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[00:00:59] Luke Storey: All [00:01:00] right, so the first thing I wanna ask you is a two-part question. What was the most difficult part about having a baby yourself, and what was the most, uh, beautiful, rewarding part of the birth process specifically?

[00:01:20] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm. I was thinking about this yesterday, actually.

[00:01:25] Luke Storey: And what was once your baby, she is sitting right down there in the living room.

[00:01:29] Luke Storey: Yep.

[00:01:31] Eyla Cuenca: The most difficult part was that I had to come into contact with a lot of grief that I think had just been sitting underneath the surface for many, many years. So in the process of birthing her, um, the labor process itself and then, like, this kind of more miniature but intense portal of actually birthing her, it was like, because, because of how that space is, it can feel like [00:02:00] infinite time.

[00:02:00] Eyla Cuenca: Like, it-- for me, it lasted three days, but I felt like I was on this really long walkabout. Like, it could've been months, is how it felt in my system. And so I remember at that time just grappling with, like, "Can I surrender? Can I trust this space?" You know, "Can I trust the people in the room?" I do. And, like, in that kind of toggling, I started having recollections of things in childhood that were deeply difficult to sit with.

[00:02:29] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and that's where I came into contact with-- I was like, "Oh, there's a lot of grief here, and it's gonna have to come at some point, but now I know that it's here, and it's gonna come, and I can't, like, hold the door closed anymore." So I'd say that was the most difficult part, and I remember at one point- When I was in transition, which is that point between first stage labor and second stage labor where you start actually pushing the baby out, there's this really small but intense period called transition, and it's when all the hormones start to shift gears.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] Eyla Cuenca: And I looked at the midwife, I said, "I can't do-- like, I don't think I can do this." Like, she's like, "Well, I'm gonna invite you to reach down and see if you feel the baby's head." And I was like, "No, I just don't wanna do this anymore." And she just, like, grabbed my hand, and she's like-- And I could feel the baby's head, and I was like, "Okay," you know?

[00:03:16] Eyla Cuenca: But it was this moment where I was like, "I'd rather just have this all be over, and it doesn't matter." And she, and she looked at me and said, "Would you really go to the hospital and, like, just make it all-- check out? Do you wanna check out?" And I was like, "No, I'd rather just stay here and see what happens."

[00:03:33] Eyla Cuenca: And then I got all the, all the energy that I could. And, um, what was on the other side of that was receiving this baby, you know, little Seraphina, into my arms. And that's when I felt, for the first time, that I had purpose in life, which I would say is the-- Like you asked about maybe the, the pleasure of- Mm-hmm

[00:03:53] Eyla Cuenca: of this experience. It was like right after feeling completely lost, [00:04:00] alone, in the dark, confused, confronted with all this grief and intensity. Like, immediately I was like, "Oh, I finally have a purpose." Like, it's so clear what my purpose is, and all of this, like, wandering around and all this travel throughout the world and, like, university and all these cla- and everything that I'd been doing to find the structure and the connection to something was, like, presented right in front of me.

[00:04:24] Eyla Cuenca: And I was like, "This is the beginning," you know? "This is the first day of the rest of my life," or whatever that quote is. And since then, when I'm not sure what's going on and I need to take the temperature, I just look at her. She's a direct reflection of, like, what I'm up to, what my nervous system's up to, and how far away or how out of con- you know, how incongruent things are.

[00:04:46] Eyla Cuenca: Like, she's the barometer. So I'd say that's been the deepest pleasure is, like, she's a, she's a compass in a sense, and learning from her. You know, couldn't ask for a better teacher.

[00:04:58] Luke Storey: I hear that a lot from parents. [00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:05:01] Luke Storey: It's funny that you mention the purpose piece because, uh, in preparation for this conversation, I was, you know, always have, like, a set list of questions, and sometimes I follow them more than others, depending on where the energy flows.

[00:05:13] Luke Storey: But, um, I was s- contemplating briefly if I wanted to discuss some of my/our journey with conception or lack thereof specifically. And, um, I was like, "Nah, I don't wanna talk about it. It'll be too heavy." But since you brought up that idea of purpose, this is something that I've really been You know, as a would-have-been dad, um, that's looking less likely as time goes on, and you were working with us briefly when we were pregnant, uh, the one time before we had a miscarriage.

[00:05:45] Luke Storey: And I've been, um, lately, I think partly because I've been in such a strange, um, isolated portal writing a book for the past couple years-

[00:05:58] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[00:05:58] Luke Storey: so it's hard to gauge what [00:06:00] is real and what's just that, you know, 'cause my life changed so much. But one thing I have been really becoming aware of is this idea of what's my purpose.

[00:06:10] Luke Storey: Like, what, what am I doing with my life? Is this it? Is this the way it's supposed to go? And I think I've identified that on some level intuitively, I knew that becoming a dad would solve that question. M- And I wasn't even that aware of that question at the time because I already felt like I was living my purpose.

[00:06:30] Luke Storey: But once that, you know, was something that became, um, something that was, that Alice and I were really intent on experiencing together, then my forward motion and kind of planning around purpose was really anchored to that-

[00:06:49] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[00:06:49] Luke Storey: happening, right? Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, I can see." And just watching my friends, I mean, everyone I know has a bunch of kids, so I know a lot of dads and, you know, I can just see how their life is oriented around being a [00:07:00] parent, and everything else becomes kind of secondary.

[00:07:03] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm.

[00:07:03] Luke Storey: Or anything else they're doing in life is in support of that primary purpose, which is to, you know, be a great parent and help steward this young soul throughout their life. Um, so I've been kind of wrestling with that, right? It's like, oh, wow, there is a void. There can feel a void kind of in our house even- Hmm

[00:07:19] Eyla Cuenca: and

[00:07:20] Luke Storey: in our experience together as a couple. And, um, I, I'm not at the point now where I know what the other thing is, right? It's kinda like, well, if it's not that, what am I supposed to be doing here, right?

[00:07:32] Eyla Cuenca: Right.

[00:07:33] Luke Storey: And so, yeah, I can, I can really see how that's such a huge part of, of becoming a parent. You know?

[00:07:40] Luke Storey: It's just reorienting your North Stars. Like, why are you here? What are you doing here?

[00:07:45] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, and I, I don't wanna, I don't want to sound like now my purpose is to, like, serve as a mother, right? Like, it's not like that's the purpose. It was like her presence brought me to the soul's purpose, which [00:08:00] was actually healing a lineage that goes really far back, like maybe six generations of a pattern that has been plaguing my maternal line.

[00:08:10] Eyla Cuenca: And it was really only her that was going to reflect back to me that that needed to change. And so I feel that that's actually one of- Oh, okay ... the purposes.

[00:08:20] Luke Storey: Got it. So it's like she, y- having her was a catalyst-

[00:08:25] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, she- ...

[00:08:26] Luke Storey: to a, to a higher purpose that's much more broad.

[00:08:28] Eyla Cuenca: It's much more broad. Okay. So, like, like, the, the grief I mentioned that I came into contact with in this, in this journey of labor was like, "Oh, this is gonna be the work for the next five, six years."

[00:08:38] Eyla Cuenca: I just already saw it, and I was like, "Oh." And then that gr- co- confronting that grief and alchemizing it was going to be part of what changed, what ended the pattern in my lineage. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then also what was going to inform my work deeper, 'cause up until that point I'd been a doula and was like, "It's good to have support during birth, and this is what women need, and [00:09:00] postpartum help," right?

[00:09:01] Eyla Cuenca: But then after this experience, I was like, "Oh, there's actually, like, an alchemical process that happens for the man and the woman, and now I've kind of seen and experienced it, and now my personal journey is what's gonna give me what I need to create that much more profound experience or support that much more profound experience for families."

[00:09:21] Luke Storey: Beautiful.

[00:09:22] Eyla Cuenca: So yeah.

[00:09:23] Luke Storey: Well, that makes me feel better because I'm already doing all that.

[00:09:26] Eyla Cuenca: You're j-- Well, that's what I, that's why I'm sharing this. I was like, "Wait," "Let's not..." You know, because yeah, of course, like, you know, homeschooling her and teaching her about, like, the, what I believe is the true history of, you know, European architecture or whatever, you know, all the things that I share- Yeah

[00:09:39] Eyla Cuenca: with her, yes, that's, that makes me feel really good, but that's more ple- like, pleasure. It's not like that's my purpose, you know? Right. It's more, it's more pleasure and, like, um, than anything else, and, like, making sure she's fed and healthy and, you know, does things that she likes. Like, that's not the purpose.

[00:09:57] Eyla Cuenca: Like, her presence as a catalyst has [00:10:00] revealed my purpose.

[00:10:01] Luke Storey: That's cool.

[00:10:02] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:10:02] Luke Storey: That's cool. Yeah, I think I was thinking about it more in terms of, ah, just m- making money, s- ho- you know, security in the future, owning a home, where are we gonna live? Like, the masculine expression of creating safety, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:10:23] Luke Storey: And providing. And I, you know, I get satisfaction in doing that for Allison. Um- But I feel like I f- I don't know 'cause it hasn't happened, but I feel like that, that would become much more clear if there was, like, a family unit versus just the two of us and our dog, you know what I mean?

[00:10:42] Eyla Cuenca: For sure.

[00:10:43] Luke Storey: So I think that's the side of purpose where I'm like, "Hmm," like, "Why am I busting my ass?

[00:10:47] Luke Storey: Like, we're fine." You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like I'm not thinking about, well, I probably wouldn't allow my kid to go to college, but- Right ... you know, thinking about inheritance and, you know, buil- you creating a trust and, you know, you're kind of, [00:11:00] um, what do you call it? Like, uh, I don't know, just passing down your life's work and the fruits of your labor to someone else and kind of setting up a kid and their life.

[00:11:11] Luke Storey: It feels like that part of purpose is

[00:11:14] Eyla Cuenca: abso- Well, there's also biological legacy, which is-

[00:11:17] Luke Storey: Legacy. Yeah. That's the word I was trying to think of. Thank you.

[00:11:18] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And so that, all you're describing is that, that very, you know, primordial, biological desire to leave a legacy. Like, you know, and then it's compounded by different things that we experience in life.

[00:11:30] Eyla Cuenca: But I think that's, you know, very important for men.

[00:11:33] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:11:33] Eyla Cuenca: You know? And there's ways that it's expressed.

[00:11:36] Luke Storey: Totally.

[00:11:36] Eyla Cuenca: Someone asked me yesterday, actually, um, you know, women go through this portal and this initiation in birth, but then, like, what's the man's initiation? Because this is very immediate for women.

[00:11:46] Eyla Cuenca: It's like one moment you're pregnant, the next moment you have a baby in your arms, and, like, you don't stop, and you don't. It's, it's like, it's on, you know? There's no like... It's a 24/7 demand and, you know, and a pleasure. But for men, I really feel that it's [00:12:00] the l- their initiation is the long game.

[00:12:02] Luke Storey: Ah. It's like- Yeah

[00:12:04] Eyla Cuenca: you know, what you're describing. It's that long game of how, how strong can I make this container? For how long can I sustain it? And can I have, can I allow these ego deaths to happen as I'm forming this container over years? And how do I see myself transforming as a man? And I feel like that's, it's just a different type of initiation- Mm-hmm

[00:12:22] Eyla Cuenca: when you become a parent. Mm-hmm. 'Cause for a woman, it's very clear what's going on. And, you know, she's just on. Everything adjusts, and she doesn't have time to really, like, reflect on it a lot. And for men, it looks quite different.

[00:12:34] Luke Storey: That's interesting. Yeah, one of the things that I was looking forward to and anticipating was just becoming less self-centered.

[00:12:44] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:12:44] Luke Storey: You know? It's like I've set my li- just because of the way I'm wired, I really value freedom and sovereignty and doing what I wanna do when I wanna do it, and not being told what to do, and not being beholden to calendars and schedules and, you know. Yeah. Never been good at having a job or a [00:13:00] boss, so I just have always kinda created my own thing.

[00:13:02] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, same.

[00:13:03] Luke Storey: Which is beautiful, but I think when I was, you know, really on the parent path- I was kind of looking forward to having that interrupted in a way.

[00:13:13] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[00:13:13] Luke Storey: Scared of it, but also like, no, I think this will be really good for me- Yeah ... to have to put someone else truly before me, and to be able to surrender my preferences and just, you know, the kind of version of freedom that I've been experiencing for the past, you know, 20 years or so.

[00:13:29] Luke Storey: That I, I was anticipating a different kind of freedom in the same way that when I was, um, in such a long period of, like, love avoidance and just lack of capacity for intimacy with a partner, and got with my wife, and it's just, there's been, like, a level of freedom in my ability to receive and express love that I never even knew was possible, and it's so much more valuable and rewarding to the kind of lowercase F [00:14:00] freedom that I was clinging to for so long.

[00:14:02] Luke Storey: Totally. Right? Yeah, it's

[00:14:03] Eyla Cuenca: like lower-

[00:14:03] Luke Storey: So I was like- Lower case ... I was kind of transposing that experience onto, wow, if this is what I'm experiencing just being able to truly love my wife and just be completely open to that, um, and just go as deep as I could possibly go into that unconditional love, I was like, wow, I can only imagine.

[00:14:19] Luke Storey: You know, I have freedom now where it's like I don't have to drive a kid to soccer practice and, you know, deal with the medical system and circumventing all the things that are, you know, child protective services, whatever, right?

[00:14:30] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[00:14:30] Luke Storey: It's like I don't have to deal with any of that, but also I'm not having the experience of, like, the freedom of truly devoting your life to another person in the way that I think I would as a parent.

[00:14:42] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And I will-- Like, it's interesting that you mentioned love avoidance, because what I've deeply healed in loving her unconditionally is g- it's, it's almost like I've been able to give it. That void we were talking about before we went on camera, like, that void that I had from my own [00:15:00] infancy is being filled, I think, with, like, an authentic type of earth and life because I'm able to give it to her.

[00:15:07] Eyla Cuenca: Like, all the things that I'm like, oh, I, I grieve not having, providing that for her has, like, filled it in me.

[00:15:15] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:15:15] Eyla Cuenca: You know? Right. Which is so much more rewarding than these other types of freedom or love that I thought I was connecting with, engaging in.

[00:15:24] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:15:24] Eyla Cuenca: You know? That like- The

[00:15:25] Luke Storey: kind of freedom that's like, I feel like going to Bali, I'm just going.

[00:15:28] Luke Storey: Yeah. Like, that's the kind of freedom that I've thought about, you know, that-

[00:15:31] Eyla Cuenca: Totally ...

[00:15:32] Luke Storey: wow, it, it feels good to be able to do what you wanna do, but I feel like it would probably feel even better... I mean, it's not better or worse, but it's a different life experience to experience that kind of freedom. Yeah.

[00:15:45] Luke Storey: Where you're, you're actually breaking patterns in your lineage, right? Whereas, like- That's- ... my, my lineage stops with me, so I'm breaking the pattern so far and maybe helping some other people through the work I do to break their own patterns.

[00:15:57] Eyla Cuenca: 100%.

[00:15:58] Luke Storey: But my little brother has two kids, and [00:16:00] it's like I'm watching him in real time reprogram himself and the whole family line, and also not only legacy of like the purpose of what he's working for in the world, but the legacy of the way that he's raising his kids with just a completely-- I mean, they had wild birth.

[00:16:19] Luke Storey: There's like no school. I mean, the whole thing. They're, they're full on, right?

[00:16:23] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:16:23] Luke Storey: And just watching the way he is as a parent and how much more enlightened he is than our dad was. But even looking back and seeing that our dad was much more enlightened than his- Sure ... and, and going back, it's almost like there's a evolution of consciousness that has its own inertia.

[00:16:41] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[00:16:42] Luke Storey: And as beautiful of a job as I think my brother's doing, there'll probably come a point where his two boys are adults, and they're like, "Yeah, my dad was pretty fucked up," relative to, you know- It might

[00:16:51] Eyla Cuenca: be inevitable, yeah, relative- Right? ... to that experience.

[00:16:54] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah. And then their kids, if, if the, if the sequence kind of follows, then their kids will have an [00:17:00] even more, you know, um, enlightened experience.

[00:17:03] Luke Storey: So it's, it's really cool to watch all of that.

[00:17:05] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:17:06] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:17:07] Eyla Cuenca: It is, and it's funny because when she was born, I was like, "Wait, I'm still gonna travel." But now I have someone that I like can p-pour love into, and so it's like she ended up tr- you know, going to Portugal, to Greece, to Turkey, to Scotland. Like, I just was-- started taking her everywhere and was like, "Oh, I'm still fulfilling those desires that I have as an individual on this earth, and now I get to share it with someone who, like, is taking it all in without, like, a story."

[00:17:34] Luke Storey: Right. Right.

[00:17:35] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. You

[00:17:35] Luke Storey: know? Like,

[00:17:36] Eyla Cuenca: this is actually better than traveling, you know, with-- And I traveled a lot alone before, you know, I got into partnership and became a mother. And so I was like, "Wait, this, this whole idea that it's either/or is not true. Like, many things can be true- I love that ... at once." And that-

[00:17:50] Luke Storey: Evidenced by the fact that you knocked on my door with her in tow.

[00:17:53] Luke Storey: Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, that's so cool."

[00:17:55] Eyla Cuenca: And that's what I tell the women in my mentorship and doula trainings is like, they're like, "Oh, I have, you know, a [00:18:00] small one. I can't do the program." I'm like, "No, bring them, and, like, have them watch and have them listen and breastfeed them while you're on Zoom, and whatever you need to do.

[00:18:07] Eyla Cuenca: And, like, if you need to take them to change them, like, take the Zoom call with you, turn off the camera." Like, we're-- I, I want to I want it to be acceptable and feel good that a woman doesn't have to separate her motherhood from her passion, you know? And so that's part of what we're up to in that container is like this, this internal struggle of having it be separate is what creates a lot of conflict, I think, emotionally, and then also ends up being physical conflict and symptoms.

[00:18:36] Eyla Cuenca: So how do we make it okay again, make it good again that children are a part of everyday life?

[00:18:42] Luke Storey: That's beautiful. Yeah, it's like a reframing of sacrifice, right? It's like flipping sacrifice, inv-inverting sacrifice to Gift, bonus- Mm-hmm ... extra, better, right?

[00:18:55] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, totally.

[00:18:56] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:18:57] Eyla Cuenca: Totally. That's cool. Yeah. No, 'cause for so long we've kept...

[00:18:59] Eyla Cuenca: [00:19:00] Like, it's like there's the workforce, and then there's being a mother, and then what if it does- we don't even call it the workforce anymore. We just call it I'm doing something I like to do, and you're here with me, and you can be bored, right? This is, like, another thing and a whole other topic, so won't take it too far over there, but it's like can you allow the child to be bored and learn from what you're up to, right?

[00:19:21] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I, I had a friend growing up, Korean, and we would go to her house, which was the, the town's Korean market. And then there's a back door, which was where they lived. And when I'd go over to play at her house when we were little, we would actually just help wrap a bunch of the Korean food that was going in the hot food section, and then, like, help at the register, and that was us, like, hanging out.

[00:19:42] Eyla Cuenca: And she... Like, it was, I was like, "Wow," you know? And I remember thinking, "Gosh, my mom has to get a babysitter for her to go do stuff." And, like, I always felt so separate, and this family was just so tight-knit, where it was like, no, we just, we live, work, play, experience together, and it's all very fluid. And I'm [00:20:00] like, that's, that's true freedom.

[00:20:02] Eyla Cuenca: That's the life, you know, according to me. So, like, that's, you know, that's what I've tried to recreate with her.

[00:20:08] Luke Storey: I like that you brought up the boredom thing because when I was, uh, especially w- when I was a kid with my dad, um, you know, he would take me to work. He was a, he had a excavating company. Oh. So it was, like, you know, big tractors and trucks and all this kind of stuff.

[00:20:22] Luke Storey: And I remember just being so goddamn bored. I mean, just hours and hours sitting, waiting in the truck. I was just waiting for him. He'd just talk forever out on the job sites, and it was just torturous, um, because I just was used to more stimuli at my mom's house in California, right? Sure. Um, but looking back, it's like, oh my God, I would give anything to have enough time on my hands to be bored.

[00:20:49] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? Like, I look for, I, like, set my life up now so I can go have time to be bored somewhere and just exist and just be in presence. Yeah. You know? And [00:21:00] not, and not have to be doing something. So it's, it's interesting how something went from i- an experience that was challenging to something that I actually really value.

[00:21:09] Luke Storey: Right. It's like in the, being in boredom is where creativity has room to flow. It's like if there's not breaks, for me, that's, another way would be meditation, right? It's like-

[00:21:18] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[00:21:19] Luke Storey: it's like a self-imposed boredom to allow space for things to move and allow things to, you know, exit that I don't want in my experience and new creative ideas to come in.

[00:21:29] Luke Storey: But I think that's a really Probably a really important part of parenthood is being able to be comfortable with your kid being bored

[00:21:36] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. It-

[00:21:37] Luke Storey: Tell me more about that

[00:21:38] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And it all comes from our own capacity to do that, right? Like, my own capacity that's I've worked on, you know, to not get into these, like, smaller addictions with technology and convenience, which takes a lot of effort on my part, allows me to be present with her.

[00:21:52] Eyla Cuenca: And so when she can experience that presence, she's also like, "Oh, okay. I don't need to go find something to do [00:22:00] because the most im- the thing that feels the best to me is, like, that con- connection and presence with my mother, and she's able to offer it to me. So, like, all right." You know? She doesn't feel that need.

[00:22:10] Eyla Cuenca: And we have a saying in our house, "Only boring people get bored." Um, and so now it's like she'll f- you know, when I was a kid, you know, my mom would be like, "We don't know what to do," and then she'd be like, "Go outside," you know? "And "... she'd tell us. Uh, "Go look for something to do," and just would close the door, and then we'd have to find stuff to do outside, and that's where we would, like, start building things from mud and rocks and find, you know, and go out into the fruit trees.

[00:22:36] Eyla Cuenca: And then, like, we had an avocado tree in LA and citrus trees and fig tree and all k- And we would just collect fruits and make things and, you know, it was like... And then by the end of the day, we were exhausted and had a great time. And so that's like, I'm either present with her or she's finding something to do with whatever's available.

[00:22:55] Eyla Cuenca: And I find that when she's had moments of, of that [00:23:00] experience, she'll go in and draw something, and it's like a super cool drawing. And I'm like, "Whoa." And I'm like, "Tell me about that." She's like, "When I was outside, this cl- this cloud passed and it looked like this animal, and then I had this idea that this other cloud ate that cloud."

[00:23:13] Eyla Cuenca: And then she draws it and I'm like, "Oh, like, make a n- make a series. Like, keep exploring it." And so her, her skills of observation have really developed through not giving her something to create reality with- Mm-hmm ... which is like, you know, a phone or device or, you know, like, YouTube. Um, but I will say, it's not that she doesn't look at a screen.

[00:23:34] Eyla Cuenca: She, she's really into cooking, so she watches a lot of how-tos on preparing food. Oh, really? Like Waggy-- She's really into cuts of beef and things. Really? So she's, like, following this- Wow ... this YouTuber that she likes to watch how he, like, cuts beef and, you know, all that stuff. So I'm like, "Okay," like, that, you know, that's fine.

[00:23:50] Eyla Cuenca: Like, this is... This works because it's feeding an interest that she has. But, like, these games where it's like you're, you know, expand their brain, brain [00:24:00] teasers online. I'm like, "No, the brain teaser is, like, figuring out what to do with what's in front of her, you know? And, and how is she gonna solve a problem."

[00:24:10] Eyla Cuenca: So yeah, I'd say that, um... And I'll, and I'll actually tie this into something that's been happening a lot in the postpartum space, talking about boredom. A lot of the mothers I'm, I'm working with, and a lot of the mothers that my students are working with in their respective towns They're reporting back, and I've been reporting back to the group that, um, they'll go into the postpartum space and the moms are, like, inseparable from their phones.

[00:24:36] Eyla Cuenca: Like, they're supposed to be- Oh ... breastfeeding, right? But it's like they hug the baby to the breast, and then they'll just, like, scroll. And then there's, like, this general kind of, like, on edge, you know, like overwhelm. Like, "I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. I feel overwhelmed by postpartum."

[00:24:53] Eyla Cuenca: And I'm like, they're not... there's... not much is going on in this sp- space, you know? Like, what are you overwhelmed by? [00:25:00] 'Cause, like, you have postpartum support, someone's cleaning the house, and there's this, like, general sense of overwhelm. And I'm realizing what happens when we're in-- we're engaged with the device or we're in that kind of, like, dopamine, like, reward, um, relationship, we lose our concept of time.

[00:25:16] Eyla Cuenca: And so I'm noticing a lot of women, like, in their 20s and 30s who are with newborns are feeling a deep overwhelm, and maybe let's call it addiction, to, to the screen, to the device, to that c- you know, constant pacifier, and it's affecting the postpartum space. It's affecting, um, the attachment that she needs to be building with the baby.

[00:25:37] Eyla Cuenca: You know, like Dr. Edward Tronick's work, where he does the still face experiments. Or he did, he's not doing them anymore. But when the baby does not have a face to learn from and respond to, it starts to create its own coping mechanisms. And so we're seeing... Like, I'm like, is this what's becoming-- is this what's happening to these kids who are, like, five, six, seven?

[00:25:58] Eyla Cuenca: Like, they, [00:26:00] they can't relate, they can't read facial expressions. They can't engage in that way because they're not learning because their moms have been, like, plugged into a screen, you know-

[00:26:10] Luke Storey: Wow ...

[00:26:10] Eyla Cuenca: for many years.

[00:26:12] Luke Storey: I'm, I'm-- In my mind, I'm calling the EMF police too. It's like you're breastfeeding and holding your phone right there.

[00:26:17] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, yeah.

[00:26:18] Luke Storey: I would highly advise you don't do that- Oh,

[00:26:20] Eyla Cuenca: yeah ... when you're

[00:26:21] Luke Storey: listening.

[00:26:21] Eyla Cuenca: And I'm seeing it a lot.

[00:26:22] Luke Storey: It's your-- I mean, it's your life, you know? Just saying.

[00:26:24] Eyla Cuenca: But I'm seeing it a lot, and it's even women who are, like, let's say, highly conscious of what they're consuming food-wise and, like, it... So there's just a blind spot when it comes to th- maybe the, the device and then their own sense of being able to sit with boredom, right?

[00:26:40] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Like, I remember breastfeeding and just sitting out the window and being like... I'd be there for, like, 45 minutes, you know? And I'm like, I'm breastfeeding and kinda dozing off, and I'd look out the window and just start, like, being in my mind, and th- there wasn't things-- you know? Something to do. Or I'd read, you know?

[00:26:57] Eyla Cuenca: And, um, and I [00:27:00] remember, like, I don't know, I-- the, just the, the pleasure of that. And, like, my nervous system would down regulate, hers would down regulate, and then we were both, like, nourished and restored. But I know-- I didn't have the same-- I wasn't working from my phone at the time. I w- you know, I didn't have- Yeah

[00:27:14] Eyla Cuenca: the same relationship with my phone as I do now. Um, so yeah. It's, uh, this idea of being bored, let's say, um, or just not plugged in is- It's huge for all ages at this point

[00:27:27] Luke Storey: Including 55, my age.

[00:27:30] Eyla Cuenca: Well, and then let's go beyond that into 70s, like boomers. They are like strugg- I see them a lot. Like, we have a neighbor, and she's always on her porch, and she chain smokes, and she's on the screen.

[00:27:40] Eyla Cuenca: And you can hear, like, the, the, the sound, and she l- It's like the houses are far apart from each other, and she's just there. Like, she's hooked in.

[00:27:47] Luke Storey: They're so addictive, man.

[00:27:49] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:27:49] Luke Storey: I have a, um, app someone turned me on to called Freedom, and, uh, I, I really wish I would use it more, but you can set it to block your phone and/or [00:28:00] computer from doing whatever, right?

[00:28:02] Luke Storey: From you can't get texts, your texts won't work, emails, browser, social media, et cetera. And so on a good day, when I wake up, I'll hit like two hours on Freedom, so I can't go on Telegram or do anything weird 'cause I've noticed I have much shittier days when I look at my phone in the morning. Sure. Like, that sense of overwhelm.

[00:28:21] Luke Storey: Totally. It's like we're not meant to have access to all the information in the world, A. B, the information that we... I'll take responsibility for myself. The information I tend to gravitate toward is like, "Danger. Danger. We're fucked." You know what I mean? I'm not on there looking at, like, puppy videos, right?

[00:28:38] Luke Storey: I'm going like, "All right. Who, what's New World Order up to today? I need to protect myself," you know?

[00:28:42] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[00:28:42] Luke Storey: But it's like the days when I hit that freedom, it's like there's a certain detachment or resilience by the time I finally get to it because I've oriented myself to actual reality, which is I'm totally safe and happy, and- Yeah

[00:28:56] Luke Storey: you're coming over to have an awesome conversation, and everything is actually [00:29:00] fine.

[00:29:00] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[00:29:01] Luke Storey: But diving into that vortex of flicker and blue light and the hypnotic MKUltra nature of those, uh, that technology, man, it's really hard to get out of that cortisol kind of, you know- Yeah ... anxious loop if, if you don't...

[00:29:17] Luke Storey: For me, if I don't have kind of a firewall first, especially in the morning, where I'm like feel fortified and solid, then I can, like, poke around a little bit and it doesn't, it doesn't seem to ingrain in the same way.

[00:29:31] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. It doesn't, uh... Right. It's like a buffer. You're setting the tone for the day.

[00:29:34] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:29:34] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And you're not... That's what I'm saying. It's like a lot of moms or, like, parents, let's say caregivers, are in an alternate reality because of how the day starts or what they're engaging in, and then the child is like, "What re- what reality are you in?" 'Cause they're just... I mean, they're, it's a symbiotic relationship.

[00:29:50] Eyla Cuenca: So, you know, like- Yeah, this is like a big statement, I know, but 'cause everybody has their own belief about what's causing this, but it's like really hyperactive or like [00:30:00] reactive children or like difficult children. You know? It's like a they problem. You know? It's like what's, what happened to them? You know?

[00:30:07] Eyla Cuenca: Was it the vaccines? Was it the this? Was it the birth? Was it the... And I'm like, "What's going on with your nervous system?" 'Cause they're just an extension of you. So what's happening even, like, even underneath the surface of whatever cool, calm, collected you, you know, you're portraying, like what's actually going on?

[00:30:24] Eyla Cuenca: And so that's a really good barometer for me is what I was saying earlier. It's like when something's going on that seems like a little maybe off, I'm like, "Okay, like what's go, what's going on with you?" Like where- Yeah ... are you not in congruence? Like where is the incoherence? Yeah.

[00:30:38] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:30:38] Eyla Cuenca: And, uh, when I correct that or, or transform it, then she's like you know?

[00:30:45] Eyla Cuenca: She's at ease. So yeah. I mean, it's how you start the day is gonna impact them. So it's like even if you're homeschooling, like what's the... Like if you're with them all day, what tone are you setting, you know? And then that leads me into like what's going on in schools, right? What did that teacher [00:31:00] do? 'Cause now she's, there's like this feeding off of that teacher.

[00:31:03] Eyla Cuenca: Like what's going on- Right ... in her life? You have no idea.

[00:31:06] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:07] Eyla Cuenca: She's overworked, underpaid, like going through a divorce, like dealing whatever is going on, and like your child is like that's what they're feeding off of, like the proverbial, you know, breast, right? That's-

[00:31:18] Luke Storey: Totally, yeah. It's like the m- the modeling, you know, especially when someone like a teacher's been put in a position of authority-

[00:31:27] Eyla Cuenca: Yes

[00:31:27] Luke Storey: and they're meant to be an example to follow.

[00:31:30] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:31:31] Luke Storey: Right?

[00:31:31] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:31:32] Luke Storey: It's funny. It's like, it's like I had so many fears about becoming a parent. One of them was just like how am I gonna navigate a kid outside of the system and, and not let them get caught by the matrix, whether it's like what happens in pregnancy, birth, and then afterward.

[00:31:48] Luke Storey: But yesterday I was walking the dog and a yellow school bus drove by, and it's like I can't unsee that that looks exactly like a prison bus to me. And I [00:32:00] noti- I noticed myself having that experience, right? Just having that thought, and I was like, "Is that wrong to think that?" I go, "That's, it's just how I see it."

[00:32:07] Luke Storey: Yeah. I can't, like I can't unsee it.

[00:32:09] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:32:09] Luke Storey: Because I lived it as a kid- Yeah ... and that's how it felt. But also just objectively when you look at, you know, the busing system and wh- you know, why, it's like why is the government so eager to get the kids out of the house and into this-

[00:32:22] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[00:32:24] Luke Storey: structure? Like w- what, like- It's a

[00:32:25] Eyla Cuenca: training facility.

[00:32:26] Luke Storey: Yeah. And it's, well, the thing is like why I am, you know, have this sort of some would say paranoid view of that is when you look objectively at the fact that throughout history, governments have only at best pretended to care about the populace. So if their stated motive in getting every kid in this neighborhood on a bus every morning and taking them to the local elementary school, it's like Maybe the teachers and, you know, some of the people at the lower levels of that power structure pyramid are well-intentioned and love [00:33:00] kids and care about them and want to educate them.

[00:33:01] Luke Storey: But systemically, I just don't believe that the government or these institutions have the best interest and well-being of kids at mind because that's what history shows.

[00:33:12] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[00:33:12] Luke Storey: So it's like, well, why are they putting so much effort and resources into putting these kids in these buildings, you know?

[00:33:19] Luke Storey: It's like I just don't trust that it is inherently, um, a, a wholesome and positive motive.

[00:33:26] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. I mean, I feel that way about the medical system. I, like, don't think that nurses are, like, trying to, you know, participate in the agenda that, like, the higher-ups have, you know? But they're, they think they're doing the best thing possible to, you know, support us and our health, and, like, they're participating in something, you know, maybe much more nefarious than they know.

[00:33:47] Eyla Cuenca: And yeah, it's, um, I mean, with schools, it's just like how do we keep the adults in the workforce? Like, we need to keep the wheels going, so we need them to procreate, and we need the kids to be [00:34:00] somewhere while they're doing all the stuff so we can, like, siphon all the energy off of the adult population.

[00:34:05] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:34:05] Eyla Cuenca: It's like, you know? So, um, yeah. I s- I think, I think that too. When I drive by schools, there's a school across, near our home, and it's just everyone in the neighb- like, everyone in the neighborhood who's kind of, like, on the tip calls it the, you know, the little prison 'cause it looks like that. And it's, like, a brand-new charter school, arts and sciences and, you know, all the things, and it just looks like a prison, and the kids play on AstroTurf inside, and there's, like, fencing with barbed wire.

[00:34:31] Eyla Cuenca: And I'm like, "This looks a lot like Shawshank Redemption," you know?

[00:34:34] Luke Storey: Not to mention, uh, so many of them have a cell tower right over -

[00:34:38] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, yeah. No, no. They're- ... like, Wi-Fi throughout the school ... yeah, this, totally. And they're just like that, that, that tower is, like, paying rent, you know? Yeah. They're paying off.

[00:34:45] Eyla Cuenca: They're like, "We need it here." And then the school's like, "Yeah, we need the money. Put the 5G tower right there."

[00:34:49] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's wild.

[00:34:55] Luke Storey: I'm all for a healthy gut and detox programs, but honestly, most [00:35:00] detoxes just seem like an expensive way to have a terrible week. You know what I'm talking about. Harsh ingredients, cramping, fatigue. You're basically forcing your body to flush everything out, whether it's ready or not. Personally, that never made sense to me because let's face it, your poor gut is already dealing with enough: pesticides, food additives, environmental toxins, all day, every day.

[00:35:22] Luke Storey: So instead of forcing the detox process, I use something that actually works with my body. It's called Daily Gut Detox from Just Thrive, and it's one of the simplest, gentlest ways I know to keep my gut in a good place. It uses something called immunoglobulins, which bind like a magnet to toxins, microbes, and other irritants in your gut and help carry them right out of your body.

[00:35:45] Luke Storey: So there's no harsh flushing, no crash, no feeling wrecked for days like you would on some of the other more aggressive detox programs. It's something you can take daily that keeps your gut clean and functioning the way it's supposed to. For me, that shows up as smoother [00:36:00] digestion, better energy, and feeling more like myself on a day-to-day basis.

[00:36:04] Luke Storey: So if you wanna get your gut detox dialed in, here is what you do. Go to justthrivehealth.com/luke and use the code LUKE to get 20% off your order. So now, thanks to Just Thrive, you can stop punishing your body with harsh cleanses and start supporting it the way it was designed to work. Again, that link, which you'll also find clickable in the show description, is justthrivehealth.com/luke, and that code is LUKE.

[00:36:31] Luke Storey: That was a beautiful opening tangent. I went in all kinds of directions I had no plans to go in. Um, I was like, "Yeah, we're gonna talk about birth," and, you know, I did a show with you. Uh, by the way, for those listening, uh, if you wanna hear more, today's show notes will be found at lukestory.com/birthkeeper2, where you will find a link to our former episode, which was number 407.

[00:36:53] Luke Storey: So lukestory.com/birthkeeper2, which is where we'll link to everything we talk about today, including a prior episode. [00:37:00] But that one, as I recall, was much more focused on, you know, the process of getting pregnant and all of the things that happen during birth. And, um, I felt at that time, and still feel, it's really important to help educate and inspire parents, m- men and women, um, that there is an alternative route, and I think a lot of the people listening at this point are probably aware of that.

[00:37:21] Luke Storey: I, I'm doubting my podcast is reaching the mainstream in a way that, uh, you know, some of the other bigger platforms might, 'cause I just have chosen to be subversive and weird and not try to fit in.

[00:37:34] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:37:35] Luke Storey: That said, um- Because I've not been on the, the birth journey myself now, my interests have kind of shifted.

[00:37:42] Luke Storey: Sure. I think I was very invested because it was much more personal before. So my question is this: Where, as someone who is inside the natural birth movement now, as a doula and educator as you are, um, where is the natural birth movement now? Like- Yeah ... what is a snapshot? Is-- Where has there been [00:38:00] progress?

[00:38:00] Luke Storey: Where is it stuck? Uh, do you see it as, you know, making a positive momentum and movement forward, or are we still in the stone ages in terms of educating people that they can actually oftentimes do this safely themselves?

[00:38:15] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm. That's a great question. I, um, I would say, I can say where I'm at. You know, I don't know where, like, the movement itself is at.

[00:38:23] Eyla Cuenca: I know that what's changed for me is that I stopped participating so much in the polarities, because now I've seen that, like, there's the highly, you know, medicalized path and journey on one end, and then there's the, like, you know, opposite but same of that, which is the, you know, the kind of, like, freebirth, wild, like, outside of the system, which, you know, both have their purpose.

[00:38:49] Eyla Cuenca: But to assume that there's, like, a meritocracy in either is, like, where I've removed myself from. Um, because that Would attract a lot of [00:39:00] people who are, like, in that kind of meritocracy resonance of, like, this is wrong and this is right. And so now I've shifted to a place where I'm like, if the purpose of this is for the woman to alchemize and heal something and to become more connected to her child, then there is actually no formula for that as far as where we're going on this spectrum.

[00:39:21] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and what that really, what that means is like you know, I, I get a client who says, "I really wanna breastfeed. I just am really scared of birth, and I'm electing to, to do a C-section. Like, can you, can you support me?" And I'm like, "Well, if you have... Like, if you have these goals, let's see how I can support you.

[00:39:38] Eyla Cuenca: I wouldn't say that doing a C-section is gonna get you closer to the goals you're expressing of wanting, you know, a more attached, connected experience with your infant, wanting to breastfeed. This is how it becomes harder when you elect a C-section. So I'm more interested in how we can, like, work and massage and heal and alchemize what, what this fear is about the birthing process."[00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Eyla Cuenca: And then from there, through working together, we might, um, get to a vaginal birth, you know, and not do the C-section. And it might still be in a hospital, but now she's, like, overcome something pretty big in her personal journey, and that's great, you know? Like, and she's aware of what the system's up to, and she's aware of, you know, what informed consent is, which goes beyond choice.

[00:40:23] Eyla Cuenca: It goes beyond actual- it goes to understanding what all of this really means in the bigger picture for her and her family, and that's amazing, right? Whereas someone in a different school of thought, you know, my, my contemporaries might say, like, "No, she's, like, still a prisoner and a slave in the system, and she's still not doing it the right way, and it's still gonna lead..."

[00:40:42] Eyla Cuenca: And I'm like, "Yeah, but the goal wasn't to get her out and to birth in the woods. The goal was to get her to initiate into womanhood."

[00:40:50] Luke Storey: Hmm.

[00:40:50] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. And so it's not gonna look like that for her, and by no means am I supporting, like, what's happening in these hospital [00:41:00] walls. However, I am supporting her in her journey as a woman and her maturation.

[00:41:06] Eyla Cuenca: And-

[00:41:06] Luke Storey: So it's like meet- meeting women where they are.

[00:41:10] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, but not, not hand-holding and letting them believe that it's gonna be totally okay in that setting either, you know? And I know that a lot of doulas do that, like, "It's all good." Like, you know, "Do the epidural," and not explaining what's actually implied and what becomes unfortunately possible when that route is chosen.

[00:41:30] Eyla Cuenca: So there's a lot of truth. There's only truth in what I share and what I'm supporting women with, but I'm not going to create some sort of, um- pendulum swing for her because that's gonna create more conflict. So it's like, like I said, it's just moving the meritocracy away from it and, like, honoring and respecting the journey, and there's a titration that needs to happen for each couple and for each woman.

[00:41:54] Eyla Cuenca: And so I'd say that's what's shifted for me, and I see that in the birth space, it still [00:42:00] remains quite polarized. And I don't think those poles need to be removed 'cause they're part of what makes this whole thing interesting, this whole thing we're doing in life.

[00:42:10] Luke Storey: Without the poles, there's no middle ground.

[00:42:12] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly, and there's- Exactly ... actually no exploration, you know? Yeah. And that's also, like, we can, we can apply this to, like, you know, political structures, class structure, you know, the economy. Like, whatever it is, like, we can apply this concept. And so yeah, I am seeing that, like, practices in the hospital have not really changed.

[00:42:30] Eyla Cuenca: You know, like, the government more than ever is getting involved, you know, in, uh, you know, you decline this, and now you have this guy knocking on your door from CPS. Like, that's still very much happening. I just think that women are, um, getting more information now to say like, "Oh, I couldn't expect that," or like, um, you know, "What am I gonna do?

[00:42:51] Eyla Cuenca: I don't wanna deal with that, so my option is to do a home birth," or, "My option is to work outside of the system." So now that's just becoming more clear a thing to the general populace, [00:43:00] but those practices are still very much like, like, on a policy level- Right ... nothing has changed. If, if, if anything, it's gotten a little more intense.

[00:43:08] Eyla Cuenca: Like, in Florida now, for example, which is where I live, um, the last four years, midwives have to now pay an insane amount of malpractice insurance if they want to support women with a VBAC, vaginal birth after cesarean.

[00:43:24] Luke Storey: Oh.

[00:43:24] Eyla Cuenca: And it's gotten to a point where they can't af- I mean, like, they can't afford the monthly amount or the annual amount, so they can't support women with- Oh, wow

[00:43:32] Eyla Cuenca: a vaginal birth after cesarean. So if a woman wants to do that in the state of Florida, she has to go to a hospital to do a vaginal birth after cesarean.

[00:43:39] Luke Storey: What is that?

[00:43:41] Eyla Cuenca: There... It's just a, it's just, like, tightening the grip of, like-

[00:43:44] Luke Storey: No, what, no, what is the vaginal birth after cesarean?

[00:43:47] Eyla Cuenca: So t- in the past, when women would do s- when women had cesareans done on them, a vertical incision was made in the uterus, you know, from top to bottom, and the cesarean happened, baby [00:44:00] was removed, it was stitched up, and they'd say, "You cannot go into labor naturally if you wanna have more kids because the likelihood of your uterus opening again-" Oh,

[00:44:09] Luke Storey: oh, oh.

[00:44:09] Luke Storey: Oh, oh. On, so on a second or a third birth. On a s-

[00:44:12] Eyla Cuenca: on a... Okay, got it. Okay Yeah, on a subsequent birth. They

[00:44:14] Luke Storey: could- I thought you were talking about the same birth. I'm like, "This is new to me." What are they- Like, what? ... putting it back in?

[00:44:17] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, my God. Yeah. So subsequent births. Got it. Okay. And now, you know, they're doing these incisions that are, you know, on the b- you know, the bikini incision.

[00:44:26] Eyla Cuenca: It's lower, it's smaller, it's, you know, done more artfully. You know, doc- OBGs are, OBGYNs are surgeons. You know, they're really skilled surgeons at this point. Um, and so now it's safer for a woman to do a vaginal birth after cesarean, but a lot of doctors are like, "It's just easier to do the vagine... I mean- Right

[00:44:44] Eyla Cuenca: the cesarean birth again," you know? And, uh, s- but a lot of women are like, "That was traumatic. I never wanted that. I'm not interested in another C-section," and so their options are now more limited. Um, and a lot of doctors, you know, I'd say if they're younger than 50, like, [00:45:00] have probably n- they're not well-versed in the art of natural childbirth.

[00:45:04] Eyla Cuenca: Um, so you have to find someone older, more seasoned, a doctor in their 60s. You know, it's just less and less and less who actually trained in how to do vaginal birth, trained in breech birth, trained in the art of this process. Got it. Have seen with their own eyes women giving birth without drugs.

[00:45:23] Luke Storey: Right.

[00:45:23] Eyla Cuenca: You know? I don't know how many times I've been in a h- in a hospital setting with, like, younger doctors who are like... And even nurses are... They'll say, like, "Oh, my God, I've never seen a woman do this without an epidural." You know? What?

[00:45:34] Luke Storey: Wow.

[00:45:35] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:45:36] Luke Storey: Wow.

[00:45:36] Eyla Cuenca: Maybe it was an accident and she didn't have time to get one, and now they're witnessing it, or they're seeing a woman birth on all fours for the first time, and I'm like, "You've been working in labor and delivery for nearly a decade.

[00:45:45] Eyla Cuenca: You haven't seen this?" Like...

[00:45:46] Luke Storey: Wow.

[00:45:47] Eyla Cuenca: It's pretty wild. That's

[00:45:48] Luke Storey: crazy.

[00:45:48] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:45:49] Luke Storey: That's quite a drift from our natural lifeway.

[00:45:54] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah

[00:45:55] Luke Storey: Uh, how often, which I'm assuming it's probably pretty often, do you [00:46:00] find conflict with preferences between the couple?

[00:46:05] Eyla Cuenca: Mm.

[00:46:06] Luke Storey: Wherein, like in my case, I, uh, imagine, and it was starting to be the case even early on in our journey, that I was, like, much more inclined toward as natural as possible- Mm-hmm

[00:46:17] Luke Storey: but it's not my body, right? Yeah. It's like, well, I can have my ideas, and I have a role in it, but ultimately it would be Allison's choice to do whatever she wants to do or not do. How often do you find, you know, the mom or dad aren't really aligned in how much they wanna lean into the medical interventions versus how much of a natural route they wanna take?

[00:46:39] Eyla Cuenca: Actually, like, around maybe 50/50. Like, 50% of the couples I encounter are super aligned, and they're like, "We found you. We wanna do it this way. Like, we need guidance and support, and, like, we're ready." And then the other half, it's like, usually the woman who's like, "I wanna do it this way," and the man is [00:47:00] like, "No, I have, you know, my reservations."

[00:47:02] Eyla Cuenca: But there's a small percentage of men who are, like, contacting me, like, "We're not doing this in the system," and like- ... "I need help convincing her. Like, let her know it's safe. I'm not putting my kids through this. I'm not, you know, we're not even getting a birth certificate." Like, they're on that tip.

[00:47:16] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[00:47:16] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and so, you know, I find that with the men who are more, um, apprehensive, they have their reservations about alternative routes.

[00:47:26] Eyla Cuenca: And I mean al- I say alternative because it's just not the norm. Like, 98% of births- Yeah ... are happening in hospitals. Like-

[00:47:32] Luke Storey: 98?

[00:47:32] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. We are- Wow ... we think it's, like, more home births happening- That's

[00:47:36] Luke Storey: crazy 'cause I'm in such a bubble- Exactly ... you know, and the people that I roll with, I think I would m- almost reverse those numbers and, like, people aren't doing it in the hospital anymore, right?

[00:47:44] Luke Storey: You know.

[00:47:44] Eyla Cuenca: No. Like, we are in a vacuum.

[00:47:47] Luke Storey: Okay, how about this? Um, I, I've noticed, you know, again, just being here in Austin for a few years and having, you know, being surrounded by like-minded people, I, I don't think I know... A- and I know a lot of parents. I mean, [00:48:00] everyone here is pregnant, having babies. I mean, I have a friend that has six kids, you know?

[00:48:04] Luke Storey: Nice. So it's like, um- ... it's, I'm observing this a lot. And so, A, I'm in that 2%, um, category in terms of what I'm observing. But, I mean, I think the majority of parents I've known that set out to, you know, at least have a home birth with a midwife and a doula and kind of that route, and then a few wild births, like they don't want anyone around- Sure

[00:48:27] Luke Storey: except just whoever they want around, um, that it's really common that people have the best intentions and end up having to go to the hospital.

[00:48:36] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[00:48:36] Luke Storey: I mean, it's like- I've probably over half of the people I know- Mm-hmm ... have had that experience, 'cause it just doesn't go how they hope it would go. Do you find that that's in your world, which you obviously have in- an infinite, uh, higher experience, do you find that's really common, too, where it just, you know, everything's set up and you have all the greatest plans and you're like, "Oops, it's, something's going wrong.

[00:48:58] Luke Storey: We gotta go to the hospital"? [00:49:00]

[00:49:00] Eyla Cuenca: I personally, in my small Petri dish, have not had experiences of transfers like that.

[00:49:07] Luke Storey: Really?

[00:49:08] Eyla Cuenca: I've had two transfer experiences in 15 years, and one of them- Wow ... one of them was, like, extreme exhaustion and dehydration. Like, she couldn't keep any, um, food or water down. She kept vomiting, and the IV that we gave her at home, you know, to hydrate her just, it, like, it, it started slowing labor down.

[00:49:30] Eyla Cuenca: So her contractions slowed down to the point that it's like we reached day four or five. And baby sounded fine, and it was, like, all good, but she made the call. She's like, "I just, like, I want the epidural. I wanna go to sleep. Like, I'm, like, this is-" I'm done ... beyond anything. Like, I'm not even-" Yeah ... "having a good time

[00:49:45] Luke Storey: at work."

[00:49:46] Luke Storey: Yeah,

[00:49:46] Eyla Cuenca: right. You know? And we're like, "Okay." You know, so we went to the hospital, and she got the epidurals. She slept for about four hours, and, like, dilated immediately, and, like, the baby was born. And, you know, she went on to, you know, do [00:50:00] everything in a very alternative fashion, and she's actually a physician's assistant, so she's came from that, like, medical matrix, and was like, "I see this was, like, my initiation out of that.

[00:50:10] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I needed to have one last d- dance with, with it." And then the other one was, yeah, her blood pressure just shot up, you know, in labor. It was, like, really sudden. Nobody saw it coming, and we're like, "All right. Like, let's just, let's go to the..." The midwife was like, "I can't actually. Like, I'll lose my license if I keep you here knowing that, you know, I think you'll be okay, but if something were to happen, I would lose my license.

[00:50:34] Eyla Cuenca: I can't risk my livelihood, you know, for... So I can discharge you from care and leave you here, or we, I can take you to the hospital," and that was it. So those have been- Wow ... the two instances, and-

[00:50:45] Luke Storey: That's crazy, man, 'cause I mean, I really, I know so many people that had a abort mission, for lack of a better term.

[00:50:53] Eyla Cuenca: I've worked with a lot of women who come to me for birth trauma processing, you know, in a one-off session that we'll do. [00:51:00] It's, like, usually around 90 minutes to two hours, um, that I didn't work with. I didn't know them and their pregnancy. I wasn't part of their birth experience, and I can sometimes reverse engineer what went down.

[00:51:09] Eyla Cuenca: A lot of it, um, is often em- uh, like, emotional stuff that's, like, pretty deep. Um, and some of it is like, "You know, I listen to podcasts, I read books, and, like, you know, I thought that I knew what I needed to know," and, like, didn't truly know what was up with their body, you know? And fear gave in when things didn't look exactly as they thought it would- Right

[00:51:31] Eyla Cuenca: and the fear just became such a, like, epic wave that going to the hospital seemed like the only option. So I think that that's what happens a lot when we go to that extreme pole that I was talking about where it's like the body's meant to do this. I don't need to even entangle with, like, learning about this as much as I think, because what can happen?

[00:51:51] Eyla Cuenca: My body knows what to do. And it's like, actually, there's a lot that you don't know. Right. And there's a lot you've been programmed with. No matter how [00:52:00] intelligent you are and how intellectual you are, there is a subconscious programming that's been happening through your family system, through Hollywood, that is actually driving the car right now.

[00:52:10] Eyla Cuenca: So that has to get addressed even though you think all the things look like they're in place.

[00:52:16] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah. Well, thinking about my, my brother, uh, Cody, and his wife, Emily, who've had two unassisted wild births successfully. You know, thinking back, um, especially Emily, I mean, she was in doula school while she was pregnant.

[00:52:30] Luke Storey: I mean, she was learning everything you could possibly know about it, and I think that, I'm sure, supported their level of confidence in being able to do it themselves. She wasn't just like, "Oh, these people have been doing this for millions of years. I'm just gonna roll," you know? I mean, she definitely was, like, very educated and prepared.

[00:52:47] Luke Storey: Yeah. And I think that, you know, helped her probably to not be afraid when there were some bumps in the road along the way- Totally ... and just, "Oh, I know. You know, I've read about this, or I learned about this. This is all part of it. I'm not gonna panic." And they, you know, [00:53:00] they did fine. Funnily enough, here's this crazy...

[00:53:03] Luke Storey: I actually had this in my book 'cause I wrote, as I was telling you, a lot about birth in the first chapter. And, um, I was, you know, very much on the, uh, coming from the position that as natural as possible is going to be the best outcome in terms of how we are able to connect- Yeah ... and relate to people and just, you know, our ability to bond with people throughout our life and how birth impacts that.

[00:53:28] Luke Storey: So I had this example of their birth experience and how, I mean, they were the quintessential wild birth where everything was just perfect, right? Yeah. Just super easy. Like, my brother caught the baby. I mean, just no problems at all. And I think it was, his name's Bjorn, he was a few months old. Everything's totally healthy.

[00:53:47] Luke Storey: Everything's fine. They're, they're killing it, and then he starts getting really sick. Um, and they couldn't figure out what it was. I mean, they were sending Allison and I pictures, and we were like, "I think you guys need to go to the hospital. Like, this is not-- I [00:54:00] don't know how this is supposed to go, but he's not looking good."

[00:54:03] Luke Storey: Anyway, so they ended up, you know, having to, I think, medvac him, and he got botulism.

[00:54:07] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm.

[00:54:08] Luke Storey: Eating dirt or something. I don't even know how you get botulism, but- How many months

[00:54:11] Eyla Cuenca: was he?

[00:54:12] Luke Storey: W- uh, he was a few months old. I think under a year.

[00:54:16] Eyla Cuenca: Okay.

[00:54:16] Luke Storey: Yeah. Um, and it was one of those situations where had they not, you know, finally sounded the alarm and got him proper medical care, he probably wouldn't have made it.

[00:54:26] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. You

[00:54:27] Luke Storey: know, so it's just funny. It's like as anti-establishment- Yeah ... as I am, and they were and found their own way with it, it's like still you can do everything right, and after the fact, there's something that's completely out of your control and ashwagandha is not gonna fix. You know what I'm saying?

[00:54:42] Luke Storey: It's like-

[00:54:42] Eyla Cuenca: Totally ...

[00:54:43] Luke Storey: you know.

[00:54:43] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[00:54:43] Luke Storey: There are life and death situations that still occur even if everything was super smooth up until a point. So it was a good lesson for me in humility, right? Yeah. Of just like okay, you know, A, I'm not even a parent, B, I'm not a woman, so my armchair kind of position on some [00:55:00] of this stuff, um, I feel needs to be malleable and there are unique situations that take place where- Yeah

[00:55:06] Luke Storey: you have to adapt.

[00:55:07] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And I would say, like, the, the, let's say the spiritual work that goes into those choices, a lot of it has to do with accept- deep acceptance of whatever outcome should arise. That's where, like, I see a lot of people that go into that camp and then transfer when things are looking...

[00:55:26] Eyla Cuenca: It's like, oh, you didn't do that, that portion of the work which is accepting that, like, death can happen. And, like, if you can't accept that, then why wouldn't you just, like, work with someone who, you know, comes to your house, and, like, why can't you receive that support if... You know? 'Cause for me, that's what it is.

[00:55:44] Eyla Cuenca: Like, very often there was some sort of red flag that they perceived, and they just, like, shot into the arms of the hospital when it's like, oh, if there had been, like, someone with education and wisdom here about this process, they might've been like, "Oh, it's totally normal. That, that blood is [00:56:00] normal." You know?

[00:56:00] Eyla Cuenca: Right. Right "It's actually part of this, and, like, it's all good, you know. Go back outside, walk around, drink some..." You know, whatever it is. So sometimes in that extreme rejection, we don't realize that we haven't actually, like, done the work to accept every and all possibilities, and, um, that's important, you know?

[00:56:21] Eyla Cuenca: And I remember telling, I know her father at the time, I was like... 'Cause for him, it was a big, it was a big stretch to not go to the hospital in the beginning. Once he took classes throughout the pregnancy, he was like, "I see why we're not going," you know, like, "Now I really honor that, that choice that you've made."

[00:56:37] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and he's like, you know, we talked a lot about it, and I said, "I would rather perish than go into the hospital." Like, I remember looking at him when I was, like, midway through my, I said, "There's no circumstance where I would go there, and I've accepted that, you know, I could pass away, and the baby could as well."

[00:56:54] Eyla Cuenca: And, like, we had a whole, like process about that. I just said, "It's that important [00:57:00] to me, because I don't believe that I'm meant to go there, and I don't want anything siphoned from us, and I don't want that to be part of our story in any way." And I'm not saying that that's the way. That was just- Yeah ... my way.

[00:57:13] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And so in that, in that surrender to whatever possibility, it made the birth so much, let's say, easeful for me, because that, like, fear of what's on the other side, it didn't, um- It didn't exist as much for me, but it wasn't easy to do that either, you know, during the pregnancy

[00:57:32] Luke Storey: I can only imagine.

[00:57:33] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:57:34] Luke Storey: I mean, I think any time I've, um, worked with plant medicines-- I mean, I'm not comparing that to birth, but-

[00:57:41] Eyla Cuenca: It's, it's, it's

[00:57:42] Luke Storey: similar ... you know, I, I never feel like I could die, right, 'cause I'm not doing something that's potentially fatal, but there's parts of me that are definitely gonna die or have to reconcile difficult memories, emotions, and so on, right?

[00:57:54] Luke Storey: So it's like going in, there's a template of [00:58:00] surrender already in place of like I know I'm doing something that could be really, really difficult, and I'm willing to experience whatever this, uh, this particular medicine brings, you know? Yeah. And, and oftentimes it's beautiful and everything goes well, you know?

[00:58:17] Luke Storey: And there have been times where it is the most excruciating experience of my life, and I'm in it going, "You signed up for this." I think a lot of it is like, i- is having the, the, the right information and education, right, about any, any kind of initiation, right? Whether it's a vision quest or plant medicines or birth, being really present to death as I was last year, you know, and really making a concerted effort and making a decision that I wanted to be fully available to that experience, as painful as it was.

[00:58:47] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:58:47] Luke Storey: It's like I think when you know what the potential risks are of any kind of initiation and you really, um, accept that and surrender to that, it's like you can't [00:59:00] lose, right? You can't lose. 'Cause it's, there's no surprises if something goes, you know, sideways. You're kinda like, "Well, I, I agreed to this."

[00:59:07] Luke Storey: Back to your informed consent, right? It's like, okay, I know all of the possibilities here. I've considered them at depth, and I'm willing to walk through the possibility of something really difficult because I believe there's something on the other side of it that's worth that risk.

[00:59:22] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:59:23] Luke Storey: You know?

[00:59:23] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:59:25] Eyla Cuenca: It makes a lot of sense to me now. Your dad was an excavator. Now I'm like, "Oh, that's exactly what you do-" Yeah ...

[00:59:30] Luke Storey: for a

[00:59:30] Eyla Cuenca: living.

[00:59:31] Luke Storey: Wow, that's funny. I never thought about that.

[00:59:33] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[00:59:33] Luke Storey: Holy shit. Mm. That's wild.

[00:59:36] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[00:59:36] Luke Storey: Wow. I'm gonna have to sit with that. That's really cool. Well, you know, it's funny in that what I was talking about earlier with the sense of purpose and just like, what am I-- if I'm not supposed to be a dad, what am, what am I even doing here kind of thing, right?

[00:59:50] Luke Storey: Yeah. I think that was really much more pronounced when my dad died.

[00:59:54] Eyla Cuenca: Mm.

[00:59:55] Luke Storey: You know, 'cause it's like that, that half of the lineage was gone and, you know, [01:00:00] thankfully my brother has kids 'cause I, I feel like I'm stoked that he's able to do that. But it was like, "Oh, shit, the buck stops here" kind of feeling, right?

[01:00:08] Luke Storey: Mm. It's like my dad's gone, and now there's not gonna be another Luke, you know, kind of, or another Alan part two. It,

[01:00:14] Eyla Cuenca: it's actually how we experience immortality, you know-

[01:00:18] Luke Storey: Oh ...

[01:00:18] Eyla Cuenca: through our child. And so it's like when that feels unavailable to us, it's like true death. Who will remember me?

[01:00:27] Luke Storey: For real. You know what happens sometimes too is, um, you know, I have, like, family heirlooms and shit in my storage in the garage or whatever- Yeah

[01:00:35] Luke Storey: just, you know, like the coyote in my- Yeah ... in my living room that, you know, I inherited from my dad. I don't- I'm not, like, a hoarder, but I have some really cool things, like my dad's first little .22 pistol that he gave me and has a custom-made little, um, leather-

[01:00:50] Eyla Cuenca: Holster ...

[01:00:51] Luke Storey: belt, holster and belt- That's so cool

[01:00:52] Luke Storey: with his name embossed in it, and just cool shit like that that's not only cool 'cause it has an emotional meaning to me, but it's actually just a cool little [01:01:00] artifact, right?

[01:01:01] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:01:01] Luke Storey: And now sometimes I'll be spring cleaning and I find those things. I'm like, "Oh, man," like, "I don't have anyone to give this stuff to."

[01:01:09] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:01:09] Luke Storey: You know?

[01:01:10] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:01:10] Luke Storey: That, or at least of my own. I could- Yeah ... obviously pass it to my brother's kids. But that's part of it, too, in that it's, it's a different, um, yeah, experience of facing one's own mortality when y- the, the lineage ends with you.

[01:01:25] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. You know,

[01:01:26] Luke Storey: it's a trip.

[01:01:27] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:27] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's kind of uncomfortable at times.

[01:01:29] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[01:01:30] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's one of those things. Well, okay, if that's the case, then what am I doing here, you know? Totally. And how can I make it meaningful like that in some other way?

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[01:03:19] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. And it's, I mean, I know there's so much about the material world that I've been, like, grappling with lately in these conversations.

[01:03:27] Eyla Cuenca: Ramadan just happened, the Muslim month, holy month. And so I was talking to a lot of people about, like, the, the dunya, which is this material world that we live in. And the, the purpose for the Muslim is to prepare for the afterlife. So everything that's done in day-to-day life is in preparation for that.

[01:03:48] Eyla Cuenca: So anything that keeps one locked into the material, which can also include, like, these focuses of, like, what will I do with these objects and my legacy and all of that. And so [01:04:00] it-- this, this, this topic has been coming up a lot in so many circles that I, that I engage with. And yeah, birth brings it up.

[01:04:08] Luke Storey: Yeah, it's like, what value do heirlooms, heirlooms have if there's no one to appreciate them?

[01:04:15] Luke Storey: You know? Like-

[01:04:15] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, totally ...

[01:04:16] Luke Storey: it's just some shit that ends up in Goodwill that-

[01:04:18] Eyla Cuenca: Totally ...

[01:04:19] Luke Storey: could have been very meaningful to someone, but that person, that someone doesn't exist. And so therefore- Well- ... you know ...

[01:04:25] Eyla Cuenca: I worked with a Muslim couple, and they, you know, are not having children. And that topic actually came up.

[01:04:30] Eyla Cuenca: It was, like, even about real estate and, like, you know, some physical objects that were highly valuable that came from, like, their country of origin down, like, three generations. And, um, the husband said, he's like, "Well, because none of this dunya, this material world matters, like, we're gonna now have to sell it and give it away and give that money to charity And she was like, you know, that was hard for her too-

[01:04:54] Luke Storey: Yeah

[01:04:54] Eyla Cuenca: to stomach, uh, you know? No

[01:04:57] Luke Storey: doubt.

[01:04:58] Eyla Cuenca: And it's like, and he's like, "No, [01:05:00] that's ... 'Cause it doesn't matter. We're j- like, if we do that, that gives us a higher rank in the afterlife."

[01:05:06] Luke Storey: I've also thought about, um, you know, say I did have kids, and, you know, they're 18 and they move out, and I give them my dad's little gun and holster.

[01:05:13] Luke Storey: It's like, you know, I was such a fuckup when I was young. I mean, I'm sure I was given things like that that were really meaningful, and every time I moved I lost it or ... You know what I'm saying? Me too. It's like, it's still just stuff.

[01:05:24] Eyla Cuenca: I remember selling stuff-

[01:05:25] Luke Storey: Yeah ... that I

[01:05:25] Eyla Cuenca: was like, now I'm like, "What?"

[01:05:27] Luke Storey: My record collection.

[01:05:29] Luke Storey: Oh, my God. I had, like, the most incredible vinyl collection, you know, starting from, I don't know, when I was a little kid. Yeah. And I had it until, uh, probably my mid-30s, probably 1,000 records, a few milk crates. And I was just, you know, I was very unstable, uh, back in the day living in LA, and so I remember at some point I, when Amoeba Records first opened, I went and sold them all to Amoeba Records- The one-

[01:05:54] Luke Storey: 'cause I was like-

[01:05:54] Eyla Cuenca: The one in Hollywood?

[01:05:55] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Yeah. The one on, um, Sunset Boulevard. And I was just, I was desperate for [01:06:00] cash, and also I was moving around so much, living in my car. I was homeless for a period, and it was just like, they're really heavy and hard to move- Yeah ... around in and out of storage units and all this, and I sold them.

[01:06:08] Luke Storey: And just the other day I was thinking about that. I was listening to a podcast about vinyl, and I was like, "God damn." I mean, if I had ... If I just did the cherry-picking, just one milk crate, I had such epic records, man. You

[01:06:18] Eyla Cuenca: probably had, like, Imagine unopened.

[01:06:21] Luke Storey: I had some- You know? You're like ... ... really dope vinyl.

[01:06:24] Luke Storey: I mean, and now I r- and now I also sometimes I'll just see things on eBay, and I'm like, "Oh, my God. I had that." And it's like, you know, $1,000 for a, you know, a rare edition or something like that. I'm like, "Wow, it would've been worth a lot of money too."

[01:06:35] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, I did things like that too, 'cause I was like, "I wanna go to Italy and live on a farm," so I was like, "I need the money for the ticket," you know?

[01:06:42] Eyla Cuenca: And I'd, like, sell, like, one time sold, like, a piece of family jewelry that, like, I really sh- you know, shouldn't have, and, like, definitely vinyl, 'cause I used to col- started collecting when I was, like, 13. And, you know, it's like, yeah, it's interesting.

[01:06:56] Luke Storey: Let's talk about going back to, [01:07:00] you know, when someone has a certain ideology and they want to do birth a certain way, and in your experience, you know, you said 98% of the time it goes the way you guys kinda planned, and my experience is knowing people where it went totally sideways.

[01:07:16] Luke Storey: Leaving the sort of, um, statistics and ratios behind, what about the idea that a soul is due to incarnate, a couple gets pregnant, and that soul is Sort of predestined or predetermined to have whatever experience they have, and that a lot of it is probably out of control of the parents anyway, whether or not they're like full-blown, you know, um, kind of bootlickers to the system or if they're complete rebels, right?

[01:07:49] Luke Storey: It's like, do you think sometimes the soul kind of like knows the way things are gonna go, and maybe they had a really terrible C-section and circumcision and all the things like, like- Yeah ... like I did, [01:08:00] um, to some degree? It's like that was sort of necessary in my journey, and part of it made me who I am, even though I have these ideas that I would've had a much easier life or been more, I don't know, emotionally healthy or less traumatized had things gone perfectly and I was born in a wild birth and breastfed till I was 14 or whatever, you know?

[01:08:19] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, totally. Totally. I, like, we're just-

[01:08:22] Luke Storey: Maybe not 14. I'm exaggerating. But you, you know what I'm getting at. Maybe

[01:08:24] Eyla Cuenca: six. Yeah. Oh, I breastfed her till she

[01:08:27] Luke Storey: was five. Like, like I'll have these fantasies where if, you know, if I was born in hunter-gatherer time and lived in a tribe and I was born naturally and everything went well and there was like this communal aspect and there was a lot of human touch and connection and nourishment and coherence, that I would've had like such an easy life, you know?

[01:08:47] Luke Storey: There's this ideal of that-

[01:08:50] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm ...

[01:08:50] Luke Storey: when, if I'm honest, I think everything that I've gone through in my life from birth until this moment has served who I am, and all those challenges were actually incredible gifts [01:09:00] that allowed me to transmute so many things that I wouldn't have been able to if I didn't have that experience.

[01:09:06] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Well, we are deeply attached to this idea, this ideal world, right? We're deeply attached to this utopia. Like, maybe it's, it's a memory of, well, you know, the waiting room, so to speak, that we come from. This is what we want to live here. You know, we're trying to recreate that utopia. We have this idea that that's what this is supposed to be, but this is really like the spiritual boot camp place for the soul's evolution, which is how I see it.

[01:09:33] Eyla Cuenca: So I think we're trying to get back to that. Like, we're trying to recreate that here, and we're in resistance, and we're frustrated because it's not like that. And it's like, well, no, that's, that's what being out of the body is for. That's, you know, where the soul lives when it's not in the body. That's, that's the place for that.

[01:09:49] Eyla Cuenca: But here, this is where we come for those challenges. Like, this is where we come to polish the heart, you know, the diamond, which is the heart, right? This is where we come for that evolution. And [01:10:00] so I always trust that the soul that I'm bringing, you know, that I've brought in and that I see coming in with all these couples I work with, they're highly intelligent.

[01:10:10] Eyla Cuenca: Like, just because they're coming into this physical incarnation of a baby who can't help itself doesn't mean that the soul is not intelligent. So I'm like, "Oh, I'm trusting that this entry point that you've elected is exactly what was needed, and who am I to say that it wasn't right?" It's- Yeah. Yeah

[01:10:27] Eyla Cuenca: you're, you're simply challenging my idea of a utopia, and that's why I feel grief and frustration and, like, injustice. Um, and so I tell people, like, especially in the, the, the birth trauma processing space, like, you have a way that you wanted it to be because there's this utopia that you believe we're supposed to be living in.

[01:10:47] Eyla Cuenca: Um, I do believe that it's predestined, and then there's inspired action. So the inspired action that you choose to take in this process, whether it's taking the class or hiring the doula or changing the diet or shifting the environment, those are [01:11:00] all steps that you're being guided to take for your process.

[01:11:03] Eyla Cuenca: But ultimately, whatever transpires was chosen by this soul. And people would say, "Why would a soul choose this really difficult experience?" Or, "Why would a soul choose to come in with this disability?" Or, "Why would the soul choose this?" Like, it's because we're not actually here to be in utopia and pleasure all the time.

[01:11:24] Eyla Cuenca: What is the point of this limited body, you know, if not to give us the resistance we need to ascend? You know? So I- Yeah ... and, and that's where it gets a little bit tricky because sometimes more dogmatic belief systems can't really expand into that. And sometimes actually, you know, they can, but it relieves a lot of that suffering of like, "Why did this happen to me in my first birth?"

[01:11:50] Eyla Cuenca: And I'm like, "Well, what are we getting from-- What are you here to do? Are you here to only feel good every moment of the day? I don't think so. That's not sustainable." We're s- we're meant to go through all of these [01:12:00] emotions and experiences all the time. It's just, do you have the capacity to ride the wave, is what we're really working on.

[01:12:07] Eyla Cuenca: Um, so yeah, I do believe that the soul is highly intelligent and, and chooses this like, you know, C-section, bottle-fed, neglected- ... path. Like, it... Yes.

[01:12:18] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:12:18] Eyla Cuenca: Yes. Yeah. And then what is the gold that is alchemized? You know, what are all those base metals that are removed throughout one's lifescape that give you this gift or talent, right?

[01:12:29] Eyla Cuenca: Where you give back to this, you know, incredible place that we live in.

[01:12:35] Luke Storey: I love the perspective of, um, seeing past the physical expression of a baby to the soul. I think it's so hard for us to do because we're, we're just looking at objective reality. Yes. Not subjective reality, right?

[01:12:51] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:12:51] Luke Storey: Yeah. I've thought about that, um, when I, you know, when I was, um, really wanting and, um- You know, pretty sure that we would have a kid.[01:13:00]

[01:13:00] Luke Storey: It's like I asked Alison at one point, um, "Can we not name our kid? And then as soon as they're old enough to talk, ask them what their name is. Like, 'Where'd you come from? Who are you?'" To kind of- Yeah ... let them come into that develop- And it's a silly idea 'cause you have to call them something, right? But just the perspective of knowing that-

[01:13:18] Luke Storey: when you look in a ba- you know, when you look at a newborn baby, right, it's like, wow, there's kinda, you know, there's no one there in a way because they don't have the int- the, the intellect isn't developed. They don't, they haven't constructed a persona. There's no ego. There's no me, right? They're just kind of in this theta journey, right?

[01:13:37] Luke Storey: Uh, but it's difficult to see that behind those eyes is a soul that's probably could be older than your soul. Yeah. Right? That knows everything that's going on. They just don't yet have the language to communicate it, right?

[01:13:49] Eyla Cuenca: Imagine someone at end of life who's lost the capacity to speak and maybe can barely communicate with their eyes.

[01:13:56] Eyla Cuenca: You know, I've come into contact with people in my life who've reached that [01:14:00] stage, and somehow I'm like, there is a part of me I grapple with where I'm like, they've lost the faculty, and so they're no longer at the height of connection and communication. And I, and it happens to me with babies too, where it's like those two bookends.

[01:14:15] Eyla Cuenca: I'm assuming the same thing about them, but actually, like, they have just lived a whole life, let's say, 90 years or whatever it is, and now I'm making the assumption that they're not as capable, intelligent, communicative because they can't speak or they can't- Right ... help themselves. You know? But no, like behind the eyes is that same soul, you know, that was like, what?

[01:14:38] Eyla Cuenca: Getting the Nobel Peace Prize 20 years ago. Right. Like, it's just... So it's just because we operate- Totally ... in this, in this world of, you know, the, the mind. Like we're just- Yeah ... in the mind.

[01:14:47] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:14:47] Eyla Cuenca: You know?

[01:14:48] Luke Storey: I like having that experience with babies sometimes. I really like to look in their eyes, you know, if they'll hold eye contact, and I'm just like, "Who are you?

[01:14:54] Luke Storey: Where have you been?" Totally. "Where'd you come

[01:14:56] Eyla Cuenca: from?" And you actually see them laugh. Mm-hmm. Or they [01:15:00] respond, or they do things that are, they're, like, highly communicative. We just have only assigned, like, speech, like, clear speech to communication. Um, but if we're, like, tapped in and present and we can feel energy, like, we're like, whoa, this, this baby's, like, really with it.

[01:15:19] Eyla Cuenca: Like, we're actually really connecting, you know?

[01:15:21] Luke Storey: Okay, on the reincarnation tip, I have something I've been grappling with. This is the kind of shit that keeps me up at night. So...

[01:15:28] Eyla Cuenca: That's me Googling, "How tall was Jesus?" Yeah. I'm just

[01:15:31] Luke Storey: like, all right. I mean, it's just, I'm like, why do... Who cares, Luke? But I don't know.

[01:15:35] Luke Storey: This is, these are the kind of, uh, ideas that I like to tease. So I, I've been pretty clear, I think, most of my life that You know, it doesn't end here, and, and, and when we die, we don't die, right?

[01:15:50] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:15:51] Luke Storey: That you, you go somewhere, and you're in a different form, and this idea of reincarnation has become more clear to me because I've had some experiences where I [01:16:00] have what I guess you could call memories of different lives and things like that.

[01:16:03] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:16:04] Luke Storey: And some people are really into the past life regression, right? So, you know, that's kind of part of my worldview, that I chose to come here and have this experience, chose my parents, all the circumstances of my life. There was a, there was a rough map of how I was gonna roll here, right? And so that's, that gives me kind of my, my, uh, guiding sort of principles on what I wanna do while I'm in this body.

[01:16:29] Luke Storey: And then I think, well, I don't know. Earth is pretty rough. I mean, this experience, Earth realm's pretty ghetto, let's be honest. I mean, it's like, it's, it's rough. There's a lot of polarity here, right? And so I feel like I've pushed up against that. I've gone to some really dark places. I've overcome so much, and I feel like I've really evolved and learned.

[01:16:49] Luke Storey: In, in this particular lifetime, I've evolved a lot.

[01:16:52] Eyla Cuenca: Mm.

[01:16:53] Luke Storey: And I think, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know if we really need to come back and keep playing this game and kind of- Mm-hmm ... this Earth school thing, right? [01:17:00] Not in a nihilistic way, but just, what's next? Okay, I get it. Mm-hmm. Like, okay, I get it. Mm-hmm. I've surrendered to this experience, right?

[01:17:06] Luke Storey: But in thinking about reincarnation, the thing that trips me out, what I'm trying to get to is, okay, since time as we know it would not exist if there were no light. Okay, that's just the starting premise. If we didn't have... If the sun just never moved, for example, what time would it be? There is no time, right?

[01:17:26] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Which like, it's all about the distance, uh, of how fast light travels. So without light, you have no time, and I've had experiences where time has been proven to be completely illusory. It's just fake. We make it up- Yeah ... 'cause it's part of this system, right?

[01:17:40] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:17:41] Luke Storey: So if there's no time, but there is incarnation, reincarnation, I mean, then there's no past lives because there's no time.

[01:17:54] Luke Storey: There is no past. There's only now, and what we perceive to be the now just happens to be the [01:18:00] m- the, the, um, the, the moment in which we are focusing our attention because we're in a body, and we're ruled by perception, right? So my senses see this moment with you as a now, but really it's just an eternal now, and there is no past.

[01:18:13] Luke Storey: When you came here a couple hours ago, and when you leave after this podcast, it's all just one big moment. So there's no past. There's no future. There's really no now because you can't grasp it. It's gone already the minute you think there's a now. So if we have past lives, and there's no time, they would just be other lives that are happening simultaneously.

[01:18:38] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:18:39] Luke Storey: Okay? So When I say, like, when someone dies, when people have near-death experiences, right, and they leave their body and they're greeted by their, you know, their family that's also died, it's like, are those ancestors just waiting there and they've not reincarnated again? 'Cause how are they still there- Yeah

[01:18:58] Luke Storey: when you go meet them, right? [01:19:00] So my dad died a year ago. What, like, if I die tomorrow and I reunite with my dad on the other side, does that mean he's not in another baby already?

[01:19:08] Eyla Cuenca: Right.

[01:19:09] Luke Storey: Having a new life? Or is it all just happening at the same time 'cause there's no time?

[01:19:14] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:19:14] Luke Storey: You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

[01:19:15] Luke Storey: Yeah,

[01:19:15] Eyla Cuenca: yeah,

[01:19:16] Luke Storey: totally. So it's like- I- ... it, it seems like maybe there's an oversoul sort of situation where you splinter off through all of these other life experiences that are all happening at the same time. That's why there's still a you there to greet your family who have died after you, but you're also a new baby over in Zimbabwe or something having- Right

[01:19:37] Luke Storey: uh, also a simultaneous experience.

[01:19:39] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, I asked someone something similar a few years ago, and what he said was... He's a Zen Buddhist or of, of that school, and I don't know, I don't know much about that school of thought, so I can't really speak to it, but I just remember that's his background. And he said that- A

[01:19:55] Luke Storey: Buddhist would be a good place to start with this kind of inquiry.

[01:19:58] Eyla Cuenca: He s- yeah, he said that it was a, [01:20:00] that that person, that soul you're greeting or that family member, they've already reincarnated, but they, that's a dimension of them that's meeting you there. So, like, when I've had conversations with my grandmother who's passed away, she's gone on and she's living in some new experience, but there's a dimension of her because the soul is not this, like, singular object.

[01:20:20] Eyla Cuenca: There's, like, frac- fragments of that c- that can exist, and this is where, like, people talk about, you know, soul, um, what's the term? Just soul recovery, right? Where there's parts that stay in certain simulations. Mm-hmm. And that's why there might be challenges in another incarnation because they're still, like, spending time with someone else, and that needs to be reclaimed and restored to that original soul.

[01:20:42] Eyla Cuenca: So I've heard that. Um, I wonder, because with passing of time, I, um... The way that I know that it's happening, or I think that I know it's happening, that time is passing, is, like, decomposition of food and, like, the decomposition of our bodies, right? It's, it's like the, we're, you know, I [01:21:00] look different than I did last year, you know?

[01:21:02] Eyla Cuenca: Like, that's h- that's the only reason I know, and because I garden a lot, like, I know that time is passing simply because temperatures are changing, you know? And rain- Right ... fall is changing, and that's the only way that I can ground myself in reality. But it's not because of, like, someone telling me that it's this date.

[01:21:22] Luke Storey: Right. Right.

[01:21:23] Eyla Cuenca: You know? Um, so yeah, I, you know, and I work with a lot of religious You know, clients and, and communities and like, you know, reincarnation is not even on the table. You know, it's like, it can't talk about it. And so I've had, you know, just this idea that the soul chose this, you know, intelligent, this intelligent soul chose this path is like not something that often can get discussed when we talk about birth trauma within those realms-

[01:21:52] Eyla Cuenca: you know, with, with people, um, who believe in that. And so, you know, it's always God doing, God is doing, and God chose [01:22:00] this, and God this, and this is our test, you know? Um, so it's just interesting to to think about that. But I wonder if soul fragments are really like, if that's what it is, if that's like who's there, you know, when you have that near-death experience- Yeah.

[01:22:14] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ... that's who greets you, you know, but they've already gone on to live their life and, you know, whatever it is. Like- I

[01:22:19] Luke Storey: mean, that makes sense from the holographic-

[01:22:23] Eyla Cuenca: The holographic, yeah ...

[01:22:24] Luke Storey: model of reality, right? That everything is fractals. I mean, you can see this in nature.

[01:22:30] Eyla Cuenca: Yes.

[01:22:30] Luke Storey: So it would make sense that it would keep going up the kind of, um, the progression of evolution, right?

[01:22:38] Luke Storey: From the lowest base physical-

[01:22:41] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[01:22:41] Luke Storey: being to the highest, you know, non-physical being.

[01:22:45] Eyla Cuenca: Right.

[01:22:45] Luke Storey: There's fractals of everything. So that, that makes sense that there would be sort of fractals of your unique expression of God as a soul, that it is not just one thing in one place and space and time, that it's [01:23:00] splintered off doing all sorts of things.

[01:23:02] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, and

[01:23:02] Luke Storey: that's- Which is difficult to conceive of because we're limited by being one person in one body, so it sounds like-

[01:23:07] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly ...

[01:23:08] Luke Storey: like I can't be five Lukes walking around the house, right? Right. So it seems like that's impossible.

[01:23:13] Eyla Cuenca: It seems impossible, but like also think about the way that we've just been like raised to perceive reality.

[01:23:18] Eyla Cuenca: So it's just, you know, it's hard to break out of that, and we're very much like, "I'll believe it when I see it." You know? Right. That's like how we've grown up. But when he said that, I was like, "Oh, okay." And then, you know, it kind of like, I guess, aligns with some of the other things I've heard with people who are, you know, work mediums or clairvoyants, where they're like, "This particular soul as a whole has chosen not to go further," and they're actually here in this dimension.

[01:23:42] Eyla Cuenca: We can't see them, but we can feel them because they're, there's still something that needs to be resolved, right? So it's like that kind of aligns with maybe that school of thought and, um, you know, once they choose to go on, that fract- a fractal might remain, but they've actually- Right ... chosen to go on and shift for- Right

[01:23:59] Eyla Cuenca: forward or [01:24:00] backward or whatever it is.

[01:24:01] Luke Storey: Maybe that's what's happening when you enter a space that has a really negative charge. Sure. You know, that there's some- something or someone that's not willing to let go of their particular locale.

[01:24:14] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Right.

[01:24:15] Luke Storey: And so they're sort of polluting that space with Whatever they're clinging to

[01:24:20] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:24:20] Eyla Cuenca: And I just think that because we've sh- you know, through whatever practices or beliefs we've had to get to this place where, like, that's not possible, like, we just, you know, we choose to ignore that, that potential reality. Um, you know, but I f- I, I mean, I don't know. It's... I don't believe that it's, like, all the unsolved mysteries I watched as a kid, but, like, I definitely go into spaces and I'm like, "Yeah, so- like, some- someone's in here."

[01:24:46] Luke Storey: I had a, a, a DMT journey once where anyone that's, like, taken DMT will know kind of this, uh, terrain, but there's, there's, like, these [01:25:00] phases you go through where, um, when it starts to come on, it's very visual and there's a lot of content and things are going on. You're seeing things, feeling things- Yeah

[01:25:09] Luke Storey: and it's, it's very rich and full. And then there's sort of this altitude you break through where it's more of an empty space, and there's nothing really going on there. Uh, I mean, there's a lot going on, but it's not so, um- Stimulating ... it's more, it's more of, like, a contextual space versus a space that's full of content.

[01:25:30] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:31] Luke Storey: And when I was in there, I started having dialogue with different souls of people in my life, and, um, in that space, everything is completely transparent and revealed. So any thought that I would have was immediately known by the person who was present in that space- Mm-hmm ... with me with the soul.

[01:25:55] Eyla Cuenca: Like telepathy.

[01:25:56] Luke Storey: Yeah. The... Yeah, exactly.

[01:25:57] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:25:57] Luke Storey: And so when I was [01:26:00] having that experience, it's like I really realized that kind of this every hair on your head shall be counted thing, it was such a direct experience that's like, "Oh, whoa, it's not only, like, my actions, but it's the thoughts that I have, the feelings I have, the internal dialogue I have in relation to other people-

[01:26:20] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm

[01:26:21] Luke Storey: that on one level everything is known," right? So it's like you and I are having a dialogue between our personas and, right, right, our soul. We're, like, we're, we're in the field together here. But even above and beyond that, if I was thinking something else about you right now, for example, your soul is just instantaneously knowing whatever I'm thinking and feeling.

[01:26:42] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:26:42] Luke Storey: So like

[01:26:42] Eyla Cuenca: a- Like higher selves are probably making some agreement-

[01:26:45] Luke Storey: Yeah, exactly ...

[01:26:45] Eyla Cuenca: having a conversation.

[01:26:46] Luke Storey: Exactly.

[01:26:47] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:26:47] Luke Storey: So thinking about th- the realm of birth, which is your area of expertise- I think there's... I don't think, I know there's so much more going on between parents, the soul that's coming [01:27:00] in, the communication they've had, the knowing they have, that there's probably past life experiences together where the other one's been the parent or whatever, right?

[01:27:09] Luke Storey: There's karmic things that you know need to be worked out with one another. Maybe, you know, your baby's coming in and you were some sort of, um, you know, tyrannical boss or ruler or who knows what, right? I mean, there's like an infinite number of kind of human dynamics that could be at play. But it seems very clear to me that there is a realm of reality where outside of the physical experience, where everything is known all the time by everyone-

[01:27:37] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm

[01:27:38] Luke Storey: and that there's so many decisions being made that we're not aware of because of the limitations of being in a body.

[01:27:44] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Yeah. Well, so 2021, um, my mentor and friend, Amer Lee, she is the founder of Quanta Academy. She's a family systems facilitator. She's like, "Let's constellate," [01:28:00] family constellations, "Let's constellate your birth experience, the moment you came in to this, you know, you left the womb and you came into your own space as an autonomous being," let's say.

[01:28:10] Eyla Cuenca: And we hadn't done any work like that yet, and it was a group of about eight people. And, um, you know, Bert Hellinger bases this on the morphogenic field. So we're all in exactly what you're talking about. We're in a field of contracts and agreements and loyalties and entanglements, and we might not have met that ancestor, but we're entangled.

[01:28:29] Eyla Cuenca: And so I remember I sat outside of the circle and she said, "Elect someone to represent your mother while she was pregnant." And so I looked around the room and what, for whatever resonance that we had, it, there was a specific woman. She came in, and for people who don't understand fam- family constellations, it's not about, like, possession or, like, you're taking on someone else's soul or anything like that.

[01:28:54] Eyla Cuenca: There's no conflict, like, religiously either. It's not a belief system. It's simply a form of working with the [01:29:00] subconscious mind and with the morphogenic field. And so she stood in the center of the circle, and I watched her, and she suddenly changed, and she looked so lost. She looked so confused, and she, she kept holding her belly and saying, "I'm not sure what to do.

[01:29:16] Eyla Cuenca: I'm not sure what to do." And I, like, just broke down weeping watching her because I knew that in my mother's pregnancy, you know, she was with my father but had had an affair and became pregnant with me. Oh, wow. And there was a big choice point, you know, about- Yeah ... what to do, right? Yeah. And so it was like the grief that I'd been holding about, do I have a place in this world?

[01:29:40] Eyla Cuenca: Was it the right choice she made? That story I had created was like discharged in that moment because I saw her as a human being with compassion, you know? So I was able to like see the fra- you know, experience a fractal of her what, you know, three decades later and say like, "I see the fractal," and like, "I understand it," and like [01:30:00] has nothing to do with me needing...

[01:30:01] Eyla Cuenca: Like m- my right to be here or not. Like, you were having a human experience. And then it went on to when the contractions began, and then I saw, you know... My, my f- my mentor said, "Now I want you to step into the field, and I want you to be the baby." And as soon as I laid in fetal position, I suddenly like saw the hospital room, right?

[01:30:21] Eyla Cuenca: Like my eyes closed, and like I saw my dad standing there, and I could hear what he was thinking, which was like some things he didn't know at the time, right, that I wasn't his biological daughter. Wow. That I could hear his thoughts. And he was like, "I don't know how to help this woman 'cause I don't know her anymore."

[01:30:38] Eyla Cuenca: Like, that's what I kept hearing him say in his mind. And as the baby, I also like didn't have any head faculty. Like, I couldn't... 'Cause I was drugged. You know, my mother took a saddle block right before I was crowning and born. Um, and so I felt really sedated suddenly as I laid in that position, and I was just like sitting there, and I was like, "God, my [01:31:00] head is hurting."

[01:31:00] Eyla Cuenca: Like, it's really... Like, I started feeling so much pressure on my temples, and then the pressure moved to the back of my cranium. And so later on, you know, flash forward, you know, a, a few days later, my mom was like, "Yeah, you were born with forceps." And

[01:31:15] Luke Storey: so- Whoa ...

[01:31:17] Eyla Cuenca: I was actually reliving the sensation because that fractal like of me, Ayla, you know, going back a few decades to that moment was giving me the information.

[01:31:26] Luke Storey: Yeah,

[01:31:27] Eyla Cuenca: yeah. You know? And saying, "Hey, it's stored in the body. Let's feel it." Anyway, so in that experience in the hospital room that I relived, I could... The doctor, I remember hearing him say like, "I gotta... Like, we gotta get this going. Like, this woman's taking too long." Gave her the drugs. Like, I could hear him saying that, so the fra- like the fractal of him was there, you know, having his inner dialogue about this experience.

[01:31:52] Eyla Cuenca: And then there was someone else in the room, and I couldn't quite make out who it was, but it was a nurse who was totally not present for what was going on, and she [01:32:00] was almost like mechanical in just taking care of things and making sure that was cut and cleaned, and she was not like emotionally engaged in any way with this birth.

[01:32:10] Eyla Cuenca: And then I could hear my mom that was like fuck, when she's out, like I have to tell the truth, you know? Whoa. Like I hear that too. Yeah. And, and so it was deeply healing for me to, to see everyone and experience everyone and the fractals of them in that space. So when we're talking about time passing, it's like, not that we're stuck there, but I think if we need to access that, the fractals can be like, I don't wanna- Yeah

[01:32:35] Eyla Cuenca: use the word summoned, but they can be accessed-

[01:32:38] Luke Storey: 100% ...

[01:32:38] Eyla Cuenca: in that moment- 100% ... to give the information, recreate the scene in the moment, and then, you know, it's like they ju- they fade out.

[01:32:51] Luke Storey: In my mid-50s here, I've reached a point where I'm not trying to do more for my health. I'm all about doing less, but doing it better. The thing is, stacking [01:33:00] supplements and protocols only gets you so far if your body never actually resets. That's why I lean hard into infrared sauna therapy. I've been doing it for, God, almost 30 years now.

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[01:33:52] Luke Storey: Visit lukestory.com/sunlighten and use the code Lukestory to save up to 1,600 bucks on your purchase. [01:34:00] Plus, get free shipping and additional discounts throughout the year. 'Cause being healthy isn't about doing more. It's about setting the conditions for your body to clear what it never needed in the first place.

[01:34:10] Luke Storey: So again, this life-changing technology can be found at lukestory.com/sunlighten. And if you know what's good for you, definitely wanna input that code Lukestory to save you up to $1,600. I lo- I love this. Um, another thing I always feel bad, like I always talk about my book, but it's just so present in my life 'cause the things that I uncovered and shared in it, um, are just, you know, front and center at the moment.

[01:34:40] Luke Storey: But a realization I had that I, that I shared in there was to this point that every iteration of ourselves from, I mean, well, let's just leave aside whoever we were before we came into this body, but from, you know, the, the moment of conception to the moment of us sitting here right now, [01:35:00] every version of ourselves is still real

[01:35:03] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? Yeah. So like there's not, there's not a five-year-old Luke that was, like, left in 1975 It's just integrated into all of these layers of myself. The example I give is like Russian dolls, right? The- The

[01:35:17] Eyla Cuenca: babushka dolls.

[01:35:18] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah. It's like- Matryoshka dolls ... you know, there's a big one, and you take them off, you keep going, you keep going, and there's this fractal doll, and you never really can get to the center.

[01:35:25] Luke Storey: I mean, in, in the dolls you can get to the center of it, but for us, I think when you get to the center of every version of yourself, then it moves into when you were not this body and you were somewhere else, right?

[01:35:36] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:35:36] Luke Storey: But just starting here, that's been such a useful tool for me in terms of self-love and self-compassion- Mm-hmm

[01:35:44] Luke Storey: and just giving myself some grace for my current and past imperfections and faults- Totally ... and flaws, right? It's like, oh my God, dude. Like, every bit of hurt that you ever experienced in your life is still in your nervous system. It's [01:36:00] still in your psyche. It's like-

[01:36:01] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, it's in the psyche and, like, that's why somatic work is just one of the avenues, you know, one of the paths we can take to access those, those fractals, right?

[01:36:10] Eyla Cuenca: Let's say, 'cause it's just stored in the body. It's, like, stored in the tissue. But then also I found that the family systems work is another way to access what's there, too, and those entanglements, and, like, there are many ways in which we can access that and say, like, it's all living at this present moment.

[01:36:25] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Like, it's not really 30 years ago. It's just sitting right here with me. Totally. You know?

[01:36:30] Luke Storey: Totally. Well, it's like when you think about your, your body, right? I mean, that's... I think that's the... We look at a picture of ourselves when we were five, right? And we're just like, "Oh, that person doesn't exist anymore.

[01:36:39] Luke Storey: That, like, that person's gone, and now I am this new person."

[01:36:43] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:36:43] Luke Storey: When in actuality, like, I had the same little toe that I had at five that I have right now. It's like that five-year-old is still right here- Yeah ... within this experience.

[01:36:53] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:36:54] Luke Storey: Right? And I think that's, you know, part of the, you know, past life regression or soul retrieval.

[01:36:58] Luke Storey: All of these things [01:37:00] are so valuable and also applicable to who we are now. It's like I don't have to worry about the past life stuff. It's like I can go back to my past life of this life-

[01:37:10] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm ...

[01:37:11] Luke Storey: and still glean wisdom, healing, everything that is available there simply by acknowledging that that's part of this reality.

[01:37:20] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:37:21] Luke Storey: That there is, there is no, like, past version of ourself. It's just kind of suppressed and buried and With a little bit of attention and acknowledgement and love, you can retroactively go back and restore those parts of yourself that have been lost or damaged.

[01:37:36] Eyla Cuenca: Totally, because I, I, I don't know about you, but I get a lot of pleasure and almost, like, comfort when I invite that part in.

[01:37:44] Eyla Cuenca: Like, let's say, like, there's a photo that I have on my WhatsApp, like, profile, and it's me, and I'm four years old sitting in a high chair, and I have this, you know, this clown that I used to carry around, which, like, now- ... now I'm like, "Oh my God," like, clowns are so terrifying. But I, um, I'm holding this clown, and I [01:38:00] look at that and I'm like, when I, when I kind of like sit her beside me and recognize that, like, it's just, you know, me, or I look in the mirror and she's really present with me, I feel so much deep comfort, like, and so much love and warmth.

[01:38:14] Eyla Cuenca: And so I don't know. I don't know, like, to exile those parts, I think it's because the grief of what-- the re- the reason we've exiled them, there's a reason, right? But when we pass through that grief, and they can actually come in and sit with us and ins- inspire pleasure and, and warmth and comfort, like, I think that's-- I mean, that's what I've been trying to get to.

[01:38:35] Eyla Cuenca: I think I'm still working on, like, the 17-year-old, um, part. You know, that one's a little hard. I'm like, you know, she's so, she's so angry. And, uh, and there's, like, shame wrapped up in that part, too. So it's a little bit harder to sit with her. So there-- so I know like, okay, that's the homework assignment.

[01:38:51] Eyla Cuenca: Like, we gotta, we gotta pass the grief. It's always, uh, just, like, for me, the other side of the ease and presence and [01:39:00] pleasure is grief. Like, those, those seem to, for me, to be the two, you know, polarities. Um, so yeah, it's, it's, it's all within us, you know? And I don't know. Sometimes I wonder, like, what are all these, like, extreme journeys we feel we have to take to get there when it's just like he's sitting right in, right there inside of you, or she's sitting right there inside of me?

[01:39:22] Eyla Cuenca: Like, why do I have to, like, go isolate myself in some hut in like the Mongolian Highlands to like- ... you know? Like, she's just right here. Like, I could talk to her while I'm driving in the car.

[01:39:33] Luke Storey: Totally. Totally. I think for me, having those sort of more extreme peak experiences have served the purpose of showing me such a depth of truth and reality that when I'm out of the experience, I can no longer deny it.

[01:39:52] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:39:52] Luke Storey: Like the DMT thing I was telling you about. Like, I know if I'm thinking about something weird, my wife's soul knows [01:40:00] I'm thinking that. You know? There's no, there's no hiding. There's no, there

[01:40:02] Eyla Cuenca: starts no

[01:40:03] Luke Storey: hiding. You know? It's like we, we are all telepathic. We just don't know it, right? Because the part of us that's telepathic is bigger and beyond the physical self.

[01:40:13] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:40:14] Luke Storey: So those experiences to me, like, I think there have been times where I've I don't know, chase them or been attached to them, might even be a little heavy-handed, but felt like, oh, I need those experiences to keep going, right?

[01:40:28] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:40:28] Luke Storey: It's like, no, those experiences are just to show me what's possible, and then I come back here and integrate them into, you know, this version of reality, this limited spectrum of reality, and those are just kind of reminders or proof that I can do that work here- Yeah

[01:40:45] Luke Storey: sitting with you and having a, you know, beautiful and deep conversation about life and existence- Yeah ... right?

[01:40:50] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:40:50] Luke Storey: It's like I don't have to go drink ayahuasca this afternoon to know that there's more to this reality than meets the eye.

[01:40:56] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[01:40:56] Luke Storey: Those experiences to me are kind of just like nudges. Like, "Hey, remember?[01:41:00]

[01:41:00] Luke Storey: Remember this."

[01:41:01] Eyla Cuenca: To- totally.

[01:41:02] Luke Storey: Next time you're, you know, being selfish or inconsiderate or judging people or whatever, it's like, dude, like, let's just stay humble- Mm-hmm ... and also know that there's, there, you know, there are no secrets. I think that's the thing for me that's been valuable is, like, as much as I think I'm holding, on one level, it's, everything is completely known and seen by all.

[01:41:25] Luke Storey: Totally. So you better have fucking integrity.

[01:41:27] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, it's

[01:41:28] Luke Storey: totally exposed. Right? Like, you're not getting away with anything, I think is what I've walked away with fr- in that perspective.

[01:41:33] Eyla Cuenca: And funny enough, we think we're hiding, but, like, the manifestation of our physical reality is simply proof of what we think we're hiding, you know?

[01:41:41] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:41:41] Eyla Cuenca: And so it's like even your neighbor, I don't even need to know the guy, and I can see the physical manifestation of his internal world or her internal world.

[01:41:49] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:41:49] Eyla Cuenca: Not that I claim to know everything about them, but it's just that's the physical- Yeah ... manifestation for anyone to see.

[01:41:55] Luke Storey: Yeah. By their fruits you shall know them.

[01:41:58] Eyla Cuenca: Yes.

[01:41:58] Luke Storey: How many births [01:42:00] have you been present for, approximately?

[01:42:03] Eyla Cuenca: S- um, I would say, I don't know the exact number, but, like, let's say around 300 over the last-

[01:42:12] Luke Storey: God. Wow ...

[01:42:13] Eyla Cuenca: fif- over

[01:42:14] Luke Storey: the

[01:42:14] Eyla Cuenca: last 15 years.

[01:42:16] Luke Storey: Wow.

[01:42:17] Eyla Cuenca: Whether it's through, like, physically being there, I've actually been present for a lot of births on Zoom, 'cause I've been working with women that are not- Oh, cool

[01:42:24] Eyla Cuenca: in my area for a long time. And so even last month I was present for two. One was in England. One was in Georgia. Um, and I just am present with the couple, whether they live in a really rural area or I'm just supporting them through checking in, um, you know, on FaceTime or here and there. We work together through their pregnancy.

[01:42:48] Eyla Cuenca: So yeah, it's been...

[01:42:50] Luke Storey: Have you ever been physically present with someone as they've left their body?

[01:42:56] Eyla Cuenca: Um, no. [01:43:00] Uh, yes. I was present for a birth where the baby passed away shortly after it was born, but I wasn't holding the baby. I was simply present for the experience.

[01:43:14] Luke Storey: Have you ever been present, uh, for the death of a big animal?

[01:43:19] Luke Storey: Even dog, horse, deer

[01:43:22] Eyla Cuenca: I've slaughtered two sheep, um, when I worked on a farm in Italy. So it wasn't, like, a surprise that they, they were shot and we watched it happen, like, it was by my hand. Um, so yeah, but not, like, a massive animal out in the wild. It was, like, a very controlled, you know, experience. It was a slaughter.

[01:43:41] Luke Storey: Okay. That counts

[01:43:42] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Kinda went through a, a phase in college where I was like, "If I'm gonna eat meat-

[01:43:46] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. I had that too ...

[01:43:47] Eyla Cuenca: I have to, like, be able to do this by my hand." Yep. Me too Like, who am I to just take without, um, take and take and take without actually having the gall and the, like, ovaries [01:44:00] to do this?

[01:44:00] Luke Storey: Yeah

[01:44:01] Eyla Cuenca: And so I, like, went and proved it to myself.

[01:44:03] Luke Storey: Yeah, I did that too when I moved here. I went hunting- Yeah ... for that exact reason. Yeah. Uh, the, the purpose of my question is a- another, I don't know, just another sort of mysterious thing that I contemplate is the similarity of the moment-- I mean, I know, you know, a baby is obviously alive before it comes into this world, right?

[01:44:26] Luke Storey: Um, but I've always felt intuitively that there's some sort of unique energetic space that happens at birth that also happens at death.

[01:44:39] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:44:39] Luke Storey: And I've experienced it a couple times in the, in the realm of death, one human death and one hunting experience where I killed a big pig. Also have seen a, a, a bison die, which is a really- Ooh, wow

[01:44:50] Luke Storey: powerful experience That's

[01:44:51] Eyla Cuenca: massive

[01:44:52] Luke Storey: And when I've been present at those deaths, shit gets real weird. You know? It's like there's [01:45:00] something happening that is not normal in terms of the energetics, this liminal sort of quasi-psychedelic space where time changes and the energy, the air changes. It's just there's a few seconds or a couple minutes where I'm like, "Whoa, something really big is happening," and I can feel it in my body, right?

[01:45:19] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. I'm very emotionally moved by it, and so on. And I was always anticipating that if, if and when I was present for a birth, that it would be very similar to that. You know, I always-- I have this, I don't know, sort of a fantasy or just this idea, 'cause I've never been present for a birth other than- Yeah

[01:45:36] Luke Storey: my own, which I don't remember. But I just have a sense that there's something really magical in that window where life is coming into physical form or leaving physical form. There's, like, a portal there that opens that's a very unique kind of energetic space. So I'm wondering what your, what your experience of that is, you know, having been present at least of so many [01:46:00] arrivals.

[01:46:00] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. I was sitting with this recently because a client of mine did a freebirth. Well, I mean, she was It's her third child, third one, 10 years after the second one, and the hospital near her was like, she'd do hos- she had two hospital births and the hospital near her for this third one was like, "You're old."

[01:46:19] Eyla Cuenca: Like, "You're..." I think she's 39 or 40 or something. They're like, "You must get all of this additional monitoring and te-" And she was like, "No." I mean, like, "I'm doing this at home." Right? Like, she was just like, "Wait, I thought this was gonna be chill." 'Cause she's not really into alternative, you know, approaches to things.

[01:46:36] Eyla Cuenca: She just, she just knows she doesn't want drugs, and they're gonna treat her like this. She's like, "No one's gonna treat me like this." So that's why she went into, like, the freebirth world, 'cause she was like, "My other option is to do this alone, 'cause no midwife will come out here." So she started moving into this freebirth space, but she said, "I do want a doula 'cause, you know, my husband's busy with the other kids, and I just, like, wanna be with another woman."

[01:46:57] Eyla Cuenca: And I was like, "All right, sounds good. You know, I'll, I'll [01:47:00] support you with this if you understand I have, like... Like, the outcome has nothing to do with me, right?" And she's like, "Yeah, of course." And so I remember arriving at her birth space at the house, and I was thinking about this 'cause I was, like, very aware.

[01:47:13] Eyla Cuenca: I hadn't been to a birth in about three months, so it'd been a while, and I was, like, coming from a deeply emotional experience the night before, so I was very with myself, with my body. And when I walked into the space, I was like, "You know, like, the baby's al- the baby already knows it's about to come. Like, this is happening in the next few hours."

[01:47:36] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I could intuit that. I was like, "This is not gonna be a long experience. The baby's already, like, letting us know it's coming." She went through her labor. The baby was born. The husband kind of caught the baby 'cause she was standing up, but he immediately handed it to me. So I was holding the baby, and he hadn't, or she hadn't taken her first breath yet, and I was looking at it, and I was like, in that, I don't know, three seconds, I [01:48:00] was like Babies in the womb, like their soul goes in and out.

[01:48:04] Eyla Cuenca: Like, their soul's traveling in and out. Oh, oh, oh. Like, I just got that down- like a download, right? I was like, "The soul's traveling in and out for 10 months, but once this first breath happens, soul's in." Like, that's just what I heard. Oh, interesting.

[01:48:15] Luke Storey: Interesting.

[01:48:15] Eyla Cuenca: And people have always asked me when I perceive the soul to, like, anchor in- Yeah

[01:48:19] Eyla Cuenca: and I'm always like, "I don't know. You know, I don't know. One day I'll know, and I'll tell you." And yeah, this happened, where I looked... I was holding the baby, still, like, asleep, eyes closed. The cord was pulsing, so it was, you know, getting its oxygen, and in that few seconds, I had that download, and I was like, "Okay, maybe this is what it is.

[01:48:36] Eyla Cuenca: I can't say for certain, but I've just been told that this is what it is." And then baby took its first breath, kind of cried, opened its eyes, and, like, I was like, "Okay, we're anchored in."

[01:48:47] Luke Storey: Wow.

[01:48:47] Eyla Cuenca: Um, so I guess that liminal space, like even when I'm with pregnant women, I feel like I'm in that space. Like, just even before the birth, like, we're sitting together and I'm like, "You're with...

[01:48:58] Eyla Cuenca: Someone is with [01:49:00] us who's in between worlds."

[01:49:02] Luke Storey: Right.

[01:49:03] Eyla Cuenca: And, like, my soul knows, your soul knows. Like, there's a recognition, and this is why a lot of, I believe, a lot of people like to even touch pregnant women. They, like, they feel drawn to it because there's that soul recognition of, like, you're in that space that we all are going to, have just come from- Yeah

[01:49:19] Eyla Cuenca: wanna get back to, whatever it is.

[01:49:22] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[01:49:22] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and so being at a birth. And so that's why in the doula program, uh, you know, part of the requirement for the certification is attending a vaginal birth. And they'll say, "My client did a C-section," and I'm like, "I want you to go through that portal of witnessing the baby come through and have that moment unadulterated," because with a C-section, it's very hard to see.

[01:49:43] Eyla Cuenca: It's, it's forced. It's, you know, it's not easy to really to get in. But anyway, that's another story. So yeah, I got that download, um, and I said, "Maybe this is what it is." Maybe, you know. And I would imagine, you know, the times, I would say with the slaughters, it wasn't the same [01:50:00] 'cause it was just quick, forced.

[01:50:02] Eyla Cuenca: It wasn't like, I wasn't, like, honoring the animal when I was doing it. There was, like, a formula at the farm. Um, but I do remember when the baby passed away at the hospital, um, shortly after it had been born, or right as it was emerging. Um, I remember it was, like, this feeling of, like, h- he was here and he's just going back.

[01:50:25] Eyla Cuenca: Like, it, like, I just remember... And I didn't know that he had passed away yet, but it was, like, this weird vacuum in the room. And then, like, they called it a few minutes later, and I was like, "Whoa." I d- I thought he was born a- you know, totally alive still, and when they took him over to the table, I thought he was still alive, but he had already passed.

[01:50:41] Eyla Cuenca: Wow. So it, it was a felt sense in the room, for sure, for me.

[01:50:48] Luke Storey: All right, you guys, I don't love the term biohacker, but let's say I've been in the health optimization game for a minute. I'm basically obsessed with solutions to what ails us. So supplements, [01:51:00] cold plunges, red light, all the things, right? But if you're not managing the energetic field in which you live, even the best inputs like those don't land the way you think they do.

[01:51:11] Luke Storey: 'Cause unfortunately, these days our bodies are constantly interacting with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cell towers, an invisible load your nervous system has to process twenty-four seven. This is why you can be doing everything right and still feel a little off. And that's exactly what got me into Leela Quantum Tech.

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[01:51:47] Luke Storey: It's got quantum-charged titanium spheres inside it, so it helps take the edge off that constant background noise when I'm out in the world. And when the exposure peaks, times like air travel, traffic, and so on, [01:52:00] they've got EMF-blocking clothing that blocks against ninety-nine percent of measurable wireless radiation.

[01:52:06] Luke Storey: This line of clothing is clutch when you're walking into a high EMF environment. To get yourself dialed in with all that stuff, here's what you do. Go to lukestory.com/leelaq and use the code Luke ten for ten percent off your first order. That's lukestory.com/L-E-E-L-A-Q. Because the real upgrade isn't doing tons more supplements and saunas and all the things.

[01:52:30] Luke Storey: It's about protecting the field in which you live and thrive. Again, that link is lukestory.com/leelaq and the code is Luke ten. Yeah, I've always wondered too when, when the soul enters the fetus. There are some tr-- spiritual traditions that seem to coincide with the idea that it's around ninety days.

[01:52:55] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm.

[01:52:55] Luke Storey: Which is interesting to me, and I think I've thought about that from the [01:53:00] perspective of abortion.

[01:53:01] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm.

[01:53:01] Luke Storey: Which is like it's a good, good topic to bring up two hours in, you know? Um- What, you know, is like- Yeah ... way too complex and, uh, and deep for us to cover. But, you know, I've thought about the implications of that, having participated in a few, unfortunately, in my lifetime.

[01:53:18] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Um, uh, you know, it just is what it is. It's just one of those things, you know. If you could turn back time, probably do things a little differently. But, um, you know, I've often wondered because that seems to be so heavily incentivized in this country that, you know- ... at what point is that actually a soul in a body?

[01:53:43] Luke Storey: Versus at what point is it just some biological material that's starting to take form to get ready to be able to kind of hold the presence of a soul? You know what I mean?

[01:53:51] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. I might bring us back to the fractal concept, like, of the soul having these fractals or these dimensions that can splinter [01:54:00] off because I really, through my work with women who've done, you know, have created embryos, for example, I believe that those embryos have a consciousness and let's say a soul fractal that's attached- Mm-hmm

[01:54:14] Eyla Cuenca: to them. Um, and that's its own life's journey. That's its journey in this 3D realm, right? And we might not give it any... We might say, "Well, it's in a, it's in a lab. It's, it, it's frozen. It's not real." But it is. There is a consciousness, and I know this because women who I've worked with, you know, who have a very difficult time, they say, "You know, I've had these embryos.

[01:54:36] Eyla Cuenca: There's six of them, and they, you know, have been there for 12 years. And, you know, I don't... I'm not sure if I should keep paying for this storage anymore. And when I imagine," and then they just like, they break down, "if I imagine getting rid, I feel like I'm getting rid of my children," right? So there is already soul recognition and connection that's happened.

[01:54:55] Eyla Cuenca: There is an attachment. And so it feels very similar to [01:55:00] terminating a life in pregnancy, and why would that be if it's simply matter? She's not mourning a possibility of another child. She's mourning the loss of these children. They consider them to be children. So I believe that that consciousness happens as soon as, you know, the embryo's formed.

[01:55:19] Eyla Cuenca: These two parts of these beings come together to create life and, you know, it's, uh... In an abortion, you know, the family constellations work, those are legitimate children that the father has sired. So, you know, it's... When we look at birth order, for example, it's like if there have been two abortions, uh, that firstborn daughter that comes into the world, she's actually not the oldest daughter-

[01:55:43] Luke Storey: Oh, interesting

[01:55:44] Eyla Cuenca: if either one of those were female.

[01:55:47] Luke Storey: Interesting.

[01:55:47] Eyla Cuenca: And so, you know, like separate conversation, but when I work with couples and fertility and different things, like, the, the guilt or the weight of those children that have not been [01:56:00] acknowledged is really important to clear-

[01:56:02] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm ...

[01:56:02] Eyla Cuenca: you know, in creating space for the family.

[01:56:04] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm.

[01:56:05] Eyla Cuenca: You know, and acknowledging, uh, you know, the healing phrase that we often use is, "Thank you for giving your life so I could live mine," which is what I invite men and women to, to announce to those children when they're needing to integrate, right? Rather than holding the guilt or saying, "I shouldn't have," or, "I was bad for doing," or, you know, "Thank you for giving your life so I could, so I could live mine."

[01:56:30] Luke Storey: Yeah, yeah.

[01:56:31] Eyla Cuenca: And it's important for siblings to do that, whether it was a miscarriage or an abortion. Um, thank you for giving your life so I could be here. And that sibling, you know, her, for example, cannot carry the weight of responsibility and say, "Why am I here and you're not?" Because in the morphogenic field, that's what she's-- that's what her, herself is believing.

[01:56:52] Luke Storey: Right. "

[01:56:53] Eyla Cuenca: I'm here because you couldn't be," and like, "Do I-- am I even gonna live up to it?" Like, "Can I make you proud, [01:57:00] older sibling?" You know?

[01:57:02] Luke Storey: Wow. That's deep.

[01:57:03] Eyla Cuenca: And so when I talked to her about it, I'm like, you know, it's like, "Thank you to your big brother," you know? And like, "He protected you. He made it possible for you to come in.

[01:57:14] Eyla Cuenca: If he would've been here, you wouldn't have." And you know, so it's like those conversations I've had with her since she's young, and, um, she cannot f- she doesn't have to feel that burden of responsibility or guilt that she got to be here and he didn't. So those things, those are the entanglements I'm talking about- Yeah, yeah

[01:57:29] Eyla Cuenca: with ancestors-

[01:57:31] Luke Storey: Yeah ...

[01:57:31] Eyla Cuenca: you know, that we often don't consider.

[01:57:33] Luke Storey: Yeah. I'm so glad we were able to talk about that. Yeah. Um, I, I had an experience a number of years ago where-- oh, man, it's a long-ass story, but essentially, I was looking at, um, my fears around being a dad. It's when Alice and I were first together, and I was in a really powerful, um, mushroom ceremony, and, and I remember, uh, just sitting up, and like, I had the [01:58:00] idea to start looking at that, and I was like, "Oh, God.

[01:58:02] Luke Storey: Not this," you know? And I remember I sat up, like, took my eye mask off. I was like, "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck." Called over some help from one of the facilitators. I'm like, "I'm just about to go into some gnarly shit. Heads up," you know? And I was like, I mean, that's just how I roll. If something presents itself, I'll go there, you know?

[01:58:19] Luke Storey: I don't stop that from happening, um, fortunately or unfortunately. So anyway, I went through this whole portal, and I was, like, looking at, you know, why do I have this resistance to this, right? And what came up immediately was the past abortions.

[01:58:33] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. And

[01:58:34] Luke Storey: I was like, "Oh, fu-" I never thought about it my whole life.

[01:58:37] Luke Storey: It was always like, phew, dodged a bullet on that one. Yeah. You know? Like, literally, totally unconscious about the implications of that and what it meant and what it meant to the women at the time and all that. It was just, you know, I was young and much less aware of these kind of things, and, um, it was a really deep process of, I don't know, I guess for lack of a better term, making amends to those souls and, you know, stopping their [01:59:00] experience of coming here.

[01:59:01] Luke Storey: And it ended up, you know, taking me into all of these other origins and just, ah, reconciling a lot of my behavior and issues around all of that, and ultimately, it led me to circumcision.

[01:59:18] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[01:59:18] Luke Storey: That was the pinnacle of the whole fucking thing. Yeah. Yeah. There's, you know, a lot to tell about that, a lot of which I write about in my book, um, kind of how I started putting all those pieces together.

[01:59:29] Luke Storey: But-

[01:59:30] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[01:59:30] Luke Storey: that was the first time in my life I ever really looked at the implications of abortion and why I had so many of these issues around, um, intimacy and- Mm-hmm ... you know, just being so resistant to having kids or getting married and all that. And it just, you can see the, the repercussions of early trauma and wounding, and it was just so clear how they all played out.

[01:59:51] Luke Storey: It was like this just intricate diagram-

[01:59:55] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[01:59:55] Luke Storey: of the origin point, the source point, and just this spider web of [02:00:00] dysfunction and neurosis and traumatizing other people and traumatizing myself as a result of a lot of things that happened at birth, the main one being circumcision.

[02:00:08] Eyla Cuenca: Totally. If you take that present day behavior or that question, and you reverse engineer it, it's like you are led back to that moment, you know?

[02:00:16] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:00:17] Eyla Cuenca: And, um, it's pretty powerful to, to walk that path.

[02:00:22] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:00:23] Eyla Cuenca: You know?

[02:00:23] Luke Storey: Gnarly. Gnarly. Funny thing is after that night, I remember, I remember driving home going, so, like, I was driving home and, I don't know, early in the morning, I was like, "I hope I don't get pulled over," you know, so I was, like, still totally high.

[02:00:36] Luke Storey: Oh, yeah, it was just like the thing ended, and I wasn't really done, and I was like, "Okay, I only have a couple miles to go," so that was part of it. But, um, I went home and immediately was like, "We need to have a baby, like, right now."

[02:00:48] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. "

[02:00:48] Luke Storey: Like, it's our time," you know? Mm-hmm.

[02:00:50] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. Which was

[02:00:51] Luke Storey: a funny experience because I remember Allison, before I left that night, she's like, "Dude, you're kind of going a little heavy on the journeys lately.

[02:00:57] Luke Storey: Like, have you really thought this through?" And, "No, no, I [02:01:00] feel called. I'm supposed to be there." "Okay. Okay." And I remember coming home and being like, "Let's do this." She was like, "Keep going to journeys." It's like every time I go, I come back a better man, a better husband, and more, more available, you know? Um, not that that's everyone experience, but that's been my experience at least with that- More available

[02:01:17] Luke Storey: you know, working with entheogens, you know?

[02:01:18] Eyla Cuenca: Wow, that's really nice.

[02:01:19] Luke Storey: But yeah. Yeah. I just came back and was like, "Oh my God, like, I've been... Because of, you know, the wounds I've been carrying, I'm just a l- not only, like, have hurt myself and hurt other people, but I'm just, I, there, it's so limiting on my life and what's possible and what I could, you know, experience with my wife and as a man and all that, you know?

[02:01:36] Luke Storey: So beautiful.

[02:01:37] Eyla Cuenca: But the higher self knows that on the other side of the intimacy comes the worthiness as a father, right? Then the other side- Yeah ... of intimacy is like, well, once I go deeper with her or the partner, then life is created, and then on the other side of that is my worthiness as a man.

[02:01:54] Luke Storey: Right.

[02:01:54] Eyla Cuenca: You know?

[02:01:55] Eyla Cuenca: My worthiness as a father and, you know, abortion. I've seen that [02:02:00] often, you know, with a, a lot of the male clients I've had, you know, 'cause they'll come into the space and there's ... It just inevitably it comes up, like, the truth is, like, y- the, the truth is never hidden for very long. Sometimes decades, sometimes few days, but it always reveals itself, and it comes back to that worthiness piece, you know?

[02:02:19] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:02:19] Eyla Cuenca: Um-

[02:02:19] Luke Storey: Yeah. And the grief, right? The gr- And

[02:02:21] Eyla Cuenca: the grief

[02:02:22] Luke Storey: Yeah, the grief and the, and the shame. I think when, you know, when we go through life and we make decisions at a certain level of consciousness, we don't ... You know, it's like forgive them for they know not what they do, right? Mm-hmm. We don't even know what we're doing.

[02:02:34] Luke Storey: It's just, like, seems like the best, you know, the best way to navigate through a challenge, right? And then as you ... In my case, as I've kind of developed and matured and become more awake, going back and looking at some of those things, it's really difficult to not get caught up in the grief or the shame around it, right?

[02:02:52] Luke Storey: It's like part of the process of healing it is self-forgiveness. Say, "Man," you [02:03:00] l- you know, look at the, the deck you were playing with you know what I'm saying?

[02:03:03] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[02:03:04] Luke Storey: You're playing with a quarter deck to begin with. It's like you couldn't have possibly done better. You

[02:03:09] Eyla Cuenca: couldn't have possibly done better.

[02:03:10] Luke Storey: If, if you could have done better, you would have.

[02:03:12] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly.

[02:03:12] Luke Storey: It's self-evident, right?

[02:03:13] Eyla Cuenca: It's self-evident, and then just the other piece is honoring that life, right? And, like, who am I to say that that wasn't a full life lived for that soul's evolution? Again, questioning the intelligence of that soul, which is why I do believe that the soul is attached to the embryo, to the fetus, you know?

[02:03:32] Eyla Cuenca: Right. And why is a life that was lived to 80 years old more valuable? Or, like, why was that more, why was that more of a full life, and who am I to decide that a full life means, like, again, the thing, the house, the picket fence, the Nobel Pri- Like, why am I- Right. That's

[02:03:46] Luke Storey: interesting ...

[02:03:46] Eyla Cuenca: why am I deciding that for them?

[02:03:50] Luke Storey: I never thought about it that way. S-

[02:03:52] Eyla Cuenca: so again, with- when it comes to time, like-

[02:03:55] Luke Storey: Right ...

[02:03:55] Eyla Cuenca: who am I to decide that, like, the six weeks or the 12 weeks wasn't [02:04:00] what that soul's evolution required and needed for that lifetime?

[02:04:04] Luke Storey: Right. And thinking this is like ... I don't mean to be morbid or make light of something so serious, but it's like I, I, I get a pretty strong sense that when we're in our non-physical form, that we're kinda scanning around looking for the right lineage.

[02:04:20] Luke Storey: There's karmic implications and ties, and we kinda spot a couple, right? And we're like, "Perfect. They're gonna give me exactly what I need to go to my next level of evolution." And I've thought about what were the souls thinking that, that tried to pick me? Like, did they know I was gonna be like Not allow it to happen?

[02:04:36] Luke Storey: Was that part of their process? Well, isn't that like- Or were they like, "Ah, let's roll the dice. This guy's pretty fucked up." "He's probably not gonna really see this to fruition. You know, he's, he might interrupt it based on, like, w- all the shit he has going on. Let's just give it a shot." You know, or did they know, like, "Ah, we, this is just gonna be part of our shared experience even though it might not, you know, run-" But this is like-

[02:04:58] Luke Storey: run the full term of a life." ...

[02:04:59] Eyla Cuenca: [02:05:00] where we go back to the Akashic records, right? Like, isn't there, like, that book of, there, there's that contract that was, like, written? Like, y'all were up there signing some things, making agreements, and then like- Right ... when it happened, it happened. I don't know if it's necessarily, like, a scouting mission.

[02:05:16] Eyla Cuenca: Where you're like, "Let's see," you know? Like, "Let's see what's going on down there," and, like, unsuspecting, you know, pods for us to inhabit. I think it's like, it's all, like, a planned out thing.

[02:05:28] Luke Storey: Right.

[02:05:29] Eyla Cuenca: You know?

[02:05:29] Luke Storey: Right. The Akashic, that's the word I was trying to think of in the DMT space. Mm. What came to me was that it was it's some sort of hall of records.

[02:05:38] Luke Storey: It's like you're

[02:05:39] Eyla Cuenca: in-

[02:05:39] Luke Storey: Like the hall

[02:05:39] Eyla Cuenca: of

[02:05:39] Luke Storey: records ... you're kind of, like, in the Akashic record, and it was almost, it was almost like a courtroom.

[02:05:44] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm. '

[02:05:45] Luke Storey: Cause I was, I was, uh, issuing a complaint against someone that hurt me in the past, right? That's how I got in there. Mm-hmm. I was like, "Where is that motherfucker?"

[02:05:53] Luke Storey: 'Cause I was trying to forgive them and I couldn't. Mm.

[02:05:55] Eyla Cuenca: You know?

[02:05:56] Luke Storey: And so I was like, "Hmm, let me see if I can find that person," and then [02:06:00] found that it wasn't even about the person, it was about the evil behind that person that motivated them to harm me, right?

[02:06:07] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[02:06:07] Luke Storey: So that kind of, like, opened up that Akashic record where everything is known, there's no time, everyone can hear each other's thoughts.

[02:06:13] Luke Storey: It's all totally telepathic and transparent. That's how I ended up in that place. Yeah. And it was like, whoa, like, I'm not... I, I went in there like, "Oh, I'm the judge. You were wrong, and we need to, you know, reconcile the situation." It was like once I got in there, I was like, oh shit, everyone can see me too and everything I've ever thought and done, you know?

[02:06:31] Luke Storey: Yeah. So I was like, shit, I'm, we're all on trial in here- Yeah ... 'cause all is known, and we have an opportunity to come in here and work things out, you know?

[02:06:39] Eyla Cuenca: Totally. It- Yeah, the mediation

[02:06:40] Luke Storey: space ... mind-blowing. Mind-blowing shit. Um, all right, last question, uh, I wanna ask you is something you mentioned earlier about the birth certificate.

[02:06:49] Luke Storey: So I th- think you might be aware I've been really into studying law and stuff like this for the past couple years.

[02:06:54] Eyla Cuenca: I can't actually... Like, so I went down that path of, like, you [02:07:00] know, getting out of that sector, and I opened some trusts, and I was in a group, and I was like, I became, um an ecclesiastic entity.

[02:07:11] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I was, you know, I'm like a sovereign being or whatever. Yeah. And then I just hit a wall, and I was like, "This is s- I have to dedicate, like, every hour of my waking life- Yeah ... to navigate this, and, like, I can't do it anymore." And so I just- Yeah, respect. I- After three years I

[02:07:29] Luke Storey: get it

[02:07:30] Eyla Cuenca: after three years and, like, a lot of resources invested, time, energy, I was like, "I'm out."

[02:07:36] Eyla Cuenca: And, um, I know that part of it is, like, no one is there to... That's part of the whole initiation, is that you're learning to navigate it and do it, and there is no one that's like, "This is how you do it."

[02:07:47] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:07:48] Eyla Cuenca: And I get that, and I couldn't- Yeah ... anymore. Totally. I chose to, uh, recuse myself from that world, and so I a- always have clients that are like, "Can you assist me in, like, not getting the birth certificate, and [02:08:00] how do I get the passport out?"

[02:08:01] Eyla Cuenca: And I was like, "Let me just refer you to someone who's great, you know, this woman Veda, and, um, you know, you can, you can go from there." But, like, at this point, you know, I'm just

[02:08:12] Luke Storey: done. Well, what I'm, what I'm wondering about is... Okay, because, and I'm sure you're aware of this, and you're right, this shit is so overwhelming.

[02:08:20] Luke Storey: I mean, it, it really is a commitment if you choose to free yourself, you know, in terms of, um, the matrix on a, on a legal level. But the thing that's really interesting to me about this element of birth is that it seems like that adhesion contract that your parents sign, that's the first hooks that the matrix gets in a kid.

[02:08:44] Luke Storey: Like, once that birth certificate exists, then there's a lot of work going into extricating yourself from that system if you elect to as an adult, right?

[02:08:54] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:08:54] Luke Storey: And then there are, uh, all sorts of other contracts that your parents or you enter into [02:09:00] unknowing, you know, tacit agreements, right? So the birth certificate to me is always like, I always kind of resent it because I'm like, "That's where they get you, the Social Security number and the birth certificate, and your parents sign."

[02:09:10] Luke Storey: And, and that's, you know, that's the birth of the straw man, right? So it's like you're born as this incarnated soul, as a living man or woman, and then the government institution and the medical institution at some point figured out, "Okay, this is a real person, but there are certain natural laws that we can't cross-

[02:09:32] Eyla Cuenca: Right

[02:09:32] Luke Storey: in terms of violating them or exploiting them or enslaving them. But we can create this fictitious identity of them that is part of the system of commerce, right? It's-

[02:09:42] Eyla Cuenca: And corral them.

[02:09:43] Luke Storey: Yeah. Yeah, and so it's like-

[02:09:44] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[02:09:45] Luke Storey: then we go our whole lives in this... I mean, we're already in this duality, right? But there's also a duality that there's two versions of us.

[02:09:51] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. There's me, like a living flesh man. There's also a me on paper that the government created by getting... You know, putting a birth certificate- Mm-hmm ... in front of my [02:10:00] parents to sign, right?

[02:10:01] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:10:01] Luke Storey: And so it's like, ah, that just pisses me off that that's how that's done. Totally. But I've, I've, I've never really understood, like, if you're giving birth in a hospital, like, who brings this thing in for the parent to sign?

[02:10:16] Luke Storey: And is, is it just, like, assumed that they will? Is there any pushback if a parent is like, "I'm not signing that shit. I'm taking my baby and walking out of here"?

[02:10:25] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, there's

[02:10:25] Luke Storey: definitely pushback. That's part one. And part two is, do they still do the ink print of the sole? 'Cause that's, like, part of the witchcraft spell to me that is super creepy.

[02:10:34] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, totally. No, it's still highly ritualistic. I did have a client a few years ago who birthed at a hospital in Miami, and they didn't wanna do... They wanted to... You know, they didn't wanna do the birth certificate. But they chose to birth in the hospital 'cause there was a conflict of interest between the husband's family, like, the in-laws.

[02:10:52] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, the husband was like, "I'm on board," but just, like, the in-laws kind of, like, fund their life. It was, like, a complicated, [02:11:00] uh, situation. And so there was pushback. The hospital wouldn't let them leave. So, like, a nurse basically comes in, checks things. It's all taken care of for you at the hospital, like, the vital records and statistics stuff.

[02:11:12] Eyla Cuenca: And so there was pushback, and they just, eventually they just kept saying, "We'll do it when we leave. We'll..." "No, no, we can't let you check out. We can't, you know, until you do it." And then, "What do, what do you mean? Why do you need to wait?" And it was, like, a whole back-and-forth thing. But eventually they got out of the hospital with ha- without having done it.

[02:11:27] Eyla Cuenca: Um, and then they went on that route of... And I'm not sure where it ended up as far as the, the birth certificate goes and all of that, but, um, they were able to leave the hospital without having done it. But yeah, it took about three days. And I think they had an attorney that they called. And it's possible.

[02:11:44] Eyla Cuenca: It's just how much can your nervous system handle as far as the pushback that you get- Right ... and are you willing to s- like, stand your ground for long enough until they say, "Actually, we can't hold you here. You're right," you know?

[02:11:55] Luke Storey: Right.

[02:11:55] Eyla Cuenca: Um, but yeah, they still do the ink prints. It's like in a... You know, it's, like, an [02:12:00] invisible ink, kinda.

[02:12:00] Eyla Cuenca: It washes off. They do the ink prints, the hand prints. They do the blood drawing. You know, they do the circumcision. They do the injection in the heel. Like, all the things. The hepatitis B vaccine. And- Wow ... all those things are still done, um, for sure.

[02:12:16] Luke Storey: There's something else that I ha- I, I saved this in a document when I was researching this, but there's also something, um, about the placenta that's tied into this.

[02:12:29] Luke Storey: And you, you might know more about this than I do. But it's like when you don't elect to keep the placenta, that that becomes biological property of the hospital.

[02:12:42] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. So there's paperwork that the woman fills out when she checks into the hospital, like, either in triage or if she's in early labor and she's, you know, going in and filling out her paperwork, that she's an organ donor.

[02:12:55] Eyla Cuenca: Like-

[02:12:56] Luke Storey: Whoa ...

[02:12:56] Eyla Cuenca: like, she's by default an organ donor unless she elects [02:13:00] to not be. And, um- Specifically the organ of the placenta. So yeah, like it's, like they're, it's not like they're stealing it. Right. She just hasn't reclaimed it-

[02:13:12] Luke Storey: Right ...

[02:13:12] Eyla Cuenca: when she signs the paperwork, so that's why I encourage, you know, clients to get...

[02:13:17] Eyla Cuenca: And it's not, like they, they say I've already pre-checked, you know, I've checked in beforehand, I'm registered with the hospital. I'm like, yeah, but then there's more paperwork that's signed when you arrive. If you can get ahold of that paperwork beforehand to review it from the comfort of your own home-

[02:13:31] Luke Storey: Right

[02:13:31] Eyla Cuenca: I recommend that. Uh, rather- To make

[02:13:34] Luke Storey: those decisions when you're not in a compromised position, right?

[02:13:36] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly. I mean, you might have been- You're not like in early labor ...

[02:13:38] Luke Storey: you've been in labor for three days, and they're like, "Oh, just sign here, sign here." You're like, "Oh, okay, whatever." Yeah. Especially if you were given some

[02:13:43] Eyla Cuenca: drugs.

[02:13:43] Eyla Cuenca: Or you're in the throes of labor when you arrive, and then you're just like, "Oh, let me check it off," uh, you know, whatever. Right. Like, yes, save, resuscitate me if I'm, you know, like- Right ... but you think it's just that, but it's actually so much more than that. So if you can get that paperwork beforehand and review it, because bringing in a [02:14:00] birth plan is not gonna negate like the t- 26 pages you've just initialed.

[02:14:05] Eyla Cuenca: Right. So like, you know, um, yeah, you can request to keep the placenta, and even if you don't wanna consume it or use it for something, you know, you can bury it in your garden with a tree. You can store it. Yeah. That's

[02:14:17] Luke Storey: what we did with ours. We, we have a little graveyard- Mm-hmm, yeah ... in the backyard, you know.

[02:14:21] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. It- Mm-hmm ... yeah, and honor it because it was- Mm-hmm ... the lifeline for the baby, you know, as we call, and many cultures call it the second mother, or sorry, the first mother because it was what's- Mm-hmm ... been housing the baby, communicating it, with, you know, with the baby. The pulsing of the placenta is the sound that it's primarily hearing while it's in the womb.

[02:14:40] Eyla Cuenca: So it's like it's, it's co- it's like co-sleeping and connecting- Right ... with the placenta.

[02:14:46] Luke Storey: I know what it was that I researched that, and I'm gonna kind of butcher this. I, I, I'll have to find my document because I have the validation of this. It's gonna sound crazy, but the, [02:15:00] the, let's just call it the government, right, for lack of a better term, just an overarching thing that, uh, that has to do with the medical system but is ultimately coming from a higher authority, right?

[02:15:09] Luke Storey: There's legislation. The whole administrative monster that is the medical system as an arm of the government treats the placenta as a twin, as a stillborn. Yeah.

[02:15:20] Eyla Cuenca: Oh.

[02:15:21] Luke Storey: And that they claim rights on that entity a- as it pertains to your straw man identity that's created with the birth certificate. It's, it's part of how they rope the jurisdiction in.

[02:15:37] Eyla Cuenca: Okay.

[02:15:37] Luke Storey: Yeah.

[02:15:37] Eyla Cuenca: No, I would love

[02:15:38] Luke Storey: to read that. Super trippy, right? Yeah, I'll find, I'll find the document. I did a deep dive on this, and I was like, "Whoa, this is even darker than I ever imagined," you know? But- Yeah, there was something about that. Like, the, the biological material then becomes property of the government essentially-

[02:15:54] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah

[02:15:54] Luke Storey: as a stillborn twin.

[02:15:56] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:15:57] Luke Storey: And that, and then that's related to, [02:16:00] you know, the, the birth certificate as, like, a ce- a certificate in maritime law that would be used when something is birthed from a port, right? So it's like the mother's waters, the birthing waters. I'm sure you know all the allegories of how this kind of the, um, the spell casting of the language, right?

[02:16:16] Luke Storey: There's all these double meaning things- Mm-hmm ... that are really interesting.

[02:16:19] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm.

[02:16:19] Luke Storey: And part of that was the placenta as being, like, a stillborn or lost at sea, that then they can sort of attach jurisdiction to-

[02:16:28] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, they can claim it as property-

[02:16:29] Luke Storey: The, yeah ... because it's been lost at sea ... the baby that did live, right?

[02:16:31] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

[02:16:32] Luke Storey: super trippy stuff.

[02:16:33] Eyla Cuenca: No, and, and, and just to tell you, in all the births I've been to, I've never with my eyes witnessed the birth, what they call the plac- they'll say it's just birth waste. It's what they call it, or it's hazardous waste or birth waste. Um, that's what they call the placenta, the amniotic sac, and whatever else is coming, you know, blood clots that are coming from the mother and things like that.

[02:16:52] Eyla Cuenca: And, um, I've never actually seen with my own eyes that they discard it. Because they will tell the mother, "We discard it. It's useless. It's birth waste." Mm. [02:17:00] But I've never seen that. Like, I'm watching, like, you know, the big plastic container with the red, the red bag, and I'm, like, looking, and I never have seen it thrown out-

[02:17:10] Luke Storey: Interesting

[02:17:10] Eyla Cuenca: um, for women who don't choose to keep it, and I just... It kind of disappears into the action of the birth space.

[02:17:18] Luke Storey: Interesting.

[02:17:19] Eyla Cuenca: And so when I did some digging, um, about six years ago, um, there's a company in Baltimore, and they do stem cell therapies and medications, and they receive copious amounts of donations from different hospitals, you know- To do stem cell research for sports medicine and things like that- Yeah, yeah, yeah

[02:17:38] Eyla Cuenca: is what they say. Yeah. And even plastic surgery, you know, where they're reconstructing people who've had, you know, these heinous accidents that need support with reconstructing, and so they use the placental cells. And then I'm looking and, you know, just through the basic research, it's like that those companies donate a lot of money to hospitals- Yeah, yeah

[02:17:55] Eyla Cuenca: in order to fund-

[02:17:57] Luke Storey: Right ... what

[02:17:57] Eyla Cuenca: they're up to.

[02:17:57] Luke Storey: There, there is some sort of, um- You can't

[02:17:59] Eyla Cuenca: sell [02:18:00] it.

[02:18:00] Luke Storey: Yeah. There's a, there's a legal- Mm-hmm ... restriction on, like, a direct I, you know, I run the hospital or own the hospital and, you know, I'm gonna sell that to you- For

[02:18:10] Eyla Cuenca: research

[02:18:11] Luke Storey: and medicine ... the stem, the stem cell c- Yeah

[02:18:12] Luke Storey: company owner. Like, there can't be a direct transaction.

[02:18:15] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly.

[02:18:15] Luke Storey: But there still is, like, a quid pro quo sort of transaction that's possible.

[02:18:20] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know. Isn't that just like-

[02:18:23] Luke Storey: That creeps me out- ... basic money

[02:18:24] Eyla Cuenca: laundering ... 'cause

[02:18:25] Luke Storey: I've had, I've had a lot of stem cell treatments. Oh, no, just one of those things you look back and go, "Ah, I didn't really fully understand what was happening there", you know?

[02:18:33] Luke Storey: Like, I'm probably the, the byproduct or the end result of some of those back channels dealing in biological materials.

[02:18:41] Eyla Cuenca: Totally. I, I mean, uh, it's possible. I've had clients who've kept their placenta and then sent... They haven't even used it. They've... Like, one of my clients in Miami, she kept it and then had it shipped to her mother in Colombia who was doing plastic surgery because the plastic [02:19:00] surgeon actually requested for the daughter to give it to her.

[02:19:04] Eyla Cuenca: Like, it wasn't even like- Oh, interesting ... oh, the placenta has benefits. He wanted it for... And so she was... I was like, "It's your placenta. You can do whatever you want with it." Right. "I will, like, prepare it in this way so that you can transport it," and like, you know, 'cause I do that separately.

[02:19:17] Luke Storey: Right,

[02:19:17] Eyla Cuenca: right. You know, placenta encapsulation and preparation.

[02:19:19] Eyla Cuenca: So I was like, "Oh, okay, I wonder what's going on there."

[02:19:22] Luke Storey: Wow. Wild. Uh, before we wrap up, for those listening, uh, and I'm, you know, I'm not certain about this, but for those that are kind of freedom-minded, um, as it pertains to the birth certificate and stuff like that, I don't know the exact legal mechanics of this because I was planning it all and educating myself so that when we had a baby I would know what to do.

[02:19:43] Luke Storey: But from what I understand, now the, you know, my limited understanding of this is that if you have a home birth or, like your client that managed to have a hospital birth and get out of there before they had them sign the birth certificate, that you can, uh, apply for what's called a certificate of live birth-

[02:19:59] Eyla Cuenca: Mm-hmm

[02:19:59] Luke Storey: [02:20:00] which is just, like, an affidavit that a baby was born, it's factual- Mm-hmm ... and that that can then be used to get a passport and help that, you know, person as they get older- Yep ... start to operate in the world and things like that, so.

[02:20:13] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. Yeah, the p- passport's still totally possible. I know personally, we didn't get her a birth certificate until, like, three weeks after she was born because there was there was a disagreement about her name.

[02:20:24] Eyla Cuenca: And, uh, so you have time. Like, if you're listening and you're like, "Wait, we're about to give birth," like, you have time to-

[02:20:31] Luke Storey: Yeah ...

[02:20:31] Eyla Cuenca: change gears if that's what it

[02:20:32] Luke Storey: is. Yeah, and there's also a difference between a birth certificate and a certificate of live birth. Yep. I remember when I did one of my passport applications, um, and I didn't have the version of my birth certificate that I wanted to use for that, like a long form birth certificate.

[02:20:46] Luke Storey: Um, I filled out something called, um, a... There's the DS-11, which is your passport application. Mm-hmm. Then there's a DS-10, which is a birth affidavit, uh, for people that don't have a birth certificate. So I had to send it to my dad as a witness, and he had to get it [02:21:00] notarized and all this stuff. So I could have lived 50-something years without any kind of birth certificate and still gotten- Yep

[02:21:06] Luke Storey: you know, a version of a US passport based on that.

[02:21:09] Eyla Cuenca: Totally.

[02:21:09] Luke Storey: So there's a lot of things you can do. But as you alluded to, um, if you get into the law space and, uh, you really wanna pursue it, I mean, just, it's gonna be a full-time job.

[02:21:18] Eyla Cuenca: It's a full-time job, and I, I didn't have the cap- yeah, I didn't have the

[02:21:21] Luke Storey: capacity.

[02:21:22] Luke Storey: Yeah, I get it, man. But- There's, there's times I wanna, like, give up too you know what I mean? It's

[02:21:26] Eyla Cuenca: like, what a... Like, yeah, the accountant that was m- uh, disappeared, so yeah. S-

[02:21:31] Luke Storey: Yeah, totally. I, I think w- like, with the law space for me, it's like once I took it to a certain point, I just, I can't live with just erasing all the work that I did and all the progress I did, right?

[02:21:44] Luke Storey: It's like, oh, it's... I'm kind of like, you know, at the three-quarters through, like, walking through a small tunnel, and to turn around and, like, go all the way back out seems very difficult, even though it's not. I mean, you just opt back into the system. They're happy to have you.

[02:21:58] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, yeah. It's

[02:21:58] Luke Storey: like-

[02:21:58] Eyla Cuenca: It was easy for me.

[02:21:59] Eyla Cuenca: It was

[02:21:59] Luke Storey: like- Yeah, but I'm [02:22:00] like, man, I already made so much progress. I know. You know? So I kind of ha- it's like I have to kind of commit to it. Mm-hmm. And I also realized at some point early on, too, that it's, it wasn't even about the physical freedom and the tyranny and all that. It was like I realized that part of my soul's curriculum here was what I thought it was at first was to free my mind, right?

[02:22:24] Luke Storey: And to just make reality what I wanna make it, and to understand that I am just an aspect of God and all the things, right? Yeah. And I was like, "Oh, I'm free." Like, you're as free as you wanna be in your mind. Ask Viktor Frankl, right? It's like-

[02:22:35] Eyla Cuenca: Oh, yeah ...

[02:22:36] Luke Storey: it's all perception, right? Yeah. So I had learned how to change my perception pretty good after 30 years of practicing that.

[02:22:42] Luke Storey: So I never really cared about the physical side. I was like, "I'm a slave, I know it, but I'm not really a slave in my mind, so who cares," right? Right. Keep paying taxes, do all the things, give the matrix the fucking adrenochrome they want.

[02:22:52] Eyla Cuenca: Right.

[02:22:52] Luke Storey: The, the loosh, right? But then at some point when I started getting into law, I realized, which I kind of, like, almost wish I [02:23:00] didn't realize, was that part of my curriculum here was to also extricate myself in the physical realm, too.

[02:23:07] Eyla Cuenca: Hmm.

[02:23:08] Luke Storey: And once I realized that that was part of my challenge here, then I had to do it.

[02:23:12] Eyla Cuenca: You had to do it.

[02:23:13] Luke Storey: You know? I was just like, "Goddammit."

[02:23:15] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. "

[02:23:15] Luke Storey: I wish I didn't know that this even existed, because then I wouldn't know that it's part of my mission here," right?

[02:23:21] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. It kind of... It, it's always lingering in the back of my mind.

[02:23:24] Eyla Cuenca: Like, e- ever since I learned about it, it's still there. And just because I opted back in, like, it's not that it it doesn't still... I don't wanna say it haunts me, but it's, it's a reality, you know? Yeah. And I've just been able to guide people in a basic way towards different resources. So maybe that was the purpose at this juncture, and I'm not gonna say that I wouldn't return to it again- Yeah

[02:23:45] Eyla Cuenca: when the conditions are a little different. But yeah, I was like, there are so many processes in place, and now this? It's a spiritual boot camp. Yeah. This process.

[02:23:54] Luke Storey: Yeah,

[02:23:54] Eyla Cuenca: totally. You know? Of ch- of switching into a different sector,

[02:23:56] Luke Storey: so. Another thing that makes the law space difficult, and for those that don't [02:24:00] even know what we're talking about, we'll link to the m- many law podcasts I've done.

[02:24:04] Luke Storey: It sounds really boring, law. Like, we're just talking about how to extricate yourself from the commercial system, basically, right? Yeah. Um, is that it's so overwhelming because there are so many aspects to it and, and law in and of itself as a practice, as, um, as something to educate yourself in, is so old.

[02:24:25] Luke Storey: It's so dense. There's so much to it to begin with. Add to that, that every kind of thought leader, guru, expert in the space, like just as a blanket term, let's say the common law space or the freedom movement, whatever, every expert has a totally different opinion about- Totally ... how to do it, right? Yeah. And it's like you could get 100 of these, like, experts in a room, and they all disagree on everything.

[02:24:50] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:24:50] Luke Storey: So it's like how do you even choose kind of what path if you wanna, like, go through equity or, you know, SBC, HTC. There's like all- Mm-hmm ... these different routes [02:25:00] to freedom. Each one who is, you know, a, um, purveyor and educator of their particular niche claims that it's the best one, and they can tell you why.

[02:25:10] Luke Storey: So there's, like, major decision fatigue in terms of how you want to- Major ... operate in the world and, you know, with trust and PMAs. And I mean, there's so many options on the menu. At a point, it just gets like, "I don't even wanna do any of this 'cause it's so overwhelming and confusing." Yeah. How do you know who to trust?

[02:25:25] Luke Storey: Like, who's the right person to follow? And also, like, which methodology suits your nervous system?

[02:25:34] Eyla Cuenca: Yes.

[02:25:34] Luke Storey: Right? It's like the path that I sort of ended up going on, I'm learning is not so aligned with my nervous system and the fact that I really don't really like a lot of conflict.

[02:25:48] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:25:48] Luke Storey: I'm not a fighter.

[02:25:49] Luke Storey: You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't like fighting, arguing, drama. I just like to sh, just go exist and be peacefully left alone. The route that I took is a little more combative.

[02:25:59] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:25:59] Luke Storey: And I-

[02:25:59] Eyla Cuenca: I [02:26:00] see some people really thriving in that realm. That's not my- Like Andy, like Andy Kaufman, like he's really- Yeah ... good.

[02:26:06] Eyla Cuenca: Like, he's in it. Yeah. He's, like, with it, and he's got it on lock.

[02:26:09] Luke Storey: Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't enjoy that.

[02:26:11] Eyla Cuenca: Showing up at court and, like... I'm like, "Wow, I don't have the nervous system capacity for that."

[02:26:16] Luke Storey: I'm learning that I don't either.

[02:26:17] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:26:18] Luke Storey: Yeah. Um, so that I've talked to some people about the equity path.

[02:26:23] Luke Storey: Mm-hmm. Like, there's that whole thing, and that definitely feels more aligned with me. That's more of a, um... It's not judo. What's the one where you, like, use- Capoeira ... where you use the energies, you know, like you absorb the energy of the, your opponent kind of thing. Uh, it's not taekwondo. What is it? Aikido.

[02:26:38] Eyla Cuenca: Aikido.

[02:26:39] Luke Storey: Yeah. It's like, you know, it's, it's making moves where you sort of, like-

[02:26:44] Eyla Cuenca: Response ...

[02:26:44] Luke Storey: direct the energy- Yeah ... in different ways rather than, like, head to head combat, you know?

[02:26:49] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah

[02:26:49] Luke Storey: But anyway, I had no idea we were gonna talk about that. I could go on forever. Um, so thank you for, uh, entertaining me and all my wild ideas.

[02:26:58] Luke Storey: I'm kind of on one today. I'm just [02:27:00] like... thought that I was gonna talk to you about totally different things. Like, let's go through all the different birth things that can happen, and-

[02:27:06] Eyla Cuenca: I know ...

[02:27:06] Luke Storey: we talked about none of that. But I think that's partially 'cause I have a feeling that's what we did last time.

[02:27:11] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:27:11] Luke Storey: So for people- Yeah ... that are like, "Wait, what about C-sections?" You know, all the epidurals, all the things. Like, go back. Uh, again, the show notes are lukestore.com/birthkeeper2. If you go to just lukestore.com/birthkeeper direct, you'll get our past conversation, which I think is a little more focused and grounded on like, wow, if I wanna be a parent, like, what are my options and-

[02:27:31] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, and protocols and like- Yeah,

[02:27:33] Luke Storey: all

[02:27:33] Eyla Cuenca: that

[02:27:33] Eyla Cuenca: yeah, and there's also a lot of resources

[02:27:35] Luke Storey: that- Oh, duh. I knew I was forgetting something. Yeah. Tell me about your, the current iteration of your education and platform. I'm so sorry I didn't talk about

[02:27:44] Eyla Cuenca: that yet. Yeah, that's all right. That's right. No, I like-

[02:27:46] Luke Storey: You're not a very salesy guest. You know, you're doing like, "Hey, Luke, d- before you end..."

[02:27:50] Eyla Cuenca: Everyone tells me that. They're like, "How do you, like, sell anything? You never ta- " And I'm like, "Yeah, I just like, if people want to connect, they will, I guess." Um, maybe I should change [02:28:00] that. But, um, right now the main... Like, the big focus, the school has grown so much. So if you wanna be a birth educator, if you wanna be a birth doula, if you wanna work in the postpartum space, like, we have those tr- programs and mentorships, and they happen live.

[02:28:13] Eyla Cuenca: And I have an entire team now of women who are co-teachers- Wow ... and, like, we have embodiment work and nervous system work. And, you know, my big thing is, like, there's- So many places to learn to become a birth worker or a doula, and I've gone through those programs, you know, long time ago, and so much of it is, like, how do I follow the rules in this space?

[02:28:33] Eyla Cuenca: You know, and there's no self-reflection work. There's no personal inquiry, and so we have a lot of, like, women who have no capacity to hold a lot of contrast going into a high-intensity space like a birth space or a postpartum space and struggling to really express in that space and do work and even earn a living because this huge piece is missing, right?

[02:28:54] Eyla Cuenca: Like, there's... I was talking about this yesterday. Like, a lot of angry birth [02:29:00] workers you know, who wanna see change and justice happen, and that's actually not how this bottom-up change really occurs. You know? Right. So it's like, it's an inside job, and so- Right ... the programs have really taken off because women are having these, like, super expansive personal journeys while they're learning how to become birth workers.

[02:29:17] Eyla Cuenca: So it's become a really awesome community, and, um, and that's what we're up to. We have the postpartum doula training coming up really soon. It's 10 weeks. And then birth educator training, and we have a lot of women who've given birth and are like, "I wanna work in this space and bring my small children with me"- Wow

[02:29:34] Eyla Cuenca: and, like- Wow.

[02:29:35] Luke Storey: So you've really expanded since we spoke last-

[02:29:37] Eyla Cuenca: Totally ... in

[02:29:38] Luke Storey: terms of the education piece. In

[02:29:39] Eyla Cuenca: terms, in terms of the education piece, and I think probably what's next is a lot of women who've gone through the training programs wanna work in the birth trauma space. You know? Um, who, the, a lot of women have experienced their own birth trauma, and they're like, "Wait, I can heal this further and really integrate this by serving in the birth space?"

[02:29:56] Eyla Cuenca: And so-

[02:29:57] Luke Storey: Oh, wow. Wow ...

[02:29:58] Eyla Cuenca: so I'd say now we have about [02:30:00] half women who've given birth, half women who've never given birth, but they want to work in the birth space, and so, you know, that's been really wonderful, too. Like, we had an 18-year-old fresh out of homeschooling, high school, come in, and now she's working as a doula in Southern California and just, like, having-

[02:30:15] Luke Storey: Oh, that's amazing

[02:30:15] Eyla Cuenca: an incredible experience. And then, you know, f- we had someone who's 68 years old who just completed the last cohort, and she's, like, she's just doula'd two grandch- you know, two of her grandchildren's births. You know- Oh, that's amazing ... different children she had, and she's running a business in Canada now, and, like, it's just been super healing for her coming from her own personal knock him out, drag him out birth that her mother had, you know, in the '50s.

[02:30:39] Eyla Cuenca: Right. And, you know, '60s, and, um- So yeah, it's, it's a really diverse community in the sense that it's, like, all women coming together from all these different backgrounds.

[02:30:50] Luke Storey: That's so epic. Well, as I was telling you with, with my sister-in-law, Emily, you know, I think one of the reasons they were able to navigate two home births, like, zero [02:31:00] interventions, was because of the time she put into education.

[02:31:02] Luke Storey: I forget who she studied with, but I think there's something even... And I was wondering, oh, is she gonna become a doula? She's like, "No, I just wanted to crush having my own babies," you know what I mean?

[02:31:11] Eyla Cuenca: There's so many women- It's like- ... that come through our program that d- didn't, like... Such a beautiful, um, text I got recently where she's just, like, you know, her baby-- She reflected a year later, and she's like, "I don't know that I would've been able to do this, like, home birth after two medicalized births had I not done the doula training.

[02:31:28] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I lear- like, my relationship has improved with my husband. Like, I had the courage and the knowing to do this at home, you know, with a midwife. I never thought in a million years coming from the family I came from that I would, like, ever break out of that fear grid I was in." Yeah. And I was like, wow.

[02:31:43] Eyla Cuenca: Like, so I don't know. I don't e- like, I have the birth class for couples, but I'm kinda like, "Come to the doula training," you know? Right. It's like a, it's a woman school. You know,

[02:31:52] Luke Storey: something that occurred to me too is y- you were mentioning external pressure from in-laws and things like that- Mm ... and there was a bit of that [02:32:00] with my brother- Mm

[02:32:00] Luke Storey: and, and his wife. Um, yeah, I mean, um, think people had healthy enough boundaries where there wasn't some kind of crazy intervention, but there was definitely concern and-

[02:32:09] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah ...

[02:32:09] Luke Storey: they weren't supported in their choices. They were by me, of course. Also supported by the fact that they were really studying. Not only her, but my brother too.

[02:32:18] Luke Storey: He's right there with her, like, learning all he can, right? And it's like- Yeah ... I feel like because they were doing that, the pressure from, uh, from outside of their relationship was, affected them much less- Totally ... because of their confidence. It's not like, it's not like they could tell their either set of in-laws like, "No, we got this.

[02:32:39] Luke Storey: We're taking an online course. We're gonna be safe," you know what I mean? Like- No ... that doesn't register to the people outside that are concerned, and rightly so, 'cause they've been indoctrinated to be concerned, but it helped them with their own sovereignty and empowerment to know, like, we're not just winging this.

[02:32:54] Luke Storey: Like, we know what we're doing- Yeah ... and we're sorry you guys don't understand, but we're good.

[02:32:58] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:32:59] Luke Storey: There's a hospital two [02:33:00] miles away. We know how to get there, okay? Chill. Yeah,

[02:33:02] Eyla Cuenca: that confidence is-

[02:33:03] Luke Storey: Yeah ... a

[02:33:04] Eyla Cuenca: really big piece of it- Yeah ... that you can't really get by just, like, assuming things will work out, you know?

[02:33:09] Luke Storey: Right.

[02:33:11] Eyla Cuenca: It comes with the education piece. For the... It's, it's a whole lifetime of unlearning and relearning that has to happen, right? 'Cause how many children are educated in birth, divine biology, conception, like breastfeeding? Like, no, it, it's the contrary. There's, like, a lot of shame around the body.

[02:33:28] Eyla Cuenca: There's a lot of shame around conception. There's a lot of fear around birth, Hollywood or whatever it is, or family stories. And so just to remove that layer takes a good amount of education. Yeah. And then also to build the confidence. So there's multiple things happening at once. It's like an un- unlearning and relearning, and then building the confidence and the nervous system capacity to hold- Yeah

[02:33:50] Eyla Cuenca: a lot of external factors.

[02:33:52] Luke Storey: And all of the, all of the programming. I mean, you know about fake history, right? It's

[02:33:57] Eyla Cuenca: like- Oh, yeah. No,

[02:33:58] Luke Storey: like How, how do you even [02:34:00] trust the statistics, you know, that, like, in 1850, the average, you know, mortality of p- women and their babies giving birth was this. Like, how... We can't even trust that, right?

[02:34:10] Luke Storey: So it's like- I can't even

[02:34:10] Eyla Cuenca: trust that, no. It's like just the dinosaur bones. Like, I can't even- I'm

[02:34:15] Luke Storey: just like...

[02:34:16] Eyla Cuenca: I can't. No, like it's-

[02:34:17] Luke Storey: Just when you think you've uncovered, like, the biggest conspiracies, then it's just like, it gets to the point where it's not like, oh, what is fake or what have we been deceived about?

[02:34:28] Luke Storey: It's just like, what if, what is not fake? What is not, no, no. Have we not been deceived?

[02:34:31] Eyla Cuenca: Exactly. Exactly.

[02:34:32] Luke Storey: What is not- The ratio shifts at some point, where you're like, "Okay, literally everything we've been taught our whole life is fake. There's maybe 10% based in reality."

[02:34:39] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah, I'm questioning that anything existed before the photograph I have of my great-grandmother.

[02:34:45] Eyla Cuenca: Like, I'm q- Like, you know what I mean. I just- Yeah ... like, I... That's the only, like... Is that even proof? But, you know, it's like

[02:34:51] Luke Storey: Totally ...

[02:34:51] Eyla Cuenca: that's the only proof I have that anything existed before the, um, you know, before me.

[02:34:57] Luke Storey: Right, 'cause they didn't have Photoshop. '

[02:34:59] Eyla Cuenca: [02:35:00] Cause they didn't have Photoshop, right? And I worked in a dark room for five years.

[02:35:02] Eyla Cuenca: It's like I understand that, like, that was the only, you know-

[02:35:06] Luke Storey: It's the only empirical evidence we have of our recent past, so

[02:35:11] Eyla Cuenca: everything- And then the shifting out of analog into digital, I'm like, w- could they not even let us stay in there for too long? Because it was the only way to, like... I mean, there's photographs of, like, lit up cities in Europe- 200 years ago, over 200 years ago, you know, full-blown electronics happening.

[02:35:28] Luke Storey: And the, the, the ones that get me are the world's fairs. Oh,

[02:35:31] Eyla Cuenca: I know.

[02:35:31] Luke Storey: Right? "Oh, they're just fake plaster facades, and we just built it in six months with, you know, horse and buggy level technology." With chisels. "And then we just, then we just tore it all down and burned it down."

[02:35:42] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah.

[02:35:43] Luke Storey: Oh, my God. All right. So for people that want to, uh, experience you and your courses, you can go to lukestray.com/doulatraining, and, uh, if you use the code Luke10, you'll save 10%.

[02:35:55] Luke Storey: And we're gonna link to all of your courses and anything clickable that we've talked about today in the show [02:36:00] notes. So I'm hoping some people, uh, were inspired by this really in-depth, wild-ass conversation and come to have more of an experience with you and your work.

[02:36:08] Eyla Cuenca: Yeah. It'd be my pleasure.

[02:36:13] Luke Storey: All right, family, thanks for tuning in to The Lifstylist and making me part of your day. Now for a quick reality check. If social media pulled the plug on me tomorrow, how would we stay connected? I've been battling the Chinese Communist Party for years as they keep banning me on TikTok, and you never know how the tide might shift with Instagram or YouTube either.

[02:36:33] Luke Storey: One wrong word and the algorithm can shut you down. That's why I've been proactive. I'm doubling down on email as one of my most reliable long-term channels of communication. But there's one new twist. Instead of me blasting the same content to everyone on my email list, now you get to choose exactly what shows up in your inbox and what doesn't.

[02:36:55] Luke Storey: So whether it's biohacking, truth, wellness, spirituality, or my uncut take on [02:37:00] current events, whatever lights you up the most is what you'll get. So I highly recommend you get to lukestray.com/privatehouse, set your preferences, and enjoy a content stream based on your most important interests. There's no middleman, no algorithm, no censorship, and no spam.

[02:37:17] Luke Storey: It's where I can speak freely and share what I actually think, and no one but you and me decides what gets seen. So again, that's lukestory.com/privatehouse, where you can enjoy a tailored experience with bonus content you won't get anywhere else. And there's no need to even memorize that link or save it for later.

[02:37:35] Luke Storey: You're gonna see it right in this episode description on your podcast app. So hit it before you quit it. And I'll see you all in my private house.

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