Awakening Your Inner Truth with Michael Thornhill

Jennifer Norman:
Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self, love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they're doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
What if the truth you've been seeking isn't out there, but already within you, quietly waiting to be remembered? Today's episode is one that will start your spirit and awaken your inner knowing. We are so honored to welcome Michael Thornhill, co founder of Inner Truth Seekers. A gifted intuitive, trauma coach, conscious leadership and business coach, non dual teacher and channel alongside his incredible wife and co founder Jamie. Michael helps people all around the globe break free from self doubt, reconnect with their deepest truth and live boldly in service to love. What sets Michael apart is his powerful integration of non dual consciousness with trauma informed care. A sacred fusion that allows us to recognize that we are not broken, but brilliantly whole. His message is revolutionary in its simplicity. You are already free. Your authentic self isn't something to become, it's who you already are.

Jennifer Norman:
Through personal transformation, intuitive guidance, conscious leadership and the Inner Truth Seekers Academy, Michael and Jamie help people not only heal and awaken, but also rise into their full potential as leaders, creatives and change makers in a world that deeply needs them. In this episode you'll gain profound insights into how to radically shift your relationship with pain. Why non dual awakening is key to lasting transformation. What it truly means to lead and serve from your soul's essence and how to anchor into your truth with unshakable self trust. So take a deep breath, settle in and prepare for a heart expanding conversation that just might change the way you see yourself and the world forever. Let's welcome Michael Thornhill to the show.

Jennifer Norman:
Welcome Michael. How are you today?

Michael Thornhill:
Hi Jennifer. Thank you so much for that beautiful introduction. It's great to be here. Hi everyone. Nice to be with you.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes. And today you are joining us from Peru. You are soon to be heading to the UK to do some amazing work. I would love to start with a little bit of your own personal awakening. What you to this work as a trauma coach non dual teacher. That might be a little bit of a new term for a lot of people. Tell us if there was a moment that shifted everything for you and about your past.

Michael Thornhill:
Yeah, that's a great question. We share is through direct experience, through transforming our own lives, and then helping many other people along the way over the last eight plus years or so. But for me, my journey really began when I was struggling with addiction. I was very successful running my own business, renewable energy recruitment business. But I had a lot of trauma in my past that I wasn't aware of. I was not aware of the trauma that was underneath the addictions. I just thought that I was addicted to different things. And many people don't realize that the reason that they gravitate towards what you might call self medicating is because there's pain underneath all of that.

Michael Thornhill:
So I could say that really, to kind of summarize it, there were a few different events in my life that caused me to change the way that I saw the world. I say one of the most profound things was actually beginning to work for myself and starting my own business. This because that immediately takes away a lot of the constructs of what we have in terms of our day to day life and what we need to do and how we have to show up and all these other types of things. We start to become more free. But simultaneously, during that time, my mother passed away. She'd been ill my whole life. She passed away. And that was a real catalyst for me to start looking at what that pain was, what the pain was underneath the addictions, and how I could perhaps transform my life.

Michael Thornhill:
Long story short, the kind of inner journey to my own inner truth is taking me around the world, to India, Nepal, Peru. Having lots of different internal inquiries and learning lots of different things, unlearning even more things and kind of bringing me to where I am today, which is worked through, I would say, a vast amount of the trauma. I always think that there's still different levels and layers that maybe appear to us, but they don't have that level of hold upon us, that they don't affect us like they used to. But in essence, really the work that we offer is about coming home to your inner truth and how important that is as we begin to express ourselves in this world and we navigate this world and why we came to this earth and to start uncovering the magic about what our soul's blueprint has, what it has to teach us and what we have to offer in the world.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, this sounds so fascinating. I think that a lot of people can really relate to the idea that sometimes it just feels like we're going through the motions. And sometimes it's almost like, well, we know we're not supposed to be doing something, but we do it anyway. There's like this compulsion to do something. And a lot of us do ignore why we do certain things that we do, why we've created the lives that we have. And then we kind of look up and we're like, how did I get here? Why am I like this? There's a lack of recognition for that unconscious movement towards something that may not necessarily be in alignment with where you really want to be. So I'm curious, you named your business the Inner Truth Seekers. And that is so meaningful.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm curious, like, what does inner truth mean to you? And we talk about this dualistic approach and you're talking about being a non dual teacher. Tell us what it means to be, to have this inner truth and what it means to live a dual life versus a non dual life.

Michael Thornhill:
Yeah. Beautiful. I love those words, Jennifer. In terms of inner truth, firstly I would say that inner truth is something that's unique to everyone. So for me to share what my inner truth is, and I'll course will do where everyone's inner truth is unique and it's an investigation that's deeply personal and it's something that we have to discover for ourselves. But there can be different pointers along the way of the path that reflect back to us, a deeper sense of who we truly are. And that's really what our work is. It's about reflecting back and helping people to discover that for themselves.

Michael Thornhill:
It's not about what our inner truth is. It's about helping you to discover that because we're all so unique. That's the beauty of life, is there's so much diversity that we have, and we've all come here with a different mission, a different kind of purpose, a different soul's calling. And when we can learn to trust that above what the outside noise or above what the media, or above what the kind of collective societal systems would say that we're here to do, when we find that out for ourselves, that's deeply powerful and it helps transform the world. The big part of the work that we do at Inner Truth Seekers is helping people be an active participant in the planetary shift towards love. And as everyone discovers their own inner truth and they learn to express that with confidence and excitement, that begins to change and transform the world around us. So that's a part of my inner truth, what I've shared There. But if I kind of go deeper into that, into the non dual aspect, in other words, non duality or non dualism means the oneness of all things.

Michael Thornhill:
Duality means two or separation. So if we go really deep into inner truth, in my experience, the deepest inner truth is that there is no separation between you and I. There's no separation between me and the world. There's no separation between the laptop and the webcam or the speaker and the sky and the grass. It's all one thing. And the illusion of physical reality which we experience is simultaneously deeply purposeful. It's not to bypass the human experience. It's to be aware of our infinite nature whilst expressing ourself in this world so that we can love, learn and grow together.

Michael Thornhill:
So to kind of summarize that the deeper that we go with our own inner truth, there becomes less separation between everything. And then as we have our own soul blueprint or our own individuation and why we come here, there's so many different facets of what that inner truth really means, why we come here, what we're excited about, and how to harness and anchor that inner wisdom so that it guides us through this crazy thing that we called life that sometimes is completely confusing and sometimes seems pointless, and sometimes it's frustrating, and sometimes it's blissful and exciting and beautiful and then instantaneously can flip on its head without a moment's notice. So that inner truth really is returning to that infinite state of consciousness and allowing that infinite wisdom to flow through in every aspect of our life as best we can.

Jennifer Norman:
That's so intriguing because I think that a lot of what we have learned here on Earth is that we are on a dualistic plane. There's no light without darkness. There's no good without evil. There's no up without down. And there's these comparisons and contrasts. And that's what our training has been on, that's what we've learned, and that's how we associate with matters of the world. So how is it that if there's this consciousness or this recognition that we are all one, how does that eliminate suffering? Or how does that help us to kind of come to more alignment with what our true soul blueprint is?

Michael Thornhill:
Well, that's great awareness. And yes, this earth consciousness experience is third density Earth experience, which is based in the illusion of separation. Where we come here as a soul, we forget our infinite nature, we have amnesia, and then we have this experience where we're interacting and we're going around in the world as this separate individual, which in itself I believe is inherently traumatic. The fact that we believe that we're separate. So in my work through trauma, transformation and non duality and all the other work that we offer, the recognition that the primary or inherent trauma is the belief that we're separate. So in terms of your question, how that can help transform suffering, if we have not just intellectual or like a mantra and say we're all one, if we have these direct awarenesses through direct inquiry and practice, when we have an awareness that we are one, then the experience of separation can be less traumatic or difficult or full of suffering. Because we're anchored in the awareness that we are already whole, we are already free, that this experience doesn't actually harm us in any way. Now when we start talking about non duality, it can get very kind of dense quite quickly.

Michael Thornhill:
And I also want to make sure that when we're talking about this, it's not to bypass the human experience. The suffering that experienced on earth is real. The trauma that that we've experienced is real. It's not to say that this is not real, but it is also to say that there is something else that's what you might describe, more true perhaps, which is our true nature. So the way I like to kind of describe this is when you have a dream at night and you go to sleep and then you have all these things that happen in your dream and say that perhaps it was a little bit of a nightmare and then there's something with someone chasing you or something, you're like, oh my gosh. And then you wake up and you recognize, oh, okay, I'm not affected by the dream. So essentially what we're kind of pointing towards here is this physical reality experience that we experience is the dream. And our true self is more like the dreamer that is beyond the dream.

Michael Thornhill:
So the experiences that happen in the dream, we're not affected by. So in terms of how we harness that to live our life, it's not about bypassing the experience, it's about being fully human, but not becoming lost in the human experience.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, it's almost like taking a higher level perspective or a higher order perspective. Being able to remove yourself a little bit from a lot of the pain or the emotional aspects of feeling so integrated into that as being something that has defined you, because it's not necessarily something that does define you. It is something that may have occurred. There's a different way of looking at it which may help to weave in a bit more strength and a bit more understanding of the Whole of your whole entity and how vast and how large you are compared to that trauma. And so perhaps it's a bit of a reframing that you take people through. Is there a certain process or is there a certain way of helping people to recognize this and really believe it deep down in their souls?

Michael Thornhill:
Yeah. In terms of transformation that people go through, there's varying different levels and stages. And how it often starts with someone who wants to heal trauma is that it doesn't go often straight to the non dual realms, but there is the process that people who work with me go through, which almost seems paradoxical in its essence, because the first thing that we're doing is we're becoming aware that we have a body, that we are a human. We're becoming aware of, okay, I have feelings stored here. I have feelings stuck in my body. I'm coming back to feeling all these things that I've numbed out or that I've turned away from. So we're coming back into this feeling of everything. And like, how the kind of non dual trauma transformation really, I would say differs from traditional trauma healing methodologies is most trauma healing methodologies, traditionally they kind of stop and they're like, okay, well, this human's had this experience.

Michael Thornhill:
We're going to help the human process these experiences. We're going to do this as best as possible, and then the human will go on and live a kind of moderately happy life, hopefully after they've processed these things. But what can happen is that people can get stuck at the level of healing or transforming trauma, because that becomes a process that provides a moderate level or a decent amount of relief. And it's a very valuable part of that process. And that is part of the process of trauma healing. But when we become identified with the person who has been traumatized, we become identified as a traumatized person. We live our life as a traumatized person. And we don't necessarily graduate to the next level of experience, which is the understanding that, oh, wow, I am not this body, I am not this human personality.

Michael Thornhill:
I am something beyond that. And then when you start to tune into that infinite aspect of yourself and view the traumatized person as a part of an individuation of something of the whole, there is less of a energetic imprint that remains because you are now no longer identified with this smaller version of you that has been impacted by the trauma. So to explain it a little bit more, like if you feel like the trauma like we used, like think of a fish tank, and the fish tank has a piece of driftwood in it. And your experience of who you think you are is the size of the fish tank. And that trauma is a big piece of driftwood that is just kind of like stuck in the body. And then you see yourself as this, the fish tank and the water that's in the fish tank. And then that log or that, that driftwood takes up a really big portion of your experience or your life. So when we start shifting into non dual awakening and realization and we expand our consciousness beyond this kind of human self, it's more like you become an infinite ocean of awareness.

Michael Thornhill:
So that log is then so small, if you think about a small piece of driftwood in an infinite ocean, it has less impact. So there's two angles really which we can work with to start transforming trauma. One is all the work that I offer is very somatic based and kind of working with the feelings in the body and kind of transforming those, but then bringing in non duality very, very gently and easily into the process. And then the other aspect is this recognition of this infinite self because then you're less affected by it because you're less identified. But one practice that everyone can do right now is invitation to tune into the love that's always here, whether you're aware of it or not. So just invite you just to tune into the love that's always here, whether you're aware of it or not. And any time that you maybe feel like there's some stressful situations that are coming up, I just invite you to come back to this gentle practice of tuning into the love that's always here, whether you're aware of it or not. And just notice how your relationship to the experience transforms.

Jennifer Norman:
That is really intriguing. I'm wondering for those who have gone through traditional therapy or have thought about it this. You've certainly painted a picture which is dramatically different than what a traditional therapist might offer or even some sort of life coaches which don't have this soulful spiritual angle. So what you're offering is quite unique. I think that it is something that more people who are looking to figure out what is that something more? What is that calling? And before it might have been a calling towards religion or some sense of community. But I think that one of the greatest things that we can do is have a greater understanding of our own selves, of our own spirituality, of our own uniqueness in the resonance that we have in the world. And surely there's also this notion like one size doesn't fit all. There are certainly times where I know when I think about the vastness of the cosmos.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm like, everything is just so insignificant. All these things that I worry about. There's really no reason for me to sweat the small stuff at all because like, think about this blip in time is just. It really amounts to nothing. And therefore my problems are really small. And then yet on the other hand, I'm like, look how powerful and look how majestic we are and look how important we are. So it's really, it's like this really interesting zooming in and zooming out and almost utilizing those perspectives to your advantage in order to be able to get to a place of balance. Depending on what your needs are or depending on where that sense of healing needs to come from.

Jennifer Norman:
How do you sense is the right way to approach somebody who like, for example, somebody might be going through depression, they might be lonely, they might say, I don't feel any love around me. You're telling me that there's love around me. I feel completely alone. How does one start to address something like that versus another person that has just got this grandiose thoughts of just self importance and is blasting relationships left and right because they just can't necessarily flex to somebody else's wants or needs that's in their lives. It's a real kind of a tight navigation that you might have to do in order to get to know an individual and where they are and what would be best for them in terms of understanding their. Their own soul blueprint.

Michael Thornhill:
Yeah. So I think, you know, the first thing is, as you've already alluded to, Jennifer, is there is no one size fits all process. And many different types of traditional therapy can be really beneficial. Something that I've definitely benefited from in my life. So there's never any one size fits all approach. And what we always say is take what resonates from our work and leave what doesn't. It's up for you to find your own inner truth and what resonates. And you bring up a really great point in terms of what often that can be a point of contention or a difficult aspect of our life is that we feel isolated and alone.

Michael Thornhill:
We don't really feel like we're connected to other people. So essentially what this practice is, it's not telling you that there's love around you, it's inviting you to discover it for yourself. So if you're looking around in the world and if you've had a lot of trauma or negative or difficult experiences in your life, the way that you view the world often can Be one that's maybe dark and depressing because that's been your experience of life. So part of that practice and of course that one guided through, through our trauma informed care and helping support people through their process and acknowledging and supporting any emotions that are arising. What you're essentially doing is you're changing your viewpoint, you're tuning into something else. It's almost like say that you went to a hotel and there was windows on each side of the hotel and you look out one window and there's just another building that's just straight next to it and it's just, you can't see out the window and it's completely blocked from the view. And you go, oh, well, I just keep looking out this window and it's just boring and it's depressing. It's boring and it's depressing.

Michael Thornhill:
Oh my gosh, what am I doing in this hotel? But that process of tuning into the love that's always here, whether we are aware of it or not, is like going over to the other side and going, oh wow, there's a beautiful balcony here with a sunshine view and I can see the sunset. What you're training yourself to start doing is to tune into something that is beyond your human experience. What has occurred in your life or the traumas that you might have experienced that's causing the depression is part of the human experience. So as we go into an awareness of the non dual aspect or infinite self, what we're essentially doing is we're tuning into more of the non human aspect of us. So if we have all the issues and the traumas and the problems that occurred in our human life, we're not bypassing it because there is feelings and emotions to process, which is part of the process. But what we're doing is we're starting to approach the problem from a different viewpoint. We're changing the angle, we're changing our relationship to our experience so that we don't feel overcome or overwhelmed by the experience. We give ourselves an opportunity to have that different perspective.

Michael Thornhill:
And in my experience, that perspective is simply a truer aspect of who we really are. If we get stuck into this identity of our human conditioning and our trauma, we do become a product of our environment, we do become a victim of circumstance. And now I know everyone's gone through different situations and not necessarily saying that it's easy and you can just flick a switch and change it, but it's also possible that that can happen, that you can have a radical change of your well being by Simply recognizing that this experience which I'm having doesn't truly define who I am. Often we feel limited by experiences and traumas and situations that were completely out of our control and we don't know how to change and transform. But what the non dual approach is, it's offering a portal to you to begin to access the other part of that can go, ah, wow. It's not truly who I am that's having this experience, this human experience is temporary, it doesn't define me. And just instantaneously having that shift can often bring a great level of shift and transformation.

Jennifer Norman:
You also coach leaders, entrepreneurs. I'm curious because there's always this feeling like, okay, leaders, entrepreneurs in a business is so different from having a soul. It's very much transactional and perhaps not necessarily something that really gets entangled with spirituality. But I'm curious, how does intuition and what you help in terms of your coaching, how does that play into soul led business and leadership today?

Michael Thornhill:
Yeah, well, thank you for asking. The first thing is part of the work that we do in a truth seekers is to help you understand your life's mission and your soul's mission. And then there's a recognition that your life and your work aren't separate, they are not separate things. But often we view our life and our work as separate things, which can in sometimes be an indication that perhaps we're not fully embodied in our soul's mission if we have this separation between who we think we are and what we prefer and then what we do for our business or our work. So one part of that process is really bringing everything together. Another part of the process is actually deprogramming what the idea of spirituality and business actually means. Because there's so much different ideas and programming about what it means to be spiritual, which really are just human words that have been taken on as the truth, which are not really true. And then we have this framework of what it means to be spiritual, which is also one of the founding principles of Inner Truth Seekers.

Michael Thornhill:
It's for you to find out what your inner truth is itself. So one of our kind of top offerings that we offer, which we're just actually launching out to our founding members, is amalgamation of all the work that we've been doing. And it's the Inner Truth Seekers Academy, which is a multidimensional learning community for heart led or heart centered entrepreneurs, conscious leaders, purpose driven change makers who want to fully live and embody their soul's mission, but simultaneously amplifying their authenticity, their impact and their abundance as they fully and boldly step into service to others. So this is about really helping people who recognize, hey, I'm here to be an active participant in this planetary shift towards love. I'm here to align my life and my work into something that positively contributes to the planetary shift. So really when we start to go through these personal transformations, it's so often the case. And it definitely was the case for me, it was for my wife, and it is for so many other people that we've helped over the years. There's this turning point that goes, oh, I'm feeling better.

Michael Thornhill:
I'm feeling like I understand more about my life, my incarnation, my experience. I've worked through some of the trauma I understand and more about kind of the multidimensional aspects of being. I want to help other people. And that's just kind of just such a natural inclination as a soul that people who incarnate at this time go through these different challenges, trials and tribulations and on the other side of that, they have something to share with the world. But that intersection, what you've already just said, Jennifer, and sometimes like business and the way especially that most of it's taught online is soulless, that says you have to post on Instagram this many times a day and you have to do this and you have to do this and you have to do this, you have to do all these different things and if you don't do these things, it's not going to work. And that just becomes another belief system that we add into our system and really some of the most profound things that we can do as a conscious business owner or a change maker or someone who's working to transform their own life and help others along the way. Whatever level it might be, whether you're working for yourself or you're working for someone else, is to start understanding the effects that the trauma has had in our belief systems that we're here and what we're able to impact other people. So this whole transformation of helping people firstly understand their soul blueprint, why they came to earth, how to transform trauma access, these non dual states of consciousness and then how grounded and practical ways in terms of to find your own unique brand voice, to be able to communicate this with other people, and authentic soul aligned marketing strategies that not only help you amplify your authenticity and your impact and your abundance, but feels good doing it because it's your own sole blueprint.

Michael Thornhill:
So if we say there's one way to run a business, it's just not true. That's what the soul's blueprint as it comes in. It already has this access to the abundance that's already available to us. We just begin aligning our lives and shifting our lives to it by fully embodying our soul's purpose and service to others.

Jennifer Norman:
I can attest to the fact that that works in that my career path had been very much the series of going through the motions, feeling like, okay, I'll get this job, I'll get the next promotion. And a lot of times people are working for a paycheck or they're working for some sort of reason and not necessarily feeling completely aligned with the work, quote unquote, the career path that they're on, and the fact that they have all these other desires that are really just more something that would light them up from the soul's perspective if they haven't necessarily been able to integrate that. And for the longest time, I hadn't been able to integrate that. I was able to take that leap, be able to create and design the life that I wanted to that was based upon fulfillment, meaningfulness to me. And the universe provides. It's not like it comes easy. A lot of people worry, how am I going to pay the rent? How am I going to pay the mortgage? I've got kids' mouths to feed. And there is a lot of fear that goes around that decision.

Jennifer Norman:
But replacing that fear and just like dissipating the fear and leaning more towards love, not even leaning, it's just like letting the love flow through you in your embodied service to the world works. It's really the dysfunction of what I think that our society has built. Unfortunately, a lot of people feel trapped and they feel a lack of agency in controlling how they spend every moment of their lives, how they're able to create and design a life that they truly love. A lot of people feel burdened and almost slavishly in service to another rather than feeling free to serve from a place of love and from their own true gifts. And so there is this battle within themselves, even at the career level, let alone trauma. And all of that completely adds another layer of complexity to, you know, to feeling bogged down and a lot of baggage. But yeah, that's a lot to contend with, and it's a lot for our audience to pause and ponder right now is do you really feel like you are living a life that is truly in service to what your gifts are in alignment with, what lights you up and brings you enthusiasm, where your soul feels lifted and energized every day? If it's not, then, yeah, these are where these kinds of questions come in and that you can ask yourself, maybe there's something bigger and better waiting for you and maybe it's inside you just waiting to come out.

Michael Thornhill:
Beautifully said, Jennifer. And I think to anyone who's pondering that question, what I'd invite you to do if you want, is you can sign up for our eight day Inner Truth Immersion, which is completely free. So you go to our website, innertruthseekers.com and we'll take you through some guided exercises and meditations that really help you to start get in tune with your own soul blueprint and kind of accessing your inner truth and just some really simple guidance, guided steps. And so if you feel like connecting with us in that way, that can certainly help you.

Michael Thornhill:
And I also wanted to ask you, because I think it's such a beautiful share that you just shared with us all there. Can I ask you, what do you feel like was like the pivotal moment for you where things started to come together, where in everything you've just shared that your relationship to your life's work and being of service, that shifted for you? What was that pivotal moment for you?

Jennifer Norman:
There were not only days, not only months, but years of feeling like no amount of money is worth putting up with this. Like there were times where I just felt so... Like it was so hard to wake up and get out of bed because I just felt like it was such a struggle. And not that the, I mean the job was great. There were things about it that I truly enjoyed and loved, but I just felt that there was a lack of purpose, a lack of intention. It felt very superficial. I was in the beauty industry for years and years and years. And there got to be a point where I'm like, if I have to try to convince a woman that she's not enough in order for her to buy this product and for somebody to say, well, how can we get people to buy more of our stuff even if they don't need it because we need to get people to buy more...

Jennifer Norman:
Like, it just sat so, like it started to really weigh on my consciousness about the way that business had typically been done and the metrics that we used to use in order to quantify success. And it just started to make me feel a bit ill. And it wasn't until I realized that I had come across so many great people that were making so many dysfunctional decisions. I was like, I have got to escape this. I've got to get away from it. And I've got to build something on my own. I've got to do it on my own.

Jennifer Norman:
And frankly, I just wanted to be able to live a life where I could spend time with my family. Where I could spend time doing the things that I loved and not feel that I was constantly under the pressure of deadlines. And so I founded The Human beauty movement in 2019. And I think at first, I went through a lot of the different cycling of how to start a business, how to put together a business plan, how to put together a forecast, all of those things. And it wasn't until, I think, during COVID when the world shut down and it made everybody just take pause and really reflect on the important things in life and had a little bit more space to meditate and to be more conscientious. And I also had some personal experiences which really drew me into really seeking deeper meaning and clarity and purpose and intention in my life. And so I did probably a good several years' work during that time until I got to the place where I was like, you know what? I absolutely love my life now. I absolutely, every single day, I am so grateful for being here, being able to be of service.

Jennifer Norman:
I feel so aligned with what I'm doing, being able to have this podcast and talk to magnificent souls such as yourself and get these confirmations that there is something more that we are intended to be. And a lot of times when we are in this... In this human form, and it's called The Human Beauty Movement for a reason, because we are humans, but we are so much more than that. We are these beautiful souls and, you know, sparks of stars and energy that have come here to cohabitate and to raise the vibration of this planet, certainly, and to understand what that really means. And I do feel that, yeah, there's so much light to be shown because, yeah, there's a lot of parts of the world that are really lost and suffering and hurting right now. And in many cases, I feel it is deepening. There's so many beautiful and good things, but a lot of times the attention goes where the crises are, and so people get burdened and bogged down by that.

Jennifer Norman:
And we're here to remind people that that's not what life is all about. These things happen. And we're here to really just see the better way of having people feel so much joy in their own lives so that they can then resonate and have that joy spill out to others and inspire others, you know, just like catalyzing this goodness that does raise the vibration and move the planet towards love.

Michael Thornhill:
That's so beautiful. Well, great job in taking all those steps. I know that from personal experience, it can be really challenging, it can be really daunting to have this recognition that, okay, the life that I'm living, I'm not happy with it. To have that recognition that, okay, something's changing and transforming within me, that this thing that served me so well, that's created the life it's created, secure it, your financial abundance and those things.

Jennifer Norman:
Right.

Michael Thornhill:
I think often when we're in that process, we think that it's one or the other. We think that, okay, I can be unhappy and have money, or I can have no money and then my purpose. But what it's about, it's about deprogramming that and recognizing actually, no, you can have that infinite abundance. You can live your dream life and you can be of service to others and you can make this positive impact on the planet. It's not true that we have to do one or the other. And it's a process like you said, you know, sometimes it can take years for us to have this realization. But the kind of work that we're doing at this moment is to help accelerate that process for people. As the planet's almost calling out for this shift towards love.

Michael Thornhill:
As we see so much separation that's going on, so much polarization from one side to the other side and all this kind of dividend, the invitation is really for us to come together right now and to positively contribute to that planetary shift towards love.

Michael Thornhill:
And if you don't mind me asking you one more question, Jennifer, I'd love to know... Like knowing what you know, where you are now... And like you kind of come through that on the other side of it... What would your present day self say to your past self that was kind of having the difficulties, like with the knowledge that you have now? What advice would you give to your past self that was kind of going through that transformation and maybe having a difficulty time?

Jennifer Norman:
I always find that question really interesting because I think you have to be ready for that message. Like, my former self would not have been able to receive the message. The vibration and the resonance just wasn't there. If I were to say you need to go through an ego death, you need to... It's like, none of this matters. Like, I think that when you are stuck in the five senses and you're living in the trauma and all you can think of is, what did I do to deserve this? Why is my life like this? And you're in that suffering of real deep trauma and calamity. It's really one of those things where going through it and being able to not fight it, not victimize yourself, because it's very easy to play the victim. Woe is me. Look what that person did to me. Look what happened to me.

Jennifer Norman:
How fighting God, fighting whatever it is that you feel has put you in this position where you're trapped in your career, in a relationship and whatever it might be... But then having that path and that experience of just like burning everything to ash, just saying, you know what, I am releasing it all, I am surrendering. I am just going to let my ego dissolve, my identity dissolve. Because a lot of what the suffering is, is just trying to live up to the status, of what will that person think of me? What will my mother think? What will my father like? All of that suffering and then also pain of relationships and things like that. But then being able to find that oneness as you were talking about, once you recognize, you know what, there's nothing to forgive. Everybody goes through something, some sort of trauma that causes them to be the way that they are, or things to happen or accidents to happen.

Jennifer Norman:
What am I going to do for the better? How am I going to let... a lot of people on my podcast know that I have this phrase, which is like, my turning point was, this can make me bitter or it can make me better. And I am going to choose, choose to be better. It's like the choice - realizing that things aren't happening to you, they're happening for you. And that everything that happens in your life going forward is because you choose, you've made an active decision in order to move that way, even if it's habitual. Like you are still in that moment making a choice to make your life more aligned with your soul or fighting against your soul. And so my current self would say, congratulations for being in the place, because you are about to go through it. You are about to go through that messy middle. And you can only learn by going through it yourself. There's no shortcuts here.

Jennifer Norman:
It's kind of like you've got to just cathartize and remove all of those things somatically from your body, from your system, and come to that different perspective where you can see the ocean and not the glass, which is this fish tank, which is keeping your life so small. You can see that you are here to have such a greater impact if you so choose to. And you're letting these little obstacles get in front of you. And yeah, they look huge right now. But once you're brave enough and courageous enough to stand up for what your soul really, really wants, then you will be able to make those decisions more often and get momentum behind you and feel that positive momentum going towards the life that you truly wish to live. And it's not perfect. It does the zigs and it zags and all of that.

Jennifer Norman:
But then everything that you add on, all those other manifestations almost are for fun. It's like, yeah, if I want to, like, show up in the world as this or if I want to buy that, it's just like, yeah, this is fun. It's not because it's like, oh, I'm trying to prove something. It's not because I need to have this in order to compare myself to somebody else. It's just because it lights me up. I'm really having a good time doing that. Yeah, I'm gonna eat the ice cream. I'm gonna, you know, whatever it is.

Jennifer Norman:
So that to me is part of the process. They say pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional, or something to that effect. And it's learning to have agency over your life and to seek support when you need it, such as yourself, because these are things that are hard to do alone. Like, you need, like having a guide in order to reflect and be your mirror as you're doing this work is so, so helpful. And so that's why I am so thankful for you, for your wife, Jamie, for the beautiful, profound work that you're doing. And I just love hearing about it.

Jennifer Norman:
I love hearing about all of this activations and the academy that you're coming through because I can see how it can touch lives and really have an impact, impact for the better on people feeling like. Thank you for helping me see the free person that I truly am inside.

Michael Thornhill:
Beautiful, Jennifer. Thank you. Thanks so much for sharing that. I feel like that's connected with a lot of people who are perhaps going through this at the moment. So thank you for sharing that with us.

Jennifer Norman:
Absolutely. So your website is the innertruthseekers.com you can also find Michael on LinkedIn as well. But I definitely recommend looking up the Academy as it's launching and see if it's right for you. This might be something that really, really helps you feel that you've come into your own, that you found your inner truth and that you are in embodied service to the world. Michael, thank you so much for being my guest today. I'm so appreciative of your time.

Michael Thornhill:
Thanks so much, Jennifer. I really, really appreciate it. And thanks so much everyone for listening. And I think just to everyone out there is just the fact that you're here and that you're listening and we're having this conversation means that you're already seeking, you're already seeking something deep within, inside. Sometimes we think that the path is something that's somewhere in the distant future. There's just this invitation just to recognize that you're already on the path to your own inner truth. And like I said earlier, if you want to check out our Inner Truth Immersion, which is free for eight days direct to your inbox, check us out at innertruthseekers.com you can also book a free 30 minute clarity call with us. And yeah, we'd love to have conversations with anyone who's interested in the Inner Truth Seekers Academy as well as our transformative programs that we have online.

Michael Thornhill:
And the essence really of what we're doing here, in addition to everything else that we've shared, it's about bringing people together who are taking this journey together, that we're not doing this alone so that you can find yourself surrounded by other people who are taking that bold step into service to others and that you're able to find that mutual support and accelerate and potentiate each other's growth and evolution. So thank you so much, Jennifer. It's been an absolute pleasure to be on the show and thank you so much to everyone for listening.

Jennifer Norman:
Pleasure's all mine.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more atthe humanbeautymovement.com. Tank you so much for being a beautiful human.