🎙 Behind-The-Scenes with Benjamin Casteillo

Elevating human consciousness through research and education

Benjamin is a researcher, and educator and uses a trans-disciplinary approach to uncover the roots of the sustainability challenges that we face today.

And the solutions that can address them.

So what are the root causes of the issues we face today?

According to Benjamin, the roots of the challenges we face today are actually inside of ourselves.

Fears, beliefs, and traumas from our past are driving behavioural patterns that are completely obsolete and unsustainable today.

How did Benjamin start this journey to elevate consciousness?

His story started as a kid.

Since he was a child, he felt like he was born in a world that did not make any sense.

Looking at the way adults were functioning, and did not understand it.

From seeing an abundance of products in the supermarket while having a homeless person next to the supermarket, who did not have enough to eat.

These realisations led him to start asking questions.

Questions that always had the same answer “That’s the way it is”.

Which was not enough of an answer and did not feel right to him.

A need to fit in, and be like the others led him to suppress his feelings & emotions and stop asking questions.

Eventually, tension started to build inside of him.

From a rebellious teen to receiving a strict education.

So he could fit into the system.

After finishing high school, he decided to study International Business to discover the world.

During his studies, he discovered the “business” world, which was another shock.

As everything was centred around money, which did not make sense to him.

So at 25, Benjamin experienced his first mental breakdown.

He believed doctors when they told him that he had a mental illness.

Today, he sees it as the first emergency link to his beginning of consciousness awakening.

2 years later, Ben moved to Bali - in search of a stable life.

As he was under medication, he decided to look for ways to stop taking them.

Following the work of a healer, he managed to quit his medication and climb the corporate ladder.

And the more he climbed that ladder, the more he understood that the system he was part of was not sustainable.

Because the only things they cared about were profits and growth.

Without paying any attention to the ecological and environmental consequences of their activities as a gastronomic food supplier.

Ben also noticed that the people who were getting the richest were the people already at the top.

And those suffering from the consequences were at the bottom.

The negative social and ecological consequences of his activities created a cognitive dissonance in him.

From realising that the narrative he was in, was not reflecting reality.

Having “success” on the outside while feeding a system that is driving humanity towards disaster.

That’s when he started reading more articles and reports.

While trying to avoid thinking about the issues, and putting them under the carpet.

Reassuring himself while suppressing his emotions and staying numb.

One day, Ben decided to see a psychologist and share these questions that he had.

She confirmed his sayings that humanity is sleepwalking towards disaster.

Wait what? 🤯

That was the pivoting moment for Benjamin.

Being at the top of his corporate career, working 40 hours per week while using his free time to distract himself.

Which did not work as his feeling of meaninglessness and cognitive dissonance kept growing.

That’s when he decided to go for a meditative retreat to seek inner peace.

Discovering the inner dimension through meditation.

Until one day, after days and days of meditation, he started getting answers.

Answers to his many questions, to understand the root causes.

After countless hours and days of meditation, something opened within himself.

As if a door opened, allowing him to get lots of downloads of information.

While getting emotionally released.

At that moment, a veil had been lifted.

As he was receiving answers, he started sharing with his friends.

Trying to convince them.

These same friends eventually put him in a psychiatric hospital.

4 times.

After the fourth time and gathering a sufficient amount of information, he realised that he needed to grow himself.

He understood that his mission was to bring sanity into an insane world.

From competition to collaboration, to take care of our garden and planet rather than fighting over the turf.

This is where New World Together came from.

Starting from raising awareness through conferences, and explaining why we need to unite.

People were getting it but did not know what to do.

He was facing an invisible wall, so he started to study.

While understanding more about the belief systems of his participants.

Which led him to map out different type of beliefs and fears that were holding us back.

Then, Benjamin found the last piece of the puzzle:

Collective traumas.

This was key to helping him develop his training programmes and workshops.

To elevate consciousness, by notably connecting the dots between the metacrisis being manifested outside of ourselves and the unresolved issues inside of ourselves.

Highlighting the wrong behaviours and understanding how we can change them.

According to Ben, the first thing we need is awareness.

Understand that the problem we’re trying to fix outside of ourselves stands from issues we have not addressed inside of ourselves.

So for someone working to fix outside problems, it’s important to also do work within yourself.

To bring new narratives.

To bring new knowledge.

His work today is to synthesise, vulgarise and bring this new knowledge to the world, through education.

Key learnings since Benjamin started New World Together

1. Accept that frustration is part of the process. Not everybody is ready to hear this new knowledge.

2. Every obstacle is an opportunity to learn, expand his knowledge and improve his ability to reach his goals.

3. Patience is key. Everything that he does enters his research field. It’s a constant learning journey.

4. There is a vast range of solutions and tools available today to help us start our inner work. It’s just about getting started.

What would you say to Benjamin who is on Day 1 of New World Together

Key learnings from Benjamin ✨

1. It’s important to accept every emotion, all of them. There are no “good” or “bad” emotions, it’s important to accept them all.

2. Doing the inner work is crucial to elevate our consciousness and work on the external challenges we’re facing. It starts within us.

3. Reconnecting to our emotions is reconnecting to ourselves. If we suppress our emotions we are suppressing ourselves.

A quote I want to highlight from our conversation:

I really enjoyed my conversation with Benjamin Casteillo and his authenticity during our conversation.

I hope that one of these lessons will resonate with you. 🫶

Enjoy reading & listening!

Keep pushing 💪

Alya

PS: Listen to the audio version of this interview on my podcast Behind-the-Scenes. 🎧

More about Benjamin 👇

Learn more about New World Together on their website.

Feel free to follow and reach out to him via LinkedIn, Benjamin is always keen to connect with other change-makers.