Step into an expanded understanding of consciousness with meditation teacher Regina Leffers on this uplifting episode of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life.

Together with we guide you through the hidden landscape of consciousness, offering a fresh perspective beyond hierarchy or spiritual ego. Instead, consciousness is an ever-expanding inclusion of more of what exists—leading us from mere survival to profound states of oneness and joy.

Here are three key inspirations from this episode:

🔹 Expand Beyond Your Story: Regina invites us to release attachment to rigid thoughts and beliefs, recognizing that our current perspectives are simply reflections of where we are in our soul’s evolution. True growth happens when we shelve “right or wrong” and open to larger ways of being.

🔹 The Power of Alpha States: Discover why accessing alpha brainwaves is essential for embodied forgiveness, creativity, and gratitude. Regina explains that only in these states can we anchor true forgiveness in the body, transforming pain into peace.

🔹 Simple Pathways to Transformation: Learn practical ways to shift into expanded consciousness, such as using gratitude to open the “back door” to alpha, listening to alpha brainwave music, or simply reconnecting with the beauty of nature. Even a simple act—placing your hand on your heart and recalling a moment of gratitude—can change your state and deepen your spiritual experience.

Let the wisdom of Regina Leffers inspire you to embrace the privilege of embodiment and explore the mystical possibilities within your own consciousness. For more on her teachings and book, visit reginaleffers.com, and tune in to experience profound spiritual growth and joyful expansion!

 

Transcript:

Regina Leffers:
Any thought we hold is representative of the facet of consciousness from which we’re living. And if we expand into the next facet, that thought will change. People are married to thoughts.

Linda Lang:
What if the thoughts you defend aren’t actually the truth, but simply the perspective you’re currently living from? Today, Regina Leffers offers us another way to understand consciousness. And it’s something that can expand, allowing us to see ourselves, our relationships, and even our beliefs differently. Stay with us because Regina shares a very personal experience that completely changed the way she understood meditation, forgiveness, and consciousness.

Announcer: Welcome to Exploring the Mystical Side of Life with your host, Linda Lang.

Linda Lang:
Hi, this is Linda Lang from www.ThoughtChange.com. We are Exploring the Mystical Side of Life once again this week. Today we have Regina Leffers with us. Regina is a meditation and consciousness teacher. Welcome, Regina.

Regina Leffers:
Thank you, Linda. I’m really happy to be here.

Linda Lang:
Let’s just define consciousness. What are we talking about?

Regina Leffers:
The way I think of consciousness is how much of what exists do we include in our definition of ourselves? So, for example, at the very smallest space of consciousness, we’re involved in survive, just learning how to survive and what that entails. And we don’t include much else in our definition of who we are. At the most expansive, as we grow in consciousness, we include more and more of what exists in our definition of who we are, in the way we live who we are. All of the other ideas about consciousness out there are hierarchical, where we’ve got a low and a high. And what I really think matches how we live and who we are, our experience of consciousness, is that it’s not from lower to higher. It’s from smaller or least expanded to most expanded.

Linda Lang:
I love that because there’s no spiritual ego involved.

Regina Leffers:
That’s the truth.

Linda Lang:
Now, specifically with consciousness, there is a lot of talk these days about humanity’s evolution and the expansion or ascension of consciousness. How does that fit into your model of What we’re in the midst of right now?

Regina Leffers:
I feel like people are stuck in— they believe that the thought that they have in their head is true or right. And people are stuck in that and arguing against each other instead of realizing that that are actually something that can change and expand to include more of what exists.

Linda Lang:
So this idea of right or wrong, good or bad, is actually something that really limits our evolution?

Regina Leffers:
It limits our evolution, yes. And I feel like right now, more importantly, it limits our ability to communicate with each other. So if we are married to a thought— I mean, just think of any husband and wife. any relationship at all. And if a person is married to a thought, then we can’t really listen to the other person. And right and wrong is the thing that’s most important. And if we can just shelve that idea in any relationship we’re in and realize that it’s not the thought we should be married to, because that Simply represents where we are. It also really helps me to understand the different facets of consciousness that we can grow into and through and live from.

It helps me to understand where another person is speaking from. If I can understand where they’re speaking from, it helps me see a path forward. This is really important to me right now. I mean, it’s important to all of us, but I’ve been having dinner with my son every other week right now, and I’m trying to re-establish a relationship or, or expand our relationship because we are on opposite sides.

Linda Lang:
I hear you, Regina. I hear a lot of people in the spiritual community that say often if you raise your vibration or shift your consciousness, then there are other people in your life that will fall by the wayside. And that can happen, certainly it does happen, especially when they can’t bridge that divide between their belief systems.

Regina Leffers:
It’s critical to learn how to maintain those relationships and learn how to bridge that divide. How else are we going to understand people we don’t love? How else are we going to build community with people who, you know, we don’t, quote, have to?

Linda Lang:
A lot of spiritual paths think of consciousness as something we have to remember, as compared to something that we have to learn, that it’s already somewhere in our psyche. What do you have to say about that?

Regina Leffers:
So the first thing I would want to say is that the first 4— really, the first 3 facets of consciousness are almost given to us genetically. So our genes know this material, and we live into the material with our genes. It’s sort of automatic. The first 3 facets of consciousness are survive, where we learn what we need to do to feed ourselves and clothe ourselves and be safe and, and so on. The second facet of consciousness is belong, where we learn to belong in a small way to our family of origin or the people who have raised us. And that’s automatic, it’s genetic. We also learn from our family of origin or the people who raised us who doesn’t belong. So if we think about the world right now, and it’s really large in the United States right now, we’ve got a lot of people who are locked in to the idea that I belong and you do not.

Okay? And that’s from a very small facet of consciousness. It’s the second. And it’s genetic. So it doesn’t require much evolution there at all. The third facet of consciousness is— I call it individuate because it’s the thing we do, Linda. We… Must individuate from our family of origin. We begin to define ourselves by who we are and what we want, how we want to live instead of our, our moms and dads.

We must individuate from them. And then the 4th facet of consciousness is where we evolve into something that’s not totally given to us in our genetic structure. And I call it comply. But what it means is that we learn the rules of society, we learn the rules of the road, how to pay attention and drive and stop at red lights and so on. But that’s in all of life. So we learn the rules of our religion, of our society, the culture that we’re raised in.

Linda Lang:
Okay.

Regina Leffers:
And so comply, that 4th facet of consciousness begins at a place where society, then we begin to create a structure. As a teenager, remember learning to drive and loving to be looked at as an adult? That’s where we learn that stuff. Then to go into the next facet of consciousness, What happens is we begin to think about those rules. And we think about whether they actually align with who we are. Lots of folks have to do this pretty quickly, especially people who are gay. They’re not going to fit in with the rules of that 4th facet of consciousness. So they move fairly quickly in that area of life. into the 5th, which is risk and re-individuate.

So we individuate from our culture in certain ways. We can also examine those rules, though, and find that the rule itself does fit who I am. That is also a move into risk and re-individuate, because we’re thinking about what the rule is and whether it aligns with us. So you can recognize that then this is the beginning of introspection. People who think about who they are and then decide that that doesn’t fit for them and they move on. The 6th facet of consciousness is also more expansive. I call it care and empathy. It’s where all of our social programs come from.

It’s where people who are social workers or counselors or people who care about a larger amount of what exists— so not just my backyard, but the planet, not just my consciousness, but everyone’s— when we get to care and empathy, we know, we also understand. That we care about more than a lot of people around us. It is moving from 6 to 7 that is the most challenging, because being in 6, the ego loves it. The ego feels so good because the ego categorizes, I am better than anybody else. Okay? And it’s not overt. It’s always a covert thing. feeling a little bit, I don’t know, above others because we know how much we care. And this is one of the reasons I teach meditation as well, because the first 6 facets of consciousness, our brains are functioning in a beta brainwave for the most part.

Linda Lang:
Okay.

Regina Leffers:
And we have, we have moments Everyone has a moment where their brain moves into alpha, and it’s moments like at the Grand Canyon where we might experience this feeling of oneness of everything that is. So because we feel so good in that sixth facet of consciousness, so proud of ourselves, it it’s difficult then to. Shift and decide to go ahead and grow into the 7th facet of consciousness. And I think of it as a bridge. So we actually have to cross a bridge and decide to do what we need to do to move our brains into alpha brainwave. Over the bridge in 7, 8, and 9, we live From alpha. The benefit of that is that alpha is the most creative brainwave. It is the only brainwave in which we can feel in the body our gratitude and forgiveness.

So before that, in beta, we can intellectually think that “I forgive,” or we can think gratitude. We can even emotionally forgive and be grateful, but to feel it in the body is only experienced when we get to alpha. And that’s where actual forgiveness is anchored. It’s— it is actually done. The pain of the experience never comes up again because it sticks. Forgiveness sticks.

Linda Lang:
I do think that’s brilliant, Regina, because we get so fooled by our mind thinking conceptually that we have something, but until the body understands it, it’s just a concept.

Regina Leffers:
That’s exactly it, Linda. Exactly. It is one of the reasons it’s critical for those of us who primarily live in 6 to get ourselves over the bridge and into 7.

Linda Lang:
So what is the 7th facet?

Regina Leffers:
The 7th facet, I, I think of as being authentic, living actually true to our own values, a fullness of being anchored in the self. With the large S, or the soul self.

Linda Lang:
Again, we can get trapped in that concept, right?

Regina Leffers:
Right.

Linda Lang:
Of that lower self. It’s more like kind of finding your divinity and being that.

Regina Leffers:
Yes. And in that 7th facet of consciousness, connectivity with everything that is, is no longer just a concept. It’s something that we live every day. So we’re aware of the connectivity, and our actions, our thoughts are aligned with the fact that we are connected to everything that is. So it’s a much more thoughtful How do you get there? There are a number of ways to get over that bridge into 7. And one of the ways that I found, and I found it by accident, because I didn’t know that I had a brain injury to the right prefrontal cortex that I lived with my entire adult life until I was in my 60s. And that brain injury had fingers extending through all parts of the brain. I knew that something was different about my brain because I had to work to make things go into long-term memory.

And I had to kind of use tricks to get myself to go there, to get material to the long-term memory. I found it out when I was in my 60s because I had meditated by that time for 40 years every day, and I still could not forgive in a way that made it stick. And I thought, this is, this is a problem. Something’s wrong here. So, have you ever had a book jump off a shelf?

Linda Lang:
I have.

Regina Leffers:
So I was in Barnes Noble and a book jumped off the shelf in front of me, just, just moved out. And, um, it was called The Code of the Extraordinary Mind. And it’s exactly the kind of thing that I would be interested in. Well, in that book, this young man who wrote it describes his experience at 40 Years of Zen, a place in Seattle where they specifically work on helping people develop gratitude and forgiveness. And so I investigated and I booked myself and I went. And that’s where I worked with the neuroscientist who did a mind map and told me that with the kind of brain injury I had, that he would expect me to present with no short-term memory and no ability to focus at all.

Linda Lang:
But you did have those abilities, right?

Regina Leffers:
I did, and it’s the, it’s the meditation. What I concluded was that my daily practice of meditation helped my brain go around you know, do workarounds around the injury. But because of that injury, my brain would not go into alpha. My brain produced no alpha brainwave. So this was the big lesson for me. They actually designed a computer program. I worked with it every day, and I was able to watch my brain heal itself. And I was able to watch my brain begin to develop alpha brainwave.

And by the end of the week, my brain was healed and that injury was totally gone, and my brain was able to produce alpha. So it was a pretty miraculous kind of experience.

Linda Lang:
That’s incredible, Regina. And to think that a computer program did that.

Regina Leffers:
It was awesome, Linda. I just was supposed to watch. So the injury itself of the brain was on the computer screen and it was shown in red. And anytime my brain turned it to green, any area at all to green, it would get just a moment of sublime music. And they made the program more difficult every day so that every day I watched my brain turn more and more of that injury to green until it was all green and it got all the sublime music it wanted. So by the time I left, it taught me that gratitude and forgiveness were unavailable to me And then absolutely available. So by the end of that week, I was able to feel both in my body.

Linda Lang:
But do you think that that’s why, you know, certain parts of our society aren’t able to forgive and have gratitude? That maybe the way their brains have been programmed, they’re unable to get into alpha state? Could that be a thing?

Regina Leffers:
Here’s what I think. I think our beta brainwave is the dominant. It’s the one we use every day to solve problems and think and all of that. Alpha are moments in time during those first 6 facets of consciousness when we’re able to feel gratitude. in our hearts and feel the oneness of all things. Those are moments of alpha. In a brain that does not— you know, in the brain that was injured, I also got to see that my brain was very skilled at gamma brainwaves. It’s the place that my brain laid down to do workarounds.

You know, in the United States, pretty much we’re not taught how to feel in our bodies, and I think that’s probably throughout the world, but I’m not sure. But if we will take a minute, put their hand over their heart space, and just, just remember a moment that you’re so grateful for— a person, a place, And experience and let yourself feel the gratitude, it wells up in that heart space. And that is a backdoor to get into alpha. All we have to do to get into alpha is feel grateful in the body. So it works both ways. We don’t have to make our brain go into alpha first so that we can feel gratitude. We actually can get into alpha through the back door by going ahead and being grateful for something and feeling that in the body.

Linda Lang:
So that’s a pretty handy trick to shift your state of consciousness. Are you also saying that consciousness is moving throughout the layers in our conscious waking state?

Regina Leffers:
Yes, I am saying that.

Linda Lang:
Because a lot of people think of consciousness as a state and you reach a certain amplitude, let’s say, and that’s where you are until you reach the next one. But even if you think about the aura, for instance, right? It is a living energetic mechanism that’s shifting all the time depending on what you’re thinking and feeling and, and how aligned you are. So that is very reminiscent of your description of consciousness.

Regina Leffers:
Yes, it is.

Linda Lang:
So there’s kind of like no easy button that we get to that gamma level and get to stay there? Because after all, we are in a human body and have a human life that we tend to, which can place our thoughts and our emotions all over the place, right?

Regina Leffers:
It can. But I will say this, Linda, that once we’re more anchored in living from 7 over the bridge, living from that alpha brainwave, it is the most creative brainwave. And so anytime we’re working, if we can work from there, everything we do is going to be more creative. So it’s a really good thing to develop.

Linda Lang:
I would think it would bring more joy too, as you’re being creative, that if you’re in that gamma state, you’d be more peaceful, more expansive, have more maybe intuitive hits.

Regina Leffers:
Totally. Exactly. Yeah. And what I didn’t talk about yet is the 8th facet of consciousness. You mentioned joy. And there are people who live from the 8th facet of consciousness. And we, we know one is the Dalai Lama, right? All you see on his living is that joy, that experience of joy. And not just the experience of joy, but he also holds the pain of the world.

So when we are living from the 8th facet, which I think of as— I call it be-oneness or interbeing— that place, we are filled with joy, and we are also aware and feel the pain. So both at the same time. And I actually know some people who— regular people who live from that. And it’s pretty interesting to see and exciting to, to know that they exist, and they exist In Fort Wayne, Indiana. So that means to me that they exist all over the world, and they’re just regular people.

Linda Lang:
And so how do we actually get to that place?

Regina Leffers:
It is a matter of developing that alpha brainwave as a living brainwave. Okay. And when I came home from 40 years of Zen, This was a number of years ago. I bought a piece of equipment online for $500 that would help me continue to train my brain to be in alpha. Okay, that is actually free right now online. It’s accessible to every person. And you have to wear earbuds or, you know, earphones so that it goes into both sides, both ears. All you have to do is, is type into a web search alpha brainwave music, something like that, and you’ll get a lot of ones to try.

And I use it while I’m You know, working out at the gym, while I’m walking, whatever I’m doing. And it, it will help the brain train to be in alpha more often and during the regular everyday things that we do. So that’s one way to, to get over the bridge and get ourselves anchored in 7 or 8.

Linda Lang:
Of course, we would have to be at one of the facets of consciousness that’s actually willing and interested in experiencing even more expanded states, right?

Regina Leffers:
Here’s my hope. My hope is that everybody is interested because everybody has had the experience of standing at an ocean. Rhat experience of sublime, that feeling of oneness that we experience in huge nature, redwood forest, Grand Canyon, and even holding a baby.

Linda Lang:
The stars at night.

Regina Leffers:
The stars at night. So everyone, no matter what facet of consciousness we normally live in, we’ve had that experience. And we know that it feels wonderful in the body because that is felt in the body. It’s like an automatic gift when we’re watching that sunset. You know, it is an automatic gift and we feel it in our bodies. And so why wouldn’t anyone want to develop more of that? That’s my hope.

Linda Lang:
I’m right there with you. I hope so as well. And once again, we’re seeing the importance of our bodies in our spiritual growth.

Regina Leffers:
And isn’t it a privilege to be embodied? I feel like there’s a poet, and I— her name has slipped my mind, but she has written about the soul after the body dies. The soul longs for the feeling of a sneeze. Do you know what that feels like? So just think about— here we are on this tiny blue planet, you know, this sumptuous planet on the spinning tail of the Milky Way galaxy. And we’re embodied, and we get to think about it and feel it. And it’s truly rare. It’s a rare and privileged event that we get to be here living in this body. We’re so lucky. And since we are lucky enough to be embodied, why not go ahead and Feel it completely.

Linda Lang:
Exactly. Beautiful, beautiful. Regina, where can we send people who would like to know more?

Regina Leffers:
My web address is reginaleffers.com.

Linda Lang:
And your book is called?

Regina Leffers:
This Is Consciousness, and it’s available on Amazon.

Linda Lang:
Thank you so much for being my guest today.

Regina Leffers:
Thanks for having me, Linda. I really enjoyed it.

Linda Lang:
And thank you for listening to this week’s edition of Exploring the Mystical Side of Life. If you enjoy our conversations, remember to subscribe, share with a friend, come visit me at www.ThoughtChange.com, pick up your copy of Learning to Listen, and I’ll see you again next time. Bye for now.