This week I sat down with Sydney Strabala (@creatingsyd), a highly experienced program coordinator and passionate creator on a mission to empower human beings to step into their best selves.

Syd's approach is multi-dimensional - she’s a certified Kundalini Yoga & meditation teacher, breathwork coach, and sound healing practitioner. She’s also a multi-media artist, creative director, and founder of The Underground Society - a creative social club that brings together artists through meet-ups and retreats around the world.

You can’t put labels on Syd, but everything she does is rooted in the belief that authentic self expression and spirituality are intertwined. Her word for this integration is soul-expression.

In this chat Syd shares what this term means, and how we can create from a place of deep love and inspiration. We also cover a bunch of other topics including:

The sacred plant medicine cacao and its heart-opening properties
Yoga as a science and technology
Specific mantras to silence the mind and reset the nervous system
Destiny and free will and why they're not mutually exclusive
The real difference between the ego & the soul
What it means to fully experience oneself

To close things out Syd shared a sound healing meditation that you’re definitely going to want to tune into. Especially if you’ve never been on a sound healing journey, this is going to take you places.

This said, lots of great things covered in this episode and I’m so honored to have had this lovely and beautiful conversation with such a sincere, intelligent and creative soul.

Check out creatingsyd.com information about Syd and her sound healing sessions, meditation classes, and creative retreats.

Show Notes:

Syd shares her knowledge on the wonderful plant medicine cacao, it’s natural healing properties, usage in ancient mayan ceremonies, and how she integrates it with her breathwork and sound bath workshops
We talk about the event she led the night before in the new Coral Space in Venice beach
When people ask syd ‘what she does’… she responds be asking ‘what do I love to do’? She doesn’t like the labels, what she does is always evolving
Her yoga, kundalini, meditation, breathwork, sound, art, conscious events – it’s all connected with her ability to help people truly love themselves and truly and authentically self express and be who they are
Soul-Expression – syd’s term for really expressing from the soul, from the purest essence of who we are not from the masks that we’re wearing… we can’t forget that we’re playing a role
When Syd was a kid she was the artsy one, always painting and drawing, and playing with her sisters running barefoot and climbing trees
Syd shares the experience where she found her confidence and realized she could be whoever she wanted to be – she didn’t consider herself very spirited, loud, or extroverted but she volunteered to run for spirit commissioner and a total switch of mindset happened
I ask how syd got into yoga and meditation – she said it found her… she signed up for an easy stretch yoga elective class at university and her teacher dove real deep into the philosophy of yoga and kundalini
So she started to get into yoga – she did a 9 month training to be a teacher (she had no intention of teaching but wanted to know the breathwork, the pranayamas, the kriyas, and the science behind the yoga)
Syd talks about why she went to business school (Loyola Marymount) instead of art school and majored in entrepreneurship
Syd started her first business – the Underground Society – a creative social club bringing together different artists in LA and hosting events and retreats
Syd talks about yoga as ‘self experience’, and how kundalini is meant to help you figure out ‘who you are’
Kundalini combines 4 things in different equations (kriyas) to accomplish this – dynamic postures, breathwork, mantra, meditation
Kriya of elevation, kriya to overcome depression, kriya for openning the heart, kriya for the glandular system
Our entire body regenerates every 7 years
We’re made of 70% water
Our body is a technology – how do we use it to live our greatest lives and operate at a high level – yoga (meditation, breathwork, sound) is great for this – all different ways to come back to who you are
We often let the mind take control of ourselves and forgot who’s really in control – we overthink and the mind works in overdrive
The best thing that has come from Syd’s meditation and yoga practice is the realization of the truth that she’s not her thoughts, but the one who thinks the thoughts
There’s two aspects of ourselves – the ego and the soul – they’re not in conflict but they have different agendas. The ego’s goal is to protect us and keep us in check, and the soul is what’s supposed to be driving the car
The ego wants material things, the soul just wants to experience – and doesn’t have a preference for what happens
We’re in the age of aquarius moving out of the piscean age – we’re transitioning into a more free society of free information, so there are less secrets today
We have to strengthen our nervous system, we have to create a foundation to withstand the pressure of the times
Syd talks about how travel and new places changes our perspective, and challenges us to see who we are in different situations… just as how relationships allow us to interact to push up against something to help us find the edge of who we are
To experience something that you’re not, to figure out who you are, is so cool
The importance of being present in all situations, even when we’re taking selfies! Being a poser with purpose is key.
Syd talks about here kundalini morning sadhana, waking up every morning before the sun comes up to check in and connect with yourself – having routines like this creates discipline to help overcome the ego
Syd wants to change our relationship with pain – the universe just wants to experience itself and doesn’t care if it’s pleasurable or painful – plus through the challenges and tearing things down we come back together stronger
Through all of life’s ups and downs the thing that keeps Syd going is devotion – connecting to herself and god and surrendering to the flow of its bliss… but pain also keeps her going, it’s helps shift her to the edge of her life and allows her to look in on her life with clarity and control
“To authentically self express means to come from a place of love and devotion.”
Sat Nam – a mantra that means “the truth of your identity” – helps remind us that we are all a unique frequency of the same universe
If you can see the beauty of the emotions, and not get lost in the commotion of the emotions, then you’re good
To truly ‘know thyself’ can take lifetimes to accomplish
Syd shares her favorite books – The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer & Many Lives Many Masters
The question “Who am I?” is one of the biggest and most important out there. Ramana Maharshi spent 16 years in a cave asking himself that question
3 Questions: 1 thing she’s learning, one thing she’s grateful for, and one thing she’s working to create
- She’s learning about who she is, as a teacher, as a student of life, what she’s meant to be in this life
- She’s grateful for the perspective of love and acceptance she now has on her life, as well as all the incredible people around her
- She’s excited to be creating different sound healing experiences, because it is one of the easiest ways to drop into a meditative space