Attn: Please note that this was our first live Instagram recording session, and we encountered some technical difficulties. There are a few times during this episode where the recording dropped audio. Thanks for understanding.
In Season 2, Episode 20 of Chasing Thoughts, hosts Keith and Mindy embark on an electrifying journey into the depths of identity and consciousness. Join them as they break new ground by going live on Instagram for the very first time, inviting listeners to witness their candid conversation unfold in real-time.
Delving into the intricate web of human existence, Keith and Mindy unravel the complex roles we play in society and the underlying consciousness that shapes our identities. From the personas we adopt in different contexts to the authentic self that lies beneath the surface, no stone is left unturned in this thought-provoking exploration.
As they navigate the intricacies of self-discovery and societal expectations, Keith and Mindy invite listeners to reflect on their own experiences and ponder the timeless questions of who we are and why we exist. Whether you're tuning in live or catching up later, prepare to be challenged, inspired, and enlightened by the dynamic duo behind Chasing Thoughts. Don't miss out on this groundbreaking episode as Keith and Mindy push the boundaries of podcasting and dive headfirst into the heart of human consciousness.
Chapters:
00:04:13 - Who am I now? (Keith)
00:09:25 - Gossip (Mindy)
00:18:00 - Revealing what is on your filter (Mindy)
00:027:07 - Trauma and identity (Keith)
00:37:30 - Merging (Keith)
00:43:00 - Still angry (Mindy)
00:58:00 - Challenge makes things interesting (Mindy)
01:01:48 - Beauty on the other side of fear (Keith)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
(00:05):
Chasing Thoughts was founded by strangers, two life coaches who met on TikTok and shared
the desire to create a different kind of life coaching podcast.
Instead of talking about how to do it right, the Chasing Thoughts podcast explores embracing
our true essence to find a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Life coaches Keith and Mindy take a unique approach that transcends popular notions of
(00:29):
perpetual happiness and striving relentlessly to become one's ideal self.
Listen in as Mindy, Keith and their guests take a deep dive into their own minds and
souls to investigate the beauty of imperfection, challenge their beliefs, and embrace the richness
of living a truly authentic life.
Hi, my name is Keith and I'm a strategic interventionist and stoner-spirited life coach.
(00:56):
Hi, my name is Mindy and I am an authenticity empowerment coach.
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts.
This is Chasing Thoughts Season 2, Episode 20.
Can you believe that, Keith?
(01:16):
Episode 20.
It's weird.
It's so weird.
Awesome.
So today we are talking about identity, the roles we play, and the consciousness behind
all of it.
Keith was sharing with me that he recently changed his idea about identity and relationship
(01:42):
with identity.
Let's start there, tell our listeners about that because I loved everything you had to
say.
Okay, so I knew absolutely nothing about identity, I would say like six years ago.
Never crossed my mind, didn't think about it at all.
And then when I left the military, I started struggling so much and everybody said go to
(02:10):
the VA.
And I found out that sometimes the VA can be even more traumatic or I don't want to
say more traumatic, but like kind of adding to that because I had to fight them for four
years to just test me for PTSD.
Then when they did, the help that I received was to go to like grief counseling groups
(02:33):
and then just tons of medication.
So I wasn't happy with that so I decided to look for my own way out and I found that all
the literature talks about when you join the military, it's an identity shift and I go
even just that further and say it's a cultural shift.
And then when you come out, you don't have any of that retraining to go on to live normally
(02:54):
back in the civilian world.
So in anthropology, they call it a place of liminality, being betwixt in between.
And the word betwixt to me is like the coolest word ever.
Like it needs to be used more.
But you have the military identity, but you're in the civilian world.
But the whole like freak out part is that you recognize where you are, but you just feel
(03:20):
like you don't belong.
So in my research, I found that I needed to change my identity and it had to come with
I didn't want to let go of the military part of my identity because that felt like I would
be removing a piece of myself.
(03:41):
So I wanted to build on the foundation of the best that I learned in the military and
then add it to what I have now in the civilian world.
So fast track, five years I've been like asking this question like who am I now today?
And through everything that I've learned that question has now changed.
(04:02):
So it was who am I?
And now it's does it matter who I am?
And then this is where it gets, it gets weird.
So let's see if I can like put this in like a like a coherent way.
So every change that happens in our lives comes with a shift in identity.
(04:25):
You know, we have different sort of spheres that we live in when we're a kid, you know,
in school, that's our identity.
When we go to college, we become, you know, we're now a college kid, it's a whole new
identity process when we're out, we're an employee, we have a family, all that stuff
changes our identity, we can get really jammed up in those transitional periods.
(04:47):
But everything that we do, everything that we do in the moment, by the time our brain
processes what's going on, even though it's like, I don't know if it's nanoseconds or
Millis or whatever it is, like it's a very short amount of time, but we are already in
the past.
So my question started to become, does it really matter who I am now?
(05:10):
Or does it matter who I'm going to become next?
And at that point, who I am now, the choices are put on me through my experiences, you
know, the way our identity is built.
You know, when we're born, there's this philosophy called tabula rasa or empty slate, where we're
(05:31):
just that empty slate, you know, and then our identity is built on, put on us from our
experiences, our parents, siblings, school, friends, all that sort of stuff.
But when I look at who I am now in this moment, I'm looking at, even though it's like those
milliseconds in the past, I'm looking at who I was built from all of my experiences.
(05:52):
But when I focus on who I'm going to become next, then all these variables open up to
me, you know, and I feel a greater sense of freedom and also a greater sense of overwhelm
because because of all of those choices and my comfort zone is routine, my comfort zone
is not endless variables of who I possibly can be.
(06:17):
So that's what I'm starting now to focus on is not who I am, not answering that question,
but focusing on who I'm going to become, remembering who I am, remembering those experiences,
keeping that foundation and bringing it forward with me and building off of that and thinking,
(06:37):
who do I want to be in these next moments and making that choice, you know, to the best
of my ability, you know, because sometimes I'll end up being an ass and sometimes I'll
end up, you know, being the right thing in the right moment, but, you know, trying to
make the best possible choice that I have with the information that I'm that I'm bringing
(06:58):
forward with me and then also built off my principles, my beliefs, my values, all that
sort of stuff.
So that then brought me to the final question of, and I know the answer is both a yes and
a no, but does identity matter?
You know, like, can we get to a place where we can say I am and then that's just it?
(07:23):
Like I am just my being and not have to worry about who I am, who I'm going to become, you
know, anything just being myself existing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny because when I knew we were going to have this conversation and I was sitting
with my own thoughts, I had a similar exploration to you where I realized that I'm consciousness
(07:54):
and every idea of my identity is just an attempt to understand that or put it in a box, right,
to give it some parameters.
And so when I thought, well, what if I just identified with being consciousness, just
learning and growing and experiencing life, then there's some relief because I don't have
to be sad if I lose this job or if I lose this relationship because I'm just consciousness.
(08:23):
But then what was interesting is that there's a certain part of this humanist identity that's
kind of juicy and fun.
I like this.
I don't like this.
I'm this role.
I'm not this role.
I don't like this.
(08:44):
And so I started to think about identity as like a way that consciousness is playing in
this world.
I like that.
Yeah, like not necessarily good or bad, but it reminded me of this.
(09:04):
I don't like gossiping in my life and I make a rule not to gossip because it's destructive.
But there's a part of me that likes the experience of gossiping.
So this is why I love, for example, watching crappy TV shows with my mother-in-law where
(09:25):
we can be like, oh my God, did you believe that?
She's going to blah, blah, blah, blah, because I let myself live into this sort of persona
that's judgy and gossipy in a way that is not harmful to anybody.
And so I was thinking, is there a way to play with identity where I know it's a game?
(09:46):
Yeah, I almost wonder if that's sort of the key.
Looking back at a lot of the spiritual teachings, especially since I grew up in church Christianity,
(10:10):
there was a part where Jesus talked about becoming like a little child again and almost
having that childlike wonder to all this stuff that's happening around us.
But we're programmed at a very early age to take on a role, to take on an identity.
We're supposed to go to work.
We go to school so that we can get a job and we get a job so that we can produce and consume
(10:36):
and all of that.
And then that's our lives.
Getting into this repetitive cycle, almost like a piece of machinery that you get up,
you go to work, you come home, family time, maybe once or twice a week, you go out, you
do some hobbies or something, but that's about it.
And playing with identity, playing with who we are and letting ourselves sort of transition
(11:01):
into different identities and doing things can bring life, bring energy into us.
So one of the lessons that I learned with Silas Ibn was that I need a lot more fluidity
in my life.
Really, and now granted, I was for a long time, I wasn't working out or exercising,
(11:26):
so just with back issues and stuff, so I got all locked up.
But fluidity also in terms of identity, being able to move, what's that famous quote from
Bruce Lee, be like water.
You put water in a pot, it takes the form of a pot.
You put it in a bowl, it takes the form of a bowl.
(11:47):
Having that type of identity that can easily shift and manipulate itself into the container
that it finds itself in.
And I think the key word there is easily.
Water doesn't stay in the shape of a bowl for 10 minutes as it slowly becomes a different
shape.
It immediately takes on a new shape.
(12:10):
Yeah.
Even though you took a chunk of ice and dropped it in a bowl, because it's solid like that,
over time, and that's the thing too, over time, it's going to melt and take the shape
of that bowl.
So that fluidity and that sort of flexibility of our identity can't happen.
But it's going to take time, and the sucky part of that is it's going to cause so much
(12:36):
freaking anxiety and panic and feelings of discomfort.
It kicks my ass so much.
But I keep that hope and that belief that at the end of this thing, that flexibility
will be there.
You say a little bit more about the anxiety and discomfort of letting go of identity.
(13:02):
Oh, man.
Even when I started this business, I had major panic attacks for the longest time because
my identity was I don't put myself out there.
I could not be vulnerable.
That had to be hidden.
So I had to practice that level of vulnerability.
(13:22):
And it got to the point where I thought I was having a heart attack a couple of times.
I went to the doctor.
I was getting EKGs, man.
I was getting all these tests done.
They're like, nope, everything is fine with your heart.
You're good.
You're just having panic attacks.
Freaking relax.
Right?
And then even going through this, beginning to do this stuff, beginning to have a business
(13:48):
like this.
I lost the joy of everything that I was doing because that became my identity, the coach
type thing.
And I never want to be a character.
I feel like I'm a very spiritual person, but I'm not about to grow dreadlocks.
I don't think I could if I wanted to.
(14:10):
I'm not getting any type of face pair sayings or anything.
You know what I mean?
I feel like sometimes when we think I want to grow, we take on the external character
of that growth instead of the internal work that needs to be done.
So doing that internal work, it takes us out of our comfort zone.
And the crazy thing about our comfort zone is we have a floor.
(14:33):
So like when things get too uncomfortable, we'll hit that floor and then we'll be like,
all right, I got to work, you know, almost like a thermostat, right?
When the heat in the house gets down too much at a certain point, it kicks on, right?
But what I didn't expect was that as we grow, we have a, again, we have a comfort zone of
where we fall in our identity.
(14:54):
And as we grow, we're going to hit a ceiling.
And if it gets too hot in the house, like the AC kicks in and it brings us back down.
And that's my fight right now.
I'm fighting against like that AC in my internal system turning on and bringing me back down
because my identity is I have anxiety, I have depression, I have this, I have that.
(15:15):
So I feel more comfortable in misery than I do in this person that I'm looking to become.
So it's going to cause a lot of discomfort and it just takes time to work through that
(15:36):
discomfort.
Yeah.
And grace for yourself, not going into cell feed up, sitting with it.
That's why I think with identity work, one of the greatest tools that has been out there
for thousands and thousands of years is psilocybin.
Yeah.
You know, the bill was just killed in Connecticut, but in mass, I think they've just passed it
(16:00):
through words going to be voted on.
But when I go out into the woods and I'm on that, like I lose all judgment of my everything
that I judge myself for and that when I think about, I'm like, yeah, see, that's why you're
a piece of shit.
That's why you suck.
That's why you're worthless disappears.
(16:22):
And it connects me with this sense of just love and acceptance.
And in those moments while I'm on it, that's all I feel is just love and acceptance for
myself as I am.
Yeah.
And I drop all that judgment of myself.
It's a beautiful thing.
Yeah.
That's similar to another thing I was thinking about is I would say drugs, sex and mountaineering
(16:49):
for me.
But there are like moments in life where I am so absorbed in the present moment that
I'm nothing that I don't exist, that I have no concept of self in that moment.
And I think that's why people go after extreme sports and things like that because it brings
that and that's why people go after drugs.
(17:12):
And luckily, drugs are being re identified as medicine in our culture right now so that
we can use them in that way.
But those are the beautiful feelings when you're just everything and nothing all at
the same time.
Yes.
Yeah.
The other thing I think is interesting is when you were talking about becoming a coach
(17:37):
and then confronting your ideas of the character of coach.
It kind of, when you step into an identity, it reveals what's on your filter because I
have the same thing.
So I step into being a coach and then all of a sudden these cultural ideas, what my
parents think, what my peers think, I'm thinking, oh, I have to live up to all this.
(18:03):
But that's not true at all.
Right.
I can define coaches, whatever I think that identity is.
But man does it all of a sudden bring awareness to those belief systems.
Yeah.
It's sort of like, you know, those medical tests, they put the dye in you and stuff.
It's like putting dye into that part of our identity and it shows where we've taken on
(18:30):
other people's perceptions of who we are.
I think your zoom just froze more technical issues.
Oh, no.
It's weird because I can't even hear you on my phone.
Well, I can't hear you.
(18:51):
Oh, there you go.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
I was so weird because I even turned the volume back up on my phone and I still couldn't
hear you.
Yeah, so for anybody who's listening, this is our first time.
It's a technical difficulties.
Yeah.
And if you're an expert at Instagram Live, you can email us and we accept help.
(19:21):
So Keith and I are exploring identity today and how it shows up in our lives and what
it is.
And if you're listening, feel free to comment what you think it is or the biggest struggle
you've had in an identity shift.
For me, certainly it was after my car accident, like going from a healthy person who was fit
(19:47):
and I taught boot camp classes and I rode my bike everywhere to being a person in a
wheelchair.
It floored me.
And I did have a meditation practice previous to that and I did find peace in being able
to go back to meditation and sort of find like the beingness.
(20:11):
But I felt that it's almost like identity is this like conduit that you help the world
see you as.
Like the translator between your soul and the world.
And so it was challenging for me when people saw me as a handicap person.
(20:38):
That's not how I wanted to be perceived or hadn't accepted about myself maybe.
That's interesting.
So identity is more for how we want others to see us instead of or maybe it's both.
(20:58):
Maybe it's for like how we see ourselves and also how we want everybody else to see us
as well.
That's pretty interesting.
Yeah, I think when, you know, for example, let's say you sit in meditation with another
person or like we said sex or one of those other areas where you're just present and
merged.
But that's rare.
Most of us are trying to get to know each other and you're like, well, what are you?
(21:21):
Oh, I'm a mom.
I am a CEO.
I'm a.
And it's almost it's like how words aren't very accurate in describing the human experience.
We isn't very accurate in describing the soul, but it's still what we use.
(21:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
If it falls way short because I mean, that was something I've always had trouble with.
Like I hate, you know, when we talk about when we meet somebody, you know, like it always
goes to what do you do?
We define ourselves by what we do, you know, and we had talked about this before, but our
(22:02):
job as human beings is not to produce, you know, I mean, like a tree produces apples or
oranges or whatever, you know, it's its job.
It's what it naturally does.
Like our job is to live and we get lost in living designed, you know, into this little
(22:22):
construct that, that where we find ourselves in and breaking out of that is incredibly
difficult to do not not only just in reality, you know, finding, finding a way to make money
and pay your bills by yourself and all that sort of stuff, but also just mentally.
Yes.
(22:42):
You know, I've never been in charge before.
And I know like all of my, all of my anxiety with this comes from, I get to choose what
I want to do what I like yesterday I did nothing, you know, Sandy has been like working tons
of overtime and yesterday like was Wednesday night at midnight, everything ended.
(23:05):
So she took yesterday off and I was like, I could, I could just do this.
Like I don't have to call somebody and be like, yeah, I'm not coming in today.
I'm sick, you know, and fake like an illness or like I could just choose not to.
And that that can be like an anxiety inducing thing because it's different.
Yeah.
(23:25):
You know, my brain is wired to think a certain way.
When I'm thinking different from that wiring, it, it, it's not as, it's not as easy of a
thought process, you know, then, then the original one, which has just been burned into
my brain for, for years.
Yeah.
And again, you're confronting ideas about a person who rests or a person who takes time
(23:49):
off or a person, right.
Oh, well, the identity of a lazy person is someone who doesn't work every single day
or whatever your thoughts are about that and you have to confront your filter.
Yeah.
And I think you brought up like an important point too, which is what trauma does to our
identity.
Oh yeah.
Because I think trauma is, is basically when it comes to our identity, it is an identity
(24:13):
shift in, in that extreme moment that happens.
And it's one of the reasons why it's so hard to accept what just happened, you know, with,
with your car accident, even, even beyond that, when you were talking about like now
I'm a handicap person, you know, going from a mountaineer to a wheelchair.
(24:38):
But because you were in the, if you, do you mind me talking about this?
Yeah, go ahead.
You were in the car for a while, right?
Before.
Yeah.
I was wrapped in the car for almost three hours, like bleeding out internally.
The seatbelt cut, like cut me in half basically.
And do you remember like what was going through your mind at that time?
(25:00):
Was it just like pure shock, which I'm sure was.
You know what's funny is I don't have any memory of it.
But what was strange is about six or seven months later, this guy came to fix my fireplace
and he's like, oh, you're the girl that got in that accident.
And he goes, yeah, I talked to you.
(25:22):
I was right behind you and I pulled over.
And it was so cool because he told me that I was talking to him and described our conversation.
But none of it is in my memory.
So my animal part showed up and communicated and did things for me and I disappeared in
(25:46):
the intensity of the situation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because like when that fight or flight response kicks in, certain parts of our brain shut
off, you know, like, because generally when it, when it evolved, you know, if you're running
from like, I don't know, saber tooth, tiger, something like that, you're not going to stop
and have a conversation.
So that part of the communication part, like that, that short term memory all shuts off.
(26:10):
You know, so it's, it's so strange to see like how you had no memory of that conversation.
But even though you still had a whole conversation with this dude.
Yeah.
And then afterwards, I'm sure it was so hard to accept that this actually happened.
Almost like your brain is trying to tell you, no, no.
(26:32):
So trauma is, is an identity shift, like that's just almost like a hammer.
Do you ever see those dudes that can like take a nail and just with one swing?
Like, I've never been able to do that because my nail would always like just bend and you
know, but that's what like, I think trauma is, you know, and, and so then you have an
extra step of accepting what happened.
(26:53):
Seeing how that, that infects, well, I guess man, that's a good word affects your identity.
And then those things that are going on now afterwards, do, are they serving you or, or
is it more of a limitation in your life?
Yeah.
And that takes time to process.
Yeah.
You know, I remember going to school and I would be, I would show up for class an hour
(27:20):
early.
You know, if I, if I wasn't there at least 45 minutes before the class started, like
the anxiety that I would have, and I would have to be right at the door, you know, waiting
for the, for the first class to get out so that I can get in and get into the one of
the back corners of the classroom.
And if I couldn't do that, like I would, I would leave class.
(27:42):
Yeah.
You know, and then plus on top of that, I always had an orange soda and, and then I would
put orange flavored vodka in it.
Cause like nobody ever thinks you're spiking a drink if it's an orange drink.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, you don't think of that.
Like that, that's my theory at least.
So yeah, I always, I always had a drink with me just to kind of settle those nerves.
(28:07):
And yeah, you pointed out that identity is so complicated for us as humans that we self-medicate
around it because it's so scary to confront change in our identity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:27):
Yeah, I was telling Keith about this, but I want to tell our listeners too.
I've been reading out of your mind by Alan Watts, which I'm loving.
And in it, he talks about how in Western culture, we live under these like two mythos, either
you believe in a creator and then you are the created or you believe in the big bang,
(28:51):
which we are the end result of and how both of those are limited thinking because it ends
in a product or an identity.
When the truth is, is that you're growing and evolving that you are the big bang happening.
Right.
And if you were in slow motion, you could see this happening.
(29:15):
And so putting identity on it, it's just limiting and inaccurate, right?
Because really you're all the things in this huge conscious view.
And yet we go, no, I'm going to get obsessed that I'm a handicap person now or I'm not
(29:36):
a mom anymore or I'm not the president of this company, whatever it is.
And it's like, how do you get back to that rest of just space?
So I was thinking about that last night and about, I completely forgot to bring that up
(29:59):
because I was like, that was like one of the coolest things that we are still the big bang
happening like in the moment.
And that kind of I think speaks to like that whole thing where identity is being created
as we move along.
I remember when, so I grew up, I grew up very strict Christian, very strict.
(30:28):
Even like the mega church is a lot of people go today, we would trash anybody that went
there because what would we say?
There's a verse about how something about like their ears and they want sounding brass
and tinkling cymbals, something like that.
(30:49):
And we would turn it like, so whoever would preach would be like, yeah, all these Christians
nowadays they just want to hear from Dr. Sounding brass and preachers, tinkling cymbals or something
like some soul cliche.
But I found my way out of that and I felt more alive, you know, and then like especially
the verses they talk about like the blinders falling off your eyes.
(31:12):
I feel like that actually happened when I stepped away and I opened myself up to this
idea of consciousness and what it actually is.
And on top of that, I feel like I carry more of the Christian like values now, you know,
when they talk about the fruit of the spirit like love, joy, peace, like I embody more
(31:37):
of that stuff now than I ever did because we were so judgmental, so angry and all of
that.
And when you're born in that belief system, when you're born, we used to say that you
had a blood problem, almost like you're born with stage four leukemia as a baby.
(32:00):
Like because your blood is sinful, you deserve as a baby deserve to die.
Now they talk about like the age of, I'm going to forget what it's called now, but when
you begin to know the difference between right and wrong.
So if you die as a baby, you go to heaven, but at age five or say, I think a lot of people
(32:24):
like agree on around the age eight.
If you, if you die at eight years old, then you go to hell because that's what you deserve.
So then you have the choice, you either get saved or you don't.
And then they say it's free will, but is it really free will?
If at the moment of your birth, you deserve eternal damnation.
(32:46):
You know, it's like to me, it's really not.
But on the other side of things, looking at it from, from this point, as I'm born blank,
you know, everything that is going on in my life, that life just because life is just
going to bring you stuff into your life that you have zero control over.
(33:09):
And everything that comes in though is adding into who I am.
And it's creating, helping me create that next version of myself that maybe 10 years
in the future or maybe 10 minutes in the future.
And that I think is the thing that from that whole thing, like we are still like the big
bang happening in the moment.
(33:29):
Like I fell in love with that idea, especially because I'm such a like a like a science like
nerd and stuff.
I like, I love that stuff and I love being able to not be defined by, you know, being
a scientist like where I can play with my imagination where a lot of science would be
like, no evidence of that shit.
(33:50):
So shut up, you know, and I'm like, no, we can do this, man.
We can like think these things and just imagine to me, that's what being a seeker is all about,
you know, but yeah, so I started to see that like, man, yeah, I am every moment of my life.
I am being created, you know, and there's that saying like, you know, from the moment
(34:11):
you're born, you begin to die true.
However, from the moment you're born, you're also being created up until that moment of
death.
And even after that, I also believe that that is just still moments of creation that are
happening beyond this physical realm.
Yes.
Yeah.
What you made me think of, because I had a similar experience to you growing up in the
(34:34):
Christian church, going to work, you know, church four times a week.
And then when I started studying world religions, Hinduism has this concept where some people
need a God with qualities and other people need a God without qualities, sir, goona or
near goona.
And I thought, oh my gosh, I have permission to love God without qualities to just love
(34:57):
God as the space and everything.
And it made me so much closer.
It was like all of a sudden getting rid of all those constructs, you know, put me into
merging.
And so I wondered if I can let go of my ideas and constructs of identity, will I all of a
(35:22):
sudden have the same experience of like a deeper merging of self and being?
Do that.
So it's so funny because I never knew that.
I never knew that you started studying world religions and stuff because that was one of
the first classes that I took a world religions class and I started really questioning stuff.
(35:43):
And I went to for my project at the end of the class, I went to a Hindu guy that was doing
a fire sacrifice.
And I was like, that is this dude's sacrificing fireman.
Like he just doesn't get cooler than that.
So went up, he went through this whole ceremony and he had talked to me about this idea that
(36:06):
I never really understood, but it's been popping up more in my mind with this whole identity
thing.
He said, if you like in Hinduism, if you the closer you get to something, the more you
become to the point where you can merge with it and you and that thing are one.
So consciousness, we're both separated from it and and a part of it, you know, but I really
(36:29):
think like the more that we move towards that consciousness.
Sorry, so I just popped up a weird thing on my phone.
That just like totally shocked me.
But the more we move towards that and become one with it.
Do we lose this sense of self or do we and just kind of become this?
(36:55):
I don't know, out there person, the heat of saying like this is like too far gone.
Yeah, I think so I used to study under this moment.
Her name was Pamela Wilson.
She's awesome.
I still work with her from time to time.
Totally recommend her.
(37:15):
And she had this idea that consciousness loved the play of remembering and forgetting.
Right.
So when I would go into self beat up about like, Oh my gosh, I forgot and I got snippy
with my partner or I got defensive with my friends or whatever it is.
I forgot my spirituality, right, or my emotional intelligence.
(37:39):
She would just be like, Yeah, we consciousness likes forgetting.
And it's kind of neat because like you're talking about we're both separate and connected.
So we have this connected experience from like a consciousness soul perspective.
And then we get these cool human bodies where we get to be separate and forget and go play
in this world of illusions and come back to remembering.
(38:05):
That's incredible.
So almost like the pair, all these different paradoxes in life, the idea is not to choose
one or the other, but to be both.
And beautifully said, yeah, I totally agree with that.
Well, how do you do that?
(38:26):
If anybody on Instagram knows how to do that, put it in the comments.
Yeah, I think it's practice.
And I think it's primarily, and this is just a guess in the moment is what coming to me.
(38:49):
You can go with the idea of right and wrong.
My friend joined.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Because when we have an idea of right or wrong, we're stuck in those boxes.
And that dude that yeah, yeah, yeah.
(39:10):
Because that's one of the things that I that I've read and and I do believe is true that
there is no such thing as right or wrong.
But then like I start arguing myself about it.
Well, if I if I hurt somebody, that's wrong, you know, and it comes down to the intention
of it.
But even going back to the whole religion stuff, this dude, sad guru, he wrote about
(39:31):
the Garden of Eden, right?
And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So before they ate of that fruit in that in that storyline, before they ate of that fruit,
everything was good.
There was no they had no ability to judge something is bad.
So once they did, that's when they can have an experience and say, this is bad.
(39:54):
Right.
But how do you take an experience like your accident?
And say that wasn't bad.
I don't want to say that was good, but that wasn't bad.
But would you trade the person you are now for the for something else?
If that meant getting rid of that accident?
(40:16):
So actually leading up to my accident, I would say I was almost arrogant with the belief
that I was a co creator of the universe.
I was manifesting.
I'd manifested the love of my life for great business.
We had this beautiful house, right?
Like just everything was clicking.
I was awesome.
And then all of a sudden I get in this accident that puts me in a hospital bed for three months.
(40:41):
And I was like, F you.
All of my belief systems were totally destroyed.
Because how could I believe that I was a co creator of the universe?
When this horrible thing happened to me.
Yeah.
And it messed me up for a long time because I had to find a new belief that would incorporate
(41:03):
the chaos of living in this universe.
Because the truth is that there is this element of chaos that exists.
Bad things happen.
So how do you get into relationship with that so that it's not resistance, right?
(41:25):
Putting up walls or trying to protect yourself from the chaos of the world or total apathy.
This bad things happened to me all the time.
I can't do anything about it.
How do you just get into a natural relationship with it?
And for my accident, I will say that I am still angry about a lot of pieces of it.
(41:54):
I still have more work to do and things to go back for.
And also the ability to be present and to do better, deeper work with my clients.
Yeah, there's no way I'd take it back.
(42:15):
So like you said, I can both be effing pissed and filled with gratitude at the same time.
And that's what's cool about being a human man.
We can fill those opposite things at the same time.
So that so it's almost like, like, I mean, being human is not a singularity.
(42:42):
I think that's true.
But wouldn't it be more comfortable if it was if we could just say this thing?
Yeah, like this is just who I am.
And like, I just accept that and go.
But like you had said, too, like there's there's things that you're still very pissed
about.
And I think that's an important thing, too, because especially as you're trying to do
(43:03):
like work to change who you are and and undo like all the bullshit like in our lives that
we have we have taken on.
I think a lot of times it's easy just to be like, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to
do.
This is how I'm supposed to think.
I'm going to think, but yeah, I'm still pissed.
(43:27):
You know, instead of denying that and just being like what I'm supposed to be like, I
accept everything that happens to me, you know, like when we when we met with Angela,
like on grieving like her ideas on grief or just blew my mind.
You know, like to that we have to constantly cycle through this.
And sometimes like the ocean, the waves are going to come in nice and calm and it's and
(43:49):
it's still but it's still grief.
But then sometimes it's going to be like a storm and come in and just destroy it.
You know, that could be 10 years later, 20 years later.
I think you're absolutely right.
And I think the biggest bullshit is the idea that we should be different than we are in
any moment.
Right.
(44:10):
Of course, you can always choose happiness over dwelling on something.
But for me to go into any sort of self beat up that I haven't healed completely or that
I have this anger or I shouldn't have this anger.
That's just more layers of BS.
(44:32):
So when we beat ourselves up like that, I think there's this cultural belief that by
self beat up, we are making ourselves better people.
And it can be further than the truth.
Right.
Like self acceptance and talking kindly to yourself.
We're getting closer to the root of the issue and making it easier for yourself than beating
yourself up.
(44:53):
And that lesson, oh my gosh, I feel like I've been learning that lesson my whole life.
I have a really smart thinking brain that loves to beat me up.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, dude, like half the stuff my brain tells me if somebody else said that to me, like I'd
be swinging, you know, I'd get my ass kicked, but I would swing first, you know, but the
mic, my brain says it and then I'm like, oh, that's true.
(45:15):
You know, like, and then I just sit on the couch watching binge watching the office for
18 hours, you know, like, yeah, yeah.
And I think that's the thing.
Like when it comes down to it, because our misery can also be a place of comfort.
It's like our comfort zone.
Like I heard this thing a while ago, our comfort zone just has to be familiar.
(45:35):
It doesn't have to be comfortable.
And I can spend so much time in that familiarity of misery.
And when it comes down to it, and I have searched like from the beginning of this, of my whole
journey with this, I have searched for the answer of how do you do this?
(46:00):
You know, how do you step out of that?
You know, and from Terry Tucker, just you got to do the hard thing.
And I was like, nah, I want an easier answer, man.
You know, Mel Robbins, like with their whole five, four, three, two, one, and then move,
like to even my shrink at the VA.
Like I last time I went saw him, I asked him that and he was like, when it comes down to
(46:22):
it, he said out of all the years I've been working with that, when it comes down to it,
you're either going to do it or you're not.
So when it comes down to it, it's that binary choice.
It's a one or a zero.
It's a yes or no.
You know, and not to say like if you get stuck in the no, I'm not going to do it.
No, just like that's a part of that growth that you have to happen.
(46:43):
You know, and that's one of the things that like, again, another paradox, because as you
grow, when you're older and you're doing some messed up stuff, like you get blamed, you
know, like, but a little kid, you would be like, no, don't do that, you know, like, or
whatever, or if they, if they're trying to walk and they fall, be like, what a stupid
bitch, like get up, you know, like all this stuff.
(47:05):
But that's like we do it ourselves.
Like it's just, we just need, we need to like normalize being okay with not being as great
as we imagine that we need to be.
Yeah.
And that totally goes back to what I was saying about that Alan Watts book is when you, like
you said, when there's a kid, you're like, this is a growing human.
(47:28):
So I'm going to be compassionate.
I'm going to explain, right?
I'm going to give it multiple chances.
But once you're an adult, you're a product, you have arrived.
Yeah.
So you need to be this.
But when we take that view of being like constantly growing, still being the big bang in process,
(47:50):
then we go, Oh, of course I'm going to be messy and growing my whole life.
Of course, compassion is needed with self, right?
This idea of being a finished product is so destructive to our psyche because it's so
untrue.
All right.
So here's, here's a question I'm going to ask you before you ask it to me.
(48:14):
So what do you say, because we're both sitting, like we both have our own issues, but you
know, I'm nice and comfortable, you know, you're in your nice office, you know, everything
is good.
So what do you say to somebody that is living through the hell right now that like hears
this and is like easy for you to say?
(48:35):
A really good question.
That's why I wanted to ask you before you got it to me.
So first I want to say that I have experienced a lot of low points in my life, poverty as
a child living out of my car for a while with my mom and my sister, not being able to eat,
(48:59):
being in a domestic violence relationship for my first, like, I understand these dark,
slow vibration areas of life personally.
And there's still fear in my body.
When I drive past a homeless camp, I think, oh, I hope that's not me again.
(49:21):
Right.
I hope I don't experience homelessness again in my life.
Why did I have to experience those things?
I don't know.
Is it that we're reincarnating and I'm living life to life?
Maybe, maybe.
(49:44):
But to tell somebody that they're choosing it or that they chose it before they incarnated
is cruel.
I think if anything, it might go back to that chaos aspect that I mentioned with my accident,
(50:04):
that this universe for whatever reason has chaos.
Right.
And so things are going to get shaken up and you might find yourself in a situation that
really sucks.
(50:26):
And then I think that's where you access your consciousness and say, how am I going to respond
to this?
So it's not about the situation just is.
I think so.
And it's like, I could change my mind next week.
Yeah.
(50:46):
Yeah.
And I love the answer.
I don't know.
You know, I know our brains are designed to find patterns to define meaning and stuff.
But again, that's, I think, one of those paradoxes, being able to sit with no meaning.
Why is this going on?
I don't know.
Like I have two friends that are in a horrible situation and they're both incredibly great
(51:11):
people.
But so why are they going through that?
I don't know.
But having that ability, like you said, to take that responsibility, responsibility doesn't
mean blame.
Like, oh, this is my fault.
So I got to fix this, but how do I make the best possible choice for me in this moment
(51:36):
where chaos is being dictated to me?
Yeah.
And how do I do that?
Like, I think that is, it sucks, but it's, it's, it's sort of comforting to me too.
You know what I mean?
(51:57):
I love the definition of responsibility, my ability to respond.
Yeah.
Right.
And I think what's key about that is, for me, having practices and self care routines
and whatever else I need so that I can stay connected to myself.
(52:19):
When I'm connected to myself, I know what to give myself in the moment.
And I allow myself to become disconnected.
I'm lost.
When something bad happens to me, I don't know what to give myself.
And the funny thing about what to give yourself is sometimes it's hard discipline and forcing
(52:39):
yourself to deny yourself that thing or go do that thing and it's harsh.
And sometimes it's soft.
And I don't think we know the difference unless we're connected.
(53:00):
So I think life for me has become about what the F do I need to do every day to stay connected?
What does that look like for you?
Well right now it looks like, you know, habits and routines, morning meditation, exercise,
affirmations.
(53:20):
I do all the things I do as a habit.
But I also think it means anytime I feel disconnected, calling an effing timeout, not just continuing
to steamroll my life and my decisions about my relationships and my business or whatever
(53:43):
it is.
But to go, okay wait, what do I need right now to feel connected?
Is it a walk?
Is it a TV show?
Is it a meditation?
And then when I'm reconnected, making decisions and moving forward.
(54:07):
It's like my ability to respond is the thing I cherish the most and want to keep that working
well.
And I think there's times when we're like in the thick of it.
I remember doing some white water rafting in Connecticut.
(54:29):
It's not an extreme sport.
I'm sure there's some pretty good ones, but it's not like Colorado River going down the
Amazon or something.
But they taught us if we fell out to try to orient our feet first.
So if you come up against a rock, because sometimes I think life, we can get caught
up in that chaotic role where we don't have time.
(54:54):
When you were in the car for those hours, you didn't have time to like, let me do a
meditation.
You know what I mean?
You were in that role.
And I think sometimes what we have to do is just try to orient ourselves the best way
possible where if we take an impact, it's not going to be a devastating thing.
(55:16):
Like, you know, I'd rather take it out and keep your knees bent so that if you hit that
rock, you know, you absorb the blow and then you fall and then just reorient yourself.
And sometimes that's what life becomes.
Just kind of being in that wash and just trying to orient yourself the best way possible.
Totally agree.
(55:38):
Very well said.
I'll also say that when I was executive director for those years, you know, working
60 plus hour weeks in an environment that was toxic to me, my level of burnout and disconnection
was so great for so many years that it took me a year and a half before I felt connected
(56:04):
to myself again, like after I quit with my rest, with my self care routines.
So sometimes I think we get ourselves in situations and relationships where we get
so disconnected that you're right.
It's like you do your best to get through it without harming self and other.
(56:28):
And then when you get out, you double down on the self care.
Just got a lot deeper than I thought.
Yeah, you know what I like thinking about?
So I love playing games, right?
Like we do like those nerdy eight hour board games.
That's the kind of person I am.
And what's fun about those games is the challenge.
(56:53):
Playing Candyland is effing boring.
And I always try to remember that because I keep getting this idea in my head that if
life was lollipops and rainbows, that I would somehow be more fulfilled or happier.
(57:14):
And I just don't think it's true.
Like this stuff that we're talking about going through the white water, getting out, healing,
going through it again.
There's some fulfillment to that.
And when I find myself having more acceptance of that, I guess it's not so bad, but the
resistance to it sucks.
(57:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The resistance to it, I think, is what causes us most of the misery that we feel because
it just creates friction.
You know, like when I started, I had never heard of a white hole before.
And I know we talked about this before, but so a black hole sucks everything in, you can't
(57:59):
escape it.
And it all comes to a point of a singularity, you know, but a white hole starts off as a
singularity.
Nothing can go in, everything comes out.
And all of, like, so they believe the Big Bang was just a white hole.
You know, we've never, they've never seen this object.
It's just theoretical.
But I always thought about, you know, our life, especially with that sort of duality
(58:25):
that we have, the paradox that both are true at the same time, we spend most of our time
trying to claw our way out of a black hole that is impossible to do.
And all's we do is we tire ourselves out with that, that climb that we're trying to make.
But if we can turn and face that singularity, which to me is the fear of the thing, you
(58:50):
know, whatever that is, and we move towards it, we can move past that singularity on the
other side, life just explodes out from it.
And that is such an incredibly hard decision to make, and it's not a quick journey as it
would be if you actually went into a black hole.
(59:11):
That should be your, like, tagline for your life coaching business, like face the white
hole and become the prism on the other side like that.
I help people go into white holes.
I just have to be careful, like the wording with that, that can get dangerous.
Let me show you my white hole.
Like, yeah, no.
(59:32):
That's essentially healing, right?
Like facing the darkness, the ugliness, and getting through on the other side.
So I love, like, I know everybody, I don't know, do people still hate Will Smith?
I have always loved Will Smith.
I was just listening to like Fresh Prince yesterday.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
(59:52):
I like him.
I feel bad for him, you know, it's with some things.
But on a show where he was doing a lot of sort of adventure type things that scared the
crap out of him, you know, which is so funny because he's always playing like these superheroes
or whatever.
But like in reality, you know, he has just all the fears that everybody else has, you
(01:00:14):
know, but it was a quote from his grandmother that when we, when if we can walk towards
and move through our fear or there's, there's beauty on the other side of fear.
And that to me, that, that is my hope.
Like, so Will Smith, if you're listening, your grandmother has become like the light
(01:00:37):
at the end of the tunnel for me.
That saying, you know, that's what keeps me moving forward when I don't see whatever
the hell this is is going to become.
Yeah.
And not to go down another rabbit hole because we're at an hour, but that's what's so dangerous.
And we've talked about this before with like the toxic positivity movement.
(01:00:59):
Yes.
When you gloss over things that are ugly and dark, you throw away the gift in those things.
Man, just that.
We toss away the things that are ugly and dark you throw it.
So there are gifts.
And again, not like the toxic positivity like, Oh, you know, like your entire family just
(01:01:19):
blew up in your house from a gas leak, but look at the silver lining, you know, like
you don't have to eat your wife's cooking anymore or whatever.
Like no, like, but there can be gifts in the darkness.
I freaking love that dude.
Yeah.
And it doesn't make the darkness better.
No, but you can still bring good out of the bad.
(01:01:41):
Yeah.
That's beautiful, man.
And I think that it's not so much even about like that thing was good or bad or like what
my challenges in life have taught me is they have made me more and more resilient.
So when I think of a future where I think, Oh, my husband might leave me or I get scared.
(01:02:04):
I'm going to lose my job or not have money, whatever our fears are, right?
There's this other little voice inside that goes, we've survived more.
Yeah.
We can pick ourselves up.
We know how to do that.
Right.
And that resilience voice has gotten stronger and stronger as I've overcome challenges,
which has made my life overall more peaceful because I can trust myself.
(01:02:31):
If I can piggyback on that, because one of the things that I that I struggle with is
the thought of who I used to be.
Hmm.
You know, I just saw this guy on Instagram.
He's a ranger instructor and he was showing all these videos.
I was never a ranger or anything like that.
I was a paratrooper, but he was showing all these videos of jumping and I was like, I used
(01:02:53):
to do that, you know, walking through the woods with the camo, you know, the weapon.
I'm like, I used to do that, but I use, but I spent the last couple of decades kicking
the shit out of myself.
I used to do that.
What have I become?
You know, but that guy that did that, that guy that like.
(01:03:17):
Felt unstoppable is still there.
Covered under layers of processed food and arthritis at this point, you know, but is
still there and that that's that starts with a mindset.
Yeah.
And going full circle.
(01:03:39):
That was a strong identity for your soul at that time.
Yeah.
Right.
And it had certain human feelings, right?
Strong.
That felt really good.
Yeah.
That doesn't mean you need that identity to feel those feelings, right?
(01:04:00):
Right, right.
Yeah.
I remember seeing a picture.
We were in Germany, we were in the field and hadn't showered for like five days, you
know, like not eating all that much food and the food like sucked, but I was just standing
there surrounded by a couple of other people.
We're all just like smoking and everything.
And I was like, I was badass, man.
(01:04:23):
Like that was cool.
You know, and now like, like I said, I'm sitting on the couch.
I got Cheeto dust on my chest and I'm like, what happened to that dude?
You know, but it, but like you said, it's that problem and identity that's still there
in my head, you know, so I'm not going to definitely not going to smoke.
And I'm not going to jump out of another airplane in my life.
(01:04:47):
Hopefully unless you hope not.
Yeah, yeah.
But I can still have that mentality of that, of that person, you know, I could like, and
that's to me the beauty of looking forward to who I want to become because that allows
me to look back and be like, I liked how that guy thought of himself.
Yes.
So I'm going to take a little bit of that and bring it up here.
(01:05:09):
Yeah.
And like we talked about how identity helps us see like belief systems, cultural belief
systems, whatever.
This is one of those because culturally the guy who jumps out of an airplane is a badass.
But the guy that's sitting covered in Cheeto dust on mushrooms, going deep into his darkness,
(01:05:35):
isn't a badass.
I think jumping out of a plane is probably way easier than facing your own darkness.
That is true.
Right.
But our culture doesn't celebrate that or talk about it or even accept it as something
that humans need to do as a necessity.
Imagine if we and everybody just believed that facing their darkness made him a badass.
(01:06:03):
That'd be such a cool cultural belief.
That's why I love anybody who's listening, check out crack the code.
He was so cool to talk to last week.
Oh, Ryan.
Yeah, he was awesome.
Yeah.
And the fact, so I went on it, I went on his website, his testimonies are from police
(01:06:24):
officers that have arrested him, probation officers, therapists that have worked with
him, you know.
And I'm like, man, what strong testimony is because you take someone like that and you're
like, no, they're just a bum.
They're the type of person like best thing they could do is like figure out someplace
(01:06:45):
to go hide so that we never deal with them for the rest of our lives.
You know, but he took all that pain and that hurt that led him down that path.
And even he said like he had a good life.
There was there was bullshit in it, but all in all, it was it was good.
You know, and then he turned it around, you know, and you need more people like you said,
(01:07:06):
because he even said like, and I'm not big into the whole I'm an alpha male, like, because
to me, like an alpha male is not somebody that is going to care whether somebody thinks
they're an alpha male or not.
You know what I mean?
So all this like, I'm a tough guy.
I'm not going to be a no, that's just to me all bullshit.
But here's a dude that took all that pain and hurt, faced his darkness and turned it
(01:07:28):
into this amazing thing that he's now spreading his message outward for other dudes that are
in similar situations.
Yeah, I'm just going to recap his story for anybody that's listening.
So this was our guest last week, Ryan Skinner.
He was sort of an idiot savant as a child had this way with numbers.
(01:07:48):
He was in magazines as it was kid on Wall Street.
And then as he became an adult, he ended up being a heroin addict and being on the street
for years.
And didn't even mention stabbing someone while he was in jail.
Yeah, yeah.
Some crazy story.
Ended up getting out healing, getting sober.
And now he has a whole nother mission in life.
(01:08:10):
And his story was so dang cool.
So if you like the idea, go back and listen to last week's episode.
Yeah.
And just like the name of his thing, like crack the code, you know, and and.
And yeah, that's kind of what we're talking about really cracking is a good thing.
(01:08:30):
Yes.
Yes.
Like, I mean, just just like water can take on the shape of ice, you know, when, when
I remember a guy that I played play pool with, he had knee surgery.
And he said that he didn't he didn't really do what he was supposed to do with the physical
therapy, so he had to go in for this procedure called manipulation where they basically put
(01:08:54):
you under because it'd be very painful.
And they take your knee and they just like, like break all that scar tissue up.
Like you have to crack that stuff up when I started doing yoga so I can work on my flexibility.
Like my first toe touch was I was like, like that.
Now I can touch the floor, but that came with a lot of breaking up a scar tissue, which also
(01:09:18):
caused pain.
Yes, I love that.
And I love the idea of thinking about like, I went through a breakup.
I have all this scar tissue on my heart.
What physical therapy do I need to do so my heart doesn't get hard?
That's a beautiful thought.
(01:09:39):
I love it.
Yeah, I never even thought of it like that, like with the heart and stuff.
Yeah.
Because it's the same emotionally, right, as it is physically.
Yeah.
And how many times do we put up a wall of, you know, to protect ourselves?
Or as they would say in Christianity, a hedge of protection, like, oh, damn, there's a hedge
(01:10:00):
there.
You know, but we put up that wall and that wall just makes it so that we're less flexible.
We're more just static and unmovable.
Instead of letting that heal, it always amazes me seeing these incredible athletes that have
an injury that would put me out for my life and within months, they're back at it.
(01:10:25):
Yeah, they're like six weeks later is back in the game.
You're like, what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, but that work comes with discomfort, comes with pain, comes with accepting that
that's what you're going to feel for a time.
Yeah, and unless you're really deep into sports, you don't get to hear those stories about
those guys and the hours and hours and hours they spend in rehab to get back to that point.
(01:10:52):
And rehab or rehabilitation, it's healing.
Yeah.
And I think the more that we actively seek out that rehabilitation, both emotionally,
physically, the healthier we are, the healthier our planet is.
Man, I remember when I first started yoga, I was like, yoga, come on.
(01:11:20):
You know, that night I ended up in the hospital.
My back like blew up like the herniation in my back like got real pissed off because
I did, I did a beginner thing, but it was a lot like I was still like walking on a cane
and stuff at the time.
Yeah.
So I had to step it back to bed yoga.
And that's where I started and built my way up.
(01:11:43):
But I remember seeing a video Michael Jordan got hurt, you know, this was, you know, way
back in the like.
In the Jordan days.
Yeah.
And he was in a pool doing water aerobics, you know, with like a bunch of, you know,
senior citizens and stuff.
And I'm like, man, but he, but he was working to the best of his ability in that pool doing
(01:12:06):
like knee raises where I would be like, oh, look at how like, oh, I'm such a bitch.
Like look at where I'm at, you know, all this stuff and like trying to push myself,
but accepting that this is where I am so that I can get back to here.
Yeah.
That's an amazing thing.
Yeah, you know what I love about what you just said that it made me think of is so I
(01:12:31):
had to do the same thing after my accident.
My rehab was all in a pool.
And I just realized that when I have to face something emotionally that's really tough.
I create a pool for myself.
People who love me soft blankets, tea, right?
(01:12:52):
Like I create this soft buoyant environment for me to go in and do some work.
And I never thought about it like a pool for my emotions, right?
When something gets really tough, I go to my recovery in a pool.
Dude, yes.
Yeah.
Dude, Sandy for my birthday, Sandy got me a T-shirt that it was for mechanics, but she
(01:13:17):
didn't get it to me for me because I'm a mechanic.
I can't, I can't like, no.
But it says, I can't.
I have plans.
I'm in the garage.
And she had found one because like all the shirts had like tools on it stuff.
And then she found one that just had the words.
And it's like a private joke between us because I don't smoke cannabis in the house just because
(01:13:42):
like she hates the smell of it.
So I go to the garage.
And there was times like it took me two years of research to show her what it can do.
And then it got to the point where she would be like, go to the garage.
So like that's, that's my pool.
You know, I go out there, I put on a documentary about nature, space, whatever.
(01:14:05):
And then I just sit there and smoke and because that's the thing about cannabis, like it makes
us introspective.
So I would go in and just focus on gratitude.
And it was such a beautiful feeling.
You know, I didn't expect it to stop what I was feeling, but just to use it to focus
(01:14:28):
on something amazing.
You know, and that's like, that's my pool.
But I think your zoom froze again.
It went off again.
Oh, now your Instagram went off.
Oh, no, no, it's just me.
Oh, there you are.
(01:14:49):
Well, see, it's, it's the universe thing.
Hey, you're over time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I need to join.
This is our first live.
It was super fun.
Thank you for joining us.
We're going to do that again.
We're going to go live again.
We should do this every once in a while, right?
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty cool.
Like, I mean, I think, I think like the max people we have, we had like three people,
(01:15:11):
but still that was so cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the whole start, man.
Like.
If you liked sort of our exploration and I explore every single Friday, sometimes with
guests, sometimes not, you just try to have a guest every other week.
(01:15:32):
And then our episodes post the next Friday and you can listen to the podcast on YouTube
or Apple Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.
And we'd love for you to join us because the more people that we have just exploring what
it means to be human, the more wisdom can arise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(01:15:52):
Comments, like email, like whatever, like, because we're, we're both, we, we both have
like the same mentality where we're, we're like constant learners, you know, like not
thinking that we know everything, you know, but so the more, the more that we can learn
and just build off that stuff, yeah, the better this is, this will be.
(01:16:15):
All right.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you for listening to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
Please support us by liking, subscribing, or leaving a review or comment.
We would really appreciate it.
If you'd like to be a guest, we would love to explore life and what it means to be human
with you.
And email us at chasingthoughtspodcast at gmail.com.
(01:22:34):
Thank you.
(01:23:04):
Thank you.
Welcome to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
(00:05):
Chasing Thoughts was founded by strangers, two life coaches who met on TikTok and shared
the desire to create a different kind of life coaching podcast.
Instead of talking about how to do it right, the Chasing Thoughts podcast explores embracing
our true essence to find a deeper sense of purpose and fulfillment.
Life coaches Keith and Mindy take a unique approach that transcends popular notions of
(00:29):
perpetual happiness and striving relentlessly to become one's ideal self.
Listen in as Mindy, Keith and their guests take a deep dive into their own minds and
souls to investigate the beauty of imperfection, challenge their beliefs, and embrace the richness
of living a truly authentic life.
Hi, my name is Keith and I'm a strategic interventionist and stoner-spirited life coach.
(00:56):
Hi, my name is Mindy and I am an authenticity empowerment coach.
Welcome to Chasing Thoughts.
This is Chasing Thoughts Season 2, Episode 20.
Can you believe that, Keith?
(01:16):
Episode 20.
It's weird.
It's so weird.
Awesome.
So today we are talking about identity, the roles we play, and the consciousness behind
all of it.
Keith was sharing with me that he recently changed his idea about identity and relationship
(01:42):
with identity.
Let's start there, tell our listeners about that because I loved everything you had to
say.
Okay, so I knew absolutely nothing about identity, I would say like six years ago.
Never crossed my mind, didn't think about it at all.
And then when I left the military, I started struggling so much and everybody said go to
(02:10):
the VA.
And I found out that sometimes the VA can be even more traumatic or I don't want to
say more traumatic, but like kind of adding to that because I had to fight them for four
years to just test me for PTSD.
Then when they did, the help that I received was to go to like grief counseling groups
(02:33):
and then just tons of medication.
So I wasn't happy with that so I decided to look for my own way out and I found that all
the literature talks about when you join the military, it's an identity shift and I go
even just that further and say it's a cultural shift.
And then when you come out, you don't have any of that retraining to go on to live normally
(02:54):
back in the civilian world.
So in anthropology, they call it a place of liminality, being betwixt in between.
And the word betwixt to me is like the coolest word ever.
Like it needs to be used more.
But you have the military identity, but you're in the civilian world.
But the whole like freak out part is that you recognize where you are, but you just feel
(03:20):
like you don't belong.
So in my research, I found that I needed to change my identity and it had to come with
I didn't want to let go of the military part of my identity because that felt like I would
be removing a piece of myself.
(03:41):
So I wanted to build on the foundation of the best that I learned in the military and
then add it to what I have now in the civilian world.
So fast track, five years I've been like asking this question like who am I now today?
And through everything that I've learned that question has now changed.
(04:02):
So it was who am I?
And now it's does it matter who I am?
And then this is where it gets, it gets weird.
So let's see if I can like put this in like a like a coherent way.
So every change that happens in our lives comes with a shift in identity.
(04:25):
You know, we have different sort of spheres that we live in when we're a kid, you know,
in school, that's our identity.
When we go to college, we become, you know, we're now a college kid, it's a whole new
identity process when we're out, we're an employee, we have a family, all that stuff
changes our identity, we can get really jammed up in those transitional periods.
(04:47):
But everything that we do, everything that we do in the moment, by the time our brain
processes what's going on, even though it's like, I don't know if it's nanoseconds or
Millis or whatever it is, like it's a very short amount of time, but we are already in
the past.
So my question started to become, does it really matter who I am now?
(05:10):
Or does it matter who I'm going to become next?
And at that point, who I am now, the choices are put on me through my experiences, you
know, the way our identity is built.
You know, when we're born, there's this philosophy called tabula rasa or empty slate, where we're
(05:31):
just that empty slate, you know, and then our identity is built on, put on us from our
experiences, our parents, siblings, school, friends, all that sort of stuff.
But when I look at who I am now in this moment, I'm looking at, even though it's like those
milliseconds in the past, I'm looking at who I was built from all of my experiences.
(05:52):
But when I focus on who I'm going to become next, then all these variables open up to
me, you know, and I feel a greater sense of freedom and also a greater sense of overwhelm
because because of all of those choices and my comfort zone is routine, my comfort zone
is not endless variables of who I possibly can be.
(06:17):
So that's what I'm starting now to focus on is not who I am, not answering that question,
but focusing on who I'm going to become, remembering who I am, remembering those experiences,
keeping that foundation and bringing it forward with me and building off of that and thinking,
(06:37):
who do I want to be in these next moments and making that choice, you know, to the best
of my ability, you know, because sometimes I'll end up being an ass and sometimes I'll
end up, you know, being the right thing in the right moment, but, you know, trying to
make the best possible choice that I have with the information that I'm that I'm bringing
(06:58):
forward with me and then also built off my principles, my beliefs, my values, all that
sort of stuff.
So that then brought me to the final question of, and I know the answer is both a yes and
a no, but does identity matter?
You know, like, can we get to a place where we can say I am and then that's just it?
(07:23):
Like I am just my being and not have to worry about who I am, who I'm going to become, you
know, anything just being myself existing.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's funny because when I knew we were going to have this conversation and I was sitting
with my own thoughts, I had a similar exploration to you where I realized that I'm consciousness
(07:54):
and every idea of my identity is just an attempt to understand that or put it in a box, right,
to give it some parameters.
And so when I thought, well, what if I just identified with being consciousness, just
learning and growing and experiencing life, then there's some relief because I don't have
to be sad if I lose this job or if I lose this relationship because I'm just consciousness.
(08:23):
But then what was interesting is that there's a certain part of this humanist identity that's
kind of juicy and fun.
I like this.
I don't like this.
I'm this role.
I'm not this role.
I don't like this.
(08:44):
And so I started to think about identity as like a way that consciousness is playing in
this world.
I like that.
Yeah, like not necessarily good or bad, but it reminded me of this.
(09:04):
I don't like gossiping in my life and I make a rule not to gossip because it's destructive.
But there's a part of me that likes the experience of gossiping.
So this is why I love, for example, watching crappy TV shows with my mother-in-law where
(09:25):
we can be like, oh my God, did you believe that?
She's going to blah, blah, blah, blah, because I let myself live into this sort of persona
that's judgy and gossipy in a way that is not harmful to anybody.
And so I was thinking, is there a way to play with identity where I know it's a game?
(09:46):
Yeah, I almost wonder if that's sort of the key.
Looking back at a lot of the spiritual teachings, especially since I grew up in church Christianity,
(10:10):
there was a part where Jesus talked about becoming like a little child again and almost
having that childlike wonder to all this stuff that's happening around us.
But we're programmed at a very early age to take on a role, to take on an identity.
We're supposed to go to work.
We go to school so that we can get a job and we get a job so that we can produce and consume
(10:36):
and all of that.
And then that's our lives.
Getting into this repetitive cycle, almost like a piece of machinery that you get up,
you go to work, you come home, family time, maybe once or twice a week, you go out, you
do some hobbies or something, but that's about it.
And playing with identity, playing with who we are and letting ourselves sort of transition
(11:01):
into different identities and doing things can bring life, bring energy into us.
So one of the lessons that I learned with Silas Ibn was that I need a lot more fluidity
in my life.
Really, and now granted, I was for a long time, I wasn't working out or exercising,
(11:26):
so just with back issues and stuff, so I got all locked up.
But fluidity also in terms of identity, being able to move, what's that famous quote from
Bruce Lee, be like water.
You put water in a pot, it takes the form of a pot.
You put it in a bowl, it takes the form of a bowl.
(11:47):
Having that type of identity that can easily shift and manipulate itself into the container
that it finds itself in.
And I think the key word there is easily.
Water doesn't stay in the shape of a bowl for 10 minutes as it slowly becomes a different
shape.
It immediately takes on a new shape.
(12:10):
Yeah.
Even though you took a chunk of ice and dropped it in a bowl, because it's solid like that,
over time, and that's the thing too, over time, it's going to melt and take the shape
of that bowl.
So that fluidity and that sort of flexibility of our identity can't happen.
But it's going to take time, and the sucky part of that is it's going to cause so much
(12:36):
freaking anxiety and panic and feelings of discomfort.
It kicks my ass so much.
But I keep that hope and that belief that at the end of this thing, that flexibility
will be there.
You say a little bit more about the anxiety and discomfort of letting go of identity.
(13:02):
Oh, man.
Even when I started this business, I had major panic attacks for the longest time because
my identity was I don't put myself out there.
I could not be vulnerable.
That had to be hidden.
So I had to practice that level of vulnerability.
(13:22):
And it got to the point where I thought I was having a heart attack a couple of times.
I went to the doctor.
I was getting EKGs, man.
I was getting all these tests done.
They're like, nope, everything is fine with your heart.
You're good.
You're just having panic attacks.
Freaking relax.
Right?
And then even going through this, beginning to do this stuff, beginning to have a business
(13:48):
like this.
I lost the joy of everything that I was doing because that became my identity, the coach
type thing.
And I never want to be a character.
I feel like I'm a very spiritual person, but I'm not about to grow dreadlocks.
I don't think I could if I wanted to.
(14:10):
I'm not getting any type of face pair sayings or anything.
You know what I mean?
I feel like sometimes when we think I want to grow, we take on the external character
of that growth instead of the internal work that needs to be done.
So doing that internal work, it takes us out of our comfort zone.
And the crazy thing about our comfort zone is we have a floor.
(14:33):
So like when things get too uncomfortable, we'll hit that floor and then we'll be like,
all right, I got to work, you know, almost like a thermostat, right?
When the heat in the house gets down too much at a certain point, it kicks on, right?
But what I didn't expect was that as we grow, we have a, again, we have a comfort zone of
where we fall in our identity.
(14:54):
And as we grow, we're going to hit a ceiling.
And if it gets too hot in the house, like the AC kicks in and it brings us back down.
And that's my fight right now.
I'm fighting against like that AC in my internal system turning on and bringing me back down
because my identity is I have anxiety, I have depression, I have this, I have that.
(15:15):
So I feel more comfortable in misery than I do in this person that I'm looking to become.
So it's going to cause a lot of discomfort and it just takes time to work through that
(15:36):
discomfort.
Yeah.
And grace for yourself, not going into cell feed up, sitting with it.
That's why I think with identity work, one of the greatest tools that has been out there
for thousands and thousands of years is psilocybin.
Yeah.
You know, the bill was just killed in Connecticut, but in mass, I think they've just passed it
(16:00):
through words going to be voted on.
But when I go out into the woods and I'm on that, like I lose all judgment of my everything
that I judge myself for and that when I think about, I'm like, yeah, see, that's why you're
a piece of shit.
That's why you suck.
That's why you're worthless disappears.
(16:22):
And it connects me with this sense of just love and acceptance.
And in those moments while I'm on it, that's all I feel is just love and acceptance for
myself as I am.
Yeah.
And I drop all that judgment of myself.
It's a beautiful thing.
Yeah.
That's similar to another thing I was thinking about is I would say drugs, sex and mountaineering
(16:49):
for me.
But there are like moments in life where I am so absorbed in the present moment that
I'm nothing that I don't exist, that I have no concept of self in that moment.
And I think that's why people go after extreme sports and things like that because it brings
that and that's why people go after drugs.
(17:12):
And luckily, drugs are being re identified as medicine in our culture right now so that
we can use them in that way.
But those are the beautiful feelings when you're just everything and nothing all at
the same time.
Yes.
Yeah.
The other thing I think is interesting is when you were talking about becoming a coach
(17:37):
and then confronting your ideas of the character of coach.
It kind of, when you step into an identity, it reveals what's on your filter because I
have the same thing.
So I step into being a coach and then all of a sudden these cultural ideas, what my
parents think, what my peers think, I'm thinking, oh, I have to live up to all this.
(18:03):
But that's not true at all.
Right.
I can define coaches, whatever I think that identity is.
But man does it all of a sudden bring awareness to those belief systems.
Yeah.
It's sort of like, you know, those medical tests, they put the dye in you and stuff.
It's like putting dye into that part of our identity and it shows where we've taken on
(18:30):
other people's perceptions of who we are.
I think your zoom just froze more technical issues.
Oh, no.
It's weird because I can't even hear you on my phone.
Well, I can't hear you.
(18:51):
Oh, there you go.
Can you hear me now?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
I was so weird because I even turned the volume back up on my phone and I still couldn't
hear you.
Yeah, so for anybody who's listening, this is our first time.
It's a technical difficulties.
Yeah.
And if you're an expert at Instagram Live, you can email us and we accept help.
(19:21):
So Keith and I are exploring identity today and how it shows up in our lives and what
it is.
And if you're listening, feel free to comment what you think it is or the biggest struggle
you've had in an identity shift.
For me, certainly it was after my car accident, like going from a healthy person who was fit
(19:47):
and I taught boot camp classes and I rode my bike everywhere to being a person in a
wheelchair.
It floored me.
And I did have a meditation practice previous to that and I did find peace in being able
to go back to meditation and sort of find like the beingness.
(20:11):
But I felt that it's almost like identity is this like conduit that you help the world
see you as.
Like the translator between your soul and the world.
And so it was challenging for me when people saw me as a handicap person.
(20:38):
That's not how I wanted to be perceived or hadn't accepted about myself maybe.
That's interesting.
So identity is more for how we want others to see us instead of or maybe it's both.
(20:58):
Maybe it's for like how we see ourselves and also how we want everybody else to see us
as well.
That's pretty interesting.
Yeah, I think when, you know, for example, let's say you sit in meditation with another
person or like we said sex or one of those other areas where you're just present and
merged.
But that's rare.
Most of us are trying to get to know each other and you're like, well, what are you?
(21:21):
Oh, I'm a mom.
I am a CEO.
I'm a.
And it's almost it's like how words aren't very accurate in describing the human experience.
We isn't very accurate in describing the soul, but it's still what we use.
(21:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
If it falls way short because I mean, that was something I've always had trouble with.
Like I hate, you know, when we talk about when we meet somebody, you know, like it always
goes to what do you do?
We define ourselves by what we do, you know, and we had talked about this before, but our
(22:02):
job as human beings is not to produce, you know, I mean, like a tree produces apples or
oranges or whatever, you know, it's its job.
It's what it naturally does.
Like our job is to live and we get lost in living designed, you know, into this little
(22:22):
construct that, that where we find ourselves in and breaking out of that is incredibly
difficult to do not not only just in reality, you know, finding, finding a way to make money
and pay your bills by yourself and all that sort of stuff, but also just mentally.
Yes.
(22:42):
You know, I've never been in charge before.
And I know like all of my, all of my anxiety with this comes from, I get to choose what
I want to do what I like yesterday I did nothing, you know, Sandy has been like working tons
of overtime and yesterday like was Wednesday night at midnight, everything ended.
(23:05):
So she took yesterday off and I was like, I could, I could just do this.
Like I don't have to call somebody and be like, yeah, I'm not coming in today.
I'm sick, you know, and fake like an illness or like I could just choose not to.
And that that can be like an anxiety inducing thing because it's different.
Yeah.
(23:25):
You know, my brain is wired to think a certain way.
When I'm thinking different from that wiring, it, it, it's not as, it's not as easy of a
thought process, you know, then, then the original one, which has just been burned into
my brain for, for years.
Yeah.
And again, you're confronting ideas about a person who rests or a person who takes time
(23:49):
off or a person, right.
Oh, well, the identity of a lazy person is someone who doesn't work every single day
or whatever your thoughts are about that and you have to confront your filter.
Yeah.
And I think you brought up like an important point too, which is what trauma does to our
identity.
Oh yeah.
Because I think trauma is, is basically when it comes to our identity, it is an identity
(24:13):
shift in, in that extreme moment that happens.
And it's one of the reasons why it's so hard to accept what just happened, you know, with,
with your car accident, even, even beyond that, when you were talking about like now
I'm a handicap person, you know, going from a mountaineer to a wheelchair.
(24:38):
But because you were in the, if you, do you mind me talking about this?
Yeah, go ahead.
You were in the car for a while, right?
Before.
Yeah.
I was wrapped in the car for almost three hours, like bleeding out internally.
The seatbelt cut, like cut me in half basically.
And do you remember like what was going through your mind at that time?
(25:00):
Was it just like pure shock, which I'm sure was.
You know what's funny is I don't have any memory of it.
But what was strange is about six or seven months later, this guy came to fix my fireplace
and he's like, oh, you're the girl that got in that accident.
And he goes, yeah, I talked to you.
(25:22):
I was right behind you and I pulled over.
And it was so cool because he told me that I was talking to him and described our conversation.
But none of it is in my memory.
So my animal part showed up and communicated and did things for me and I disappeared in
(25:46):
the intensity of the situation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because like when that fight or flight response kicks in, certain parts of our brain shut
off, you know, like, because generally when it, when it evolved, you know, if you're running
from like, I don't know, saber tooth, tiger, something like that, you're not going to stop
and have a conversation.
So that part of the communication part, like that, that short term memory all shuts off.
(26:10):
You know, so it's, it's so strange to see like how you had no memory of that conversation.
But even though you still had a whole conversation with this dude.
Yeah.
And then afterwards, I'm sure it was so hard to accept that this actually happened.
Almost like your brain is trying to tell you, no, no.
(26:32):
So trauma is, is an identity shift, like that's just almost like a hammer.
Do you ever see those dudes that can like take a nail and just with one swing?
Like, I've never been able to do that because my nail would always like just bend and you
know, but that's what like, I think trauma is, you know, and, and so then you have an
extra step of accepting what happened.
(26:53):
Seeing how that, that infects, well, I guess man, that's a good word affects your identity.
And then those things that are going on now afterwards, do, are they serving you or, or
is it more of a limitation in your life?
Yeah.
And that takes time to process.
Yeah.
You know, I remember going to school and I would be, I would show up for class an hour
(27:20):
early.
You know, if I, if I wasn't there at least 45 minutes before the class started, like
the anxiety that I would have, and I would have to be right at the door, you know, waiting
for the, for the first class to get out so that I can get in and get into the one of
the back corners of the classroom.
And if I couldn't do that, like I would, I would leave class.
(27:42):
Yeah.
You know, and then plus on top of that, I always had an orange soda and, and then I would
put orange flavored vodka in it.
Cause like nobody ever thinks you're spiking a drink if it's an orange drink.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, you don't think of that.
Like that, that's my theory at least.
So yeah, I always, I always had a drink with me just to kind of settle those nerves.
(28:07):
And yeah, you pointed out that identity is so complicated for us as humans that we self-medicate
around it because it's so scary to confront change in our identity.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(28:27):
Yeah, I was telling Keith about this, but I want to tell our listeners too.
I've been reading out of your mind by Alan Watts, which I'm loving.
And in it, he talks about how in Western culture, we live under these like two mythos, either
you believe in a creator and then you are the created or you believe in the big bang,
(28:51):
which we are the end result of and how both of those are limited thinking because it ends
in a product or an identity.
When the truth is, is that you're growing and evolving that you are the big bang happening.
Right.
And if you were in slow motion, you could see this happening.
(29:15):
And so putting identity on it, it's just limiting and inaccurate, right?
Because really you're all the things in this huge conscious view.
And yet we go, no, I'm going to get obsessed that I'm a handicap person now or I'm not
(29:36):
a mom anymore or I'm not the president of this company, whatever it is.
And it's like, how do you get back to that rest of just space?
So I was thinking about that last night and about, I completely forgot to bring that up
(29:59):
because I was like, that was like one of the coolest things that we are still the big bang
happening like in the moment.
And that kind of I think speaks to like that whole thing where identity is being created
as we move along.
I remember when, so I grew up, I grew up very strict Christian, very strict.
(30:28):
Even like the mega church is a lot of people go today, we would trash anybody that went
there because what would we say?
There's a verse about how something about like their ears and they want sounding brass
and tinkling cymbals, something like that.
(30:49):
And we would turn it like, so whoever would preach would be like, yeah, all these Christians
nowadays they just want to hear from Dr. Sounding brass and preachers, tinkling cymbals or something
like some soul cliche.
But I found my way out of that and I felt more alive, you know, and then like especially
the verses they talk about like the blinders falling off your eyes.
(31:12):
I feel like that actually happened when I stepped away and I opened myself up to this
idea of consciousness and what it actually is.
And on top of that, I feel like I carry more of the Christian like values now, you know,
when they talk about the fruit of the spirit like love, joy, peace, like I embody more
(31:37):
of that stuff now than I ever did because we were so judgmental, so angry and all of
that.
And when you're born in that belief system, when you're born, we used to say that you
had a blood problem, almost like you're born with stage four leukemia as a baby.
(32:00):
Like because your blood is sinful, you deserve as a baby deserve to die.
Now they talk about like the age of, I'm going to forget what it's called now, but when
you begin to know the difference between right and wrong.
So if you die as a baby, you go to heaven, but at age five or say, I think a lot of people
(32:24):
like agree on around the age eight.
If you, if you die at eight years old, then you go to hell because that's what you deserve.
So then you have the choice, you either get saved or you don't.
And then they say it's free will, but is it really free will?
If at the moment of your birth, you deserve eternal damnation.
(32:46):
You know, it's like to me, it's really not.
But on the other side of things, looking at it from, from this point, as I'm born blank,
you know, everything that is going on in my life, that life just because life is just
going to bring you stuff into your life that you have zero control over.
(33:09):
And everything that comes in though is adding into who I am.
And it's creating, helping me create that next version of myself that maybe 10 years
in the future or maybe 10 minutes in the future.
And that I think is the thing that from that whole thing, like we are still like the big
bang happening in the moment.
(33:29):
Like I fell in love with that idea, especially because I'm such a like a like a science like
nerd and stuff.
I like, I love that stuff and I love being able to not be defined by, you know, being
a scientist like where I can play with my imagination where a lot of science would be
like, no evidence of that shit.
(33:50):
So shut up, you know, and I'm like, no, we can do this, man.
We can like think these things and just imagine to me, that's what being a seeker is all about,
you know, but yeah, so I started to see that like, man, yeah, I am every moment of my life.
I am being created, you know, and there's that saying like, you know, from the moment
(34:11):
you're born, you begin to die true.
However, from the moment you're born, you're also being created up until that moment of
death.
And even after that, I also believe that that is just still moments of creation that are
happening beyond this physical realm.
Yes.
Yeah.
What you made me think of, because I had a similar experience to you growing up in the
(34:34):
Christian church, going to work, you know, church four times a week.
And then when I started studying world religions, Hinduism has this concept where some people
need a God with qualities and other people need a God without qualities, sir, goona or
near goona.
And I thought, oh my gosh, I have permission to love God without qualities to just love
(34:57):
God as the space and everything.
And it made me so much closer.
It was like all of a sudden getting rid of all those constructs, you know, put me into
merging.
And so I wondered if I can let go of my ideas and constructs of identity, will I all of a
(35:22):
sudden have the same experience of like a deeper merging of self and being?
Do that.
So it's so funny because I never knew that.
I never knew that you started studying world religions and stuff because that was one of
the first classes that I took a world religions class and I started really questioning stuff.
(35:43):
And I went to for my project at the end of the class, I went to a Hindu guy that was doing
a fire sacrifice.
And I was like, that is this dude's sacrificing fireman.
Like he just doesn't get cooler than that.
So went up, he went through this whole ceremony and he had talked to me about this idea that
(36:06):
I never really understood, but it's been popping up more in my mind with this whole identity
thing.
He said, if you like in Hinduism, if you the closer you get to something, the more you
become to the point where you can merge with it and you and that thing are one.
So consciousness, we're both separated from it and and a part of it, you know, but I really
(36:29):
think like the more that we move towards that consciousness.
Sorry, so I just popped up a weird thing on my phone.
That just like totally shocked me.
But the more we move towards that and become one with it.
Do we lose this sense of self or do we and just kind of become this?
(36:55):
I don't know, out there person, the heat of saying like this is like too far gone.
Yeah, I think so I used to study under this moment.
Her name was Pamela Wilson.
She's awesome.
I still work with her from time to time.
Totally recommend her.
(37:15):
And she had this idea that consciousness loved the play of remembering and forgetting.
Right.
So when I would go into self beat up about like, Oh my gosh, I forgot and I got snippy
with my partner or I got defensive with my friends or whatever it is.
I forgot my spirituality, right, or my emotional intelligence.
(37:39):
She would just be like, Yeah, we consciousness likes forgetting.
And it's kind of neat because like you're talking about we're both separate and connected.
So we have this connected experience from like a consciousness soul perspective.
And then we get these cool human bodies where we get to be separate and forget and go play
in this world of illusions and come back to remembering.
(38:05):
That's incredible.
So almost like the pair, all these different paradoxes in life, the idea is not to choose
one or the other, but to be both.
And beautifully said, yeah, I totally agree with that.
Well, how do you do that?
(38:26):
If anybody on Instagram knows how to do that, put it in the comments.
Yeah, I think it's practice.
And I think it's primarily, and this is just a guess in the moment is what coming to me.
(38:49):
You can go with the idea of right and wrong.
My friend joined.
I don't know.
Yeah.
Because when we have an idea of right or wrong, we're stuck in those boxes.
And that dude that yeah, yeah, yeah.
(39:10):
Because that's one of the things that I that I've read and and I do believe is true that
there is no such thing as right or wrong.
But then like I start arguing myself about it.
Well, if I if I hurt somebody, that's wrong, you know, and it comes down to the intention
of it.
But even going back to the whole religion stuff, this dude, sad guru, he wrote about
(39:31):
the Garden of Eden, right?
And the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So before they ate of that fruit in that in that storyline, before they ate of that fruit,
everything was good.
There was no they had no ability to judge something is bad.
So once they did, that's when they can have an experience and say, this is bad.
(39:54):
Right.
But how do you take an experience like your accident?
And say that wasn't bad.
I don't want to say that was good, but that wasn't bad.
But would you trade the person you are now for the for something else?
If that meant getting rid of that accident?
(40:16):
So actually leading up to my accident, I would say I was almost arrogant with the belief
that I was a co creator of the universe.
I was manifesting.
I'd manifested the love of my life for great business.
We had this beautiful house, right?
Like just everything was clicking.
I was awesome.
And then all of a sudden I get in this accident that puts me in a hospital bed for three months.
(40:41):
And I was like, F you.
All of my belief systems were totally destroyed.
Because how could I believe that I was a co creator of the universe?
When this horrible thing happened to me.
Yeah.
And it messed me up for a long time because I had to find a new belief that would incorporate
(41:03):
the chaos of living in this universe.
Because the truth is that there is this element of chaos that exists.
Bad things happen.
So how do you get into relationship with that so that it's not resistance, right?
(41:25):
Putting up walls or trying to protect yourself from the chaos of the world or total apathy.
This bad things happened to me all the time.
I can't do anything about it.
How do you just get into a natural relationship with it?
And for my accident, I will say that I am still angry about a lot of pieces of it.
(41:54):
I still have more work to do and things to go back for.
And also the ability to be present and to do better, deeper work with my clients.
Yeah, there's no way I'd take it back.
(42:15):
So like you said, I can both be effing pissed and filled with gratitude at the same time.
And that's what's cool about being a human man.
We can fill those opposite things at the same time.
So that so it's almost like, like, I mean, being human is not a singularity.
(42:42):
I think that's true.
But wouldn't it be more comfortable if it was if we could just say this thing?
Yeah, like this is just who I am.
And like, I just accept that and go.
But like you had said, too, like there's there's things that you're still very pissed
about.
And I think that's an important thing, too, because especially as you're trying to do
(43:03):
like work to change who you are and and undo like all the bullshit like in our lives that
we have we have taken on.
I think a lot of times it's easy just to be like, yeah, this is what I'm supposed to
do.
This is how I'm supposed to think.
I'm going to think, but yeah, I'm still pissed.
(43:27):
You know, instead of denying that and just being like what I'm supposed to be like, I
accept everything that happens to me, you know, like when we when we met with Angela,
like on grieving like her ideas on grief or just blew my mind.
You know, like to that we have to constantly cycle through this.
And sometimes like the ocean, the waves are going to come in nice and calm and it's and
(43:49):
it's still but it's still grief.
But then sometimes it's going to be like a storm and come in and just destroy it.
You know, that could be 10 years later, 20 years later.
I think you're absolutely right.
And I think the biggest bullshit is the idea that we should be different than we are in
any moment.
Right.
(44:10):
Of course, you can always choose happiness over dwelling on something.
But for me to go into any sort of self beat up that I haven't healed completely or that
I have this anger or I shouldn't have this anger.
That's just more layers of BS.
(44:32):
So when we beat ourselves up like that, I think there's this cultural belief that by
self beat up, we are making ourselves better people.
And it can be further than the truth.
Right.
Like self acceptance and talking kindly to yourself.
We're getting closer to the root of the issue and making it easier for yourself than beating
yourself up.
(44:53):
And that lesson, oh my gosh, I feel like I've been learning that lesson my whole life.
I have a really smart thinking brain that loves to beat me up.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, dude, like half the stuff my brain tells me if somebody else said that to me, like I'd
be swinging, you know, I'd get my ass kicked, but I would swing first, you know, but the
mic, my brain says it and then I'm like, oh, that's true.
(45:15):
You know, like, and then I just sit on the couch watching binge watching the office for
18 hours, you know, like, yeah, yeah.
And I think that's the thing.
Like when it comes down to it, because our misery can also be a place of comfort.
It's like our comfort zone.
Like I heard this thing a while ago, our comfort zone just has to be familiar.
(45:35):
It doesn't have to be comfortable.
And I can spend so much time in that familiarity of misery.
And when it comes down to it, and I have searched like from the beginning of this, of my whole
journey with this, I have searched for the answer of how do you do this?
(46:00):
You know, how do you step out of that?
You know, and from Terry Tucker, just you got to do the hard thing.
And I was like, nah, I want an easier answer, man.
You know, Mel Robbins, like with their whole five, four, three, two, one, and then move,
like to even my shrink at the VA.
Like I last time I went saw him, I asked him that and he was like, when it comes down to
(46:22):
it, he said out of all the years I've been working with that, when it comes down to it,
you're either going to do it or you're not.
So when it comes down to it, it's that binary choice.
It's a one or a zero.
It's a yes or no.
You know, and not to say like if you get stuck in the no, I'm not going to do it.
No, just like that's a part of that growth that you have to happen.
(46:43):
You know, and that's one of the things that like, again, another paradox, because as you
grow, when you're older and you're doing some messed up stuff, like you get blamed, you
know, like, but a little kid, you would be like, no, don't do that, you know, like, or
whatever, or if they, if they're trying to walk and they fall, be like, what a stupid
bitch, like get up, you know, like all this stuff.
(47:05):
But that's like we do it ourselves.
Like it's just, we just need, we need to like normalize being okay with not being as great
as we imagine that we need to be.
Yeah.
And that totally goes back to what I was saying about that Alan Watts book is when you, like
you said, when there's a kid, you're like, this is a growing human.
(47:28):
So I'm going to be compassionate.
I'm going to explain, right?
I'm going to give it multiple chances.
But once you're an adult, you're a product, you have arrived.
Yeah.
So you need to be this.
But when we take that view of being like constantly growing, still being the big bang in process,
(47:50):
then we go, Oh, of course I'm going to be messy and growing my whole life.
Of course, compassion is needed with self, right?
This idea of being a finished product is so destructive to our psyche because it's so
untrue.
All right.
So here's, here's a question I'm going to ask you before you ask it to me.
(48:14):
So what do you say, because we're both sitting, like we both have our own issues, but you
know, I'm nice and comfortable, you know, you're in your nice office, you know, everything
is good.
So what do you say to somebody that is living through the hell right now that like hears
this and is like easy for you to say?
(48:35):
A really good question.
That's why I wanted to ask you before you got it to me.
So first I want to say that I have experienced a lot of low points in my life, poverty as
a child living out of my car for a while with my mom and my sister, not being able to eat,
(48:59):
being in a domestic violence relationship for my first, like, I understand these dark,
slow vibration areas of life personally.
And there's still fear in my body.
When I drive past a homeless camp, I think, oh, I hope that's not me again.
(49:21):
Right.
I hope I don't experience homelessness again in my life.
Why did I have to experience those things?
I don't know.
Is it that we're reincarnating and I'm living life to life?
Maybe, maybe.
(49:44):
But to tell somebody that they're choosing it or that they chose it before they incarnated
is cruel.
I think if anything, it might go back to that chaos aspect that I mentioned with my accident,
(50:04):
that this universe for whatever reason has chaos.
Right.
And so things are going to get shaken up and you might find yourself in a situation that
really sucks.
(50:26):
And then I think that's where you access your consciousness and say, how am I going to respond
to this?
So it's not about the situation just is.
I think so.
And it's like, I could change my mind next week.
Yeah.
(50:46):
Yeah.
And I love the answer.
I don't know.
You know, I know our brains are designed to find patterns to define meaning and stuff.
But again, that's, I think, one of those paradoxes, being able to sit with no meaning.
Why is this going on?
I don't know.
Like I have two friends that are in a horrible situation and they're both incredibly great
(51:11):
people.
But so why are they going through that?
I don't know.
But having that ability, like you said, to take that responsibility, responsibility doesn't
mean blame.
Like, oh, this is my fault.
So I got to fix this, but how do I make the best possible choice for me in this moment
(51:36):
where chaos is being dictated to me?
Yeah.
And how do I do that?
Like, I think that is, it sucks, but it's, it's, it's sort of comforting to me too.
You know what I mean?
(51:57):
I love the definition of responsibility, my ability to respond.
Yeah.
Right.
And I think what's key about that is, for me, having practices and self care routines
and whatever else I need so that I can stay connected to myself.
(52:19):
When I'm connected to myself, I know what to give myself in the moment.
And I allow myself to become disconnected.
I'm lost.
When something bad happens to me, I don't know what to give myself.
And the funny thing about what to give yourself is sometimes it's hard discipline and forcing
(52:39):
yourself to deny yourself that thing or go do that thing and it's harsh.
And sometimes it's soft.
And I don't think we know the difference unless we're connected.
(53:00):
So I think life for me has become about what the F do I need to do every day to stay connected?
What does that look like for you?
Well right now it looks like, you know, habits and routines, morning meditation, exercise,
affirmations.
(53:20):
I do all the things I do as a habit.
But I also think it means anytime I feel disconnected, calling an effing timeout, not just continuing
to steamroll my life and my decisions about my relationships and my business or whatever
(53:43):
it is.
But to go, okay wait, what do I need right now to feel connected?
Is it a walk?
Is it a TV show?
Is it a meditation?
And then when I'm reconnected, making decisions and moving forward.
(54:07):
It's like my ability to respond is the thing I cherish the most and want to keep that working
well.
And I think there's times when we're like in the thick of it.
I remember doing some white water rafting in Connecticut.
(54:29):
It's not an extreme sport.
I'm sure there's some pretty good ones, but it's not like Colorado River going down the
Amazon or something.
But they taught us if we fell out to try to orient our feet first.
So if you come up against a rock, because sometimes I think life, we can get caught
up in that chaotic role where we don't have time.
(54:54):
When you were in the car for those hours, you didn't have time to like, let me do a
meditation.
You know what I mean?
You were in that role.
And I think sometimes what we have to do is just try to orient ourselves the best way
possible where if we take an impact, it's not going to be a devastating thing.
(55:16):
Like, you know, I'd rather take it out and keep your knees bent so that if you hit that
rock, you know, you absorb the blow and then you fall and then just reorient yourself.
And sometimes that's what life becomes.
Just kind of being in that wash and just trying to orient yourself the best way possible.
Totally agree.
(55:38):
Very well said.
I'll also say that when I was executive director for those years, you know, working
60 plus hour weeks in an environment that was toxic to me, my level of burnout and disconnection
was so great for so many years that it took me a year and a half before I felt connected
(56:04):
to myself again, like after I quit with my rest, with my self care routines.
So sometimes I think we get ourselves in situations and relationships where we get
so disconnected that you're right.
It's like you do your best to get through it without harming self and other.
(56:28):
And then when you get out, you double down on the self care.
Just got a lot deeper than I thought.
Yeah, you know what I like thinking about?
So I love playing games, right?
Like we do like those nerdy eight hour board games.
That's the kind of person I am.
And what's fun about those games is the challenge.
(56:53):
Playing Candyland is effing boring.
And I always try to remember that because I keep getting this idea in my head that if
life was lollipops and rainbows, that I would somehow be more fulfilled or happier.
(57:14):
And I just don't think it's true.
Like this stuff that we're talking about going through the white water, getting out, healing,
going through it again.
There's some fulfillment to that.
And when I find myself having more acceptance of that, I guess it's not so bad, but the
resistance to it sucks.
(57:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
The resistance to it, I think, is what causes us most of the misery that we feel because
it just creates friction.
You know, like when I started, I had never heard of a white hole before.
And I know we talked about this before, but so a black hole sucks everything in, you can't
(57:59):
escape it.
And it all comes to a point of a singularity, you know, but a white hole starts off as a
singularity.
Nothing can go in, everything comes out.
And all of, like, so they believe the Big Bang was just a white hole.
You know, we've never, they've never seen this object.
It's just theoretical.
But I always thought about, you know, our life, especially with that sort of duality
(58:25):
that we have, the paradox that both are true at the same time, we spend most of our time
trying to claw our way out of a black hole that is impossible to do.
And all's we do is we tire ourselves out with that, that climb that we're trying to make.
But if we can turn and face that singularity, which to me is the fear of the thing, you
(58:50):
know, whatever that is, and we move towards it, we can move past that singularity on the
other side, life just explodes out from it.
And that is such an incredibly hard decision to make, and it's not a quick journey as it
would be if you actually went into a black hole.
(59:11):
That should be your, like, tagline for your life coaching business, like face the white
hole and become the prism on the other side like that.
I help people go into white holes.
I just have to be careful, like the wording with that, that can get dangerous.
Let me show you my white hole.
Like, yeah, no.
(59:32):
That's essentially healing, right?
Like facing the darkness, the ugliness, and getting through on the other side.
So I love, like, I know everybody, I don't know, do people still hate Will Smith?
I have always loved Will Smith.
I was just listening to like Fresh Prince yesterday.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
(59:52):
I like him.
I feel bad for him, you know, it's with some things.
But on a show where he was doing a lot of sort of adventure type things that scared the
crap out of him, you know, which is so funny because he's always playing like these superheroes
or whatever.
But like in reality, you know, he has just all the fears that everybody else has, you
(01:00:14):
know, but it was a quote from his grandmother that when we, when if we can walk towards
and move through our fear or there's, there's beauty on the other side of fear.
And that to me, that, that is my hope.
Like, so Will Smith, if you're listening, your grandmother has become like the light
(01:00:37):
at the end of the tunnel for me.
That saying, you know, that's what keeps me moving forward when I don't see whatever
the hell this is is going to become.
Yeah.
And not to go down another rabbit hole because we're at an hour, but that's what's so dangerous.
And we've talked about this before with like the toxic positivity movement.
(01:00:59):
Yes.
When you gloss over things that are ugly and dark, you throw away the gift in those things.
Man, just that.
We toss away the things that are ugly and dark you throw it.
So there are gifts.
And again, not like the toxic positivity like, Oh, you know, like your entire family just
(01:01:19):
blew up in your house from a gas leak, but look at the silver lining, you know, like
you don't have to eat your wife's cooking anymore or whatever.
Like no, like, but there can be gifts in the darkness.
I freaking love that dude.
Yeah.
And it doesn't make the darkness better.
No, but you can still bring good out of the bad.
(01:01:41):
Yeah.
That's beautiful, man.
And I think that it's not so much even about like that thing was good or bad or like what
my challenges in life have taught me is they have made me more and more resilient.
So when I think of a future where I think, Oh, my husband might leave me or I get scared.
(01:02:04):
I'm going to lose my job or not have money, whatever our fears are, right?
There's this other little voice inside that goes, we've survived more.
Yeah.
We can pick ourselves up.
We know how to do that.
Right.
And that resilience voice has gotten stronger and stronger as I've overcome challenges,
which has made my life overall more peaceful because I can trust myself.
(01:02:31):
If I can piggyback on that, because one of the things that I that I struggle with is
the thought of who I used to be.
Hmm.
You know, I just saw this guy on Instagram.
He's a ranger instructor and he was showing all these videos.
I was never a ranger or anything like that.
I was a paratrooper, but he was showing all these videos of jumping and I was like, I used
(01:02:53):
to do that, you know, walking through the woods with the camo, you know, the weapon.
I'm like, I used to do that, but I use, but I spent the last couple of decades kicking
the shit out of myself.
I used to do that.
What have I become?
You know, but that guy that did that, that guy that like.
(01:03:17):
Felt unstoppable is still there.
Covered under layers of processed food and arthritis at this point, you know, but is
still there and that that's that starts with a mindset.
Yeah.
And going full circle.
(01:03:39):
That was a strong identity for your soul at that time.
Yeah.
Right.
And it had certain human feelings, right?
Strong.
That felt really good.
Yeah.
That doesn't mean you need that identity to feel those feelings, right?
(01:04:00):
Right, right.
Yeah.
I remember seeing a picture.
We were in Germany, we were in the field and hadn't showered for like five days, you
know, like not eating all that much food and the food like sucked, but I was just standing
there surrounded by a couple of other people.
We're all just like smoking and everything.
And I was like, I was badass, man.
(01:04:23):
Like that was cool.
You know, and now like, like I said, I'm sitting on the couch.
I got Cheeto dust on my chest and I'm like, what happened to that dude?
You know, but it, but like you said, it's that problem and identity that's still there
in my head, you know, so I'm not going to definitely not going to smoke.
And I'm not going to jump out of another airplane in my life.
(01:04:47):
Hopefully unless you hope not.
Yeah, yeah.
But I can still have that mentality of that, of that person, you know, I could like, and
that's to me the beauty of looking forward to who I want to become because that allows
me to look back and be like, I liked how that guy thought of himself.
Yes.
So I'm going to take a little bit of that and bring it up here.
(01:05:09):
Yeah.
And like we talked about how identity helps us see like belief systems, cultural belief
systems, whatever.
This is one of those because culturally the guy who jumps out of an airplane is a badass.
But the guy that's sitting covered in Cheeto dust on mushrooms, going deep into his darkness,
(01:05:35):
isn't a badass.
I think jumping out of a plane is probably way easier than facing your own darkness.
That is true.
Right.
But our culture doesn't celebrate that or talk about it or even accept it as something
that humans need to do as a necessity.
Imagine if we and everybody just believed that facing their darkness made him a badass.
(01:06:03):
That'd be such a cool cultural belief.
That's why I love anybody who's listening, check out crack the code.
He was so cool to talk to last week.
Oh, Ryan.
Yeah, he was awesome.
Yeah.
And the fact, so I went on it, I went on his website, his testimonies are from police
(01:06:24):
officers that have arrested him, probation officers, therapists that have worked with
him, you know.
And I'm like, man, what strong testimony is because you take someone like that and you're
like, no, they're just a bum.
They're the type of person like best thing they could do is like figure out someplace
(01:06:45):
to go hide so that we never deal with them for the rest of our lives.
You know, but he took all that pain and that hurt that led him down that path.
And even he said like he had a good life.
There was there was bullshit in it, but all in all, it was it was good.
You know, and then he turned it around, you know, and you need more people like you said,
(01:07:06):
because he even said like, and I'm not big into the whole I'm an alpha male, like, because
to me, like an alpha male is not somebody that is going to care whether somebody thinks
they're an alpha male or not.
You know what I mean?
So all this like, I'm a tough guy.
I'm not going to be a no, that's just to me all bullshit.
But here's a dude that took all that pain and hurt, faced his darkness and turned it
(01:07:28):
into this amazing thing that he's now spreading his message outward for other dudes that are
in similar situations.
Yeah, I'm just going to recap his story for anybody that's listening.
So this was our guest last week, Ryan Skinner.
He was sort of an idiot savant as a child had this way with numbers.
(01:07:48):
He was in magazines as it was kid on Wall Street.
And then as he became an adult, he ended up being a heroin addict and being on the street
for years.
And didn't even mention stabbing someone while he was in jail.
Yeah, yeah.
Some crazy story.
Ended up getting out healing, getting sober.
And now he has a whole nother mission in life.
(01:08:10):
And his story was so dang cool.
So if you like the idea, go back and listen to last week's episode.
Yeah.
And just like the name of his thing, like crack the code, you know, and and.
And yeah, that's kind of what we're talking about really cracking is a good thing.
(01:08:30):
Yes.
Yes.
Like, I mean, just just like water can take on the shape of ice, you know, when, when
I remember a guy that I played play pool with, he had knee surgery.
And he said that he didn't he didn't really do what he was supposed to do with the physical
therapy, so he had to go in for this procedure called manipulation where they basically put
(01:08:54):
you under because it'd be very painful.
And they take your knee and they just like, like break all that scar tissue up.
Like you have to crack that stuff up when I started doing yoga so I can work on my flexibility.
Like my first toe touch was I was like, like that.
Now I can touch the floor, but that came with a lot of breaking up a scar tissue, which also
(01:09:18):
caused pain.
Yes, I love that.
And I love the idea of thinking about like, I went through a breakup.
I have all this scar tissue on my heart.
What physical therapy do I need to do so my heart doesn't get hard?
That's a beautiful thought.
(01:09:39):
I love it.
Yeah, I never even thought of it like that, like with the heart and stuff.
Yeah.
Because it's the same emotionally, right, as it is physically.
Yeah.
And how many times do we put up a wall of, you know, to protect ourselves?
Or as they would say in Christianity, a hedge of protection, like, oh, damn, there's a hedge
(01:10:00):
there.
You know, but we put up that wall and that wall just makes it so that we're less flexible.
We're more just static and unmovable.
Instead of letting that heal, it always amazes me seeing these incredible athletes that have
an injury that would put me out for my life and within months, they're back at it.
(01:10:25):
Yeah, they're like six weeks later is back in the game.
You're like, what?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, but that work comes with discomfort, comes with pain, comes with accepting that
that's what you're going to feel for a time.
Yeah, and unless you're really deep into sports, you don't get to hear those stories about
those guys and the hours and hours and hours they spend in rehab to get back to that point.
(01:10:52):
And rehab or rehabilitation, it's healing.
Yeah.
And I think the more that we actively seek out that rehabilitation, both emotionally,
physically, the healthier we are, the healthier our planet is.
Man, I remember when I first started yoga, I was like, yoga, come on.
(01:11:20):
You know, that night I ended up in the hospital.
My back like blew up like the herniation in my back like got real pissed off because
I did, I did a beginner thing, but it was a lot like I was still like walking on a cane
and stuff at the time.
Yeah.
So I had to step it back to bed yoga.
And that's where I started and built my way up.
(01:11:43):
But I remember seeing a video Michael Jordan got hurt, you know, this was, you know, way
back in the like.
In the Jordan days.
Yeah.
And he was in a pool doing water aerobics, you know, with like a bunch of, you know,
senior citizens and stuff.
And I'm like, man, but he, but he was working to the best of his ability in that pool doing
(01:12:06):
like knee raises where I would be like, oh, look at how like, oh, I'm such a bitch.
Like look at where I'm at, you know, all this stuff and like trying to push myself,
but accepting that this is where I am so that I can get back to here.
Yeah.
That's an amazing thing.
Yeah, you know what I love about what you just said that it made me think of is so I
(01:12:31):
had to do the same thing after my accident.
My rehab was all in a pool.
And I just realized that when I have to face something emotionally that's really tough.
I create a pool for myself.
People who love me soft blankets, tea, right?
(01:12:52):
Like I create this soft buoyant environment for me to go in and do some work.
And I never thought about it like a pool for my emotions, right?
When something gets really tough, I go to my recovery in a pool.
Dude, yes.
Yeah.
Dude, Sandy for my birthday, Sandy got me a T-shirt that it was for mechanics, but she
(01:13:17):
didn't get it to me for me because I'm a mechanic.
I can't, I can't like, no.
But it says, I can't.
I have plans.
I'm in the garage.
And she had found one because like all the shirts had like tools on it stuff.
And then she found one that just had the words.
And it's like a private joke between us because I don't smoke cannabis in the house just because
(01:13:42):
like she hates the smell of it.
So I go to the garage.
And there was times like it took me two years of research to show her what it can do.
And then it got to the point where she would be like, go to the garage.
So like that's, that's my pool.
You know, I go out there, I put on a documentary about nature, space, whatever.
(01:14:05):
And then I just sit there and smoke and because that's the thing about cannabis, like it makes
us introspective.
So I would go in and just focus on gratitude.
And it was such a beautiful feeling.
You know, I didn't expect it to stop what I was feeling, but just to use it to focus
(01:14:28):
on something amazing.
You know, and that's like, that's my pool.
But I think your zoom froze again.
It went off again.
Oh, now your Instagram went off.
Oh, no, no, it's just me.
Oh, there you are.
(01:14:49):
Well, see, it's, it's the universe thing.
Hey, you're over time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I need to join.
This is our first live.
It was super fun.
Thank you for joining us.
We're going to do that again.
We're going to go live again.
We should do this every once in a while, right?
Yeah, yeah, it was pretty cool.
Like, I mean, I think, I think like the max people we have, we had like three people,
(01:15:11):
but still that was so cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's the whole start, man.
Like.
If you liked sort of our exploration and I explore every single Friday, sometimes with
guests, sometimes not, you just try to have a guest every other week.
(01:15:32):
And then our episodes post the next Friday and you can listen to the podcast on YouTube
or Apple Spotify, wherever you get your podcast.
And we'd love for you to join us because the more people that we have just exploring what
it means to be human, the more wisdom can arise.
Yeah.
Yeah.
(01:15:52):
Comments, like email, like whatever, like, because we're, we're both, we, we both have
like the same mentality where we're, we're like constant learners, you know, like not
thinking that we know everything, you know, but so the more, the more that we can learn
and just build off that stuff, yeah, the better this is, this will be.
(01:16:15):
All right.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you for listening to the Chasing Thoughts podcast.
Please support us by liking, subscribing, or leaving a review or comment.
We would really appreciate it.
If you'd like to be a guest, we would love to explore life and what it means to be human
with you.
And email us at chasingthoughtspodcast at gmail.com.
(01:22:34):
Thank you.
(01:23:04):
Thank you.
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