Transcript
(lightly edited for readability)
Introducing Ed Surman
00:00:09 Linda
Hi, everyone. It’s Linda Blythe from Genius2U for our amazing podcast. And today we have with us the incredible Ed Surman. And Ed is currently in WA.
After trekking all the way around the country, following his heart with his wonderful partner BeAta.
Ed is from Inner Wisdom Coaching and he obviously coaches in Natural Success work. He also collaborates with BeAta in Families in Flow, connects people with their gardens and kids in nature, which is such a I love that side of things. I mean, I’m a little biased.
My kids went to a Steiner school so they spent all day, every day in nature and you know, climbing trees and and measuring the bugs in the water. So I love that side of things, but.
So, Ed, tell. Tell us a little bit about yourself and and you know what, what you you love about what you’re doing.
00:01:05 Ed Surman
Well, hi, Linda. Hi everyone. I absolutely love what I’m doing. I’m loving my life at the moment and and I guess that’s because I dedicated myself to living from my heart.
As much as possible from, you know, every day when I make my choices, I just love stepping into my true nature and purpose and just seeing what’s there.
And living the heart centered life and this whole trip. Yeah, I am in WA at the moment. Beautiful place called Denmark called this to their town here on the South West coast and BeAta and I have travelled here using intuition to guide us on our way. And so it’s just been a heart opening, heart exploring to dive into our beautiful country and landscape. We’ve met up with some amazing magicians along the way. People in the work and and other people too. And just exploring using our intuition as our compass.
00:01:59 Linda
Yeah. Well, I’m sure that’s gonna be a topic for another podcast because I just instantly go into I’m jealous. I love that idea.
What an amazing adventure to go on and just just follow your intuition. It’s something that Craig and I have been talking about doing for quite a while and we look forward to that too.
00:02:17 Ed
Yeah. And there’s so much with those sorts of things.
We’ve got all these resistance about, you know, why we can’t do it? You know, stuff comes up. What’s in the road? I’ve gotta do this, and I’ve gotta do that. And all these things will part of this trip for us has been.
You know, leaning into that resistance, but also, you know, showing that we can work while we are on the road, you know, when they say when you do what you love, it doesn’t feel like you’re working. But we just wanted to check it out that we could actually, you know, do zoom, attend trainings.
You know, host sessions, all those sorts of things while we’re on the road, which we’ve pretty much proved successful. Mind you, we don’t travel at a great rate of knots. We spend a couple of days, you know, hunkered down somewhere where there’s good Wi-Fi to do our work and and then we move on to the next.
00:03:06 Linda
Yeah.
The next the next little Wi-Fi spot? Yeah. Awesome. But still. Yeah, it sounds amazing. And yeah, it’s a it’s a great way to break up the trip a little bit, I guess too. So, so coming back to your work, you know, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what, what is your genius and how did you come about bringing it into the world as a service, as a business?
What really, how did that happen?
What is Ed’s Genius & how did he make it a business.
00:03:34 Ed
Ohh, that goes back quite a few years. You know I when I was a kid I had a bit of a difficult childhood, but I always found that my happy, safe place was in nature. You know, I was one of these kids where I could lay on my belly and imagine I was an Ant while watching the ants, you know, do some shape shifting into the Ant mode and imagine that I was navigating through all the grass like it was a big jungle.
I still do that as an adult, by the way.
00:04:03 Linda
We should all do that.
00:04:05 Ed
So. Nature has always been a place of awe and wonder for me, a place where I can connect to my heart, to my, to my genius self, I guess without really back then knowing what that was.
I was a psychiatric nurse, I worked in mental health for a number of years, worked in aged care, worked with crippled children. You know, all of these things. And I was never quite satisfied, never quite happy.
And I finally decided that I’d follow my heart and do horticulture and learn about plants. And as soon as I finished my training in horticulture, I got right into land care and I had the privilege of going to people’s properties and connecting them with their properties, you know, through the lens of biodiversity and the and the wonder of life around them.
I worked for local governments as an extension officer helping people connect to nature and I had a friend who was, you know, quite an out there person and she would always say what are you here for? What is your purpose, you know, to connect people to something higher than themselves.
And so that was like 15 years ago. And of course, when I come across Natural Success work and it’s all about connecting into something higher than ourself, like ourself as our individual egoic orientation self. I just thought, wow, this work is for me. You know, my mission has a place and it also has a great structure and a great framework.
00:05:41 Linda
Yeah, yeah.
00:05:53 Ed
To doing that, and of course, you know, I’ve been one of these people that had spent a lot of time trying to fix myself and you’re not joining all.
Learnt some pretty cool tools about helping people overcome difficult childhoods, and I worked helping people overcome difficult childhoods. And that was all great. But what I found, you know, it was just reinforcing beliefs. My beliefs keeping me stuck in that past ****** place.
Whereas now I’ve stopped that work since doing Natural Success, I just couldn’t resonate with it anymore because I thought people can make this shift into their genius without all this need to fix.
Nature as a facilitator for connecting to intuition
00:06:41 Linda
Yeah, it’s revolutionary, isn’t it?
00:06:43 Ed
Yeah. Yeah, so, it’s my absolute chosen and pretty much only modality. You know nowadays that I that I work with my clients and work with people and of course you know nature is just like my facilitator.
For that, if I could get people into nature out into nature. Helping them connect with their higher purpose, their higher self, their something bigger than themselves.
if I could get people into nature out into nature. Helping them connect with their higher purpose, their higher self, their something bigger than themselves.
00:07:15 Linda
Yeah it’s a great conduit, isn’t it? Just to really amplify your ability to tap into that true nature and purpose being in that that sort of environment.
And as we know, we don’t need to be, you can, you can tap into your true nature and purpose in the middle of you know central Sydney, however, it does help to be able to be immersed in that environment of nature and that energy that we can receive from that and being orientated in that way. So yeah, amazing.
00:07:44 Ed
Yeah. And that’s for sure. And even in central Sydney, there’s still nature because we often think about we’re not nature. We often people separate from nature, but we’re actually nature.
00:07:54 Linda
Yeah. Yeah, that’s very true.
00:07:56 Ed
On, you know, just those little trees that they strangler things growing in the crevice of a concrete. It’s like, wow, how did you get here? Well, you know, like, how’s that? Little seed programmed into this great big tree. So it’s that.
Awe and wonder of nature and that’s wherever we go.
00:08:14 Linda
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if we left the city and there was no one there to maintain it, mate, you would take over in, no time at all, really, wouldn’t it? Absolutely. Absolutely. You’re sure it’s resilient.
Yeah. Ohh so is so we mentioned before that you’re collaborating with BeAta and other creators and also of course, we as coaches, we collaborate with our clients too.
Ed
We collaborate with them to help them create their End Results.
Linda
So what do you love about working with other creators, either as clients or in collaboration of, you know, of something such as Families in Flow that you’re doing with BeAta?
Ed Surman
What I love about that is, especially for people that have, you know, been through the work; done CYD (Create Your Destiny); that we’re we’re all getting the sense that that our egos are just an orientation that we choose. It’s just **** we made-up when we were 4-3 years old. And so you can be really powerfully, truthful, and that I think is a job of being a coach is to, you know, hold the person in their genius through looking at the truth of current reality and what they want to create.
...(the) job of being a coach is to hold the person in their genius through looking at the truth of current reality and what they want to create
And so it it makes coaching really easy.
You know when, when, when people are are in that space where they can see themselves for what the egoic part of themselves, for what it is.
00:09:49 Linda
Yeah, absolutely.
How intuition helps Relationships Blossom
00:09:52 Ed
And I really I love working with other creators.
Because pretty much the same thing and using them and just having a a joint platform or a joint structure that that we can, you know, ohh let’s jump into a circle around that and well, what do you get and you know tools like conflict deconstruction and being able to.
You know, go through a conflict, you know, together separately. You know. However, it just relationships like, you know, just my amazing partner BeAta. You know how.
We like that our relationship has just blossomed. The more we do this work, the more we’re together, the more we collaborate.
The more synergy, the more powerful it becomes.
00:10:48 Linda
Yeah, that joint vision and that’s yeah, grows and gets bigger. Both the relationship and the things that you’re creating as a couple, it is amazing.
But fantastic.
00:10:56 Ed
Yeah, absolutely.
You and Craig have worked beautifully together and hold the space. And we really love that. There’s other couples, powerful couples in the work and I think it’s great.
It’s fantastic for relationships.
00:11:19 Linda
Right. So is, yeah. I couldn’t imagine doing it any other way like it just it gets better and better. You know, we talk about how when someone gets into a new relationship, I’m aware we’re getting a little off track here, but there’s that infatuation relationship.
But hey, I would not trade what I’ve got now for another infatuation phase. You know, just even though that’s exciting and giggly and all that sort of stuff, nothing like living and creating with another creator in your life. And so that that’s my take on it for sure.
You know, just feel so amazing that we created, that we created each other, we created that evolution and you and be after the same, you know in in business and in love. You’ve created that together, which is absolutely amazing.
So I feel drawn to also bring you back to the kids in nature because as we know, working with the natural success program, William is often saying, you know, no one under 18 gets to come and do Create Your Destiny. And we can see why because of the individuation and all that sort of thing.
Working with Kids & Alchemy in Nature
But obviously, when you’re you’re working with kids in nature and you’re teaching them about nature, you would still have some sort of level of alchemy involved in what you’re teaching them. So how does that? How does that fit?
For you. What’s the thing with the kids?
00:12:40 Ed
Yeah. The thing with the kids is for a start, you know. I believe that we’re all still kids. We all have that childlike space.
00:12:50 Linda
I still want too.
00:12:51 Ed
In our in our things. So when I say kids in nature, I’m not strictly thinking about children because what I’ve found, you know, I did offer a drop off service for homeschool families. You know, you can drop your kids and dada and of course, you know, mums and dads, being responsible, wanna stay around for a few sessions just to check this fellow out. And that’s great.
And you know, what I found is that time and time and time and time again, they would stay and be as engaged as the kids were.
You know, so I learned a lot from BeAta as an education specialist, and she, you know, maintains that learning is a natural thing. And it’s driven by curiosity. And I really can see how that’s true. And so what I do with kids in nature, I pick a bushland area.
Kids come meet. I’ll often have a theme, you know about what’s jetsam? What’s flotsam? for instance, for at the beach. And you’ll collect jetsam and flotsam and talk about organic and inorganic. You know, so out of that, all these concepts come. And I also believe that, you know.
00:13:54 Linda
Awesome.
00:14:03 Ed
Give children a whole story. You know, they’ll pick up and soak up stuff and ask questions and drive their own learning through their own curiosity. So you know, I’ll be talking to four and five year olds about what’s organic and what’s inorganic, and they’ll start to put things together in their own ways and just get curious. And so, you know, we’ll do things like.
collect flotsam and jetsam and put them all together and make pictures on the beach and and do fun creation things. So I’m really inspiring curiosity and creation in those kids, I’m also seeing them, you know, in their greatness, no matter what’s going on.
They can be doing a tanty or whatever and you know, but that’s their kid and they’re in their greatness. So it’s really all about connecting them at the young age with something bigger than themselves, you know, connecting them with life beyond themselves. Same for mums and dads too, you know, like I have a vision that is unfolding.
Having a Men’s adventure; men’s and boys adventure camps where, you know, we go out, we build a fire. We sit around, we have circles, we talk, we hunt. We look for Bush Tucker and we play with making snares and going fishing and all those sorts of stuff. Then to connect to the bigger world and connect with that bigger version of ourselves and, you know, get authentic. Get to the real heart of who we are, you know, dropping and shredding away the masks. I know that.
One day I’m gonna go on one of William’s safaris. I know. And I know that’s all about, you know, losing the mask in, nature. And I can. And so you know I feel like I’m doing that with kids in nature.
You know, for the kids just allowing them to be their authentic selves and that’s so easy because kids already are encouraging that and also, you know, the parents that hang around, they drop that too. They get, you know, that playful curiosity they’re always engaged and always playing around, yeah.
Yeah, there’s another little thing that I do that’s similar to that, Linda, and that’s called Families and Gardens.
Families and Gardens
- intentional permaculture
00:16:25 Linda
I was gonna ask you about that. Yeah, cause that sounds like lots of fun.
00:16:29 Ed
So I did this event called Families and Gardens from a horticulture permaculture background.
One of my favorite things to do, aside from preserving the Bush, is growing my own food, and I’ve done this for a long time and I’ve done it a whole lot of different ways. And my ultimate favorite way is no dig gardens, which is really like making a lasagna on the ground and creating the soil.
00:16:54 Linda
Yeah. Wow.
00:16:56 Ed
And you know, so it works whether you’re at the beach, on the sand or it works, whether you’re on a clay pan because you’re creating what you’re growing your food in, and also with magic, we can bring our intention in, have the end result in mind in every step of the process and making every step of the process.
00:17:05 Linda
Alright.
00:17:16 Ed
A mindful act that’s sort of. Like Sacred nature worship because, you know, many years ago I used to chat with in back to Yogi, you know Hari Krishna, Hari Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hari, Hari and I went without Grisham and Prashad them is when they make food they actually making food for Krishna, their God, their ultimate deity. Yeah, right. So what? And they’re doing that with devotion.
An intention. So what I’ve learned is that when you’re gardening. If you put that devotion and intention into growing your food when you eat that food, it tastes incredible. It has so much life force. You know, I can feel the vitality in the food.
And so I teach people how to make no dig gardens. And, you know, do a little mindful pull in, drop into the spot, meditate, feel your space, you know, get a sense in the yard, use your intuition where you want it placed, you know, and involved in the whole family. The kids often do.
A lot of the work because it’s quite fun and it’s not heavy and there’s no nasty sharp tools or anything like that involved?
00:18:22 Linda
And it’s free labour.
00:18:23 Ed
And it’s for labor. Yeah, and so I create these no dig gardens for people that are imbued with their love care and intention, and show them how to know what, for instance, you know like when I’m selling seeds, I’ll actually hold the seeds and make little prayer and and pop them under my tongue to moisten them and hold them and just put my intention and magic into the seeds and then pop them out and then pop them into the ground so it’s so.
It’s sort of like just bringing in this intentionality, mindfulness and presence and devotion and love into your landscape, into the wrong land.
00:19:09 Linda
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There is something really special about growing your own things. I mean, I have a little herb garden. I don’t have a proper veggie garden where I am at the moment, but I I love it, you know, especially when it’s spaghetti night and I go out and I get my thyme and my oregano and my basil and my all the little bits and pieces and I just love it.
I feel like it’s my little contribution to the tastes and the blends and it feels abundant actually to walk out there. I don’t know.
Hey, I could spend, you know, $0.10 on a bunch of dry herbs from the supermarket, but it’s nothing like the joy it gives me to go out there and and feel the abundance of what’s in my herb garden. And what I’m collecting for that. So yeah, so much too.
00:19:52 Ed
That, yeah, and it’s the, like, the flavors, those fresh herbs bring and the life force that’s in them, they’re still alive. They’re not dried out, shriveled frozen, microwave, mute. They’re they’ve actually got a life force in them. And I think you know in my health and vitality choice you know it’s it’s the it’s all about the life force and so.
You know, having those fresh things.
Look, I haven’t had a huge veggie garden myself for quite a long time, but I’ve always able to find a little corner somewhere where I can grow some rocket and some Mazzoni and some lettuce and some, you know, a few greens. And like you say, your herbs.
Just makes such a difference to a meal when you when you have those fresh foods and you know.
Fishing with Magic and abundance
That like I love to fish as well and and actually use magic to fish with, so I cheat.
00:20:41 Linda
Maybe there’s a course in that one Fishing with magic.
00:20:48 Ed
Connect to all things in all time and space through the fishing and bring my finger and you know, things like that. But there’s, you know. When I’m home, there’s often occasions where I’ve caught fish. I’ve grown all the food on my plate except for a bit of sriracha sauce or something like that. And it does just feels like this is truly abundant. You know, I’ve created this nutrition. That’s gonna sustain me for the next however long it works for.
But that does eel like what abundance is to me and.
I just love to show people how easy it is and how accessible it is, no matter where you live, you know you can grow some of your own food even just got a veranda with a bit of sun and a foam veggie box with a bit of compost and potting mix in it. You can grow some food.
Ed and Coaching
00:21:46 Linda
Yeah, brilliant. Very good. Awesome. Well, I look forward to hearing more about that. So. So just finally that you’re also a coach. So tell me a little bit about your coaching and you know what, what do you love about that and what’s in it for you for people who come to coach with you?
00:22:06 Ed
Yeah, what I love about coaching is about connecting. It’s about connecting people to themselves.
what I love about coaching is ... it's about connecting people to themselves.
00:22:12 Linda
There’s a theme here.
00:22:15 Ed
Connection coaching. I wonder why I call myself that?
Yeah. So there is a thing there and it is all about connecting, connecting to your heart and what you really love in your heart and you know, and it’s not all fun and games.
There is that you know, keeping an eye on that egoic orientation and you know our roles as coaches is really to help people, you know, become aware of what they’re not aware of. You know, how their, how our patterns are playing out and stepping out of that and choosing what it is that we love? I really enjoy.
You know, like I’ve walked up and zoom hosted it every CYD. Because I love it.
I get so much out of seeing people, you know, come back from those rooms going wow, that was amazing, you know? And just seeing how it lights them up and I love to keep people in the work engaged and in the work because often you know for so many things, you know, if you start something you do a course and you know if you’re not in it every day.
If you’re not in it all of the time that it falls away and you know.
00:23:37 Linda
It does, yeah.
00:23:39 Ed
And we both know there’s nothing more powerful than than stepping right through the Curriculum, but also the next most powerful thing is having a coach to keep you on track to keep you, you know, aware and to keep you focused on your Land of Plenty and what it is that you want to create.
Keep moving forward so you know and this with this fantastic structure that Williams’ evolved. It’s such a powerful way of helping people step into their greatness.
00:24:13 Linda
It sure is.
00:24:13 Ed
You know, way back years ago I was trying to get people to connect to their something higher than their egoic orientation and, you know, just landing in this work and finding this structure as a way of helping people connect to that greatness is like, yeah, I’m not going back. I’ve drank the cool aid.
00:24:34 Linda
I say that all the time I get it and the other thing is, is it not only connecting, but they’re they’re living it?
Like it’s got a practical nature to it and isn’t that amazing to see that come to fruition that it’s all well and good to feel good about learning the stuff, but then to live it to such an amazing.
00:24:54 Ed
Yeah, one of my one of my clients, you know, he got this thing about, you know, he’s been running this online business, which has been very successful. It’s a great product that he sells. It’s been very successful and you know, one day in a circle he got “Why don’t I get a pack and pick thing and that way I can increase my business.”
So you know through him practicing the work, making his choices, getting a bridge, following a bridge, he’s now sort of got so much more leverage and his business has gone to the next level now because being able to take his hands off sending off all those parcels every week, he’s got somebody else doing that now. So he’s able to focus on bigger and better things, and actually he’s building himself a podcast as we speak.
00:25:49 Linda
Beautiful. Yeah, that’s Great.
00:25:50 Ed
And another thing I’m about to launch tonight! And I know you probably won’t hear this before my thing will be launched…
00:25:59 Linda
I don’t know how fast I am at doing the production end of these things just yet, but yeah. OK, so tonight…
00:26:06 Ed
I’m launching a group coaching about being present and so you know, a beta type, first time. There’s a bit of tension I can say, quite a bit of tension around it, but as a creator, I’m just gonna do it. I just know that this is true. This has come from my choices. It’s come, you know, out of my higher self and I’m just leaning in and I’m going to do it. But I’ll be offering more of these, I’m sure, and over time so.
00:26:42 Linda
Beautiful. Yeah. So I’m sure that we’ll be putting those up in the future on our events calendar on Intuitive Wisdom Academy. And of course, people can find you in the coaching directory here, and all the contact details are there as well. So you can keep in touch with what he’s up to.
00:27:00 Ed
I’ve got a listing there for Families and Gardens too.
00:27:02 Linda
Oh yeah, there is too, there is Families and Gardens.
Yeah, brilliant. So you can definitely find Ed on the Genius2U platform.
So, Ed, thank you so much. What a great conversation. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, been on the edge of my my seat, literally. The audience can’t see, but we’ve got zoom going here. But you will notice I am sitting on the edge of my seat.
It’s such a great conversation and I look forward to having you back in the future and we may pick a specific topic to work on and have a chat about or whatever and you know, so yeah, it’s been great. So thank you so much.
00:27:34
Absolutely.
00:27:39 Linda
And no worries and thank you to everyone for listening and we look forward to giving you the next podcast. Who knows who.
00:27:39 Ed
Thank you, Linda.
00:27:47 Linda
Be we’ve got an amazing lineup of guests, so thanks, Ed. And we’ll see you all soon.
00:27:53 Ed
Thanks, Linda. Bye, everyone. See you soon. Happy creatin
