March 4, 2020 • 34 mins
Comedian Pete Holmes, author of Comedy Sex God and host of the podcast You Made It Weird, says his life was “hit with a sledgehammer” in his twenties. Why is he grateful? Because without that upheaval, he would never have experienced spiritual expansion. In this conversation, we learn from his (often hilarious) journey, which included a bender, a threesome, and plenty of psychedelics.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I I come from the tradition of willpower Christianity. Our
holiness is measured one for one with how well we
can suppress our desires. It doesn't have to be sacks.
It could be eat that cake or drink that wine
or whatever it is. We're willpower Christians, and when we
get to heaven, God will say, good job. Here's all
the wine and the cake and the sacks that you
can want, because that's the fucked up game I designed. Okay,
(00:32):
thanks for being here on the road to somewhere. When
we talk about exploration, adventure, major life change and transformation,
it's about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having
faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I am Lisas
and I am Jewel or is it going to have
to say that? One of my favorite things about our
(00:53):
relationship and doing this podcast together Lisa, is that it
is such a great opportunity to laugh at ourselves. And
I think you are you may be of all my friends,
the most willing what do we call it self laugher? Yes,
I am a self offer. I was a constant source
of comedy to myself. It's just so helpful. Oh my God,
(01:14):
thank heavens. Thank heavens for humor. What would it be?
How would we deal? How much would we drink? A lot?
So much? Well, thank Heavens for our guest today because
he is so funny. Um, we are going to be talking.
We are talking to Pete Holmes, the famous comedian, celebrity
(01:35):
star of Crashing, and author of the brilliant book Comedy
Sex God. Pete Holmes, thank you so much for being
with us today. Thank you thanks for having me. I
didn't know if I was chiming in yet. Do you
laugh at your own jokes? So you laugh at your
own foibles, don't you? Which happens more? No, I laugh
at myself constantly. Um, I think the foibles are funnier.
(01:57):
My foibles are funnier than my jokes, that's for sure. Yeah.
But when you said Lisa laughed at herself more than anybody,
that she's noticing herself or she's making little clever turns
of phrase or whatever, No, I don't. I don't. I don't.
I definitely don't laugh at my own jokes. That's really
funny because they're so tasteless. There's plenty of her just
(02:20):
saying like and and I did that and that's crazy
and you're laughing harder than anybody. Well, I'm so happy
you're here. I love talking to you on memts podcast.
That was one of my favorite interviews. I'm so happy
to hear that. I was in the middle of the
(02:42):
throes of press as I know you know what that's like,
and that was a bright spot. Not that any of
them were bad, but no, no, no, no no. Your
press I did was um. But I really loved ducking
in and talking with you guys, and I didn't know you,
and I feel like we connected and enjoyed did I mean,
(03:04):
I know old Dr Mamit from from Crashing and he
was great. But I had no idea that we would
connect as much as we did, and I feel like
we did. I do too. I loved it. And one
of the things that I thought was very funny and
we connected over was the title of your book, which
is Comedy Sex God. Although it's comedy Sex God, but
we were joking about how it could easily be comedy
(03:27):
sex God, right, which sounds like Russell Brand's book like
my book. Um yeah, I I've thought about it many times.
I sort of I don't really regret it, but I
wish I could have called it comedy and sex and God.
You know how people have those t shirts that have
all the ampersands on it. It would have cleared it up,
(03:49):
you know, and it would have been sort of in vogue. Yeah,
But after reading your book, I kind of think it
is comedy sex god, you and the threesome and the
whole thing. I mean it, it's pretty hot. There's there's
there's allusions to sex, but never sex godness. But you
might be you might be gaining some book sales by
(04:10):
implying that you are a comedy sex god. You're right
on the money, lady. Like, we wanted it to be
a joke. We wanted it to be something that people
would talk about and wonder, hey, is this asshole calling
himself a comedy sex god. The least that gives it
some sort of itch, some reason to pick it up.
You know, when when I interviewed you before, I have
(04:31):
to admit I had not read your book. The producer
given us a summary and giving us like what we're
talking points and everything, and but I read it very
carefully this time, multiple parts over and over again. I've
got to say, I think comedy, sex and God in
the title Forget about the Ambersons is one word because
for you, they're the same thing. And that's what I'm
(04:52):
gonna say. Fucking here, blew me away about this book
this time because you had one one word, one sentence
that can find all the words, which was horny nous
was the teaching. It wasn't in the way of a
spiritual work. It was the spiritual work. And that's comedy,
sex and got all embodied in one thing, which was
so intense for me. Anyway, Yeah, you gotta you gotta
(05:15):
explain that you have to have to set up for
the audience. You might not be familiar with how all
those things come together for you. That's all you need
is that sentence. Um, well, I mean comedy, sex and
God are so linked to me. Specifically, sex and God
are so linked to me growing up evangelical, and I
enjoyed a lot of that time, but there was some
(05:37):
that's some. There was a lot of baggage around the
topic of sex when it came to God because I
say in the book, I said I didn't have a
hard time not um lying or stealing or hurting people
because I genuinely wanted to be a sweet person and
a good person, but when it came to sex, that
that was the only sin. And I'm putting quotes around
(05:59):
that that you had a biological component like linked to it.
And I mean, I barely remember how horny fourteen year
old boys are, but I was a fourteen year old
boy and and at the same time, my spirituality was blossoming.
So being told that, like you, Richard Or actually says
that this is by design, that the church is sort
(06:21):
of not maliciously, but they're looking for a foothold. They're
looking for some sort of codependent way to hook people
in and link people in. And they've always sort of
used shame and the sins as he says again in quotes,
the sins of the body. These are people have shame
about their bodies, people have shame about their sexuality. I joke,
this is why they have the book Everybody Poops. There's
(06:42):
like there's a shame that needs to be sounved about
our bodies. So when I was told that God loved me,
but don't sin or he'll send me to hell, and
I was like, Okay, no problem, I won't sin. But
then every morning a new batch of hormones bubbled up
with it. It was real. It became really really psychologically
(07:03):
and physically traumatic to try and um earn the love
of a very judgmental and conditional God that I had
been that had been explained to me. So throughout the
book sort of takes you through my evangelical upbringing, takes
you through my divorce, takes you through losing my faith,
but then I think way more importantly, it takes you
(07:24):
into rebuilding my faith, which is usually the part um
that a lot of people, unfortunately or whatever, they don't
get to that. A lot of comedians I know, have
the story of like and then I realized there was
no old man in the sky, and I was like, yeah,
we all realized that we all got that. Like it's okay,
it doesn't have to be that image, Like, you know,
(07:46):
we can't dismiss the rich tradition of mysticism and spirituality
with one sentence, which is what most people are doing.
It's like, you really mean to tell me that this
this this is like can we stop throwing Jesus out
with the bath water or or Christian out with the
bathwater or Buddhau with the bathwater? Like what what is
drawing humanity towards these towards these traditions, over and over
(08:09):
and over again, and what are we missing from throwing
them away? Towards the end of the book, I go
on a spiritual retreat that ROMed Us is house round
us as a spiritual teacher Ropey here now and Um.
I was in his guest house, basically on a hermitage
alone for seven days, basically except when I would see him,
and I got so blindingly horny. And there I was
(08:31):
to do like spiritual work and to be you know,
to meditate in light incense as as Richard Royer jokingly
calls it a bells and smells like I wanted. I
wanted to feel holy. I wanted to wear Lulu Lemon
pants someday, be quiet and cook little meek meals and
(08:53):
meet them in silence. And and I was, and I
saw around us, and I had a sober, pretty psychedelic
experience sitting with him, which was incredible. And then the
day after that, um, feeling so holy and feeling so special,
I got ten out of ten horny, as horny as
I was when I was a kid. And I spent unfortunately,
(09:16):
I spent much of the retreat from that point on
trying not to masturbate, which is so embarrassing. There was
the issue that I had dealt with so much as
a child, was reheated on a spiritual pilgrimage. Obviously, now
with perspective that seems pretty right on, that seems like, yeah,
deal with this. You you basically just started having sex.
(09:38):
You basically just started you got married, you know, like
you yielded and and stopped shaming yourself. And that is
a wonderful um band aid to put over the wound,
but to really work with it. UM I felt very
moved to face it, and not just face it, but
love it, like really, like shine the sun's light, like
(09:59):
not a flash, like the sun on that wound and
on that trauma, and it wouldn't go away until I
finally was just like, I love every part of you.
I love your sexuality, I love your anger, I love
your doubt, I love your fear. And it was just
like flooding my body with light and consciousness and it
(10:22):
completely went away. But of course it came up. The
one thing that had always been like a burr on
your sock when you go hiking, It was always attached
to the issue of spirituality, and then I realized I
had the end of my book. I didn't intend to
do that, but I was very lucky that I got
horny on a pilgrimage because it was a good ending.
(10:44):
We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're gonna talk more about Horny and Pilgrimage. Before the break,
we were talking with sex god Pete Holmes about getting
(11:05):
a horny with round Us, which is kind of sounds
kind of creepy, but it was really beautiful and you
you had an epiphany where And it's funny because I
think comedy for you too, is the same thing. It's
all about love, being loved, feeling loved, feeling accepted. That's God, right,
the source of love, love itself. Comedy getting love from strangers,
(11:30):
and sex getting love from you know, the significant people.
It's all It's really your title. It could have just
been loved too. I mean, let me ask you that
most comedians are pretty miserable people. I mean, it's it's
it's famous as a profession for wretched souls drawn are
drawn to comedy. We've we've seen that over and over again.
(11:51):
You do not seem unhappy. Yeah, I think like that
happy comedian because that's very sweet. I I I to
be the everything comedian. Um, you get data, it's you know,
it's show business. The crowd responds more when you lean
this way or that way, so you sort of take
that guidance. It's not phoniness, but you guys are in
(12:12):
show business, you see, Like, oh, I think they like
it when I play this way as opposed to maybe
playing this way. I still do this. I do jokes
on stage where like I get angry or or I
maybe being a little bit mean, and I can just
feel the crowd just kind of going like this isn't
this doesn't feel quite right. Um, you can do it
if you want, but we like it more when you
do it this way. So that's sort of over two
(12:34):
decades of doing stand up, being true to myself, but
also sort of the bumper bowling of doing it for
audiences has sort of led to the persona of this
guy who is sweet. That that is who I am.
But it's very important to me, kind of weaving in
what Lisa was saying to be the everything person Like
I grew up thinking that Jesus was telling us to
(12:57):
be nice, and now my spirituality is much much different.
I was gonna say deeper. That sounds better. I am
gonna stay deeper deeper than that. I was just doing
a podcast called The Liturgist where I went on a
real tear where I was like, do you really think
Jesus was the only person from from Galilee or Nazareth
that was like that had the brilliant idea to be nice?
Like do you really think that would like spark a
(13:19):
revolution that that lasted two thousand years? Like he was
the first one that was like a be nice. We're
social creatures were designed to be nice in order to
like watch a reality show, to form alliances and to
share resources, and and to just feel good. It feels
good to be nice and to a baby and then
to other people into your your partners, Like, being nice
(13:41):
is not a revolution. Jesus had such a more exciting
thing to say than that. But we've in your part, Jill,
is that Like, by doing comedy and getting people to
witness and share in all of the feelings that I
have and validate them through laughter is very healing to me.
(14:02):
I think comedy can be used for sort of dark,
narcissistic purposes, just like anything I suppose, but it also
can be used as this wonderful healing group therapy, or
if I tell a joke about even what I'm doing now,
I'm telling a joke about getting horny on a pilgrimage.
If you've ever been felt alone and ashamed, because we're
(14:25):
all having things like this, there's all like these little
dark they don't happen every day. There's little dark corners
of your life. And if somebody in an alpha position,
a power position, gets on stage and they have a
loud voice, microphone, and they're under lights and they're taller
than everybody, that's what a stage is great. Taller than everybody.
(14:46):
I'm also just taller than everybody. But then I'm on
a stage. I mean, consider it. So you are in
a power position, but you use that power to communicate
your vulnerability and to communicate your frailty and your shame,
and you're worried at is an interesting game to play.
Whereas you know, I I love comedy and I love comedians,
but sometimes when I go and I watch, I see
(15:09):
a lot of people just kind of reaffirming what audiences
are already selling to the world, which is like, isn't
winning great isn't food great, isn't sex great? Isn't being
the best great? And everyone's just like yeah, and I'm
like great, we just we all just got as Richard
Rory or Thomas Burton would say, we all just got
our false self reaffirmed, like we're winners and we look
(15:30):
good and it's a date night. And but I I
just I don't know what it is. I love, I
do know what it is. But to be quick, I
love going up and talking about vulnerability. I love talking
about fear and shame in a powerful way. And and
I think audiences want to hear that as well. It's
it's not it's not like I'm not doing well. You
(15:51):
can also do well with that sort of stuff. That's
what the book is. So we mentioned Richard war and
we've mentioned Ramdas. There's another good rus so to speak,
although not in not in person, but it's from reading
the book. One of your big influencers was Joseph Campbell,
as was mine. Can you talk a little bit about
(16:12):
how he kind of widened your view of God and spirituality? Yeah,
that's a great place to start. Sometimes you start with
Richie Rohor, you start with ram Das, and it sort
of alienates people. But the place that I love to
start with with God, which is such a I completely
agree people have been abused and murdered and repressed with
(16:35):
that word. It's it's a really can be tricky to
use that word. Um. I sort of like it. I
don't really have those traumas. So I tried to reclaim it.
And one of the people that helped me with that
was Joseph Campbell. So we talked about the man in
the sky um on a cloud, which is nowhere in
the Bible. God has never described. God has described as
(16:56):
a cloud in the Book of Exodus, but he's he's
never described as a man in a throne with a
beard on a cloud looking down. That is Zeus. That
is Greek. That and and the Greek is overlain on
the New Testament all the time. Jesus, for example, never
said hell. They'd say things like Hades because people knew
about Greek mythology, like that's just a thing. So that
(17:19):
still continues to this day. When people put down Christians
and Christianity, they they're sort of belittling Zeus. Um, well,
what Christian not not to say, Christianity doesn't have things
you can't make fun of it. Certainly does. But the
idea of God is from the Old Testament when Moses
is about to see while he's seeing the burning bush,
(17:42):
and he's talking to God and he says, what is
your name? God says, I am that I am, So
that's it. Really, I am that I am a new
age person um somebody I love, like the Apoctropra or
somebody would say, this is m nous. This is the
quality of is nous, which we don't have to debate.
This is what I love to argue about. We don't
have to debate. This is it. This is isness what
(18:05):
you are listening with right now. Whether you agree with
me or disagree with me, it doesn't really matter. The
quality of the hum of electricity of unus behind your
thoughts isn't this. It's consciousness itself. So we don't have
to debate the existence of consciousness nobody. It's a waste
of time. You're using consciousness to debate it. So consciousness
(18:29):
is God. God is then a metaphor or a symbol
pointing to the phenomenon, to the mystery of consciousness. So
we're all kind of on the same same side science,
as I say in the book science is trying to
photograph it. We need that. I'm not putting that down.
That is incredibly important, essential, masterful, beautiful work. And I
(18:51):
would say is the work of consciousness is beautiful and
that and that's the good news. It doesn't matter. You
don't even have to believe it there. You can't get
away from it. Believe you're soaking in business. I don't
even care how you tell yourself a story about it.
You can't escape it. You are part of it. You
are in the ocean. When we come back, I want
(19:11):
to talk more about the ocean of business. We are
swimming in the business with Pete Holmes. You had mentioned
the the mystery and the the identification with that which
(19:38):
is so much bigger than our ego. But I want
to talk about one of the ways you got to
see that expense. It would have been the third word,
if you have fourth word, if you could have had
a fourth word on the title, which would have been drugs. Yeah, sex, conty, god, drugs,
(19:58):
all of those. Tell us about your your journey with
psychedelics and how that broadened your vision of the universe
and business. You guys are This is a great interview
like I. I. I was like, oh, I I like
what we said, but I feel like we can move on,
and you guys are like, it's time to move on,
(20:19):
And he moved on to something I love to talk
about it. I just wanted to say that psychedelics. It's interesting.
I remember being married to my first wife. I got
married when I was twenty two, and I was very
squeaky clean and sweet. I actually remember where I was
when I thought, it's weird that I'll never try pot
like I remember. I remember thinking that, and then when
(20:40):
my wife and I split my first wife, I sort
of felt like the game was different than I understood it.
I thought God was sort of like the mafia, Like
if I paid into him and didn't smoke or swear
or drink, he would guard my bakery. And then someone
threw a brick through my bag pret window, and I
(21:00):
was like, well, this guy's not paying out, you know
I thought I thought. I thought he didn't hold up
his end of the deal, so I didn't go on
a crazy bender. I joke in the book that a
Christian on a bender is basically just a regular person.
I was going out to bars and i'd stay to
like one am and I was looking around. It was
still packed. I was like, in all your wives leave you, like,
(21:23):
why are we still Here's their twenties in New York
are doing. So I started doing that and eventually I
did smoke pot and obviously and then um, basically my
first girlfriend and I went to Bonaroo and I tell
the story. It was with me and Amy Schumer and
Reggie Watts and Kurt Brawn Owler and they were like
(21:44):
someone selling mushrooms and I didn't I didn't even know
what it was. I had heard a little bit about
it that it was something sort of like pot. I
guess that like makes you feel fuzzy and good, but
I knew it was a psychedelic, but I didn't even
know what that meant. Like I think a lot of
people think that it means, like you you literally see
like cartoon dragons that tough, and how it's portrayed in
movies is you know, God love them. It's it's a
(22:07):
very hard thing to capture, but like tough, the magic
dragon will fly by, and that's what a psychedelic is apparently,
So that's all I really knew. And we bought them
from this like it was a chocolate puck and we
ate it and we waited. I wasn't intending on it,
but I totally had a religious experience. I think they are. Um,
(22:29):
I want to make sure I get this right. Psychedelic, No,
there's another word for psychedelics that means mind manifesting. I
believe that's what psychedelic means, mind manifesting. So another word
for mind could be consciousness. Obviously, your consciousness is sort
of flowing through your mind and using your mind, using
your DNA, using your personality, using your conditioning. I'm not
(22:49):
saying your consciousness is tainted by any of that. It's
sort of like the light you shine through the shadow
puppet of your brain, and there you are, there's your
personality and stuff. But the light is not effect did
by that. But mind manifesting through in increased consciousness, like
it's a bigger shadow puppet show. That's what it was. Um,
(23:10):
it's not so much I didn't see. I didn't see
religious imagery. I've tried to explain it since because a
lot of people take psychedelics and they come up to
me and they say, I don't understand. All I saw
was a clown and just kept slapping with a giant hand.
I don't know how was that a religious experience? A
religious experience? No, I. I basically had people say that
(23:33):
to me. They're like, what are you talking about? And
I go, it's not what you see, it's that you
see that you're seeing with something. How you see is manipulated.
Your sense of perspective is manipulated. The greatest thing that
it does, um is it completely turns off the part
of your brain that prioritizes. So right now you're in
(23:54):
that studio, I'm I'm in my little backhouse here, and
we are surrounded by things that if you were on mushrooms,
or if you had a nice, good hour long meditation,
or if you did all sorts of centering exercises, your
eyes would open. That's what Christ says. Christ says, you
won't say the Kingdom of Heaven won't come by expectation.
(24:15):
You won't see it coming like coming down the freeway.
Here comes Heaven. He says, the Kingdom of Heaven is here,
but people do not see it. So when I took mushrooms,
I had a visceral, visceral experience of what he was
talking about, meaning heaven or hell doesn't stop and start
when you die, it's it's surrounding us potentials for all
(24:35):
sorts of realities are surrounding us at the same time,
So everything from that perspective would seem beautiful and fascinating
and more importantly, alive trees sort of get this like
breathing feeling. The earth has a breathing feeling. Things that
you take for granted, like the fact that we're floating
on a space rock in infinity, uh, are no longer
(24:56):
just filed away as things to not think of. They
become the only thing to think about. Let me slow
down and ask you something here, Like you went through
this crisis moment where your wife left you in spectacular fashion.
It's sort of cracked the world open for you lost
your faith and then you were willing to take lots
(25:17):
of risks like smoke pot and you know, psychedelics and
the rest of it. And also and it seems like
you did a whole lot of other things that were
that sort of lead you out onto the thinner ice.
How do you now that you are living a really
sort of stable life, You've got this sort of prototypical
(25:40):
happy life. How do you keep cracking yourself open or
is it no longer necessary. I mean, it just seems
like you got so much from that moment. Is it
necessary to keep doing it? That's a really great question.
Past you should come on it. Yeah, I'll come on it.
I'm free you right now. Um Well, first of all,
(26:04):
I am grateful, and I want to point out one
of the things that I'm grateful for from my my
Christian upbringing was that I went on a bender very responsibly.
I couldn't shake that, and I'm glad that I wasn't
able to shake that. Um. I I don't care for
some of the puritanical garbage and shame that I got,
(26:24):
But you know, all in all, I got a pretty
a pretty decent footing in the world, and and some
good self love and some good self care. That being said,
this book written by another person, the bender part can
be much uglier. It can be much more destructive. I'm
not even telling people to go on a bender. That's
what my my TV show Crashing was sort of about.
(26:45):
When a sweet guy, like a Christian guy, goes on
a bender. It's pretty Those are the venders that I'm
sort of into, Like, it wasn't really the heart of
of depravity. I know people that have gone into the
heart of depravity and found God there too. I was
glad that I could sort of tarzan swing through wildness,
picking up a few things here and there without um
(27:07):
picking up any any horrible habits or damaging my brain
or a CD is absolutely knocking somebody up or whatever
could have been. There's a million things that could have happened.
Although I was very paranoid about six sex, so that
was not gonna happen. Um. Uh so that was not
a bender If you're paranoise, say sex, I don't know,
(27:30):
it's a It was a bender at and that's a
that's a good um. That's the difference between despair and
like kind of what I would call what we're calling
a bender at despair is who cares? I'm full of rum.
Let's have some unprotected sex. Let's let's take that pill,
even though I don't know what it was. Even the
(27:52):
mushrooms involved like a long conversation with everybody that was there,
what is it, like, how long does it last? What
should I do? What if I don't like it? And
how do I come down? Like everybody? And and every
time I take mushrooms or anything like that, you should
see it it's it's almost like on the spectrum how
how you know, pitch perfect. I want to make the
(28:13):
set and setting, which is just a fancy way of saying,
do it with people that you love in a place
that is comforting to you. Um. But that's that's just
that's just medical right there. Um tell moment I said.
But anyway, um, when we're talking about creativity or hard expansion,
it can be really nice to go in with this
(28:35):
with the sledgehammer and have your wife leave you. I
know that's kind of a crazy thing to say, but
that can be really good for your soul to to
get the ground pulled out from under view and have
everything change and have everything fall apart and then have
some new experiences and even some wild experiences. And my
life is um. I mean we were joking about the sauna.
(28:57):
I was like, nobody with a sauna has good stories,
but they're different stories. They're like wow, I got a
real good sweat going like that, and that they're boring stories.
What I'm saying is I'm a boring I'm pretty boring now.
But having a daughter and is incredible work for me.
In fact, I would say since she's been born, um
(29:20):
My spiritual life has been hugely amplified by it because
one of the things that about having a baby is
that you realize that it's not so much it's not
about you anymore at all. Of spirituality is about trying
to realize your interconnectedness with with oneness, basically that we're
all in one thing together. That I say in the
(29:40):
book that this is we see ourselves as separate beings
walking around, But it's more helpful to think of it
for me as an undulating fountain, and you are your
little you know, piece of water in it, doing it
perfectly based on your chemistry. You're conditioning your history. You
are unfolding as the daoas would say, perfectly lawful. You
are being Lisa Oz perfectly like it is lawful, it
(30:05):
is happening. It is all one thing. So having a
baby and seeing yourself quite literally in another person. My
baby looks quite a bit like me. I have a
joke about that where it almost feels impolite to my wife.
He looks like my wife too, But I mean she
really looks like me. And you have that like, oh,
(30:26):
there's a piece of my heart in this. That is spirituality.
When that when valin I got married. It was in
our vows. We didn't know, but we both use this
line from around us that we'd like where I said,
I see you in there, meaning the real you, behind
all of all of the nonsense, And I see me
in the baby. And the more people that I can
(30:47):
be in love with, I mean be in love. I
don't necessarily mean Hallmark in love. I mean be in
love with them. The more I see myself out here
and the more I'm obsessed, the less I'm obsessed with
fucking Pete and his stupid story. This is all we
have in the West, is is glamour and beauty and
(31:09):
should I this? And should I? How can I look powerful?
How can I look important? How can I? Oh? My
my TV show is canceled? How can I get another one?
I need to put another flag in the mountains so
everyone knows that I'm king Dick, right. That's that's what
we have. And then you have brokenness and and humility
(31:31):
and surrender into the multi versatile and having a baby
has been way more reality shattering. And I mean that
in the best way, um than any bender or any
psychedelic I've ever taken. And I'll say, sitting with a
baby who is so steeped in present. I went Payakart
(31:54):
totally talking. It reminded me of my baby. And that's
a very high compliment to Eckart. And I actually one
on another tree with with rom d Us and he
reminds me of my baby. These are people that are
just here. The needle is on the record, they're not
they're not playing the next song. They're right here. And
that is my baby. And that is a great teacher.
(32:15):
And I see too many I'm gonna get judgmental, but
I see too many parents on their phones or trying
to play Kate and I understand sometimes we need breaks
from our babies. But there's a great opportunity on that
Matt in the morning with the toys to just got
totally says the present moment is your life. It's insanity
to go. Once this baby goes down, then I'll be happy.
(32:38):
This is what's happening. And how you feel about this,
how we feel about this, That's how you feel about
your life. This is your life. It's not at the
end of the day when you go back and replay, oh,
how is the podcast, say well, it was okay. He
talked a lot, and you know it's not that it's
this so on a matt with a baby that doesn't
(32:58):
yet have all those defenses and all of those stories
to sell me I'm this, I'm a, i'm a all
the all the labels. She just is business. So we
already talked about. She just is consciousness. She just is
God or the light of God. That is way better
(33:19):
than any spiritual retreat. And you can make one for free.
I don't recommend it unless unless you're really its, you're
really ready, but it's available. Like a lot of things,
it's available. Well, hanging with you has been like being
with your baby because it has been awesome and around
(33:41):
and we have just bathed in the business of Pete Holmes.
So thank you very very much. It brought me there.
One of the reasons I love talking about it and
I get so excited is I know by unpacking it
with you guys, it brings me there too. So this
is a great way to start my day. Thank you.
(34:03):
The Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City.
Make sure to share, subscribe, rate, and review us. We
would love to hear from you. Where are you on
your journey? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
at pod to Somewhere and email us at road to
Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to Alicia Haywood,
(34:24):
are incredible producer. Thanks everyone for joining us on the
Road to Somewhere. We're available on the I Heart Radio app,
on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I I come from the tradition of willpower Christianity. Our
holiness is measured one for one with how well we
can suppress our desires. It doesn't have to be sacks.
It could be eat that cake or drink that wine
or whatever it is. We're willpower Christians, and when we
get to heaven, God will say, good job. Here's all
the wine and the cake and the sacks that you
can want, because that's the fucked up game I designed. Okay,
(00:32):
thanks for being here on the road to somewhere. When
we talk about exploration, adventure, major life change and transformation,
it's about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having
faith that the journey will be worthwhile. I am Lisas
and I am Jewel or is it going to have
to say that? One of my favorite things about our
(00:53):
relationship and doing this podcast together Lisa, is that it
is such a great opportunity to laugh at ourselves. And
I think you are you may be of all my friends,
the most willing what do we call it self laugher? Yes,
I am a self offer. I was a constant source
of comedy to myself. It's just so helpful. Oh my God,
(01:14):
thank heavens. Thank heavens for humor. What would it be?
How would we deal? How much would we drink? A lot?
So much? Well, thank Heavens for our guest today because
he is so funny. Um, we are going to be talking.
We are talking to Pete Holmes, the famous comedian, celebrity
(01:35):
star of Crashing, and author of the brilliant book Comedy
Sex God. Pete Holmes, thank you so much for being
with us today. Thank you thanks for having me. I
didn't know if I was chiming in yet. Do you
laugh at your own jokes? So you laugh at your
own foibles, don't you? Which happens more? No, I laugh
at myself constantly. Um, I think the foibles are funnier.
(01:57):
My foibles are funnier than my jokes, that's for sure. Yeah.
But when you said Lisa laughed at herself more than anybody,
that she's noticing herself or she's making little clever turns
of phrase or whatever, No, I don't. I don't. I don't.
I definitely don't laugh at my own jokes. That's really
funny because they're so tasteless. There's plenty of her just
(02:20):
saying like and and I did that and that's crazy
and you're laughing harder than anybody. Well, I'm so happy
you're here. I love talking to you on memts podcast.
That was one of my favorite interviews. I'm so happy
to hear that. I was in the middle of the
(02:42):
throes of press as I know you know what that's like,
and that was a bright spot. Not that any of
them were bad, but no, no, no, no no. Your
press I did was um. But I really loved ducking
in and talking with you guys, and I didn't know you,
and I feel like we connected and enjoyed did I mean,
(03:04):
I know old Dr Mamit from from Crashing and he
was great. But I had no idea that we would
connect as much as we did, and I feel like
we did. I do too. I loved it. And one
of the things that I thought was very funny and
we connected over was the title of your book, which
is Comedy Sex God. Although it's comedy Sex God, but
we were joking about how it could easily be comedy
(03:27):
sex God, right, which sounds like Russell Brand's book like
my book. Um yeah, I I've thought about it many times.
I sort of I don't really regret it, but I
wish I could have called it comedy and sex and God.
You know how people have those t shirts that have
all the ampersands on it. It would have cleared it up,
(03:49):
you know, and it would have been sort of in vogue. Yeah,
But after reading your book, I kind of think it
is comedy sex god, you and the threesome and the
whole thing. I mean it, it's pretty hot. There's there's
there's allusions to sex, but never sex godness. But you
might be you might be gaining some book sales by
(04:10):
implying that you are a comedy sex god. You're right
on the money, lady. Like, we wanted it to be
a joke. We wanted it to be something that people
would talk about and wonder, hey, is this asshole calling
himself a comedy sex god. The least that gives it
some sort of itch, some reason to pick it up.
You know, when when I interviewed you before, I have
(04:31):
to admit I had not read your book. The producer
given us a summary and giving us like what we're
talking points and everything, and but I read it very
carefully this time, multiple parts over and over again. I've
got to say, I think comedy, sex and God in
the title Forget about the Ambersons is one word because
for you, they're the same thing. And that's what I'm
(04:52):
gonna say. Fucking here, blew me away about this book
this time because you had one one word, one sentence
that can find all the words, which was horny nous
was the teaching. It wasn't in the way of a
spiritual work. It was the spiritual work. And that's comedy,
sex and got all embodied in one thing, which was
so intense for me. Anyway, Yeah, you gotta you gotta
(05:15):
explain that you have to have to set up for
the audience. You might not be familiar with how all
those things come together for you. That's all you need
is that sentence. Um, well, I mean comedy, sex and
God are so linked to me. Specifically, sex and God
are so linked to me growing up evangelical, and I
enjoyed a lot of that time, but there was some
(05:37):
that's some. There was a lot of baggage around the
topic of sex when it came to God because I
say in the book, I said I didn't have a
hard time not um lying or stealing or hurting people
because I genuinely wanted to be a sweet person and
a good person, but when it came to sex, that
that was the only sin. And I'm putting quotes around
(05:59):
that that you had a biological component like linked to it.
And I mean, I barely remember how horny fourteen year
old boys are, but I was a fourteen year old
boy and and at the same time, my spirituality was blossoming.
So being told that, like you, Richard Or actually says
that this is by design, that the church is sort
(06:21):
of not maliciously, but they're looking for a foothold. They're
looking for some sort of codependent way to hook people
in and link people in. And they've always sort of
used shame and the sins as he says again in quotes,
the sins of the body. These are people have shame
about their bodies, people have shame about their sexuality. I joke,
this is why they have the book Everybody Poops. There's
(06:42):
like there's a shame that needs to be sounved about
our bodies. So when I was told that God loved me,
but don't sin or he'll send me to hell, and
I was like, Okay, no problem, I won't sin. But
then every morning a new batch of hormones bubbled up
with it. It was real. It became really really psychologically
(07:03):
and physically traumatic to try and um earn the love
of a very judgmental and conditional God that I had
been that had been explained to me. So throughout the
book sort of takes you through my evangelical upbringing, takes
you through my divorce, takes you through losing my faith,
but then I think way more importantly, it takes you
(07:24):
into rebuilding my faith, which is usually the part um
that a lot of people, unfortunately or whatever, they don't
get to that. A lot of comedians I know, have
the story of like and then I realized there was
no old man in the sky, and I was like, yeah,
we all realized that we all got that. Like it's okay,
it doesn't have to be that image, Like, you know,
(07:46):
we can't dismiss the rich tradition of mysticism and spirituality
with one sentence, which is what most people are doing.
It's like, you really mean to tell me that this
this this is like can we stop throwing Jesus out
with the bath water or or Christian out with the
bathwater or Buddhau with the bathwater? Like what what is
drawing humanity towards these towards these traditions, over and over
(08:09):
and over again, and what are we missing from throwing
them away? Towards the end of the book, I go
on a spiritual retreat that ROMed Us is house round
us as a spiritual teacher Ropey here now and Um.
I was in his guest house, basically on a hermitage
alone for seven days, basically except when I would see him,
and I got so blindingly horny. And there I was
(08:31):
to do like spiritual work and to be you know,
to meditate in light incense as as Richard Royer jokingly
calls it a bells and smells like I wanted. I
wanted to feel holy. I wanted to wear Lulu Lemon
pants someday, be quiet and cook little meek meals and
(08:53):
meet them in silence. And and I was, and I
saw around us, and I had a sober, pretty psychedelic
experience sitting with him, which was incredible. And then the
day after that, um, feeling so holy and feeling so special,
I got ten out of ten horny, as horny as
I was when I was a kid. And I spent unfortunately,
(09:16):
I spent much of the retreat from that point on
trying not to masturbate, which is so embarrassing. There was
the issue that I had dealt with so much as
a child, was reheated on a spiritual pilgrimage. Obviously, now
with perspective that seems pretty right on, that seems like, yeah,
deal with this. You you basically just started having sex.
(09:38):
You basically just started you got married, you know, like
you yielded and and stopped shaming yourself. And that is
a wonderful um band aid to put over the wound,
but to really work with it. UM I felt very
moved to face it, and not just face it, but
love it, like really, like shine the sun's light, like
(09:59):
not a flash, like the sun on that wound and
on that trauma, and it wouldn't go away until I
finally was just like, I love every part of you.
I love your sexuality, I love your anger, I love
your doubt, I love your fear. And it was just
like flooding my body with light and consciousness and it
(10:22):
completely went away. But of course it came up. The
one thing that had always been like a burr on
your sock when you go hiking, It was always attached
to the issue of spirituality, and then I realized I
had the end of my book. I didn't intend to
do that, but I was very lucky that I got
horny on a pilgrimage because it was a good ending.
(10:44):
We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
we're gonna talk more about Horny and Pilgrimage. Before the break,
we were talking with sex god Pete Holmes about getting
(11:05):
a horny with round Us, which is kind of sounds
kind of creepy, but it was really beautiful and you
you had an epiphany where And it's funny because I
think comedy for you too, is the same thing. It's
all about love, being loved, feeling loved, feeling accepted. That's God, right,
the source of love, love itself. Comedy getting love from strangers,
(11:30):
and sex getting love from you know, the significant people.
It's all It's really your title. It could have just
been loved too. I mean, let me ask you that
most comedians are pretty miserable people. I mean, it's it's
it's famous as a profession for wretched souls drawn are
drawn to comedy. We've we've seen that over and over again.
(11:51):
You do not seem unhappy. Yeah, I think like that
happy comedian because that's very sweet. I I I to
be the everything comedian. Um, you get data, it's you know,
it's show business. The crowd responds more when you lean
this way or that way, so you sort of take
that guidance. It's not phoniness, but you guys are in
(12:12):
show business, you see, Like, oh, I think they like
it when I play this way as opposed to maybe
playing this way. I still do this. I do jokes
on stage where like I get angry or or I
maybe being a little bit mean, and I can just
feel the crowd just kind of going like this isn't
this doesn't feel quite right. Um, you can do it
if you want, but we like it more when you
do it this way. So that's sort of over two
(12:34):
decades of doing stand up, being true to myself, but
also sort of the bumper bowling of doing it for
audiences has sort of led to the persona of this
guy who is sweet. That that is who I am.
But it's very important to me, kind of weaving in
what Lisa was saying to be the everything person Like
I grew up thinking that Jesus was telling us to
(12:57):
be nice, and now my spirituality is much much different.
I was gonna say deeper. That sounds better. I am
gonna stay deeper deeper than that. I was just doing
a podcast called The Liturgist where I went on a
real tear where I was like, do you really think
Jesus was the only person from from Galilee or Nazareth
that was like that had the brilliant idea to be nice?
Like do you really think that would like spark a
(13:19):
revolution that that lasted two thousand years? Like he was
the first one that was like a be nice. We're
social creatures were designed to be nice in order to
like watch a reality show, to form alliances and to
share resources, and and to just feel good. It feels
good to be nice and to a baby and then
to other people into your your partners, Like, being nice
(13:41):
is not a revolution. Jesus had such a more exciting
thing to say than that. But we've in your part, Jill,
is that Like, by doing comedy and getting people to
witness and share in all of the feelings that I
have and validate them through laughter is very healing to me.
(14:02):
I think comedy can be used for sort of dark,
narcissistic purposes, just like anything I suppose, but it also
can be used as this wonderful healing group therapy, or
if I tell a joke about even what I'm doing now,
I'm telling a joke about getting horny on a pilgrimage.
If you've ever been felt alone and ashamed, because we're
(14:25):
all having things like this, there's all like these little
dark they don't happen every day. There's little dark corners
of your life. And if somebody in an alpha position,
a power position, gets on stage and they have a
loud voice, microphone, and they're under lights and they're taller
than everybody, that's what a stage is great. Taller than everybody.
(14:46):
I'm also just taller than everybody. But then I'm on
a stage. I mean, consider it. So you are in
a power position, but you use that power to communicate
your vulnerability and to communicate your frailty and your shame,
and you're worried at is an interesting game to play.
Whereas you know, I I love comedy and I love comedians,
but sometimes when I go and I watch, I see
(15:09):
a lot of people just kind of reaffirming what audiences
are already selling to the world, which is like, isn't
winning great isn't food great, isn't sex great? Isn't being
the best great? And everyone's just like yeah, and I'm
like great, we just we all just got as Richard
Rory or Thomas Burton would say, we all just got
our false self reaffirmed, like we're winners and we look
(15:30):
good and it's a date night. And but I I
just I don't know what it is. I love, I
do know what it is. But to be quick, I
love going up and talking about vulnerability. I love talking
about fear and shame in a powerful way. And and
I think audiences want to hear that as well. It's
it's not it's not like I'm not doing well. You
(15:51):
can also do well with that sort of stuff. That's
what the book is. So we mentioned Richard war and
we've mentioned Ramdas. There's another good rus so to speak,
although not in not in person, but it's from reading
the book. One of your big influencers was Joseph Campbell,
as was mine. Can you talk a little bit about
(16:12):
how he kind of widened your view of God and spirituality? Yeah,
that's a great place to start. Sometimes you start with
Richie Rohor, you start with ram Das, and it sort
of alienates people. But the place that I love to
start with with God, which is such a I completely
agree people have been abused and murdered and repressed with
(16:35):
that word. It's it's a really can be tricky to
use that word. Um. I sort of like it. I
don't really have those traumas. So I tried to reclaim it.
And one of the people that helped me with that
was Joseph Campbell. So we talked about the man in
the sky um on a cloud, which is nowhere in
the Bible. God has never described. God has described as
(16:56):
a cloud in the Book of Exodus, but he's he's
never described as a man in a throne with a
beard on a cloud looking down. That is Zeus. That
is Greek. That and and the Greek is overlain on
the New Testament all the time. Jesus, for example, never
said hell. They'd say things like Hades because people knew
about Greek mythology, like that's just a thing. So that
(17:19):
still continues to this day. When people put down Christians
and Christianity, they they're sort of belittling Zeus. Um, well,
what Christian not not to say, Christianity doesn't have things
you can't make fun of it. Certainly does. But the
idea of God is from the Old Testament when Moses
is about to see while he's seeing the burning bush,
(17:42):
and he's talking to God and he says, what is
your name? God says, I am that I am, So
that's it. Really, I am that I am a new
age person um somebody I love, like the Apoctropra or
somebody would say, this is m nous. This is the
quality of is nous, which we don't have to debate.
This is what I love to argue about. We don't
have to debate. This is it. This is isness what
(18:05):
you are listening with right now. Whether you agree with
me or disagree with me, it doesn't really matter. The
quality of the hum of electricity of unus behind your
thoughts isn't this. It's consciousness itself. So we don't have
to debate the existence of consciousness nobody. It's a waste
of time. You're using consciousness to debate it. So consciousness
(18:29):
is God. God is then a metaphor or a symbol
pointing to the phenomenon, to the mystery of consciousness. So
we're all kind of on the same same side science,
as I say in the book science is trying to
photograph it. We need that. I'm not putting that down.
That is incredibly important, essential, masterful, beautiful work. And I
(18:51):
would say is the work of consciousness is beautiful and
that and that's the good news. It doesn't matter. You
don't even have to believe it there. You can't get
away from it. Believe you're soaking in business. I don't
even care how you tell yourself a story about it.
You can't escape it. You are part of it. You
are in the ocean. When we come back, I want
(19:11):
to talk more about the ocean of business. We are
swimming in the business with Pete Holmes. You had mentioned
the the mystery and the the identification with that which
(19:38):
is so much bigger than our ego. But I want
to talk about one of the ways you got to
see that expense. It would have been the third word,
if you have fourth word, if you could have had
a fourth word on the title, which would have been drugs. Yeah, sex, conty, god, drugs,
(19:58):
all of those. Tell us about your your journey with
psychedelics and how that broadened your vision of the universe
and business. You guys are This is a great interview
like I. I. I was like, oh, I I like
what we said, but I feel like we can move on,
and you guys are like, it's time to move on,
(20:19):
And he moved on to something I love to talk
about it. I just wanted to say that psychedelics. It's interesting.
I remember being married to my first wife. I got
married when I was twenty two, and I was very
squeaky clean and sweet. I actually remember where I was
when I thought, it's weird that I'll never try pot
like I remember. I remember thinking that, and then when
(20:40):
my wife and I split my first wife, I sort
of felt like the game was different than I understood it.
I thought God was sort of like the mafia, Like
if I paid into him and didn't smoke or swear
or drink, he would guard my bakery. And then someone
threw a brick through my bag pret window, and I
(21:00):
was like, well, this guy's not paying out, you know
I thought I thought. I thought he didn't hold up
his end of the deal, so I didn't go on
a crazy bender. I joke in the book that a
Christian on a bender is basically just a regular person.
I was going out to bars and i'd stay to
like one am and I was looking around. It was
still packed. I was like, in all your wives leave you, like,
(21:23):
why are we still Here's their twenties in New York
are doing. So I started doing that and eventually I
did smoke pot and obviously and then um, basically my
first girlfriend and I went to Bonaroo and I tell
the story. It was with me and Amy Schumer and
Reggie Watts and Kurt Brawn Owler and they were like
(21:44):
someone selling mushrooms and I didn't I didn't even know
what it was. I had heard a little bit about
it that it was something sort of like pot. I
guess that like makes you feel fuzzy and good, but
I knew it was a psychedelic, but I didn't even
know what that meant. Like I think a lot of
people think that it means, like you you literally see
like cartoon dragons that tough, and how it's portrayed in
movies is you know, God love them. It's it's a
(22:07):
very hard thing to capture, but like tough, the magic
dragon will fly by, and that's what a psychedelic is apparently,
So that's all I really knew. And we bought them
from this like it was a chocolate puck and we
ate it and we waited. I wasn't intending on it,
but I totally had a religious experience. I think they are. Um,
(22:29):
I want to make sure I get this right. Psychedelic, No,
there's another word for psychedelics that means mind manifesting. I
believe that's what psychedelic means, mind manifesting. So another word
for mind could be consciousness. Obviously, your consciousness is sort
of flowing through your mind and using your mind, using
your DNA, using your personality, using your conditioning. I'm not
(22:49):
saying your consciousness is tainted by any of that. It's
sort of like the light you shine through the shadow
puppet of your brain, and there you are, there's your
personality and stuff. But the light is not effect did
by that. But mind manifesting through in increased consciousness, like
it's a bigger shadow puppet show. That's what it was. Um,
(23:10):
it's not so much I didn't see. I didn't see
religious imagery. I've tried to explain it since because a
lot of people take psychedelics and they come up to
me and they say, I don't understand. All I saw
was a clown and just kept slapping with a giant hand.
I don't know how was that a religious experience? A
religious experience? No, I. I basically had people say that
(23:33):
to me. They're like, what are you talking about? And
I go, it's not what you see, it's that you
see that you're seeing with something. How you see is manipulated.
Your sense of perspective is manipulated. The greatest thing that
it does, um is it completely turns off the part
of your brain that prioritizes. So right now you're in
(23:54):
that studio, I'm I'm in my little backhouse here, and
we are surrounded by things that if you were on mushrooms,
or if you had a nice, good hour long meditation,
or if you did all sorts of centering exercises, your
eyes would open. That's what Christ says. Christ says, you
won't say the Kingdom of Heaven won't come by expectation.
(24:15):
You won't see it coming like coming down the freeway.
Here comes Heaven. He says, the Kingdom of Heaven is here,
but people do not see it. So when I took mushrooms,
I had a visceral, visceral experience of what he was
talking about, meaning heaven or hell doesn't stop and start
when you die, it's it's surrounding us potentials for all
(24:35):
sorts of realities are surrounding us at the same time,
So everything from that perspective would seem beautiful and fascinating
and more importantly, alive trees sort of get this like
breathing feeling. The earth has a breathing feeling. Things that
you take for granted, like the fact that we're floating
on a space rock in infinity, uh, are no longer
(24:56):
just filed away as things to not think of. They
become the only thing to think about. Let me slow
down and ask you something here, Like you went through
this crisis moment where your wife left you in spectacular fashion.
It's sort of cracked the world open for you lost
your faith and then you were willing to take lots
(25:17):
of risks like smoke pot and you know, psychedelics and
the rest of it. And also and it seems like
you did a whole lot of other things that were
that sort of lead you out onto the thinner ice.
How do you now that you are living a really
sort of stable life, You've got this sort of prototypical
(25:40):
happy life. How do you keep cracking yourself open or
is it no longer necessary. I mean, it just seems
like you got so much from that moment. Is it
necessary to keep doing it? That's a really great question.
Past you should come on it. Yeah, I'll come on it.
I'm free you right now. Um Well, first of all,
(26:04):
I am grateful, and I want to point out one
of the things that I'm grateful for from my my
Christian upbringing was that I went on a bender very responsibly.
I couldn't shake that, and I'm glad that I wasn't
able to shake that. Um. I I don't care for
some of the puritanical garbage and shame that I got,
(26:24):
But you know, all in all, I got a pretty
a pretty decent footing in the world, and and some
good self love and some good self care. That being said,
this book written by another person, the bender part can
be much uglier. It can be much more destructive. I'm
not even telling people to go on a bender. That's
what my my TV show Crashing was sort of about.
(26:45):
When a sweet guy, like a Christian guy, goes on
a bender. It's pretty Those are the venders that I'm
sort of into, Like, it wasn't really the heart of
of depravity. I know people that have gone into the
heart of depravity and found God there too. I was
glad that I could sort of tarzan swing through wildness,
picking up a few things here and there without um
(27:07):
picking up any any horrible habits or damaging my brain
or a CD is absolutely knocking somebody up or whatever
could have been. There's a million things that could have happened.
Although I was very paranoid about six sex, so that
was not gonna happen. Um. Uh so that was not
a bender If you're paranoise, say sex, I don't know,
(27:30):
it's a It was a bender at and that's a
that's a good um. That's the difference between despair and
like kind of what I would call what we're calling
a bender at despair is who cares? I'm full of rum.
Let's have some unprotected sex. Let's let's take that pill,
even though I don't know what it was. Even the
(27:52):
mushrooms involved like a long conversation with everybody that was there,
what is it, like, how long does it last? What
should I do? What if I don't like it? And
how do I come down? Like everybody? And and every
time I take mushrooms or anything like that, you should
see it it's it's almost like on the spectrum how
how you know, pitch perfect. I want to make the
(28:13):
set and setting, which is just a fancy way of saying,
do it with people that you love in a place
that is comforting to you. Um. But that's that's just
that's just medical right there. Um tell moment I said.
But anyway, um, when we're talking about creativity or hard expansion,
it can be really nice to go in with this
(28:35):
with the sledgehammer and have your wife leave you. I
know that's kind of a crazy thing to say, but
that can be really good for your soul to to
get the ground pulled out from under view and have
everything change and have everything fall apart and then have
some new experiences and even some wild experiences. And my
life is um. I mean we were joking about the sauna.
(28:57):
I was like, nobody with a sauna has good stories,
but they're different stories. They're like wow, I got a
real good sweat going like that, and that they're boring stories.
What I'm saying is I'm a boring I'm pretty boring now.
But having a daughter and is incredible work for me.
In fact, I would say since she's been born, um
(29:20):
My spiritual life has been hugely amplified by it because
one of the things that about having a baby is
that you realize that it's not so much it's not
about you anymore at all. Of spirituality is about trying
to realize your interconnectedness with with oneness, basically that we're
all in one thing together. That I say in the
(29:40):
book that this is we see ourselves as separate beings
walking around, But it's more helpful to think of it
for me as an undulating fountain, and you are your
little you know, piece of water in it, doing it
perfectly based on your chemistry. You're conditioning your history. You
are unfolding as the daoas would say, perfectly lawful. You
are being Lisa Oz perfectly like it is lawful, it
(30:05):
is happening. It is all one thing. So having a
baby and seeing yourself quite literally in another person. My
baby looks quite a bit like me. I have a
joke about that where it almost feels impolite to my wife.
He looks like my wife too, But I mean she
really looks like me. And you have that like, oh,
(30:26):
there's a piece of my heart in this. That is spirituality.
When that when valin I got married. It was in
our vows. We didn't know, but we both use this
line from around us that we'd like where I said,
I see you in there, meaning the real you, behind
all of all of the nonsense, And I see me
in the baby. And the more people that I can
(30:47):
be in love with, I mean be in love. I
don't necessarily mean Hallmark in love. I mean be in
love with them. The more I see myself out here
and the more I'm obsessed, the less I'm obsessed with
fucking Pete and his stupid story. This is all we
have in the West, is is glamour and beauty and
(31:09):
should I this? And should I? How can I look powerful?
How can I look important? How can I? Oh? My
my TV show is canceled? How can I get another one?
I need to put another flag in the mountains so
everyone knows that I'm king Dick, right. That's that's what
we have. And then you have brokenness and and humility
(31:31):
and surrender into the multi versatile and having a baby
has been way more reality shattering. And I mean that
in the best way, um than any bender or any
psychedelic I've ever taken. And I'll say, sitting with a
baby who is so steeped in present. I went Payakart
(31:54):
totally talking. It reminded me of my baby. And that's
a very high compliment to Eckart. And I actually one
on another tree with with rom d Us and he
reminds me of my baby. These are people that are
just here. The needle is on the record, they're not
they're not playing the next song. They're right here. And
that is my baby. And that is a great teacher.
(32:15):
And I see too many I'm gonna get judgmental, but
I see too many parents on their phones or trying
to play Kate and I understand sometimes we need breaks
from our babies. But there's a great opportunity on that
Matt in the morning with the toys to just got
totally says the present moment is your life. It's insanity
to go. Once this baby goes down, then I'll be happy.
(32:38):
This is what's happening. And how you feel about this,
how we feel about this, That's how you feel about
your life. This is your life. It's not at the
end of the day when you go back and replay, oh,
how is the podcast, say well, it was okay. He
talked a lot, and you know it's not that it's
this so on a matt with a baby that doesn't
(32:58):
yet have all those defenses and all of those stories
to sell me I'm this, I'm a, i'm a all
the all the labels. She just is business. So we
already talked about. She just is consciousness. She just is
God or the light of God. That is way better
(33:19):
than any spiritual retreat. And you can make one for free.
I don't recommend it unless unless you're really its, you're
really ready, but it's available. Like a lot of things,
it's available. Well, hanging with you has been like being
with your baby because it has been awesome and around
(33:41):
and we have just bathed in the business of Pete Holmes.
So thank you very very much. It brought me there.
One of the reasons I love talking about it and
I get so excited is I know by unpacking it
with you guys, it brings me there too. So this
is a great way to start my day. Thank you.
(34:03):
The Road to Somewhere is recorded in New York City.
Make sure to share, subscribe, rate, and review us. We
would love to hear from you. Where are you on
your journey? Connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
at pod to Somewhere and email us at road to
Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to Alicia Haywood,
(34:24):
are incredible producer. Thanks everyone for joining us on the
Road to Somewhere. We're available on the I Heart Radio app,
on Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Road to Somewhere News
Hosts And Creators
Lisa Oz
Jill Herzig
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