Reimagining Work and Life in the Age of AI: A Deep Dive on Living Fully with Dr. Ghaz Samandari

Summary

In this week’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Ghaz and together we explore what it means to live a meaningful life, the transformative experiences that have shaped her way of living, our thoughts on the impact of technology and AI on society and in our own lives - and why we have a hopeful outlook on the future. We also explore the concept of creating more space for wonder, finding joy in the everyday moments, the importance of embracing creativity and imagination and the power of gratitude.

We go deep in this discussion and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Takeaways

• The power living a meaningful life and the importance of being present in the moment.
• The importance of looking within for relief and fulfillment.
• Gratitude as a healing tool. 
• AI has the potential to become a democratizing tool, leading to a rebalancing of society and the creation of universal basic income and education for all.
• The advent of AI will liberate humans from rote work and allow them to embrace their creativity and imagination.
• Younger generations, such as Gen Z, are challenging traditional notions of work and are exploring their own paths to live authentically.
• It is important to embrace the reality of mortality and live each day fully, appreciating the richness of life.

Chapters

00:00 College memory of high-pressure life realization.

04:33 Embrace beauty and create space for it.

07:24 Diverse life experiences shape humanitarian's impactful work.

09:51 Common human desires transcend economic and social status.

13:24 Discovering physical connection and personal empowerment journey.

19:33 Embracing diversity and seeking common ground.

20:43 Individual experience, self-reflection, healing, unity, self-acceptance.

24:10 Exploring AI's impact on humanity and society.

30:22 Access to learning empowers positive technological embrace.

33:29 Son unhappy with traditional career path, pandemic impact.

35:10 Young generations embrace living authentically, challenging norms.

37:31 Passionate experts explore alien conspiracies on TV.

42:11 Gratitude for life, inspiring others to live fully.

44:40 Reviving community movement for women's empowerment.

47:57 Connect with me at covencollective.com. Let's chat.



About our guest:

Dr Ghaz Samandari is a keynote speaker, founder, female empowerment expert and transformational coach. 

Her career in women's reproductive rights spans over 20 years, driven by her personal experiences with oppression and harassment. This work has given her a deep sensitivity to suffering and a strong commitment to justice.

Transitioning from research to coaching, she now focuses on empowering women through developmental coaching, not as a traditional life coach, but by "being with" them in their journey. Her goal is to create a supportive community where women can realize their true power and potential, fostering collective growth and agency.

Learn more about Dr Ghaz by visiting https://www.thisisghaz.com/ and https://www.covncollective.com/

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a few friends so we can all help each other Remember to Live.

To connect with and learn more about me and how I am Remembering to Live, you can find me on Instagram @coreancanty or at coreancanty.com.

To work with me and explore freebies, check out: https://coreancanty.com/links/

If you are ready to re-imagine, re-claim and re-design your life, book a possibility call today.

Transcript

Corean Canty [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Remember to Live podcast, a place where we explore what it means to live a life and live one well. I'm Corinne, your guide on this journey through the art of living. Along the way, we will learn tips and tools to live more fully and ditch those end of life regrets. We'll hear stories from people who have chosen different paths and new ways of living and delve deeper into how we stay human in a world of rapid technological advancement. Life is too short not to show up to it. It's time to do life better. Together, let's learn how. So get cozy grab your favorite warm drink and let's dig in.

Corean Canty [00:00:43]:
I'm so excited to have my amazing friend, doctor Ga Samandari, on this week's episode. She is one of those humans who always leaves you better than she finds you and has lived one of the most interesting lives. We got pretty deep in this discussion and touched on things like personal growth, learning from different perspectives, transformative life experiences, the impact of AI on how we live, finding wonder and joy and the power of gratitude. We cover a lot in this convo. So let's get to it. Hello. Hello. Hello, my friend.

Corean Canty [00:01:19]:
Welcome to the Remember to Live podcast.

Dr Ghaz [00:01:23]:
I'm so excited to be here. I cannot wait to get into it. I can't wait. I can't wait.

Corean Canty [00:01:28]:
I cannot wait to share, doctor Goss, with the world because you add so much to my life. And, like, every conversation we have, I think, could be a podcast. So I'm excited to really get into it today. And you have the pleasure of being my first guest with my new vision in kind of the expanded vision that I have and where I want to go with this platform. So you get to be the first one to answer to answer my kickoff questions. Let's do it. And so those questions are, what does it mean to live a life, and what makes it good?

Dr Ghaz [00:02:11]:
What does it mean to live a life? You know, what comes to my mind the first thing that comes to my mind is this memory I have of when I was in my senior year of college, which I would say was like the height of my perfectionist performer, do it for the glory and for what you've been told. Like, it doesn't get more peak than that. And I'm rushing around campus from one place to another for a test and, you know, and at that time, I was studying to be a medical doctor. So, you know, organic chemistry and all that just stuff that I was carrying around in my head. And I remember it was a sunny spring day and I just happened to glance over at a bush as I was going by. And there was this most unusual butterfly. And I don't know what because this was not me at the time at all. Mhmm.

Dr Ghaz [00:03:10]:
For me these days. But I just remember, like, there was a physical my body just went and turned towards that bush and it was like all time stopped. And it's just me and this creature and this moment. And suddenly I could hear all the sounds and I could feel the sun on me and and all that rush, all that anxiety, all that preparation, all that performance dissolved away. And I and I remember thinking in that moment, is this what it's actually about? Like, is this? Has it been under my nose the whole time? Right? But, of course, not having at that time any practices to actually grab and hold that moment, I was like Yes. Take it off. You gotta go. You gotta go to the test.

Dr Ghaz [00:03:56]:
So I ran and and off I went. And so I haven't literally oh, I'm getting chills just remembering because I I have not thought about that moment in probably I don't wanna say how many decades, but I'll Just a few years. Just a few years. Yeah. All of this. But, yeah, at the essence of that is just what does it mean to live? What it means to live is to to be present to the beauty that is our existence. Right? That is surrounding us, that is innate in us, that is our birthright. It is not something to seek or to earn.

Dr Ghaz [00:04:33]:
It is something to to accept and welcome because it's all around you all the time. And how do you make it good? The second question is is really how do you for me, it's more how do you create some margin in the day to day to allow that beauty in. Right? And I think that's the crux of what you and I are up to as as humans in this show, is is how do we, for ourselves first and then for others after us, just kinda push the push the walls out a little bit to let that wander in, you know. So that I think is is how to make it good. It's just just just create this the tiniest bit of space for what I for that butterfly to land somewhere. You know?

Corean Canty [00:05:22]:
Oh, I love that. What I love the most about that is the fact that in that moment, you are present. Right? And and that's the whole purpose of remembering to live is, like, how do we show up to life as it's happening? But we get these little moments, like you said, then we're just back on the hamster wheel and believing that we have to earn our joy. Like, that we have to, like, work really hard and one day we get to live. Instead of realizing, like, the living's it's happening right now. It's all around us. We have moments throughout the day all day that we can grasp that wonder.

Dr Ghaz [00:06:02]:
Yeah. And, you know, when I I deeply appreciate the journey of arriving to this type of realization because I remember well, whenever Oprah used to still be relevant. Right? Like, more relevant than she is now if she was on her, like, gratitude kick. Right? Like, keep a gratitude journal, all these things. And that used to piss me off because I'd be like, you know what? No. I do not wanna be grateful. I wanna be pissed. I wanna be angry at all the things that have happened to me, the all the things I do not have.

Dr Ghaz [00:06:33]:
Like, I'm pissed that all these other folks have privileges I don't have. Like, I've had to struggle and da da da. And I was so wedded to my lower vibes. I'll put it that way. Very valid, the feelings. They came from my lived experience, but I had an attachment to them that made it so I didn't even wanna just didn't even want to discuss the possibility of living in that wonder and in that presence. Right? Because, like, I had been wronged or things were not fair. Mhmm.

Dr Ghaz [00:07:01]:
What I didn't realize was in that mode of thinking, I not only made it an external thing that controlled how I felt, but it was up to something external to let me off the hook as well. So I was always looking outside to get relief and that's never

Corean Canty [00:07:20]:
the way or at least

Dr Ghaz [00:07:21]:
not a sustainable way. Right?

Corean Canty [00:07:24]:
Right. Right. So I wanna dig in a little bit more to, like, who you are because you're one of the people I know that's had the most variety and just like lived experience in from your background and who you are and how you grew up to like your education and your humanitarian work, which has allowed you to see this whole full spectrum of lived lives, right? From people in conditions like I probably can't even imagine living in because I haven't been in the trenches. All the way to some of the most privileged people. Like, you've seen it all, and you've been exposed to it all, and you've done the work to really get to know what it means to live a life under the whole spectrum of conditions. So I'd love to just kind of dig into that a little bit and how that has helped you on this journey from being that, you know, college kid who found that moment with the butterfly to being the woman you are that does such amazing work in the world to not only continue to grow and evolve your own life, but to create these spaces for others to find and live the lives that they really want to live?

Dr Ghaz [00:08:46]:
That's a really, really beautiful question. And, yeah, without getting too deep into it, I have traveled to almost just to say, I've traveled to almost 30 countries, and I've worked with, you know, ministers and, you know, high up officials all the way down to tribal elders and people at community levels. And so I have seen as many, I think, iterations of a life that someone of my age and, and access could possibly see. And what what I learned from that, and my own experience kind of it mirrors that a little bit. Right? Like, I'm a refugee that had to escape war as a small child and then came to, the US, didn't speak the language, had a weird name, which in the eighties wasn't cool. Like, these days, it's cool. It wasn't then. And then how it goes into become sort of like an international woman of mystery and all the things that I did.

Dr Ghaz [00:09:51]:
But, the connection that I can make between who I've become because of that and who I was in that moment with the butterfly From all this exposure is understanding that fundamentally, everybody no matter what their position or experience in life is, they we all want the same thing. We want to feel peace. Mhmm. We want to feel safety. We want to feel joy, and we want to be in loving relationship with each other. And that across the board never ever changed no matter where I was or who I was talking to. And the more you kind of go, if you will, down the economic scale to where material privilege is less and less, the more those things become prominent because it is you are human in a more raw way when you're in danger the way that people in vulnerable populations are. And there's there's, in no way do I want to romanticize what it means to be poor or disprivileged.

Dr Ghaz [00:10:59]:
Mhmm. But it it really focuses your attention on what matters differently. Right? So I think there's something the journey that I've been on over the past few years is really integrating that into my own sense of being a human in terms of empathy and compassion, but also in terms of like letting myself off the hook. Right? Like, can I let myself live? When do I get to, you know, I've been living in service for so long that's been, like, the thing. Right? For others, for others, for others. Mhmm. But it has to start with me. So I think seeing this is you're just understanding how there's there's a there's a fundamental thread that runs through all of us in terms of our experience no matter what, but every single one starts with the individual.

Dr Ghaz [00:11:46]:
I have to be well and I have to make myself okay in order to be able to radiate in any degree out from there.

Corean Canty [00:11:53]:
Yes. Yes. And I think that that carries over into so many areas of life. Right? Whether we are wanting to be of service to others through our work or volunteerism, whether we are caretakers or parents or insert responsible for other people in other ways, it all starts with ourself. Like, it's so cliche, the whole, when you're on the airplane, put your mask on first, but it's like the realest truest thing.

Dr Ghaz [00:12:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I often so I tend to work more with women or fem identifying folks for a variety of reasons. First, that was my niche in the humanitarian world. I was working with, women and girls who were in danger around their, health, particularly their reproductive health. So it's just a a very comfortable place for me. But you also realize depending on your presentation in the world and your lived experience, you are told certain stories about what you can and cannot do, and who you can and cannot be. And part of the work that I'm doing for myself and by extension for everyone I serve is to really interrogate those narratives and say, well, who says? Who says I have to be in service in order to enjoy myself or, you know, the order of things? And there's, I discovered much much later in life that I'm actually a body based person.

Dr Ghaz [00:13:24]:
I thought I was just a brain whose body, like, was there to carry the brain around. But I'm learning that I I'm actually much more like about the physical. And, there's this kind of shape that this contrast in shapes that I present when we talk about it starts with me first. Right? Because putting your mask on and all that, that makes sense. But when you make it physical and raw, you can understand it in a different way and I wanna use it if I may. If you think about the way that often, let's say, like, typically women, hold things. Right? The way we hold things that the image I have for that when we don't count ourselves in is is almost this arching over something. Right? So imagine you're like arching your body over a globe.

Dr Ghaz [00:14:11]:
You're like surrounding it with your whole body and holding on to it. But if you actually try to make that shape with your body normally, it's extremely painful. It's uncomfortable. Yes. Right? And you can't hold it for very long without consequences. And the shift for me is really to to switch to this posture where you're actually just fully centered. Right? Like aligned and straight physically. And then all you gotta do is just lift your arms up.

Dr Ghaz [00:14:42]:
And you could kinda stand like that if you have good grounding. You could hold something for days, really. But what that comes down to is your core is grounded. You are at the center of the power of things. And that to me is, you know, just a physical and visual way of depicting that difference between what it means to include yourself. It's not saying don't hold things, but you have to first be the thing that is solid before anything else can be done.

Corean Canty [00:15:12]:
I love that. And I love the visual. Right? Because we all learn and understand in different ways. One of the things I would love to know is what is one of the things that you've learned from someone who is very different from you? Because you've had, you know, the and I'll call it a privilege, a privilege of being exposed to a lot of people who aren't like you. Mhmm. And a lot of different ways of thinking and being and living. And is there one little nugget that or one of the many nuggets that's, like, stuck with you that you are open to receiving that's

Dr Ghaz [00:15:53]:
helped you live a little better? Yeah. You know, I wanna, I'm just gonna say it because I I skirt around it often because of the climate of the country in which this podcast is primarily broadcast. But really, what I worked in for very many years was abortion rights. And people have all kinds of opinions about it. And when you work in that environment, you are confronted by people who have a different, idea of how life should be respected. And I had an experience with someone, if let's say I'm on the pro choice versus pro life, which I think is a terrible distinction. We're all about life. Like, it really is this Yes.

Dr Ghaz [00:16:43]:
Woman.

Corean Canty [00:16:45]:
Yes.

Dr Ghaz [00:16:45]:
We got into I I I was confronted by someone who interestingly was a roommate of mine in college. I hadn't seen her in some years and she didn't know what I was up to. And this was someone when you say someone who's very different from you, this is someone I thought was like me, but they had never come up. Right? This kind of topic hadn't come up and we it was 5 or 6 years later, I was deep into my work and we met up. We both happened to be in some town and we met up. And she knew what I was up to and she took a moment out of our dinner to tell me how uncomfortable she was with what I was doing. Even though it didn't have anything to do with our conversation, there was no reason to bring that up. But she she she was like, I just don't agree with what you're doing.

Dr Ghaz [00:17:29]:
I think it's murder. You know, this is her opinion. And in that moment, I felt just this bile. This is like hot bile coming up my my chest. And and just as I was about to give it to her, she says to me, because I really really believe in the sanctity of life. And she said, the way she said it, the sincerity with which she said it made me realize, hold on a second,

Corean Canty [00:18:01]:
so do I. Oh, my gosh, so do I.

Dr Ghaz [00:18:04]:
And so I talked to I it helped me just kind of pivot a few degrees from where I was before to be able to say to her, I understand what you're saying because I feel that same thing too. I think life is absolutely sacred, which is why I don't want anyone to ever have to make that choice. And my work is actually dedicated to ensuring that more women and children live long, healthy, and beautiful lives. And sometimes the circumstances just don't allow for that and that's when a medical procedure might

Corean Canty [00:18:39]:
Right.

Dr Ghaz [00:18:39]:
Be the best option. And she had never, you know, thought of it that way, but I had never seen her in that way. And it just opened up this new chamber in my heart where I'm like, now I don't we're not different. We are actually really after the same thing. And I think the climate that we live in America now, if we could see that more and more, see in those who disagree with us more of ourselves than we do see differences, It could be the key to unlocking a lot of resolution in our world right now, but it I mean, I can't think of a more sticky topic and a more personal attack than what happened there, but it's still we ended up hugging and crying for god's sake. So, it's just, again, to say that we all really do want the same thing, but we just have different ways of arriving there. So we need to make space for everybody's pathways.

Corean Canty [00:19:33]:
I love that. And it's so beautiful. And it's such a great example about being open and being open to different ways of thinking. And lots of times we think about it as like being afraid to be around people who might not look or speak like us, but it's are we open to different ways of thinking? And can we actually explore and understand why and find that common thread of connection? Because you're right. At the end of the day, we all just want to be able to fully live these lives in a safe and joyful way, fully be able to be ourselves and express ourselves in the world in a safe and joyful way. And so many things have prevented that from happening. And if we could all just kind of step back and see how many times we don't even realize we're contributing to that and that we're fed a lot of things instead of feeling like there's so much of a divide. How can we look for the connection? How can we find those threads that connect us all?

Dr Ghaz [00:20:43]:
Absolute absolutely. That is the question and I wanna bring it back to the the individual experience of living. Because what happens when it's in sort of a relational space, right, like you can say blue versus red or any pro this, pro that, like, there's a way that we can draw contrast with an other much more easily than we can within ourselves. But there's ways in which we divide against ourselves as well which is like in order to, I must. There's an if then process that we play with ourselves that's very disintegrating because our natural state is as a whole. Our innate being is one that is joyful and can experience pain and still come out, you know, whole and not be broken in the ways that we kind of assume ourselves to be. So, what I've enjoyed about the career that I've had and the work that I do is in the reflection of others, I can see the parts of myself that need healing and welcoming, right? If I can do that for someone else, can I do that for my parts too? And how would that enable me to just move with more ease in my own life?

Corean Canty [00:21:55]:
Yes. Self exploration. And that's, like, a lot of what it's about. Right? Like, this journey of life that we have is exploring ourselves and getting to know ourselves and learning how to be present to these lived experiences that we're gonna have good ones. We're gonna have bad ones. We're gonna have ones that light us up. We're gonna have ones that feel like they're destroying us, but all of them add up to a life.

Dr Ghaz [00:22:24]:
They do. They do. And and, yeah, what I want to encourage myself most of all, But anyone that I encounter to to do is put put the good stuff on the balance as often as you do the bad stuff. Like, there's just a way I feel Yes. We don't even need to blame systems or media. We we've we're indoctrinated. It's in our DNA now. But, like, why is it that I always have to think in the more negative terms of things? Like, can I help myself take credit for the good shit too? Like, let it ask.

Dr Ghaz [00:23:00]:
You know, back to that angry version of me that was like, f you, Oprah, and your gratitude journal. Like, no. Let her let her be and let her show me. Let me be happy that I had a piece of stinky cheese and pears today. That's the best thing that happened to me today. Like, why isn't that a win? Right? And that's the other thing is we don't see the wins as often. We don't celebrate, like, celebration. And the more that we've become technified.

Dr Ghaz [00:23:27]:
Right? And dispersed and isolated, the further we are from natural rhythms and rituals that enable us to celebrate and be in in joyous connection where presence resides. So there's a lot of kind of like hearkening back Yes. To our roots and our original selves that is as much an internal journey as it is a heritage journey. Right? It's an ancestral journey too. There's a lot of layers. Don't get me started. I could go on into all kinds of dimensions from here. But there's there's a lot of reasons why we feel, you know, the way that we do, and it's just not necessary.

Dr Ghaz [00:24:00]:
We have everything within our, systems as humans to to be healed and to be whole, and it's just summoning those forward, which is the key. Yeah.

Corean Canty [00:24:10]:
And I'll I appreciate you saying that in in thinking about, like, what are these things? This is one of the topics I wanna dig deeper in. I have a lot of questions about, and so there'll be a lot more discussions on the podcast about it. But, you know, all of these discussions recently about AI and, like, all of the changes that are rapidly coming. And I'm actually in a book club and are reading a book about AI. And I was, like, at first resistant to it just because I'm trying so hard to really live in my humanness as much as possible. And I started having some of the fears, right, of like, not the fears where people are saying AI is going to take over all of the jobs and we're not gonna be able to get any jobs, and and those types of fears. I started having these fears of what happens when we get further and further away from being human. So even when you look at the positives of all of these technology advances that make things easier, that give us back this time, right? What are we going to fill the time with? Are we filling the time with more of the same? Are we just finding other ways to overwork, to stay disconnected, to be in more screens? Are we going to use some of these things to allow us to have more time to be, to get back out in nature, to have in real life things, to commune and build community and really improve our lives in a way that allows us to fully live as humans in our humanness.

Dr Ghaz [00:25:57]:
So I'm really glad that you brought AI up because similarly or I'd say probably way even more than the average. I'm like self proclaimed flag flying Luddites, like, keep track out of my life, like, I don't like it, I have social media, all these things. Anyone who knows me knows that I've been like, no no no to that kind of stuff for the longest time. Simply because of the mental health implications that it has for me, particularly. But I know how having worked with adolescents, I know kind of the damage that it can do to, like, fragile brains. And I'm not neuro typical either, so I have to be careful about what I consume and how. But recently in the sort of humanitarian work that I've been doing, AI is front and center. Because it is presenting itself as a tool to enable to scale service in different ways to different people.

Dr Ghaz [00:26:49]:
And I've been in debates with folks who whose job it is to worry about what's gonna happen to societies with the introduction of this new advanced technology that is moving at such a rapid pace. We don't even we can no longer predict it. Right? Like, all of our predictive models are already wrong based on how quickly, like, generative AI is moving. But, I was saying to someone recently that I will I always have been and I always will be a stand for hope in the world. I do not care. You cannot convince me that there is not a brighter day tomorrow. I don't care what you show me, and there's a lot of reasons not to feel that way, especially today. But they're really not that different than the reasons from yesterday or the reasons from tomorrow.

Dr Ghaz [00:27:36]:
It's how we engage and how we Mhmm. Shut down in the face of them that matters. But for me, I think what AI is going to do to our society that is very, very different from any technology that has come before is it's almost going to accelerate this question of the utility and I use that word in quotes, the utility of humans. Because up until now, we have been used as products to create other products. Right? We have been the robots, if you will. Right? And I think that the advent of AI will eventually take us to a place where this separation between the haves and have nots will become so stark. We will have no choice but to rebalance things from a resource perspective in order for the race to survive. And in that rebalancing, things like universal basic income will come into being.

Dr Ghaz [00:28:30]:
Education for all will come into being. Access to all kinds of things that currently people don't have will come into being. I am looking forward to the surprise on people's faces when they see that AI actually will become a democratizing tool. And most of all, what it will do is liberate us from doing that rote work that does not inspire. Because inside every human, and I know this because I've met them all. I have been everywhere and I've met all of them. There is a creator. Right? There is a creator that wants to dance or draw or tell a story or sing or track the stars or do something.

Dr Ghaz [00:29:16]:
Every single one of us, no matter our education, no matter anything, we are creators. And so I believe that kind of punting the boring stuff to AI will open up this whole new era of us seeing ourselves as creators. And we've never lived in a society like that before. I mean, not in the modern times we know of. If you watch ancient aliens, then you might believe that that used to exist. I love ancient aliens. But, great tips. Oh my gosh.

Dr Ghaz [00:29:46]:
What? Sisters. Yeah. So, yeah, so for me, it's like I'm really I've really come around to AI from that place of being a humanitarian because the potential is so huge. And the other thing I wanna say is people like you and people like me, it's actually incumbent upon us to master these technologies so that they are not only ruled by the people who have created the things we already don't like. Right? So it's like, let me let me understand how to wield this massive tool for good. So

Corean Canty [00:30:22]:
Yes. And and we live in a day and age where the positive is we have access to learn it, where in the past, as a average everyday human, we didn't necessarily have access to learn about and touch and feel and discover and master these technologies when they were coming out. You know, we had to wait until they were at a point where we were allowed to experience them. But with our access and what the internet has done over the last several decades, like, we can all learn it. And so as as these new things come out, instead of being afraid of them, like you said, how do we learn how to embrace it and see how it can be a tool for good? Yeah. Because the more that we lean into as humans being tools for good, then all of these things that we're creating will also become tools for good.

Dr Ghaz [00:31:20]:
Yeah. Definitely. And I wanna I wanna bring it back to, adolescents because I love them. And I wanna talk about what becomes possible when the old ways kind of fall away. So one of the things people always rag on Gen z, poor poor things. As being lazy, being this, that, and the other. The fact is Gen z's were born into a world that looks nothing like the world that you and I went into in terms of the labor market and things, and they just cannot, and they don't want to participate in the way that the boomers on down to, like, gen x and such did. And, you know, one way of looking at that is to be like, well, they're lazy or, you know, whatever.

Dr Ghaz [00:32:00]:
They like discipline. But by not engaging in the market economy or the labor economy the way we did, what they have that we don't is this immense emotional language. They understand and explore their interior space in ways that we were never allowed to do because we were on the wheel already. Right? But by the time they got around to it, we broke that wheel. It's it's ruined. It's creaky. It's missing parts and they're just opting out. But I wanna say that, like, we aren't appreciating enough what is flourishing in the place of what we were forced to do that they no longer can do.

Dr Ghaz [00:32:36]:
And that's that's an analog example of what AI might do

Corean Canty [00:32:41]:
for us. Yes.

Dr Ghaz [00:32:41]:
When we no longer have to, like, memorize or or

Corean Canty [00:32:44]:
do those sort of

Dr Ghaz [00:32:45]:
basic things. What will we come up with? Like, our imaginations are going to just flourish, and I'm really excited to see what we create.

Corean Canty [00:32:54]:
I love that. My children are my greatest teachers in life at this point. Watching them navigate their lives and doing it so different, so different than, like we did coming up. And like my daughter, she is in the corporate world, but she's just navigating it so differently. And she is fully in control of how she wants to live, fully in control of the work that she wants to does wants to do. She's very successful. And she just knows. Like, she she's not she doesn't feel like I should just be grateful to get a job.

Corean Canty [00:33:29]:
She knows they should be grateful to have me and knows her value and knows her worth. And then my son who's still in college and has absolutely not a inkling of getting a traditional climb the ladder type of job, like at all. And he goes to a prestigious school, and that's kind of like an annoyance to him that he's even in school because he happened to be one of those pandemic kids that missed his whole senior year of high school. He missed all of the milestones and spent it at home. He missed his whole freshman year of college. But it showed him what was so broken with the system. Like, when I asked him after high school, like, well, what do you how do you feel? You know, you missed that year, and I'm so sad. And, you know, I was more sad for, like, the milestones and just a little, like, rights of passage of life that we we all are accustomed to if you came up in that world.

Corean Canty [00:34:26]:
In his words, to quote him was, mom, I realized high school is trash. And I said, well, explain. Explain, son. What does that mean? And he was like, they they had us go sit there all day when the actual work that we were supposed to do, I got done in, like, 2 hours, and I could spend the rest of the day doing all the things I actually want to do. And he's taken that wisdom and that learning. He can't unlearn that he can't unsee that. And so he's just living his life different. So I have that like real life tangible example in my son, and I just have to learn from him and, like, allow him to show me a new way.

Dr Ghaz [00:35:10]:
And to bring it back to sort of the entire premise, it that is how to live. It is to actually have the capacity to look at something and say, is this for me or isn't it? So there's a way that because of extreme circumstances, the younger generations have had to confront their realities differently and more and more quickly in some ways that we had to and within that is a different kind of agency, a different kind of knowing, and I think a different, urgency around living their truth. And, you know, they they use this language all the time which I think people of, a certain agent above scoff at because we were taught that you don't get to have that. That's not okay to have. You have to earn it. You know, you don't get to like relax and know yourself and explore yourself until after you've retired, for example, or whatever. We were under such a productivity model of existence that is now disintegrating for a various number of reasons. And and these kids are just like clocking it, and they're showing us a whole different way that we can be.

Dr Ghaz [00:36:19]:
And and you're right. It is upon us to revere them as teachers as much as we demand they follow what we teach them. Right? Yes. Yes.

Corean Canty [00:36:32]:
Oh, I love that. I love talking to you. I knew that we would we would naturally navigate to all of the things. I do have to just circle back and say that for many years of my life, Friday night was my ancient alien's binge. Oh. So I'm

Dr Ghaz [00:36:48]:
What I what I love about our friendship is it is just full of surprises. Like, I think I know. And then every time we talk, I'm like, damn. And she loves ancient aliens. Gosh. It's like, it's a dream. It's a dream. But that's just it.

Dr Ghaz [00:37:06]:
It's like okay. Let's I'm gonna talk for one second about ancient aliens, and and I'm gonna make it make sense in the context of what we're talking about, really. What is ancient aliens? Okay. First of all, all the people who are the experts on ancient aliens are kooky. Love them. Like, you know, I watch them, I'm like, dude, just take your crystal off and brush your hair and people will take you more seriously. I understand. You know, like, all of this.

Dr Ghaz [00:37:31]:
But you got to love them because they are so passionate about their beliefs in these these creatures that had a different kind of knowledge and might have come from outer space and blah blah blah that we have been told are actually, you know, Egyptian ruins or whatnot. Who cares what's true or what isn't? But watching the experts in that show is why I watch it because they're so they have let themselves follow that fantasy and that dream and made a life out of it. They're on TV. I'm not. So, like, they are. And they're providing entertainment and and information of a different stripe to a bunch of people. And that what I love about that show aside from I'm totally into, like, alien conspiracies, is it is an example of another way that we can live in this exact same moment with all the things we have been told we are and are not and make our own decision. Right? Make our own choice about that.

Dr Ghaz [00:38:26]:
And that's what it means to live Is to say, okay. I'm gonna take all this stuff you gave me. I'm a sit with it. I'm gonna simmer with it. And then I'll tell you what makes sense for me and what doesn't make sense for me. And that is living for me. That is the essence of it.

Corean Canty [00:38:40]:
Yes. Yes. And you get to watch people who get to use their imagination and their curiosity and explore things that interest them. And so many of us put those things on the shelf, and it's like a one someday, I'll someday, I'm gonna study this. Someday, I'm going to try this hobby. Someday, I'm gonna go see this wonder and experience this thing, and eventually the some days turn into too late. Yeah.

Dr Ghaz [00:39:08]:
And that's Yeah. I wanna be sensitive to whoever's listening who might not be in the right frame of mind. So I'm gonna offer a tiny trigger warning here that I'm gonna talk about what it actually means to be a human organism. The fact is there is an end. And, to come back to this topic of ritual and natural rhythms, we're so segregated from that part of ourselves that we forget there is a limit Yes. To the time that we have. And so, we are not behaving as though we will die, but really, we should know that. And but we should embrace that as a beautiful permission to do the things we wanna do sooner rather than later.

Dr Ghaz [00:39:56]:
Because I know you and the work that you have done and certainly me and the work I have done, I have seen lives come to an end right before my eyes. And it is as resilient as it is precious to be a human. And if we could just understand that about ourselves and accept that aspect of the human experience, the fact that it does end, I think it would open up so many new possibilities for living an authentic life. For those of us who feel like, if only I, if I could just Yes. You know? But it's just And please, thank you for adding that. Yeah. We're not taught that. We're not does it doesn't get talked about, especially not in, like, my family, not in my community.

Dr Ghaz [00:40:42]:
Nowhere where I grew up was that a topic. It was very taboo. And that's it's limiting. I think it's limiting to our ability to live, not to talk about the fact that we will die.

Corean Canty [00:40:50]:
Agreed. And, like, the one thing that we all know is it's something we will all experience. None of us know our timeline. But even if we are blessed to live a long, long life, so many people end up with regrets. And that's why I want people to remember to live right now in this moment that we know we have.

Dr Ghaz [00:41:16]:
It feels to me, if I may, and please feel free to edit this out, but if I feel it's taken on a newfound meaning even in your own life with what's been happening with your mother. Right? Like, you're seeing it in real time. And I just want to this is between you and me here, really human to human. I wanna appreciate how alive that topic is for you. And I'm just so, proud of the way that you are seizing your day. You know? You're like, fuck it. I wanna be a writer. I wanna be

Corean Canty [00:41:47]:
a podcast

Dr Ghaz [00:41:48]:
doing it, and I see you do it every day. You're showing up for yourself, and there's something so inspiring about that. I want you to know that every time I open my LinkedIn, it's only to see what you have posted. And every day, I'm like, there she is again. Like, I'm so happy, and you make me wanna do that even more for myself. Whatever that version is for me, it's super inspiring.

Corean Canty [00:42:11]:
Oh, thank you so much. And thank you for being one of the lights along my journey, but it is. Like, my father passed when I was a child. So I learned at a early age that, like, life isn't promised. But watching my mother, who's made it to her eighties, have all these regrets and all these things that she I know she wanted to do and experiences she wanted to have, but she was either too afraid or didn't see a way and just it didn't happen. And now she can. And that does infuse my desire to wake up and live fully every day. It infuses my desire to create as many opportunities and experiences and reminders and inspiration for all of us to show up to our lives and live them fully and to connect with each other and help each other on this journey because there's gonna be ups and downs.

Corean Canty [00:43:05]:
There's gonna be good days. There's gonna be bad days. But what a joy to be able to experience it all.

Dr Ghaz [00:43:10]:
Absolutely. And I I wanna say that, you know, at the top, you said I've I've lived many lives. This is true. And I've lived many traumas, also true, and many tragedies, also true. And, I'm finally at a place where I can be super thankful for them all because they have not only made me the person I am today who I love. I think she's great. But they've also

Corean Canty [00:43:38]:
I do too.

Dr Ghaz [00:43:40]:
Thank you. But they've they've in the light of those experiences, I can savor the richness of of the good moments, if you will, with such more depth and appreciation than I ever did because I know what it's like to not wanna get out of bed. I know what it's like not to know if there is gonna be tomorrow and that's on me. Right? That's the choice that I might have made. And so I think getting to a place of gratitude for every experience and what it has to bring to us then makes it more possible to to move with ease through every day, even when it didn't pan out the way you planned or hoped that it would. Right?

Corean Canty [00:44:22]:
Yes. I think gratitude is the perfect button for this conversation. But I do have 3 quick questions to ask as we wrap up. Okay. Right now, I'd love to know what gets you excited.

Dr Ghaz [00:44:40]:
Oh, okay. So I what gets me excited right now is, reconvening and breathing new life into the community that I created a couple years ago that's called Coven. And it's a it's a collective movement for women to be able to live more freely and more in their truth in various ways. And I had to go through I had to put it on pause and go through everything I went through for a year to learn the lessons to be able to hold it in the way she deserves. Right? And by she, I mean any woman who comes into that space. So I'm excited every day to wake up and think, how can I serve myself and my joy and through that serve others? Like, this is a whole new orientation of life for me, and I'm excited to play in that space now for sure.

Corean Canty [00:45:33]:
Oh. Oh, I love it. And having had experienced, a coven event and have experienced the community, I am very excited to see and witness and be a part of all of the amazing things that Coven is going to birth into this world.

Dr Ghaz [00:45:55]:
Thank you.

Corean Canty [00:45:56]:
And I think my my final question is what are, or what, maybe there's 1, or maybe there's a couple, what are the little things that you do each day to help you remember to live?

Dr Ghaz [00:46:10]:
Oh, this is such a timely question because I grew up in a hectic immigrant household with 2 working parents that had to leave at early hours and and I fended for myself a lot. And what doesn't happen when you live a life like that typically is you don't have routine and structure in your life. And at the ripe old age of I look better than I younger than I am, that's all I'll say. No. I'm gonna be 44 this year. And this what I have done is finally instituted a morning routine, which sounds so ridiculous, but has changed my life. And what it is is in any duration or shape, the first thing I do when I wake up is movement, meditation, and reflection. So that might be like a 7 minute butt workout or an hour and a half of yoga.

Dr Ghaz [00:47:09]:
It might be 5 minutes listening to some Abraham Hicks or, like, an hour meditation, you know, whatever. But just starting the day like that is okay. I have a body, I have a mind, and I have a soul. And then I'll move into whatever is going on out there and that is the way I live, truly live. Yes.

Corean Canty [00:47:32]:
Yes. And that is, Carol, you are speaking my language. It is what I preach every day. Make sure you have your sacred brackets in place when you first wake up and before you go to bed, make those times about you. So, my friend, let let the people know how they could get in touch with you, what you have going on, what you'd like to

Dr Ghaz [00:47:57]:
share. Yeah. Well, the first thing I'm gonna say is whether or not whatever I'm quote doing out in the world, if anything I have said resonates and you just wanna chat, please come find me. The easiest way to find me is through my website, which is covencollective.com, and coven is spelled c o v n collective.com. Please just reach out to me there or through Corinne or however you can get to me. I'm always so eager to meet people who are like minded, who are interested same kind of movements that you and I are. Let's just have a chat. But if anything I've said has sparked an interest in you, especially if you're fem identifying to learn and grow new things, then absolutely please come join my community.

Dr Ghaz [00:48:43]:
We are we have a lot of fun plans in place for growing this year and great, content, great events, great get togethers. And I just I just wanna have this big celebratory party with as many, like, like minded women as possible. So please come join us. We I promise you will not regret it. I promise.

Corean Canty [00:49:05]:
Awesome. Thank you again for being here. I love you so much.

Dr Ghaz [00:49:09]:
Thank you. Love you too. What a privilege.

Corean Canty [00:49:11]:
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned something, laughed a little, and were inspired to remember to live. Share that nugget and this podcast with a friend to inspire them too. And don't forget to like and subscribe so we can all help each other life better.