Finding Your Own Inner Peace

 

At 18 years old, Elijah Kai put a loaded gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. It didn’t fire. What followed was two decades of searching — therapy, religion, hustle, two marriages, a felony, and a life spent building a character convincing enough that nobody, including him, could see the pain underneath.

In this episode of I Love Being Sober, we sit down with spiritual teacher, Divine Architect, and author Elijah Kai to talk about the moment everything changed — and the truth he discovered on the other side of suffering.

Elijah breaks down why the traditional approaches to healing, recovery, and sobriety so often fall short, what recidivism really tells us about identity, and why the peace you’ve been chasing your entire life has been underneath you this whole time.

If you’re in recovery, fighting to stay sober, or simply trying to understand why you keep returning to old patterns — this episode will crack something open in you.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why 20 years of therapy, religion, and hustle couldn’t fix what wasn’t broken
• The difference between thought and thinking — and why it matters in recovery
• What recidivism reveals about identity and the cycle of relapse
• How to remember who you were before the world got its hands on you
• The moment Elijah stopped trying to fix himself and found he was already whole

Resources mentioned:

Already Whole by Elijah Kai — available now

elijahkai.com

Belief Theory Institute

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Finding Your Own Inner Peace

The Story Of A Man Who Survived Himself — And What He Found On The Other Side

Good morning and welcome. Our guest walked into the darkest moment of his life at eighteen years old, and somehow walked out on the other side. What followed was two decades of searching, therapy, religion, two marriages, a felony, fourteen schools before high school, and a relentless attempt to fix something that, it turns out, was never broken. He is a spiritual teacher, a divine architect, and author of Already Whole: Unlock the Eight Keys to Emotional Freedom and Inner Peace. He works in prisons, schools, boardrooms, and stages. He has one message. “The suffering was never who you are.” Please welcome Elijah Kai.

Thank you. That is a great introduction.

I came up with it all on my own. Welcome.

I am grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. This is a beautiful facility you have. Absolutely gorgeous.

Thank you. I am glad you are here. I am excited to dig into this conversation.

It is going to be a blessing for not just others, but ourselves, too.

The Moment Everything Stopped

Take us back to that night when you were eighteen. What was going through your mind, and what happened after the gun did not fire?

What led up to that was I married the first girl who said she loved me at eighteen years old. I had left home and joined the military because I was trying to get away from all the people that I felt were causing me pain. The military seemed like an option because it took me the furthest away. I do not know if you had that person in your life who was like a rock. That glue holding you together when you were young.

For me, it was my grandmother. My grandmother was my savior. When I was in tech school, right after basic training, she passed away, and I completely unraveled at that point. It felt like, do you remember that movie with Denzel Washington? I think it was Fallen. Do you know what I am talking about? It was like the guy died in prison. He got electrocuted in prison, and then his soul left his body and started bouncing around from body to body, and Denzel Washington was following them around. That is what it felt like.

My self-worth left my grandmother’s body and then was just searching for somewhere to land. It ended up landing on this girl. All of my self-worth went into her. When she told me that she loves me, I just became extremely possessive, extremely abusive, and extremely controlling. It is like I put her inside a box that I needed to control because I was so emotionally fragile. When she finally got the courage to leave, and rightfully so, that is when I ran in the bathroom with a loaded gun, put it in my mouth, and pulled the trigger. The only thing that saved me was that it misfired.

Was there a bullet in the gun?

There was. It was a shotgun.

How often does it not shoot like that?

I do not know because I have never fired a gun since. The reason why I share that is that in that moment, I realized I did not want to die because to get to that point, all hope is gone. I was eighteen, and there was so much that had led up to that that I can get into it if you all want. You just let me know. There was so much that led up to that, that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back at that point. When I looked forward, all I saw was darkness.

You cannot even imagine.

I could not imagine living any better than I was at that moment. I had suicidal ideation or even a suicide attempt when we were kids. I speak a lot of metaphors and stories. When we were kids, we played a lot of video games, and there was always that one cousin who would just kick your tail while playing the game. Has anybody had that experience? You had that one cousin who would kick your tail and talk shit to you at the same time? You just get this level of frustration building inside of you that all of a sudden you just pull the controller out or turn the game off.

Has anyone else gotten mad like that before? That is the way I think about it when the thought of suicide comes, is you’re so frustrated with life, because life is kicking your tail, and you do not know what else to do. Part of the subconscious mind’s job is to look for the path of least resistance. This is why understanding the nature of thought is so important, and understanding that voice in your head is not you. That voice in your head is just your brain speaking to you, and it sounds like you, but it is not you, and it is just offering up a suggestion.

When you’re experiencing that level of frustration, then all of a sudden the brain just goes, “I know, kill yourself.” That ended the fastest. The difference between the people who try and the people who do not is that one believes in the thought and the other lets it pass. Anyone who has ever attempted suicide and survived will always say that when they jumped off the bridge, they regretted it the moment their feet left the platform because they realized it was a temporary or permanent solution to a temporary experience.

In the days and weeks that followed, did you tell anyone what had happened?

Yes. The military found out.

How did you carry that? They found out.

They took my guns, took everything. I ended up going into anger management. What is funny was I was in anger management, going, “My anger is validated. You’re all the ones with the problem. My anger is validated.” It did help.

You had my problems, you would be angry too.

One of my good friends, Dr. Bill Pettit, says that where you find resistance is just no hope. That is where you find the most resistance and people who completely lose hope. I thought I was who I was at that moment, that that was just my life. That was my story. That is the movie that I had to live out. I had no idea the things that I realize now, back then, that was twenty-something years ago. I really thought that my suffering was just the way my life was supposed to be. I ended up having to get out of the military.

What ended up happening after that was that I became an alcoholic, and I started drinking until I could not see straight. I did not want to die, but I also realized I did not know what to do with the pain that I was carrying. I still did not know what to do with the emotional pain. As our friend Joe says, “The alcohol was just a solution to a problem.” The challenge with living, I believe, especially here in the United States, is that we are given the problem as a solution and then told that we have the problem. Here is what I mean. When we see an alcohol commercial, what do we see?

Good times.

You see good times and happy people. From the moment you were a kid, you just see. When you get off work, what is the first sign you see walking out of work? You see a sign at the bar that says what? Happy hour. We are being programmed from little kids that this stuff can make you feel better. On top of that, we’re taught about everything else in school but ourselves. We’re not taught about thought, emotion, and connection. Those emotions just do not happen out of happenstance.

There is a thought that occurred before that. We’re not taught about ourselves. We’re taught how to memorize and recite and how to contribute to the economy, but we were never taught about us, how we work. Show a substance that says, “This will make you feel better,” and then wonder why people become alcoholics. We become the victim of marketing and are then told that we have a problem.

When no one ever taught us how to deal with our emotions as kids, and how to process those things. All the stuff that we’re trying to learn now about meditating and letting thoughts pass and letting feelings pass. All that stuff we have to learn and damage control instead of learning it as kids. While we’re in the process, that is why I do a lot of work with teenagers, because the work that we do inside the prisons, all this stuff started in those first fourteen years. While the child is learning to think independently, why are we not teaching them how to think instead of just what to think?

While a child is learning to think independently, let us teach them how to think instead of what to think. Share on X

Looking back, what do you think that eighteen-year-old was really looking for himself to remember?

I have learned that I had an experience about two and a half years ago, a full-blown spiritual experience. From that experience, I found everything that I was looking for, and I remembered who I really was. I realized at eighteen all that had happened. Life is like a vacation from nothing. There was this old movie back in the day with Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. I think it was called Awakenings. Robert De Niro played this character who was in some type of medical comatose state. He was alive, and he was sitting up, but he had no idea he was there.

Robin Williams spent the whole movie trying to see what he could do to wake these people up so they could become consciously aware and participate in life again. For a short period of time in the movie, Robert De Niro came to, and he lived a life, and then eventually went back into that state. When I say life is a vacation from nothing, what we truly know is that none of us knew exactly where we were before we came here. Most people have no idea where they were before their first conscious memory. When was your first conscious memory? How old were you?

Probably maybe five.

Where were you before that? That is what I mean by conscious awareness. We have no idea where we were before.

Is it the first few years of your life, or is it subconscious? Is it all in your subconscious mind then? It is not conscious. You’re not consciously aware of it, and you do not remember it.

If we make it too intellectual, then we will get caught up in the head instead of the wisdom that you have inside of you that knows exactly what I am saying. If we get too intellectual and we get too heady with it, then we will completely miss it because it is a feeling. Regardless of whether it was subconscious or conscious, you were not aware of yourself in those first five years. My daughter is two years old, and she is going through that right now. Her name is Kaia. She responds to the name Kaia, but she has yet to look in the mirror and say, “I am Kaia.”

She is at the very beginning of this vacation. I put it like this. Imagine I am everything. Always have been and always will be. I am everything. Since before time and the big bang, I am everything, but I am bored, because I am everything, I cannot know myself because I am everything. You cannot see the label from inside the jar. I will create eight billion different versions of myself. In order for this to be an authentic experience, they first have to forget that they are me.

It is like if Matt Damon, you guys know the actor Matt Damon? Imagine if Matt Damon went to play a homeless guy, and he wanted to really get into the character of the homeless guy. He decides that he is going to live on Skid Row for six months. Now, as long as he remembers he is Matt Damon, he is going to experience some hardships and some suffering. It would be easy for him to deal with because he knows he has a $30 million mansion to go back to, and this is only a temporary experience.

Imagine the same experience, except someone shot him up with amnesia serum the night before he went out. He wakes up in Skid Row and has no idea who he is, no idea where he is from, no idea why he is there. That is what it is like when we become consciously aware of ourselves. When we’re little kids, and you have that first memory, it’s just like, you just popped up on a strange planet. You have no idea who you are, where you are, why you’re here, or where you’re from. You’re just there. When he starts experiencing the suffering, because there are people who are going to show up, and there are going to be people who rob him or try to get over on him or try to hurt him.

If he does not remember who he is and he thinks this is just his life, the suffering ten times, 100 times, because he thinks that “This is just my life,” he does not remember who he is. In order for us to be in this game called life, we first had to forget, or it would not be an authentic experience. The goal was to forget and then to remember. On this temporary vacation called life, when we realize and remember who we are, it is just like when you go on vacation.

 

How many of you have been on vacation before? You decided to go somewhere, and you decided to leave all your suffering back where you were. Sometimes, even inventing a whole new self. “I am going to go on this vacation because it is only for three days, it is only for three weeks, it is only for two weeks. I am not going to let anything ruin this vacation.” Stuff happens when we’re on vacation. Because you know it is a temporary experience, you allow whatever occurred to pass because you do not want to ruin the vacation.

When you remember who you were before the world got its hands on you, when you remember who you were before you came online, you realize that this is a temporary experience from nothing, and with that, some things are going to happen, but you will not want to let anything ruin this temporary vacation from nothing.

I do not think I have ever thought about it that way. When you go on vacation, it does not matter what happens. I am on vacation. You can push everything else aside. It is temporary.

It is temporary, and it is the same thing here. We think 80 years, 100 years is a long time to live. In the grand scheme of things, it is that fast. Millions and millions of years have gone by, and you get that much time. Whether you believe in reincarnation, it does not matter. The consciousness you have right now, because even if you reincarnated, you do not remember your last reincarnation. Right now, you remember that much. You are aware of that for that long. It is like a flea. They say a flea lives, what? 24 hours?

Is that true? Was going to say.

A flea lives for about 24 hours.

Whatever your lifespan is, it is going to seem like whether it is 24 hours, a flea, or a dog for 10 to 15 years, that is your whole life.

A hundred percent. Think about when you go on vacation to the Bahamas or Jamaica or something, or even to a third-world country. You know you’re going for two weeks. Do you try to solve that country’s problems in those two weeks? No. Do you allow what’s happening in that country to ruin your vacation? No. When we truly realize that we are on vacation from nothing, we stop trying to solve the world’s problems. A lot of people suffer because they want the world to be fixed before they decide to enjoy themselves. You are not here but for that long. “I will be happy when.” You are not here but for that long. In the grand scheme of time, you’re here for a point of a second, but you want the whole world to be right at that point of a second.

The Character We Build To Survive

You talk about the character, the version of yourself you built for the world to see. When did you first realize you were performing a character rather than living as yourself?

When I had that experience. It was September 15th of 2024. My birth name was Steve Bacon. I remember because that was one of the hardest days of my life that September. It was the first time suicide had popped up in my head in twenty years. I knew it was just a thought, so I let it pass. It also helped me realize the level of frustration that I was at that time because I was aware. I was watching this documentary because I had been on a spiritual journey trying to figure out what this thing is about enlightenment and awakening and all of this. I understood it intellectually.

I could teach it, and I was still suffering. One day I was, or that day, I was lying on the couch, and I was watching this docu-series called Awakening Mind. I had a really rough day. My wife took my daughter into the room. About 11:00 at night, 11:40 at night, I am in and out of sleep. All I heard this guy say was, “The self wants to awaken. Awakening is to recognize there is no self.” In that moment, I just sat up, and everything went blank. I had no idea what had just occurred. I just wrote in my phone, “There is no Steve Bacon. He is just a character, and I am the awareness behind it. Let me make this practical.”

Let us say you go on vacation and you’re there for the first two weeks, and everything is great, and all of a sudden you get robbed. Then we might convince ourselves, “This place is not as nice as I thought it was.” I was just open and carefree and loving and forgiving, and then someone used that to rob me. This is what happens to us as little kids when we are innocent. We feel like our innocence gets taken because every little kid, everything that we’re after to become loving and forgiving, we already are those things. You already are that which you seek.

It’s just something happened, and you felt like it was no longer safe to be that way. On that note, you created a character. You started shutting parts of you down in order to survive the environment you grew up in. I liken it to an undercover cop with no handler. A cop who goes undercover, especially deep undercover, needs a handler. Needs someone to remind them that they’re a cop. Why? It’s because I have to play this character so well that everybody is fooled, or I am going to die.

If that cop does not have a handler, then they may forget that they’re a cop. We create these characters as kids to survive the environment we grew up in. You play that character for so long, you forget who you really are. You really think you’re this person, and you’re not. That’s just who you decided you need to be to get the love or affection or protect yourself. That is all a story in your head. I was molested as a kid. I was also held for ransom by a drug dealer my mother owed money to. I went to fourteen schools growing up, bounced around from house to house.

I spent the first eight years of my life living with my mother in crack houses and homeless shelters. That was the first eight years. I understand pain and suffering and darkness. Do you remember your first memory? My first memory was running around in a diaper. I do not know if it was a crack house or a halfway house, but I remember just running around in my diaper, and it was just a bunch of people. That was just the normal world that we lived in in Oakland, California. I remember having to put on all these different coats of armor to survive that environment. It was never who I was.

We create stories in our heads because there’s what happens to us, and then there’s the story we tell ourselves about what happened. There’s a condition that human beings have that is work to our demise, and it’s the need for certainty. It’s our need to know why. We do not like open loops as human beings. We do not like not to know. We feel unsafe when we do not know. That starts even as kids. If there’s an open loop, if there’s a question in our mind, guess what? We have to close it. That’s why marketing works so well, because marketers know you have to close loops. They put something in front of you to open the loop, and knowing you have to pursue it to close it, or you will not be able to sleep.

Our need for certainty is a condition that leads to the demise of human beings. We do not like to know or feel unsafe. Share on X

That is why we make assumptions. They say do not make assumptions, but we make assumptions because we need to know. We need to think about something. We do that as kids. We do not get treated a certain way. The little kid goes, “Why? Why am I being treated this way?”

With a little kid in mind, we close the loop. Imagine you walk into a courtroom and the judge is eight years old. The jury is eight years old. The prosecutor is eight years old. The eyewitness is eight years old. There are no defense attorneys, no cross-examinations allowed, and you’re the one on trial. How many know this group? By the time you’re fourteen, that trial has ended in your head. You’ve convicted yourself, judge, jury, and executioner that you’re not worthy. You’re not deserving, you’re not good enough, solely based on the eyewitness testimony of a child that’s never been cross-examined.

The truth is, for those of you who have children who are here and who are watching at home, if your child went through the exact same thing that you went through as an adult, you would not allow them to take away the same meaning that you took away. You would not allow them to take away the same story that you did because your adult mind knows better. You have never actually done that for yourself. You keep trying to solve a problem that you probably do not actually have. It’s just a problem you’re trying to solve in your little kid.

You’re trying to solve a little kid’s logic because you make things about you that are not about you. You take things personally that are not about you. As an adult, you know that love is complicated, and sometimes you are loved, just not the way you want to be loved, because people have different definitions of love. You know that everyone is doing the best they can with the mind and resources they have at the time. You know these things as adults, so it’s easier for you to let things go.

Not as a kid, you take everything personally because it’s your movie. Everybody else is just a character in your play. When they do not read the lines or read the script or play the role that you want them to play, you decide that they ruined your movie. Now you spend your whole life developing a life or trying to create a life to solve a problem inside your movie that you do not actually have. It was just a story. You were trying to close the loop, and there was no one there to help us not create that story.

Going back to character, people in this room who have used substances or other behaviors to maintain that character to keep the mask up, what would you say to them about why that makes complete sense?

Repeat the question again.

For people in this room who have used substances or other behaviors to maintain that character to keep the mask up, what would you say to them about why that makes complete sense?

I will just say what naturally comes up when I hear that question because I do not know from hearing it the way you desire for me to hear it, but it makes sense because you do not want to face the thing that you have been running from. That is it, just facing the thing you have been running from. I had a guy named James Gonzalez, and James was in one of our groups when I was working at an outpatient place in California. One of the keys that I shared in this book is that all human behavior is motivated by a positive intent. It does not mean it’s a positive intent for everyone else involved.

The class could not get it because all of them had just gotten out of prison, they’re on probation, and they’re like, “What do you mean? How can robbing somebody have a positive intent?” I said, “I am going to show you.” I said, “I need a volunteer.” James raised his hand. I said, “James, I want to take you on a journey in front of the class. Is that okay?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “James, what did you just get out of prison for?” He said, “Breaking and entering.” I said, “What were you breaking into people’s houses for?” He said, “I can steal their shit.” I said, “What did you need that for?”

He said, “Because I needed money.” I said, “What did you need money for?” He said, “To get high.” “What did you need to get high for?” That is when he got quiet. I said, “James, how long have you been getting high?” He was in his 40s. He said, “Since I was 22.” I said, “What happened?” He said, “My cousin got killed for something I did. I was part of a gang. My cousin was not. I did something, and they were looking to retaliate, and they could not find me, and they found my cousin, and they shot him in the head. I have not been able to live with that guilt since.”

He started getting high on crystal meth. He gets high to escape that guilt. How many know you do a bunch of stupid stuff while you are high, and then you come down, and the thing you have been running from is still there, and all the stupid stuff you did, to add to it. Now you have to go up again. I remember I walked into the room and there were a bunch of gang leaders in there and said, “You are all some of the biggest punks that I have ever met.”

If somebody squared up on you, you would have no problem fighting. I ask you to face that thing you have been running from, and you run and hide. That thing that we have been running from, it is not as scary as we think it is. The thought of facing it is scarier than actually facing it. It’s like when a little kid says there’s a monster in a closet, and you, as an adult, know there’s no monster in that closet. As long as you never open that door, that kid is going to think that that monster is real and be scared. When we face the thing that we have been running from, then the need to use substances to run goes away because there’s nothing to run from anymore.

I will share this last piece. When I was 8 or 9 years old, I was living with my dad at the time. I was very angry because the way I met my dad was just not a great way. I met him when I was eight, and he took me to live with his family. My stepsister we were two months apart, so we were fighting for power. One day, I got angry, and I punched her in the stomach. My other little sister ran down the stairs and said, “Steve punched a pony in the stomach.” My dad ran upstairs, and he said, “You want to hit people. All right.”

He says, “You’ve got two options. I can give you this ass-whipping, or you can go back outside and play, or I could put you on punishment for 30 days.” I took the punishment. I was too afraid of taking that whipping. I was in that room for about 24 hours before I realized I had made a major mistake, because it was summertime, it was hot, and we had no AC. I was stuck in this room. A couple of days went by, and I started begging my dad to beat me because I wanted to go back outside and play. He did not do it. He made me sit there for a couple of weeks. After that, I made a promise to myself that I would never put myself on punishment ever again.

That is what I am saying to you, is that something happened, and instead of you taking a two-minute butt-whipping to face it, you put yourself on mental and emotional punishment for decades, wanting to go back outside and play, wanting to enjoy life again, but you keep running from the very thing that you need to face. The beautiful part about being here at Camelback Recovery is that there are so many qualified people to help you, to be with you, to sit with you in that dark moment and help you through it so that you can actually go back to enjoying your vacation.

Thinking about The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz talks about humans. We are the only species that actually beat ourselves up over and over again about something that we did in the past. It is like we continue instead of living in the present, as a dog lives in the present. He makes a mistake. He does not remember it. He does not relive that over and over and over again. People who were around punish us over and over again, and it does not do any good.

It is like we want freedom, and the way to freedom is to move on from whatever actions you took, whatever mistakes you made, whatever things you did in the past. It is like you want to, you do not want to shut the door on the past, but you also want to remember it so that I can make different decisions moving forward.

A lot of times, we get caught up in our thinking. We spiral, we overthink. We reminisce. I was listening to you guys talk about the state of no thought before we started. When I am working with a client or a student, or I am teaching a class, and I am talking about thinking, I say, “Right out here is I-10, right? Imagine you put a chair right in the middle of the right-hand lanes of I-10. Now, people in Arizona already cannot drive. Imagine having a chair right there in one of those little divider lines, and you’ve got cars going at you a hundred miles an hour, just coming from behind.

You cannot see them coming, but you’re just sitting there facing this way, and cars are going a hundred miles an hour past you. How would you feel?” Overwhelmed, worried, scared. That is what it is like when your awareness, who you really are, is caught in the middle of your thinking. Thoughts just happen, but there is a difference between thoughts and thinking. Thoughts just occur. How many of you have ever had a thought that popped up in your head, and you thank God that nobody heard that thought that just popped up in your head?

It is like, “They would take my kids.” My wife and my husband would divorce me if they knew the thought that I just thought. You go, “That’s crazy. I would never.” The next thought will come by, and then you will be like, “That one’s real.” You cling to that one, and you ride that one off into the sunset. When we’re sitting in the middle of the highway, our awareness, we cannot stop the thoughts from coming. Thoughts just occur. Thinking is having a conversation with that thought, and that is where all the suffering comes from. Thinking is having a conversation with the thought. \

You cannot control whether a thought pops up, but you can control whether you have a conversation with it or not. Imagine all I am simply saying or inviting you to do is take your awareness, which has the thoughts. The purpose of meditation is not to stop the thoughts. It’s just to watch them and not engage with them. That would be like taking your chair and putting it on the side of the highway and just allowing the cars to go by.

Now you still may feel a little wind, but the more you become aware that you are the chair and not the cars, not the freeway, then you start backing your chair up from the freeway more and more. Eventually, your chair is so far back from the freeway that you no longer hear them. You no longer feel them. It is not that they stopped. You just backed your awareness up so far that it seems like they stopped.

I remember Oprah Winfrey asked Eckhart Tolle, she said, “Do you still hear the ego?” He says, “At this moment, no, but ask me next week.” It’s never gone. It’s just how far back can you back your chair up from the highway? In that gap between you, that chair, and the highway, you will remember who you really are. You are not the thoughts. You’re the one watching them. When you can really grasp that, the suffering stops because the suffering is just the thinking.

What is the difference between thought and thinking? Why does that distinction matter so much to you?

Thought just occurs. Thinking is having a conversation with it. There is no difference between the person who is standing at QT, yelling at the air. We all see those folks and go, “They’re crazy.” You are just as crazy. You just do it in your own head, arguing with yourself. Here is the question I got for you. Who is arguing with whom? You have a thought that pops up. “No, we cannot do that.” “Yes, you can.” You’re going back and forth. Who is arguing with whom? “I should not do that.” “Yes, I should, but I do not want to do that.”

“Yes, I do want to do that. I should not take that drink. You should take that drink.” Who is arguing with whom? Cannot be both. One is the awareness arguing with the brain, the thought. We all do it. We all have those conversations in our heads. When you can learn to stop having the conversation, just let the thought pass. How many of you had a really crazy thought, as I said before, but had a series of them, and you just let them pass? We all thought about robbing a bank, but the only difference between the people I work with in prison who actually robbed a bank and everybody else is that they took that thought seriously.

That is the only difference. They took the thought seriously. We all have thoughts we take seriously. Then we all have thoughts that we go, “That’s crazy,” and just let it go by. The question becomes, what determines which thoughts we grab and pay attention to and dwell on, and which ones we let pass? That goes back to your belief system.

What you believe about you, what you believe about the world, what you believe is true. Your beliefs on money and religion and men and women and relationships and all those beliefs, because those are just thoughts that have been hardwired, those beliefs that are buried deep down in your subconscious mind, they determine which thoughts you pick out of the ether and dwell on, and all the other ones you let pass. “I am a good person.” You let that pass. “I am a piece of shit.” That one is real because I have got evidence of that. You take that one and dwell on it, and then create suffering. It’s all thinking, all of it.

Awakening & Who You Were Before

You use the phrase “Already whole,” which is the title of your book. For someone sitting here who feels anything but whole, how do you even begin to explain that?

Show me a child who is not whole. Show me any parents in the room. Show me an incomplete child. Show me a one-year-old, a two-year-old, that is not enough. Show me a six-month-old that is not worthy. Show me a three-year-old who is not deserving. There is a reason why we’re mesmerized by children, especially when they do not have that identity yet. You know what I am talking about? You look into them, and it’s like you’re staring into emptiness because there’s no personality there yet. There’s no sense of me there yet. It’s the purest innocence. That’s why we love children so much.

I always say children are not here for us to teach. Children are here to remind you of who you are. That’s why we get so mesmerized by them. That’s why we feel so warm and fuzzy around them. They remind us of who we really are because that was you, too. If you cannot show me a two-year-old, a three-year-old, a four-year-old that’s broken, then that means it was not true for you either. That’s who you are. Already whole, already complete. Something happened. Conscious awareness kicked in. You got mistreated a certain way. Something happened to you.

You had the thought that you were broken. You’ve been living out that thought ever since. It’s like if my daughter, my biological daughter, decides that she is going to get mad at me one day and go tell the world, “That is not my daddy.” She could say that all she wants. Would it ever be true? No. You were born whole and complete. No one ever can take it from you. No one could ever give it to you. The only thing you could ever do is trick yourself into believing that you’re not whole and complete. No matter how convinced you are that you are broken, it is never true. You’ve been whole and complete the entire time, except for the story that you’re not.

All About The Belief Theory And How It Works

Tell us about the Belief Theory Institute and who it’s built for.

Right now, it’s built inside prisons. We’re working inside the prison system because we cannot change the system, but we can starve them of clients. To me, those folks represent children, teenagers who got lost and experienced the harshest of the consequences that a lot of us face. When I take people to prison, a lot of times they go, “If that person wasn’t in the orange jumpsuit, I would have just thought it was a regular person at the grocery store.” Exactly, because it’s not a bad person. It’s someone who either A, had such a life filled with trauma that they did the things that they did in response. I had a young lady in our group.

She was in for home invasion and beating up pedophiles. That’s because when she was younger, she was molested. That was her little kid’s idea of taking her power back. Does that make sense? That she would just start doing home invasions of pedophiles and beating them up and robbing them. I have another young lady whose self-worth was shot to hell because she grew up chunky and everybody made fun of her, and she felt like nobody loved her. This dude came along, sweet-talked her. Having her give up everything, and she devoted her whole life to this guy.

They found out he had a side chick and then tried to hire somebody to kill the side chick. Ended up in jail for conspiracy. These are bad people. They just go through some of the worst moments, and they believe that comes through their mind, and they act on it. I also believe that those people are also the keys or the solutions to the community’s problems. Who better to talk about not driving drunk than a woman who accidentally killed two people while drunk driving? A soccer mom who just had too many glasses of wine and thought she was good. Who better to come out and talk about drunk driving?

While we cannot change the prison system, we can starve it of clients. Share on X

Who better spokesperson than Mothers Against Drunk Driving? Than someone who actually experienced the worst that everyone warns against. Who better to talk about getting money legit than someone who has been jailed back and forth for robbery? Who better to talk about that? Who better to talk about peace and love than someone who, in their anger management, even better, who better to talk about anger management than someone who killed someone out of anger? Who better to talk about that?

Our goal at the Belief Theory Institute is to go in and not only help these people remember that they’re already whole, but also help them realize that God used nothing but murderers and robbers and assassins to spread the word of love and healing. The very thing that you’re in here for is the very thing that gives you permission to go out and help others remember who they are, too. You just have to get over the shame.

Who did you write this book for, and what do you hope someone feels when they finish the last page?

It’s interesting. I am terrible at marketing. Absolutely terrible. I have got to say that about my friend. It is not my thing. I try to make it my thing, it’s just not, but I am sharing that because when I originally wrote this book, I had everybody in mind. The people that I ended up writing the book for, and found that everyone can still find a piece of them, that’s why I wrote the introduction the way I did, were for those who were super successful and empty. Those who got what they wanted in life, or got what they thought they wanted, and then felt that emptiness still on the inside.

The thing that I wrote inside the book during the introduction is that, regardless of who I am referring to in the book, whether this person was a successful business owner or whatever, read the book about you. If you read the book about the person, the stories that I am telling are the eight stories that are in here about personal clients that I have had, from NFL players to CEOs to moms to police officers. These are personal stories of our encounters with clients that I have had. When I took it inside the prison, some were like, “I do not know if I can relate.”

I said, “Read it about you. If you read it about you, you will find everything you need to find in this book.” Does that make sense? If you read it about you, if you read it about them, it would be an interesting story. If you read it about you, then you will find everything because a lot of times we try to relate based on content rather than context. If you learn to listen from a space of context, you can learn about yourself from anybody you talk to because the human experience is the same. Neglect is neglect, is it not?

A child feeling like they were not paid attention to is the same whether or not mom and dad were not there because they left and were out in the streets, or mom and dad were there but constantly working all the time. The physical presence is irrelevant. Neglect is neglect. Abuse is abuse. Joy is joy. Pain is pain. Do you get my point? When you listen from a space of context, and we do not kill the messenger because we go, “I do not relate to anything that they went through. I do not relate to their life. They had a privileged life.”

I had a couple of girls, they were Egyptian, and they had the life that all of us wanted. Their parents bought them everything. They lived in a mansion at the top of the hill, but the oldest sister dated the most horrible men. A dude put her in a coma, and I was like, “I do not understand.” I was probably like 27 at the time. “I do not understand. You had everything growing up. How do you allow this relationship to occur?” She says, “We did have everything, but our parents’ attention.” She says, “You look at the house and the car and everything else and think that there is nothing for us to complain about.”

She says, “In order for our parents to provide us with this lifestyle, they worked 80 hours a week, each. We never saw them.” That made me realize, “The kid is the star of their own movie.” The kid is not going to say, “Mom and dad are providing us this lifestyle.” The kid is going, “You’re not here. I do not care why you’re not here. You’re not here.” They have to close that loop and go, “Why aren’t you here? It’s because you do not care about me.” Here is this little wealthy girl who develops daddy issues based on a story she told herself because she was too young to understand what was happening. You could read that story about you and get everything you need. Does that make sense? Read it in context, not just the content, and read it about you.

Answering Questions From The Audience

It’s like in the twelve-step rooms, they say, “Listen for the similarities, not for the differences.” If you listen for the similarities, you can always relate. It does not matter where someone grows up, their socioeconomic status, or their religion. It does not matter. There are always similarities, and that’s how you’re going to find what resonates. Now is the time we’ve set aside to open things up for questions. Yes, the floor is open.

You mentioned that your story kind of started when you put your self-worth into a partner. I think a lot of people, including me, can relate to that. How did you climb out of that and find self-worth in yourself?

Feel what I am saying, do not listen to the words. Does that make sense? If we listen with our intellect, we will try to make one plus one equal two. There’s wisdom inside of you. This is why every spiritual teacher has always said, “Go where?” Within. You have all the answers. The only reason why you’re asking this question is that something resonated. Resonance does not mean that you learned something. Resonance means you remembered something. It resonated. That means it was already in you. Does that make sense? I want you to listen from that space.

Resonance does not mean you learned something, but you remembered something. Share on X

Your self-worth never left. It never went anywhere. It’s been there the entire time. You only tricked yourself into believing that it’s gone. What would be faster? Trying to learn self-worth or remembering it was never gone? I will give you a practical piece on that. I just lost my train of thought. Give me one second. It happens sometimes. Hold on, it has to come back to me. It was good, though. I promise it was good. The key part is that the self-worth is never gone. You can only trick yourself into believing that it’s gone.

You cannot learn your way into something that is already there. That’s why you keep running around trying to find it. It’s like when rich people hire me, especially really rich people, and I say, “Isn’t it interesting? You spent your whole life.” I had this one guy who is worth a billion dollars. I live in a 1,700 square foot house. This guy’s worth a billion dollars, has a 26,000 square foot home, a bunch of rooms, and he’s sitting at my little kitchen table for a weekend retreat with me. I said, “Isn’t it interesting? You got a billion dollars and still do not feel worthy. Still do not feel deserving.

Still do not feel good enough.” I said, “You got enough money to buy and sell my black ass. Yet you’re sitting at my kitchen table trying to figure out how I have this profound sense of peace.” I said, “The reason you told yourself that you weren’t worthy, you weren’t deserving, you weren’t good enough, the reasons never happened.” I am going to give you a perfect example. When I was eight years old, this is when abandonment issues actually started. Listen to this story about you. The content will not match, but get the context. Is this helpful so far?

When I was eight years old, my mom dropped me off at my grandmother’s house like she normally does before she went on her binger. My mom has been addicted to crack since I was six months old. The next day, this Mexican-looking dude showed up, talking about, “I am your daddy. Your mama does not want you anymore. You come and live with me.” Now I am looking at my grandmother, like, “Are you really about to let me walk out of the house with this man?” I do not know who this is.

She says absolutely nothing. How does a little kid rectify that in his mind? Your mama dropped you off and told you nothing. Your grandma is not saying anything and is about to let this strange man carry you out of the house. He and he got into a tussle. He whooped me. We had two problems the moment we started. One, I do not know you. Two, he puts your hands on me. We have two problems. Remember, those are my first two relationships with women. Remember, I am on this vacation. I am learning.

My mother and my grandmother were my first two relationships with women. How does a little kid rectify that they both just let this man take him out of the house? My little kid’s mind goes, “They do not want me anymore.” The thing about trauma is that whenever you experience a level of deeply disturbing emotional experience, trauma is not just the stuff that we’re used to hearing. It could be the little stuff, too. You take a toy from a kid, that’s trauma to that little kid, depending on how connected or how attached to that toy they were. That’s a deeply disturbing emotional experience.

When your mind experiences the level of trauma, it creates a strategy to never put yourself in that position again. It happens unconsciously. My little mind goes, “Never trust a woman who says she loves you.” It happened at an unconscious level. I did not realize that until ten years later, when I got married to that girl. Everything was cool before we got married. Everything was great. This one, we got married, I turned into a different person, because that subconscious program, “Never trust the woman who says she loves you,” kicked in.

Now I am trying to brace myself for something I do not want to feel. Does that make sense? Everything about human behavior comes down to feelings. There are things we want to feel, things we do not want to feel. Period. Things that we truly do not want to feel that we can cause, like what is that one emotion that you have that will shut you down? Everybody has it, that one, that you avoid at all costs.

When we have that one feeling that we do not want to feel, we will set up a perimeter around our lives to make sure we never put ourselves in a position to feel that thing. I am bracing myself for this girl to leave. I am constantly thinking about what? She is going to cheat because I am a dude. She cannot leave just because I am a dirtbag. She has to leave because she wants to cheat. That constant thought of cheating led to the emotions of anger, fear, jealousy, and rage.

The action. I put my hands on her. Result. She left. My mind goes, “See, I told you she would leave.” I created the very thing I was afraid of and played victim to my own creation because I did not understand how this thing works. Fast forward, 28 years old. I go to a seminar called PSI Seminars. You did PSI? My man, that is one out of 100,000 people. Usually, everybody says Landmark. I did it in San Francisco.

I did it here. I did the whole thing. I was like a year and a half sober. I did the basics. I did PSI 7 in Northern California. I did MLS. The DLD. I did the whole thing. For a couple of years, for a few years.

See, no one ever knows what I am talking about when I say PSI.

Yes, everybody says Landmark.

They say Landmark. I said, “What’s like Coke and Pepsi?” It’s the same taste, just different brands. Same goal.

I had fun with PSI Seminars.

I did too.

It was pretty gnarly.

That PSI Seminars, and shout out to Ike from Ike’s Sandwiches. I know Ike. Okay, so Ike is the one who paid for me to go to PSI.

No shit.

My friend Detour, we will come back, but Detour.

Ike is. He’s gone through PSI Seminars.

Ike went through PSI with a mutual friend of ours. At the PSI, they offer you, know, say, “Pay for somebody else or offer this gift to somebody else.” My friend comes to me, and she says, “You should go to this thing.” I was like, “I do not have $500.” I was living in the back of a hookah lounge back then. Just living with the rats and roaches. It’s like, “I do not have $500,” but this sounds amazing. She says, “My friend said he would sponsor a few people.” This is like, I do not know, 2013 or whatever.

2012, or 2013. I bet you we were at like some of the same events.

That’s awesome. I go on Ike’s Facebook wall, and I write my entire life story on Ike’s Facebook wall, and I said, “This is why you should sponsor me to get in.” He did. It changed my life forever because this is where that space is, where this question gets answered. Remember, there are deep abandonment issues. My mom and grandmother gave me up. I cannot trust a woman who says she loves me. Watch this. I go to PSI, and it’s that twelve-hour you versus you.

They trace my abuse of women back to that time when my father showed up. I go to confront my mom because, you know, people go through the personal development seminars and they find the answers to stuff and then want to go confront people. “Let me tell you how you screwed up my life.” Now they’ve got words to it. I went to my mom, and I said, “Why did you give me up?” She’s like, “What are you talking about?” I said, “They traced my abuse towards women back to when you gave me up. Why did you abandon me?”

She said, “What the fuck are you talking about? I never abandoned you.” I’m like, “Yes, you did. Remember when you dropped me off at Grandma’s house?” She said, “Yes, I know what you’re talking about, but have you ever remembered abandoning yourself? It did not happen the way you thought it happened. What are you talking about?” She says, “What you do not know is that your grandmother got tired of picking you up from crack houses and homeless shelters and police stations, and she was too old to take care of you, so she tracked your father down, who was not in your life before that, and convinced him to get full custody of you without my knowledge.

She even testified on his behalf at the family court hearing. When the courts granted him full custody, she called me to drop you off and called him to come get you. That’s why she did not do anything when he came. She set the whole thing up. When I came back to get you, you were gone.” I do not know if you ever just heard the truth at one point and it kicked you in the stomach, but she was also a crackhead. She will say anything to get out of a mess. I had to verify the story. I love my mom, right? I went and checked, and I verified it and found out that’s exactly what happened.

All of a sudden, my self-worth issues are gone. How could I have abandonment issues for a story that was never true? How could I have abandonment or self-worth issues if the thing that I am blaming my self-worth issues on did not happen the way I thought it happened? That’s what I mean by there’s what happens, and then there’s the story we tell ourselves about what happened. Now there are more sensitive subjects that I talk about in the book, like sexual trauma, because I went through that too. Even then, there’s what happened, and then there’s a story we tell ourselves about what happened.

It is the story that creates our long-term misery. Does that make sense? My cousin did molest me. That happened. What I had to accept is that it was not about me. That’s what I had to accept. It happened. In order for him to know what he did to me, someone had to be doing it to him. Hurt people hurt people. That was a really big pill for me to swallow. When I swallowed it, I found peace. I did not condone what happened. I just understand there are things outside of my control, things that I had no control over. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever hurt someone to please yourself?

Have you ever said something to somebody because it made you feel better? There’s nothing that you do that’s about anybody else, is there? It’s always about you, isn’t it? What if they made you feel some type of way, triggered you somehow? Whatever you did back to them, that was about you, wasn’t it? It’s the same thing when it’s directed towards us. No matter what someone does, it’s not about us. That’s not condoning it. That’s accepting reality. A lot of times, we suffer because we cannot accept the reality of it.

That’s what I mean by there’s some, these eight keys in here, they’re all pills this size. That’s why I tell it through a story. They’re all pills this size. When you swallow those pills, you find a level of freedom that you did not have before because you let the stories go. The past happened, but they only live up here through thought, through thinking. A lot of times, we’re in our heads just trying to ask why. Why is the worst question you can ask? Why would it just lead to another why and another why and another why? This is the stuff that social media uses against us. We scroll because we need to know. We do not like not to know.

What are they doing?

What’s happening? What’s at the bottom of this page? Have you ever scrolled Facebook to the point where it did not go any further? Did that happen to you? No? I am the only one who sits on the toilet for 45 minutes and just scrolls until it does not scroll no more. I need to know why. Let me give you the fastest way to closure. Are you ready? It happened. That’s the fastest route to closure. Accepting that it happened. Why did it happen? None of your business, because you’ll never get the answer. Not the one that will suffice.

As they say, acceptance is the answer to all my problems.

That’s just accepting what is. We suffer, Byron Katie. You, Byron Katie, from the book Loving What Is? She says there’s what happens and then there’s what you thought should happen. When you believe what you thought should have happened over what actually happened, you suffer. We get stuck in our imaginations about what should have happened versus just acknowledging what happened. Does that make sense? A lot of times, people are so afraid of victim shame that they’ll allow people to just live in these crazy stories because they’re afraid to say, “Love, no, that’s not true,” period. You never had a self-worth issue. Something happened. You tried to close the loop. Why did this happen? “It’s because I am not worthy.” That’s all that was. It actually never left. Just a story. Is that helpful?

Yes.

Great. We’ve got time for one more question.

I know I talk a lot with guys. Luis always asks questions.

Let’s get someone else in the audience.

During your story, you said, there is no self, and that really resonated with me. Like the identity we formed through our experiences. I was just thinking like, you hear a lot, and you hear “Be your most authentic, truest self.” Is the most authentic, truest self, is that like at our core, we’re all the same, and you do not have to pretend anymore? Is it just like another mask we wear at the end of the day?

It depends. In the hustle culture, they’re talking about putting on another mask. The truest, authentic self is the one that does not need to perform. It’s the one that does not need to be seen. It’s the one that does not need to be heard. That’s your truest, most authentic self. When you’re not shucking and jiving, trying to get love and affection, because the true, authentic self does not need to solve the sense of inadequacy. At the core of ego consciousness, that sense of separation, because now we’re going more spiritual, there is a part of you, the ego, that is necessary.

Anybody here who talks about ego death they do not know what they’re talking about because the ego cannot die. It’s not supposed to. It’s your sense of individuality. I’m watching a show right now called Parasyte. Has anybody seen it? That is a weird show, but she can. What’s your name? Carla can verify what I am about to say. Without that sense of individuality, we become a hive mind. The whole point of this show is that there’s this one miserable woman who the hive mind could not get to, and she’s trying to figure out how to get everybody to get their individuality back.

Every person in the show says, “We’d love to see you. Thank you for helping us. Can we help you?” There is no sense of I. Does that make sense? There is no sense of individuality. That’s what it would be like without the ego. The ego is a necessary component of infinite intelligence, having a conscious experience of itself. Without that sense of individuality, we’d be hive-minded. You can follow me so far. When that sense of individuality is in the front seat, it creates damage. It causes destruction because that sense of individuality, its core root, is inadequacy, separate.

It feels like it’s here to survive something. It’s me against the world. Does that make sense? Now the truth about you is there’s no space where you begin and the world ends. If the Amazon forest were to go kaput tomorrow, what would happen to the rest of us? We’d probably suffocate and die. If the moon explodes, what happens to the gravity field? We go bye-bye. If the sun goes one step further back, you freeze to death. If it comes one step closer, you burn to death. If all the bees died in, you get my point? There’s no part where you’re not connected to everything. There is no separate you.

You are life itself. You do not have one. You are life itself. Having an experience in itself. In order for you to move this way and him to move that way, we have to have that sense of individuality. When Jesus said, “Get behind me, Satan,” that was a metaphor for the ego. Get in your proper place here behind me. If you really want to go deep into that, Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth, breaks down the ego in a way that nobody else has ever done. It is a thesis on the ego, and it is amazing. It is a simple read. When that sense of self is in the front, that character has got three jobs.

Protect, predict, and preserve itself. Its core root is inadequacy, and everything that it’s after, attention, love, money, respect, power, all of that, is to solve that sense of inadequacy. Which is why when I wrote this book, I addressed it to powerful people. You’re already there, and you’re still miserable. Anybody, even a poor person, can read it because then they can see there’s no light at the end of that tunnel. I am not telling you not to become wealthy.

It is not what I am saying. Do not make that the end goal of solving an internal problem. When the rich prince came to Jesus and said, “Jesus, I honor my mother, I honor my father. How do I enter the kingdom of heaven?” Jesus said easily, “Sell everything you have.” Now, I say poverty pimps and pastors have taken that scripture and have convinced people that it’s great to be poor.

That’s not what that was for. That man already had everything the flesh could want. He wanted that man to sell everything so he could recognize he was already everything with nothing. That was the purpose of that. When you recognize you’re everything with nothing, you can have all the stuff you want when you’re unattached. Does that make sense?

It is as if the world is like a bubble, everything’s walking in, like you’re attached to the material things. This is like sitting outside the bubble and looking inwards.

This is being completely unattached from it, meaning it does not mean anything if it comes or it goes. That’s what unattached means. I adore my wife. I love my wife. I would do anything for my wife. If my wife decided tomorrow that she wanted to get up and walk out the door and go live another life, I am going to thank her for the time that we had together because I am not attached. She does not complete me. Does that make sense?

She’s not the foundation of my self-worth. If you think about a house, she’s the decorations in the house, and I am the decorations in her house. She’s not in the house. Does that make sense? The most authentic you is the you that no longer needs to perform. It’s you who no longer needs to survive life. It’s you who no longer thinks that it’s me against the world. The most authentic you is the you that was there before you had that first memory.

In that part, you were just the flow of life. You were just there enjoying the vacation. Does that make sense? That’s the authentic you. That’s the you that you want to remember. When you do that, the vacation becomes amazing. The only difference is someone ruined your vacation, and then you took that and said, “This place sucks. I do not want to be on this vacation anymore.” I am going to go really deep. We have to kill ourselves fast by putting a gun to our mouth, or we kill ourselves slowly by constantly putting poison in our bodies.

Either way, you try to take yourself out. When you remember who you are, you do not have to remember how to love. You just become it. From that space, you turn around and say, “All human behavior is either an extension of love or a cry for help.” The people who are crying for help, what they’re really after is just to remember. Everything else is just a pathway back to remembering. The only reason why these books or spiritual books seem difficult to read, imagine if I said everything you ever want to feel, everything you ever want to experience, the love, abundance, peace, joy, I am going to offer you all of that, but I need you to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, for it’s a gaze.

Would that make sense to you? No, that’s how the ego reads spiritual books. It’s the self going, “To experience enlightenment, there’s no self. Wait a minute. That’s me. Hold up.” We need to read another book. No, you cannot get this.” The truth is simple. The truth is like a bullet. Just like those TikTok videos where you see the guy shooting through like a bunch of frying pans to see how many frying pans the bullet can get through, the truth is simple. The reason why these books have to be written, and thousands of pages have to be written, is that your beliefs, your values, your character, your memories, your thinking, all of that is different frying pans that the truth is trying to get through. The truth is simple. You’re not who you think you are. You’re far greater.

That’s it. Thank you.

Episode Wrap-up And Closing Words

We’re coming to the end of our time. How can people connect with you if they want to go deeper?

They can go to AlreadyWhole.com and just reach out to me there. The new website should be up, so it should be good to go.

Is there anything we can do to help you?

If you know anyone who needs to hear this message, just send them my way or send me their way.

Is there anything I missed? Any questions I should have asked you that I did not ask?

No. You asked me exactly what you were supposed to ask me for this time.

We’re good.

I appreciate you, brother. Thank you for having me. It has been an honor.

Thank you, guys.

 

Important Links

• Elijah Kai
• Elijah Kai on LinkedIn
• Already Whole: Unlock The Eight Keys to Emotional Freedom and Inner Peace
• The Four Agreements
• Belief Theory Institute
• Loving What Is
• A New Earth

 

About Elijah Kai

Elijah Kai is a Spiritual Teacher, Divine Architect, and the author of Already Whole. At eighteen years old, he survived a suicide attempt that would take him two decades to understand. What followed was a relentless search through therapy, religion, hustle, two marriages, a felony, and fourteen schools before high school — all in pursuit of a peace he couldn’t name.

The answer came the moment he stopped trying to fix himself.

Today, Elijah walks into the hardest rooms in the world — prisons, schools, boardrooms, and stages — and delivers the one message nobody else has shown the people inside them: the suffering was never who you are. Through his work at the Belief Theory Institute, he helps individuals in recovery, incarcerated men and women, executives, and everyday people see through the character they’ve spent a lifetime becoming — and reconnect with the truth of who they already are.

Elijah’s work sits at the intersection of spiritual awakening, addiction recovery, mental health, and human identity. He doesn’t motivate audiences. He wakes them up.

He is the founder of the Belief Theory Institute and the author of Already Whole, a guide for anyone who has spent their life searching for something they never lost.

Book: Already Whole — available now

Website: elijahkai.com