Bridging Ancient Wisdom and Modern Life: Unlocking the Modern Mystic with Marko Petrovic

0:00 What happens when you've checked all the boxes for being a successful man and still feel that something is missing? Hello and welcome to Real Men Feel. I'm your host, author, coach and healer, Andy Grant. Please visit theandygrant.com to learn more about me. We have conversations that most men are not having, but that all men and the women who love them can benefit from. My guest today is Marco Petrovic. Marco is a visionary world explorer and two time best selling author who bridges ancient wisdom with modern living. He leads transformative retreats to sacred sites worldwide, aiming to awaken the soul through rituals and ancestral connections. Today, Marco shares about his willingness to drop his armor, to sit in silence for nine months, the one thing we should use our mind for, and how grief and betrayal were his doors to powerful transformation. Let's do it.

0:48 Hello Marco, and welcome to Real MEN Feel. Thanks Andy. Great to be here. Mark, I'm really inspired, intrigued by the work you do and the sacred sites and the initiations and all these things. So what were the pivotal moments in your life that cause you to embrace being a a modern day Mystic? I'd say it was an awareness that the life that I've been fed by the modern world have a sense of incompleteness to it. And the way that manifested for me was I followed the typical model of what it means to be a successful male in the Western country. So I was raised in Australia. That's where the Hexan comes from. And, you know, I started off straight out of high school as a personal trainer.

1:30 I, at the age of 19, was making more money than some of my friends combined in a week. And so I was doing well as far as material sense goes. And, you know, I drove a nice car, had a nice body, like, oh, I checked all the boxes, so to speak. Yeah, There was a part of me that felt significantly out of touch with life, and it was a part that I couldn't name at that point in time because I wasn't even aware of what it was that I was missing. But as life does like, it leads us down a pathway that gives us the insights that we need. No. So what manifested for me was I started to understand, you know, topics of. And these are topics that to me at that point in time was in the category of I don't know what I don't know. Right.

2:16 So we've got that category is completely in our blind swap. And to me, that was like the world of the inner realm, introspection, meditation, personal insight through reflective practices, through prayer, through connection. And that was a completely new world to me because I was raised to be, you know, a man, right? So I look at the world externally and I put on my armor when I step out the door and I go. And I forged my way. And it was those experiences that led me down this path. Of what? What you tell this is a modern Mystic. Was there a single dark night of the soul and you just became aware suddenly? Or was this, you know, a slower process of various steps?

2:57 How did it? How did it unfold? I wouldn't say there was one dark night of the soul moment. There was definitely key points of impact. I'd say a blessing in disguise was actually my mother's passing. And I only learned how much of A blessing it was later on in life. So she passed about, this is now 11 years ago, so in my early 20s. And at the time when she passed, you know, there was a lot of sadness around the fact of like this person that I've known to have in my life around every breath and around every meal that we eat to always be there is no longer here. And all the experiences that I'll miss that I was looking forward to her being there for such as, you know, like at my wedding to witness my children, you know, all those important milestones of life.

3:43 And I experienced her passing both with sadness and grief, but at the same time a lot of beauty and love and grace. How I experienced that beauty was realizing that when she was no longer there, some of the the pieces of the way that we relate because we all have our ideas of how we should live our lives, right? Our parents have a certain idea and I have my own. And those themes that I didn't agree on with her and where I would previously argue with her, I realized I no longer could because she wasn't around. And the deeper insight that I gave you was that actually all those arguments was her best effort of expressing her love to me. And so that cracked me open in a way that I still kind of expressing words.

4:25 And it had me look at life in a completely different way, realizing how much time, energy and effort I'd spent doing this with her butting heads, rather than taking a moment to look at life from a slightly deeper lens and appreciate how much love it takes to have a child that goes against the grain and still keep showing up for him. Right. And so I'd say that was one of the big moments. The reason why I say it was a blessing in disguise is because I later learned through studying various indigenous cultures and and initiatory practices that for men, one of the key processes for a boy to become a man is actually have separation from women all together. And so for me, life kind of gifted that to me by the passing of my mother, which then led me on this quote UN quote soul searching journey of being a modern day Mystic. And many times I found myself by myself entirely. Or do you surrounded with with elder men? Is it common for grief to be an opportunity to to dive into a spiritual journey?

5:27 I'd say so. I'd say it largely depends on how he made it right in that my greatest initiations in life have been through the darkest and most challenging times, so the passing of my mother is one of them. The feeling of abandonment by a mentor and a teacher who promised to do good on his word and then turned his back and did the exact opposite was another. You know, all these experiences where we can experience extreme shock and trauma. Shock is like, if we look at it from good and bad, the way I've experienced it is shock is bad if I stay stuck in it. It's good if I can see the greater effect of that ripple in my life. And what I mean by that is shock would be me continuing to speak about the sadness and grief of my mum's passing and never actually integrating that chapter of my life into understanding the blessings that that it gave me. Because for everything I lost, I gained something, right? I gained the opportunity to get to know myself in a way that I didn't.

6:23 I gained gained the opportunity to get to know life in the way that I didn't. In the same way with like, you know, a mentor or a teacher abandoning me. Like these relationships that are really close indeed to us, that's usually where the greatest levers for transformation are. And when I say it's how we meet it, it's about me asking the question of how is this benefiting me in my life? And until I can bring it to a point where I can look at that person in the eyes and say, thank you, I love you. By realizing the the degree of blessing that I got, then I haven't come to peace with it yet. And to to me, it's ultimately that, you know, it's easy to point the finger and say, ah, this person did that to me or whatever. But it takes a real man to be able to look at the demons in our lives and make them our best.

7:07 Friend, I, I wanted to ask you how important rites of passage and initiations are. But but already I think you I, I at least used to have a rather formal definition of what those were, but it seemed like you're any challenge in your life you're talking about as an initiation. Yeah, absolutely so. How important are they and can they be? Are they kind of self chosen? Self-described. Yeah, I'd say that absolutely self chosen. The piece to it is that life will inevitably bring them upon us. It's a question of whether or not we pick up the sword, right. So if we look at it through a mythic lens, like the hero will have a challenge, whether it's the dragon in the castle, whether it's the town bully that picks on him, whatever it may be, the hero will always have a task to show up to.

7:57 It's a question within us whether we have the the valiant and the internal resolve to say, you know what, I'm going to man up and take care of this beast in my life. And in that way, life is the initiation. Like to me, there's no point of our now I'm initiated, right? To me, that's a game of the ego. And the moment that I say I'm initiated, I've actually lost because I failed to recognize that like I'm through 1 tunnel. But there's something else that's looking me in the eyes already. So for me, business is the initiation, family relationships, the whole piece. Yeah. So it's not a single event, it's a progression a a chain of multiple challenge opportunities to that you turn into initiations for your own expansion.

8:42 Absolutely, yeah. Cool. Mark, I've heard you speak about aligning the gut, the heart, and the mind. How does that triad impact daily lives and decisions? It's a valuable question. I'd say for me, the real shift was that journey of from boyish tendencies into manly tendencies and earning my own masculinity. And what I mean by that is, like I've spoken to 50 year olds, they're still very boyish in their tendencies and the ways that they relate to life. They can be fathers, but they can still be very boyish in the way that they show up for life.

9:23 And for me, one of the big pillars is about where we resource ourselves from. So a man typically has enough of a solid foundation to resource within himself. And that doesn't mean that I don't look outside for inspiration, for ideas, for feedback. Absolutely. I've solid man in my life. And as the old saying goes, iron sharpens iron. But before I do any of that, I'll take a moment to consult my own genius and give myself the opportunity to take the seat of the throne of my own life and take a look at how I'm relating to my Kingdom and everything that I'm creating. And so this concept of the three minds being the gut, the heart and the, and the brain, what I, what I've learned through spending time with indigenous cultures is that we actually use those three in reverse. And for the most part, we only consider the mind to be a brain and the heart.

10:11 Maybe in some like conscious men's circles, people will speak about it and then the gut is very rarely spoken to. But the way that they look at them through an indigenous lens is that the gut is actually the first brain. Like that's the closest to the umbilical cord, right? So that's where we know life the most intimately. That's what we were given life. And so that doesn't speak to emotion. That speaks to all the subtle feelings that we can't name, Like when someone slides you a deal and you go, yeah, that feels good. Or something about that. I don't know what it is. I can't put in words, but for some reason I feel off about it. Right. That's that gut instinct that we largely numb out, partly due to dietary habits, partly due to the fact that we convince ourselves that it's nothing more than a feeling. And I should think about this longer, but you shouldn't. Like you already had the instinct and the more you think about and ponder on it, what I've come to appreciate is that the more you open up the karma of that thing. So I give you a perfect example where I invested money in something that felt like that and then I ended up in an 18 month hold of my money not coming back to me and experiencing more of that same, same energy, that same karma, right?

11:15 Whereas I should have just been better off being like this. Do I want this in my life? A seesaw? Not really. I'm good, right? And then the heart is about the emotional center. That's, that's about actual emotions, that's about giving ourselves the capacity to de armour all, all the strength synthetically that we put on ourselves and actually allow ourselves to feel life. Because regardless of whether we are a man or a woman in this world, we have a heart. And the heart feels and like there's beautiful studies from heart math that speak about the fact that the heart process is 40,000 times more information than the mind. So it's not even up for debate. Like, you've got a heart, it's beating, you better use it, right? And then the third one is the mind. What I love about one of the indigenous practices that I was taught about the mind is they actually say that the only time that they'll ever use the mind is under 1 instruction to cast a beautiful thought. And I thought, well, what, what a change to the way that we use the mind in the modern world.

12:14 Most people stress themselves out, freak themselves out, create an illusion upon an illusion about fears, thoughts, doubts and judgements from what they received from social media, friends, colleagues, family, whatever it may be. Whereas for them, it's like, no, you just live in the gut and the heart. Make sure you feel good. You make sure you don't get blocked up with emotion. And then if you're going to spend some time up here, just make it beautiful. That's it. I love that it's so simple and powerful, and usually those are the best truths of of the world. I think that how we go the human and experience our ego want to make things complicated because we want to think we're so complicated and difficult, but the the simple truths take us a long way.

12:56 So I know you've worked with indigenous people in multiple continents. What are some of the the commonalities that really stood out to you and and that you saw as like universal truths across all the the all of your experiences? I'd say the big one is ceremony and that's something that we don't have in the in the modern world almost entirely. Like we have kind of half manufactured ceremonies of graduating high school or graduating university or like a bachelor's party, but they're not really ceremonies. They're kind of like moments of past like that. Where is it ceremony for me? Like if I was to answer in one line, what is the ceremony? It's about celebrating life. And so I know people have all these ideas from like they watch movies and like stuff about vampires on that's this isn't anything fantastical that I'm speaking about. It's about good people gathering around the fire and knowing how to celebrate life.

13:51 So it's like that. There's a meme that floats around from time to time that says when you you when you're sick and you go to an Indigenous Dr. and you ask them, how do I get better? They ask you a simple question. When did you last sing? When did you last laugh? When did you last dance? And when did you last play? Because they know if you haven't done any of those four in a long enough period of time, then your heart hasn't been expressing itself. And that's the centre of your life. And so a ceremony is nothing more than coming into contact with those four elements. And what I see is that they light a fire. They'll bring some instruments, some songs, they'll share some good words, they might share some insights and things that they learned. And they'll then have to be in good relation and in being in good relation.

14:36 To me is this really simple teacher teaching of where they sit in a circle and everyone's voice is equal, right? In a world where like how many Instagram followers you have and what title you you achieved means something and that, well, that means nothing. It's extremely liberating to be able to sit around a fire and learn as much as you do from a six, six year old as you do from a 66 year old. Marco, what inspired you to create the Mara Project and and what what is the Mara Project? Yeah, the The Mara Project is my best effort, giving people a bridge to have more direct experiences in life. So like, we're flooded with information, right? We can learn anything that we want, but most of us, we learn stuff and then we never actually apply it. And for me, the real value of life is in direct experiences. So Mara for me is an honouring of that, learning how to get out of left brain, right brain, thinking out of duality, black and white, and learning how to come into union with life. Mara itself being a conjugation of that Ma It may be like mother Mama madre.

15:39 It's etymologically rooted in so many languages as an association to the mother and then RA just like the rays of light, the sunlight or even the Egyptian God RA. So it's that union of energies coming together. And so Mara Project was my benefit of doing that and I expressed it through some physical products in the way of some beautiful plants that I found. A hero product is Dragon Breath actually got the bottle right here, which it's probably the most unique sensory experience that you can have. You you spray this in your mouth and it gives us gash of sensation and flavour and cleansing to your mouth. That is really unique. So for me, that's about just being bringing people into presence. When I speak about direct experience, it's the kind of stuff where you go wall like this is life. Yeah.

16:23 And people putting people into contact with that. So there's some physical products, some books that I've written, and I run some retreats as well. Yeah, I, I, I want a second and third, this notion of direct experience because, you know, everything I do on a daily basis is something I made fun of for years until I tried it. And then, wow, this works. I feel the results, right. It's, you know, judge your fruits of something. Not, not what someone else said, not a blog post, but yeah, dive into this life and experience it more. And then you'll, you know, you'll find that the path that supports you most. I I find how do you select some of the sacred sites that you take pilgrimages to? What it do you you know, is it a meditation, a calling?

17:04 Is it that you always go to the same place? How does that work? It feels like more that they select me to be honest with you. So I went through a period of nine months of silence during my spiritual sabbatical when I sold everything that I earned about five years ago and booked a one way ticket to Mexico. And that nine month period of silence for me was about hearing the whispers of life. And now I say that some people and I, I can see on their faces that alliance is like poetic or like some spiritual, but it's really not like when you look at when the researchers went out to speak to the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, the Bushmen found it stranger. The researchers couldn't hear the echoes of the stars and they were saddened by it.

17:47 And to most of us in the modern world, that's a concept that we've never even heard of, the capacity to actually hear the echoes of the stars. But they lived their life according to that, They navigated according to that, They knew how to move according to that. So to them, it wasn't a foreign concept at all. They could actually hear that vibration and tune themselves according to it. And for me, that nine month period of silence was my way of saying to life, hey, I'll zip it for a period of time, but I want to know where my feet land and where where my next point is with that level of clarity that I never questioned the steps in my life again. And so now I very much feel like these sacred sites, they, they speak to me and they call me in, in ways that like it's an orchestration far more intelligent than anything that I could create at the level of my mind.

18:29 It's more like coming into harmony with the divine flow, with the universal flow of life. And so many of them have been pilgrimage sites where I've visited and revisited many times. And some of them like I'm here in Serbia right now. I just got invited to 1. I didn't even know that it was a sacred site until I showed up. And then I got speaking with the owner and I said, hey, by any chance do you like have this particular spot here that you consider like a living altar, a special tree, some rocks, somewhere where I can just go spend a bit of time, get some thanks, get to know the land. He's OK. Actually, we do. And he walks me over the mountain. I couldn't believe what I saw. The exact same logo that I carry on the back of my T-shirts of my branding, which is this little diamond pattern right here.

19:13 They had this huge art piece of that creator that's hanging from the tree and come to find out that that's actually the the symbology in Slavic mythology, which is very mostly forgotten, but there's still remnants of it around that in Slavic mythology. That was actually the symbol for the goddess of fertility and I happened to be carrying it on all my bottles. Happens to be the energy that I'm working with, happens to be the design that came to me through, call it inside inspiration, meditation, whatever you want. But at the same time, when I saw that and I got shared the story of what it was, I encountered that as just the ancestors being very clear in their guidance and how they're supporting me.

19:56 That, that's amazing. I, I, I love synchronicities like that, that just, yeah, prove you're in alignment with, with what you're up to and, and where you're headed and all that. So good for you. For people that don't feel able to travel, is there a way to connect with sacredness? Wherever your environment is. Yeah, absolutely. I'd say it starts with the simple things, you know, like every single moment could be mundane or sacred when we think about it. Like if I just, if you just go sit in an open field or again, just light a candle and sit in your house, it would seem like every moment's the same and quite mundane. But if you actually pay attention to the fame, they've actually flickers once the same. It's always slightly different.

20:42 And so for me, it comes out to bringing more sacredness into my life is paying attention to the finer details of life. And for me, the question was, how can I bring more ceremony into my life? How can I make everything that I do sacred? And it started with a simple thing. For me, a simple practice was every morning I'd pour myself a glass of water. And the very first thing I'd do is I just have one good thought with that water before any notifications, before I went rushing around, before I did anything else, I said one moment, like, I don't have to sit there and do any kind of like posturing or anything like this. No, just water in my hands, even if it's a thank you, if nothing else. And 30 days in, the ripple effect of that is profound. And I can't speak to it, but what I can say is like with 70% water in the body, 90% in the brain, it does have a ripple effect.

21:32 But it's one of those direct experience pieces, right? Like I can sit here and convince you for days and share countless stories of people who've come back and told me like, wow, that thing actually worked. But I can't tell you how it's going to work for you because it's going to be rather unique. Because water always finds its own course according to what we need and what we require. So your sense of life? How can ancient practices help men stop checking the boxes, stop putting on the armor, and really redefine masculine strength and vulnerability? I'd say the first one is by accepting the concept of success will start to change.

22:14 And what that looked like for me was I realized that a large part of the stress and pressure I was experiencing in my life was because I hooked myself onto this idea that I'm only being a man if my business is growing. And if it's not growing, then I'm failing, right? And that's a never ending journey. My business can always grow because it's an infinite. It's a beast of infinite potential. Yeah, I do the rocking show example. I ask myself, at the end of my days, what's going to be the thing that I'm most grateful that I did in my life? Is it going to be the fact that I diverted every single moment of my days to growing my business? Probably not. It gets to a point where it's like, cool, I get this, and I can play this game, but what else is important for me in the game of life? Well, for me, success is how many beautiful sunrises and sunsets I can see.

23:01 And that's something that I wasn't port in seminar rooms, in conference rooms. It's something that I came to terms with by going for a run along the beaches of Sydney in Australia and realizing, well, I actually feel more enlivened by this than all the successes I've had in my business up until that point, right? And so these indigenous practices, they help us come back to the reality of it's really important. Like actually knowing how to grow my own food was really important for me. So I spent seven years on a farm, I've planted 16,000 trees. They gave me a connection to life that like no words will ever do justice for. But when I go out in nation, people go to me like, how did you observe that? How did you see that? Well, you, you, you spent close to a decade in nation. You'll learn a few things.

23:44 Get your knees, knees and hands in the dirt. Chop with Gary Water is the old saying guys. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. If there's a man listening who really hasn't started any sort of spiritual journey, personal growth, but he's feeling that I'm missing something that you described in in your life in the beginning, what are some simple steps they could take to start tending that that temple within? Yeah, sure. I'd say the most direct point of access that can Pierce through any of the thoughts and the mind and they they can get us into a direct experience is breath work. And I'm not talking like Wim Hof style thirty 4015 minute sessions. I've got a very simple piece on my YouTube actually it's 22 breaths, right?

24:29 So you can be done with it within 3 to 5 minutes. And what it will give you, isn't it an experience of direct connection to yourself in a way that you don't know it and it works every single time. All you got to do is apply it and give it a solid effort. So I'd say that breath work for starters. And 2nd to that, I'd say feet on the earth. The amount of people that I speak to that are gung ho for biohacking and, you know, stuff that they pick up of Joe Rogan and other big podcasters. And then when I speak to them and I say, when's the last time you put your bare feet on the earth? They can't tell me. It's like, that's cool. We can spend all the thousands of dollars and learn all the science and do all that stuff, or we can just put off here. Yeah, awesome. So with all of your globe trotting and writing and leading and guiding people, what are you looking forward to? What's spending more time, more time with people in person? Really, really my inspiration now is the retreats that I'm doing and being able to offer more direct transmission. For me, I consider myself nothing more than just a guy that enjoys spending time in nature. I've crafted the life that I have because I really enjoy being around the fire, being in beautiful natural locations and taking, taking people along with with me that I can share the memories with.

25:42 So that's what's really exciting to me. Aside from that, just working on on my business for now, because it's like a fledgling business, right? And I'm seeing more and more the impact that it has in people, especially our hero product. And so I want to get get that out there and do my best to get it out there in a way that is aligned to natural law. And when I say law, I say like LORE, right? So following the rhythm of the business, recognizing that this thing was born through my devotional walk through my pilgrimages. And so it very much has a spirit of its own and I want to learn how to be in good, good relationship with with that spirit and allow it to spread its wings. Marco, if you had unlimited resources, what would you like to put in place for men? Greater culture around the transformation of boy to men. More, far more education around it, far more conversation around it and more than anything, more direct experiences so that men can, so the boys can actually go go through that process and become men and to, to provide in a way that it can be like an ongoing brotherhood, right.

26:49 So it's not like a once tough experience. It's a place where we continue the the the anvil that we continuously come back to to keep refining average. With all the talk of direct experience, is there one thing you wish more men knew? Yeah, but it's on the other side of the greatest darkness. There's that old quote that says The Cave we feel to enter holds the treasures we seek. It's a beautiful guide to a degree. But I'd say our greatest fears, they don't show up as fears. They're not the ones where we go, oh, I'm afraid of that. No, they're the ones where we completely sideline ourselves from thinking about it. And we'll minimize it or we'll put it, put it away and lock it up in the back door to a degree that we wouldn't think about it. So for me, one of my greatest fears that I went through recently was when usually when I lean into like a pilgrimage or like a ceremony or a professional experience, I kind of have a sense of who I am going in and kind of who I'll be on the other side.

27:50 I don't know for sure, but I have a sense. And I remember going through this one where I was so afraid to lean in because I actually didn't know who Marco was on the other side. And I said that's where the magic is, right outside the comfort zone, outside of any comfort that I've had thus far. So it was the pieces stretched me more than anything else. And I'd encourage men to go valiantly in pursuit of that because it's never what we believe it that it is. Marco, what's the best way for people to connect with you and keep track of all the things that you're up to? For sure Instagram was the best place and I've got all my links to everything there in my buyer it's just meet Marco M EE TMARKO.

28:34 Excellent. I love the work you're doing. I love more people being brought into the ancient wisdom and the indigenous tribes and ceremonial work. You know, it's it's initiations right to passage had a tremendous impact on me. It was the IT was 2016. I did my first initiation with a modern mystery school and also with the mankind project. So I felt like I was finally stepping into my spiritual truth and my masculine truth. And, you know, nothing's been the same since that. So again, more people need to know about all the various options out there. And this world is, you know, littered with the sacred places that you can really have a, a truly magical experience with. So again, I'm so glad of the the work you're out there doing and and bringing people to these spots. Appreciate it.

29:20 Thanks for watching. Thanks for having me. Thanks for joining us everybody. Please visit realmenfield.org. See the blog post for this episode, which have all the various links and resources discussed. If you've done all the things you're supposed to do, yet still feel like something is missing in your life, I invite you to book a free Clarity call with me. We'll explore what you want and what's in your way. Visit theandygrant.com/talk and until next time, be good to yourself.