In the latest episode of Supernormalized, host CeeJay Barnaby invites listeners to embark on a transformative journey with Rocio Aquino and Angel Arengo, a dynamic couple who are not only partners in marriage but also in the mission of empowering lives through storytelling. Their bestselling novel, The Orchid: The Secret Code of Modern Goddesses, serves as a beacon of hope and healing, rooted in spiritual psychology, feminine empowerment, and conscious leadership. This episode delves into their personal evolutions, exploring how they navigated trauma towards liberation and the practical tools they offer for healing.
Rocio and Angel share their profound insights on the importance of awareness, gratitude, and forgiveness as essential practices for anyone embarking on a self-discovery journey. They emphasize that healing is not just a solitary endeavor but a collective experience that can be amplified through community support. Their discussions reveal how the divine feminine is being reintroduced into our culture, encouraging both women and men to embrace their emotional selves and foster authentic connections. The couple’s unique perspectives, shaped by their diverse global experiences, highlight the necessity of empowering women to uplift entire communities.
Listeners will find inspiration in the stories of five extraordinary women featured in The Orchid, each representing different walks of life and struggles. The novel serves as an emotional refuge, guiding readers towards radical self-love, acceptance, and intentional living. Rocio and Angel’s journey is a testament to the power of storytelling as a tool for transformation, inviting everyone to reclaim their inner strength and embrace their true selves.
For more insights and to connect with Rocio and Angel, visit their website: The Orchid Book
00:00 Introduction to the Journey
CeeJay Barnaby introduces Rocio Aquino and Angel Arengo, highlighting their mission of transforming lives through storytelling and spiritual psychology.
02:36 Pivotal Moments in Their Lives
Rocio and Angel share the key experiences that led them to write The Orchid, discussing their personal journeys toward forgiveness and empowerment.
05:45 The Power of Feminine Empowerment
Exploring how empowering women can uplift entire communities and the importance of reintroducing the divine feminine into our culture.
10:39 Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energies
The couple discusses the significance of embracing both masculine and feminine energies for personal growth and healing.
15:42 Healing Through Storytelling
Rocio and Angel explain how their novel serves as a guide for healing and self-discovery, emphasizing the transformative power of stories.
20:23 Practical Tools for Healing
They share actionable practices from The Orchid, including awareness, gratitude, and forgiveness, that listeners can apply in their lives.
25:00 The Role of Community in Healing
The importance of collective support in personal transformation and how community can amplify individual empowerment.
30:00 The Vision for The Orchid Movement
Rocio and Angel discuss their aspirations for the future of their work and the impact they hope to create through their initiatives.
35:47 Cultivating Gratitude and Awareness
The couple shares techniques for cultivating gratitude and awareness, emphasizing their importance in the healing process.
40:00 The Journey of Forgiveness
Rocio and Angel discuss personal stories of forgiveness and how it has led to meaningful personal freedom.
45:00 The Importance of Community Support
Exploring how community support amplifies individual empowerment and the collective healing process.
50:00 Future Aspirations for The Orchid
Rocio and Angel share their bold vision for The Orchid movement, including potential books, series, and community-building initiatives.
55:00 Conclusion and Call to Action
CeeJay Barnaby wraps up the conversation, encouraging listeners to explore their own journeys and embrace the teachings shared in the episode.
Transcript
CeeJay Barnaby (00:04)
Today on Super Normalised, I’m going to invite you into a remarkable journey alongside Rocio Aquino and Angel Arengo. Partners not only in marriage, but also in transforming lives through powerful storytelling rooted in spiritual psychology, feminine empowerment and conscious leadership. Together they crafted The Orchid, the secret code of modern goddesses. A bestselling novel that doubles as an emotional refuge.
a sanctuary where five extraordinary women transverse their inner landscapes towards radical self-love, forgiveness, awareness, gratitude, acceptance and intentional living. Rocio brings decades of media industry expertise paired with heartfelt passion for women’s empowerment and Angel shines as an internationally seasoned leader who embraced his life’s meaning beyond corporate prestige into deep transformational coaching.
In this wide ranging conversation, we’ll explore the personal evolutions navigating trauma towards liberation, practical tools anyone can use now for healing, secrets behind empowering feminine archetypes and designing immersive healing environments that blend ancient wisdom with modern science, and also building communities anchored in conscious creation across cultures. If you ever wonder how spirituality meets
real world resilience and how authentic connection fuels both personal freedom and wider impact. This episode will inspire fresh clarity about walking your own unique path. Yes, this book is mainly for women, but also for men that are actually willing to open up and be receptive to change. Stay tuned as we unpacked on proven strategies, plus moving stories aimed at lighting up hearts ready to embrace their true heart based power.
Grab a cup of tea and let’s dive into love’s alchemy here with Rocio and Angel on Super Normalized.
Welcome to Supernormalized, Rocio and Angel. Rocio and Angel, you two are bringing back the divine feminine to the women of the world. This is a powerful thing that needs to happen in our culture right now. I’ve got to ask you first of all, what were the pivotal moments in your personal journeys that led you to write the orchid, the secret code of modern goddesses? And welcome to the show.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (02:36)
Thank you so much for having us. Yes, this is incredible. know, CJ, at one point I was looking for forgiveness and I didn’t know how to forgive.
but really was a huge journey, who took most 30 years. And the universe is wise, really, really wise. So when you put your heart really into something, the universe begins to guide you. So at one point when I discovered forgiveness was like this.
CeeJay Barnaby (02:57)
Mmm.
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (03:15)
This knowledge, I want to share it with my younger self because if I have this knowledge, I’m going to have a better journey through life. And then my mom died when I was 20. So of course, this is a tribute to all the persons who are there outside struggling.
And why women? Because after living around the world and because we live in Miami, Hong Kong, London, LA, we saw the necessity and the necessity to give a voice of what didn’t have a voice and how you can really do this transformation.
that we call alchemy. But all the women can now do it through this novel.
Yeah, and I would add to that that in my case, I was looking for purpose CJ and I had been had a fantastic career in corporate and somehow I wasn’t complete. Something was missing and what was missing was purpose. And as we delve into spirituality and read hundreds of books and did a master’s certificate in spiritual psychology, we started to change. And as we started to change, our lives became better, each one of us independently and
CeeJay Barnaby (04:37)
Mm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (04:43)
as a marriage, then as a family because our daughters started to experience life differently. And once we saw this…
She came up one day and said, why don’t we do something to share this? We have to share this with more people. That was the calling. And so we decided that we wanted to turn it into storytelling. And so that’s how the Orchid, the Secret Code of Modern Goddesses was born. We wanted to tell our story of transformation through the eyes of these five women, all from different walks of lives and different experiences and different ideas of what it feels to be broken.
and bring them back to themselves. And so that’s what the book is about. It’s a novel that helps you come back to yourself and you know, at the end of it all, we’re love inside.
CeeJay Barnaby (05:33)
⁓
Yeah, that’s a bottom line that I hear with so many people I talk to is that ⁓ the separate parts of ourself can only come back together when there’s love involved. And yeah, the message that you’ve got in your book is definitely around that. So how have your diverse global experiences and world travels shaped your perspectives on healing and feminine empowerment?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (05:45)
Yes.
You know, beautiful question. Thank you so much.
Number one, all the limiting beliefs that we carry between our personal level and then our collective consciousness that we live in different parts of the world. So that was something amazing to experience and to see in firsthand.
how other people in another part of the world think of themselves and what empowers them. And what empowers them is the mind and the stories that they tell themselves. Coming from a culture that at one point we have implanted third world, you are a third world country because I come from Mexico and I believe it. And then I was in a table with women and people from all over the world and I was
observing them, how they were freer and feel comfortable to talk about everything. So I begin to experience they are different ideas. And in the moment that I discovered that you can change those ideas, then you can change everything inside of you. So I begin to see that plus
When you empower a woman, you empower a household, a family, a community, really an economy. I saw it in myself how I was really living my worst version, only to be what society told me.
And in the moment that I was able to change completely, change the ways, the things that I was limit myself, in that moment I became an incredible woman. My marriage became better. I became a better mother, a better friend, a more understanding human being. And look, now the only thing that I wanna do is to empower more people to feel the way we feel.
CeeJay Barnaby (08:24)
Yeah, it sounds like that you found a way to ground yourself in the power of the feminine and in doing so, embrace ⁓ things which were, if you look back far enough, they were normal. It’s like, that’s what normal is, right? And it’s been taken away from us. Why? is it like, sometimes I can go on a bit of a conspiracy tip and say, well,
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (08:47)
Yes.
CeeJay Barnaby (08:51)
Was that just to get more people to make more money to take it off them?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (08:56)
Yes, yes, and yes. Yes, yes, you are correct. Well, you know, mean,
for so long we’ve been…
condition to behave as workers, as individuals who answer to a calling. But the calling has been at the physical level to make more money, to do. Everything is do, do, do, do. You’re nothing unless you do. And we forget that being, it’s really important. And not only being, but allowing yourself to be, right? And the healing of the feminine is not just with the women, it’s with the men as well. How much have we suppressed?
CeeJay Barnaby (09:07)
Yeah.
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (09:35)
because we’ve been told that emotions are our enemy. It is a weakness. You don’t show it. And that’s what was needed at some point because you needed to accomplish something. But that’s not true of us all the time. And so for me, the journey also has been of healing myself. And in fact, I woke up one day, CJ, I said with this idea that, oh my gosh, and I’m not very religious, but I was in a part of my life and I’ve studied the Bible and so on. And I remember the fifth commandment on
CeeJay Barnaby (09:47)
That’s right.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (10:04)
Where are thy father and thy mother?
And frankly, I believe that deep down in those words is the honoring of the divine masculine and the divine feminine inside of you. Keep a balance of that inside of you. Because when you’re balanced, that’s what life is all about, is achieving that balance between one side and the other, the yin and the yang. And I’ve become more powerful since the moment that I’ve realized and embraced the feminine side of me and allowed that to be as
CeeJay Barnaby (10:15)
Mmm.
Mm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (10:36)
important to me as the masculine.
CeeJay Barnaby (10:39)
As a man myself, I know that we’re actually taught to suppress all of our feelings, our emotions, to get things done because we have to do, do, do. But the side effect of that is illness and disease and even mental disease. You just don’t feel healthy and happy. But then ⁓ I did discover for myself at one stage a way of getting in contact with that receptive side, which is the feminine.
And when you actually get in contact with that receptive side, for me at first, I couldn’t actually put words to what was happening to me when I was actually feeling too much. And a friend said, you’re actually experiencing overwhelm. And I’m like, ⁓ I’ve never had words for that. You know, my cup is too full. Okay, I get it now. And in that discovering of my own receptivity,
I found more balance. So yeah, I can totally jibe with that.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (11:41)
How beautiful.
It’s super beautiful that you were able to do it and find it.
CeeJay Barnaby (11:49)
Well, I didn’t even know what it was. And I think part of that is because I didn’t have words for it because it’s not actually allowed in male culture. In modern male culture, I should say. Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (11:57)
Right? Yes. Yeah. CJ,
I’ve equated that to, I mean, again, I was in corporate America for a long time. I equate that to almost walking into a meeting with your team and saying to have the team.
right, to half of it. You’re not that important. I’m not going to listen to you. I’m going to suppress you. Yet I want to accomplish a lot of things together, right? And imagine the silliness of that, that we’ve basically suppressed that side of us, that half of us. And in doing so have really shortened and curtailed the achievements of what we can do together.
CeeJay Barnaby (12:22)
Yeah, it makes sense.
Yeah, exactly.
How did your transition from corporate leadership to spiritual awakening influence your approach to storytelling and coaching?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (12:47)
Hmm. Man? Yes? To be honest, there was a part of me always, I’ve always been glass half full type of person, and I’ve always been, for whatever reason, you know, I would…
meet my new teams and I would say my only job is to make myself obsolete, is to grow you to the point where I am no longer necessary and I can move on to whatever else. But that was ingrained in me and somehow I didn’t know that that was something greater that I could connect to. And so what ended up happening is that as I continued and I started climbing the corporate ladder, I started to be disillusioned with what I saw.
CeeJay Barnaby (13:21)
Mmm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (13:32)
And it just wasn’t enough, I felt. And of course, if you start expanding that and you start looking at the impact that we’re having in the world, you start to say, there’s got to be a better way of doing things. We can’t just continue on this trajectory of more, more, more, more at any cost. So the pandemic arrives. after the pandemic, obviously was a moment for the entire world to kind of step back and say, is this the best that we can do for ourselves? Right. And she began her journey.
I began it and as that started to happen, a switch flipped in us and all of a sudden we started to understand, for example in traditional storytelling, we spend an incredible amount of time listening to people’s traumas and people’s drama and that’s what has entertained us. And normally at the end of the movie, at the end of the series, we spend a small time, a small period of time learning that that person has
now
evolved into something else and it’s like wow that’s great the hero the heroine but we don’t learn how they did it and so what we wanted to do in our story was to mimic that saying that says life is 10 % what happens and 90 % how you react.
And so our story is told from that perspective. 10 % of the book, the early part of the book is about the stories of these amazing women and how quote unquote, they came to be broken. What happened to them that broke them and led them to believe that they weren’t enough, et cetera, et cetera. And so our story takes the other 90 % in teaching tools and methods and conversations that lead these women through their characters
through their stories because it is a novel to show how they came out of the hole, how they came out of their sadness, how they came out of their own, you know, their I am not worthy to become something more more powerful and more knowledgeable as to the tools that they can use to achieve that liberty.
CeeJay Barnaby (15:42)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For someone who’s starting out their healing or self-discovery process, what are three simple practices from the Orchids teachings like awareness, gratitude and forgiveness that they can apply right now?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (16:00)
For example, the most important when you read the novel really is awareness. And begin to think for what reason you think the way you think.
and we put a list of many limiting beliefs. you begin to, the best part of the Orchid is that you have ⁓ a variety of different modalities. And what we know is not the same recipe works for every person. You have, there are recipe for you to begin to see which one works for you. So awareness,
and then to understand energy. Where are you in the energy? We put there a chart that is called the spectrum of inner growth. So you begin to see where you are and this curiosity is going to guide you. So then of course meditation. If you can at least
quiet, have a quiet time with yourself. Two minutes is the beginning on a different trajectory of what is gonna be your life. You know, we put throughout the book specific examples that the characters follow. ⁓
Journaling is another. Writing. There are moments when we are having a frustration, are angry, are sad, are having an emotion that is somewhat…
overtaking us and it feels and we know because it feels that it’s not us on a normal day to day. That’s a good opportunity to light a candle, find a quiet place and we say light a candle because there’s an element of like you’re starting a ritual with yourself. There’s a seriousness somehow when we turn on a candle right that we’ve been trained that way. So light a candle and sit and just write I am angry because why am I angry and
CeeJay Barnaby (17:51)
Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (18:15)
that to come out, allow that to flow. There’s so much energy stored in our bodies and what we try to set up throughout the book is opportunities for that energy to flow. It could be finding a good friend and saying, hey sit down I need to talk to you, do not give me your opinion, I just need you to listen and listen with love because I am gonna pour it all out on you right now. And so writing, forgiveness is really important CJ.
CeeJay Barnaby (18:39)
You
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (18:44)
Most of the time, we find out that the person that we are most angry with is ourselves. Because of things we did, because, we label it, right? That was so silly, that was so stupid, how dare I, how could I? And it’s about letting go. CJ, no one has ever speak the way I speak to me.
CeeJay Barnaby (19:11)
Mmm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (19:12)
was horrible the way I spoke to me. You know, after I became 50, for first time I understand what was to be my best friend.
Imagine all these years saying the way I was saying, of course I forgive myself for being like that, but you know, I didn’t know. And a lot of people, don’t know that we are doing it because we grew up in a society or I grew up in a household when was normal to speak back to you. So that is the condition.
that in the moment that you begin to wonder and question yourself is like a why? For what reason I’m doing this? And that is awareness. And another, the last one that I’m gonna say for your listeners right now is really, you can say this is an invitation louder that this is my temple.
and nothing that is not love is going to come close.
CeeJay Barnaby (20:23)
Hmm.
Very important.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (20:26)
becomes a mantra,
it’s like a shield. That’s right.
CeeJay Barnaby (20:29)
Yeah, yeah,
yeah, you actually have to find your boundaries within that and realise that that in a talk dialogue isn’t necessarily something you need to entertain at all. in, you know, stopping that process of and that habit of self-talk that’s negative is important for a big step in growth for sure. One of the things that you suggest is cultivating gratitude even during difficult times or emotional setbacks. How do you suggest people do that?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (21:00)
Well, look, it’s great. One of the things that we learned and we say in the book is enter into the vibration of gratitude. It’s not important what you’re grateful about.
If you know and you can name them all, that’s fantastic because it’s even a greater element of intention behind it. But if you don’t know, just start with the ABCs, right? I am going to give thanks and frankly, just look around. I’m going to give thanks for the television in front of me. I’m going to give thanks for CJ right here, right now. I give thanks for the light. I give thanks for the coffee. I give thanks. I give thanks. And you begin to see an increment, crescento.
CeeJay Barnaby (21:42)
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (21:42)
And
that crescendo is that vibration that is like, ⁓ my God, today is Christmas. Wow, we’re gonna have fun. And it’s that energy that you have when you are a kid and you wanna go and see your friends and go to swim. It’s that emotion that really is sending the signal to the universe and to say, okay.
CeeJay Barnaby (21:50)
Exactly.
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (22:09)
I’m listening to you and then a lot of magic happens. When I’m upset, I already know that the way to get rid of that feeling, first I allow it to happen because sometimes we need to allow the emotions, right? The second thing that I do is say, well, for how long do I want to be upset? Because you could stay upset for the rest of your life, right? And it’s, no, I’m not gonna let upset…
CeeJay Barnaby (22:25)
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (22:36)
be the ruler of my kingdom. I am going to allow it for a few minutes and then that’s it. We got to cut it. And the way to change that energy is gratitude. And so I sit down and I start giving thanks and it could be five minutes, three minutes. Again, what matters is that you enter into the energy of gratitude and then gratitude does the rest. You almost are a participant. You’re a guest in an energy that basically surrounds you. And I know this sounds like almost like
good to be true but it really does act that way. It forces everything out and the only thing that remains is this wonder as Rocio was describing for who you are and for the beauty that life is.
CeeJay Barnaby (23:23)
Yes, yeah, well, I personally believe that we live in heaven and this is the heaven we create. And so if you choose to have that negative talk and all of the story that you wish to have around that you can. The universe will give you whatever you want. So as soon as you tune into that gratitude frequency, that starts bouncing back at you as well. yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (23:36)
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I’ve sold people. It’s like turning a GPS.
and saying, and you’re always worrying at GPS, right? And if you’re in the angry GPS, the universe says, ⁓ you’re looking for anger because that’s what you’re vibrating at. So I’m gonna send you a lot of reasons for you to be angry. So when you find that this is like changing radio stations, then you say, ⁓ I wanna be in the vibration of gratitude and the universe says your wish is my command and start sending you a lot of things to be grateful for.
And that’s when you start to realize that you are in control of your life by how you think, how you act, and in what energy you vibrate in.
CeeJay Barnaby (24:30)
right on point for the change that we need to have, I think globally actually. So can you?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (24:36)
Yes. Please send this podcast to everyone because
we need to, we need to be in a line like a come on guys, let’s work it out together.
CeeJay Barnaby (24:47)
Absolutely,
for sure. Can you share any examples of breakthrough moments where applying, say, personal forgiveness led to meaningful personal freedom for either you or one of the characters in your book?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (25:00)
I have many because I need to forgive my father, my mother, my friends, everyone that you can imagine because I was thinking.
I was thinking that they did many things to me and I was carrying all that sadness and tragedy with me during my life. But in the moment that I was ready to forgive, I caught, is in the moment that you caught with your past. Imagine a line and you do this, click. And then you forgive yourself.
for carrying the pain of your mother when she was depressed, when you talked too bad to her, when, you know, all these things that really weigh, weighing on us. Weigh you down. Weigh you down.
CeeJay Barnaby (25:59)
Hmm
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (26:01)
So in that moment we need to really understand how incredible free is when you apply forgiveness to other person and to us. You know CJ, every one of our characters is
symbolizes something in our lives. So there is a woman that’s really angry and because she’s had to fight tooth and nail for everything that she’s had. There’s a woman who was divorced and it’s still angry at that situation and it’s impacting her tremendously. There’s a woman who is gay and in our case we’re not gay but we’ve hidden ourselves and our true selves from many people many times for fear of not being accepted, for wanting to belong etc. We’ve all done that sometimes.
or another. There’s another woman who is in the top of her game. She is at the United Nations giving a fantastic speech and all she sees is the negative things that she’s doing, the things that are not working out. And so that’s been us many times in what appeared to be the top of the world and just not enjoying it. And then there is another woman who was sexually abused in her modeling career. In our case, I was a child, she was an adult, and so it’s happened to us. So I
I’ve gotten to the point of forgiving so many different aspects of my life. Now, forgiving is not saying that that person was right in doing so. It’s simply not giving energy to that situation again. The moment that I’ve realized that forgiving was something that I did for me and not for the other person, because so many of us don’t forgive and say, I’m not gonna let them off the hook.
not gonna let that situation off the hook. No, it is you who you’re saying to, I’m gonna give you back your energy. Don’t waste it anymore in the past. The moment I realized that and I realized that it was for me, I forgive now all the time.
because I don’t want my energy to be spattered all over the place without an intention. I am now very careful with my intention every day so that I know where I’m sending my energy and most of the time I manage to use it for my dreams and my projects and the purpose that I now have in my life. That’s where I want to put my energy. So that’s how I shifted and I started forgiving a lot more in my life as well.
CeeJay Barnaby (28:35)
I’ve got a story about forgiveness around ⁓ myself to do with that because it made me think of it just now. ⁓ In the past, I was going through and figuring out my own self and growing and personal growth. And I got to a point where I was like, ⁓ I’ve been a jerk these several times with these people. it really stuck with me. And I kept on thinking about, thinking about, thinking about. I went back to those people and said, look, I want to tell you sorry for that situation that happened then, blah, blah, blah.
And they said to me, that’s not how I experienced it at all. And what you’re going through is your own stuff. And I was like, what? And after I saw, I think two people that I had my own story going on with and realized it had nothing to do with them, I had to forgive myself because sometimes we experience events in such a way that isn’t true.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (29:26)
Mm-hmm.
CeeJay Barnaby (29:32)
and we get caught on it. Like, that’s what happened. That was my version of it, and that’s what happened, but that’s not always true. And ⁓ the main key in that is to actually forgive yourself because, it’s tension that you’re holding yourself in that’s not necessary.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (29:48)
Yes. CJ, I discovered another face for forgiveness. At one point I discovered that I remember somebody doing something to me. And then I went to that person. I spoke with teachers and the teachers told me, you know, it’s very probably that they don’t remember.
when they did something to you. Because sometimes something came to them and they really act with this from that place of anger. But because they are not there, it’s only the anger who was speaking.
so they don’t remember so really even though that you are waiting for the same person to say please forgive me
they don’t remember neither. So that’s why it’s so tricky, the forgiveness, because at one point the only forgiveness that we, the three of us, control is how we forgive them and how we forgive us.
CeeJay Barnaby (31:06)
Exactly. Right
on point. Why is feminine empowerment so central to the message of the orchid and how does it invite women specifically to reclaim their
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (31:22)
You want me to You? Me? Well look, be honest, once we decided that we wanted to do something to share it with the world, and because of the way we were feeling, one day we were having coffee in our ⁓ kitchen, and Rocio gets up and says, by the way, I had a dream last night, and our project needs to be about women. And…
It’s almost as if I look back at my entire life, 55 years, and I said, ⁓ of course it is. I saw.
lined up right behind me all these powerful angels all who had had bodies of women and who had helped me my mom my grandmother bosses friends colleagues and it just made sense that I wanted to honor that energy for me and for them and so we began working and then of course we have learned from the United Nations from living around the world that really when you do impact the life of
of
a woman, you impact so much more, as we mentioned earlier. You really have an impact in the immediate village and community and society. And so it sort of made sense. the masculine energy has had such a long run on this planet, right? And that it just, again, I look at it as almost as if a two-legged body, it’s walking with one leg. Why?
It makes no sense. We’re so much better if we’re running on both legs. And so that’s why behind it was first about strengthening. So if you’re an architect and you want to remodel, you make sure that the two columns or the four columns that you have in place are as strong as they can be before you put more things on top of it. And so.
We want to make sure we wanted to share with the world this energy and this know-how so that more women felt stronger and empowered, but in a healthy way. Truly empowered because I think it’s going to make all of us better, not just the feminine, but the masculine as well, that it’s so eager to experience that. And how do we do it?
It’s really very simple steps. Face the fear. Face the healing. We run away from our own healing because we know it’s difficult but we think it’s going to be painful in a way that it’s going to be unbearable. And the truth is that more often than not we can do the healing on our own.
because we have the capabilities. Nothing is given to us that we cannot do ourselves or with people helping us. And all you really need is an environment of love, of trust and non-judgment. And when you’re in that and that’s what the Orchid really builds, it creates sort of a bubble in which you can say, I feel safe and I feel strong. I’m going to go inside and take out those needles that have been, you know, in my skin and that I haven’t touched because of a
afraid
that they’re going to hurt and all of a sudden you’re able to do that and little by little you start to heal and when you start to heal you start to feel an alignment.
And slowly you expand on that alignment and you expand through experiences by talking, having conversations like this one, going to healers and teachers and reading. And as you start to align, a little light starts to reemerge. And it’s not that it wasn’t there. It’s there. It’s just covered under pain and ideas and trauma. And when that light starts to emerge, your power, you connect with it again. And all of a sudden there is this
that begins and you start feeling different. That’s what we signify by being a modern goddess. A modern goddess is one that can look at the world around her and say, I’m okay, I can deal with this and I have tools to help me feel better about who I am.
and about how I interact with the world. I don’t feel like a victim. I feel like someone who has choices and those choices are always going to be centered around me because I am the most important part of my universe.
CeeJay Barnaby (35:47)
I’m curious though, so how do lessons in the orchid actually help break common mental patterns like self-doubt or imposter syndrome? I mean, embracing this power.
When you first embrace the power of God and goddess within yourself, you might be thinking, ⁓ I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And you pull back and you’re experiencing that self doubt or imposter syndrome. How do you actually help people ⁓ break those patterns so they can go, okay, no, no, this is okay to be in this flow? Because I mean, it’s a big thing to actually accept that this is a part of us.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (36:28)
It’s beautiful, but takes time. It’s a mastery that takes, you begin to do it little by little. Again, it’s a puzzle. And you begin to put…
and do things for really gain this confidence for really when you go out of alignment you do a checkup of yourself where I am where are my thoughts where are my words where are my feelings where are my actions and you begin where is the disconnection so it’s a moment
when you really achieve that and you experience our harmony and it’s really quiet and really peaceful. That’s how I experience this.
These moments are really soft and really quiet and when obviously the doubt comes because it’s lonely. And I, for example, I didn’t find at the beginning many teachers that were mothers, that they are out there talking and saying all the things. So I was looking and looking. And then that’s why we need community.
and more people to talk and see about their experience because conversations like these ones help another to more people to understand that they are not alone. They are not broken. That is achievable.
takes time but for example for me took me 30 years but for the person who is listening probably is going to take maybe two or maybe less because
you are saying how to do it, I’m saying how to do it, he’s saying and they are only in the moment to crack their own code for originality, for being themselves. That’s why in the book we put several different stories.
because you’re gonna resonate with them and you’re gonna take whatever you want from there for you to experience yourself in the way you want. It’s one of the reasons why we wrote the novel as a story or why we wrote the book as a novel. We wanted people to get lost.
CeeJay Barnaby (39:10)
Hmm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (39:22)
in the story of these other individuals and not so much caught in the, but how do I do it and how does it make it somehow happen seamlessly that as you are reading because we’ve been listening to stories for millennia.
right? Always sitting around fires and listening to our elders and other people speak of their wisdom. We wanted to capture that same essence and to allow yourself to be lost in the story and learn in the process. So here, unlike other books, and it’s happened to me where I read a South Hope book and I could feel my guard come up. It’s like, yeah, I don’t know about that, you know, but here it’s not about you, although
it is ultimately, it’s about the other women that you’re reading. It is about their specific transformation and how they’re going about it and there you’ll find skepticism, you’ll find difficulty, you’ll find people who challenge it and at the end there’s even in the book a woman who leaves the orchid because she’s not ready and Mary who’s the founder of the orchid turns to the other women and says
CeeJay Barnaby (40:08)
Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (40:35)
We do more by sending her love?
than by asking ourselves what is it that drove her to leave in the first place. And so there the feeling is all let it go, keep going. You know, it’s not failure, it’s just you’re trying it again like an athlete. And we see this all around us and an athlete doesn’t say, ⁓ shush, I’m not going to run again because I didn’t do the timing that I wanted to do in this run. Says no, I’m going to try again tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. And that’s what we’re
hoping people do that in the process of reading the novel. They keep trying and trying and curiosity keeps guiding them until one day there is this domino effect and they could see it because little pieces come together and the puzzle begins to emerge and the puzzle is you.
CeeJay Barnaby (41:30)
It sounds, mean, I practice magic myself and a part of that is doing Sigel work. And one of the things that you can do in Sigel work is a hyper Sigel, which you can actually do is writing. And there’s many writers that have had this experience across the world where they write a story and then they meet the characters they wrote about. ⁓ It sounds like when people read this book, it could be actually attuning them to a personal change just by reading it.
and ⁓ experiencing at first vicariously the story of somebody who’s going through the change, but then that puts them in alignment with change.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (42:11)
Yes, indeed. we first wrote it… Emotion in your body. Yeah.
CeeJay Barnaby (42:17)
Mmm.
Mmm. Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (42:20)
We didn’t know, CJ, when we first wrote it, what it was gonna be. All we said was, if it changes one life, it would have already been worth it. And for us, it was just an act of love that we needed to do. And we hear more and more people coming with their thoughts and reflecting just as you did. I read it and I first, I thought, my gosh, that’s a little long. I’m not sure I wanna read a book that long. And all of a sudden, as they’re getting into the book, they’re like, I don’t want this to finish. Because you enter into a vibration.
of acceptance, of love, of the feeling in which everything is perfect just as it is. And you realize that that person can be you because you already are.
CeeJay Barnaby (42:57)
Mm-hmm.
The Orchid Sanctuary plays a powerful role in your story and it’s a literal place where women heal deeply and transform. Can you describe its vision and energy for those who have not visited?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (43:17)
Well, please come and have a fantastic time in the Orchid because this place was created only for people to come and experience themselves in a safest place. It’s a sanctuary and it’s a sanctuary who’s gonna live in your heart and your imagination.
And when you go there, you begin to really ignite all that power that you can create. And when you finish the novel, that sanctuary stays with you. And when you need it, you can access because you have already the key.
CeeJay Barnaby (44:03)
How important for you both is combining the traditional Western medicine practices with shamanic or holistic healing methods in creating lasting breakthroughs at the Auckland program?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (44:16)
When we wrote The Orchid, we wanted to keep it quite simple. And we wanted to keep it simple because there’s a lot of skepticism out there. And throughout history, we’ve separated ourselves, right? We’ve broken into so many pieces of us and somehow gave the impression that science and spirituality are worlds apart.
right? And the truth is, we are one. Everything about us is intertwined. It happens a lot in Western medicine today where you go to your ear doctor. But what it’s ailing you may be in your foot.
Right? And all of a sudden the doctor that treats the ear is not aware because he or she does not treat the rest of the body. Now, if it’s a curious doctor and a doctor that is trained in a more holistic manner, that doctor will say, well, let’s check out the rest of your body to see what else is there. I remember when I was living in Hong Kong and I would go to a massage and I would say, I’m really stressed out here on my neck. And all of a sudden the masseuse who was this amazing Chinese lady would start with the toes.
CeeJay Barnaby (45:08)
Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (45:30)
in my feet and I couldn’t understand it and she started teaching me and explaining me we’re all connected everywhere all these points of energy you’re one you’re not pieces of you the same to answer your question we have to look at many aspects of us and that’s why at the orchid even though we didn’t speak much about you know esoterism or shamanism and so on
The indication is there that the answers may come from different places and that if we remain curious, those answers will present themselves. So we do speak of a woman who gives energetic massages. We give tarot reading. There is a watsu, bath experience, and there is meditation and other elements. Circles for sharing. And the power of listen the stories of other
CeeJay Barnaby (46:01)
you
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (46:26)
women. The power of the fire for cleansing. All these rituals are there but really the most important part is what makes you feel comfortable and to ask yourself why not because we’ve all experienced energy. You know the most simple one that I can think of is my gosh I called you with my thoughts because I was just thinking about you.
CeeJay Barnaby (46:30)
Mm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (46:49)
And we think that that is a coincidence, except it’s happened so many times that you just, you have to imagine, really, is it coincidence or is it that we really do connect with individuals that we love on a regular basis mentally? And so the idea was to integrate all of that. Although the book, it’s really for individuals who are opening themselves up, not too deep into this, but I do believe that so much of us is connected. And in our own experience, CJ, we’ve seen incredible
CeeJay Barnaby (46:56)
Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (47:19)
transformation, an incredible connection between an Eastern and Western mentality and it is because it’s all pieces of that puzzle that is angel.
as it emerges and some of it has been found meditating inside the pyramid of Giza and another one has been found sitting under a tree or praying at church or having conversations with friends and all of a sudden when you open yourself up it starts to emerge and everything contributes to the answers to the unlocking of you ⁓ and the beauty that you are.
CeeJay Barnaby (47:59)
Yeah, yeah, it speaks to that ⁓ collective intelligence that we all experience when we’re open to it. So how does working collectively through community support amplify individual empowerment when it comes to intensive long week, week long programs?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (48:24)
somebody do maybe you are in a a circle and somebody do a question and they begin to answer in a process in a in a way that give you ideas and inspiration for you to see it from another point of view so that’s why it’s so important to really understand that you are not alone that
Everyone is having the same issues. Everyone has trauma. So at the end, when you begin to heal your trauma and see it,
you are having another experience. So in those settings, you are more aware of doing it. And I really, CJ, feel so hopeful because more and more people are talking about this, believe me, 30 years ago was only a few. And now feels like it was more and more. And really we are connecting. We are doing this great.
CeeJay Barnaby (49:24)
I know.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (49:34)
of love and understanding and you know and we little by little we are stepping up like a no no that’s let’s do it in another way another so is
That’s why it’s so important. These retreats because give you the time for you to begin to process and to center all that information in the core of who you are. So please to any person who is listen to you.
CeeJay Barnaby (50:02)
you
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (50:09)
if you invest in yourself that money is the best money you spend ⁓ and it’s going to multiply by infinite so I’ve I found
CeeJay Barnaby (50:21)
Absolutely.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (50:27)
And you know, it’s funny, it’s happened now so many times, CJ, that now I know it to be true. But we’ve, the first time I experienced it was when she, Rocio and I were changing as individuals and our marriage became better. And all of a sudden our daughters who were not taking the courses that we were taking started to change. Energy expands. The energy is not like it’s contained. Energy, right? We’re still getting the light of stars that existed millions of years ago.
CeeJay Barnaby (50:45)
Yes.
Yes.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (50:57)
That’s how far energy travels. And so the same is true when you start vibrating in love or to be fair in any other vibration as well. So if you’re in hate, hate begins to surround you. But so we choose love. And now I’ve seen it happen so many times. And let’s not forget we’re one. We’re connected. We feel like we’re individuals. But the truth is that we are a very large tribe of single individuals that act as one. And that’s why there’s a
CeeJay Barnaby (50:59)
Hmm.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (51:26)
conscious. And I say that as a reminder to everyone that when you heal, when Angel heals, CJ is healing as well because we share in this energy that is one around us. And so that’s what happens when we’re in groups. One person starts to open up and light enters and light expands and all of a sudden the collective feeling in that room, it’s lighter. And because it’s lighter, change begins to happen.
CeeJay Barnaby (51:53)
Yeah.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (51:56)
And so all of a sudden you start seeing you don’t even have to speak. All you have to do is be in the presence of love and love begins to change you. And so that’s why these experiences are truly important because it really does spread and it spreads organically whether you even intended for it to do so or not.
CeeJay Barnaby (52:17)
Yeah, yeah, I’ve experienced that myself with ⁓ the work that I’ve done on myself and how I’ve changed, then the people around me change. And it’s like also I noticed that as soon as I bring my vibration up to a different sort of level, all the sort of people that you would even consider to be negative entities in your life, they sort of drop away. They forget about you, they stop bugging you and things get easier and better.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (52:39)
Yes. Yes.
Yes,
it’s like a magnet, right? Some magnets you put it in front of the other and it attracts and in some cases it repels. Absolutely. And all it is is they are not in the vibration in which you are so therefore they don’t even see you. They don’t want to be with you and that’s okay if that’s the vibration you want to be in.
CeeJay Barnaby (52:46)
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
That’s right.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like the world as you become more in tune with what you need, you get what you need. It is. is. Where do you see the Orchid movement headed over the next few years in terms of books, series development, community building, and how can listeners get involved early on?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (53:10)
That’s right. Isn’t that beautiful?
⁓ Thank you for the question. We have a very bold vision of what the orchid can become and will become. And partly because we come from the world of entertainment and we’re deeply inspired by, for example, Disney.
Disney created this idea and it started with a mouse and it expanded until now there is these big conglomerates of media and entertainment parks where you go and you connect with your inner child for a day or two or three and it transports you into a feeling.
So imagine if we could build places like this, universities or orchid type of destinations where you could go and learn more tools to live a fuller life and not to live the life I want you to live, but for you to live the life that you know you were meant to live. And so that’s the vision we have. What are we doing to get there? Well, the first thing that we’ve done is to
really support the distribution of this book and its message because it’s a philosophy of living that we hope many people embrace. We are thinking of multiple more books. We are already writing the first half of the theatrical play. We have begun also to write the first episode of a potential television series. And so many people have said now already, where is this Orchid Place? Because I want to go.
CeeJay Barnaby (54:52)
Nice.
Ha
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (54:58)
that
I believe the universe has already gotten the request multiple times and it’s already figuring out how to deliver it. And so there’s a lot planned and really we want to also bring to light the…
CeeJay Barnaby (55:01)
Yeah, yeah, it’s manifesting.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (55:14)
hundreds of thousands of practitioners out there that are doing the light work, that are working with people on a one-on-one or in groups to shed their wisdom, to shed their tools, and that’s part of the Orchid as well, just really opening doors for all the people who are already doing so much work.
CeeJay Barnaby (55:36)
Awesome. I look at your vision is is something to be completely admired and I appreciate everything that you both have shared here today. So I was going to ask you then how can people find you in your work?
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (55:49)
Thank you so much. We have a webpage called The Orchid Book. T-H-E-O-R-C-H-I-D. Book B-O-O-K.
And they’re gonna find in the way there all our social media because we are in Instagram and Facebook and we have a podcast only for people who read the book and at one point is like a you know
This was the effect that has on me. So we did first women and now we are doing it with men. What the book is creating is this common language that people can use like a bridge.
And because he’s not about them and it’s a story, it’s like, why don’t we read this story together and we begin to have a conversation about the characters? What do you think? So it’s an invitation for anyone to read and really to discover.
to discover what else is there. And yes, and I would add the book is available in electronic format, physical format, and audiobook. And the audiobook is simply sensational. And it’s both English and Spanish ⁓ and available in all major platforms. Wherever books are sold, you can find it.
CeeJay Barnaby (57:21)
Brilliant. Thank you very much for coming onto the Super Normalized and sharing your understanding of what I would say is the essence of love, loving ourselves and loving the feminine, the divine feminine and the importance of that for the evolution of our consciousness and being.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (57:39)
CJ, thank you for doing what you do. Thank you for spreading love, for spreading this awareness. And it has been our pleasure and privilege and honor to be here with you.
CeeJay Barnaby (57:49)
Brilliant. Okay. I’ll just say goodbye to the listeners.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (57:53)
Thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone.
CeeJay Barnaby (57:59)
It was truly wonderful talking to Rocio and Angel just now about their understanding of the process of experiencing and writing the Orchid, which as a novel.
is a voice of change for women and men, empowering them to reconnect to the divine feminine and the importance of that in our culture right now. It actually, I would even say it goes beyond that too. It goes more also into the…
the story of our disconnection from reality through all that has happened over the past many hundreds of years with modernity. That’s not to say that modernity has been bad, it’s just to say that as parts of that, we’ve lost our connection to the heart space. This book is about bringing that back and this story has been about that today too and I love everything they shared. So if you’ve enjoyed today’s show, please remember to like and subscribe.
And if you’re on a podcast app, give us five stars and share this to a friend that you think would really enjoy it as well. Thank you so much for listening. And until next episode, it’s bye for now.
Angel Orengo & Rocio Aquino (59:22)
Yes,
like and subscribe here down there. Come on, more love. Yes.
Alright. Please. Everyone like and subscribe now. Listen to this conversation. Hurry. Don’t miss a beat. It’s incredible.
