When Strength Isn’t Enough: A Navy SEAL’s Healing Journey (YouTube Transcript)
Aneta (00:03)
Christopher, thank you so much for joining me today.
Christopher Maher (00:06)
Hey, I'm happy to be here.
Aneta (00:07)
I'm so excited for our conversation. It's always interesting when you first read about someone, their words on a page, which the bios that we create try to convey the essence of who we are or what we do, but it's never quite the same. So this is the fun part, when we get to actually have the conversation and get to know you a little bit better.
Christopher Maher (00:08)
Yeah, I mean, there's a difference between doing and being, and our historical record and hopefully the historical record that we create will allow us to generate and project our presence with clarity into what we're sharing. And today's a great opportunity to be able to serve your community of people who are holistically focused and want to grow and basically squeeze every drop of goodness out of this life.
Aneta (00:41)
I love that. I feel that the title of the podcast is live the width of your life. It's all about doing. So it's interesting when I read about you, because there are so many things that happen at different stages of your life. And all of us are on our own life's journey. So take me back to maybe a couple of times in your life where, when you look back, you see, okay, this was a learning opportunity that's helped bring me where I am today.
Christopher Maher (01:22)
Well, okay, so I went to a well-endowed private boarding school. The wealthiest boarding school in the world. It's named Bill Hershey School in Hershey, Pennsylvania. And they own Hershey Foods Incorporated. Well, 51% of the voting stock. So that means they always have the positional leverage over the decisions that are being made. And in that school, you have 16 boys or girls in a student home. And these homes are big, like really big. They're big mansions. Well, no housekeepers.
Okay, so I arrived when I was seven years old. And so at seven years old. Every kid has a different chore, and you can imagine everything that needs to be done. And they keep these places spotless. Like you might go to your house and you look at all of your windows, there's some dust on them. No, there's no dust in our windows at Milton Hershey School. Okay, so you're doing the windows every day, you're cleaning all the rugs, my point is this.
Is that to be a seven-year-old kid, and instead of having my bike to ride to school and doing things in my own timing and all, how I wanted to do things, I was confronted with having to adapt to how they did things. And I think over time that helped me become a very consistent force in other people's lives when I ask them to transform and change the way they go about their reality. And so when you're seven years old, do you want to wash dishes for 20 people? Think about your biggest family event, your house, where we have to do dishes. Imagine doing all the pots, all the pans, all the plates, all the dishes, all of the serving dishes, all of the serving utensils. All of And imagine being seven and a half years old and being required to do it all by yourself because you said the word shit.
Aneta (03:16)
Christopher, how did you end up there? How did you end up going to this boarding school?
Christopher Maher (03:19)
My mom committed suicide when she was 29 years old. And initially, I went into foster care in a place called Pottsville, Pennsylvania. And after spending about six to seven months in foster care, my grandmother picked me up. She told me she was taking me to a place to take a test. And I went to a place to take an IQ test. And my brother and I took the IQ test and...
Typically what happens is after you take the test you go on a list and they're like, okay We'll call you when there's some space open and my brother and I took the IQ tests and they were like, yeah, I think Will take you here today, but no one informed to me that that's what was going to be going on. So when my grandmother dropped me off at my student home, and she drove away, I just felt this heavy pit fall into my stomach, and I was like, my God, I've been abandoned. I'm stuck here with these kids that I don't know. This is weird. What's going on? And of course I said the word shit and fuck.
And then I ended up having to do all the dishes by myself because I was angry. And then I learned really quickly that life never goes the way that you imagine, and you have to adapt and adjust to what's in front of you, whether you like it or not. And then eventually, if you do surrender and bend the knee, you're gonna end up with a pretty good life. Because in my philosophy, everybody experiences everything that they need to grow beyond their own limitations as an individual.
Aneta (04:46)
Wow. Did you get any help, professional help, from the trauma of your mom taking her life when you were a young age?
Christopher Maher (04:53)
No, tell you the truth, no, I didn't get any direct help. What I got was that I was extracted from my environment. So I was away from my family. We live at school. And so I think being in a very neutral environment, it just allowed me the space to work through it on my own. But I never had anyone sit down and talk with me. And I think in retrospect,
I wish I had someone to talk to because I just went through a very tragic family incident where a man broke into my cousin's house, shot him in the chest twice, went upstairs, shot my cousin in the head, and killed himself. And suddenly I was confronted with, wow, I never really processed my mom's death because this is the first big tragedy in my family since my mom committed suicide 50 years ago.
And it was just like, whoa, okay. actually took me about two and a half weeks to get on the other side of it emotionally. I was angry at first, right? I wanted to use some of my Navy SEAL skills to bring some punishment and some retribution. And I just sat with that and prayed and thought, relax, everything has purpose even when you don't like it, but it still sucks. So.
Christopher Maher (06:07)
I never got an opportunity to deal with how much it sucked losing my mom because it built Hershey School. They kept me so busy with chores, and everything's on a time schedule. Like you wake up at 530, you're doing this at 545, you're doing that at 630, you're doing this at 715. And so I was so over-scheduled and so structured. I never had the time to process emotionally.
Aneta (06:23)
Yeah. How long did you stay at the school?
Christopher Maher (06:32)
I was there until I was 17. June 2, 1986.
Aneta (06:34)
Wow. Yeah. Did you come to enjoy it, or was it?
Christopher Maher (06:39)
I came to enjoy my friends, more activities I got involved in, the better it was for me. I think initially, what happened is my tendency when I get stressed is to withdraw. And so I kind of, I don't wanna say I refuse to get involved in extracurricular activities, but I was sort of having a little bit of an FU underneath. Like, I'm not gonna participate. I didn't sign up for this. And it took me till I was basically 12 years old to get over that.
Aneta (07:09)
Wow, that's a long time. It's five years from the time you...
Christopher Maher (07:11)
That's five years, right? I was a stammerer. I stuttered; I had to get over that. I was a nail-biter; I had to get over that. I was a bed wetter; I had to get over that. I was severely affected emotionally and psychologically.
Aneta (07:25)
Yeah, was your brother with you?
Christopher Maher (07:27)
My brother was with me, and we were in the same student home for a while, but I'm four years older than he is. So when I shifted up to the intermediate division, he was still in the junior division. And then when I went to the senior division, he was coming up to the intermediate division. So we always missed each other after our first two years of living together, which was tough because it was a strain on our relationship.
Yeah, wow. So you did that. So much happened there. And then at 17, you graduate. you going to do next? Do you have a plan?
Christopher Maher (07:58)
It's funny when you graduate from Milton Hershey School, they give you a suitcase with three pairs of pants, three shirts, a tie, a pair of shoes, a sports jacket, a winter jacket, and a hundred-dollar check. Right? So I grabbed my little suitcase, and I went out the door, and I was off into the real world, and I went to Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. And I went to school there.
That lasted for a few semesters, and then I was asked by the president of the school if maybe there was something better for me to be doing.
Aneta (08:35)
It's a nice way of saying, happened? Did you just not enjoy it?
Christopher Maher (08:38)
Well, what happened for me is that at Milton Hershey School, everything is structured so I never had any chance to really go out and explore my own sense of being social and emotional. I mean, I was at every frat party imaginable. If there was a party, I was there.
It was not mandatory to go to class. It was mandatory to take your test, but it wasn't mandatory to show up to school. And I had such a good education from Milton Hershey School that the first few semesters, I could just breeze through and do nothing. So I was just shooting pool, playing basketball, lifting weights, and drinking beer. There was more to college than that and being social. And there was just more to college than And I needed that time to do that.
Aneta (08:57)
And I know you joined the Navy SEALs after you stopped going to school. What was the transition into deciding that you were going to go and become a Navy SEAL? Cause that seems like another place where there's a lot of rigor and structure and discipline, and maybe some of the things.
Christopher Maher (09:33)
Yeah, of course. Yeah, the difference is I volunteered for it. So as long as I'm volunteering for something, that means my will is engaged. I got all the energy that I need. But if I'm not volunteering for something and my will isn't engaged, I'm just exhausted by the experience that I'm in. But there was an important step before that. What happened is I had a trust, and I used some of that money to open up a sandwich shop. I moved back to the town where my mom was from after I quit school, and I opened up a sandwich shop called the Hoagie. Six months in, I was like, this is okay, the business is okay, but this life sucks. Like getting up at 4.30 in the morning and driving to Potsville to pick up cold cuts, bread, butter, and cheese. I was like, nah, I don't want to do this anymore.
So I gave my half of the business to my partner and then, fortunate for me, a friend of mine that I went to Milton Hershey School with, his mom picked me up on my birthday, she knocked on my door, and she was like, hey, you're gonna come live with my family and me. And I was like, what? She's like, I've just heard so many special things about you. I want you to come live with my family and me. And I was like, ⁓ this is interesting. I haven't had this situation before.
Christopher Maher (10:47)
So I went, and I lived with her and her family. And when I went downstairs into the basement, they had a biannual magazine about SEAL training. And two months later, I was gone.
Aneta (10:57)
Wow, what appeals to you about it?
Christopher Maher (10:59)
What appealed to me was the cover on the cover there were like eight or ten or six boat crews and guys are running down the beach Ocean is on their right there in the soft sand they got on combat boots green khaki pants white t-shirts with their name stenciled on it and they're running down the beach with a telephone pole over their shoulder and I remember as soon as I saw that I was like these people can challenge me. That's what I need to be challenged. And then I was off. I saw the recruiter sign up, and boom.
Aneta (11:32)
Do you have to interview for this position? What is the process of saying, hey, I want to be a Navy SEAL?
Christopher Maher (11:37)
Yeah, the process is you go to a recruiting office, and if you're lucky, you get sort of an ethical And at the recruiting office, they're supposed to give you all the information on the programs. But first, they want you to take a test before they explain any programs to you. So it's called an ASVAB test. And I took the test, I scored high enough to get into any of the programs that I wanted.
But what I really wanted was to get to SEAL training as fast as humanly possible. And so that meant that I was going to go to a school that was only two months long versus a year-long school where they teach you a skill set that's applicable to the external world. So when you get out of the military, you can get a real job. And so I signed up to be a Boatwins mate, which means basically scrubbing the floors and painting the ship.
Like, really basic stuff. But I was motivated. I only went in because I wanted to be a Navy SEAL. I didn't care about rank, and I didn't care about my job getting out of the Navy. I already knew what I wanted to do. So I took the ASVAB test, I passed the physical exams, and everything else. And then, two years later, they sent my orders, and I was off to SEAL training.
Aneta (12:49)
How long did you stay?
Christopher Maher (12:50)
I was in the military for eight years and three months, and I was in the naval community from 1991 to 1997.
Aneta (12:59)
Interesting. What can you tell us about that time and that experience?
Christopher Maher (13:03)
What's interesting, the thing about SEAL training, and for anyone who wants to do anything difficult, I think what I've drawn from that experience that applies to everyone is you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. If you're going to be successful at any one thing, whether it's a plumber, a professional football player, or a podcaster.
Like sitting and staring at a computer screen for six hours at a time, and then that's hard work. right? Yet if you want to be a successful podcaster and you really care, you've got to investigate your hosts, you've got to put in the time, the energy, and the effort. And so if you want to be successful at any one thing, the most important thing is getting comfortable, being uncomfortable, because success is a very long game. Like SEAL training, you've got to show up every day.
And every day is more difficult. They make it that way so that they can have a high level of attrition. So I started with 149 guys, and I think of the guys that I originally started with, only 13 graduated.
Aneta (14:05)
Wow, is that typical?
Christopher Maher (14:07)
That's typical, 92 % to 93 % attrition rate is pretty average.
Aneta (14:11)
And is it physical conditioning? Is it mental? Strength? Like, what would you say are some of the characteristics that you identified in yourself and others that didn't leave?
Christopher Maher (14:20)
I think the guys who make it through SEAL training is they dealt with something difficult when they were younger.
Maybe it was an overbearing parent, maybe it was a loss of a parent. And the athletes that make it through typically are like swimmers, cross-country runners, and wrestlers. I think those sports are individual. When you're on a football team, you don't have to give your all on every play.
Aneta (14:41)
Why do you think?
Christopher Maher (14:50)
But when you're racing, whether it's track and field or cross country or swimming or wrestling, it's only you out on the mat. It's you and the other guy. Tap into your will and find a way to win.
Aneta (14:56)
Yeah. So interesting. So after eight years, did you know what you wanted to leave?
Christopher Maher (15:07)
What's interesting, I made that decision, I was already fantasizing a little bit because my life was the best when I was running, and I was involved in sports. So I thought, well, I'll get out, I'm gonna find a track coach, maybe training for the Olympic trials would be interesting. Let's see if I can make that happen. And I got it, I was 27.
Aneta (15:26)
How old were you? Is that older?
Christopher Maher (15:31)
Yeah, that's definitely older. But the problem is, I had the body of a Navy SEAL; I no longer had the body of a track runner. And so that was very difficult. So I was top-heavy, I had these little bird legs, and I'm trying to run. And so at the end of the day, I dealt with a lot of injuries, and I was unsuccessful. And so I realized that, that was really a fantasy because I didn't do all of my due diligence. I just thought that I had the will to win. I know how to work hard. I'm very disciplined. If I take these attributes that I learned from SEAL training, I can become very successful at that.
And the truth is, there was no way that that was ever gonna happen because I had turned this body that was fast into a body that was based on endurance. I could grind it out. Yet, when you look at like high level athletes in the Olympics, they're finesse athletes. And I had switched from finesse to basically a grunt. I can keep on going.
But there's going to be a cost at the end of the day, and the cost was that there was pain at every joint in my body on the left-hand side from all the stuff that I endured from SEAL training and all the stuff that I endured as a child. My brain was operating at a lateralized state of function. My right hemisphere was very strong electrically, but the left hemisphere of my brain was basically, nah, nothing was going on over there. Yeah. Well, I started losing my hearing, started losing my vision.
Aneta (16:47)
Yeah. Really? Tell me more about that.
Christopher Maher (17:02)
I was a full-blown insomniac. I started having all these physiological issues when I was in my late twenties. And so none of that made sense. And then, what I've learned in the last 30 years has helped me realize in retrospect that my brain was heavily lateralized because I was existing in a high state of hypervigilance.
And basically, in the fight or flight response, 100% of the day. So if you live in that state for too long, your body's gonna push back, and it's gonna give you signs and symptoms. And it gave me a lot of signs, and it gave me a lot of symptoms. But still, I had a CLT mindset, so I just kept on pushing through as if, well, these aren't problems.
These aren't things to be dealt with; you just keep moving through them. And Amabaru's like, no, that isn't actually how it works, Christopher.
Aneta (17:50)
Yeah, you couldn't push through anymore. And it's interesting because you were rewarded for having that resilience, having that grit, you know, doing all the things, even from the education and then into training. So what happened when you were forced to slow down and identify that maybe things are not going as well as I thought they were?
Christopher Maher (18:10)
Well, the truth is I wasn't smart enough, to be honest with you, to make that decision all on my own. I was in a car driving from Ocean Beach, San Diego, to Point Loma, and well, technically De Anza Cove, and a car ran through a stoplight and hit me going 40 miles an hour.
And so the twisting and the force of that accident is what forced me to start to deal with what was going on underneath. Because now I was in excruciating discomfort that would never, ever leave my body, no matter what I did. So I bent the knee, and I reached out for help. And I asked a friend who had been through SEAL training, who was going to the same university that I was going to.
Had his own physical aspirations, and he knew a lot more than I did about health and wellness. And so he taught me some yoga, and he introduced me to juicing. And my favorite beverage at the time was beer and whiskey. And so, can imagine what that first parsley, carrot, apple, and celery juice was like. Ugh.
Aneta (19:21)
Right, because the beer and the whiskey are not quite medicinal. So you're coping, but it wasn't necessarily the same way. So I know as part of your story, you spent a lot of time rebuilding your body, but also really focusing in. Do you think that you would be doing what you're doing today, which I want to get to, if it weren't for the accident?
Christopher Maher (19:25)
No. So I look at the accident as something that spread my width. Because I think the thing that happens is when you have that SEAL team mindset, you have been so successfully institutionalized into the idea that pain doesn't really matter. What matters are your goals.
And so, you can look at it in the real world. You have a guy named David Goggins. He's the guy who pushes through whatever pain he has, and he shows up, and he's consistent, and he uses his mind to never allow his body to override what he's feeling or thinking. And a large portion of the population in the world, he's like, he's highly beneficial. But for somebody who was like that,
and I understand the limitations of those ideas, then that isn't the idea that I have. So I built an entirely different science around the new idea, which is to spread your width, look at the data objectively, and reassess and get into balance as you move towards your goals. And anything that's got you in a state of out of balance,
you should be able to sift through and filter through and figure out why you're comfortable living in an out of balance state and look into your past and to the historical record of your ancestors to see what you can find in terms of a limiting belief that's causing you pain and discomfort and humiliation and separation and loss.
Aneta (21:08)
Wow. So how did you learn what you had to learn in terms of first healing yourself and then being able to do this with your clients?
Christopher Maher (21:17)
The first step was taking the advice that my friend gave me and then applying it every day. So then I started, bought a juicer, and I bought a juicing book. I'm looking at all the little things, and of course, I'm like a sugar hound. So, of course, I'm choosing all the sweet juices.
Aneta (21:35)
Yeah, this is going to taste the best.
Christopher Maher (21:38)
Yeah, what tastes the best, right? And then I just got into cleansing and detoxification, and I read every book that I could, and I applied these different strategies, and I hired everyone that I could to give me information that knew more than I did. And then I applied their strategies to see what the results were. So basically, I turned myself into a guinea pig. And then I reassessed every day at the end of the day, was that valuable or not?
Was it? How did it affect me mentally? How did it affect me emotionally? How did it affect me spiritually? How did it affect me energetically? And then what happened is my energy kept getting higher, right? My discomfort started lowering and then my awareness kept increasing. And so as long as my awareness was increasing, my energy was increasing. I was sleeping better, I was more restored, and I was having a greater impact on the lives that I was affecting, and I was happier and more joyful and more consistent emotionally, so I felt like what I was doing had value.
Aneta (22:41)
That's interesting. So as you are focusing on these modalities and you're focusing in and really taking care of yourself holistically, did you start to notice that the pain started to diminish? And then did you regain full hearing and some of the things that were happening on the left side of your body?
Christopher Maher (22:58)
Yes, all of that. How would I say it? Like when you start squinting at 30 years old, and I'll send them like, I'm holding my phone, this far away from my face, right? And I'm like, this is weird. This shouldn't be happening. This doesn't make any sense. Why is this happening? And I think for me, because I was someone who always questioned things.
Aneta (23:07)
I'm well aware. Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Maher (23:18)
My questioning, my asking why, always led me to prayer. And then the prayers were always answered in a way that God would always send me someone who knew how to answer the next question that I had. And I think the culmination and the assimilation of
my spiritual path, which was never questioned. I always believed in God. I understand the value of Jesus. I value the understanding of all the ascended masters and the ones, all of those really great beings. And I pulled from all the teachings. I love philosophy. So this healing journey allowed me to pull from everything that I had already experienced in my life and utilize every bit of it to my benefit.
And so I got my vision back. I got my hearing back. I haven't had pain in my body in 24 years. I'm going to be 60, and I'm more flexible than I've ever been. I'm stronger than I've ever been. I need less sleep. I'm more rested. I'm more effective. I'm smarter than I've ever been. And that continues to increase every single day, every single week, every month, every year.
Aneta (24:28)
That's amazing. So you took all this knowledge. You're like, wow, I'm the guinea pig. I've used it. It's working, and you're collecting more and more information. And I love that you talk about faith because I think that it's just such a critical part, I think of so many of our stories. Did your faith come from? You said you never doubted or questioned.
Christopher Maher (24:48)
Yeah, think I went to a non-denominational church. First, I was raised Catholic, and then after my mom took her life, the boarding school was a non-denominational church, and I went to church every Sunday. I only missed church twice in the 10 years that I was there. So you imagine that's at least.
Aneta (25:05)
It's a lot of church. Yeah. Yeah.
Christopher Maher (25:06)
That's a lot of church, right? And so we sang in church, we listened to
scripture. There was always someone who was hired to come in and give us this resounding speech that was spiritually focused. And so I got to be introduced to a lot of spiritually focused people. And so every Sunday, we had another guest who would come in from somewhere in the world. And imagine, Milton Hershey School is worth about 22 billion dollars.
So you can imagine that people are coming who have done something in the world. And what's very interesting about going to school there, we always had other people who came into what was called assembly, and they were teaching us about animals or about music, or they were magicians, or they were psychotherapists. I was always being introduced to the most successful people in the world at every single avenue.
Aneta (25:33)
People are coming.
Christopher Maher (25:58)
right, in every single niche in society professionally. And I just think that hearing those messages again and again and again and again and again and again, they were bleeding into me. And then, when your mom dies, you to lean on when you're in foster care. Like, I pray.
I pray at night. I pray that this will change. Like, get me the hell out of here. Why me? Some of my prayers were why-me prayers. Some of my prayers were like, I hate you. Like I was happy with the life that I had. Why are you doing this to me? And it wasn't always pretty. It wasn't always comfortable, but at least it was honest, right?
Yeah, so faith for me is understanding that there's a purpose for my life and for everyone's life. And it's my job to stay focused on the mission and the purpose that God gave me and to refrain from judging, criticizing, and disapproving of everyone else's life because when I do, I'm competing with God. And every time I've ever competed with God, I have lost every single time.
Aneta (27:07)
You too?
Christopher Maher (27:08)
Yes, I've lost every single time. And so
finally I'm just like, okay, I'm done competing with you. All right, I'm done wrestling with you. It doesn't work. And so I decided just to bend the knee.
Aneta (27:14)
Yeah. Interestingly, you've talked about that a couple of times in your life where you're just like, okay, I try to do this on my own might and strength, and then, I'm ready to surrender to bend the knee, as you say, and just allow blessings to come in instead. So you use your experience, you healed yourself, you're working through it, and you're feeling really healthy now. How did you decide that you were going to take all these learnings and turn this into your career?
Christopher Maher (27:44)
Did I decide that? I was doing all this work on myself, and then this is very interesting, it's like a full circle. I met this woman again this year. This woman came to me, who was a friend of a friend, who was struggling with some things. And she was like, hey, I heard you've been working with this very interesting guy. Would you be able to help me? And I was like, really?
Okay, well, I could just do to you what he did to me. And I started working on her within like five minutes. She was lying on the floor in a ball of tears in the fetal position, crying, and to me, I'm a Navy SEAL, I've got all that training from institutionalization from boarding school, 18 years of that. I'm looking at her, and I'm like, what is she doing? Why is she crying? We're just taking the tension out of
Christopher Maher (28:30)
body. None of it made any sense to me because I didn't put two plus two together, like stress and tension in your body is related to your historical record of something unresolved at an emotional level, and if you remove that then you're creating space for the old unresolved emotions to leave and allow the person to ascend to a higher new state of function. Psychologically, emotionally, energetically, physiologically, and structurally.
Christopher Maher (28:57)
And I had no idea. I didn't really take enough time to think about that idea. And then once I had that experience, it made me very uncomfortable. If I'm really honest, I was thinking to myself in my head, what the hell is she doing? Why is she crying? Well, once I investigated and started to understand, she started to share with me that she went through all these difficult things as a child. And then I was like, light turned on. I was like,
Christopher Maher (29:24)
Now I get it because I hadn't yet had a carthotic event, No. It took me, I think, probably my third year in to doing what we're doing. My business partner at the time, his name was Nick. And Nick was working on my bladder channel, my lateral hamstring on the left. And he was ripping the tension out of there. And then all of a sudden, I just felt like this,
My heart like and then all this anxiety came into my chest, and then I rolled onto my side, and I cried, and I don't mean like weeping. I mean, heaving for four hours, no exaggeration, for four hours when I yes, and when I got up after those four hours, and I looked at myself in the mirror,
Aneta (30:01)
Wow. And that's like an emotional release. Wow.
Christopher Maher (30:12)
Literally the first thought in my head was like who the fuck is this?
Christopher Maher (30:17)
I've never seen this person. I don't know who you are. Because then I think what was happening, my nervous system had become so focused on my identity, which was developed as a response to all the trauma that I dealt with as a child so that I could sort of avoid humiliation, discomfort, pain, and loss. That once
caused the development of my identity to surface. Once that pain was out, my nervous system was literally like, who are you? I don't know who you are. And it took me weeks. And then I wanted to have that event again. And then it took me maybe like another
three and a half years till I had another episode like that for hours. And then everything was different after that.
Aneta (31:07)
Isn't it interesting? We always want to have it again. When I facilitate breath work, I always tell people, don't expect the same experience next time. You might fall asleep next time. It might be completely different. We don't always get what we want. We get what we need in the moment. So now you've gone through your own experience. So now you can see what might happen and what they need. So how long was Give me the age range. So how old were you at the time when this was?
Christopher Maher (31:25)
Yeah, now I have the carthotic event at And then I have the next carthotic event at 38.
Aneta (31:37)
Okay. And are you now, is this now a business?
Christopher Maher (31:46)
No, no, no, that's not true. I had the next Carthotic event, at 38 and then one again at like 40 and then another big one at 43.
Aneta (31:56)
Okay. And so when did you decide that, this my life's work, this is what I want to do, this is what I want to help guide other people through?
Christopher Maher (32:05)
Yeah, well it's interesting the first year into this I got a Here's what happened, I was in bed with a friend and we were laughing and joking and she's laying on her right side and I'm laying on my right side and all of a sudden at the bottom of my bed I hear this sound that goes and I look down there and there's this white diamond at the bottom of my like the shape of a star. And then all of a sudden, all of this white light comes at me and it's blasting into my forehead. I'm just convulsing, and she's hitting my thigh and she's going, stop messing around. And I'm like, I'm not messing around. You should look towards the end of the bed. No, no, she doesn't see it, right? And so this goes on, maybe, I don't know.
Aneta (32:30)
Huh. Does she see it?
Christopher Maher (32:50)
it's gotta be at least 90 seconds to three minutes. It could have been longer, and then all of a sudden it stops, it goes back to the diamond, I watch and it closes, and as soon as it closes, she turns over and goes, what are you talking about? And in that moment I realized that certain things are for certain people. Certain people are meant to experience certain things. And I realized then that's when the download came.
All the information, what I was meant to do, how I was meant to do it, all of that came through me. And I think they came through me, and they trusted me because they're like, look at this guy. Look at this human down here, like busting his rear end six to seven hours a day to make sure that he rewrites his historical record.
Aneta (33:34)
Amazing. So you've got the download Christopher and now you're like, okay, something special here. I know what I'm supposed to be doing. How has that experience changed the rest of your life and what you're doing?
Christopher Maher (33:48)
Yeah, I think what happened for me is after I got the light, all that light came in. And ⁓ you have to remember it came into my third eye, it came to my third in my forehead and I'm convulsing. It's going into every cell of my body. And I didn't know what was going on. Look, I was raised on a farm in a boarding school in Hershey, Pennsylvania. This is way outside of my frame of reference.
Aneta (34:12)
You weren't reading about star seeds and you do.
Christopher Maher (34:15)
Yeah, no, I'm like, I'm a normal dude. I'm just a hard working blue collar class guy. And then this comes in and told to me is very simple. This is a 30 year plan. And this is how you're going to go about this. And I was like, okay. And he basically just told me, you're going to follow every breadcrumb I lay down in front of you. All you need to do is follow the bread crumbs.
Christopher Maher (34:40)
If you go off path, there's gonna be a very big sign that you've gone off path. I was like, pretty simple. And because of that experience, I never have any doubt. Like If I get to the airport and I miss a flight, I know I was meant to miss the flight. If a flight is canceled, let's say I'm flying to Russia and connecting through Taipei,
Christopher Maher (35:03)
I know if the flight is cancelled in Taipei, it's meant to be cancelled. So imagine being able to move through the where you very rarely have any doubt about your timing, where you're supposed to be, or who you're supposed to be with.
Aneta (35:16)
I mean, I think that's the very definition of living by faith, right?
Christopher Maher (35:20)
that's the ultimate spiritual leverage. Yeah, it's all good. If somebody's like, don't want to work with you anymore, I'm like, it's all fine. Like I just move on, have fun. I drive them crazy. So yeah.
Aneta (35:22)
Yeah, you're like, it's all good. You must drive people crazy. People are really controlling and like are so rigid. And when you have that sort of attitude, I think that people, one, don't understand it because if they don't live that way, don't have that kind of faith. But two, it's also just a reflection back to them of their own personal struggles when they feel otherwise.
Christopher Maher (35:55)
Yeah, I am, how do we say that? My presence is strong because on that day, my presence was giving back to me to be able to have while I was in a body, right? And I know when I look back, the only reason why that happened is because all of the work that I was putting in, because there's no way that divine was gonna go, yeah, we're gonna give you your presence.
While you're in this really distorted body, this distorted brain with this emotions and nervous system, there's no way we can give this to you. Yeah, you have to be a clean vessel. And so I did a 40 day fast. I thought, well, Jesus fasted for 40 days. I'll fast for 44.
Aneta (36:28)
You gotta be a clean vessel and then, as a Navy SEAL as you would.
Christopher Maher (36:40)
Yeah, I'm like I'm going to one-up him for sure.
Aneta (36:43)
Did you just have water? What was your fast?
Christopher Maher (36:45)
My fast was very interesting. I made sure that I had a colonic every day or two enemas and then I did juice twice a day. I did herbal tea, which was chamomile and peppermint and then I did broth from boiled vegetables that was strained. So to replace the minerals that my body wasn't getting. And that was a process. And then on the 44th day, guess what happens? 9-11.
So then I had to come off the fast quickly.
Aneta (37:23)
I mean, could talk to you for days. This is incredible. Christopher, if people want to work with you, and I'm sure that they would, or if they want to follow you and learn more about the amazing client testimonials and the work that you've done, what's the best place that they can find you?
Christopher Maher (37:39)
two places. One, I put a bunch of information on Instagram. I give little downloads here and there and there and here. That's a place to go if you want inspiration and education. But if what you're looking for is to get more vested in the things that we're doing, I wrote a book called Free For Life, A US Navy SEAL's Path to Inner Freedom and Outer Peace, and that's available on my website at truebodyintelligence.com.
You can go to Facebook or YouTube, True Body Intelligence, we're always posting and giving information. And information is lovely and knowledge is nice, but I think inspiration and getting to know someone like the way that you go about it is, I've been on a lot of podcasts and I have to say that you are masterful at what you do.
Christopher, you're so kind. I just love people and I love their story. So I'm naturally very curious. And that's why I'm like, I could talk to you for longer. I want to hear even more. And I hope we have an opportunity to do that. But I'm just I'm so grateful. And I know you've used the word with a couple times, but I would love to ask you what it means to you to live the width of your life.
Christopher Maher (38:36)
Yeah, that'd be great. I mean to live the width of my life is me waking up in the morning like I did today and going through my bestercise program, doing my meditation, doing my attunements, getting in my sauna and dry brushing my skin and just being devoted to my own personal growth every day and then sharing that positive energy that I have with the people
that I share that day with. And so living the width of my life is the commitment that I have to myself to raise my light and then to share that light with anyone who comes in front of me.
Aneta (39:21)
So beautiful, seems so simple, but yet it is not. It is a daily choice and commitment. Thank you so much for being such a bright light in the world, Christopher. Yeah. Thank you. Have an amazing day.
Christopher Maher (39:29)
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for what you're doing. You too.