The Cost Of Entering Darkness

SPEAKER_01 0:06

There are people in this world who walk willingly into the darkest places imaginable. Not because they don't feel the weight of it or they are not aware of the consequences, but because they have decided that the weight is worth carrying. And then there's a question that very few people really ask, those people, that what does that really do to you? How do you stay grounded when what you're witnessing would break most of us? And how do you lead and excite and function under that kind of pressure without losing yourself in the process? So today's conversation is exactly about that. Welcome back to another episode of Felzy Meyer How do Life. I'm your host, Cyan, and I'm grateful that you're here with us today. And this is a space for these kind of honest and downward conversations about what it really takes to live and lead from a place of genuine well-being. My guest today is Paul Hutchinson, founder of the Child Liberation Foundation and liberating humanity, executive producer of the 2023 film Sound of Freedom, and someone who has led over 70 undercover rescue missions from 15 countries to help free children from trafficking. Paul's story is one of the extraordinary courage. But what we are here to talk about today goes deeper than all of those missions. We are talking about the inner work and how he has carried that emotional weight of what he's witnessed. So, Paul, I welcome you to the show. Thanks for being here, and uh I think this is gonna be great one.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Thank you, Cyan. It's an honor to be here with you in the audience, and I'm excited to share things that I believe can truly impact people's lives.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I I love having conversations like these and would love to, you know, start with uh maybe a little bit of your story, but just before we begin with our folks, a little disclaimer for all the listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Hey dear listeners, before we begin, a quick note from Hildiman Beavek. This episode is created for educational and informational purposes only. The views shared by our guests are their own and may not reflect those of the host or network. Nothing in this conversation should be taken as medical, legal, financial, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making important decisions. We encourage you to listen with curiosity, think independently, and use this content as a starting point for reflection, not a substitute for professional guidance. Now, settle in and enjoy the conversation.

From Peer Counselor To Investor

SPEAKER_01 2:33

So, Paul, before we go anywhere uh else, I want to start at the very beginning of uh I mean your story. So, you began your career as an entrepreneur and investor. Nothing in that background would have prepared you for what came next. So, can you really take us back to the moment that this work first found you? You know, what what was it that made you say yes to something so far outside of the life that you know you had imagined? And, you know, what was that moment like for you?

SPEAKER_02 3:04

I'll say, and I I believe it goes way back to my um schooling years. I was uh I was asked to be the president of something called the peer leadership team in high school, where we were helping children uh with um peers with with drug and alcohol abuse and and uh uh violence in the home and a lot of challenges where if they went to a teacher and talked about it, they had to take it to an authority. But and a lot of them weren't comfortable talking to an adult. But so I was trained in how to how to be a peer counselor. And in that space, I recognized how dark the world is for some people, especially kids, that they'll hold a lot of this pain inside. Um, you know, sadly, somebody who was abused uh sexually during their childhood years, the average age of somebody talking about it is 52 years old. Most people hold on to that pain. They hold it their entire lifetime. And in doing so, it comes out, it comes out in anger issues and addictions and and anxiety and depression and PTSD and all of these challenges. And so, so in my early 20s, I actually started a company that helped people through these things. I started a company that uh I had I owned a company called Midwest Center Marketing, which which which we had 50,000 people a month calling in off of an infomercial to get an audio program and workbooks and and tools to help them overcome anxiety and depression. And because of the fact that so many people throughout the world are dealing with dehabilitating um challenges in this space, uh it the company did very well. Um, I I was very blessed with that company and I sold it at 29 years old for a lot of money, um, many, many millions of dollars. And I I invested that into real estate. I'm the founder of a investment firm that grew very, very large. Um, in fact, when I retired, we had over 4,000 employees in our company and and billions of dollars under management. But my passion was always in helping humanity, not just not just building apartment complexes, but my passion was back to where I built my first company and helping people overcome some of these challenges. Well, I also was very involved with a lot of charity work, um, uh, particularly child-related charities.

The Call That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_02 5:33

I was on the Make-A-Wish Board of Directors for seven years, and I was the incoming chairman for our region in Make A Wish when I received a phone call from uh our attorney general at the time. And he said, Paul, I know you're you're very involved with child-related charities. I need to talk to you about something that's pretty dark. It's the the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world, and good people don't know that it's happening. And he talked about human trafficking and um, and then about child trafficking. And he spoke about a team that was in Colombia at the time that had identified some children that were being sold for the unthinkable for organ harvesting and and sex trafficking, and and uh they needed some money to help fulfill this mission. And so I helped to make that happen. But then I received a phone call two weeks later that changed everything for me. It was one of the operators. He said, Paul, I'm I'm here in Cartagena. There, there's not just 20 children here that we found. There's more than 50 that are being trafficked in this one network. And there's more than a hundred in surrounding cities down here that we could rescue them all on the same day, but I need your help. And uh, and I said, Well, how much do you need? I thought, you know, he needed a bigger check. He said, I need you. Can you be in Columbia in two days? And say, and that was the beginning of something that would completely change my life. Um, in the beginning, it changed it for the worse. I I saw firsthand uh the darkest uh parts of humanity, things that that we can't even discuss here. Um children that were were in horrible situations and um and being sold. And it woke me up to how difficult things can be, not just you know, abuse in the home, which is horrible, but sold human beings. And I I uh at that point, the the the defining moment for me was when I was sitting on a chair, you know, just like you and I right now, sitting down, these traffickers had brought out a child. They brought out a few, four, four kids. Um, all of them touted as you know, as new inventory they had of virgins. And there was a little boy that was 11. There was three little girls. One of the little girls, if somebody has seen the movie Sound of Freedom, she we highlighted her as the one that we were trying to help rescue. They had shown me a picture of her before, and she was 11. And standing up, she wasn't much taller than I was as I was sitting down. And I could see into her soul, I could all I could see was fear. And I made a commitment right then to myself, to God, to that child, that I was going to do everything I could to eradicate that evil from the face of the earth. And so from that point, I I led more than 70 undercover child rescue missions over a period of 10 years. I completely retired from my from my uh company. Um, now I have a certain set of skills from a previous life that makes me somewhat safe in a dangerous place. But the the um the truth is the um the reason I was effective in that space is because I I had built and a financial empire where I, you know, one of the operators said, he told me about like Epstein and said there's a lot of guys out there with big egos and a lot of big checkbooks that kind of think that they're above the law, above everything. And these guys are fueling a lot of these trafficking networks. And he says, if you're willing to be the bait, this will change your whole life. And indeed it did. It took me into the darkest places of the world. And sadly, we also were losing undercover operators. I had green berets with 300 missions in Afghanistan that already had PTSD. And one mission with us, seeing a menu with children's faces and prices of things they could pay for, it just would send their PTSD over the top. And um, and so that's when we realized that there was a need for deeper healing, deeper healing for our operators, deeper healing for adults who deal with their own childhood trauma, uh, deeper healing even for we realize that the traffickers, many of them were trafficked themselves as children. And how do we stop this cycle of hurt people, hurting other people? And so that's kind of the beginning of how it all all started and uh and how I was brought into that world.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Well, I mean, this is something that you don't get to hear every day. Right, and uh let me be honest with that Paul. And actually, before we jump into the you know, the eating side of conversations, Paul, uh I want to ask you something. Um that maybe does not align with today's uh you know, topic of this conversation is and I know this because I've read uh I mean a lot of you know uh news coming out from the media, but obviously I don't have a way to verify it, is that uh Paul, did you feel scared yourself for you know sometime perhaps when you got to know what you were witnessing? I mean, you know, if you could tell them tell about that to the world, uh I mean I mean, as we as we know that there are a lot of whistleblowers who who did, I mean, risk their lives, uh, you know, telling, I mean, Epstein, I mean Epstein Files is, you know, the up I mean a separate conversation on its own. But I'm curious to know how did you really react? And was there any, you know, this feeling of being paranoid over what you were seeing? And I I mean, I could only imagine that, you know, initially it was something that you could not believe, you know, in that very moment. So, how did that really feel for you? And, you know, what made you really chase that knowing that it could risk your life?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

I'll answer it like this.

Fear And Faith Under Pressure

SPEAKER_02 12:03

I um you know, one of my missions, I was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Uh, Port-au-Prince is the most dangerous city on the planet right now and has been for quite a while. And uh we were we we had uh were pursuing a trafficking ring that eventually took down four federal judges as part of the operation. And it was getting very dangerous. And I I had a new team. Um I hadn't worked with these guys before, and and we we were we were about two in the morning in Patientville, just outside of Port-au-Prince, and we hadn't found any connections. And I said, guys, can I take lead? Are you good with that? And they said, Yeah, yeah, we we've heard you're really good at this. I said, Okay, I I need to I need to start with a couple things, just so you understand. I said, first of all, um, this isn't a religious conversation, but I said, I believe in God. Most people believe in a supreme being, some people call it the universe or heavenly father or what it doesn't matter. There's there's a higher power that's very interested in us doing good and knows exactly where these children are. So if you're okay with it, or even if you're not, I'm gonna start out by asking for some help. So I I get out and I'm I'm writing a book called Are You Listening with my hand on my heart. Not my hand on my ear, my hand on my heart. And and a lot of times it's a matter of getting out of our heads and into our heart space to receive pure guidance in our life. And so, and and I teach meditation classes and things like that for people to really tune into that, to that clear direction. Then I said, guys, now I need you to understand how I see fear and faith. Most people think that faith is, you know, going to church and asking God to fix things that they don't even believe are going to be fixed. That's not faith. That's that's blind hope. The the fear and faith cannot exist in the same person at the same time. And faith is simply the unwavering conviction that what I want to have happen will happen because it's in line with what needs to happen. And that's exactly why. So I said, I said, the reason fear and faith can't exist together is that in some way they're the same power. People who believe that bad things will happen to them attract that to them. People who believe that good things happen actually attract that to them. And I said, I feel safer right here, 2 a.m. downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, than I do, you know, in the darkest, most voodoo-infested place on the planet, than I than I do sitting in my office in the US. Why? Because I believe that what we are doing is fully in line with what needs to happen to to fight this darkness. And, you know, you can you can call that whatever you want to call it. There's there's a um there this is a this is a spiritual war. This is more than just punching guys in the face. This is fighting the deepest evil that you can imagine, selling the innocence of of children. There's nothing more evil than that. And so there's nothing more powerful than the light that will fight that.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yeah, I think um I can feel what you're saying, Paul, in uh so I mean, is it true that you know this whole race? I mean, and when I say race, I I really mean um this you know, system or the propaganda that's really uh spread um around uh trafficking is uh purely based on uh uh something that I was reading recently uh when the Epstein files came out was on this um substance called uh adinochrome and that it helps in reverse aging. Now, is that something uh that you're aware of in uh if you could share maybe some of uh you know these things that you know you you don't get to hear often um I would say. So what do you think? I mean, why is this even, you know, such a big uh business, I would I would say, right? For uh so many of um you know these evil people out there. And w what drives them, you know, to do these kind of evil activities, uh Paul.

What Actually Drives Traffickers

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Here's what I found. Um you know, in the beginning I thought the traffickers would have earrings in their noses and tattoos down their necks. You know, the the first trafficker I met was a businessman. The second I met was a beautiful woman that was running a fake modeling agency. And um I thought these are traffickers, but you know, over time in conversations with him, absolutely, they were they were doing the most vile acts and and making a lot of money in doing so. And um over time, I recognized that the common thread over the next 10 years of of doing this work, the common thread wasn't earrings and and their noses and tattoos. The common thread was arrogance and greed and lust and unhealed trauma from their own past, hurt people, hurting other people, combined with the arrogance and the greed and the lust and the disconnection from their their uh their moral foundations. And I saw it everywhere. And indeed, this is why I worked so well in that undercover space is because of the fact that I had a degree of success that in a way I could look in the mirror myself and see arrogance and greed and lust. I could. I mean, I had a I had a lot of cars, I had two helicopters, I had, I had all kinds of crap that made me feel good about my ego. And um, and in that energy, that's the kind of people who end up hurting other people if they're not careful, because they they they come into this degree of arrogance where they see another human being as an object. And this doesn't just start in you know, Mexico in a dark alley. This starts in the boardroom. This starts in our in our homes. The very second that we look at another person as less than ourselves, because of the the color of their skin, because of their religious background, because of their finances, because of their gender, it doesn't matter. The very second that we see another human being is less than the divinity that they are, we start sharing in this frequency, this energy that that contributes to the abuse of children and and trafficking, et cetera. And so, and and in answer to your question, yes, that darkness exists. It is worse than people can imagine. And, you know, I don't want this whole clip to be cut, so I'm not going to talk about it in detail, but the truth is, yes, there's there are there are people involved very high level in in Hollywood, in politics, in in big corporations, very much involved in in very actively choosing to be involved in rituals that are that are that are that are very, very dark. And um, and so we need to be aware of that. We need to be aware that, yeah, the we need to be careful who we're supporting politically and business-wise and Hollywood-wise, et cetera. But at the same time, that the biggest danger for our children, for our own children, is is actually not standing behind a dark alleyway. The biggest danger for our children is in our back pockets or in their backpacks. It's their phones, it's their access to the internet, and predators everywhere are preying upon kids. And that's a whole other episode by itself. But uh, you know, there's there's a lot we can dig down on here. But, you know, this episode is all about, you know, mental health and healing and everything else. But yes, the darkness exists. I will verify that.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

I mean, Paul, I'm glad that you brought that up because I think uh you're right, you know, it's it's kind of like a rabbit hole. The deeper you go, the more things you realize here are right uh that you didn't know. And like you said, you know, I mean, I'm I'm quite surprised the way you uh maybe uh described how uh, you know, I mean physically uh a trafficker would look. And I'm actually uh surprised when you define them because it really speaks a lot about, you know, um I mean, of what kind of uh programmed world that uh I would say that we are living in right now. And I think that's a separate conversation, like you said, you know, I I mean, uh it's that's propaganda pretty much everywhere on social media, I mean media, I mean wherever you look, right? And it's that's

Staying Whole While Serving Others

SPEAKER_01 20:46

a separate conversation. But Paul one thing that uh I I think I would like uh the listeners also to walk away from this conversation is staying whole while serving others is something that leaders or caregivers or parents and advocates really struggle with everywhere. Um because there's a there's a point uh wherein the more you give, uh the more you can lose yourself if you're not tending to your own inner life. So if you could perhaps share for someone who's listening right now who is carrying something heavy, maybe with their own unprocessed pain, uh, maybe the exhaustion of showing up for others for a long time without that space to breathe, what would you really want to offer them, you know, if they're I mean, if healing to them sounds not so possible for them at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

We we talk about this a lot with uh, you know, on the Liberating Humanity website has a lot of information on not only keeping your children safe and and helping them uh break through and and heal from some challenges they may be having, but most importantly, us as adults. I I realized over 10 years that uh fixing this problem. Never going to happen, just pulling children out of hell. We needed to pull the hell out of humanity. And that's not just the guys who are, you know, addicted to hardcore pornography or or or you know abusing their their spouses or even those who are who are uh engaging in prostitution, whatever. It's not just that. It's all of us, every single one of us need to look in the mirror and say, what, what do I need to do? What do I need to do to heal so that I can show up and be more present for my children? So I can be more present for my spouse. What, what, what things do I need to let go of that that don't serve me anymore? And there's many ways to do that. I I uh I teach a lot of meditative practices, um, everything from somatic release to couples therapy, uh, um, you know, breath work and eye-gazing exercises. And and I have I have a lot of different ones that we use at our retreats. We have uh retreats in throughout the world that we host. And let me touch on something that I think is important, primarily because the laws are going to change over the next year or two in the United States and thus in other countries as well, when it comes to some of the tools that are very effective. So it's important that adults understand what works and what doesn't work and open your minds to the proper use of these tools. So, as I spoke about a little bit earlier, and my 35 years ago, my company helped people overcome anxiety, depression, PTSD addictions, childhood trauma. Um, as we dealt with the darkest part of humanity and we had to figure out how to help our undercover operators heal from that because they were carrying so much darkness, it was affecting every part of their life.

Psychedelics And Trauma Therapy Protocols

SPEAKER_02 23:44

We started working with some scientists and some doctors on the proper protocol for the use of certain psychedelics when it comes to trauma therapy, especially PTSD and addictions and anxiety and depression. Now, don't get me wrong, guys. I am uh when I say psychedelics, I'm talking about things like psilocybin in mushrooms, et cetera, right? Um, I'm we we have very effectively worked with veterans and also women who have dealt with severe childhood trauma, as well as as entrepreneurs using everything from ketamine to ayahuasca to to psilocybin all the way to Iaboga. And uh I would encourage people to take some time and do some research on the Johns Hopkins University studies on on how effective these tools can be. I'm not a I'm not a fan whatsoever of somebody going to a rave party and you know getting high with their friends on mushrooms. It's not only a bad idea, it could be dangerous. And and this is why. Now, I'm gonna touch on this just so that just give me 30 seconds here on this. First of all, you know, I thought in the beginning these things must be bad, like like cocaine, you must be addictive. The truth is, psilocybin is safer than table sugar. There has never been a case of addiction, not one ever. There's never been a case of overdose, not one ever. And so people are like, wow, why was it a Schedule I drug? Well, I truly believe that it was pressure from the pharmaceutical companies because you can get 10 and 20 years' worth of therapy done in two or three days. We can help people get off of all of their anxiety depression medications, all of those things. We have a very successful track record. And we became master facilitators about 10 years ago, primarily in helping everybody from the darkness of child trafficking. But uh, since that time, we have now hosted and facilitated almost a hundred guided meditation breathwork facilitated plant medicine healing experiences. So I'm not going to go into more detail on that here, if uh, you know, people can go to Liberating Humanity and learn more about that. Or, you know, even in the book, in the book, The Sound of Freedom, that uh, you know, the true stories that inspired the film, um, available on Amazon, is uh talks the very last section talks about all of the different modalities to help people heal from childhood trauma that a lot of us still hold on to. So there's uh there's a lot of tools. I I uh I'm a big advocate of breath work. I'm a big advocate of daily meditation. And a lot of a lot of people, you know, I I know in the beginning, I, you know, me as a as a non-denominational Christian, I thought, oh, meditation, that's that's different. That's opposite of prayer, right? No, that's Eastern ver versus Western. No. Here's how I see

Meditation As Listening With The Heart

SPEAKER_02 26:46

it. For me at least, prayer was very one-sided. It was God, sorry, sorry, sorry, praise, praise, praise, fix, fix, fix, and then hang up the phones, so to speak. I I never took the time to listen, never took the time to tune in. And deep meditation is simply getting out of your head, getting into your heart, and being able to receive instead of just having that one-sided conversation with your creator. So that's uh it's a whole long conversation there, but it's a key to healing is is in getting into that heart space and tuning into that that light that all of us have access to.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Wow, I think um that's an important, a very important message that you shared towards the end, Paul. And um I think uh would love to have another conversation on the uh, you know, other side of this, uh of what we talked about, perhaps. But uh folks for today, um, since we near the minute mark, I would want to remind you um that you know what Paul reminded me today is this I think uh when you say resilience, it's uh not the absence of any kind I mean of being affected, right? It is the practice of choosing to write again and again and uh to process what you carry rather than really ignore or parade. So uh that's the thought that I would like you all to sit with and ponder about for a few minutes as we wrap this off. But

Where To Connect And Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Paul, for this conversation, if someone resonated with and uh I mean has been uh you know thinking about these stuff lately and wants to connect with you, could you please tell our listeners where can they find you, your book and the work of liberating humanity so that they can continue this journey with you?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah, and all all social medias you can just look up liberating humanity and you can find me on the social media channels and uh or you can just go to liberatinghumanity.com and uh and uh if you want to get directly involved with our foundation, you can just go to Child Liberation, Child Liberation Foundation, or there's links on Liberating Humanity as well that will link you into the foundation. So would be honored to to connect with anybody if um if somebody wants to spend some one-on-one time, come down to one of our retreats. And um, I would be honored to to spend time in that sacred space and helping uh people release everything that doesn't align with them and embrace everything that they want to achieve in their life.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Lovely. And uh folks, for all of you, I'll include the details in the show notes that so that you could easily reach out to Paul and uh also dig deeper into the book. Um, just out of freedom and folks with that. We hit today's minute mark on this podcast. So thank you so much, Paul, for this uh conversation. This is not something uh, you know, I think this was one of a kind and something that you don't get to talk about every day. And uh I just want to thank you for sharing your um honest views and a grounded um, you know, I mean, reality on what's really going on around the world. So to everyone who listened today, folks, thank you for being uh here, willing to sit with something uh, you know, a difficult conversation like this. And uh I just want to remind you that Healthy Mind Healthy Life believes that these kind of conversations are part of healing too. So if today's episode touched something in you, please do share it with someone who might need it. And uh, this has been signed on Healthy Mind Healthy Life, part of the Healthy Man Biovic Network, and we'll see you in the next one.