Attunement & Cultivating the Self-Transforming Mind | Michael Kass

What if the greatest transformation doesn't come from changing who you are—but from learning how to truly listen?

In this thought-provoking episode of Rooted & Wild, I sit down with Michael Kass—founder of Story & Spirit, executive coach, breathwork facilitator, author, and leadership guide—to explore the profound practices of attunementand cultivating what he calls the self-transforming mind.

Together, we examine how our stories shape our reality, why true leadership begins with self-awareness, and how slowing down can help us reconnect with ourselves, each other, and something far greater. Michael shares insights from decades of working with founders, CEOs, organizations, and communities, revealing how presence, curiosity, and embodied awareness can become powerful catalysts for lasting change.

This conversation moves beyond productivity and performance into something deeper: how we cultivate a way of being that allows us to navigate uncertainty with wisdom, resilience, and compassion.

Whether you're leading a business, navigating a life transition, seeking spiritual growth, or simply longing to feel more connected in an increasingly distracted world, this episode offers practical wisdom and timeless insights.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What attunement really means and why it matters
• The difference between the self-authoring mind and the self-transforming mind
• How the stories we tell ourselves shape our lives
• Leadership through presence, curiosity, and connection
• Breathwork as a pathway to deeper awareness
• Navigating uncertainty with greater resilience and wisdom
• Cultivating a more meaningful relationship with yourself and the world around you

About Michael Kass

Michael Kass is the founder of Story & Spirit, where he works as a convening designer, facilitator, consultant, embodied leadership coach, and ICF Certified Executive Coach. For more than 25 years, he has helped individuals, founders, CEOs, and organizations navigate profound personal and professional transformation by weaving together storytelling, leadership development, breathwork, and human connection.

Michael is also a Certified Breathwork Facilitator, the author of Story Maps: Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker, and serves on the Board of Directors for Wild Gift. His workshops and keynotes have been featured at conferences including SOCAP, Opportunity Collaboration, 501(c)onference, and Points of Light.

At the heart of Michael's work is a simple but powerful mission: helping people bring greater humanity, connection, and a sense of the sacred back into their lives and work.

Connect with Michael Kass

• Website: https://www.storyandspirit.org
• Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5PEqbjjjA6gkwnMvQiz2bq
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkass1

Rooted & Wild provides general information for educational and informational purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guest speakers are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Henry Hawk. The content shared on this podcast is not intended to replace individualized medical, psychological, or therapeutic advice, nor should it be used to diagnose or treat any health condition. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified healthcare professionals regarding any medical or mental health concerns.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Rooted and Wild. We live in a moment where complexity is accelerating faster than our nervous systems can adapt. Leadership and life now require a different kind of intelligence, one rooted in attunement, inner flexibility, and the ability to transform ourselves as the world transforms around us. In this episode, we explore what it means to develop a self-transforming mind, a mind that listens deeply, questions its own assumptions, and expands capacity for nuance, curiosity, and compassion. Joining me once again is Michael Cass, an ICF certified executive coach, certified breathwork facilitator, and the author of Story Maps, Wayfinding Tools for the Modern Seeker. Through Story and Spirit, Michael guides founders, creators, and multinational CEOs alike into new forms of embodied leadership. His gift lies in designing environments, conversations, rituals, and communities where people can shed outdated patterns and step into greater connection with themselves and others. This is a conversation about evolving, not by force, but through presence. Michael, welcome back to Rooted and Wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Thank you so much. I love your introduction so much. You're so good.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Thank you. Thank you. Uh our last session uh that we had, I want to say about four weeks ago at this point, uh, was about story, uh, storytelling and and the power of storytelling for healing. The for those listening, it was called Transformational Story Work Beyond Narrative Toward Healing. So be sure to check that out. Today is all about attunement and cultivating the self-transforming mind. So, Michael, tell me what it is. Tell me what tell me what attunement is. It's getting I know what that is, but tell the audience. Totally.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I mean, attunement is exactly what it sounds like. So uh you know, I always think of it like a radio. You know, you get a you get a radio, you can tune in to different stations. Um, there's two big frequency or ways of tuning that we have on a radio. There's FN and there's AM. AM tends to be lower fidelity sound, and yet there's still stations and FM, you get higher fidelity sound, more options. Um we can do the same with frequencies of energy, right? So most of us, most of the time, are tuned to like two to three frequencies. And those tend to be like, what's the problem I have to solve? Uh, what am I gonna make for dinner? Ooh, I'm excited. Uh, or oh my gosh, I'm so stressed out, I'm under deadline. Though those tend to be that's a slight exaggeration, but what we have access to. Um there are infinite frequencies. Some of them, uh, there's no information there, but a lot of them, there's really good information. And so attunement is simply cultivating or remembering uh our capacity for taking, if you think of the body as essentially an electrical system and a massive receiver and transmitter, really saying, all right, well, what frequencies would I like to tune into to receive information? And what would I like to transmit? Right? What would I like to people to receive when I walk into the room, when I speak, right? When I share a story, which we talked about last time. So that's really what a what attunement is at a base level. And there's like all sorts of techniques that you can use to do it, but a base level, it's like when I work with people around it, I really do say, imagine that there's a radio in front of you, and now tune it into the station of this meeting you have coming up, right? Tune it into the station of your higher self, and then go like this will never work. Oh my gosh, whoa, what just what where what is that that just happened? Because it really is that simple.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think, I think oftentimes uh as I'm working with people in the realm of energy work specifically, uh they'll be like, I'm feeling this way, that way. And I'm like, whose energy is that? And they're like, What do you mean? I'm like, no, whose is it? Is it yours? I want you to ask yourself, your subconscious mind knows. And so at first thing that comes to mind, no, it's not mine. Where do you get it from? Oh my gosh, it was from a conversation I had earlier with my boss, and she was super stressed, and and I care I'm carrying her right now. Like, I'm like, uh-huh. So why don't we release that? You know, and now let's move on to you. And because so often we carry the the signals and and the and the frequencies from all these extra things, right? And we lack that oftentimes moment or time to be self-aware somatically or energetically.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Well, and we often we've never been told that that's a thing that can happen. Yeah, right. So I remember when I started facilitating breath work 12, 13 years ago, uh, after every session, I would like go home and eat a pizza, or like I my whole body would lock up with inflammation. And I was like, Oh, that's the cost of doing business. You do healing work, you're gonna get you're you're gonna get messed up. And the Julia, who's now my wife, when we started dating, you know, we met at one of my breath work classes, and a friend had brought her, and we got to know each other over time and started dating, and she would come over after breath work, and I'd be like on the floor, immobilized. And she's also she's an energy medicine practitioner, and she would like, she'd be like, You, you know, this is pretty weird. Like, you don't need to do that. And that was so I was doing energy work for years without having that discernment. And it is as simple as you're saying, which is, is this mine or not mine? And your system will immediately know. And as soon as it's not mine, you can it just goes because your body's like, oh, I got confused. So sorry.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Oops, oops, oops, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

But even like having that um that interoception, that that ability to discern our own internal energy is actually kind of the first layer of attunement because it's really hard to tune to the cosmos or to a tree unless we can have that discernment of like this is my signal, this is what's happening in my body, whether I like what's happening or not, a totally different conversation. Um, and now that I know what my frequency is, I can attune to this river, right? I can attune to some other being, I can attune to another person in a healing session.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah. Well, it's like we often say, you know, you have to have awareness before you can have awakening. Yes. And so it oftentimes starts with that subtle awareness. And when you first begin operating in that awareness, it can be kind of like, this feels so like preschool level. Like, what am I doing? You know, like why are you running me to like listen to my heartbeat right now and how I'm breathing and feel the tension in your shoulders. And are you clenching your hands? Are you sweating in the palms of your hands? And you know, it feels so rudimentary, but yet you can be stepping into, which I at this point, years later, I'm stepping into a meeting, like you were saying, and and and I'm like quickly boom, boom, boom, oh, yep. And then I'm I'm reset and ready to step into my meeting, you know. Uh, but then every once in a while, you know, we'll have stuff that's from an energetic standpoint that we've carried for so many years, and this is the thing like which I'm like excited to talk to you about, where it's comes from mom and dad, or it's passed down generationally, and we've carried it and it seems like it's our signal. It seems like it's part of our energetic, you know, frequency. It's been there all along, so it must be me. Well, it's not you. Who are you without that?

unknown 8:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Oh. And and so often we uh come to identify with those things, right? Whether it is a somatic. I remember like my whole life, I felt until my like 30s, I felt in my lower belly just like a a con, it was kind of like an anvil, a black, chunky, heavy energy. And it had always been there. So I just A, assumed it would always be there, and B assumed everybody had that, right? Because why wouldn't they? They're they're also human. Um, and it wasn't until I started working with the breath, and actually my first breath work session, which was like a fiasco, it was like a group that I did not, it was very weird. But the breath, I felt this thing that had never moved before shift. And that was my first, I was like, wait a minute, what what else might be possible if this thing, right? This story, this emotion that I've carried, uh can move. Like maybe that's not who I am. But when we identify with it, there's uh uh such a deep fear of letting it go because you know, there's two ways of holding that question. Who am I without this? One is excited, oh, who am I if I let this go? And the other is like, oh God, who am I without this?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Like, am I anything?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

Um and that I think is such a a powerful uh place to play. And my experience is it's a just a lifelong process of of peeling back layers that are ready to be seen and ready to be let go or integrated, right? When there's energy in the body, generally those are the two moves we can make, right? There it either wants to be released or it wants to be integrated or composted in some way in the body. Um with ancestral stuff, it could go either way. And often, uh like I'd love to hear how you work with that. Like, I I'll usually, depending on the modality that we're working with, either explicitly say, like, let's, you know, call in some wise ancestors, let's call in some helpers and see what they have to share. Or, you know, let's go, let's go to the river of life and take a bath in it and see what water, you know, whatever the thing is. I love that. Um uh so that we so that folks can have that discernment of like, oh, you know what, I'm carrying this for some you can get very specific. I'm carrying this for the five generations back uh grandfather on my mother's side. Like you can really get information that that that's that specific.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Very much so. I just had a session last week like that, and with a client, and it went back seven generations on the father's side and 13 generations into the mother's side. And um, it was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And the what I would say is, and just for those listening, because you're like, whoa, this is a little maybe a little bit, you know, what are you talking about? You know, you're getting out there. You're getting out there, it's woo-woo. You know, what let me just share this. Here's a prime example. Um I've I've worked with people, uh, including myself, actually, early on when I was first getting some inner healing work done. Uh I was people struggling and and in I why can't I get the big break financially? Why can't I get the financial breakthrough I'm looking for? And the question is Did anyone in your family ever make a vow of poverty? Interesting, huh? And come to find out that yes, actually. There was. Um sometimes that can come through Catholic Catholic lineage, it's not the only one. Uh sometimes it can come from like missionary lineage, which was my upbringing with as a child with my my parents. Um, and and sometimes it can be a belief system. I'll and all my my grandparents came out of the Great Depression, right? And and and and we're not well to do. And it can be a belief system, like we're just not going to be wealthy, we're not gonna be well-to-do. And and so what's your view of money? Or it could be that your view of money is bad, like money is bad or is the root of all evil. Uh, and so you are afraid of money, or you're afraid of the responsibility of money. But you just look at that one topic of money and you start to look at the generational or ancestral component of it. And essentially, many generations didn't know how to handle the money, or were afraid of handling money, or had renounced money, and all of a sudden you want to be a multimillionaire. Well, you certainly have the capacity to be, uh, you know, potentially if that's what your you know destiny is, but at the same time, you may never do it completely because you have you're holding on to a frequency that says otherwise. And if you can cut that off, release it, and re and and and then take replace the it's that is not necessarily a trauma, but it is a form of trauma because it's it's and or a trigger per se, and we can replace it with truth. What is true? Money is a means to an end, you know, it's a it's a pathway for you to accomplish to get things you want, or to have more comfort and stability, or to invest, but it is not evil innately, or there is not, you know, something you need to be afraid of. So that's just a small tip of the iceberg example, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

I I love that you brought up money because money is so interesting because we put so many stories on it. But money itself, you know, we're talking about attunement. Money is currency, right? Another word is currency, currency is energy. You can tune in to the frequency of that of currency, right? Beneath the story. And that can be really powerful for folks. Like, I have a lot of similarities in the stories that I've held and like my family has held around money. And there was a huge breakthrough moment for me where you know, I'd been working through those, and I'm like, okay, okay, I get it. These stories are all your bags, energy's bad. And I was like, Well, what's the energy of money? Like, if I tune into like what how does money want to be in relationship with me? And I remember I was like literally in the shower doing this. It's where I do all my best healing work. And um, and money came to me as like a puppy that all the all it wanted to do was play with me. And I kept chewing it away. It was like, no, no, no, let's, I don't have time to play. I have to go do this very serious healing work. And it was this moment of like, oh, this this energy that is neither good nor bad and is simply currency, kind of just wants to hang out with me. It just wants to play. And that was such a massive shift for me, both in my relationship with that energy, that currency of money, but then also in in my financial reality, right? Because I was I was able to hold money more lightly because that image of the the adorable puppy wanting to play with me kept coming back. Yeah, right. Yeah. There's another piece in what you said where it's not about with money, it's not necessarily about the money. It's about what we want that we believe money will liberate for us. So, an example from my life is like years ago, I was like, you know what? The reason I don't really care about money, but what I do want is a sense of adventure and travel. That's actually what I want to want to attune to. And I'm gonna let go of money for now. I just I want to attune to this kind of life. And within six months, I would for work was getting flown to like amazing places all over the world to facilitate in like non-limited, I didn't try. It was very magical, but it it was the attunement that made that possible, right? That oh, now I'm on this wavelength and here's what opens up. And there is money associated with it, but I'm getting money and not spending money to do it, right? And so even though in a peer-reviewed journal, you would never be able to say, like, well, if you attune to X, you'll get Y. That's not how it works. It just you're you're shifting the field of relationship that you're a part of, right? When you when you practice attunement in these ways.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

What are some steps you take? And I'm specifically thinking about people who may not who might be new, right, to the whole idea of attunement and cultivating a self-transforming mind. What are some steps that they could take today to start that process?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

That's a great question. And I'm gonna I'm gonna frame this by saying like none of these are guaranteed. So all we can do is like create the conditions for it to emerge. That's it, right? Um, part of it, and this goes to the work that you do, is attunement only happens at like an alpha or theta state when our when our mind is relaxed, which is why affirmations don't really work very often because we're doing them at like an outcome-based place, right? So saying, I will be rich, I will be rich, I will be rich, or whatever the thing is, won't do anything because we're not dropped in, right? We're not we're not speaking from a centered, aligned, coherent place. So the first step is to develop that capacity for dropping into coherence. And for that, there is like a crazy simple two-minute exercise called the coherent breath or heart-centered breathing from the Heart Math Institute. You literally put your hand on your heart, pay attention to your breath moving and out of your heart for two to three minutes. And most people uh you're not trying to change the breath, you're not doing fancy breath work, you're literally just paying attention. And most people will feel and sense a shift in their body as they drop into a coherent place, right? And then you can simply start whispering to yourself or thinking, like, oh man, I want more security. I I deserve, I just I'm worthy of love. That's a hard one. Maybe don't start with I'm worthy of love, because that'll bring up all the words. Yeah, it's a big one. Or just like, man, I want a hamburger, like whatever the thing is, meal is a good place to start. And then notice what happens because it becomes like a positive feedback loop, right? So if you start with something simple, it's like, oh man, I'd like a delightful treat. I'd like a delightful treat to come to me in some kind of a surprising way today. Chances are within the next 24 hours, someone's gonna give you a piece of chocolate. Like it's gonna come out of nowhere. And then the job is to notice that and then keep practicing. And then there's there's bigger ways, right? I work with a modality called uh the library, where you literally create an imaginal library and you go there and you check out books and you can write books. And the library is a place where all of the entire universe of information that's ever been and that ever will be and that is just kind of like gets organized, right? It's a it's a just like a real library. Um but it's a place where we can access that. And that's another one that's just like you can learn it in an hour and then start to explore it. So I I think the big uh uh concrete thing is like learn to breathe and cultivate coherence, and then just really start to understand. You don't need 10, 20 years of spiritual practice to do this stuff. It we're built to do it, we're built to tap into these fields. And there's very simple almost all of them are breath-based in some way. You can also just take a walk in nature. One of my favorite ways of tuning in is hold a question, walk through nature, and anything that happens is a response to my question. So if I'm holding this question, what's the best way for me to show up in this meeting? And the first thing I notice is a hawk land. This actually is a real life example, is a hawk like landing on a branch near me. I'm like, oh, well, what can hawks do? Hawks have like a huge view, they soar up above, and then when it's time, they dive in and get super specific. Cool. What a great direction of as to like how to approach a meeting. Right. So that's another way. Super concrete, very practical.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah. Well, if if you're interested in learning more about how to access this and to become attuned and really tap more into your frequency and all of that, you can check out uh Michael uh via his website and the links we've included in the description box. Um I have absolutely loved having you on the podcast, and I don't want to end it just like I did in the last one. But for the sake of our listeners and me trying to honor their time, uh, I look forward to having you in our next episode that will come up in about four weeks when we have you back again.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Awesome. Thanks so much. I love these conversations.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

As do I. And for all those who are listening, thank you for joining us once again. Until next time.