Exploring Spiritual Themes in Thriller Novels.

Exploring Spiritual Themes in Thriller Novels.
With CJ Toca and Samia Bano

Looking for a fun and easy way to explore #spiritual and mystical questions?

Listen now to this interview with CJ Toca, #Author of #SpiritualFiction books. We talk about how CJ blends #suspensethrillers with #SpiritualDepth, designed to inspire seekers through the #powerofstory. In the process, we explore deep spiritual and mystical themes such as:

-- the emotional conflict of choosing between honesty and love

-- confronting the spiritual consequences of your decisions—and wrestling with the cost of following your convictions

-- the powerful distinction between externally driven happiness and the deeper, lasting contentment rooted in purpose and spirituality

-- the idea that our purpose in life is to learn how to #loveandbeloved, and even pain can be part of a #divineplan

-- and so much more!

Connect with CJ and discover his books at: https://cjtoca.com/

To Book your Free HAPPINESS 101 EXPLORATION CALL with Samia, click: https://my.timetrade.com/book/JX9XJ

#SpiritualFiction #suspensethriller #MysteryThrillerBooks #InterfaithStories #PersonalGrowthJourney #MysticismInLiterature #SpiritualHealing #TraumaRecovery #JourneyToSelfLove #PersonalGrowth #HealingThroughAdversity #SpiritualGrowth #HappinessJourney #PositivePsychology #FaithAndFiction #InnerPeace #spiritualquestions

Here's the audio version of this episode:

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Full Video Transcript

SAMIA: Hello, Salaam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Holah, Ciao, Bonjour, Buna, Privet, Mabuhay, and Dzień Dobry! It's really, really good to be with you again and I'm so happy to, yeah, just be doing what I do today and I know you'll be so happy you're joining us today because we have a very cool guest with us and it's CJ Toca, who is the author of a number of virtual fiction books, one of which is the Vacant Seat. So I'm so happy and excited to have you with us, CJ, welcome…

CJ: Thank you, Samia. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

SAMIA: Yeah. And CJ please tell us a little bit more about who you are and about your books and so forth.

CJ: Sure. So I'm a sort of part-time author. I do it as a hobby and I really enjoy sort of suspense thriller mystery books… and I got in to that, decided I would, you know, just start writing some and I'm also a spiritual person. So I decided to weave spirituality into the plot of the books… and I did and bother…. mostly written from the Christian spirituality point of view there. Two of the books include a Muslim holy man who is, has… who has a very important role in both plots. In fact, in the Vacant Seat, the Sheikh has a… really provides guidance to the main protagonist, Stefania DiMaggio. So that's sort of a thumbnail sketch about me. I've written three books, the Vacant Seats, the first in the series, the Secret Air is the second and the third book which will be coming out this year within the next few months... I anticipate it's called the Lost Painting. And as I just indicated, the Sheik has a role in both the Vacant Seat, the predominant role, and in the Lost Painting. And they're, they all have sort of a mystery suspense angle to them and they take place in a wide variety of locations and places around the, around the globe. So if you like mystery thrillers and you like globetrotting protagonists and you don't mind a little bit of religion thrown into it… And the spirituality also involves one of the characters having a sixth sense, sort of a, sort of clairvoyance in a way, as does the Sheikh, who's a Sufi Sheikh. And I actually interviewed a clairvoyant in connection with the books to sort of nail down that aspect of the, to make it as realistic as possible. So that's sort of the thumbnail sketch of me and what I've been doing.

SAMIA: Cool, cool, cool. Thank you so much for sharing that with us CJ, and you know, my first question that's like popping in my mind is, can you tell me a little bit more about when you think about spirituality, what do you really mean? Like, what is spirituality to you?

CJ: Well, one of my sort of criticisms of, I said criticisms, critiques of other works is I think that a lot of the characters are one-dimensional. And I wanted, I don't think people are one-dimensional as a general rule. And I think the world is not one-dimensional. There's a second, and there's other dimensions, and spirituality is one of those dimensions. And I think you're starting to see certainly this in the modern world. I mean, it's very difficult, I think, in a modern secular world to envision spirituality. But more and more folks, even folks who just do yoga, it's really true... Yoga is a spiritual, there's a spiritual aspect to it. And people, whether they like it or not, are multidimensional. So my characters, in my view, have to be multi-dimensional. And I think you asked what spirituality means to me. So spirituality is, and it doesn't have to be religion with a capital R, but it can be religion with a small R, a spiritual nature of people, that there's a higher calling, a higher being, a connection, if you will. And the vacant seat that the Sheikh, who's one of my favorite characters, talks about this… because it's certainly, you know, as you can't divorce yourself from your character. So my characters have a little bit of me in them. So the Sheikh talks about how all humans are, are bound together by a common spirituality and the fight between good and evil. And he talks about it in the context of Islam and he relates it to Christianity. So to me, spirituality is anything that is not of the material world. So anything beyond the material world. So if you, and one of the other aspect of the vacant seats that's talked about a lot is coincidences. And one of the characters says a coincidence is, happens when you know that God is winking at us. Because coincidence, the coincidences, in my view, are a sure sign that there is something greater than just us. Coincidences don't happen for a reason. So the Vacant Seat, it's all about… a lot about coincidences and I can talk about that further… the spiritual growth of one of the characters. But you asked what it means to me, it means, in short, anything above and beyond the material world, because I know there are folks that don't believe in a higher being, and I know there are people that don't believe in a higher consciousness or even a relationship between people and souls on a different level. But I happen to, and I think it's an important part of the human existence.

SAMIA: Yeah, yeah. You know, one of the reasons why I thought it'd be really cool to interview you CJ, is because in my own personal growth journey, you know, religion and spirituality have played a huge role. Initially, you know, I didn't know to distinguish the two. I mean, I had no sense of real distinguishment. I don't know if that's a proper word. Like for me, they were the one and same thing. And I grew up in a religious context. I grew up in a religiously Muslim family, identified as Muslim. And I think one of the cool things about Islam is actually that it is a very, I mean, even in the way that the traditional approach that I grew up with, you know, there's a lot of spirituality that, you know, like, that the practicing Muslim tries to connect with in the context of primarily developing our relationship with God. If, and you know, that is a, you know, I find a very meaningful thing. And at the same time, you know, when I was growing up, but the more traditional sort of approach to practicing my faith, I found there to be a lot of limitations in terms of actually getting to develop that relationship with God. You know, in the sense that I think it's just like maybe when we are kids, it's very much easier for our parents and other adults in our lives to teach us about God in a way where God is like this disciplinary sort of figure in our lives. And so it's like, okay, Samia, behave. If you don't do this, if you don't listen, then you're going to get in trouble, not just with mommy and daddy, but also with God. And you know, it's sort of like, you know, as a kid, you know, it just makes you… made me more inclined to be obedient and so on and so forth, which I'm sure my parents appreciated. But you know, as I grew up, that wasn't enough. I wanted something more, something different, you know, because like, for me, more and more I wanted to experience more peace in my life, more calmness in my life. And having that kind of fear-based relationship with God, who is supposed to be the most important relationship in my life, was very disturbing. And I mean, it was disturbing in the sense that when you have that kind of fear-based relationship, it naturally compromises your sense of inner peace and happiness and so forth… like, how can you be living with so much fear, and at the same time you're really happy and calm and peaceful? Those things just don't go together, you know. And so it wasn't until I started to explore more spiritual approaches to faith and even religion, you know, I must say I had started to struggle with even the practice of my religion. So that's my, that's how I sort of became interested in spirituality. But then the, when we start to look at exploring like different, you know, things and you're trying to learn about new things, I think storytelling is such a powerful and effective way for us to both communicate what we may want to say, but also for us as listeners, as readers to learn different concepts that, you know, may otherwise be very challenging for us to accept or even think about or even have the openness to listen to, you know… because like, there's all these issues of dogma and things like that… that, you know, that I know, like, for me I would have been like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's against Islam, this and that, and so I can't talk about this. I can't think about this… going back to that, you know, fear-based mindset. But when you're reading a story, you're just reading a story and so you're able to sort of like open yourself up to just, okay, I'm just, you know, whatever the story is, you know… like, you're enjoying the story and you're willing to just open yourself up to what it's sharing with you and then hopefully you can extract deeper lessons and all of that as well. And so for me, this approach of spiritual fiction has been really fascinating and helpful, actually. So I was so happy to have you come on the show and talk to us more. Yeah. So tell me, tell me a little bit more about some of these themes. Like, you mentioned the Sheik and the way that the Sheikh was explored… sharing about his understanding of spirituality. And you mentioned, you know, there's like bad, love, good and evil, and things like that. So tell me about some of these spiritual themes in the book a little bit more and what you're trying to help people to understand.

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CJ: Sure. So... And thank you. I really appreciate your thoughts. I think you just articulated something that a lot of folks go through and think about all the time. So and this is a, that's a great segue, what you just said to sort of the protagonist in my books. So the protagonist is Stefania DiMaggio, who is not a religious person, not A spiritual person at all. And she happens to meet up with somebody who is. And she's very skeptical. She does... She's almost dismissive of it. It's not a meet-cute type of situation. They're initially at odds, and slowly but surely she plays a... She's a journalist and she's out to get a story, and he can help her with the story. The other protagonist, Thomas Houghton, who is an English duke. And she grows. She grows in all three books. Now, you know, the first two books, I would say are the Vacant Seat, the Secret Era, rated sort of PG. The third book, the Lost Pain that's coming out is more of an R-rated book. But like everything in life, there's growth and the characters aren't from this beginning of the book of the first book, the Vacant Seat, to the end of the third book, the Lost Painting have changed because their lives have changed. They've experienced different things. And Stefania became more spiritual as the Vacant Seat wore on and continues through the end of the Lost Painting continues to be spiritual. As a matter of fact, at the end of the Lost Painting, she goes on a pilgrimage. So that's the idea, is that we're not all one-dimensional and that we also change and grow. And so Stefania went from being someone who was entirely skeptical of spirituality. I believe I have her call it mumbo jumbo at one point. And she's somewhat offense. Thomas is somewhat offended by it. But she witnesses the death of Thomas's aunt from natural causes and it moves something inside of her. And slowly but surely, she becomes more spiritual as the book progresses. And that's sort of what one of the things, not all the things. She's also become smarter by the Lost Painting. She's not only smarter, but she's much more capable and to a certain extent a tougher person. And I don't want to give away too much, but she can protect herself. And in the first book she kind of had to rely on Thomas for protection. And it's slowly but surely she's grown.. So that I think that is a great segue from what you talked about because again, she's not a one dimensional character. We are never the same people. I mean, this is what kills me. People will say, you know, 20 years ago, so and so said x. Well, there's nothing that says that you can't change from what you were 20, 10, 5, 2 years ago. And that new doors can be opened, old doors closed, and you can progress and mature as a person and you can progress a mature Spiritually. So that's, I think, where the books sort of take you. Yeah.

SAMIA: And so when you think about, you know, growing spiritually and maturing, just becoming better and stronger, I mean, given who you are and the kind of writing that you do, I imagine that you see the connection and you can help the readers draw the connection between, when we grow more spiritually, you also just become more stronger in terms of other aspects of our life. So the fact that, for example, the heroine of the book. I cannot say the word protagonist…

CJ: ..protagonist…

SAMIA: I could say it protagonist. So the fact that, you know, as she's growing, one of the aspects in which she's growing is that, like you said, now she can better protect herself. So, I mean, like, for me, as I've grown spiritually, I can definitely stay very, very much confidently. That for sure, I would become a stronger person in so many ways. Like, I'm so much more resilient. I'm so much, you know, just better able to... I mean, even cope is not the right word because, you know, there. Because when you say cope, you know, it's sort of like you are still feeling a heavy impact of things, but you are somehow managing to get through it. But, you know, as I have become more spiritually mature, spiritually stronger, there is fewer and fewer and fewer things that even begin to bother me or impact me in that kind of negative fashion. And so, you know, it's like, for me, when we think about making change fun and easy, which we think about a lot on this show, you know, our spiritual growth is a big key, actually. So, yeah, just keep talking to me more about, you know, some of these mystical aspects that you're woven through your stories. And like what, like, particularly in a context of, like, growing stronger, becoming more capable, better people. What are the relationships? Like, where is the role of spirituality in that?

CJ: So, like I said, Stefania was sort of, you know, walking in the wilderness, and everything in the Vacant Seat is based upon. A lot of things in the Vacant Seat are based upon true events. There are a number of prophecies. There are a number of spiritual places. And she becomes more, more and more sort of fulfilled as the story goes on, as she experiences, as her eyes are opened to spiritual occurrences, going to. Going to certain pilgrimage sites. The meeting with the sheikh was a very important moment because this. The sheikh talks about various aspects of Muslim spirituality. And he also prophesies because he's a mystic. And Thomas introduces her to the spirituality which she ultimately has to confront in a uncomfortable way at the end of the Vacant Seat, but it never really leaves her. And although, although she ultimately questions religion with a capital R, she never loses religion with a little r. And thereafter in the Secret Era, that kind of growth sort of continues. There's a lot of locational, deliberate locations are chosen for their spiritual value as they were in, in the Vacant Seat and to a lesser extent in the third book, the Lost Painting. But the Sheik talks about the good and evil, and she, I think, is guided by that dictum. And unfortunately for her, she's got to make a choice, a Hobson's choice at the end because she's, she's fallen in love and she's got to choose between two very unenviable choices and she ends up having to make that choice. But she's not happy with it. And she solved the mystery, but it didn't help her really at all in an overriding spiritual nature because she solved it to the detriment of her convictions. And the same things were to happen in the Secret Era. The second book, she thought she had it solved, but when it came down to it, it was... She was wrong, but she figured it out and again, it was a... Not a savory, not a savory determination. In the third book, which is coming up a lost painting, she rightly concludes, you know, did the difference between good and evil. But she can't stop it. She can't stop what she wants to stop and it all ends up happening anyway, although she solves a great number of mysteries through her wild guile and perseverance and then she ends up going on a pilgrimage at the end of the, at the end of the Lost Painting. And a lot of the dates in the books, all of the, a lot of the dates in the books are chosen because of their spiritual connotations, particularly in Christianity. Although in the... My next iteration of the series, the fourth book that I'm writing now, I am, I'm bringing back the Sheik. It's one again, a tale this time. It's a tale between good and evil. She's now going to be faced with doing something that she doesn't want to do, but it is for the greater good. And it'll be interesting. It's not done yet, but it'll be interesting to see how she deals with it. But yeah, that is, that is sort of how. Without giving away the plots to the book.

SAMIA: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and we don't have to stick to just thinking about these things and the, in terms of the plot of the books. But I mean, like, for me, stories are a great way to bring out these are really important themes. So, like the theme of having to choose between two options, for example, where you're like, oh my gosh, you know, like you said, the Hobbesian choice, I think in the, you know, do I choose love or do I choose telling the truth... I think when I was reading the description of your book on Amazon, that was sort of like the way the choice was framed. I mean, these are choices that we face in our lives. And a lot of times it's like, how do you make the choice? What's the basis on which you make the choice? You know, do you think about, well, what is going to be good for me in terms of, like, allow me to keep my position and status or make more money, you know, those kinds of things. Or do I take into consideration, like, what will make me more happy? But even when you're talking about what will make me more happy, like, what is your understanding of, like, what's the source of happiness? What really makes us happy? You know, so, like, for example, if the choices in someone's mind, oh, choose love or reveal this truth that I found out. I mean, as a happiness expert, that's, you know, the work that I do. Of course I would say make the choice that makes you happy because for me, that is the signal that you've made the right choice for you. Like when you make a choice and it leads you to feeling happy you. That's how for me, you know, that you've made the right choice for you. But the, but the thing is, like, a lot of times we don't even really know what's on going to make us happy because we don't really know what is the source of our happiness, you know. And I think that is sort of where a lot of times for people there is that disconnect between their spiritual self and the other aspects of themselves. Because insofar as they're disconnected from their spiritual self, they don't realize the source of their happiness and how it's connected to their spiritual self. Right. And so if you don't take that into account, then you end up making decisions that will always leave you feeling a little bit like, I did my best, but I'm not. But there's still something missing. I didn't quite get it right. And so I'm happy to share that. You know, in your books, you're sort of, like, exploring that theme, and our heroine continues to grow in that context of learning better and better lessons.

CJ: Yeah, I think isn't... I mean, that's what we sort of fight every day, and I think that's a, I mean, a very good observation. Every day we make decisions, and are the decisions that we're making that are going to make us happy, or are they superficial in terms of what's going to make us happy? People think about happiness on a higher level, on a spiritual level, rather than on a superficial level. And anytime, everything, I think a lot of things in our society, and I could be wrong, are dealt with on a very superficial level. And I think it's better to deal with things on a higher level and maybe ponder happiness on a ethereal or spiritual level, because, you know, if you find. This is just an arbitrary scenario, you find a lost billfold and it has $10,000, and you need that $10,000. You're happy momentarily if you keep it. But in your soul, are you happy that you absconded with $10,000 that perhaps an elderly man lost, and it was the money that was going to pay for his cancer treatment or his final mortgage payment or something like that? I think that the idea is that the spirituality is something that's above oneself, and happiness in that context is something, I think it's a deeper medium, and that's what I try to sort of explore. My characters and all of the care. I didn't say all of them, but all the major characters have these issues. So just like I think anybody on a typical day, on a typical year, and if you're fortunate, you never have to make a Hobson's Choice, but sometimes people do. And it's. The question is it's going to make you happy, is it going to make somebody else happy? And if making somebody else happy ultimately makes you happy, that's more of a heightened level, I think, of happiness than a superficial level. As a happiness expert, how do you discern between happiness on a superficial level and happiness on a higher level? Do you know what I'm talking about?

SAMIA: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, the very first time that I started to sort of learn about this was in the context of positive psychology framework. And so in. In positive psychology, there's actually an identification of different kinds of happiness, and there's a recognition that there's different sources or different causes for each of these different kinds of happiness, you know, and so the first kind of happiness that's, you know, talked about is basically the one kind that everyone experiences. And most of the time, a lot of times this is the only kind people are thinking about when they think about happiness because it's the most commonly experienced and it's the kind of happiness that it's, it requires outside stimulation. So something happens in your environment outside of you that stimulates happiness response in you. So for example, you meet someone that you love, that you like, it makes you so happy to meet them. Or you know, something happens like you win the lottery or you know, you go and you have some other experience like visiting a garden or you know, you end up in some really beautiful place and you know, there's all the stimuli that you find very stimulating in terms of, oh, I feel so happy to be here in this place, etc... And so, you know, there's this kind of outward stimulation of the happiness response in you. And like I said, this is the most commonly type of experience happiness. Everyone has experienced it and a lot of people, they think this is it, this is it and so they're chasing after happiness. You know, that whole idea of the pursuit of happiness, it's like people are usually thinking of this kind of happiness. You know, they're like, okay, what's the next thing that I need so that I can feel this happiness? The problem in this kind of happiness is that you, it's very, it's like not really within your control because it depends on the, this external stimulation, you know, so you lose the external stimuli. Like the person that you love goes away or now your environment is not as beautiful, peaceful, calm, you know, and you're in a really ugly looking place, so to speak. So suddenly now you can't feel happy because of where you are and you know, these kinds of things. And so if this is your primary way of experiencing happiness, life is a very. Life as an experience is very much like a roller coaster. You know, it feels very out of control and you have these big ups and downs that you experience at an emotional level. So you know, as a happiness expert, we're like, you know, don't worry about this kind of happiness because you're going to experience it anyway. So what we want to focus on is developing the second and third kinds and really grounding ourselves more and more in them. So the second kind of happiness is the kind that you cultivate as a result of living a life of meaning and purpose. So you have to, you know, sort of go on this journey of discovering for yourself what is it that you really value? What are the strengths that you have, you know, as a person, you know, in terms of your character? And so when you live in alignment with your values, you utilize your strengths, you know, you do things, you end up doing things that are more meaningful for you. You find some sense of purpose in what you're doing, right? I mean, this gives you a sense of happiness that is, you can also use words like contentment and fulfillment, you know, and the source of it is internal. It's not dependent on anything external. I mean, there's connections to like, how you behave externally, obviously, but it's like really internally generated. And so this is a kind of happiness that you can actually, actually sort of consciously cultivate in your life, you know, no matter what's going on in your life. And similarly, the third kind of happiness is actually that, you know, I know, like a lot of times when you think about psychology, psychology research in modern west, oftentimes people don't connect it with spirituality at all. But actually within positive psychology, it recognizes, and the research shows that people who have a sense of spirituality, who live into that sense, who grow and actively work to grow their spirituality, creates again this kind of happiness to a third kind of happiness that you begin to experience that again is more internally sourced. And it's more like when you are able to experience even beyond just fulfillment and contentment, to like, experience bliss and experience even deeper levels of like, you know, like, you know, because it. In the positive psychology research, the... What they focus on is this feeling of connection, this feeling of oneness with something greater than yourself. So the more expansive your experience and your feeling of connection with something other than you, the deeper your sense of spirit spirituality, you know, so it's like you feel connected to your family. That's actually a spiritual thing that you're experiencing because you're going beyond yourself. You feel connected with your community. And maybe there's like different ways in which you define your community. Maybe it's on the basis of religion or race or gender, or maybe all of these things, right? And so the more acceptance, expansive your sense of community and you feel connected to your community. Actually, the deeper your sense of spirituality and the more happiness you experience, the spiritual happiness you experience. If you feel, you know, connected to the earth, you know, to other living creatures. Wow. Now, you have expanded your sense of spirituality, your experience of spirituality even more right. And so then you get to expand your experience of happiness, spiritual happiness, even more so... It's like a really beautiful process that encourages you to keep growing and expanding your awareness and consciousness of everything that you are connected to. And so that's the sort of essence of spirituality that the positive psychology research focuses on. Yeah.

CJ: That was a terrific explanation and hope you don't mind I was taking notes…

SAMIA: Please, please share that in any way you like with others…

CJ: Because it makes for a great perhaps discussion in my fourth book to get into that. But it sounds to me like the first type of happiness you discussed, which involved outside stimulation, is really more of a superficial type of happiness. And the second and third are less superficial, and certainly the third is more spiritual, spiritually based, and the second is less superficial. So that's all very interesting. And without me knowing these categories, I think that the, certainly the heroine in the book has, you know, grows from a point where she's experiencing the first type, where she realizes that the second and third types of happiness are the types of happiness that she really, that's really going to make her really, really going to make her happy, quote-unquote. But when you think about it. Let me ask you another question. If you don't want to know, you're the one who's supposed to be asking no question…

SAMIA: Yeah.

CJ: So I, if I had to put my money on it now, I could be wrong. I would bet that most humans probably don't realize that happiness, the second and the third are the more important ones until they are older in life. That just be my guess. Or they've experienced a certain amount of years, I mean, outside of their 20s perhaps. I mean, what are your thoughts on that?

SAMIA: Yeah, it's not necessarily age dependent, but yeah, a lot of people, people like I think one of the theories, especially like to look at it from a religious perspective. One of the theories is that, you know, like spiritually, like a, souls as spirits, we know where we come from in terms of like we are spiritual beings in essence. And at a soul level, at a spirit level, we know what our reality is. We know what our source is. And at a soul level, spirit level, we also know that we are on a journey of learning and growth to go back to our source, you know, to sort of, and a lot of that journey has to do with like what are we trying to learn, you know, so what you're really trying to learn is to learn to be loved and to love more and more deeply and fully because our source is you know, like, we were created from love and out of love. And if we disconnect from that, from that love to whatever extent, you know, I mean, we're unhappy, we're miserable. That's the real hell that, you know, we experience. And so the, so our journey as spiritual beings is to melt fully back into the love, right. And so we have to learn better and better how to love and be loved. And so our, insofar as our spiritual selves are aware of this goal and, you know, we have already learned. I mean, it's not like we're born without knowing anything. We're not starting from point zero in our spiritual journey. And so we already have a lot of, let's say, intuition and inner knowledge like that will lead us in the right direction if we follow it. But what happens is that a lot of times the social context within which we are growing sort of can confuse us or teach us different lessons, you know, but that's also like, from a spiritual perspective, that's all part of the, of the grander plan, because when you get yourself in trouble by going off in the wrong direction, that is actually a part of what helps you learn the lessons that you need to learn about how to love and be loved. And so, like you were saying, the coincidences, there are no real coincidences in that way. It's like you getting in trouble is just another opportunity that the universe, the divine, has created for you to be able to learn the lessons you need to learn. So, you know, it's like, it's not an age thing, but it, there is, it's more about how open are you to learning and growing. And a lot of people, either they learn to shut down, to close themselves off because of experiences that they have. Like, I, it happened to me. I was sexually abused as a child, and I shut down, I went inward, and I was like, forget about growth. I mean, as a child, obviously, consciously, I wasn't thinking through any of this, but my actual reality of what happened in terms of my experiences like that, I was so scared to try anything new, to take any risks, that it naturally just stunted my growth, right. And made me not open to learning new things or trying new things, etc. And so, you know, and there's other people who are just more open to growth and learning even when they're young, and even if something bad happens, their response is different than mine was. I know other survivors who went through something similar to what I might have gone through, but their response was to reach out for help and support, whereas I didn't... It took me like 10, 11 years before I told the first person that I told about what had happened to me and actively reached out for help, you know, but I know other survivors who reached out much sooner than that or even immediately. And they were sometimes able to receive the help and support they really needed, and other times it didn't work out so bad. And you know, they fell into, they had to deal with more challenges before, you know, finding the help and support that they did need. But the point is that, you know, it's like different people react differently to adversity, to challenges, and a lot of that, like according to some theories, you know, it's like these, you have these character strengths that, that are just part of who you are as a person. And so like different people have... Everyone has character strengths. And it's just a question of do you recognize what your character strengths are, and can you, and how can you utilize them to help you grow? Right. And so your question was... Yeah. Is it age-dependent? No. So it's like different people have different character strengths and some people's, even from when they're little people, you know, they have character strengths that allow them to be more connected and stay more connected with their spirit spiritual cells. So it's not, I don't think it's age abandoned.

CJ: So it's dependent, it's on an individual, by individual basis depending on how you're, how open you are to achieving happiness in any of the... Whether you. Above the, above. The first one.

SAMIA: Yeah, yeah. It's about, you know, the kind of character that you are born with, right. So we are all born with different characters because we have different lessons to learn. So this is again going back to this more spiritual perspective of like how we come to be who we are. So it's like you need to learn different lessons in your life and I need to learn different lessons in my life. So each one of us is given the perfect character and the perfect set of life challenges to deal with to learn the lessons that you and I individually need to learn. Right. And so I think for me, one thing that I realized is that I had a lot of lessons to learn about power and control in my life, about how to understand power, how to... Because, you know, like my experience of being a survivor of abuse created for me conditions where, you know, I develop where, you know, in my life, it may brought to the surface all the fears and concerns that I had about being out of control and not being able to control my wellness, my safety, you know, and so in that context, feeling very helpless, very powerless. And so to go from that. And that was something that. From a spiritual perspective, that was not just a struggle that I developed by accident in this life because of the trauma I went through in this life, but that was a struggle that was. That my soul was going through. And so when I was born into this life, my soul was like, okay, what are the set of challenges and circumstances that we could experience as a human that would really help us to figure out and solve these, learn these lessons about power and control so that we can love better and be loved better, right. And so as I have been healing, you know, the trauma of the abuse that I went through, these are some of the deepest lessons that I've learned about, you know. Wow. Learning to feel safe, learning to recognize what I can and cannot control and how to continue to feel safe and empowered, even in situations where I'm not able to directly control this or that. I mean, these are really powerful lessons to learn. And as I've learned them, I've experienced so much here, healing, right. And so if I hadn't gone through this trauma that I did as a child, would I still be able to learn these lessons? Yeah, of course. But, you know, some other challenging situation would have had to arise in my life for me to really force me to face these fears that I had as a soul, right. Because otherwise, we don't oftentimes want to face our fears. That's the thing. And so, like, I didn't want to face my fears. I didn't want to face my fears at all, but I was forced to because of the circumstance that I found myself in, you know, and so. Yeah…

CJ: Thank you. Thank you. These are some terrific concepts, and they kind of meld into some of the concepts that I've been endeavoring to bring out in the books.

So maybe in my fourth book, I'll incorporate some of this. Some of your thoughts on happiness with regard to the main character, Stefania, because this sort of just goes with what. The type of thing that I've been building on with regard to her from the first book through the third book, and now under the fourth book...

SAMIA: Yay. Well, that makes me even more excited to read all of your books.

Ah... I've been keeping, I'm so sorry, CJ... I'm like, I keep losing track of time.

CJ: Well, that's okay.

SAMIA: In terms of... Yeah, having so much fun talking to you, but I do see we are approaching nearly an hour of time you've been together. And I think before I let myself run away with more conversation with you, we should begin to actually wrap up. So have any last thoughts you would love to share with our audience?

CJ: No, I, I thank you for the great conversation, Samia. If anyone's interested in my books, my website is www.cjtoca.com. the books are all on there, and I've been on a number of other podcasts. And I assume that you don't have a problem with me posting this podcast on the website when it comes out.

SAMIA: Yeah, absolutely. And please share the episode with your people when it drops. And for us, when we drop the episode, you know, I always remind our listeners, please make sure you check the show notes because we will be dropping CJ's link in there for his website so you can be sure that you're reaching the right person, reaching the right author, and find all his books and check them out and have fun with it and learn from them and let us know how it goes for you, how you enjoy the book. But I know CJ would be very interested in that feedback and actually, so would I. So let us know. And yeah, other than that, until we connect next time, I just wish you lots and lots of peace and joy. :)