Atousa Raissyan: Your Guiding Light to a Better Life
Game changer”, “intuitive gifted healer”, “guiding light”, “life changing”, “magic” and “a blessing” are often how Atousa Raissyan’s clients describe their experience with her. She is a Certified heart-centered Transformational Healer, Shaman, Spiritual Teacher, Digital Artist, Poet and Motivational Speaker.
Atousa has extensive experience in, and passion for, helping individuals to discover and tap into their “true self”, in order to unlock their potential to experience their desired life, in terms of abundance, relationship and personal well-being. She has been featured in Potomac Lifestyle Magazine, Entrepreneurs Herald, and USA Today.
She is most proud of the positive impact she has made in her client’s lives which is reflected in her client testimonials.
Websites:
www.atousaraissyan.com
www.SoulysticArtShop.com
Instagram: @atousar and @soulystic
Facebook: @soulystic
Interview Transcript Atousa Raissyan
Richard Lowe 00:03
Hello, this is Richard Lowe with author talks. I’m a ghostwriter, a writing coach and LinkedIn branding expert. So if you need any of those services, connect with me, I’m here with Well, why don’t you pronounce your name for me?
Atousa Raissyan 00:16
I to sell rice. Yeah.
Richard Lowe 00:18
That is rice. Yeah. Thank you. Perfect. Wanted to get that right. And she’s an author, we’re gonna talk, we’re gonna have a conversation today. So why don’t you introduce yourself?
Atousa Raissyan 00:28
Thanks for having me. First of all, on your talk show Richard. I’m so happy to be here. A little bit about me. My name is a to salvation. I’m originally from Iran. And I just published my book is called Change yourself, change the world, transform your life from fear based living to choosing love and seeing magic. And by trade I’m shaman, healer, life guide and author, poet, you know, a lot of different titles out there.
Richard Lowe 01:05
Sure, that sounds very interesting. How did you get into well, writing a book, what just made you decide to do that,
Atousa Raissyan 01:13
um, for longtime when I went through my own sort of transformational journey, healing journey, I really when I started feeling better and realizing it is simple, and it is not. But it is simpler to have an easier life, a good life to get all those things that you want. And when you start feeling good, I wanted to share it. And I saw my clients when they come to me how much they transform and change and they feel better. And then each one of them comes back and says, you know, the people around them are changing. And so that prompted me to want to get the message out there. And the best way I thought is, you know, doing a book,
Richard Lowe 02:02
then you self publish it.
Atousa Raissyan 02:04
i They call it self publishing. I mean, I had help. I used ama publishing, to help me, you know, format the book, put it all together, put it on Amazon and all those things. But yes, you know, I came up with the cover art actually. And all that promotional stuff that you do to get it out there is was all me for most part.
Richard Lowe 02:30
Yeah, most writers hit the promotion and they don’t know what to do at that point. Promotion is hard.
Atousa Raissyan 02:37
It is hard. But honestly, the book went beyond my expectations. You know, I was expecting okay, you know, they’re gonna help me as well. And you know, you get number one, maybe in one category, but I hit number one. And when the ebook came out on three or four categories, and it stayed that way for like three days and even international. I, for first couple days, I think I hit top three in number hot new releases. And then yeah, and then when the paperback cut that one to hit number one, as well. And it stayed number one for two days.
Richard Lowe 03:22
Very nice. Yes. I know the feeling. I’ve had two books hit top 10 and Kindle bestsellers, and then high on the category list guide number one on categories several times different books. It’s a really good feelings.
Atousa Raissyan 03:37
It is it is especially like I said, I wasn’t export the paperback, I did not expect that at all. And the ebook I said, you know, maybe one category at most two and you know, maybe one day, but yeah, it’s done well, so I’m really happy and it’s gotten good feedback from people.
Richard Lowe 03:57
That’s nice. That’s nice. Yeah, there’s nothing worse than waking up and finding a couple of dozen one star reviews, right?
Atousa Raissyan 04:03
Yes, you don’t want those?
Richard Lowe 04:05
Yeah, never got I’ve gotten a couple one stars. That’s normal, but never, never very many. Some of my earlier books I could read I could actually use some polishing on. Yeah.
Atousa Raissyan 04:17
Yeah. So this is actually I was in a multi author book before this one. That one we did pretty good. And then I’m in another multi author book that’s coming out. September 22, actually,
Richard Lowe 04:30
Oh, nice. Nice.
Atousa Raissyan 04:33
Yeah, the multi author books are easier than the solo ones.
Richard Lowe 04:37
Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I just I just collaborated one of those two. And they’re trying to get more authors. So you said you’re from Iran. Do Are you born in Iran and come over here? How did that work?
Atousa Raissyan 04:51
Yes. The whole life stories in the book. But yes, I was born in Iran. And I was there for or the revolution for the war. And I came to us via Germany in 84. I actually got here April Fool’s sale. Tuesday. 1984.
Richard Lowe 05:13
Wow. So you were in the revolution against the Shah? Yeah. Yeah, I was there. Yeah. That’s quite a thing.
Atousa Raissyan 05:21
Yes, it was.
Richard Lowe 05:23
I imagine it was scary.
Atousa Raissyan 05:25
It was and especially as a kid, you know, parents? I don’t know, back then, I guess, didn’t they didn’t think to explain things to the kids. You know, you’re just there. You know, sort of like, I don’t want to hear I don’t want to see you type of thing, but nobody got to explain it. But there was it was really scary. You know, there was gun shots you would hear there. There’s something actually I mentioned in the book. One of my traumatic experiences was we woke up in the middle of the night because they were banging on our door. And our house was next to the bank and somebody knocked on our doors, like you need to leave because there’s a mob coming and they’re burning down everything. And most likely they’re going to burn down the bank. And we’re my mom grabbed my sister and I and we’re running in the middle of the street and I’m looking back and there’s a mob of men carrying torches wearing black and they’re like, right behind us chanting comic, and it was one of the scariest.
Richard Lowe 06:31
That’s sounds pretty frightening. Especially for a young person. Yeah. Well, for anybody really? Yeah. We just got through a hurricane here. Dismiss me.
Atousa Raissyan 06:41
Yeah. How did that go? You told me about that did any damages and Florida?
Richard Lowe 06:48
Oh, Florida had a lot of damages. It was about 100 miles north of me. So we just had a heck of a lot of rain. And winds but nothing. No thing really damaging to my area. So we dodged the bullet. Literally.
Atousa Raissyan 07:03
Nice. Nice. I’m glad we’ve had we’ve had some tornadoes. Here. They’re not usual for my area, but we’ve had some where are you? I’m in Maryland,
Richard Lowe 07:16
Maryland. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The the the storm, I think raised you a little bit.
Atousa Raissyan 07:21
Yes. Yes. This one they we had the warnings and everything but nothing too bad. But we’ve had. We’ve had some that actually did some damage around this.
Richard Lowe 07:33
Yeah, apparently this one near the beach. They had a 16 foot storm surge, which is a lot of water. That is Yeah. That means if you have a house on the beach or underwater Yeah. Third hurricane for me. And third earthquake. So I was three earthquakes in California, significant ones. I wrote a book on one of my books was real, real world survival. How to survive a disaster. And I wrote
Atousa Raissyan 08:00
we had some in actually in Maryland, here we had one when my son was younger. It wasn’t that bad. But it was so unexpected with because it’s not normal around here. Right. in Iran. We we used to get them so I remember that as well.
Richard Lowe 08:17
Yeah, Iran is right near some major earthquake zones. Yes, historically. And they can get pretty nasty. I think they’ve had some significant ones in Turkey and that area also.
Atousa Raissyan 08:31
Yes, yes. Yes. We as a kid, too. I think we had one. It was pretty bad. But nothing were around. I was living in Tehran at that time. Nothing bad around us. We just had the shaking but yeah, usually it does a lot of damage.
Richard Lowe 08:50
Yeah, yeah. Especially because I believe Iran doesn’t have anywhere near the building codes that the United States has on the West Coast.
Atousa Raissyan 08:57
to I don’t know if things have changed now. I haven’t been there for a long time. But yes, that’s
Richard Lowe 09:04
yes. And even then we had pancake freeways pancake, you know, the Barker, Derek collapsed. And down where I was another freeway collapsed and buildings collapsed. And Hollywood was a big one. I was in Hollywood quake. It was it was pretty big. Nothing like Fukushima or any of those places, but still big.
Atousa Raissyan 09:28
Yes, yes. I imagine.
Richard Lowe 09:30
Yeah. So you you work to help people be happier.
Atousa Raissyan 09:36
I don’t want to say happier because then everybody because right now everybody’s looking for that magic bullet to be happy. You know, I have to be happy. It’s not about being happy, but realizing there’s more to this life and it’s okay to have emotions. And when emotions come it’s okay to sort of like mood Carry it and be with it and go in it and see the reasoning behind it and why it’s there. What is it trying to teach you? What is it trying to show you about yourself, it’s more about going inside, and sort of finding that peace and joy inside. That’s not attached to what’s happening on the outside. Because a lot of times, I think that’s what people you know, I’ve had even clients that come to me, you know, they start panicking, you know, I’m, I’m sad, I’m, you know, got anxiety. But if you sit with those feelings a little bit and go into a deeper, you’ll see the reasoning behind it.
Richard Lowe 10:42
Yeah, yeah, I was raised. As a typical American family. And my father, if I cried, he would hit me and say, I’ll give you a reason to cry. And so that stuck with me through life. And when my wife finally passed away, after a long illness, I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t feel any emotion at all, I was just basically numb. And, to this day, I haven’t cried over it, because it wasn’t allowed. Now, when a cat died two weeks later, then I cried. Because I was just too much.
Atousa Raissyan 11:16
Exactly. And I think that’s, you bring up a good point that traditionally, in most cultures, most areas, they’ve taught the men, you know, you shouldn’t cry, you shouldn’t show emotions. And then they’ve told women that you’re too emotional. And then women try not to be emotional as well not to have those emotions, because then, you know, you’re a crazy woman, and you know, you’re, you know, hormonal, or whatever, they attach all these things to it. So everybody in their own way, is trying to fight emotions. And we are where we are, because of it,
Richard Lowe 11:56
I found that I actually take my emotion, whatever it is, and I put it in my stomach, put my anger here and my anxiety in the stomach. And it produces some interesting physical effects. And I’ve had to get quite a bit of counseling to figure that out and kind of burn it off, so to speak, and let it out. Because yeah, it’s not healthy, keeping it inside, and it does stick around.
Atousa Raissyan 12:21
It does. And, again, these are things I talk about in the book, as well. They’re all those illnesses that we carry, it’s has some tie to emotional things that we’ve experienced. And it is some of it also passed down from generations before that, you know, they didn’t know how to deal with things, and they pass it down to their kids. And all those things, you know, when you’re holding it in your body, the body like keeps a memory even sometimes mentally, or emotionally, you’ve dealt with things, but that memory of it somehow is in the body and you’re storing it. So in the book, I cover all that as well as how to release it how to go into it.
Richard Lowe 13:07
Yeah, yeah, releasing it is interesting. It’s, it’s a process. I tend to do a little walking and hiking and, and the renaissance fair, I go to the renaissance fairs, they used to have a place where you could buy a dish for $1 and smash it against the wall. That was always fun.
Atousa Raissyan 13:25
They don’t have that at all renaissance fairs. I love the Renaissance. I’ve been to it several times with my kid when he was younger. We’re planning on going this year, but we didn’t have the smashy I have to go look for that. Well.
Richard Lowe 13:39
That was at Corona, Bergen, California. Okay, I photographed over 300 fairs, I used to hire me to photograph Fairs and things and plus 1200 belly dance shows that came from the Renaissance Fair. So the Renaissance here has a belly dancers. So I got to know them. And they got to know me and I became their photographer buddy, to invite me to every show and front row seat. They got all the pictures. It was it was fun. It was fun.
Atousa Raissyan 14:05
But nature as you mentioned, nature is the one of the best medicines to help you heal and release things. And as you said, it does take time patience, and it does take its layers that are coming off. So you got to be patient and kind with yourself as you’re going through the process.
Richard Lowe 14:22
Yeah, yeah. when the wife passed away, it was super, super caved in super shy, and super introverted. I mean, I’ve been still an introvert. But back then, I wouldn’t talk to anybody, except for necessary things like work. And I decided to fix that. So I picked up the camera and started photographing so I could use a camera to talk to people to talk to the camera and more or less talk to them. They didn’t know it, of course. And after 1200 It was photoshoots and 300 renaissance fairs and probably all the national parks in Southern California, southern US and everything else you can imagine. The shyness broke the introversion didn’t let the shine That’s it because there’s no advantage to being shy. It’s it. When you think about it, there’s no advantage to introversion is a different story. But shyness, that means you don’t want to talk to people, and you have to talk to people. And exactly, it’s a society. And you know, if you’re like me, I’m a freelancer, I can’t survive without if I don’t talk to people. And one of the reasons why I do these, these interviews is to kind of continue that. First of all, I learned I liked learning about different cultures, different peoples, I’m thrilled that you’re from Iran, and it’s a different culture. I’ve known some Iranians before, always cool people, interesting culture, studied Persia, and Alexander the Great, and I don’t know how to pronounce his name Darius since the disease. Yeah. And those battles and things and love the time periods, and the love all the different cultures, much older than Western culture. Very rich. Yes. Yes. Fascinating. Read about
Atousa Raissyan 15:58
- Like you’re saying, though, that that’s what brings us all together to be able to share those stories and to be able to talk and it takes a little bit of vulnerability, you know, to go into that vulnerability that you’re feeling and knowing that you’re safe and okay to share a little bit of yourself. Yeah, it’s
Richard Lowe 16:17
very interesting, very interesting. I’ve always like a military history. So that pulled me into the Persian, Europe, the Romans also, you know, in the massive battles of the Romans against the Persians was fascinating to me, the Romans lost a big time. It wasn’t Persia, then, of course, some had some different name. I’m just fascinated by different cultures. And so one of the reasons why I did this, do this series here is to get that that field because writers are all over the world. So it gets some Indians, you know, some Persians, some, some South Americans, some Americans and Canadians, you know, everybody, and they’re all different. Everybody’s different. And I love it.
Atousa Raissyan 17:04
It is, it’s, we all have commonalities, and that everybody wants to feel better. Everybody wants to live a better life. And everybody’s doing their best. But yeah, all those. But it’s interesting. You mentioned all the wars and everything. And that’s how all this has started with where we are at today is all those battles, all those power struggles and everything that was based in fear of, you know, survival, fear of having more fear of not having, and gradually all those things has grown and grown and grown into the society. We are now that we have all these wars still happening around us.
Richard Lowe 17:54
Yeah, it’s tribalism, people, their tribe and that’s, they, it’s okay to be in a tribe. It’s okay. To be American, be Iranian be be whatever tribe you are, but you shouldn’t carry it to the point where other people are foreign species. They’re not foreign species. They’re humans in a different with different upbringing.
Atousa Raissyan 18:16
Exactly. But it’s the fear here, if the unknown, I don’t know who you are, I don’t know what you do. The way you do things scares me. So then I must protect myself against you.
Richard Lowe 18:27
Yep. I think it’s also dehumanizing that your tribe is human. The other tribe isn’t? Yes. And you know, you can hurt things that aren’t people. That’s easy. And but people once you realize they’re human, it becomes much harder. That’s I think one of the problems that narcissists have I just had another author last night, we talked about narcissism, she wrote a book on that. And narcissists don’t view others as human. They because they only view themselves. They don’t have any problem with hurting people at all. That it’s fine to hurt people. It’s it’s actually they want to, and it’s i My dad was a narcissist. And I’ve had many narcissists around in my life, that’s probably one of the probably address it in your book, the thing that that I’ve learned is get the toxic people out of your environment, you do much better.
Atousa Raissyan 19:18
Sure. But I go into it a little bit deeper to that those people if you look at their history, and how they were raised, and how their parents were raised, these things didn’t just happen. It’s like, again, generation to generation, all those traumas, all those experiences gets passed down. And each one of us when we don’t address the traumas that is being passed down to us, by the way of our parents behaviors, you know, they had their own problems, they had their own issues, they had their own issues with their upbringing and, you know, from my place, you know, I talked about in the book is that you know, my I grandparents, it was an arranged marriage. My grandmother was 15. My grandfather was 30. And just that by itself and the stories my grandmother used to tell us, my I loved my grandfather, he was the gentlest sold the best man I knew. But even we used to say that the meat you’re seeing today is not the meat that your grandmother got. And certainly he got better with his kids. But even his kids didn’t get what we got as grandkids, because by that time, he did a lot of soul searching a lot of sort of clearing out of his own stuff. So he, for us, he was much better. He was like a dad to us, even though like my dad was the dad to me. So all those things gets passed down from parent to parent, and nobody’s willing to stop and say, you know, what’s happening? And my grandmother, you know, at 15 to marry this man had kids, she was a kid herself. How could she be a mom?
Richard Lowe 21:11
Yeah, that’s interesting. That’s fascinating. I realized when I wasn’t going to counseling, which I still am, because counseling is great, that I was very angry. And the reason why I was very angry, because my dad was very angry. He was extremely angry, very bitter man. And once I realized that, a lot of the anger disappeared, and stopped, at least stopped coming out. And I became much more of a real human, I guess, you know, happier, because I didn’t need to be my dad. And being my dad was stupid, because he, basically, because he was so emotional. People didn’t want to deal with him. So he basically sabotage his own life. And, you know, drinking problems and things like that awesome. And, well, one of the good things about him being such a narcissist and bad person was, I decided not to be him. So he drank, I have never drank, he smoked, I don’t smoke. He whatever he did, I don’t do. Which is interesting, because he’s an artist, and I could never become an artist, you know, even the good stuff. I could I. So it took me a long time to understand the effect that he had on me, because I used to not be so not think he had an effect. I’m bigger than that. I’m better than that, you know, I ran away from home when I was 12. But I came back because I was afraid of what he would do to my sister. So even though it was 12 years old, I knew what he was going to do. And protected my sister, as best I could as a 12 year old and successfully. So now she’s a teacher. I mean, she owns a school, sorry, she owns a school with teachers and things. So we came up pretty good, in spite of the badness, but the emotions are still there.
Atousa Raissyan 23:03
Exactly. Exactly. The memory of all those traumas are there. And when we go into it again, with forgiveness, seeing it differently and releasing it, it really releases you, you start to feel lighter, and those triggers aren’t there anymore, as you release those things. Because, you know, and, you know, my clients see it all the time, the areas where they would get triggered, and they would get angry or upset or sad or scared. Now that, you know, they’ve taken those things out and dealt with it and released it and released the memory and the body. They’re not getting triggered anymore in those same places as they were before.
Richard Lowe 23:48
Yeah, yeah, triggering is interesting. I talked to some younger people too, and some all over the place, and they get triggered at a much lower level than I do. Like, it takes a lot to trigger me. And it always has, but the younger people, and this is just a generalization. I’m sure it’s not true of everybody, but they get called the wrong name or something and they get triggered. It’s like, that’s, I used to get hit with a two by four. That’s triggering. That’s a different level. Yeah. If you get when you get hit with your data from your data by a two by four, then you can say you’re triggered. I wrote a book by by a woman who was sold into slavery at age 14 by her parents. And she got out of it eventually. And you know, had a great life after that. But that’s triggering. That’s bad. Having somebody call you something wrong or a name or or talk bad about you on the internet. That’s minor
Atousa Raissyan 24:52
day but you’ll be surprised the effect of it for them.
Richard Lowe 24:57
Of course, of course I’m not. I’m not below Link Yeah,
Atousa Raissyan 25:01
no, but but the thing is that it’s triggering for them that you will find out. Because, again, things, we carry things from the generations before. And they, they get that way because of things that they witnessed they are experiencing. And as a general, I think that’s why, right now, you see the younger generation have a lot more, you know, labels of add ADHD, depression, they’re all on medication for some different things. I know. And, you know, bipolar this, that there’s just so much of it out right now. And I think that’s part of it.
Richard Lowe 25:50
No, I didn’t mean to belittle any of it. He’s triggering things, because everybody gets triggered by something. And I’ve just had to learn to suppress it. Because it got pretty bad. Yeah. Well, and you know, to survive, you learn to push it down. Yeah. So if somebody gets triggered by something, they should probably just mention it to somebody else. And you know, you triggered me or whatever, and we work it out. That’s something that I always say is, we should just talk. So if I do something that annoys you, let me know. If you do something that annoys me, let me know in a rational conversation, not a, you know, not a belittling kind of thing, not a gaslighting kind of thing, just, hey, that that made me feel bad. Okay, I’m sorry, I did that I’ll not do that in the future. And we’re done. Exactly. And you don’t have to get into the whys and wherefores, and blah, blah blahs. And you know, all this stuff back and forth about how you were terrible person, because you said that just just mentioned it. Most good people will then will then respect whatever you you know, as long as it’s not super intrusive, will respect you for that and go along with it.
Atousa Raissyan 27:00
I agree. There’s actually exercise in there in the book that I talk about, speak from your eye perspective, that every time you know, with those emotions, triggers whatever’s coming up, if you speak from like, I feel I wanted this, I need this. And you know, you’re not blaming the other person, you’re not pointing their finger, you’re just staying in you and speaking what’s happening in you. And you allow the other person it’s not about either whether they acknowledge it, don’t acknowledge it change or not change. But that exercise of you just speaking, that allows us to come out and not stay in view.
Richard Lowe 27:45
Exactly, exactly. It’s very important that that, that it comes from you, and it’s about you when you’re when you’re talking about that because you don’t want to belittle the other person. It’s even, it’s not even you made me feel bad. It’s that, that that behavior made me feel bad. Exactly. It’s not the person who made you feel bad. It’s just the behavior.
Atousa Raissyan 28:09
Exactly. And because it’s again, if you take that inside and find out, you’ll find out why. Because, you know, at some point in your life, you were having that same experience as a kid perhaps, and that is still in you. And that’s why you reacting in a way. You know, it’s interesting, like I, my sister, and I talk and, you know, we had the same parents, we pretty much you know, we’re in the same environment. She’s five years older than me, but her experiences were much different than mine.
Richard Lowe 28:47
Now, my sisters are different than mine, too, but we have a shared commonality. So we, we know that we were the same parents, but sometimes mine was rough for sometimes Rosewood rougher. She was the girl. So she she had, I think, a lot rougher than I did in many ways. In different ways. I tend to get more physically hit than she did. And I have no idea what went on with my mom. We did never witnessed anything with her. But I think she just became very subservient and just kind of went rolled with it. And didn’t didn’t do anything to spark my dad, although they fought a lot. Yeah, that’s,
Atousa Raissyan 29:29
you probably be surprised with your sister. A lot of times because I see this in my clients, the people that witnessed the beating of their siblings. They tend to have it a little bit worse, I would say because first of all, they feel so bad that they can do anything to help the sibling and sometimes they feel responsible for why the sibling was getting hit or beaten. And also there’s still fearful that that doesn’t happen to them that they become like, extra good, extra obedient.
Richard Lowe 30:07
I became super introverted. Yeah, because if I didn’t talk, I didn’t become a target. Yeah, my parents would argue, if I open my mouth, I was the reason they were arguing. And then I would be the target. And my sister did the same thing. And it became very hard to break that into versus hard to break. It’s in the shyness. Man, that took a lot of work.
Atousa Raissyan 30:31
I’m glad you did the work, though.
Richard Lowe 30:33
Yeah. Oh, yeah, it took many years, many years. And a lot of very patient people. And a lot of interesting, interesting thing about photographing dancers and things is there’s always that hour long when they’re getting ready with the makeup ready, sometimes two hours. And so while they’re getting the makeup ready, um, they would want to talk side learn a lot of things about somebody, sometimes very intimate things that they wouldn’t normally talk about, but I’m the photographer. So I’m, I guess I was safe. So I got some pretty interesting conversations. Nice about the most of my, my clients were women. So I got tough, you know, I learned a lot about from a woman’s point of view. And that then wouldn’t normally tell men. And it was very, very interesting. To me. The first of all, the viewpoint that a woman has, is very different than a man, the way they act is very different. I mean, people who say men and women are the same. It’s like, no, no, they are very, very different. Emotionally, physically, mentally, none. There’s no worse or better. You know, a band might be better at this. And one might be better at that. But overall, they’re not worse or better. I’m not a great cook. You know, a lot of women are great cooks, for example. That’s a pretty primitive example. But you know what I mean?
Atousa Raissyan 31:51
Yeah. But that’s, it’s a good education. You got a good education there from all the women and they’ll teaching you and it’s good that you were open enough to receive it.
Richard Lowe 32:04
Well, they also recognize that I was hurt when the wife passed away. So that I guess they got a little maternal too. So they became my protector in a way, you know, I had birthday parties that that I’d have 100 dancers come and dance for me. 100 Dance belly dancers. And it looked like a glitter bomb after they left went off and he glitter everywhere. rented a bar and I left the bar full of glitter and had to clean it up. It was funny. How many people can say that? You know? Exactly, exactly. I met two supermodels and had lunch with and that was one of my bucket list items. And got the viewpoint from two supermodels. That was fascinating. Very different viewpoint. It’s just I like I’ve learned to love to find out about other people, and what they feel and what they want and what they do and how they talk and how they speak and what their trials and tribulations were. I don’t want to be their counselor. That’s not my thing. Which sometimes, ghostwriting turns into, and then I have to back it off a little bit. Because you can’t write a book while they’re crying. It’s very hard to get information while somebody’s crying. And I turned down revenge books. They’ve been several of those. I want to write a book to get even with a woman who divorced me and blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, I’m not going to do that. There’s libel issues, and it’s really not my thing to make somebody else feel bad. There’s two sides to every story. You
Atousa Raissyan 33:38
such a wonderful thing that you’re doing. I love that that you know, people. It seems like you’re a comfortable, safe space for people to share their stories and open up and a lot of times Believe it or not, that’s what somebody needs. And
Richard Lowe 33:54
yeah, now the woman who was a slave for for a long time, a slave in America, you can guess what kind of slave for about 15 years, we had some fascinating conversations about what that meant, and how she recovered and got out and how she got away. And mate rebuilt her life, found a man who was a Christian and believed in her and now she’s got five kids and is doing great. That whole journey was awesome. You know, now when somebody tells me Oh, my life is bad. I’m like, I guarantee you it’s not even some of the stuff that I went through. Can’t even come close to comparing what she went through. So and she recovered.
Atousa Raissyan 34:38
And exactly,
Richard Lowe 34:39
she got and, you know, I’ve written books about people who were alcoholics and recovered. Same thing. It’s hard to get as low as being an alcoholic and watch your life go down to nothing and you lose everything and then come back. And I don’t I don’t understand that because I’ve never been an alcoholic but I understand it because I’ve written books about it now. And it’s those people are not very happy, they could probably use your book.
Atousa Raissyan 35:11
I have I have clients that are have been addicts. And yes, it just, it’s a willingness. And that’s what I was hoping with this book is that if you’re just be willing to open up and see things a little bit different, and just start to shift a little, then everything else will come together. Because there’s always, you know, then you start to feel that connection. You know, when you’re going, you mentioned, you go in nature, the reason nature is so healing because of that energy that’s out there, and we’re connecting to it consciously or unconsciously. And we naturally feel better, we feel connected. And that connection, when you start to feel it inside of you, and you just start to shift, then it opens up and opens up and, you know, you start to shift and change things.
Richard Lowe 36:12
Exactly, exactly. Yeah, life is interesting. And my viewpoint now now that I’m older is you can either let it happen to you, or you can make it happen. And you’ll be happier if you make it happen. Yeah, I guarantee you.
Atousa Raissyan 36:30
You always have choice. The main two things that I talk about a lot in the book is taking responsibility for your life. And that is saying that it’s not the circumstance, not blaming anybody, not blaming the circumstance, not blaming any of it fully taking responsibility of your life. And then the other one is choice that you always have choice. And if you see that you have choice, those two together, really, you start to feel your power in your life and with the life that you’re creating.
Richard Lowe 37:03
Yeah, I’ve been reading a lot about iconic people, people who are who rise away above, you know, like Mother Teresa and, and Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, I’ve been looking reading about his life is one of those people who’s like once in a lifetime kind of person, he really goes beyond the norm. And he didn’t put up with anything. And a lot of people may not like him because of that. But he also recognized that he fails a lot. And that helps him succeed. He’s every failure. He preaches this doesn’t preach, but says this, that every failure is a success, because he learns from it. What has he learned something new, you know, I mean, he says, he missed more shots than he made. But every one of those ones, he learned how to make better shots. And fascinating guy just watched the movie air is called in, kind of just, it’s about him, but he’s only in it a little bit. And it’s not him. Of course, it’s an actor. Fascinating stuff. I didn’t really know much about Michael Jordan until recently. And then Nelson Mandela, some of these people who really, really stretched themselves and became well iconic because we remember them. What’s the other one? Martin Luther King? Martin Luther King is a fascinating guy. With a lot of respect for him, turning it into a non violent thing. And because, you know, in those situations, the answer seems to be violence. But it doesn’t need to be violence. It definitely, violence is not going to be the answer under under most conditions. I’m not going to say under all conditions, but under most conditions, violence is not really the answer. I think Isaac Asimov said violence is the last, the last. Violence is caused by the incompetence. That’s not the exact thing. But if you’re competent, you can you don’t need violence. But if you’re incompetent, violence is what happens.
Atousa Raissyan 39:11
Exactly. I think violence again, is just the reason everybody’s in the mode to protect themselves. Well, because we’re all seeing that separation that we’ve caused over centuries between ourselves that separation has caused us to that fear and that fear and separation together is we’re in protect mode. And when you’re in protect mode, you’re in fight mode.
Richard Lowe 39:40
But I will say sometimes violence is the answer. I was. I used to work walk to school when I was on, believe it or not. We used to walk two miles to school without parents. When I was growing up, and every single day I would get beat up because I was the nerd I was the Science Guy. You know, and I was skinny and I get beat up by this bully asked the parents for help. If nothing else is traceable, nothing’s my imagination, you know, in spite of the blood. So finally one day, I said, Okay, I can continue beating up, or I can do something. So I just became I just went berserk, and got the, the Jesus beaten out of me. I mean, I was bloody I was, I lost the fight. He never fought me again. Exactly, because he knew that I that he wasn’t going to have an easy time taking my lunch from me anymore. So he went to other people. And it was a lesson that violence isn’t the answer, but sometimes it is the answer.
Atousa Raissyan 40:46
Yeah, but I think I don’t know, I don’t want to call that really violence. What you did is like, you know, I’ve tried other options, you know, I had choices. I tried this choice, I tried this choice. Now let’s try this choice and see, maybe this works. So it wasn’t, you know, violence to me is when you’re just in a place that you want to hurt. You want to take the other person down? And it’s a constant thing? It’s not Yeah.
Richard Lowe 41:21
Yeah, violence is interesting. And I find prejudice even more interesting. When I, I’ll tell you my prejudice story, you’ll, you’ll get a kick out of it. I think my parents brought me up that anybody who was different was bad. So black people, you’re gonna, I was gonna die. If you if you met a black person Prepare to die, you’re gonna get knifed, you’re gonna, I mean, literally, they’re gonna kill you, Mexicans in the whole thing. They had all the names. And it was so I didn’t know any better. So they started desegregation, you know, busing the black kids to the white schools, and like, it’s the black schools back then. So I was on the first time they started doing that. I get on the bus, there’s one seat, and it’s next to black kids. And I was like, Oh, my God, I’m gonna die today. 10 years old, I’m gonna die. As I sat down next to the blackhead. And I looked at his face, and I thought, he’s more afraid of me than I am of him. This is not what my parents said. We became best friends. Literally, best friends. I mean, through the whole, the whole time, we were a couple years old, it was funny, because I was hanging out with the black kid, the white kid stopped beating me up. Because he was pretty big.
Atousa Raissyan 42:35
But isn’t that amazing that you were able to just pause and go into your own fear, allow your fear to be there, to recognize his fear as well. And that was what brought you together. And that’s an amazing story. That’s wonderful.
Richard Lowe 42:56
Out of all my friendships in that time period of my life. That’s the only one that I remember. Was him. We became pretty good friends, you know, as much as much as you can be friends at that age and, and piled around a lot. And I did his homework and he kind of kept people from beating me up and and, you know, we played around in the school yards and stuff like that. That’s, that’s when I learned that. Okay, people can talk about prejudice all they want, but it’s probably alive. Yes. And the other time was my parents also said Mormons a babies literally, you Mormons will kidnap your children and eat them. And for some reason, I bought into that. But this is before the internet will keep in mind I had to do my genealogy. If you do any genealogy, you have to go to the Mormons. There’s no choice. The Mormons keep records, like you won’t believe they keep all of them because it’s part of their religion. So I had to go get the records. So I had to go to the Mormon temple. And I was terrified. nicest people I’ve ever met in my life. They were Yeah, they didn’t try and convert me. They certainly didn’t try and steal a baby. They they were nicest people I’ve ever met in my entire life. I learned a lot about my genealogy. They showed me how to use the microfiche machines is in the basement. And it was fun. And now one of my very, very best friends Her name is Erica. She’s a dancer her stage name is karma. She’s a Gothic, Gothic, belly dancer, Gothic Mormon belly dancer. And she’s orthodox. She’s hot, heavily anti she’s not no minor, you know? No closet, Mormon, and she is one of my best friends. I’ve taken 1000s of pictures of her organo and we’ve we I walked all over Southern California and stuff 1000 oaks. And it’s just fascinating that how life if you just open your mind, and I’m sure you talk about this in your book a lot changes you. I could have just not as good as it said on I’m not going to be my genealogy. I gotta go talk to Mormons, but it says, No, I’m gonna go do that. They’re probably not going to kill me. And they didn’t.
Atousa Raissyan 45:30
And but that’s the thing again, with you, I think it’s, you take that time to go into your fears, and sit with it and find it and say, okay, the fear is here, I see it, I feel it. And yet, let’s just go and see what’s going to happen. Let’s go see what this is all about. And you recognize, in that you start to see it a little bit more clearly, and recognize the other side of things. And, you know, again, goes back, everybody, this is what you chose. But a lot of people those things that their parents have told them, there’s somewhere inside of them. And it’s probably triggering them, without them realizing, well, of course, and they don’t know. And that’s where those things, you know, when you told those things, as a kid, it stays with you.
Richard Lowe 46:24
It does stay with me. And it still sometimes produces the mild nervousness when I talk to somebody else. Every one of these interviews 10 minutes before the interview, I want to cancel it. But it’s like, Nah, you know, I’m having this is fun. And it’s it only takes you know, what, 45 minutes to an hour to do the interview and another half hour to put it up online. It’s not that much work. And it’s fun. And it gets me out of my I mean, I mean, I’m sitting here in my office all day long. So it gets me out of my head a little bit. Talk to some interesting people. And assessing. Trader Joe’s when I worked, I had the most diverse team in the company. I mean, I had people from every culture that worked for me, or worked in peer groups. We had a Palestinian and an Israeli, while the while the Palestinians were lobbing rockets into Israel, and my God, I had to keep those two people apart. They were at each other’s throats.
Atousa Raissyan 47:18
Yeah, there’s a lot of ocean lot of history when you get into those areas. I mean, even Iran, they got, again, not talking about today, Iran, I haven’t been there. But I know from when I was there, and that whole generation still they talk about, you know, Arabs, Arabs, this Arabs that and, you know, they feel like Persia, you know, Arabs came over and they took over and you know, where we’re supposed to be this great people. And so every when you get back there, that’s all still generations, generations later. For them. It’s I mean, they, the war is still continuing. For us. There is no wars, actually. But we’re still continuing it in those conversations. And in those stories and the way you present it, you know, like your parents told, you know, the Mormons eat babies. You know,
Richard Lowe 48:23
that’s literally what they said to that’s literally what they told me. Yeah,
Atousa Raissyan 48:27
luckily, my parents didn’t say that. But even though my parents didn’t say that, you would hear that constantly all around you.
Richard Lowe 48:36
Yeah. Yeah. So I’ve been finding people, there are evil people. narcissists are evil people. They don’t mean good. I mean, that’s what I mean by that. They don’t mean, they don’t mean good on anybody. But most people are not evil, they might be stuck in some situation that makes them not act, right. Like addictions or things like that. But they’re not necessarily evil. They don’t necessarily have bad things at heart. And nonetheless, I do have caution around people who are toxic. I used to when I lived in Hollywood, I lived with literally in gang land, Lily, white boy and gang land. And I learned something then is even the gang members. If you treat them with respect, they’re, they’re fine. You know, and stay out of the gunfights. There were murderers all the time. But I’d walk up to one and say hi, how you doing? Hey, that’s a nice tattoo. Tattoos are always a good way. By the way, if anybody wants to learn how to pick up women, if they have tattoos, just mentioned their tattoos. Anybody I mean, just talking about their tattoos is pretty safe, you know? Because they haven’t there. What’s that tattoo mean? You’re in a conversation now for half an hour and you’d be best buddies by the time they’re done. I haven’t had to use both arms. And so I know that’s a
Atousa Raissyan 49:50
good point. Yeah, everybody has tattoos. That’s a very popular thing. My son wants to get a tattoo yet. He’s almost 16 He’s been talking about tattoos since he was in like third four. fourth grade.
Richard Lowe 50:01
When I got tattoos, my tattoo artist was somebody I photographed a lot. And he used to do dance shows. I mean, he used to sponsor dance shows, and stuff really nice guy named Zulu. And he, he said, I will do your tattoos if you wait one year. And if you still wanted in a year, I will do it. I was like, Okay, I still wanted it in a year. So I brought my best friend who’s from she’s an Indian. I’m pronouncing this wrong, I’m sure bras anthem dancer. She does. It’s classical Indian dance. And she went with me to the debt tea shop. And her role, her mission was to laugh every time I screamed in pain. I told her to do that. Because it took the sting off. And she laughed a lot. Because I spent eight hours in a chair doing this one, eight hours straight except for lunch. And she had a blast.
Atousa Raissyan 50:59
Yeah, my son, I think he’s gonna be one of those because again, he’s been talking about it since he was in fourth grade. And he still wants it. And he has done the research, different tattoo artists and the pain involved. He knows all about it. So I am pretty sure he is getting a tattoo how many? I don’t know. But yeah, it wasn’t a face that he’s he didn’t grow out if he still wants it after all these years.
Richard Lowe 51:33
My recommendation to him is number one. Pick places to begin with at least where you can cover them if you want. Don’t do the face. Yeah, no, no, but put it I put them on my arm so that I can cover them. If I want to. I can show them off if I want to. Makes it easier to get a job. Yeah, and to socialize and things. Some people don’t like tattoos and you know, whatever. Some people you might need in your life, don’t like tattoos, so you can just cover them up. Also, make sure that your tattoo artist is using organic inks rather than metal inks because the metal can hurt you. And don’t go for a cheap one. Get get a high end, cuz you’re only gonna do it once. So save up the money. It’s not gonna be a recurring money, you know, over your lifetime. So get a good one. I got the best one in Beverly Hills, and they’re under 12 years old and they’re still looking great. And they’re gonna hurt
Atousa Raissyan 52:30
you he knows he like I’m telling you he’s done all he knows up here. Know, he know, like he’s seen it. He knows the pain like he he’s, he’s watched enough to understand the pain. And he’s picked up artwork and he’s picked the locations and like I said, you know, it’s like, I’m not doing it on my face. You know, he’s gonna do one here. He’s gonna do it in the back of the shoulders on the and he’s picked it out even the artwork. What goes were
Richard Lowe 53:04
good. Yeah, that’s that’s good. He’s thinking it through. He’s it’s not a spur of the moment thing. I know a woman who got a Taco Bell come on her shoulder and poop on the other shoulder. With flies flying on. It’s like what the heck? Yeah. Your tattoos stuck with you for your entire life. Do you? Does that really represent you? Mine’s a Phoenix, which, when my wife passed away, I was reborn. And the other one’s a dragon. I dragons like me, you know, dragons are gentle, intelligent, wonderful creatures to be around. Don’t piss them off. That’s curl snake girl snakes. Same thing. Girl snakes are gentle animals, you know they will not bite you. Unless you piss them off.
Atousa Raissyan 53:47
He wanted to have my name or I love mom or something about me on as a tattoo. I said I love you. Please don’t put I love mom. Don’t put my name anywhere. Your girlfriend, your wife. Nobody wants to see that. Okay, just don’t do that. Don’t do any washes do exactly. I said just pick something that represents me and represents you. I’m okay with that. But don’t put my name or I love my
Richard Lowe 54:13
name names because first of all, they can be misspelled. And second of all, if you put your girlfriend’s name what happens when she’s not your girlfriend? Then you get married? And listen, unless you happen to have the same name. Don’t use words at all. Yeah, use symbols. And by the way, interesting thing that I found out is the different color ink hurts differently. orange ink really hurts. Red ink a little bit less green ink barely felt interesting. Different colors hurt differently and Black and White doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much unless it’s the shading kind. So it’s interesting. It’s very interesting. Yeah, you probably have no tattoos like I don’t think you do.
Atousa Raissyan 54:54
I don’t I don’t I don’t know why I there was a brief period I wanted Some, but then I don’t. I don’t like anything. I actually like even jewelry. I used to wear jewelry now I watch rings, earrings necklace, I can’t have any of it on me. And to me tattoo would be just something like that, that I would constantly feel like I want to take it off. So yeah, no tattoos, but I think the art is beautiful. And like I said, if you’re really in it and you want it, it’s not a spur of the moment, like you mentioned, I think it’s great. And I respect actually his choice because, again, he’s shown me like, this is something he’s thought about. He’s looked into, and it’s for so many years, that when he told me I’m like, you know, I have no problem with you getting these tattoos.
Richard Lowe 55:53
Yep. Yep. That’s very good. That’s very good. Well, we’ve been on the phone for almost an hour. Wow. A conversation. Thank you for coming, guys. Anything you’d like to say to our audience? Before we hang up?
Atousa Raissyan 56:07
No, thank you so much, if they like to get the book is available on Amazon, the Kindle version and paperback, the name of the book is change yourself, change the world, transform your life from fear based living to choosing love and seeing magic. The cover art is my artwork, and it’s augmented reality art, it comes to life. And if you want to get a hold of me for any of my services, or just to chat, all my information is on the website, in the book, and the website is just my first name last name.com.
Richard Lowe 56:49
Yeah, and that link will be in the in the description. I’m assuming you sent it to me. I think so. Yeah. If not, we’ll figure it out. Yes, and I’m Richard Lowe. I’m the writing king. And I do ghost writing and writing coaching, and LinkedIn branding. So if you need help with any of those things, contact me. And you’re probably watching this on my website or on YouTube, so you should be able to find me. And that’s it. Thank you for coming. Thank you
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It was very nice to connect and I think we covered so many topics in this conversation.