Ep 217 Awakening Through Awareness – From Trauma to Tranquility w Lee Carlson

Ep 217 - One World in a New World with Lee Carlson

❓ Guiding Questions:

How can meditation help us rediscover our authentic self after deep loss or trauma?

What happens when we let go of control and embrace awareness?

How can quieting the mind expand our connection to others — and to life itself?

Join Zen Benefiel and author Lee Carlson, a journalist, Zen practitioner, and survivor of a traumatic brain injury, as they explore the nature of consciousness, resilience, and awakening.

In this powerful conversation, Lee shares how his near-fatal accident and his mentorship with Peter Matthiessen transformed his understanding of life, love, and the human spirit.

Discover how awareness, mindfulness, and letting go of attachments can bring peace even in chaos — and how truth emerges when we simply be.

👉 Subscribe, share, and join the movement toward a more conscious civilization.

🌐 Visit https://PlanetaryCitizens.net for more conversations that awaken the heart of humanity.

Connect with Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecarlsonauthor/

Lee's Books: https://amzn.to/4qvUFAV

Lee's Website: https://leecarlson.life/

#ZenBenefiel #LeeCarlson #Awakening #Mindfulness #Healing #Consciousness #OneWorldInANewWorld #SpiritualGrowth

Join this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuZl_29zHxehqeL89KSCWFA/join

_________

One World in a New World Compilation (3 years): https://amzn.to/3VdhQSg

__________

Visit: https://PlanetaryCitizens.net

Connect with Zen: https://linkedin.com/zenbenefiel

Zen's books: https://amazon.com/author/zendor

Zen's Coaching: https://BeTheDream.com

Zen's CV et al: https://zenbenefiel.com

The Octopus Movement (non-linear thinkers): https://theoctopusmovement.org

Live and Let Live Global Peace Movement: https://liveandletlive.org

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Explore the Thoughtmosphere Embark on a life changing
journey of self discovery. Embrace harmony with self, with
others, with Earth, one world ina new world.
Zen Benefield skillfully ignitesconversations, guiding guests to
reveal personal journeys and perspectives.

(00:20):
Listeners are inspired to seek knowledge and find wisdom in
their own lives. Join this transformative journey
as we navigate the depth of human experience.
Namaste. And in LA catch and welcome to
this episode of One World in a New World.
Now, you know, we've got 1.8 million views, so maybe you
ought to stick around and see what this show is actually

(00:41):
about. And while you're doing that,
click the subscribe button, share it, make a comment.
That's what keeps us going and it's what help you, helps you to
share us with others so that youcan be that third party silent
person that actually helps things long.
Also, if you would visit planetarycitizens.net where you

(01:05):
can download one of my books, I've got 50, that's called
Planetary Citizens Awakening theHeart of Humanity.
It will absolutely blow your mind about the
interconnectedness that it describes in there that we can
already experience and see as evidence.
So thank you very much. Now, this week's guest is Lee

(01:29):
Carlson. Now, Lee's a very interesting
fellow. He went through a traumatic
brain injury that 25 years ago ish.
He's now an author, a journalist.
He's a Zen practitioner. He's got several wonderful
books. The first being acclaimed is
called Passage to Nirvana and the one that we're actually, he,

(01:54):
his company reached out to me totalk about today is called A
single excellent night. Now, we're probably not going to
get into that so much because we're going to dive deep into
me, right? And he was a student of Peter
Matthewson back around the turn of the century.
And Peter was American novelist,naturalist, wilderness writer,

(02:15):
and a Zen teacher who was also at one time ACIA agent.
So we're going to find out a little bit more about that.
Don't go away. This is going to be really
exciting. Remember, 1.8 million views.
You need to be one of those as well and share it with your
friends too. We'll be right back.
You know, in personal and professional transformation and

(02:36):
transcendence, actually, there'sall kinds of elements that are
involved, components, if you will, that are within yourself,
that you can bring out into the environment that you're in and
display a whole different attitude, aptitude, altitude,
and success in whatever it is that you're after.

(02:57):
And I can help you do that. Lee, it is so great to have you
here. I've been looking forward to
this. You're an amazing man and I want
to share you with the world. Thank you, Zen.
I've been looking forward to it too.
And the same goes. I've been looking forward to
meeting you. Oh, wonderful.
And as you know, we had a littleprelim discussion.

(03:17):
So this show is basically about delving into that side of life
that we're bereft of having conversations about.
And that's the inner life. We all have it.
We live half inside and half outside and what we do anywhere,
we do everywhere. So if we're holding back the
inside, what are we holding at away from the exterior world as

(03:38):
well? And maybe we ought to think
about that. So in this inner world, Lee,
you, you had, you know, we talked about the Shabda and you
being able to hear the sound current since you were young.
Do you remember when the first inkling of this
interconnectedness happened? Was it in your youth or or

(03:58):
teenage years? When did you first recognize
that there was more than just the physical world that we can
see? Sure.
So I, I found that a fascinatingquestion because you did send me
a list of questions ahead of time and I was thinking about
it. And it's interesting because in
my new book, there's a whole section about when does the
journey begin? And because to me, that is a

(04:22):
fascinating question. And my journey, as far as I can
tell, began when I was a kid. I was probably, you know, in
first grade or not even. And my father taught Sunday
school at our local church. And I remember going to to his
classroom and there was just this aura that spoke to me.

(04:45):
There was something that was very different than the rest of
my life. There was this, this kind of
just feeling that was there. And of course, I'm I'm sorry,
say it again, presence. There was a definitely a
presence and it wasn't my father's presence.
It wasn't the other kids. I mean, I look like, you know,
the kids all seem so old to me. They were probably like in 3rd

(05:06):
grade or something. And I was, you know, in
kindergarten. But, but there was just a
presence in the in the space in the room.
And that's my first memory of really knowing that.
And but in the book, right, I this chapter about when does the
journey begin? I am a firm believer also in
previous lives and so who knows when the journey began.

(05:30):
Did it really begin then? Did it begin even earlier in
some previous lifetime? Sure, it's hard to say.
And then? It begins with that first
incarnation, right? You, we come here from the,
let's say, formless world, right?
We take on form and then we seekto get back to that formless or

(05:52):
to bring the understanding that we had in that formless life,
which is loving and being loved,right?
The unconditional love space, that Shabda, that frequency that
we are all part of. And then we seek to experience
that here. And it seems like, you know,
we're confronted with all kinds of different things to keep us
from that. And sometimes we succumb to that

(06:15):
and it we could succumb to that for several lifetimes in various
levels until we finally reach that.
Oh gosh, what I've been doing this for.
Yeah, I think the journey is rarely linear.
It it goes and fits and starts. And so, you know, as a kid you
experienced that, or I did anyway.

(06:36):
But then for whatever reason, you're talked out of it or you
just talk yourself out of it andthen you go on your way and
then, you know, and then it's high school and girls and
whatever. And then, you know, and then you
have another experience that sort of goes, oh, maybe yeah,
this is happening. And I my besides peer medicine,
my other teacher was my aunt, who is Joanna Macy, who a lot of

(06:57):
people may know. And she was a Buddhist.
And she, I remember as a kid, when not as a kid, when I was a
teenager, meeting when she came because she didn't live where we
lived. And and then, you know, same
thing. She had this presence.
There was something about her that you just looked at her and
you went, wow, whatever she has,I want it.

(07:18):
And it was that unconditional love that you talk about too.
I mean, she's just radiating this, this presence, which is a
presence of unconditional love. And so then that kind of wakes
you up and goes, maybe I should follow this a little more.
And so then in college you or I did took it feels so.
Strange. It feels so strange.
And also, you know, if you're not ready for it yet, you're not

(07:38):
ready because like I said, you know, you might be into sports
and partying and whatever, but you know, and then at that point
I took some compared to religionclasses in college and I went to
a monastery and I, you know, andmy, my first time ever in
Tibetan monastery and the Catskills.
And you know it it. There's little steps on it, but
then you slide back a little bit, but then you go you know
it. Just happens though that that's

(08:00):
the important thing to remain curious and and like you say,
you know, everything's nonlinear, sometimes even non
local. And in those moments you have
that sense of presence. You may not be able to put your
finger on the to be able to identify it specifically, but
you got the sense of it. That's a direct experience.

(08:21):
It's a visceral experience, right?
Yes, very much so. And you know, we are we are.
Unfortunately, I, I go, I hark all the way back to the
Cartesian duality to rent it a card in the Enlightenment.
And we were at that point, you know, up until that point, there
was not a, a mind body duality. Everything was.

(08:42):
There were a couple of flies on the wall.
Yeah. And so, you know, and, and at
that point, many, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years
ago, we started to diverge whereyou had your rational side, you
had your body and you had your mind, but they were all, you
know, nothing was connected. And, and I think now we're
starting to bring it all back together.

(09:02):
But, you know, in high school, Iwas, you know, taught to think
rationally. We all were Nobody, nobody sat
you down and said, let's get in touch with your feelings.
Like, you know, what are you hearing?
What are you? You know, there was none of that
so. Back in those days we tuned on,
tuned in, turned out and or turned on, tuned in and tuned.
Many of us followed Larry's advice and and so that gave us

(09:25):
at least another layer to understand that we didn't
necessarily have to talk about, although it was a very deep
recognition of that, yes, in a very accelerated process.
Yeah, and I was very lucky that people ask how I found Peter

(09:47):
Matheson. I read his book The Snow Leopard
when I was in college, which waswon the National Book Award,
which was, you know, not the only book, but it was one of the
books that started opening people's consciousnesses because
it was all about his explorationof Zen and the death of his wife
and what happened. And and it would became a best
seller and won the National BookAward.

(10:09):
And years later, I found that I lived near him and I sought him
out. He was lived about an hour away
from me and I sought him out andasked if he would take me on as
a student. And, you know, you and I are
obviously about the same age. You know, he was from that
generation, like the Timothy Leary generation and his
generation, you know, in the 70swhere they were all starting to

(10:29):
kind of break out of that 50s, sixties.
Yeah. They were explorers.
They were explorers. And I was very fortunate to to
find him and to have him be my teacher and my leader, you know,
out of the darkness, into the light.
So there. So it bridged that, you know,

(10:49):
that generational gap. I was very lucky.
And that was also something thatwas, let's see if we're talking
about past lives, right? And looking at all that, there's
a date destiny, there's a congruence, there's a coherence

(11:10):
that brings those energies together to support both, right?
You had the intention. You put your attention,
intention and interaction towardthat activity that would benefit
your development in whatever waythat might happen.
And there was this sense that you had that to reach out and,

(11:32):
you know, the opportunity of availability and the proximity
was just too good to be true, right?
Truth is often stranger than fiction.
It is, it definitely is. And you know, when you talk
about putting energy into it, I,I end up putting, you know,
thousands and thousands and thousands of hours into it with

(11:55):
him. And I had to unlearn a lot of
what I had learned up until, youknow, I was in my early 40s when
I when I met him and started studying with him.
Well, those are all outer teachings, right?
That that's the one thing that we need to unlearn is the outer
teachings, because the inner ones are the ones that actually
manage everything. Yeah.
So I had to learn to get back intouch with that inner self.

(12:17):
And I'm hopeful that, you know, the next generation will have a
little easier time of it becausethey won't have to unlearn quite
as much. And they will have already been,
you know, now there's, I mean, back in the 70s, you know, my
mother taught yoga, but she was an anomaly.
I mean, there were harder than any yoga teachers and now

(12:38):
there's a yoga studio on every corner, which is wonderful.
And everybody does yoga. And so, you know, I'm hopeful
that, you know, you're, as you're doing raising
consciousness and we're moving towards a different
consciousness that the younger generation will not have to
unlearn as much as we had to unlearn so.

(12:59):
Hopefully, and that's the the hopeful for, for guys like us,
we've reached this point of maturity where we can see a lot
more than we did when we were younger.
And all we want to do is share that.
And hopefully there are those who are asking, you know,
they're like teenagers usually, right?
They think they know everything and you know, they run into the
wall and they finally get their heads bloody before they start

(13:20):
asking questions and us giving them information prior to that,
it just doesn't work because they're not ready for it.
Now in this process, I want to go back to when you were going
through the transition from teenage into your early
adulthood. What were some of the things,

(13:40):
some of the challenges that you've faced in being able to
speak with others and to have them be able to actually hear
you without the filters in place?
So I think one of the challengesjust finding a group of like
minded people that's it's easiernow there's more meditation

(14:03):
groups. The whole, you know, the word
mindfulness wasn't even on people's tongues when I was a
teenager, that was who'd have heard of mindfulness?
Emotional intelligence as well, right?
It was back in the 80s, it was called interpersonal skills, and
you know, it was in the aerospace industry then in
charge of $7,000,000 a month in shipments.

(14:25):
And I treated people like I wanted to be treated, which was
loving, right? And as a result, sailed to the
top of the production charts, unaware that it was happening.
I was just enjoying what I was doing.
And I think maybe that's something that we miss, right?

(14:45):
We're, we're too occupied with trying to control and manipulate
our environment, our surroundings, the people around
us to get what we want or think that we need to do that in order
to make sure everything's right.How would you?
I I don't, I didn't know you then obviously, but I would
guess that you were giving something off.

(15:06):
You were also people related to you in a way they didn't relate
to other supervisors or salespeople or whatever.
I. Can go anywhere and talk to
anybody. I still can.
You know, there was when I was doing my first show, we were
sponsored by the Chris Town Lions Club.
The Chris Town Lions Club president had watched me and and
things that I was doing, workingwith the middle name, disabled

(15:28):
adults, doing things for the city, putting on events, He
says, yeah, you can go anywhere and talk to anybody.
You can talk to a homeless person the same way you can talk
to ACEO. And I never realized that.
I just see them as people. Right.
And there's something in common that we have that we can share

(15:49):
in that, you know, we all. Yeah.
I got two eyes, 2 ears. Most of us do anyway.
And it's this naturalness. Let me ask this question.
What did you find to be this natural state when you began to
eliminate the fictitious ones orthe ones that you had created

(16:14):
with the mental perturbations that I'm sure Peter helped you
realize? I think you find a truthfulness
in yourself. I think that, as you say, you
start to drop some of the other masks and the other who you are.
And I found that I could talk from a place of truth that I

(16:35):
didn't have to think about it just naturally Rose, you know,
sort of like the apocryphal story about George Washington.
I cannot tell a lie. I mean, you just can't you just
start to, as Peter kept saying to me, I mean, it's easy because
my name is Lee, so it rhymes. So Peter kept saying to me, B
Lee, you know, just B Lee, be yourself.
That's my middle name as well. Oh, that's nice.
That's great. So but that, yeah, I found that

(16:58):
I started to just feel natural. I just, and I act natural.
And like you said, you could just talk to people.
It didn't matter who it was, andyou could do that.
To go back to your previous question about, you know, the
barriers that were in your way, I married a woman who was raised
in a very Catholic family and her aunt was a nun.

(17:20):
And I mean, she was very Catholic, and she was rebelling
against that upbringing because it had done a lot of damage to
her. She'd gone to a Catholic girls
school and. And she just.
You know. Yeah.
And so when I started to, you know, we met when we were in our
late 20s. We got married in our early 30s.

(17:41):
And so here we start, you know, in our late 30s, early 40s.
I start telling her that I want to start exploring this part of
myself. There was a lot of resistance
there because she was afraid that I was going down this sort
of cult like, you know, religious path and, and it that
so I had to put my I had to takemy yearnings and sort of put it

(18:06):
in a box and put it on the shelf.
So not to, you know, 'cause too much strife in our marriage.
The marriage ended up not lasting anyway.
And, and when it fell apart, it gave me the freedom to really
explore that side of myself. But there were, yeah, there were
just lots of barriers that are throwing up.
The noticing of now here's the difference in a vibrational

(18:28):
field, right? Perfect example of it.
And it's not a good or bad thing.
It's just a thing, right? Because you respect the
individual wherever they are, whoever they are, however they
are, the coherence factor is a different story because that's a
natural one. And either it's there or it

(18:49):
isn't. And if it's not, it tends to
want to dissipate or disengage over time.
And your example is, my marriageis the same way.
My first marriage is the same way too.
Now, how do we recognize that and be OK with it and not force

(19:14):
that disengagement and just allow it to naturally happen?
Because most of us aren't, we can't do that, right?
We recognizing that we, we want to go to battle.
Well, that's not a good thing either because you both are
still wanting to love and be loved.
And there's a different way of doing that when there's not a

(19:35):
vibrational compatibility. How did you handle that?
What? What was the?
I'm just curious because I thinkyou probably handled it fairly
well. So the way I handled it
physically was meditation. I had never had a regular
meditation program or a practice.

(19:56):
And when I, I had dabbled in a little bit, I lived in
Manhattan, I was a journalist inManhattan.
I'd gone to some Zen centers andI but again, you know, it
started was causing vibrational difficulties between me and my
wife and so I stopped. And when I found Peter Matheson
and I really started meditating,I, I would, I would meet with
him Monday evenings. He, he and his group, he had a

(20:18):
small group. It wasn't just he and I
together, but it would be Mondayevenings for an hour, Saturday
mornings for an hour. And then I set up my own home
altar and, and I would meditate every morning.
I would get up early before the kids were up and I would
meditate. And that process for me anyway.
Now it's not for everybody's on meditation can be difficult for
people, but you know, you, I started out slow.

(20:39):
I'd start 5 minutes, 10 minutes and I worked up to half an hour
and then I worked up to an hour.And that process started to give
me the freedom and it started tomake me more self aware, gave me
awareness. And once I started to develop
awareness, then that made me aware of, you know, my own self,
my wife's self. It made me aware of people

(21:00):
around me. And then and then you start to
become you're still, at least I was still kind of wondering, am
I doing the right thing and, andis this really helping and
working? But then the, the universe would
give back to me these little moments.
For example, I after my accident, I was living with my
father because I couldn't drive,I couldn't walk.

(21:21):
He was taking me to, you know, to the hospital and stuff and
therapy. And I heard him on the phone one
night with my aunt, who was veryconservative.
And I could hear both sides of the conversation because I think
he had her on speakerphone or something.
And she's saying, you know, I'm worried about Lee.
Is he in a cult? What's this Zen stuff he's
doing? And my father, to his credit,
said, I don't know much about it.

(21:42):
I don't know what he's doing, but I know it's giving him a lot
of peace at a difficult time in his life.
And I heard that, and I absorbedthat.
And I thought, oh, OK, so it's not just me.
There's the world outside looking at me and seeing this.
Then when I was in marriage counseling, which ended up, you

(22:02):
know, we didn't save our marriage, but I learned a lot
from it. And I remember at one point the
therapist looking at me and saying, you're really handling
this really well, much better than most people.
Like you're, you're handling this, this very difficult time
in your life with amazing calm. And and, and so again, I and I,
I, I heard that and I said, OK, here's, yeah, here's the world

(22:25):
mirroring back what I'm feeling.Did you find when did you
recognize that it was your attachments to outcome that
you're releasing that gave you the freedom to allow this
process? Oh, I think everybody's
different. Some people have these major
epiphanies. I didn't have that.
Mine was just slow. Over time it just kind of grew

(22:48):
on me, so there wasn't. Like 1 moment where I was kind
of like. Yeah, there wasn't one moment
where I went, aha. I'm losing my attachment.
It just kind of developed over time and one day I was realizing
like, Oh yeah, I'm not angry. I'm not.
You're not. Triggered anymore?
I'm not triggered anymore, right?
Exactly. So yeah.

(23:08):
Put that gun away and it you're right.
It it, that's how it happens. It's the subtle overtime.
Occasionally there's an aha moment when something really
clicks that you have been working on, you know, one of
those things that resist and persist, right?
That, that we find. And it's like, oh, that's what I

(23:30):
was doing. OK, now I know to change, right?
It's that awareness, that self examination and self-awareness
that allows you to adjust your choices, which is really kind of
what it boils down to, right? Right.
Your choice at every moment. And there's still self doubt, at
least for me there was. And I every, every teacher I've

(23:53):
ever had said doubt is part of the path, is part of the
process. You, you should be doubting and
questioning things. So.
Test the truth. That's the only way you'll find
it, all right, And in order to do that, you have to doubt it to
begin, even if it's yourself. However, do you find that your
experience is really the only foundation of truth that you

(24:15):
have to go on? In the beginning, yes.
However, I got to a point, have gotten to a point where the self
drops away. So, so it's no longer about my

(24:35):
experience. It's more about being connected
to everything around me and whatelse is out there.
And and it's more, it's more universal.
Sure, so it's still an experience though, right?
It's only friends whether you know, because the the first
version of that, as I hear it, was more ego centered right self

(25:00):
and and getting needs met. Where the second version, which
is the inner 1, is more about just being aware and available,
not knowing what's going to happen and still just wanting to
show up in your best. Yeah.

(25:20):
Right. Whether it's a good or a three
piece, it doesn't matter. I, I like that way of putting it
being available. Yes, you're open and you're
available and you're available to whatever comes in.
You're available to others. You're available to help others
and be there for them. And, and at a certain point,

(25:41):
hopefully you get to a point like my Aunt Joanna, who was
giving something off, Hopefully I'm giving something off.
And people, they feed off that they, they take it in and they,
it helps them in a way too. So absolutely, that's the whole
purpose of why we're having thisconversation, so people can hear
us take in what rings true for them, re examine how that might

(26:03):
apply into their lives and benefit from it.
Hopefully without having to go through the turmoil and trials
and tribulations and you and I have gone through in order to
gain that. Although there still will be
some because it you don't reallylock in the understanding
without that side of that side dish of trauma if you will.

(26:27):
I think there's always going to be turmoil, at least for those
of us in the West, because unless you start this right out
of the womb, you're, you're conditioned to think certain
ways, to act certain ways to feel certain ways, and you end
up leaving a lot of that behind.And so that's, that's a very

(26:50):
earth shatter it, it's, it's very difficult.
I mean, it's, it's very, some people have, you know, some
people have a lot of trouble with it because it's, they're
losing their sense of self that they build up for 30, forty,
50-60 years. And to have to give up who we
think we are and to give up thatsense of self can be very
difficult sometimes. Absolutely.

(27:11):
Now, you mentioned, you know, being a journalist, and I love
it and you've written for some high visibility time, I think
was one of them in Los Angeles Times.
So you've been in this programming for a long time.

(27:33):
When did you first come to realize that these instruments
were being used in ways that were keeping us from, I'll just
say, ascending into a new order or a new living awareness?
It was after a couple I'd, I'd been in in study with peer

(27:56):
medicine for a couple years. It took a few years to really
get to that point. And again, a few years of, of
really serious meditation every day or almost every day.
I won't claim that I did it absolutely every day.
I fell off the wagon sometimes, like we all do, we all take
breaks, right? But there was a shift.
There was a shift in, in consciousness after a couple

(28:17):
years of that, that. And it's not just the
meditation. I always tell people it's, it's
also having a good teacher because you can sit at home, you
can watch videos, you can, you know, read books and it's
helpful. There's nothing wrong with that.
But there were moments when having, and it wasn't just
Peter, there was another woman at the Zendo where where he

(28:39):
taught named Dorothy Friedman, who was sort of his right hand
person. And she took me under her wing
as well. And there were moments where I,
I could have sort of gone astraya little bit here or there and
they kind of helped me see things and brought me back.
And so I think and, and you, youknow, you, you need to be with
somebody. They need to see you were

(28:59):
talking about vibration before you can't sense that vibration
over a zoom call or through a book or, you know, a video.
You really there at a certain point, you there, you have to
have a good teacher that senses your vibrations and knows in
which direction to to point you.I've I've lost your audio.

(29:22):
Oh, sorry about that. There you go.
So I would bluntly disagree withthat inability to feel someone
over a Zoom call because it's all electronic.
We, we have access to everybody.There is no material world,
right? It's all energy.
It just depends on how sensitivewe are to it.
You know, like you and, and I think in my early 30s, I met a

(29:45):
gentleman when I was doing my first show.
His name was Kai D and he was the original low fat on Hawaii 5
O Well, we see him playing all kinds of gangster parts and he
did so in Venturian candidate aswell.
But he had a doctorate in theology and he was a rector for
a Dallas sanctuary here in Tempethat I became part of.

(30:06):
So I had, you know, that relationship with him for a
time. And wow, what a difference in in
Speaking of the Dow, as you know, there's two points of
recognition, if you will. It's an experience is either
desirable or undesirable. And that's about as simple as

(30:29):
you can get feeling it on a vibrational level.
Your body is going to register, oh, this is comfortable or this
is cool, or this is kind of edgy, but it's fun, right?
And as opposed to, oh man, that just doesn't feel good at all,
right? And these are the kinds of
things that I think we miss in noticing how our body is feeding

(30:51):
information to us because you. Know I stand corrected.
I, I think you're absolutely right because I'm, I'm not a big
zoom user. I'm just starting to get into
it. And but what your your viewers
are not seeing is before we started rolling the tape, so to
speak, you and I were talking and I immediately said to you, I

(31:15):
said you and I could talk for hours.
You and I have a, a connection to vibration.
So you're absolutely right. I I got that.
I've never met you in person, but somehow through the screen,
through the zoom call, you and Iconnected and knew that that.
Yeah. So I, I stand corrected.
I think you're right. OK, I I.
Would prefer you sit, but that'sOK.

(31:37):
Yes. You know, you got to have a
sense of humor. You can't take yourself
seriously or really be miserableand self effacing.
It is always fun to do because it's just part of the process.
You know, the ego needs to set aside.
Not that it's not a wonderful thing to have right, because it
does have a purpose that that there's no ego without.

(31:58):
We go. And when when you can align
that, then everything works. That's the whole thing about
servant leadership, right? You, you look at who you can
help and like Dale Carnegie, right, help enough people get
what they want, you'll get something.
Or was that Zig Ziglar one of one of the two one?
Of those, right? But that's true, right?

(32:20):
That's the reciprocal energy of love.
Now, how did you, as you came through and out of your
engagement with Peter, what werethe changes that you noticed in
your writing as well as in the world around you?
Because I would imagine your writing probably shift, your

(32:43):
journalistic writing shifted a little bit.
What was that like and did you notice it sooner than later?
I noticed it I I can't. I've never been asked that
question before so I'm not sure exactly when it happened, but.
Good, then I'm on target. You're on target.

(33:06):
It starts before you write, before you put anything down on
paper or on your keyboard or whatever.
It starts with what you take in and it starts being a good
journalist. You are, you're asking
questions, you're you're being aware, you're looking around
you, you're taking in. Objective is possible.
Being objective is possible and I think when my when I first

(33:27):
started noticing my work processchanging was when I became aware
that I was becoming more aware and I would eat and my my note
taking process. A lot of work I did was in the
field. So for example, I was doing a
story for Newsday. The the, it's the largest

(33:47):
newspaper that's not in the cityin the United States.
It's the Long Island newspaper, and it's got the same readership
as the Times and things like that, but it's not associated
with a particular city. Anyway, I was doing a big
feature article for them on the scientists who are trying to
restore the marshes on the East End of Long Island.
And so I was out in the field and with them, you know, boots

(34:09):
walking through marshes and stuff.
And so I take notes in a little hand notepad and then sometimes
I take notes on a re tape recorder and I get back to the
office and I type them up and I,and then I, I call them up and
ask them more questions and whatever.
Anyway, I just started to noticethat I was noticing things like
before I'd been in the field andI would just be talking to the,

(34:29):
to the scientist and I'd just befocusing on him.
And now he's becoming aware of everything around it as well.
I was making notes of, you know,the marshes and the cattails and
the birds and the fish in the sky and the everything.
And it was all, you know, comingtogether as one.
And I was also becoming a much better listener.
I was listening to what the scientists or whatever I was

(34:50):
interviewing at the time was telling me, and I was
remembering it better and I was getting it down in my notes
better. And so the story, the articles
just came out better. You know, I, they didn't, I
didn't start writing them as like from an Eastern viewpoint
or something. I still was writing as a Western
journalist. But yeah, it it's as you said,
and here's what I heard you say,I believe, is that when you had

(35:15):
this shift in awareness, you really had a shift in awareness.
You were becoming aware of everything around you much more
so because you're quiet enough internally to give it your
attention rather than think yourway through.
That system built on vibration, right?
We got to sense our way through.And so in that place, you were

(35:38):
able to perceive that greater awareness and, and then include
that as part of your pieces. I, I think that's a phenomenal
self-awareness and self examination process that you
went through. And thank you so much for being
able to articulate it that well.And you also are quieter inside

(36:00):
because you've given up those preconceived inner voices.
I used to go into a story with an idea of what the story was
going to be about. And I had, you know, I had these
inner voices and I, you know, blah, blah, blah.
But when you truly go at it froma place of not knowing and
curiosity and curiosity and those inner voices quiet, and

(36:21):
then your inner self quiets. And then you can hear more of
this coming in from the outside and you're not hearing so much
what's coming from the inside. And I, I find that to be very
fascinating. I want to jump back to one thing
real quick. I can't remember who it was, but
either Zig Ziegler or Gil Carnegie was a, they were a
consultant. They were a management
consultant in Japan. And one of my.

(36:44):
Deming. John Deming Yes, yes, and and
one of my favorite Japanese sayings from because you know,
my training is in Japanese and from Peter because he's so in
Japan. But they have this saying that
to, to take is really to give like to allow somebody to give

(37:04):
you a present, right? Is is, is a way of giving back.
So it's that whole idea that youbrought up before with them of
like, you know, if we give enough, we get something back.
And if we it, it just, it's, it's all circular and
interconnected. It's, you know, it's not just
giving and taking. When he went to Japan, you know,
the the three, the big three. So he went to the auto industry

(37:26):
and and changed the course of their history with his
principles. He tried to do that with the big
three here in America and they just basically said, yeah, go
away. Yep.
And then he proved that that wasvaluable.
Why don't we? Why do you think we have less

(37:49):
awareness or less focus on quality and?
So it's fascinating. I, I, I just reread because
it's, I think it was the 50th anniversary or something is then
in the heart of motorcycle maintenance.
And I'd forgotten how much that book is about quality.

(38:10):
His whole, you know, his whole thesis is about quality of that
book. And, and it got me thinking
about the idea of quality. And obviously demings in the
auto industry, he was teaching them how to build better cars
and how to, you know, make better quality.
But it's that it's more of an internal idea of quality.
Like how do we live a quality life?

(38:31):
Exactly, and Japanese were set up for that because they already
were in a mindset of the the rigors of training, right and
their history, their cultural history was very proper, very,
what's the word appreciative, right where bars is like we, you

(38:56):
know, snatch and grab and don't care anything about how we do it
sometimes. Yeah, So to answer your
question, I think what gets in the way of that is the Western,
especially American emphasis on the rugged individual.
You know, the Japanese are very and, and Chinese and the whole
Eastern thought process is very much more focused on less ego,

(39:17):
more community. And, and we've had this, you
know, the, the, the icon of the Western cowboy, the rugged
individualist, you know, and, and that whole ideal that's been
the American ideal. And it does keep us, it has kept
us anyway from in some instances, not all instances,

(39:38):
because for instance, we really came together as a community in
World War 2 / a common foe. But but I do think that we need
to in the West and especially inthe American in in America need
to learn more to focus less on me, me, me and the individual.

(39:59):
I mean, that's nothing new. Everybody's, you know, it's all
about me. I'm not the first person to say
that by any means, but I do think it's.
Still not about I'm just anotheryouth, so we might as well focus
on me. Right.
So I, but I do think it's an ongoing process and it's one
that we still are on learning and and hopefully learning
something new. I, I do believe that's

(40:19):
happening, especially, you know,as we mentioned, the maturation
process of humanity and, and just the openness that we've
recognized over the last 30-40 years that we've been aware and
especially coming out of COVID, it seems like, you know, there
was a lot of, especially between22,005 and, and 2015, there was

(40:43):
a boon in like a bubble right inthe awareness category.
And then COVID came around and gave people the opportunity to
self obsess on hygiene, which isgoing to turn inward ultimately,
because that's a behavioral mod.And then you've got the the
sequestration. So now you, you don't have

(41:05):
anybody to talk to yourself. So the self examination took a
foothold. Now, not everybody did right.
The majority probably still, youknow, we want things back the
way they were and they're still trying to get there.
And then there were these othersthat said, hmm, maybe this is a
time for for me to re examine myself and figure out what I

(41:28):
truly believe in and would stakemy life on and then reinvent
myself accordingly. And it really isn't reinventing,
it's just remembering who you really are.
And it's a real paradox because,because to get to that point,
you start by being very egocentric.

(41:48):
You focus on yourself and so you, you, you do that, but then
by doing that, you end up going outward and, and sort of losing
the self and, and looking at more who you want to be.
I, I want to say one thing too. I was, I was reading a
fascinating article before our, our chat that I just happened to
stumble across. It was in today's.

(42:09):
I don't know, I get the Apple news feed and I'm not even sure
it was, you know, National Geographic or something about
one of the things I learned fromPeter Matheson and I already
knew, but I, it really was brought home was not just
egocentricity, but Homo sapien centricity that we need to go

(42:32):
outward beyond our species. Peter was a great naturalist and
he was known, you know, he wrotebooks on cranes and tigers and
the snow leopard. And he was a, you know, he wrote
a book called Wildlife in America, which was the first
book looking at how native species are disappearing.
And that was back in the wrote that in the 60s or something.

(42:54):
Anyway, so this article that I was just reading was fascinating
is that thanks to artificial intelligence, there are people,
there is one particular group that's using artificial
intelligence to decode whale language and to start to
understand what whales are saying to each other and to us.

(43:14):
And they're starting to do it with some other species.
And not only that, but beyond that, there are lawyers who are
now taking that to court and whoare getting animals rights
written into law, that animals have the same rights as humans
have to, you know, health, liberty, happiness, whatever.

(43:35):
And they're actually, and this is happening more in Europe.
It's not happening in the US yet, but it's already happening
in places like Spain. And it's starting to grow.
And it's, and it's thanks to artificial intelligence and
being able to prove that animalshave intelligence and that they
should be given the same rights as people.
So I do think not only do we need to be aware.

(43:55):
Yeah, of all life forms and, andour connection.
I love, you know, you have the planet up behind you And and you
know, we did. We're aware of our total
connectedness to everything on the planet.
Well, this is what Planetary Citizens is about.
You know, I picked up on Donald Key's work from the 70s.
He was you thought, speechwriter, you thought was
the secretary general of the UN at the time.

(44:17):
And Donald, a group of people, Norman Cousins being another
one, started planetary citizens and they wouldn't, they were
talking about a borderless world.
That was certainly not the time to be talking about it.
So it didn't go over that well and eventually dissolved.

(44:38):
Well, then years later, I got tapped on the shoulder to look
up the domain for planetary citizens to see if it was
available. I'm thinking it's going to be
gone. Well, sure enough, it was there.
This is 2012. And so I snagged it and I built
a site referencing the World Service at the time, and then in

(44:59):
23 was prompted to get a nonprofit status and then picked
up from Donald's work again. And one of my cohorts, I guess
Doctor Jeffrey Mishlov, I'd interviewed with him years ago
and, and had him on our show recently.
And he says, you know, I just happened to have Donald's

(45:21):
unpublished memoirs. Would you like a copy?
Well. Exactly, and his memoirs read
like my life, very, very similarin the types of experiences and
things that totally different environment and different
people. However, the process and the
things he was going through and the experiences he was having is

(45:43):
like, Oh my God, no wonder I picked up on this right now.
How do you find picking up on the work of others and
continuing that with what you'redoing and, and do you, are you
still involved with the journalistic side of your life

(46:05):
and do you see that heading in adifferent direction or, or are
you satisfied with just with writing a book?
I started to say just writing a book, that's a huge endeavor.
Are you satisfied with the writing in that way?
Yes, I, I thought that I could keep doing both.
I mean, some people can, there'ssome journalists out there are

(46:25):
able to crank out books. I found that all that I only
have a certain amount of energy and it may also be because of my
traumatic brain injury. I, I get, you know, tired more
easily than a lot of people at the end of the day.
So I found that I, I tried to doboth for a while, but I found
that I was using all my energy for the journalism and I didn't

(46:48):
really have much leftover for what I really wanted to write.
And so, for example, this book, I have to, I have to plug my
book, by the way, because here it is.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Because it, it just came out.
It came out less than 48 hours ago.
And it's already the number one best seller on Amazon in Zen
philosophy. So I'm very proud.

(47:09):
I was, I was sort of shocked. It was like, how?
Congratulations. Oh, you've.
Been a wonderful shock that. Is.
But anyway, this book took me 8 years to write because I didn't
just write it all at once, whichis OK, I got, you know, other.
Things took me 10 years to writemy first book.
Yeah, but I really want to I have things that I want to say
things that I want to teach other people that I think I can

(47:32):
do better through books. My journalism side I I am
starting A blog on my website, my website
isleecarlson.lifenotleecarlson.com.I really like that Lee Carlson
dot life. So I will be doing writing
articles, but for myself, for myblog that then will hopefully

(47:52):
get out in the world and I may, you know, eventually collect
them into another book and that sort of thing.
But I do I, I think that my daysas a pure journalist are
probably over and so that I can concentrate on on this side of
writing. What was your highlight of being
a journalist? What were the What was the thing
that really touched your heart the greatest?

(48:21):
I think believe it or not working when I talked about
Newsday before, I had a really good editor there who would let
me do whatever I wanted. And so I would do things like
that article on the, I would do like I did an article on kids.
There was a summer camp, like a,a marine biology summer camp for
kids. And I, I spent weeks there just,

(48:41):
you know, and it was a full, it was a, a full page article in
their Sunday magazine. It was the cover feature.
And I went, you know, they sent a photographer with me for some
of the time getting great pictures of kids and, and I just
loved doing that, of being able to tell people about stories
like that. I started as a business
journalist, which was fulfillingin its own way.

(49:03):
I mean, business is great. And but I just, I got to a point
where I felt like those are the sort of things that I was doing
that I really enjoy doing is more community human interest.
Yeah. So, but I will say I just want I
I was at a Zen retreat once quite a long time ago.
It was a weekend retreat and it was there were about, I don't

(49:27):
know, 30 or 40 people. There was in Florida with a very
good teacher who'd come from California.
And there was this really nice man there and he, you could tell
he felt like a fish out of water.
He was probably fiftyish. And, and everybody else there
were more sort of spiritual seekers like you and I.
And at one point we were having this group discussion and it's

(49:48):
very heartfelt way he said, he said, oh, you know, he said, I
just, I don't know what I'm doing here.
I'm a businessman and I, you guys are all doing this amazing
spiritual stuff and helping other people and community and
I'm just running a business. And the teacher said to him, and
I'll never forget this. The teacher said you are
providing jobs, you are helping people by providing jobs and

(50:10):
giving them, you know, roofs over their heads and food on
their table. And don't ever sell yourself
short because there's nothing wrong with being in business.
And I think, you know, we need to remember that too.
Yeah, it it, you know, and we don't think about that much.
That's as much being spiritual. That doesn't matter if you call
yourself spiritual or you think you're self spiritual when

(50:32):
you're doing that, when you're providing services, employment,
healthcare, you know, all of those kinds of things to other
people. That's a perfect example of
being spiritual as you can get, in my opinion.
Absolutely. But yet we're taught that that's
not, you know, there again, the separation, right?

(50:55):
Oh, no, that's not part of it. Well, yeah, it is.
You know, if everything's connected, then everything's
connected. There's not everything
connected, but oh, the except, right.
It's either all connected or it isn't.
Now, how do you experience that today and being able to nurture

(51:17):
that side of yourself and and with others?
So one of my favorite images because I'm a very visual
person, even though I'm a writer, I'm still very visual.
And I love the image of Indra's jeweled net.
The, you know, that Hindu sense that we're, there are all these
nodes in the universe and we're all jewels and everything is a
jewel, but we're all, you know, woven together like a giant net.

(51:39):
And I just, I think that's very true.
And so you might even know how you're connected or what it's
happening, but you just are. And if you, if you understand
that we're all part of that web,then you don't worry about it.
You know, it's just, it just happens so.
Now, for those who have no idea what we're talking about, right,

(52:03):
how white might we give an example of an experience that
they might have that would equate that understanding?
Oh, let's say I'm trying to think of something from my life
today. So well, for example, the the

(52:28):
example that I gave about my book, I never expected it to be
a number one best seller alreadyafter two days.
And that means to me that there are people that are buying it
and reading it and that they're going to get something out of
people that I never have met, probably never will meet maybe.
And yet the thing that I've beendoing for the last eight years

(52:49):
that I often wondered if it was worth, should I be doing it?
And, you know, a lot of writers have that.
Years of a long time. Yeah, and then, and now it's
out. And then you worry is it going
to find an audience? And now it's finding an
audience. And now it's, you know #1
bestseller. And now here I'm talking with
you. And there are 1.8 million people
hopefully watching this. And you got. 1.8 million views.

(53:12):
1.8 million views on one show. That would be fun.
Well, you never know. We can, we can hope.
And, and so it just, it just happens and it just kind of, and
you just have to keep doing whatyou're doing and, and then who
knows? I, I've had a number of people

(53:32):
say to me, my, my aunt Joanna, who I mentioned before, right?
She's not as well known as Peter, but she was very well
known in her own way. She was one of the first Western
women to to study Buddhism, become a Tibetan Buddhist nun
because she was in the Peace Corps in India in the 60s.
And so she went up to into the mountains to help the refugees

(53:54):
who were streaming out of Tibet because the Chinese have been
made in Tibet. And she was amazed at how happy
these people were here. They were, they're being run out
of their homeland. They're, you know, they're
compatriots are being murdered. Their families are being
upended. And yet they were so happy.
And she was like, how do they, who are these people?
How did they get this? So that led her down the path.
And she only fortunately just, she died back in I think May

(54:16):
this year. But yeah, you know, who knows
what she did? She she went to help refugees
and then her helping refugees ended up studying Buddhism.
And then that ended up teaching Westerners and then ended up,
you know, becoming an eco philosopher and and reaching
people. And I've had a number of people

(54:36):
recently why have said to, oh, you know, she, she was my aunt
and they were like, Oh my God, her, her books changed my life.
Literally her book changed my life.
So I'm hopeful that my book might have some effect with one
person changed one person's life.
Great. Two people.
Yeah, that that's what we, you know, we just hope that one
person will hear us and their life will benefit from it.

(54:59):
And you know a lot of that. So let's dive back in to the
cathartic side of things, right?Because I really think that's as
much about our writing as our desire to share with someone
else. I mean, we go into the attempt
with, I want to share this information.
However, as we're developing it,there's this almost continual

(55:23):
catharsis that takes place. What was it like for you?
So I'm. Just watching you close, I was
like, OK, where do I start? Yeah.
Where do I start? Right, Because along the path, I
mean, this path has been going on now for many years.

(55:45):
And my start with Peter in the late 199899.
And along the way, there were some moments that were so
cathartic, that were just openings that were just where
you end up sobbing and just, youknow, you just are letting go
of, of stuff that you've been carrying for all these years and

(56:06):
you're, and you're connecting with the divine and you are just
talk about a catharsis. It is just if, if people never
experienced it, there's nothing else like it.
It's, it's just it. You can't, as much as you try to
describe, you can't describe it.So there's that.
The other part, the part I'm laughing about, is people always
say to me, oh, it must have beenso cathartic for you writing

(56:28):
these books because my first book was about surviving
traumatic brain injury. And this book is about my years
with Peter Matheson and learningfrom him.
But it covers some very difficult time periods, like
going through my divorce, going through my accident, some losing
my kids for a while. And everybody says, oh, it must

(56:51):
have been so cathartic to writing that.
I have to tell you it's not because to really write a good
memoir, you have to relive it, and reliving it can be really
difficult. Like I did.
I had to relive everything againin order to really like put it
on the page and make sure that Iwas being honest about what was
happening in some exactly. You know that that's there's my
point. It's like having a counselor,

(57:13):
doesn't matter what they say to you.
It's the questions they ask and you listening to yourself in
response because you've got thatobserver that's paying attention
and it's going Nah, Nah, well, OK, yeah, you got that one.
I don't know about this one, right.
And and you're that self honesty, you cannot get away
from it. Yes, the cathartic part, I mean,

(57:36):
in the end, in the end it can becathartic in the end because
you, you re examine who you are and your values and you you say,
OK, yeah, This is why I'm doing this and this is good and this
is all good. The process of getting there
sometimes can be a little difficult, but.
It's excruciatingly fun. Excruciating.
Yes. I I don't.

(57:56):
You love that term. Excruciatingly fun.
Yes indeed, you can see how I'm laughing and enjoying our
conversation, so it's excruciatingly fun.
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
You know, and, and you know, we share those realms.
We, we know what we go through because, you know, it's a
similar process for everyone. The details are different

(58:18):
because we're individuals, but the process is the same.
Yes, no matter where you are or what you know.
And that's the one thing that weknow to be true.
It's just OK. Now where do I place myself in
that data stream so that I can enjoy the benefits of coming out

(58:38):
the other end, feeling more whole and having a more
fulfilling life as a result? And I, and I do want to say
because I'm laughing and joking and we're having a good time,
but there's another side of thiswhich is you have to have a real
seriousness of purpose. Absolutely.
You, you at a certain point there is a sinking in a gravity

(59:01):
of gravitas. There is a a recognition that
what you're that this is important.
Well, it's your life, you betterstake it.
It's your life, but it's also the lives of everybody around
you and it's the lives of It's the life of the planet and it's
the life of it's more than just you.
And and there there needs to be a recognition.

(59:23):
And Pierre was very good at this.
He was, he was very, you know, he was, he had this deep,
gravelly voice and he would there were times where he would
just ground you and, and in seriousness and make sure that
you were not taking what you were doing lightly because this
is not to be taken lightly, thispath.
No, not at all, not at all. And and again, back to planetary

(59:45):
citizens. A true planetary citizens is
connected. I wrote a business plan for
model school based on this philosophy.
I taught high school for a number of years and saw it was
missing as and this is where we're going to go for the with
the comment about us being our age and, you know, going through
several maturation cycles. So we've got basically 5
different relationships that we have that the kids need to be

(01:00:08):
aware of. Body, mind, spirit, planet and
cosmos. And when you get to be our age,
you recognize, you know, we got 5 fingers on each hand.
Well, those relationships, that's what we're, you know, we
don't necessarily have an opposing thumbs because there's
no opposition. There's questions and there's
curiosity. And yet there are these
relationships, well, as we know them, this difference between

(01:00:32):
American and Soviet education and I would imagine Russian is
still the same. But my wife grew up in Soviet
Russia or the USSR and was trained as a piano Pentagon.
Well, in that process, she's still got this robust education.
They assessed what her skill sets were, what her aptitude

(01:00:52):
was, what her proclivities toward life were.
And this was a five years old and she was given a choice of
going into gymnastics or piano based on the assessment that she
had. And obviously she chose piano.
But they did this with pretty much all the kids.

(01:01:13):
We don't do that in America. We put them in school, put them
in a box, test them, teach them,test them, teach them right.
You re rank them and the normalize them.
And it's all about data. It's not about them.
It's a, you know, we need, theseare wonderful human beings that

(01:01:34):
have so many abilities that theyare that they came here to
share. And then we stifle them by
putting them in a box and not give them the opportunity or
support to really be an individual.
And when they are, we either saythey've got ADHD and we put them
on drugs or, you know, behavior problems and we put them on

(01:01:56):
drugs or some such thing, right?And, and kids that are smart,
that recognize that end up beingmischievous and getting in
trouble and then they end up on drugs too.
But so how do we get through this and move to a next level of
being able to recognize the importance of how we treat our

(01:02:19):
children and stop just talking about it?
Again, I come back to awareness.If we can teach adults
awareness, and the way I learnedawareness was through
meditation. But I think, you know, part of
the big problem right now with kids is that we are putting them
in boxes that have nothing to dowith them.
It's not even based on testing or anything.

(01:02:40):
I mean, right now we're so focused on, you know, there's
all these, what are they, STEM schools that have popped up, you
know, because we think that the future kids have to be, you
know, engineers and math people and that, you know, in the tech,
they have to be technocrats, meanwhile.
The blue collar work has workershave disappeared, right?

(01:03:02):
You know there's and we. Instruction here that we don't
have workers for. Right.
And so we are, we are ignoring that aspect of things.
We're ignoring the creative sideof a lot of kids.
We need to be if if we can get adults to be more aware and then
be more aware of children as whothey are.

(01:03:24):
And so, yeah, this kid should bea ballerina.
This kid should be a plumber. This kid should be a, a coder,
you know, a computer coder this good, but but not say, oh,
society needs more computer coders.
Therefore we should make all these kids computer coders.
You know, that's, that's where Ithink we're being a we're

(01:03:45):
falling short of art. I would take away the shooting
on yourself isn't good at all, right.
It's not you should do this or should do that.
It's what do they have the natural passion for right?
This this living breathing beingthat just wants to love and be
loved, right has a genetic code and a spiritual code that work

(01:04:11):
together, that have a built in skill set that just needs to be
developed. Now how do we access that in
ways that query the source and also give us relevant
information so that we can formulate the the assessment and
then help them to be who they can be and not necessarily in

(01:04:35):
the Army? I mean, I was lucky.
I, I, I said before my mother was a yoga teacher.
She was before her time in a lotof ways.
And so she recognized early on because I was a big reader when
I was a kid and I was reading and she recognized that I loved
words and books and she encouraged that.
And thanks to her, you know, andother people, I became a writer.

(01:04:57):
So I, I found who I was. I mean, that's who I was.
And I was encouraged to be that person.
You know, I could have been in another family and they could
have wanted me to be a doctor orsomething, and I would have been
miserable. So I, I just think parents and
this, you know, it's parenting and it's, how do we teach
parents to be more aware of who their kids are at an early age?

(01:05:19):
And also. You got kids raising kids.
That's hard to do. It is hard to do and, but and
let them experiment too, becausenot everybody knows who they are
at an early age. Some people don't figure it out
till much later. So you know, let them try this,
let them try that. Let them.
You know, one thing I've noticed, especially in sports
now is when I was AI was very athletic and I was.
So I tried all these different sports and I had fun with all of

(01:05:41):
them. But nowadays, you know, they
take these kids and if they think they're going to be good
at soccer, that's all they do isstarting at age 6, you know,
they don't get to play and do it.
We need to let kids play and figure out who they are.
We need to let adults play. Yeah, we need to let adults play
too. Absolutely.
We, we get so serious about stuff, you know, have fun, joke

(01:06:03):
and play. If you're not having fun doing
what you're doing, then you're probably not in the right place
or with the right people. Yeah, because you ought to be
happy wherever you are and let and including being challenged
by your work to do and be betterbecause that's all part of it
too, right? That, that's the joy that you

(01:06:24):
have in the learning process, knowing that there's going to be
an outcome that that. And I I bring it back to your
vibrational awareness, you know,being aware of those vibrations
in yourself and knowing when something feels, just feels
right as as as Dorothy. My Peter's right in person.
She's always she was trained as a ballerina.

(01:06:44):
She danced for you want to. Talk.
She clicked her heels. Yeah, right, she probably did as
a ballerina, but she, she, you know, she danced for one of the
big companies in New York 'causeshe was very accomplished.
And she always used to say to me, Lee, the body never lies.
Listen to your body. Listen to those vibrations in
your body. The body never lies.

(01:07:04):
So if we can teach adults and kids to be aware and to, to
listen to themselves and to trust themselves and to, and,
you know, and, and because my, my father's 92 and I was having
an argument with him the other day because he's, he's moving
and he's feeling very freaked out because he's 92 and he's

(01:07:26):
moving and things are moving toofast.
And I said to him, dad, listen to yourself.
Listen to your body. If it's moving too fast, let's
take a few more weeks. Take some time.
Let's what's the rush? You don't need to move right
away. We can take another month,
whatever it takes. Like if you're, if it's making,
if it's stressing you out, it's not feeling good that it's not
right. Let's just chill out a little
bit. Take some time so you know.

(01:07:50):
Absolutely. And therein is the thing you
know, you mentioned the feeling your body, right?
The you're probably aware of this indigenous philosophy, the
three brains, yes, right. Old.
It's probably as old as the betas, right?
First brains your gut, second brains your heart, third brains
your head. And you process in that order

(01:08:13):
instead of the reverse, which iswhat we usually do.
We think stuff and shove it through our body and wonder why
we're deceased. Whereas if you look at science
now, there's more neurosensors in the gut than there are in the
heart. And I believe in there's a
different type of neurosensors in the brain that the sensory
ones, there's like 40 million ofthem or something like that. 40

(01:08:33):
thousand, 40 million something astronomical.
They're there. We know that now.
Well, that makes sense because we've always heard of the
intuition and the gut feeling and all that, you know, and, but
we always second guess ourselves.
We don't follow that first impression, the second brain and
decide, you know, there's the Dallas, is it desirable or

(01:08:55):
undesirable and figure out wherethat is AT and then feed it to
the supercomputer that can make better choices because it has
relevant information instead of the bullshit we fed it.
I always love when modern science.
Discovers something like, you know, that's saying trust your
gut has been around for you knowhow many years, millennia, my

(01:09:18):
grandparents, great grandparentsgreat, you know, and and you
know it's true. I mean their reason that some of
these these sayings last and andand are real trust your gut.
And now suddenly we have the capability of, of actually
inspecting the gut with, you know, new imaging technology and
tests and everything. And now and now scientists are
like, oh, there's millions of like receptors there.

(01:09:41):
Trust your gut. Always been there, right?
This is the whole thing, you know that?
Oh, we're discovering. No, we're not discovering.
It's already been there. It's been there all along.
We're just figuring it out that oh, it's been there all along.
Now that we've got the science proof, then maybe we can back it
up with our own behavior and actually trusting it a bit more

(01:10:03):
rather than having a simple, rather than having faith, right?
Or trust. Now we've got science, we've got
proof, evidence. Now what do we do with it?
How do we practice that evidence?
That's why I mean, I love Zen. Because it's 2500 years old,

(01:10:24):
Buddhism is 2500 years old, Zen's 2000 years old.
And it's ancient wisdom. And to me, the things that have
stood the test of time, meditating, ancient wisdom just
are, are true and they're important.
And I love, you know, and I do love I, I was a science guy.
I was a editor in chief of Science magazine for a while.

(01:10:46):
And so I I love the fact that they're now putting electrodes
on, you know, yogis and testing people's brain waves while they
meditate. And they're going, oh, yeah, we
got that. I'm like, yeah, that we've known
that for 2000 years, but it's OK, you're confirming it.
That's good, right? So, so, you know, what do we do
next? What do we do?
With that is the question, absolutely.
And I think we're at we're at that point where like you and I

(01:11:07):
were talking before, even just, you know, 50 years ago, if
somebody had an opening and wentto their family and said, hey,
I've had this, I've seen the light, I've had all the stuff
they were blocked away. You know, now, now we're we're
moving past that. So now hopefully we can start to
move to what do we do with this knowledge that we have?
And how do we teach parents to be more aware of their children?

(01:11:30):
How do we teach Co workers to bemore aware of their Co workers
and therefore they'll do a better job?
How do we teach, you know, how how do we teach awareness?
How do we teach mindfulness? The very fact that everybody's
talking about mindfulness is a great first step.
I mean, that's a wonderful step.So now we just need to take it
the next step. How do you see that happening?

(01:11:52):
What would you? What would you share to others
to encourage them to take that step and how might they do it?
What's the simple thing that they could do to practice so you
can start? You can start by reading, You
can start by going online and finding, you know, YouTube

(01:12:12):
videos. Then you can go to a yoga studio
that is not only focused on the physical, but it has a teacher
or teachers. They also talk about, you know,
the yogic side of it, the spiritual side of it, the
vibrational side of it. And you just, you know, you find
these moments and how do you find these moments?
OK, You give up watching that extra half hour of TV that you

(01:12:35):
watch every night and you do that instead.
And you maybe seek out a group. I, I haven't, you know, a number
of people that have approached me and said, how do I find a
teacher like you found Peter Matheson?
And it's easier if you're in a big city usually because there
are groups, there are meditationgroups.
You know, you go to yoga studio.Something else would be a flyer
up there saying, you know, meditation group Wednesday

(01:12:57):
nights. I have one friend.
She had a very difficult childhood.
She was abused as a child, sexually abused.
And she now lives in a very rural area and she's looking for
a group to help her and to sit with.
And you know, she's, she's made a lot of progress, but she knows
he's a further. It's hard for her because she's

(01:13:19):
in a rural area. The nearest group to her is a
few miles or a few hours away, but I'm encouraging her to go on
a weekend retreat somewhere. And you know, because she can't,
where virtual groups come in handy.
Or virtual groups. So I just think be open if you
have. Somebody in your life who's Pooh
poohing it or who's keeping you from doing it, Just be gentle

(01:13:43):
with them. They don't know yet.
They're not. Enlightened and it's.
OK, Thank you very much and moveon and have compassion for them
that they're. Not, you know, as open to it as.
You are and just, you know, justtry stuff and and you know, Zen,
like this kind of Zen that I do,I do with Peter is a very it's
not for everybody. It's very difficult.
I mean, long hours of silent meditation and in the beginning

(01:14:04):
your legs are screaming and yourback is and a lot of people
don't like that and they move on.
But oops, sorry, my computer is doing something funnier.
Sorry, it says it's going to turn off my monitor.
I have to. There we go.
OK now I'm back. Yeah, we're we're almost good on

(01:14:25):
time. So yeah, so is trying to say, OK
you. Guys have had enough, but I just
I do think that you have to findwhat works for.
You and whatever that is and everybody's different.
We're all different human beings.
We all look different, we all act different.
We all have different personalities and and use, you
know, have that trust, that vibrational trust your gut.

(01:14:49):
This teacher is right for me. This teacher isn't right for me.
They might be right for somebodyelse, but they're not right for
me. This group is right for me, but
make a comment the video and say, Hey, I'm looking for some
place. Tell us where.
You're at and you know, we'll figure out some way to connect
you. Absolutely.
That's what we do. Yep.
So absolutely yeah on my. Website I I have my phone number

(01:15:10):
and my e-mail on my website and I promise people that I will
respond to them. It might not be right away, I
might be on retreat or whatever,but I, I firmly believe that you
know, anybody that has a question, it's a legitimate
question, reach out and I try tohelp them any way I can.
So super. And that information will be
below in the description of thisvideo too.

(01:15:31):
You don't have everything there,Lee.
This has just been a phenomenal conversation.
It it whizzed by. And I thank you for your time,
your insight, your wisdom, and your genuineness of being a good
human. Thank you.
And you too, Zen, thank you so much.
And namaste and Angela Katz, andthanks for sticking with us.

(01:15:53):
For this episode of One World ina New World, remember subscribe,
like, share, make a comment and by all means stop by Planetary
citizens.net and pick up your free copy of Planetary Citizens
Awakening the Heart of Humanity.I guarantee you it will make a
difference in your life. Thanks so much again and for Lee

(01:16:17):
Carroll and myself or Lee Carlson almost Topa for the
Carlson and myself. Have a great time and I will see
you next time.