to be the good guy.” “I need to be the quiet one.” “I need to be the shy one.” “I need to be the responsible one.”

And so, we start developing these roles. We start developing these masks that we adopt as a survival strategy mechanism to get love, fit in, be approved, be validated, and to get at least what we think a particular emotional needs met from our parents, our kids, and those around us.

Then, we identify tightly to these ways of being, and we think this is who we are. So we end up disconnecting from our authentic selves, our real voice, our true expression to function, survive, get love, fit in, and be approved.

This sense of identification becomes who we think are.

Kute Blackson

Who we have learned to become is often not who we are. Our true voice, our true expression, our true self is often trapped underneath these layers and ways we’ve contoured ourselves to be.

One of the first things we have to do is realize that the degree to which we are conditioned is the extent to which we are not free. The extent to which we are conditioned is the extent to which we don’t have access to free choice and free will. We don’t have access to our real authentic voice.

We often say, “Oh, no. This is just who I am. It’s just me, this version of myself that I’ve learned to become. It’s just me. It’s just who I am.” But, is who you are, who you are or is it who you’ve been conditioned to be?

The first thing we have to realize we’re being conditioned and begin to question our conditioning and who we are. We have to start to become conscious and start waking up.

Often, the voice we are currently expressing is because of the conditioning process and is often not our real voice.

Kute Blackson

When we become aware of our conditioning process, transformation and healing begins.

What I help people do is help people become aware of their conditioning because many times, we’re not conscious of our conditioning. I help people become aware and aware of their conditioning, help people create processes and experiences whether it’s one on one, small groups, large groups in Bali and India.

I help people become aware and then create containers and processes to help people unravel the feelings and the emotions that we’ve learned to suppress to protect our hearts and ourselves that worked for us at a very young age.

When we’re in the 20s – 50’s, those feelings may have helped us avoid pain and even helped us become successful but getting in the way of our ability to be who we truly are and to truly express ourselves.

So I help people unravel, unknot, and untangle those layers through certain deep experiential processes, and then help free people.

That’s a bit of a nutshell, the symbology of my work.

Kute Blackson 

Oh, yes.

Kute Blackson

The first step to bring more consciousness to find yourself is to realize we are conditioned because we often think “No. This is just who I am. It’s just me.”

As an example, then I’m going to share a couple of specific questions people can ask themselves.

I had a client who went on one of my India journeys with me. He showed up saying, “Kute, I want to be successful. I want to be more successful. I feel that there’s so much more. I’m here to give, but it’s not quite coming out.”

What he kept saying was, “Kute, I’m just a shy person. It’s just my nature. I’m just shy. I’m just one of those individuals who are behind the scenes.” Here he was, he married a wife who was very outgoing, so he didn’t have to speak, and he could hide behind her, and his whole thing was “I’m just shy.” That’s what he kept telling himself.

I looked at him, and he just felt like he was a lion who was living caged like a mouse. He had much power inside of him. He was 55 years old, and he also said, “Kute, I haven’t cried, but I felt very much emotion since I was age 5.”

As I took him to India, I started working with him and asking him some questions. You could see his heart through the questioning and feeling process.

Kute Blackson

When he came back to me, he said, “Kute, in the last 24 hours, I have cried more in the last 24 hours than I’ve cried in 50 years.” He said, “I haven’t cried since I was age 5. I felt levels of grief that I didn’t even know was in me.” I said, “Why?” and he said, “I had a memory 24 hours ago.” He goes, “I know also understand what I am the way I am.”

He said, “I didn’t even remember this until 24 hours ago. I buried it so deep. When I was five years old, I was molested by my uncle.” This thing happened that shouldn’t have happened. His innocence you could say was taken advantage of, and so, there was much pain there, but he wasn’t even aware of this thing that happened. He suppressed this memory. Just through tears, he was just expressing his recognition of the suffering and the pain that he’d experienced as a 5-year old child.

Kute Blackson

What he realized for himself as a 5-year old was he was this bright, radiant, and alive being, and in touch with his voice and free expression. What he realized very clearly at that moment through his grief and sadness was this innocence was taken advantage of.

On some level, what he made up in his mind was “When I’m seen by you and by the world, it’s not safe. Bad things happen. It’s dangerous.” As a result, he learned to protect himself by pulling back.

He learned unconsciously to protect himself in the sense of, “If you can’t see me, then you can’t hurt me. So I’m going to go into hiding because if I don’t speak up, if I’m in the background and hiding out, then you can’t see me. You can’t hurt me. I’m more like to be safe.”

As a result, it created this shy and reserved persona that wasn’t his real voice. It wasn’t his true self. He didn’t know it because he wasn’t aware but he started to realize, “Wow. That’s not who I was.”

Kute Blackson

It’s so important you learn to handle those layers of feeling and emotion that you’ve come to suppress to find yourself. It’s not just because they do a spiritual bypass. It’s important that you feel to find yourself.

What we start seeing and recognizing is whatever we’re willing to feel completely, to experience fully with total awareness, and conscious awareness will often dissolve.

Some things might take longer to dissolve. Whatever we’re willing to feel fully will dissolve. No feelings last forever, but it’s when we suppress those feelings that we end up keeping ourselves stuck. Often, it’s creating underlying recurring impulse for us to recreate the very thing that’s connected to the emotion as an underlying impulse to healing.

Be conscious and be willing to feel those suppressed emotions to find yourself. As a result, let go, which creates more space, more freedom, more access, more opening to who you are and being able to find yourself. We can let a layer go.

Kute Blackson

If someone asks “Where do I begin? Where do I start?” one of the things I invite people to do like a particular practice to find yourself is asking what the lies are.

One of the things keeps us stuck are all the ways we lie to ourselves. We lie to ourselves about what we feel because we’ve learned to do that from a very young age as a survival mechanism.

One of the things that keep us stuck are all the ways that we lie to ourselves, all the ways we rationalize, all the ways we BS.

Kute Blackson

Ask yourself these questions to find yourself.

• What are the lies you are telling yourself? What are the lies you have been telling yourself?
• What truth do you need to start telling yourself?
• What are you pretending not to know?

Maybe you’re listening in today and you’re in a relationship that you know is not quite right. It’s not quite right, but you’re like, “Well, it’s no big deal. It’s okay.” Be honest. Feel the truth. There’s a deeper part of us that knows the truth.

There is a deeper part of us that knows that truth because, at the deepest level, we are connected to everything.

We are aware, but we often play a game that we have to be careful of.

Kute Blackson

One of the games I see keep people stuck from being able to find yourself is this game of confusion.

“I’m not sure. I don’t know if this relationship is right. I’m not sure if I should stay. I don’t know if this job is right. I’m not sure. I’m confused.” When deep down, if push came to shove, there is that part of us that does know.

Often, we’re afraid of owning our knowing and of telling ourselves the truth because we are afraid of the consequences. We are afraid of what will happen if we tell the truth.

Kute Blackson

“If I tell the truth, then maybe I’ll be alone, and my relationship will end. I invested  much time into it.”

“If I speak up and express my voice, and you see who I am, maybe you won’t love me, and I’ll be abandoned. And so, I won’t express my voice as a way to not rock the boat, so I don’t lose your love. I’ll hide my voice a little bit, so I don’t lose your love. You can like me, and we can stay superficially connected.”

Being afraid of the consequence of what will happen if you tell the truth stops you from being able to find yourself.

Kute Blackson

Secondly, I would invite you to be willing to feel to find yourself.

Kute Blackson

One of the keys to transformation is our willingness to authentically and consciously feel the pain.

Some lies are costing us to feel the pain of our suppression and to feel the pain of being disconnected. To feel the pain of what is it costing me not to tell the truth, feel this truth, and to live this lie?

What we often do is we feel the pain like, “This isn’t working.” “This job is not aligned. I hate my job.” “This relationship is off.” “This situation is not right.” Because we’re afraid of the consequences, we don’t want to deal with that, and so we distract ourselves.

Kute Blackson

We social media it away. We sex it away. We eat it away. We work it away, and whatever we can do so we don’t have to feel the pain. If we feel the pain, then the feeling of the pain and the truth sets a process into effect.

I like to say, “Burn in the truth.”

Even you’re not willing to take action and do something about the relationship or even you’re not willing right now to take action, leave your job. Don’t lie to yourself about it. Feel it. Feel the pain of what it costs you. Feel it in your body. Feel it and let the truth burn you up layer by layer because when you do, it’s unavoidable. It’s only a matter of time until you have to act to find yourself.

Kute Blackson

The third question I invite people to find yourself is what is it you’re most afraid will happen if you speak up, tell the truth, live your truth, and speak your voice?

Happiness is simple although it’s not always easy. It requires that you speak the truth, live the truth, feel the truth, and orient around the truth. It’s a simple life. End of story. But it’s not always easy, which is why it’s a life process.

Ask yourself, what is it I’m most afraid will happen if I speak the truth and speak my voice? If I own my truth, what is my greatest fear?

What I found is there are two things.

If you can make peace with your greatest fear, you can migrate this fear.

As a young kid in my teens, my life was set out for me. I supposed to take over my father’s churches. My dad had three hundred churches and had a huge church in London. I was designated the successor, and he said, “You’re taking over.”

Kute Blackson

My greatest fear was if I spoke to my father, that will be the end of my relationship with him, and that was it. I had to own my truth, “This doesn’t work for me.”

My greatest fear was “I would not have a relationship with my father ever again. I’ll be outcast.” That was it. It came upon why I had to make peace with that.

I looked into my future, and I realized I could be successful by everyone else’s standards. I could live life according to what he wants for my life, but if I don’t have myself, I have nothing.

Kute Blackson

Even you’re successful by everyone else’s standards, if you don’t have who you truly are, you’re never at peace, and that’s not real success.

I can make peace for me with losing my father, which wasn’t easy. It was not easy. I grieved it. It was painful.

If you can make peace with your greatest fear, then that greatest fear no longer has power over you. Then, it frees you up to speak your voice, live your truth, and be who you are. That’s how you can find yourself.

What I’ve also found is many times, the mind creates a negative future fantasy about all the things that we think are going to happen when we live our truth, speak our voice, and when we’re truly authentic.

Kute Blackson

The worst that happens is nowhere close to what we make up in our minds that happen.

We can live paralyzed and hijacked by a negative future fantasy fear that’s not here right now or we can dare to live our authentic truth.

When you live your truth, when you speak your voice, when you are who you truly are, you will lose relationships. Things will shift in your life. But whatever falls away, whoever falls away, as difficult as it maybe, as challenging as it may be, will only create more space for that, which is truly, authentically aligned for you to thrive and be truly authentically fulfilled in your life.

Kute Blackson

Sometimes we get so focused on the fear, the negative, and the worst thing that might happen that we freak ourselves out that we forget the fourth question. That is the possibility of what amazing thing might happen? If I truly speak up, if I’m truly real, as I truly own my truth, and I live this truth, what incredible thing might happen? Yes, maybe I would break up, but I might click the space in my life for true love, for a real soul mate, for my true purpose to be able to emerge into my life or a new job.

Kute Blackson

I think the greatest gift we can give the world is not just what we do. Because we if we’re creating a life based on who we think we are, which is maybe, not our truth, you might achieve what you thought you wanted only to realize that what you thought you wanted is not what you wanted. It’s just what you thought you wanted based on who you thought you were, and it won’t fulfill you anyway.

But when you speak your voice, live your truth, and find yourself, you may not always be popular, but you’ll be true. Speaking your voice, being who you truly are, dare and bold, which takes a tremendous amount of courage, then you can truly align your goals and visions. It’s not based on anything else other than your real authentic heart’s truth. As a result, create an authentic life. It takes courage.

Kute Blackson

Yes.