#92 This week I catch up with my good mate Matt Omo of Omo Sound Journeys. We just got back from our first workshop on our national tour, so wanted to share our insights and learning from our recent workshop.
This is part #6 of the Let Go & Live In Flow podcast series. Some of the talking points we covered are:
– How enhancing your awareness can enhance your life
– Why this work can help you if you are already loving life
– Why awareness is key
– Learn the tools we use to enhance our awareness
If you want to explore this work more, then check out our 3-day retreat our national tour. If that isn’t an option, on the online Academy is a great place to start. Enjoy!
– Part #5 – Living An Inspired Life
– Part #4 – Developing and Trusting Our Intuition
– Part #3 – Embracing The Flow & The Future
– Part #2 – How To Move Past What’s Holding You Back
– Part #1 – 3 Steps To Gain Clarity On What’s Holding You Back
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About Matt: Matt Omo is a leader of the sound healing movement in Australia with over 15 years experience working with a variety of sound healing techniques bridging cultures and traditions from around the world. Matt holds a MA in Spiritual Psychology, Dip. of Sound Healing, Reiki Master, Certified Kundalini Yoga Teacher, trained Breathworker, with numerous certifications in other healing modalities. Matt is also the co-founder of Be Still & Chill Health and Wellness a respected and thriving health centre in the northern beaches of Sydney, Australia.
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TRANSCRIPT
Guy: Hi, I’m Guy Lawrence and you are listening to the Guy Lawrence podcast. If you’re enjoying this content and you want to find out more and join me and come further down the rabbit hole, make sure you head back to the guylawrence.com.au. Awesome guys. Enjoy the show.
Matt: Okay, now we’re talking. Now we’re looking good. Alright.
Guy: Beautiful welcome, what are you drinking?
Matt: No time for chitchat, man. Let’s get this going.
Guy: So we did, we did quickly chat before we went live on the phone. Um, and we decided to call this, enhance your awareness, upgrade your life experience.
Matt: Sounds good. Hey, enhancing. So please upgrade your life experience.
Guy: Yeah, so I’m as always being the host I’m hosting and I’m going to ask you to fire off the first question, but um, it’d be a great place to start is why we decided to put this little Facebook live together today, which will of course become a podcast a little bit further down the road as well. So let’s start.
Matt: Yeah. So was that a question you just posed to me to get going.
Guy: A kind of this a statement where you might as well rollers a question.
Matt: Okay. Tough start there. Um, yeah. Well just that Sunday we were down in Melbourne one way when you had a four day um, experience full house. Yeah. It was fantastic. Once in off the tour. Um, and I think both of you and I as, as this stuff, there’s this word grows, we just get more and more insights and um, you know, for me being in that group, there was a, it’s a handful of people that came to our retreats and then they brought their partners to the, the one day event. And that just excites the hell out of me because, you know, these are typically people that wouldn’t, you know, come and dive into the, the retreat experience or come to one of my sound healings. So a workshop or whatever. Yeah. And then they came and they come out the other end and they’re like “poom” bright eyed and like, whoa.
Matt: That was amazing. That was incredible. I feel like I’ve just, you know, like we said, upgraded my life and upgraded my experience, my awareness. And, um, and so for me, that’s always been my journey is how do I bring this to the masses, to the, to the mainstream mindset that, um, you know, it’s one thing to preach to the converted and to hang out with the, um, you know, angels, fairies, Mermaids, the hippies and the La lies and where the corvette and the bending, you know, all that stuff. But if we can’t bring it into real world experience, then I think we’re kind of missing the point in an essence where we’re creating a, um, another distraction for us in essence of what happens, you know? So, um, yeah. So I just, you know, I think both of you and I agreed that we should, um, put this out till suppose it actually didn’t get to, you know, and just like, let’s start just dispelling this belief that you have be a hippie La la, or you have to be broken.
Guy: You have to be broken to fix it.
Matt: To come to do personal development or to meditate even, you know, it’s like there’s no, no, let’s start. I mean I’ve always had this like, um, this idea that, you know, like across the planet in Western society, people will get up and brush their teeth, right. And then we’ll think twice about it. And so why are we not getting up and brushing our consciousness, you know, brushing our mind, clearing our mind with a meditation, you know, and until that’s a reality and our society is living from that space, I don’t think that we’re going to actually move in the progression or live to the potential that we actually are capable of. Yeah.
Guy: I see. I think with this work though, we tend to, um, cause we’re so busy in our lives and we get so distracted and there’s so many things we should be doing or we could change, we lose, we lose sight of that and, and then feels like half the time the people that are coming have just got to the breaking point, right? Yeah. Then they’re ready to look at it and change, you know, and it’s like, well, why wait? Like what was the event? What was the, you know, as you told me, you know, cause I said, it’s like, well, it’s like not eating healthy because your health is not suffering.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. So just go eat crap and then wait for it to break down just like, like your life and or, or prepare yourself and live more aligned so that you don’t have the breakdown. You don’t have the.
Guy: Totally. And the other thing I think about as well, when you look at it, because one of the big things is, is the way this can change us emotionally, uh, in a positive way, is that it’s like saying, well, I’m reasonably content and happy. Okay. Which is great and I’m all for that. But what about if that could unfold even deeper, even deeper states of happiness and love and joy and have experiences that we didn’t even know were there. But just because we’re not there, then we don’t, not aware of it. But it doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. So it’s like, why don’t we allow that into our life
Matt: Anyway? Hmm, absolutely. We’ll raise the bar. Right. You know, what’s, you know, what’s what you perceive as your top level happiness. Is there more levels that you can actually expand into? And once you’ve experienced something like that, then then your whole point of reference, your whole frame of reference shifts and then it’s like, oh, more aspects of my life can actually expand and grow and be enhanced. Yeah.
Guy: Yeah. So that was the first thing we want to address because that was obvious and then it was wonderful to see people, like you said, especially the partners, cause it’s generally the wives dragging along the husbands at this stage. I’ve yet to see it the other way. Oh No, I don’t think so. I haven’t anyway. No, it’s like it’s x month and then, but when, when they come, just because they’ve seen the changes in their paartner and you know, and care enough to be there, then see in those changes without actually, I think as well is probably sometimes the best experiences happening because you’ve got zero expectations and from those Zeros expectations, it allows you to actually go further sometimes, you know?
Matt: Well that’s it. Yeah. So just getting out of the everyday chatter in the everyday, you know, w well that’s what you talk about is his autonomic nervous system, right? Yeah. How we’re on autopilot through our lives. And so if you’re coming in and you don’t have an agenda and you’re slugging from, you know, what you would’ve done on that day and you have this space and to drop in and actually just be present with yourself. I mean, that’s the key of it all, isn’t it? Yeah. Just dropping in, having that space and gaining the awareness. Um, w what’s going on from me? What am I doing? You know, where am I holding tension? Where am I holding, you know, myself away from the, the, the joy, the happiness or more so than I want to experience in my life.
Guy: Yeah. That’s awesome. So how does then, like we’ve called it, enhance your awareness, upgrade your life experience. We kind of touching on that now, but I thought, let’s dive a little bit deeper on then. How does enhancing your awareness,
Guy: right,
Guy: begin to upgrade your life experience now? My first question, how would you describe awareness? Like how would you dive into that?
Matt: Well, I think, uh, yeah that’s, that’s a tough one to answer. What is awareness? Yeah, exactly. That was nice. Right? Thanks. You always send the questions this way, don’t, yeah. Um, I get that next time I hundred prepare my questions and just fling them back at. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, no. So awareness is, um, is how you perceive your experience. I would, I guess is your ability to, you know, observe yourself or be present with yourself and with your life, with your, you know, how, like for example, um, I don’t have an example of, you know, do you, do you realize that your holding intention in your job, do you realize that you’re holding your shoulders up when you’re sitting in your chair at work and like, you know, you come out of an office job with 10 hours of working in front of the computer and like, Oh, why is my, my next list or my jaws?
Matt: So tightness, like, well, cause you spent the whole day clenching and holding all that tension but you weren’t aware of or you weren’t conscious of it. And so, you know, that’s a physical kind of example of what awareness is or lack there of, and we do that all the time is that we, we spout things out of our mouth. We have reactions, we have emotions, we have thoughts, we have pattern conditioned, um, patterns and habits that we do over and over again. We just don’t pay attention to it. And so, you know, it’s about, it’s a tension. It’s so where’s your attention? Is your attention on external everything outside of yourself or are you actually observing how you are in yourself when you’re doing these things outside? Because you know, the, the, the Co, the, the source of all that is happening in your life or that your experience is, comes from within yourself.
Matt: How you feel about it, how you have experienced that, the, the emotions, the thoughts that everything that you have gone through in your life creates a lens that you then look through that becomes what you see outside of yourself. And so, so often we just only look at the outside. So we look on the other side of that Lens. We don’t actually look at the Lens. And so we try and change everything outside of it. We’re still looking through the dirty lens that we haven’t cleaned in 20 years. So it’s like, well, to me, awareness is what is actually going on and how much of the information that’s coming in in, am I actually paying attention to,
Guy: um, [inaudible]? Yeah, well I think about harder. It’s tough. One, but I think about being consciously aware of things, right? Cause we can, most of our time, we spend our time unconscious and, and we are placing our awareness unconsciously and so many things that become habits, routines and just behaviors that are constantly there. And for me, you know, where your place, your awareness is, where you place your attention, right? And the uh, what was I gonna say? I was actually going somewhere with this. So we can only process so much information at any one time. Like we are, we are able to place our attention, which is placed in our awareness anywhere. And like you say, that’s always constantly throw sensors, but externally through the Lens in which we look at, which can get clouded or the time by. And for me, that clouding that cloudiness can happen from our past experiences that are shaping us the way we perceive the situation and how we present and where replacing our awareness.
Guy: And the other thing as well about our awareness is that, so we might be only focusing on certain aspects that are continually reinforcing the way we perceive life constantly. But we could be missing out on so much more because we haven’t conditioned ourselves to shift our awareness or shift our focus and to other aspects of our lives that can be there the whole time. But we’re just not seeing it yet. Hence the enhancing aspect of it. Exactly. And for me, the greatest part that influences where we place our attention and awareness is the way we feel. And so often the feelings that we we have in our life can well practiced and well-rehearsed by the way. We live our life from our past experiences, which then influences a bias to how, where we place our awareness so we can, we can end up seeing and feeling the same things daily, continuously and reaffirming the lives that we currently have. And we just think that’s it.
Matt: Yeah, I think there’s a, there’s a collapse in down of our perception of reality in that, you know, we have these emotions, we have these feelings about things. And we said, well, that’s the way it is. But, but if you pull that apart, the only way you can have a feeling about anything that’s happening or any experience that’s going on is that you’ve interpreted it. So you’ve interpreted it based off of your, your life experience or your conditioned beliefs. And so when that gets collapsed down on reality, then that becomes a reality. And then you react into what you think is reality, but you’re actually reacting to a limitation within yourself. So there’s a, so the idea of enhancing your awareness and is to start to understand that, start to pull that apart and say, well know stuff just going on in life. People are doing what they’re doing, you know, they’re acting in the way that they are based on their experience. And then I’ve layered my story on top. And so if I can be more aware and Hansen, my awareness, then I can pull that apart and then go to the source of what it is that’s causing me to experience life in the way that I am and change it. Oh is that, that’s gold. That’s exactly right.
Guy: And then that’s what’s happening at the workshops. Cause we were, we were able to, people retreat for the day or even at the retreats for three days, which obviously can go deeper and further, but even on the one day workshops, it’s enough time to get them out to that.
Matt: Yeah, you come all the, all this, the Sim, the familiarity that we have in our lives and the distractions that are going on, they get pulled away from and have an opportunity then where you just left with yourself, aren’t you? And that’s what we do with the meditations, with the sound journeys, with, with all the works through the day. The breath are absolutely the breath as this come back in. Come back in. [inaudible] ran under the hood. Yeah, yeah, yeah man. You’re clearly getting the sound effects to them. Well I just had this image of like, you know, you take your car in for a, for a service, you know, you’re driving and it’s like you wouldn’t, you wouldn’t try and go and like if there’s the cars not handling properly, you wouldn’t just go around everywhere that you’re driving and fix the road, which you would take the car in. And say, oh, the cord is not working properly, but what are we doing on lies? We go around, we’re trying to fix everything that we’re running into instead of actually going and taking ourselves in for a service, which is meditation breathwork, which is sound is, you know, that inner awareness and awareness within. So yeah.
Guy: And then, and then that’s when the cleaning of the lens comes cause it’s coming from externally because it’s literally like you’re saying, getting all the way back to what’s the source of that that’s influencing the way you’re perceived in that given situation. Because like we say at the workshop as well, what we see is not truth. It’s how we perceive it to be true. And there’s a relative and there’s a big difference there. You know? And if we can then start to collapse that source of what is, um, influencing the way people perceive any given situation moment by moment and become more consciously aware and start taking that back into the life. Then as those moments arrive, you can actually start to look at it at a different level of mind of what might’ve created from your past experiences of the old patterns and old behaviors that would normally respond in the same way in that moment, which then keeps perpetuate and your circumstances and the way you’re living your life at this any given time. But the moment you catch yourself and you can see that and you can start to see it with a different level of mind, then that’s going to influence the way you make a decision right there. And this, it’s gonna influence your actions and then there can change your whole trajectory.
Matt: Critical. All right though, cause you know, we’re talking about this perception and enhancing our awareness and I think a lot of people are like, well what does it matter? You know, I’ve, I’ve got my to do list, I’ve got my responsibilities, I’ve got it. You know, I’m going about my life. I can just do it better and better. I can just, you know, get clear on what I want to do. It’s like, why do I have to go back and get into awareness? And that’s because of what you just said. You know, it’s, it’s up. Uh, leveling that perception up, leveling that, that place that we’re in within ourselves as we then make decisions so we can make clearer, more, um, aligned and authentic decisions that then lead to the choices and the actions that we take in our lives that then create a much more aligned experience of life than if we were.
Guy: And, and this is one of the biggest things that scared me long a while back, but years ago and as I was learning this work and I really started to hone in is like, am I keeping myself just busy or my truly living life?
Matt: Yeah. And I knew what the answer was. Of course, you just look at society and you see that. See it just it’s, it’s a disease, you know, but
Guy: you know, and, and, and from that place it, this then allow me to go, that’s it and I’m, I’m, I’m pivoting. I really want to start to literally live life. And that’s where I think the flow really starts to then come into this work and it gives you the confidence to do it because the more you do it, and like we discussed as well I was looking at like we upgrade and circuitry within the body. We’re allowing ourselves to have new reference points. But then because we forget that we have systems within the body that need to carry information and pass information on and we’ve got a nervous system that’s sending information across your body, scanning your body any given second, like there’s millions upon millions of processes constantly happening. But if we not used to perceiving I’m feeling a certain way, then we’re not going to have the circuitry to run.
Guy: Like it’s just not going to happen. And this works for me. Then starts really developing and all of a sudden we’re actually training the body to, to know what it feels like to actually have more love in your life. Cause it to feel like you got to produce a home on, to have a love or joy, happiness. Like there’s always these chemical processes. So I started to think about then as I start cultivating more of these states, my body gets addicted to that and, and then that’s where, but you’re making choices from those states and that’s a huge difference. Cause then you, you’re, you’re, you have a very positive biased on life. And for me that’s what the business has done to let go of that and literally just go, well today’s another gift. How am I going to live today? How can we enjoy it? Like you are this morning, let’s jump on Facebook live. I share this, let’s do this. And it’s like cool. Yeah. Cause it’s in alignment and it feels good and we have fun doing it
Matt: and yeah. Then yeah, the, the long game too is that, I just think that, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re coming back to Sydney. Okay. So Sydney is like, so there’s so much chaos, there’s so much like, and like I can’t even, I can’t even back out of a parking spot because cars are discs and no one’s going to even wait for me. Right. And I’m like, Geez, let me just get out of the car spot. You know? And it’s like, because we’re also like just unknown. Most of them unaware and on, you know, and just distracting ourselves. Just move. I’ve got to get to here. You got to get here. And you missed all of life with those blinders. And it’s like, to me it’s just disheartening is it’s so disheartening to see this world that we continually perpetuate, you know? And that with these, these simple tools and that we offer through the work that we’re doing.
Matt: And it gives people that opportunity then to be more authentic and more kind to themselves that then ultimately creates a more kind and aware authentic world. And in our, I’m just so conscious of that, that, that, that’s something that just really, I think, you know, it’s like some, we can go around around about the government issues. We can go around and around about, you know, cultural issues in society, financial issues, like, you know, you name it, we’ve hit it as this is the reason why society is our humanity is crashing and burning. And um, and the truth of it is this, it’s just that it starts within, it starts with each one of us and that you know, that the crashing and burning is going on inside every one of us. And that’s the microcosm of this macrocosm that we then look at and blame for the reason why things are not functioning and, and thriving as, as we’re meant to be. So that’s why it’s like I’m so excited about it and I get on this to Facebook live, it’s put out there of us just get it. Cause we have within our capacity to live much more to a higher potential, to a higher capacity as, as people on this planet. And I mean that’s just my overarching drive through all of this, you know?
Guy: Totally. And the thing, and I keep looking back upon how I used to perceive this stuff too now than moving through it and embodying it. And now trying to pass that wisdom on that I’ve learned over the years. And you write and, and what you just said there can be, can be kind of so easy to dismiss. Oh yeah. Enhance our lives. You know, I’ll do that next year, I’ll do it when I’m less busy and I’ve got a bit more time to, to fit it in. You know, and, and we, we just continued denying ourselves of these experiences. And the way I look at it is like why not gives things try something different. Why not explore different avenues even if it’s not with us, but with, with something just start to, to break, to break the, um, I don’t know the stigma around it even.
Guy: Cause ultimately if we want to see any kind of change in other people, whether it be our family or friends or, or, or strangers or the way like society is, we have to, we have to be the catalyst for that within our circles. Like we have to be the change you want to see now. There’s no doubt about it, you know, and we’re always waiting for someone else to happen. Always waiting for an external thing to come in and an interrupter and man, my messages is why, why wait? You know? Well, yeah, exactly right. Yeah. I went deep for us deep by where it’s true. It’s true. I’m really proud of what we do and, and, and you know, from what we witnessed in Melbourne the weekend and just, just within one day it’s, it’s really powerful shit and it’s, and it’s, and everyone leaves there with a huge smile on their face with a lot of light bulbs in our heart moments and everyone walks in a little bit wary of us and what are these guys going to do with us? How’s it going, you know, and, and that, and nothing gives me more greater joy. What happens Sunday? It was so much fun. So, you know, I didn’t even have to put a turban on and dance around the room naked. No, no, it didn’t go down wells in the last workshop. So yeah. This, this keeps the pubs support. Right?
Guy: Exactly. Exactly. Um, so just to wrap up what we kind of talked about then, and it’s always good. It’s always good to give takeaways for people, right? And they might be here and they might’ve listened, listened to a podcast or our conversation before it might be solution is time. I have no idea. But, um, couple of slit, a couple of suggestions then how we can enhance our awareness on a daily basis. Just to start the, you just go away today and go, right, I’m gonna I’m going to give this a go. See what these cats are on the bone. That’s, it’s, it’s, it’s simple. Um, I think I’m just trying, like there’s, in my mind, I’m thinking practices that just like snowballing. So the very simplest thing is like you can just set you such a Crock, set your phone to paying every hour and then an hour just say, well,
Matt: what am I feeling? You know, w what am I feeling right now? And just simple like that. And you just start to pay attention to your emotions and then that’s gonna start to enhance your awareness of what’s going on. Because how, how often do we, like we almost never go in through our day. We probably go through weeks before we actually acknowledge what we’re feeling.
Matt: and that just causes you to slow down, drop in,
Matt: and just check in with yourself despite what’s going on under the hood, what’s, what’s actually happening and the feeling, where’s my body, where’s my breath?
Matt: Just stop.
Matt: Stop feeling listening as what I used to say.
Guy: See. Yeah, right. So flop and drop. That was another one that just like, she just let the body go. Like if you’re holding tension and I just, cause that’s, if you hold tension that’s going to be firing that signals to your brain. Tension, tension tests, learn stress, boom, boom, stress, Canton scanning the situation. And for me, I love just asking the question, especially when something happens or somebody might say something the wrong way or you know, or I’ve taken something on or, or just something, whether it’s, you know, I mean shit gets thrown at us every day. Right? Um, I love to just try and catch myself cause the thoughts start going the, you know, the anger, right? Or whatever it is and just go stop for a moment. Breathe and just go, is this real right now? Like is uh, is this, is this true?
Guy: So am I just perceiving this a certain way? Cause this is how I react and respond every time something like this happens. And just interrupting that allows me to try and diffuse something and just try and see things for what they are. And then I normally then make a decision outside of my head that comes from my heart than just this reactionary thing that could then cause a lot more drama or a lot more circumstances than I just perpetuate that to move on, you know? So, so for me as well. So that’s then coming back to enhancing your awareness. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What was it you said in the worksite? Reminds me of the, um, the, the thing you said, um, but how, how would love, what would love, what would love to, yeah, so simple. Yeah. And going through choices, actions, what would love to, yeah. And that w would you rather be right. So happy. Such good ones. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, they kind of, they come out now and then they come on pivot points. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to add with what we’ve covered?
Guy: Before.
Matt: I think we hit it.
Guy: We wrap it up.
Matt: I think you know, just just in summary, like it’s, um, yeah, there’s this, you have a wealth of resource within yourself to actually change to the vices for having sensitive, more raised the bar of happiness or raise the bar of joy in your experience.
Guy: Yeah.
Matt: Just that’s what it’s all about.
Guy: Yeah. And you don’t have to be broken, not broken anyway you know.
Matt: You don’t have to be broken. You don’t have to. Yeah.
Guy: And uh, yeah, as far as Hansen. But look, we’ve, we’ve, and for anyone, um, that, let’s listen to this for the first time or looking at this, cause like I said, we are podcasts. We’ve got, got the Brisbane workshop coming up 21st to September, Saturday. We’ve got stuff going on in October in Sydney, Canberra. We, uh, we Sydney twice and we’ve got New Castle.
Guy: Um, they are the five destinations left over the next month. I’ve actually put a link in this Facebook live where they can click through to that. You are, uh, if I have, um, a seven minute high coherence meditation as another place free one on my website, you have a, um, a meditation on your website. They’re great places to start.
Matt: Absolutely.
Guy: You know. So, um, take action. Do something,
Matt: do something.
Guy: Get amongst it.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. Right.
Guy: Beautiful. Yeah, likewise legend.
Matt: All right. Thanks.
Guy: Thanks mate. And hopefully see a few guys in Brisbane soon.
Matt: See you guys cheers.