January 15, 2025 • 60 mins
Join us for this lively and educational conversation comparing our modern world problems to an indivual with addictions. So many related topics come up. Aniexity, shame, denial, freedom, narciism, healing, and recovery.
(challenge)
Can you identify the 12 steps of recovery, or some of them, hidden in these conversations?
Kraig Smyth/Wellness Advocate & Educator
"The Business Of Being Human"
www.MyBizGuide.com
For more information on names or materials referenced, or to contact Ishe- please email. iabel.hhc@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, this is a she able today Ihave with me Craig Smith.
That's Craig with a K and Smithwith a wife.
Who has a series of his ownpodcasts, and we got to chatting
and realized that we have verysimilar views on a lot of
things, important things that wewant people to hear about.
So we are recording thisconversation for you and I hope
(00:23):
you enjoy it as much as I'veenjoyed my other chats with
Craig.
Welcome Craig.
Hey, how are you doing?
Good, things are good.
So some of where we left offwith some of the other
conversations was comparing ourculture and what's happened in
our society.
As an analogy to an addict, andthere's a lot of parallels
(00:45):
there.
Yeah.
Do you want to jump in withyeah.
And, you know, I think this is along conversation.
And, you know, You know, ifpeople think about how far
behind the curve our species isright now, and specifically I'm
always talking about relation toenvironmental impact because
that's where we live.
(01:05):
And if we start talking aboutfoundation, it's pretty tough to
ignore the habitat that we'rein.
And from that aspect, I have abackground in fisheries,
forestry, wildlife, naturalsciences.
And so I point to a lot of that.
And one of the main theories tounderstanding wildlife biology
is that you don't understand anorganism unless you understand
(01:29):
the habitat or the environmentthat it evolved in.
So we know a lot about ourmental habitat and our, our
close in habitat with the humansthat we're in, but I think a lot
gets lost to just our connectionwith the natural habitat.
Would would you say that thehave some of the habitat you're
(01:51):
talking about that influencesour society today and some of
the problems is how colonialismwas presented and how we
perpetuated a lot of that.
Yeah, because I think thatcolonialism is a construct of a
disconnected mentality.
So here's how I think it goes,is that first there's a
(02:15):
disconnect from our own personaldevelopment, just straight from
the, straight from the get go.
And you know, we've all gotchallenges, we've all got
naturally occurring challenges.
insecurities, frailties, if youwill.
Of course, if we understandthat, the challenges is what
grow us.
So to not embrace ourchallenges, to not interact with
(02:37):
our own inner ecosystem, thedirect reflection is disconnect
from the external ecosystem.
And then we've got a pseudosystem, i.
e.
colonialism, that's superimposedin the natural ecosystem.
Did we follow all that?
(02:58):
Say that last part one moretime, okay?
Yeah, colonialism is a pseudosystem.
It's not functioning.
I like to use pseudo becauseit's not a functioning system.
It's a hodgepodge of ideologiesthrown together that are they're
psychotic.
It's delusion that we can have asystem inside a system and not
(03:19):
recognize the system that we'rein.
Again, the natural environment,the natural planet.
I understood better that time.
So you're saying that issuperimposed.
And the reality of it is thatthe construct of colonialism and
our modern society is only overour natural environment, which
(03:40):
is the earth.
And that's what we need to be.
Connected to and using as ourhabitat as we look at this,
correct?
That needs to be our baselinebecause that's our biggest
foundation.
You know, when we start talkingit out, it all gets pretty silly
and pretty simple, pretty quickbecause how do we ignore where
we live?
(04:01):
Yeah, we can, but yeah, it'sobviously it's a D.
We're talking some, some realdeep mental issues that are
perpetuated in colonial society.
And if we look at what we'retalking about the addiction,
there's so many reflections ofaddiction in colonialism,
capitalism.
And I'll add racism, misogyny,all those things.
(04:26):
And of course, narcissism, whichis a lot about what I, what I
speak on.
One of the key things withaddiction is a denial.
And that's a key thing incolonialism, what we just talked
about, the denial that you're ina certain situation and the
(04:47):
things you are doing areadversely affecting that
situation.
So colonialism, here's thesystem that's adversely
affecting the system that it'sin.
So it's a cutoff.
It's a way of being cut off fromourselves that the system is cut
off from realizing the harm thatit does, and it's perpetuated in
(05:08):
the individual.
So could, can you also definehow you're using the term
narcissism for us today and howit relates to some of these
topics and not necessarilynarcissistic personality
disorder?
Well, the way I use it.
And I don't know what our timeframe is here.
Yeah, we've got a little bit oftime.
(05:29):
The way I use it is that it's,first of all, it's a misnomer.
It's not truly in line with theconcept of narcissus and so self
absorbed.
That's just the reflection and,and the projection that we'll
see that we're seeing in theindividual.
Because at the core, it's notengaging with self.
(05:50):
And the first thing I mentionedto people is that think about
conversations with a narcissism.
The reason you can't talk to anarcissist is because they're
not talking to themselves.
They don't have that connection,that relationship with
themselves.
And so they're, like I said,disconnect from self disconnect
from planet, all these factorsof disconnect and more to speak
(06:16):
to the.
relationship with a narcissistthat our own emotional habitat
is sacrificed in relationshipwith narcissism.
That's like one of the hallmarksof narcissism.
If you think about how ourenergy feels.
So, so if we zoom out for just asecond and talk about the, the
(06:36):
colonialism and, our modernsociety as well, and how there
are things that happen In thissociety that cut us off from
ourselves, and how being cut offfrom ourselves, like, denial is
one aspect of that.
It's not the whole picture, butit's one aspect of that.
And how being cut off fromourselves is what creates this
(06:57):
very self centered point of viewand this me, me, me.
And I, I feel like consumerismis tied into that too.
And, and other, Things that ourculture perpetuates that are
just take us further and furtheraway from ourselves further and
further away from the earth andand further away from where we
(07:18):
need to be in that naturalenvironment is, is all of that
in line with what you're saying.
Yeah, 100 percent and that'saddiction it's filling the void.
And the first void is that lackof connection with self.
And if we think about.
are our wants.
And if we think about value,what do we really value?
Well, what we really value is inour peace.
(07:39):
That's like the biggest value isis peace, our wellness, our well
being right.
The wellness economy.
We've probably heard some ofthose kind of things.
So when we talk about what realvalue is, colonialism,
capitalism completely disregardsthe biggest values that Our
species that our humans have,and that's our individual
(08:01):
wellness.
So that lack of individualwellness, and you only get that
from growing, from relating toyourself and going through that
objective thought process.
Hey, you know, self really, howdo I feel?
And on down the line.
So all the materialism and andcapitalism is focusing on things
(08:21):
other than what needs to bethere and that's back to the
addiction is classic examples ofaddiction is filling those
voids.
So one of the things that occursto me when you're talking about
that are conscious choices likewe go about life being
generally.
unconscious because we are insuch a hurry in this culture,
(08:41):
like, like people can step rightout of the shower, but not
explicitly remember washingtheir hair.
They know they did it, but theydon't remember doing it because
they're not present whilethey're doing it.
So when we talk about, you know,making choices as a consumer,
when we talk about makingchoices and how we speak to each
other and how we on purposeconduct, you know, relationships
(09:05):
and business.
We can't do any of that unlesswe're conscious and we can't
really be conscious unless we'represent.
And I feel like that's part ofthis conversation, too.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And if we think about theconstruct, again, this is how we
feel, right, our emotion,emotional intelligence.
(09:25):
And I'm going to try and stepout just a second here, because
our brain, our cognitive thoughtprocess is processing our
feelings from our synapses inour brain.
It's processing, energeticreflections, energetic imprint.
So emotion is what our is reallywhat we are.
We are emotion.
And then our brains processingthat it's always processing how
(09:48):
we feel.
And it's how we feel about, youknow, infinite grayscale things
there.
So yeah, if we, if we feelabout, if we think about how we
feel, In relationship withindividual narcissist.
And this is why I like to usethis example.
And if we think about what it'slike to be in contemporary
society, it's that same rush,rush, rush, go, go, go.
(10:13):
Our consciousness goes andthat's of course, that lack of
emotional wellness.
It's You know, we're just herdedalong too quickly to really
think about things to reallysay, I, you know what, I don't
really agree.
I don't really want to go thisway.
And of course, we've all been,you know, born into, you know,
colonial systems who are so fardown the line.
(10:37):
And everyone's got that tunnelvision.
And really that domestication.
And I think there's a few otherwords that can go in there.
There's a lot of pressures thatgo along with that, that take
away from us being able to beour authentic selves.
It's not just a lack ofconsciousness.
It's pressure around us fromother people who have bought
(10:57):
into these myths and falsesystems.
And the thing that comes frontand center to me is just
consumerism.
And this whole, you know, ideaof.
How much we need to buy how manythings that we things that we
need like I saw this beautifulquote and I think I reposted on
Facebook and it said, things areto be used, and people are to be
(11:18):
loved, but we are using peopleand loving things.
And that's kind of the root Ithink that's exactly what's
going on., when you say peoplehave bought into it, well, sort
of, but how conscious arepeople, you know, from the
beginning, how conscious is theaverage individual, because
(11:40):
there's been generations andgenerations in this pseudo
system.
So, I think that if anyone wouldsit down and take stock
consciously of, oh, disconnectfrom the planet, disconnect from
wellness, disconnect from this,disconnect from that.
Okay, great.
But there we are back toaddiction to say, just don't do
it and just quit is a wholenother ball of wax that takes
(12:02):
real intention.
That takes taking these thingsthat well, what's it doing?
It's getting us back toourselves and it reintroducing
us to ourselves.
So, See, here's a natural cyclethat's occurring, that's pushing
us back to our introspect andback to our autonomy and back to
creating ourselves asindividuals and to say, you know
(12:23):
what, this is not right, or thisis not what I want to be, this
is not what I want to go alongwith, because I think most
people like you say, that havebought into it, what level of
consciousness is that?
I would Say that there isactually no consciousness there
because a conscious person won'thave bought into it in the first
(12:43):
place.
So the layers.
of unconscious behavior, thelayer, the level of addiction
that people are in, right?
Does the addict choose to be anaddict?
No, but they're perpetuating thesame behaviors, the same going
through the same negativecycles.
And of course, keep doing thesame thing, keep getting the
(13:04):
same thing, except for itcompounds and gets worse.
So on an individual level, theaddict is behaving the way all
of us behave On a socio 100percent sociological Yeah, so
we're on the logical level.
Yeah, yes.
I'd like to insert this example.
I met this man at this workshopprobably 20 years ago.
(13:28):
And he struck and inspired mebecause this man lived off 3,
000 a year and he showed up tothis workshop in homespun fabric
homemade pants that somebody hadhand sewn for him.
So he bought all of his clothesat thrift stores.
He got a lot of food, which waswhen you could still, you know,
(13:50):
get food outside of restaurantgarbage cans.
It was still perfectly good andhe would bring it home.
And that was where a lot of hisfood came from or he foraged.
And I mean, granted he did, hedid end up meeting a woman at
the workshop and moving in withher and she had a good job and
she ended up supporting them.
But because he lived on threethousand dollars a month and he
(14:12):
likes to talk about it and heliked to say I'm doing this
consciously.
You know, it can be done like hewas an example, and he inspired
a lot of people by being thatexample.
Sure.
It took a lot of a lot ofgumption.
It took a lot of consciousdecision making, but that's what
it takes people like that andbeing willing to make
adjustments in our lives.
(14:33):
Maybe not to that extent rightaway, but being able to say, do
I do what is the effect on theplanet if I buy this?
Versus that.
If you, you know, use sand, clayand straw to build something
rather than concrete.
What is the effect of that?
And until everybody starts torealizing some of these
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conscious decisions and makingdecisions for the planet, we're
going to be stuck here, youknow, and if we don't make this
decision for ourselves, it willend up being made for us
eventually.
So we may as well get started.
Yeah.
And also the thing is, is thatit, you know, the first steps is
a change of mentality.
Yes, that's and that's, youknow, addiction.
(15:18):
I think that there's lessonsgoing on through everything.
And I, I have another talkcalled lessons from addiction.
And part of that is it startswith our own mental ecosystem
again, embracing our own mentalecosystem and starting to make
those changes and starting toreally.
Put some good things in ourmental ecosystem.
(15:40):
If we talk about, you know, theanalogy of our of our mind being
a garden, start planting somegood seeds there, plant some
seeds of change and some thingsthat hate.
Look, this is the reality.
is crazy.
The reality that our species isdestroying the planet is crazy,
but that's something that needsto be, understood.
(16:00):
Like, that's a fact.
When people try to neglect thosebig facts, oh, back to addiction
again.
You know, the parallels toaddiction is that it's right in
front of you.
It's a glaring error.
You know, I'd like to say, youknow, not addressing the
elephant in a room just gets astepped on and shit on.
Right?
So, and when you talk aboutaddiction, you have you have
(16:22):
some personal experience withcoming out of this.
And so maybe, maybe you canspeak a little bit to what your
experience was in being able tomake those shifts for yourself
and light bulbs that must havestarted going off.
You know, my own addiction?
That's a good question.
(16:43):
I'm not sure I've actually everbeen asked, asked it that way.
And feel free to redirect me ifyou, if you want to, but to help
other people understand, I thinkthat addiction, so many people
have been through it and I canexplain it to someone who thinks
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they haven't been through it andit's as simple as this and it,
and I say, solve your problemswithout written law, printed
currency, or clock time.
So most people, if I had enoughmoney, or if we make a law, if I
had enough time, Solve yourproblems without that.
(17:25):
And then that'll show you whataddiction is, because that's
where people are going to keepwanting to go back to.
So addiction, understanding the,what the what's going on in our
mental habitat, from a feelstandpoint, what's it like, what
does it feel to us?
Not what science says that, Oh,this is going on this part of
the brain.
(17:45):
That really doesn't help us.
How does it feel?
Cause at the end of the day, wehave to go by feel and which
gets us back to how people liveforever.
understanding that anxiousnessand that that uncomfortableness
and to be able to sit with thatand here's the meditation part
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and push it out and keep it atarm's length and not just keep
going forward doing the samething.
So that's a key part inestablishing and then when we're
working with that mentalecosystem with that mental
habitat saying yes this is wrongI don't agree with this this is
wrong I don't agree with thisand really A big part of that I
(18:28):
went through just when I wasyoung, and I think everybody
goes through it.
And you know what?
I don't really agree with, youknow, this part of what my
parents have been telling me orwhat society is doing and
getting our own individuality,getting our autonomy, because
we're going to need all of thatto face this biggest challenge,
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which, of course, is ourself andourselves.
grow through these habits.
They're just negative habits atthe, at the core of it.
And yeah, in contemporarysociety, we're used to saying
addiction in conjunction withphysical substance.
But I think that's just the,that's just so we can see it
(19:09):
easily.
But the core is what's going onfirst, right?
Because there's, whether it's aphysical substance or an
ideology, And those are thedifficult ones, because yeah,
there's not a physical substanceattached.
Just like, you know, alcohol'seasier to get addicted to
because there's not a stigma,but if there's no physical
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substance, how do we say, well,this is just us having to
understand our, our thoughtprocess, our mental habitat,
like actually understand it onan individual level.
And that's, that's the way out.
Because once we understand, thenthese things will.
Become no longer acceptable inour growth cycle.
(19:52):
Yeah, I, I agree some work to doat the core.
There's some work to do asindividuals and everybody starts
looking for outside things todo.
What can we do outside?
Oh, there's, there's the addictagain, saying everything around
me, I want to move everythingaround me and there's
colonialism again.
How can I just adjust this to,to suit my needs?
(20:13):
And there's ego, right?
Right.
And I say ego is want withoutcontext.
What do I want?
But we have to have the contextof our relation to everything.
How, what do I want and what,what do I want?
And then put that through ourcognitive thought process.
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How does it affect the peoplenext to me, the other organisms
next to me, my future the planetas a whole, you know, am I
encroaching on these things?
If so, then how can I achievethis without encroaching?
And I think that is.
A huge part of our growth andunderstanding that when we're
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actually aligned with theconcept of sustainability and
reciprocal relationships witheverything around us, that's an
alignment tool.
That whole concept ofreciprocity is an alignment
tool.
If we can't do what we want todo with fair trade, then we
don't do it.
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But when we're on that path, we,we grow and who knows our wants.
That's great to have wants tohave goals and everything.
But if we pay attention to our,to our real path, to say it that
way, what the universe iswanting us to do that's where
our lessons come.
And that's where we really,that's where we really grow and
grow into ourselves.
Because we, there areparameters, there's parameters
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within everything, everything ithas in, in natural science and
understanding habitats andenvironments, we have carrying
capacity.
Basically, everything's got acarrying capacity and Oh,
understanding our, our externalenvironment, huge understanding
to our internal environments.
(21:59):
What's our physical, mental,emotional, spiritual carrying
capacity.
How much it can hold?
How many?
How many trout can 100 yardsection of stream hold?
And it depends on the stream,and it depends on the trout, and
it depends on all these things.
But the core is that it's notinfinite.
And so colonialism isdisconnected from this
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foundational understanding ofthe planet that we live on and
carrying capacity.
And what's carrying capacity ofour emotional ecosystems?
Yeah.
That's getting walked all over.
And that's, that's part, that'sthe part of the, the previous
conversation that I wasinterested in.
I remember what it was now.
(22:41):
It was about like an addictioncounselor will most addiction
counselors, I believe these dayswe'll talk about the individual
addict being in there, what theycall primitive brain or the
place in our brain that'sresponsible for fight, flight,
or freeze.
And.
that once you're there, whetherit's the idea of pulling the
(23:04):
handle on a slot machine, oryou've taken a drink, if you're
an addict or done some drugs,whether there's a substance
involved or not, even somebodyaddicted to shopping and
ordering stuff on Amazon,supposedly they will be thrown
into their brain where a lot ofthe reasoning gets shut off from
the frontal lobe.
At least this is what is said,right?
(23:25):
And that's responsible.
But when I said this to you theother night, you came back at me
with a with a challenge that Ireally appreciated.
And I began to realize that youwere right, because just from my
own experiences, I know thereare things that I should be in
fight, flight or freeze.
But you know what, I still haverational thinking it, I'm not
(23:45):
going to going to pretend to bea brain expert, because I
certainly am not.
But it makes sense to me thatthis must vary greatly with all
individuals.
And when I think aboutchallenging the thoughts,
challenging what the scientistssay and realizing it from a
(24:05):
different perspective, it makesmore possible.
Yeah.
And you know, you say you're notan expert, but you have a brain.
We all have a brain.
And this is what I'm saying iswe need to know our brains.
It doesn't do us any good for tosay, Oh, science says that this
is the part of my brain that'sthis flight fright or freeze
(24:27):
thing.
You know, we can't hold up aroad map as we're driving.
It's like that.
That's interesting that sciencesays that it's this part.
But, but if our brains attachedto our emotion, it's Our, our
motion and everything attachedto energy and all around us.
If we think of our brain as aconnection to everything else
(24:48):
around us also same with ourinstincts.
So to say that our brain is justthis one part separate from
everything else.
Well, that's not in line withunderstanding that all our
ecosystems are connected andinterconnectivity.
So what, again, what are wefeeling?
We need to know how we need toknow how we work as individuals,
(25:09):
not what you know, triple peerreviewed study says that's not
really helping us.
It's really not doing anythingfor us.
So there's that.
And You know, that thing yousaid about the psychology, and I
have a lot to bash oncontemporary psychology because
they're looking at the organismin the moment, not the
(25:32):
evolutionary trajectory of theorganism.
The organism is sick.
The human species is sick as ofthe past.
You know, I'm just going to makekind of a blanket, maybe, maybe
10, 000 years.
Total and I mean sick is inunsustainable as in these
unsustainable things reallystarted getting out of hand.
(25:52):
And that's a whole notherconversation.
But let's just use that.
So when people say Oh, you know,tribalism and this primitive
brain.
Well, those brains werefunctioning and the people in
those cultures were, veryconscious of their thought
process and things needed towork.
(26:12):
And they were in life and deathsituations all the time.
So I would submit.
That the, that our ancestors,10, 000 years back to, you know,
science is going to say homosapien three, 300, 000 years, a
homeless species, 3 millionyears, all those people were
(26:36):
smarter than we are.
They weren't killing theirenvironment.
They had to know so much abouttheir environment and actually
they had to know about eachother.
And if you look at being insmaller groups, we know more
about the individuals and wherethe individuals fit.
So people say tribalism and Isay, no, I know what you're
(27:00):
trying to say.
That's colonialism.
Is that example of.
That example of hyper warringand racism and that sort of
thing is more perpetuated incolonialism.
So, and that is colonialism toshift and it's narcissism and
it's addiction to shift theblame.
(27:20):
It's not really.
Oh, it's not me in classicaddiction.
It's, it's everything else.
Classic narcissism.
It's everything else.
And colonialism does the samething.
Oh, we're Americans and allthese other people are bad and
just perpetuating this falsenarrative.
That's where all those things.
And a lot of, and a lot of thatboils down to the individual
(27:42):
over what's good for thecollective.
And, you know, I've been sayingseriously since I was in the
sixth grade that the problemwith this country is that we
have too much individualism andthat in the, in the end that
can't be a good thing because itdoes, it perpetuates this, this
self centeredness and then, andthis narcissism that other,
(28:04):
other cultures that havesurvived a lot longer don't.
don't have that.
You said something else theother night that I'm interested
in that relates to this a littlebit.
You said that people withaddictions are living closer to
the truth than the rest of us inthe culture.
At least that's what Iunderstood you to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can you talk about that a littlebit?
Yeah, I can.
Let me just step one step backthough and say that That this
(28:28):
notion of individual,individuality of hyper
individuality, that's a falsenarrative because the
individual, the individual can'tbe healthy if the collective's
not healthy.
So healthy individuals makes ahealthy collective and vice
versa.
And those things work off eachother.
So the individual's healthy whenthey understand their purpose.
(28:50):
in the collective.
That false narrative it's not somuch about autonomy.
It's about denial.
It's so that the individual cansay, Oh, well, I'm an
individual.
I get to make my choices anddisregarding everything else is
what's going on there.
So it's that scapegoatnarrative.
(29:13):
And it's just Wrapped up in abad marketing package, you know,
it says freedom, but itcommitted genocide on real free
people, enslaved other peoplemisogyny and how do you mandate
freedom with laws?
All the laws say what not to do.
Well, that's, those aren'treflections of freedom at all.
(29:36):
So it's just, I mean, anyone cansay it.
It's just bad marketing.
It's like, here's the rapper.
Right.
I mean, I've heard it said themore laws you have, the more
rules you have, the more rulebreakers you have, and that that
just perpetuates itself and it'snot, it's not the answer what,
what does occur to me, I did askyou a question about Let's go
(29:58):
back to the question that Ididn't ask you and that was the
thing about addicts living closeto do the truth.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because addicts, you know, we'respeaking generalities, right?
Right.
We're speaking in generalities.
We're speaking aboutdemographics, the overall
(30:20):
demographic of the stereotypicalstreet addict to use these broad
strokes and situation is,disenfranchised from society.
They know society is not workingfor them.
They are not involved withsociety.
They are not bought into thesystem.
And for wellness.
(30:42):
We have to disengage from, fromthose delusions, from these
delusions of freedom.
I think when people say, youknow, America or Russia or
whatever, they're aligning witha colonial government that's
not, that's not encouragingwellness in the human
population.
They're just not.
All those, all thosegovernments, all the big
(31:04):
colonial governments are therebecause they conquered and
killed.
And that is not a nurturinggrowth mentality.
So, so there's a start of allthat.
It's not, you know, is anexample of some of that.
There's a, there's a man that Iknew in high school that had
some trouble, ended up becomingwhat he describes as a tramp.
And he rode the trains aroundfor 17 years, drinking wine out
(31:28):
of brown paper bags andwhatever, and had this.
Well, we, his sister was my bestfriend.
So we ended up catching up yearslater.
And I said like, how, how didyou live like that?
How, how was that?
And he, what he said, he said,do you pay house insurance, home
insurance, and car insurance?
And I said, yeah, he said, thinkabout for a minute, how much
(31:49):
you've paid in the last 20 yearsand have you ever used it?
Is it now?
No, tell me who's, who's notliving right.
You know, and as an example ofthe constructs that you're
talking about, like there arepeople on the street that are
very conscious of what they'redoing and they don't want to be
part of the system.
(32:09):
Yeah.
And they don't want to be forcedinto, they don't want to be
forced into the system.
Well, nothing does.
Nothing wants to be caged.
No biological organism worksgood in captivity, but that's
all colonialism is.
It's captivity.
And we're all, you know, circus,we're all part of the circus act
(32:29):
and the governments are set upin the pseudo system with print
currency that we justmanufacture that we just
manufacture.
So the whole thing is the wholething's bunk, the whole thing's
bunk.
And that's why and there's alsosome nuances too, is that, you
know, using drugs, it makes thatveil really thin, you know,
(32:52):
there's not a lot, there's not alot of space.
For there's a lot, there's lotsof denial, but there's not a lot
of space for, for lies anddeceit in the addict.
If that makes sense, it mightsound like a contradiction, but
on the big picture spectrum,we're just because the people
are so raw and their feelingsare so raw, you're talking about
(33:14):
loss of inhibition.
Well, there's a loss ofinhibition.
I think it's just that our, ourconsciousness.
When we're.
you know, abusing substancesdoesn't have the carrying
capacity to hold all the BS.
And I think that there's a thingthere.
(33:34):
And I think that also with a lotof these substances, it gets rid
of the BS.
I mean, that's some of theclassic and it can be a
substance.
It can be you know, a thrillseeking rock climbing.
I mean, it can be it could be alot of Strenuous activity
running when the organism isdoing something that needs focus
(33:56):
on survival, all the existentialthings and contemporary life get
kicked out.
And.
There's lots of examples of thiswhere people say that the worst
thing that happened to him wasalso the best thing that
happened to him because when thehuman gets into a challenge of
life or death, and I'll sayphysical, mental, emotional,
(34:17):
spiritual, our core essencekicks out all the light bills
and the car payments.
And the windows that needwashing and toilet handle that
needs fixing and the boyfriendand the husband and the kids and
all this and it's just insurvival mode and our core
essence remembers what it's likein survival mode and says, Oh
(34:38):
man, there is like too much.
existential stuff in my life.
So people get this freeingeffect and they say, yes, they
say, Oh, now I see what reallymatters.
And they get this, they get aclarity.
Mostly you'll see about it forpeople that have gone through
extreme physical.
Challenges, you know, like theyhad everything.
They had a great, they had onthe, on the outside, it looks
(35:00):
like they had a great life.
They were making money.
Then they got in a car crash,lost it all, had to learn to
talk again.
And then that was the best thingthat happened to him because it
gave them a reset back to that'sour primal brain.
Right.
Okay.
That makes sense to me now thata lot of what's the same is
you're in survival mode and thatyou come in and out of that and
(35:22):
being in that you're livingcloser to the truth and the way
humans are meant to live in thisenvironment on the earth, which
allows the non essential thingsto be pushed out.
And even though there may be anan element of self centeredness
and focus on the next, you know,the next more, everything else
(35:45):
falls away so that there is apurity and an authenticity that
we don't have running aroundbusy in our culture.
Yeah.
And to say self centered versusgrowing the individual, again,
growing the individual grows thecollective.
So there's a natural ebb andflow.
That we're focused on internal,then we're focused on
collective.
I need to grow myself in orderto give back to the collective.
(36:08):
That's just how it works, right?
Pretty, pretty basic.
There was another, oh geez, youjust said something else too.
But just another false narrativein, in contemporary, in
contemporary society.
But There's a bunch of them.
So anyway, but yeah, so growingthe individual grows the
collective, but the individualhas got to be growing, not just
(36:28):
doing, not just chasingegocentric pursuits.
So there's, there's alignment,there's things, you know, we
have to understand about our,about how we actually function
as humans.
What are some of the things thatyou think people can do to make
shifts?
What are some of the choices?
that we could make in our dailylives that can make a
(36:50):
difference.
And what do you think some ofthe ways, but let me start with
that, because then the nextquestion is about businesses,
which I know you're going tohave a lot to say about.
It's not a, short conversation.
It's going to take some work.
Here's more lessons fromaddiction is like people need to
buckle down and, and heal.
And the first part of that is inthe mental habitat and work on
(37:15):
the mental habitat and get clearabout, get clear about some
things because our physicalactions, people want to say, Oh,
what can I do?
This, this, this, and aphysical, but all the physical
things, all the physical.
Problems in contemporary societyare symptoms of a sick mental,
(37:36):
emotional, spiritual habitat.
So it really is when we grow ourmental, emotional, spiritual
habitat, the physical is goingto follow.
So we will act.
better.
We will make better choices ifwe're conscious, if we keep our
consciousness intact.
And so that means all the, allthe little things don't take in
(38:01):
the false narratives, right?
Quit doing the drugs.
It still gets back to that.
Quit doing, quit taking in thefalse narratives.
And I'll say it.
And I say this from a point ofwhat I like to think is just
plain intellect as a species.
And like, Don't call yourselfAmerican.
(38:23):
It's just a, it's just afabricated concept of
colonialism.
You don't need these labels.
So disengage from these labels.
And if you feel like you'restuck on that label, ask
yourself, why, why do you needthat label?
Let's, let's be clear aboutthis.
We're human.
Let's be a species.
We're a species.
(38:44):
Be a species.
And if you're not aligned morewith being a species than you
are American, then that's acognitive disorder that you need
to sort out.
First, we're a species and we'reall on the same planet.
Are there subspecies?
Yeah, sure.
But let's look at ourself likethat instead of perpetuating all
(39:04):
these things.
Oh, I'm from, you know, Idaho.
I'm American from Idaho.
Idaho's that's just the made up.
That's just the made up.
Overlay and all the and all thegovernment and laws people lived
without these things.
People lived without jailsforever and they were better at
nurturing and they were alsobetter at boundaries that
(39:27):
included if someone was a realshithead, you're done.
And, you know, that might seemstark to some people, but that's
the natural, that's naturalchallenge of life or death.
Not all organisms make it.
And we need to know more abouthow organisms live on this
planet, not just humans, but howlife lives on this planet.
(39:51):
And then, because we're on theplanet, then we follow suit.
We're not above The natural lawsand natural alignment tools that
this planet has for allorganisms.
I know you'll know who said thisquote.
It's the earth does not belongto us, but we belong to the
earth.
It's been said a lot I can'tremember exactly because when
it's good, you have to repeatit.
(40:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So true.
And it's what you're talkingabout, right?
Like identifying with we belongto the earth.
And that's, that's point one.
And the organism, what's ourrelationship to other life on
this planet?
You know, we, we get stuck inthe human to human and that's
(40:34):
right.
The humans have the challenge.
That's where the challenge is.
It's easy to understand that,but also we breathe air.
So we've got the trees we'restanding on the ground.
So we've got literally soil, weeat plants and animals.
So we've got those, we've gotall these other relationships.
that we have before the nexthuman.
And how's our relationship withall those things?
(40:57):
So at the core, this isrelationship building with
external is relationshipbuilding with our internal.
And I like to think of it ascross training.
So grow these relationships anddiversity too, because people
get stuck in the relationship toother people.
And not themselves and not otherorganisms.
(41:18):
Right, we all evolved withrelationships with everything
else because we had to know howeverything else functioned in
order for us to get along.
And we still do.
And I, you probably have someother podcasts on that as I do
at the Horse Human ConnectionMatrix podcast on being in right
(41:38):
relationship talks about how weare needing to be in right
relationship with plants, withanimals, with our food, and with
each other.
Yeah.
Science will prove that if it,if it gets a chance, but the
thing is that science can proveeverything at once.
That's not the problem.
The problem is people.
People being able to take thatin, because here's the
(42:00):
narcissism part, is that ifsomeone agrees with one part of
a fact, That mirror is going toshow up.
They're going to have to look atthemselves for truth also.
So that's where we get this.
We get this thing about, well,what's truth and alternative
facts and all this kind ofstuff.
When, well, people don't, peopledon't have that, that
(42:22):
instinctual knowing people don'thave, people don't know
themselves, so it's easy to say,Oh, well, what do we, we don't
know anything at all.
And that's getting truer andtruer because.
It's really, it's an affront toour objective thought process,
and our intelligence is what'sgoing on now.
I think when we talk aboutobjective thought process, one
(42:45):
of the things that comes to mymind, and it's a practice that
I'm not 100 percent at, but Itry, and if I slow down enough,
and have some meditation in mylife of one kind or another.
As the thoughts come in, I canask, is that true?
With every thought, like I givethis example a lot, like the
(43:05):
idea that you're not supposed towalk behind a horse because
you'll get kicked.
Is that true?
Well, no, there's a lot ofreasons.
It's not.
It's not.
An absolute truth.
And if we keep asking ourselvesthese questions about how we do
business, about how we interactwith each other, about how we
may do things that are not inright relationship with the
(43:27):
earth, that people perpetuate,and it goes back to that, that
pressure that other people whoare unconscious are putting on
us, you know, and And thatbusinesses put on us and that
consumerism puts on us.
So I'd like to circle back alittle bit.
If you think we have time andtouch on on businesses like when
(43:48):
you talk about the business ofbeing human and how we might
enact some change on business,or maybe that's such a broad
topic.
We should save it for anothertime.
I don't know.
Doesn't matter to me.
I would say I'll, I'll, I'lltake a step back and then, yeah,
we can do a quick thing aboutthe business of human being
human.
Cause that's kind of a plug forme anyways.
But you know, is there, youknow, there's no, there's no
(44:13):
definitive right way to doanything.
It's all.
And then here we go.
We need to hold diversity in ourminds.
We need to, we need to havebalance in our minds and
objective is, you know, underthe circumstance, under the
circumstance too, You might notwant to walk behind certain
horse, a certain horse, and youmight need to walk behind
(44:34):
another certain horse.
That's a variable.
And so that scarcity mindset'slooking for definitive, and
there's really no definitive.
It's all, it's all, this iswhere we need to hold these
understandings and beaccountable.
Oh, what's it doing?
It's keeping us conscious in thepresent.
What are the variables in thepresent?
And that's objective thoughtprocessing.
And, and that's going to be, wedon't know.
(44:58):
But that's, that's the presentand that's our instinct and
that's understanding thesethings.
So we have a good diversity ofaspects to call upon when we're
in a situation.
A bear, a bear is charging inthe woods.
Do I stand my ground or do Iplay dead?
You know, there's a lot ofvariables to know.
(45:19):
So that understanding and whatyou are asking again is what
people can do is checkourselves, you know, get like
emotional.
We are emotion.
How does your emotion resonatewhen you're looking for answers?
The first thing is don't lookfor a quick fix.
And there's addiction looking,looking for a quick solution.
(45:40):
There's not just understand ifyou're, if you're wanting to
grow, are you wanting to grow?
Are you wanting to get out ofgrowing?
Cause if you're wanting to grow,you're not looking for a
definitive.
If you're looking forunderstanding, you're not
looking for a definitive.
We're we're gathering, we'regathering understanding and we
can't get anxious about that.
(46:02):
And this is a good part where itsays, you know, everything's not
stuffed inside our brain, likeit's only a, you know, 12 gig
hard drive.
We've got infinite capacity to,to have information.
And I think that this part ofthe.
Brain relates to, you know, whatwe call the cloud.
We've got an energetic cloudthat's all around us.
(46:22):
And really, I think ourinformation is all around us and
our brains just picking thatpart out.
Our brain's not so much astorage center as it is a
processor.
And, but whenever we haveexperience, whenever something
resonates with us, that's allpart of our intellect.
That's all part of us growingthat mental habitat.
So make sure that we're notlooking for quick fixes, making
(46:44):
sure, make sure we're notlooking for.
Definitive solutions.
So both of those things and notbeing in right relationship with
each other and the earth andlooking at things or being
addicted to a substance.
All of those things are anxietycausing.
And if I look at the way wetreat anxiety and my own, like,
(47:06):
again, I'm not a doctor of anykind.
But what I've observed aboutpeople in my life that have
anxiety is it seems like ithappens when they're not in
right relationship withsomething.
They're doing making choicesthat go against themselves, or
they can't seem to get enoughemotional regulation to make
choices that make sense, or theycan't sit still and be present.
(47:28):
All of those things.
seem like they cause anxiety.
And if that's true, the converseor the reverse should be able to
help alleviate some of thatanxiety, maybe lessen the drive
towards addiction.
I mean, I can't Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
(47:48):
And addiction, you knowsubstances, medicines have been
around forever.
So the, the addiction isrelatively new thing.
And Gabor Monte talks about thata lot and people know him.
So I like to refer to that.
And really it's, it's a tool,right?
And it's the use or the abuse ofa tool.
We wouldn't use a shovel topound a nail, right?
(48:11):
And written, written laws andeverything like that.
Well, those can be useful tools.
I'm a writer.
I like to write.
I think there's, there's a lotto be said for writing, but
where's the threshold of useversus abuse of saying, here's
some written things that wethink are pretty good ideas
versus mandating them becausemandating behavior doesn't work
(48:31):
like that, that's a faultyconcept in itself.
So if it's mandating behavior.
Just throw it out the window.
It's wrong.
It's people grow and people havecohesive societies because they
engage in their own volition.
Because in a holistic level, weknow that holistic holistic
relationship with our societies,with each other, with everything
(48:53):
around us, that helps us grow.
And when we grow, we help it inthat reciprocity and like
actually understanding thesethings.
That's really well said andreally important.
Yeah, really?
Like that's base.
Yeah.
We have, we have to understandsome, we have to like start from
scratch at this point grow somecore understandings.
(49:17):
Plant some seeds of some coreconcepts.
In our mental ecosystem and thatabout that anxiety.
No.
When you have anxiousness.
Now, some people that live withanxiousness.
That's a longer conversation.
But the, the terms compulsivereactive and conscious
(49:38):
responsive, there's thatthreshold again.
When are we slipping fromconscious responsive to
compulsive reactive?
And that's anxiety.
So, so we sense when we start toget anxious about something, and
then we sit with that anxietyand we need to learn how to
transcend that anxiety.
And that's a, that's the art,that's a skill that comes with.
(50:00):
That comes with work.
It comes with experience.
But to be able to sit withanxiousness and say, okay, now
what actually am I anxiousabout?
And it's not that we'realleviating nervousness
altogether.
It's that it's down to anacceptable level.
And here's another lesson fromlife science.
There's pathogens.
(50:20):
And In nature, everything's gota place and anxiousness has a
place anxiousness.
If we think about what theuniverse is doing, it's right.
It's showing us pay attention tothis.
And when we feel bad, thatsaying, pay attention to this.
Cause if we just felt good allthe time, if there weren't any
challenges, why, why be here?
There's no modality to grow.
(50:42):
And everything grows.
So everything, that place ofchallenge, another key thing is
recognizing the challenge,recognizing the challenge of
life or death.
People haven't been in challengeof life or death, so it's really
foreign to them.
But it still exists, but it'snot super present in physical
form in contemporary life.
(51:02):
Think about how we You know,lived before modern medicine,
before all the predators wereeradicated, when we had to go
out and do all these physicallydemanding tasks.
And that's how basicallyeverything lives.
But I know what I want to say,that, that stroke, that
(51:25):
survival, being in survival modehas a negative connotation and
it shouldn't.
Because it's survival.
We should be surviving.
We should always be in survivalmode.
If you're not in survival mode.
Whoa.
Hello, everybody.
Where are you?
That means you're in nonsurvival mode.
That means you're probably notsurviving.
(51:46):
Welcome to America.
This is the whole system is nota survival mode.
In survival mode, as we'retalking, you're absolutely right
about that.
And as we were talking aboutanxiety and how it relates to
addiction and, and relationship,especially with ourselves, I
think shame, I think it's worthmentioning shame too.
(52:06):
And I think Gabba Mata hassomething to say about that,
that the way we handle shame,shame and belonging to me are
two sides of the same coin.
And the fact that shameregisters.
I'm told, you can challenge it,but I'm told that shame
registers in the part of thebrain where physical pain is
registered.
(52:26):
And it's there as a warning thatwhen we were living in smaller
groups without so many rules andlaws, if you did something that
caused shame, it meant you mightbe outcast, which meant you
would die.
And so the misappropriation ofhow we respond, because you were
talking about responses andhaving a choice in responses, is
(52:49):
responsible for, I think, whatleads a lot of people into
addiction because they gottriggered in a wrong way and the
people around them didn't knowhow to hold the shame and it
ends up becoming a button.
So shame and anxiety are humanorganism warning systems.
That we are ignoring that areresponsible for some of the
(53:12):
plight that we're in as well.
Yeah I think that people havealways had tools.
to help each other grow.
And, you know, fear is one ofthem.
Fear of being outcast is one ofthem, you know, not saying, you
know, no, no, we're, we'regrowing, you know, we're
growing.
I think that our ancestors, youknow, we're, we're in line with
(53:36):
a lot of, with a lot of thingsand they had to be you know, did
someone consciously say, Oh,hey, let's, Let's just not worry
that we're on the planet.
You know, this is just anevolution of a lot of, a lot of
little things that's added up toget to where we are.
And now they're big things.
And now there's big things beingperpetuated.
You know, shame mandatingbehavior.
(54:01):
I don't know.
There's, there's a lot there tounpack.
I will say this, though, is thatthe core of narcissism is fear
of shame, fear of beingconsidered less than, because I
think the, back to thenarcissist thing, the core of a
narcissist is is ego in theclassic sense, To not be good
enough.
(54:22):
And so then when we talk aboutnarcissism, it's another
hallmark of narcissism is thefalse bravado.
So instead of, instead of beinglike, ah, you know what, I'm
just really not good at this andI'm not good at it and I'll find
something else to be good at.
Versus being afraid that we'renot good at something and
(54:43):
stating the opposite.
And this is when we starttalking about emotional
intelligence, this is the hotbutton for the narcissist,
right?
Hallmarks of narcissism talkabout emotion.
Well, they're either likethey're void of emotion is what
the false narrative commonly is,which is just, I mean, that's,
there's no such thing.
And when we start talking aboutpersonal development, this is
(55:05):
the conversation that thenarcissist doesn't want to have.
Why?
Because they haven't had it withthemselves.
The only reason we know thesethings is because we've done our
introspect.
The narcissist isn't doing theirintrospect and now they're in
the catch 22.
Now they're in the addictionbecause they started the false
bravado that says, Oh yeah, Idon't need to do that.
Because I'm okay and there's notreally an end to that.
(55:29):
We're not okay.
It's an ongoing thing.
So as we understand ourintrospect journey, there's no,
there's no end.
It just, there's just more toadd to the situation.
And again, here's another hugething for people's wellness is
don't put a timeline on yourwellness that the clock in your
wellness do not have arelationship.
(55:49):
That's it.
That's an inorganic object.
And we just grow the things thatwe need to be as individuals.
And there's just such a hugelesson there, but yeah, that
narcissism.
That anxiousness about beingconsidered less than in the eyes
of peers and gets back to thatinsecurity in a, you know, the
(56:11):
culture that we want tounderstand it.
Yeah.
Everyone's got their got theiraptitudes and adeptness and what
some person has here, anotherperson might have here, and
that's where we all meshtogether.
So it's, and, and it's just socritical that we nurture each
other's individuality.
Whatever, whatever that is toreally nurture our
(56:34):
individuality.
Cause that's just so, soimportant.
People bring different things tothe table and, you know, even
things like autism ADD, ADHD,all those kinds of things, which
I hate those labels too let'stry and understand more than
just say, Oh, people don't fitinto the common because the
outlier, the outlier affects theaverage more than.
(56:57):
what would fall into theaverage.
And ultimately the average mightnot even exist.
If you write, for example, yougot a group of fives and a group
of tens, the average is sevenand a half, but, but there's no
seven and a halves.
So when we start talking aboutthe average of humanity, there's
(57:18):
another false narrative that'sbeing perpetuated and no one
fits into that.
So there's a big tail chasing.
That's definitely, that'sdefinitely a myth.
You know, a couple of times inthis conversation, my mind has
gone to the story of theemperor's new clothes.
And I think how valuable thatlittle kid who is willing to
(57:39):
call out the lie that everybodyelse is perpetuating is.
And he does so, so innocently,like how could anybody possibly
believe all this bullshit, youknow, and the courage that it
takes to do that.
We all need to have a little bitof that in us, I think, to make
some of these shifts.
The answer to the question isgaslight.
(58:01):
So the gaslighting.
Keeping the false narrative infront of someone, only exposing
someone to a false narrative,time and time again, America
freedom.
That's a gaslight.
That's narcissism.
When I say narcissism,colonialism, that's what it is.
You just said something that Ithink can be a whole other
episode talking about the mythof freedom in America, just like
(58:22):
flashed for me.
So I think I'd like to, if you,I think this might be a good
time to wrap up and maybe youcould tell people a little bit
more about where they can findmore of your podcasts and what
else you have going on.
Yeah.
So Craig Smith, my biz guide, MY B I Z G U I D E.
(58:44):
And my biz guide is Facebook,Instagram, YouTube.
Yeah.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,TikTok, all those.
YouTube has mostly content.
There's actually like over 130videos.
We're finishing up thenarcissism series.
(59:05):
There's like seven narcissism,EDU narcissist in the mirror,
scarcity, mindset, addiction,racism, misogyny, colonialism,
capitalism.
All those are, you know, our 15minute workshops that we've
done.
And then just random thingsrandom notes, random topics,
(59:27):
lots of things about addictionand And wellness, and I'm
writing a book called thebusiness of being human.
It's not done yet.
It's probably still got anotheryear out, but I've been working
on it for two in writing anotherbook at the same time.
So yeah, that's what I'm doing.
That's kind of the shortversion.
(59:47):
And yeah, I always appreciatethese conversations, but anyone
can reach out to me and youknow, the website of course, the
contact information.
And I do personal wellness,corporate wellness, addiction,
trauma.
Great.
And I am Ishi Abel with theHorse Human Connection Matrix,
which is a lot about horses alot of interviews with people
(01:00:08):
and things that, you know,affect horses in equine assisted
practices and equine therapy andautism.
Hi, this is a she able today Ihave with me Craig Smith.
That's Craig with a K and Smithwith a wife.
Who has a series of his ownpodcasts, and we got to chatting
and realized that we have verysimilar views on a lot of
things, important things that wewant people to hear about.
So we are recording thisconversation for you and I hope
(00:23):
you enjoy it as much as I'veenjoyed my other chats with
Craig.
Welcome Craig.
Hey, how are you doing?
Good, things are good.
So some of where we left offwith some of the other
conversations was comparing ourculture and what's happened in
our society.
As an analogy to an addict, andthere's a lot of parallels
(00:45):
there.
Yeah.
Do you want to jump in withyeah.
And, you know, I think this is along conversation.
And, you know, You know, ifpeople think about how far
behind the curve our species isright now, and specifically I'm
always talking about relation toenvironmental impact because
that's where we live.
(01:05):
And if we start talking aboutfoundation, it's pretty tough to
ignore the habitat that we'rein.
And from that aspect, I have abackground in fisheries,
forestry, wildlife, naturalsciences.
And so I point to a lot of that.
And one of the main theories tounderstanding wildlife biology
is that you don't understand anorganism unless you understand
(01:29):
the habitat or the environmentthat it evolved in.
So we know a lot about ourmental habitat and our, our
close in habitat with the humansthat we're in, but I think a lot
gets lost to just our connectionwith the natural habitat.
Would would you say that thehave some of the habitat you're
(01:51):
talking about that influencesour society today and some of
the problems is how colonialismwas presented and how we
perpetuated a lot of that.
Yeah, because I think thatcolonialism is a construct of a
disconnected mentality.
So here's how I think it goes,is that first there's a
(02:15):
disconnect from our own personaldevelopment, just straight from
the, straight from the get go.
And you know, we've all gotchallenges, we've all got
naturally occurring challenges.
insecurities, frailties, if youwill.
Of course, if we understandthat, the challenges is what
grow us.
So to not embrace ourchallenges, to not interact with
(02:37):
our own inner ecosystem, thedirect reflection is disconnect
from the external ecosystem.
And then we've got a pseudosystem, i.
e.
colonialism, that's superimposedin the natural ecosystem.
Did we follow all that?
(02:58):
Say that last part one moretime, okay?
Yeah, colonialism is a pseudosystem.
It's not functioning.
I like to use pseudo becauseit's not a functioning system.
It's a hodgepodge of ideologiesthrown together that are they're
psychotic.
It's delusion that we can have asystem inside a system and not
(03:19):
recognize the system that we'rein.
Again, the natural environment,the natural planet.
I understood better that time.
So you're saying that issuperimposed.
And the reality of it is thatthe construct of colonialism and
our modern society is only overour natural environment, which
(03:40):
is the earth.
And that's what we need to be.
Connected to and using as ourhabitat as we look at this,
correct?
That needs to be our baselinebecause that's our biggest
foundation.
You know, when we start talkingit out, it all gets pretty silly
and pretty simple, pretty quickbecause how do we ignore where
we live?
(04:01):
Yeah, we can, but yeah, it'sobviously it's a D.
We're talking some, some realdeep mental issues that are
perpetuated in colonial society.
And if we look at what we'retalking about the addiction,
there's so many reflections ofaddiction in colonialism,
capitalism.
And I'll add racism, misogyny,all those things.
(04:26):
And of course, narcissism, whichis a lot about what I, what I
speak on.
One of the key things withaddiction is a denial.
And that's a key thing incolonialism, what we just talked
about, the denial that you're ina certain situation and the
(04:47):
things you are doing areadversely affecting that
situation.
So colonialism, here's thesystem that's adversely
affecting the system that it'sin.
So it's a cutoff.
It's a way of being cut off fromourselves that the system is cut
off from realizing the harm thatit does, and it's perpetuated in
(05:08):
the individual.
So could, can you also definehow you're using the term
narcissism for us today and howit relates to some of these
topics and not necessarilynarcissistic personality
disorder?
Well, the way I use it.
And I don't know what our timeframe is here.
Yeah, we've got a little bit oftime.
(05:29):
The way I use it is that it's,first of all, it's a misnomer.
It's not truly in line with theconcept of narcissus and so self
absorbed.
That's just the reflection and,and the projection that we'll
see that we're seeing in theindividual.
Because at the core, it's notengaging with self.
(05:50):
And the first thing I mentionedto people is that think about
conversations with a narcissism.
The reason you can't talk to anarcissist is because they're
not talking to themselves.
They don't have that connection,that relationship with
themselves.
And so they're, like I said,disconnect from self disconnect
from planet, all these factorsof disconnect and more to speak
(06:16):
to the.
relationship with a narcissistthat our own emotional habitat
is sacrificed in relationshipwith narcissism.
That's like one of the hallmarksof narcissism.
If you think about how ourenergy feels.
So, so if we zoom out for just asecond and talk about the, the
(06:36):
colonialism and, our modernsociety as well, and how there
are things that happen In thissociety that cut us off from
ourselves, and how being cut offfrom ourselves, like, denial is
one aspect of that.
It's not the whole picture, butit's one aspect of that.
And how being cut off fromourselves is what creates this
(06:57):
very self centered point of viewand this me, me, me.
And I, I feel like consumerismis tied into that too.
And, and other, Things that ourculture perpetuates that are
just take us further and furtheraway from ourselves further and
further away from the earth andand further away from where we
(07:18):
need to be in that naturalenvironment is, is all of that
in line with what you're saying.
Yeah, 100 percent and that'saddiction it's filling the void.
And the first void is that lackof connection with self.
And if we think about.
are our wants.
And if we think about value,what do we really value?
Well, what we really value is inour peace.
(07:39):
That's like the biggest value isis peace, our wellness, our well
being right.
The wellness economy.
We've probably heard some ofthose kind of things.
So when we talk about what realvalue is, colonialism,
capitalism completely disregardsthe biggest values that Our
species that our humans have,and that's our individual
(08:01):
wellness.
So that lack of individualwellness, and you only get that
from growing, from relating toyourself and going through that
objective thought process.
Hey, you know, self really, howdo I feel?
And on down the line.
So all the materialism and andcapitalism is focusing on things
(08:21):
other than what needs to bethere and that's back to the
addiction is classic examples ofaddiction is filling those
voids.
So one of the things that occursto me when you're talking about
that are conscious choices likewe go about life being
generally.
unconscious because we are insuch a hurry in this culture,
(08:41):
like, like people can step rightout of the shower, but not
explicitly remember washingtheir hair.
They know they did it, but theydon't remember doing it because
they're not present whilethey're doing it.
So when we talk about, you know,making choices as a consumer,
when we talk about makingchoices and how we speak to each
other and how we on purposeconduct, you know, relationships
(09:05):
and business.
We can't do any of that unlesswe're conscious and we can't
really be conscious unless we'represent.
And I feel like that's part ofthis conversation, too.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And if we think about theconstruct, again, this is how we
feel, right, our emotion,emotional intelligence.
(09:25):
And I'm going to try and stepout just a second here, because
our brain, our cognitive thoughtprocess is processing our
feelings from our synapses inour brain.
It's processing, energeticreflections, energetic imprint.
So emotion is what our is reallywhat we are.
We are emotion.
And then our brains processingthat it's always processing how
(09:48):
we feel.
And it's how we feel about, youknow, infinite grayscale things
there.
So yeah, if we, if we feelabout, if we think about how we
feel, In relationship withindividual narcissist.
And this is why I like to usethis example.
And if we think about what it'slike to be in contemporary
society, it's that same rush,rush, rush, go, go, go.
(10:13):
Our consciousness goes andthat's of course, that lack of
emotional wellness.
It's You know, we're just herdedalong too quickly to really
think about things to reallysay, I, you know what, I don't
really agree.
I don't really want to go thisway.
And of course, we've all been,you know, born into, you know,
colonial systems who are so fardown the line.
(10:37):
And everyone's got that tunnelvision.
And really that domestication.
And I think there's a few otherwords that can go in there.
There's a lot of pressures thatgo along with that, that take
away from us being able to beour authentic selves.
It's not just a lack ofconsciousness.
It's pressure around us fromother people who have bought
(10:57):
into these myths and falsesystems.
And the thing that comes frontand center to me is just
consumerism.
And this whole, you know, ideaof.
How much we need to buy how manythings that we things that we
need like I saw this beautifulquote and I think I reposted on
Facebook and it said, things areto be used, and people are to be
(11:18):
loved, but we are using peopleand loving things.
And that's kind of the root Ithink that's exactly what's
going on., when you say peoplehave bought into it, well, sort
of, but how conscious arepeople, you know, from the
beginning, how conscious is theaverage individual, because
(11:40):
there's been generations andgenerations in this pseudo
system.
So, I think that if anyone wouldsit down and take stock
consciously of, oh, disconnectfrom the planet, disconnect from
wellness, disconnect from this,disconnect from that.
Okay, great.
But there we are back toaddiction to say, just don't do
it and just quit is a wholenother ball of wax that takes
(12:02):
real intention.
That takes taking these thingsthat well, what's it doing?
It's getting us back toourselves and it reintroducing
us to ourselves.
So, See, here's a natural cyclethat's occurring, that's pushing
us back to our introspect andback to our autonomy and back to
creating ourselves asindividuals and to say, you know
(12:23):
what, this is not right, or thisis not what I want to be, this
is not what I want to go alongwith, because I think most
people like you say, that havebought into it, what level of
consciousness is that?
I would Say that there isactually no consciousness there
because a conscious person won'thave bought into it in the first
(12:43):
place.
So the layers.
of unconscious behavior, thelayer, the level of addiction
that people are in, right?
Does the addict choose to be anaddict?
No, but they're perpetuating thesame behaviors, the same going
through the same negativecycles.
And of course, keep doing thesame thing, keep getting the
(13:04):
same thing, except for itcompounds and gets worse.
So on an individual level, theaddict is behaving the way all
of us behave On a socio 100percent sociological Yeah, so
we're on the logical level.
Yeah, yes.
I'd like to insert this example.
I met this man at this workshopprobably 20 years ago.
(13:28):
And he struck and inspired mebecause this man lived off 3,
000 a year and he showed up tothis workshop in homespun fabric
homemade pants that somebody hadhand sewn for him.
So he bought all of his clothesat thrift stores.
He got a lot of food, which waswhen you could still, you know,
(13:50):
get food outside of restaurantgarbage cans.
It was still perfectly good andhe would bring it home.
And that was where a lot of hisfood came from or he foraged.
And I mean, granted he did, hedid end up meeting a woman at
the workshop and moving in withher and she had a good job and
she ended up supporting them.
But because he lived on threethousand dollars a month and he
(14:12):
likes to talk about it and heliked to say I'm doing this
consciously.
You know, it can be done like hewas an example, and he inspired
a lot of people by being thatexample.
Sure.
It took a lot of a lot ofgumption.
It took a lot of consciousdecision making, but that's what
it takes people like that andbeing willing to make
adjustments in our lives.
(14:33):
Maybe not to that extent rightaway, but being able to say, do
I do what is the effect on theplanet if I buy this?
Versus that.
If you, you know, use sand, clayand straw to build something
rather than concrete.
What is the effect of that?
And until everybody starts torealizing some of these
(14:56):
conscious decisions and makingdecisions for the planet, we're
going to be stuck here, youknow, and if we don't make this
decision for ourselves, it willend up being made for us
eventually.
So we may as well get started.
Yeah.
And also the thing is, is thatit, you know, the first steps is
a change of mentality.
Yes, that's and that's, youknow, addiction.
(15:18):
I think that there's lessonsgoing on through everything.
And I, I have another talkcalled lessons from addiction.
And part of that is it startswith our own mental ecosystem
again, embracing our own mentalecosystem and starting to make
those changes and starting toreally.
Put some good things in ourmental ecosystem.
(15:40):
If we talk about, you know, theanalogy of our of our mind being
a garden, start planting somegood seeds there, plant some
seeds of change and some thingsthat hate.
Look, this is the reality.
is crazy.
The reality that our species isdestroying the planet is crazy,
but that's something that needsto be, understood.
(16:00):
Like, that's a fact.
When people try to neglect thosebig facts, oh, back to addiction
again.
You know, the parallels toaddiction is that it's right in
front of you.
It's a glaring error.
You know, I'd like to say, youknow, not addressing the
elephant in a room just gets astepped on and shit on.
Right?
So, and when you talk aboutaddiction, you have you have
(16:22):
some personal experience withcoming out of this.
And so maybe, maybe you canspeak a little bit to what your
experience was in being able tomake those shifts for yourself
and light bulbs that must havestarted going off.
You know, my own addiction?
That's a good question.
(16:43):
I'm not sure I've actually everbeen asked, asked it that way.
And feel free to redirect me ifyou, if you want to, but to help
other people understand, I thinkthat addiction, so many people
have been through it and I canexplain it to someone who thinks
(17:04):
they haven't been through it andit's as simple as this and it,
and I say, solve your problemswithout written law, printed
currency, or clock time.
So most people, if I had enoughmoney, or if we make a law, if I
had enough time, Solve yourproblems without that.
(17:25):
And then that'll show you whataddiction is, because that's
where people are going to keepwanting to go back to.
So addiction, understanding the,what the what's going on in our
mental habitat, from a feelstandpoint, what's it like, what
does it feel to us?
Not what science says that, Oh,this is going on this part of
the brain.
(17:45):
That really doesn't help us.
How does it feel?
Cause at the end of the day, wehave to go by feel and which
gets us back to how people liveforever.
understanding that anxiousnessand that that uncomfortableness
and to be able to sit with thatand here's the meditation part
(18:05):
and push it out and keep it atarm's length and not just keep
going forward doing the samething.
So that's a key part inestablishing and then when we're
working with that mentalecosystem with that mental
habitat saying yes this is wrongI don't agree with this this is
wrong I don't agree with thisand really A big part of that I
(18:28):
went through just when I wasyoung, and I think everybody
goes through it.
And you know what?
I don't really agree with, youknow, this part of what my
parents have been telling me orwhat society is doing and
getting our own individuality,getting our autonomy, because
we're going to need all of thatto face this biggest challenge,
(18:49):
which, of course, is ourself andourselves.
grow through these habits.
They're just negative habits atthe, at the core of it.
And yeah, in contemporarysociety, we're used to saying
addiction in conjunction withphysical substance.
But I think that's just the,that's just so we can see it
(19:09):
easily.
But the core is what's going onfirst, right?
Because there's, whether it's aphysical substance or an
ideology, And those are thedifficult ones, because yeah,
there's not a physical substanceattached.
Just like, you know, alcohol'seasier to get addicted to
because there's not a stigma,but if there's no physical
(19:32):
substance, how do we say, well,this is just us having to
understand our, our thoughtprocess, our mental habitat,
like actually understand it onan individual level.
And that's, that's the way out.
Because once we understand, thenthese things will.
Become no longer acceptable inour growth cycle.
(19:52):
Yeah, I, I agree some work to doat the core.
There's some work to do asindividuals and everybody starts
looking for outside things todo.
What can we do outside?
Oh, there's, there's the addictagain, saying everything around
me, I want to move everythingaround me and there's
colonialism again.
How can I just adjust this to,to suit my needs?
(20:13):
And there's ego, right?
Right.
And I say ego is want withoutcontext.
What do I want?
But we have to have the contextof our relation to everything.
How, what do I want and what,what do I want?
And then put that through ourcognitive thought process.
(20:34):
How does it affect the peoplenext to me, the other organisms
next to me, my future the planetas a whole, you know, am I
encroaching on these things?
If so, then how can I achievethis without encroaching?
And I think that is.
A huge part of our growth andunderstanding that when we're
(20:55):
actually aligned with theconcept of sustainability and
reciprocal relationships witheverything around us, that's an
alignment tool.
That whole concept ofreciprocity is an alignment
tool.
If we can't do what we want todo with fair trade, then we
don't do it.
(21:15):
But when we're on that path, we,we grow and who knows our wants.
That's great to have wants tohave goals and everything.
But if we pay attention to our,to our real path, to say it that
way, what the universe iswanting us to do that's where
our lessons come.
And that's where we really,that's where we really grow and
grow into ourselves.
Because we, there areparameters, there's parameters
(21:37):
within everything, everything ithas in, in natural science and
understanding habitats andenvironments, we have carrying
capacity.
Basically, everything's got acarrying capacity and Oh,
understanding our, our externalenvironment, huge understanding
to our internal environments.
(21:59):
What's our physical, mental,emotional, spiritual carrying
capacity.
How much it can hold?
How many?
How many trout can 100 yardsection of stream hold?
And it depends on the stream,and it depends on the trout, and
it depends on all these things.
But the core is that it's notinfinite.
And so colonialism isdisconnected from this
(22:21):
foundational understanding ofthe planet that we live on and
carrying capacity.
And what's carrying capacity ofour emotional ecosystems?
Yeah.
That's getting walked all over.
And that's, that's part, that'sthe part of the, the previous
conversation that I wasinterested in.
I remember what it was now.
(22:41):
It was about like an addictioncounselor will most addiction
counselors, I believe these dayswe'll talk about the individual
addict being in there, what theycall primitive brain or the
place in our brain that'sresponsible for fight, flight,
or freeze.
And.
that once you're there, whetherit's the idea of pulling the
(23:04):
handle on a slot machine, oryou've taken a drink, if you're
an addict or done some drugs,whether there's a substance
involved or not, even somebodyaddicted to shopping and
ordering stuff on Amazon,supposedly they will be thrown
into their brain where a lot ofthe reasoning gets shut off from
the frontal lobe.
At least this is what is said,right?
(23:25):
And that's responsible.
But when I said this to you theother night, you came back at me
with a with a challenge that Ireally appreciated.
And I began to realize that youwere right, because just from my
own experiences, I know thereare things that I should be in
fight, flight or freeze.
But you know what, I still haverational thinking it, I'm not
(23:45):
going to going to pretend to bea brain expert, because I
certainly am not.
But it makes sense to me thatthis must vary greatly with all
individuals.
And when I think aboutchallenging the thoughts,
challenging what the scientistssay and realizing it from a
(24:05):
different perspective, it makesmore possible.
Yeah.
And you know, you say you're notan expert, but you have a brain.
We all have a brain.
And this is what I'm saying iswe need to know our brains.
It doesn't do us any good for tosay, Oh, science says that this
is the part of my brain that'sthis flight fright or freeze
(24:27):
thing.
You know, we can't hold up aroad map as we're driving.
It's like that.
That's interesting that sciencesays that it's this part.
But, but if our brains attachedto our emotion, it's Our, our
motion and everything attachedto energy and all around us.
If we think of our brain as aconnection to everything else
(24:48):
around us also same with ourinstincts.
So to say that our brain is justthis one part separate from
everything else.
Well, that's not in line withunderstanding that all our
ecosystems are connected andinterconnectivity.
So what, again, what are wefeeling?
We need to know how we need toknow how we work as individuals,
(25:09):
not what you know, triple peerreviewed study says that's not
really helping us.
It's really not doing anythingfor us.
So there's that.
And You know, that thing yousaid about the psychology, and I
have a lot to bash oncontemporary psychology because
they're looking at the organismin the moment, not the
(25:32):
evolutionary trajectory of theorganism.
The organism is sick.
The human species is sick as ofthe past.
You know, I'm just going to makekind of a blanket, maybe, maybe
10, 000 years.
Total and I mean sick is inunsustainable as in these
unsustainable things reallystarted getting out of hand.
(25:52):
And that's a whole notherconversation.
But let's just use that.
So when people say Oh, you know,tribalism and this primitive
brain.
Well, those brains werefunctioning and the people in
those cultures were, veryconscious of their thought
process and things needed towork.
(26:12):
And they were in life and deathsituations all the time.
So I would submit.
That the, that our ancestors,10, 000 years back to, you know,
science is going to say homosapien three, 300, 000 years, a
homeless species, 3 millionyears, all those people were
(26:36):
smarter than we are.
They weren't killing theirenvironment.
They had to know so much abouttheir environment and actually
they had to know about eachother.
And if you look at being insmaller groups, we know more
about the individuals and wherethe individuals fit.
So people say tribalism and Isay, no, I know what you're
(27:00):
trying to say.
That's colonialism.
Is that example of.
That example of hyper warringand racism and that sort of
thing is more perpetuated incolonialism.
So, and that is colonialism toshift and it's narcissism and
it's addiction to shift theblame.
(27:20):
It's not really.
Oh, it's not me in classicaddiction.
It's, it's everything else.
Classic narcissism.
It's everything else.
And colonialism does the samething.
Oh, we're Americans and allthese other people are bad and
just perpetuating this falsenarrative.
That's where all those things.
And a lot of, and a lot of thatboils down to the individual
(27:42):
over what's good for thecollective.
And, you know, I've been sayingseriously since I was in the
sixth grade that the problemwith this country is that we
have too much individualism andthat in the, in the end that
can't be a good thing because itdoes, it perpetuates this, this
self centeredness and then, andthis narcissism that other,
(28:04):
other cultures that havesurvived a lot longer don't.
don't have that.
You said something else theother night that I'm interested
in that relates to this a littlebit.
You said that people withaddictions are living closer to
the truth than the rest of us inthe culture.
At least that's what Iunderstood you to say.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can you talk about that a littlebit?
Yeah, I can.
Let me just step one step backthough and say that That this
(28:28):
notion of individual,individuality of hyper
individuality, that's a falsenarrative because the
individual, the individual can'tbe healthy if the collective's
not healthy.
So healthy individuals makes ahealthy collective and vice
versa.
And those things work off eachother.
So the individual's healthy whenthey understand their purpose.
(28:50):
in the collective.
That false narrative it's not somuch about autonomy.
It's about denial.
It's so that the individual cansay, Oh, well, I'm an
individual.
I get to make my choices anddisregarding everything else is
what's going on there.
So it's that scapegoatnarrative.
(29:13):
And it's just Wrapped up in abad marketing package, you know,
it says freedom, but itcommitted genocide on real free
people, enslaved other peoplemisogyny and how do you mandate
freedom with laws?
All the laws say what not to do.
Well, that's, those aren'treflections of freedom at all.
(29:36):
So it's just, I mean, anyone cansay it.
It's just bad marketing.
It's like, here's the rapper.
Right.
I mean, I've heard it said themore laws you have, the more
rules you have, the more rulebreakers you have, and that that
just perpetuates itself and it'snot, it's not the answer what,
what does occur to me, I did askyou a question about Let's go
(29:58):
back to the question that Ididn't ask you and that was the
thing about addicts living closeto do the truth.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because addicts, you know, we'respeaking generalities, right?
Right.
We're speaking in generalities.
We're speaking aboutdemographics, the overall
(30:20):
demographic of the stereotypicalstreet addict to use these broad
strokes and situation is,disenfranchised from society.
They know society is not workingfor them.
They are not involved withsociety.
They are not bought into thesystem.
And for wellness.
(30:42):
We have to disengage from, fromthose delusions, from these
delusions of freedom.
I think when people say, youknow, America or Russia or
whatever, they're aligning witha colonial government that's
not, that's not encouragingwellness in the human
population.
They're just not.
All those, all thosegovernments, all the big
(31:04):
colonial governments are therebecause they conquered and
killed.
And that is not a nurturinggrowth mentality.
So, so there's a start of allthat.
It's not, you know, is anexample of some of that.
There's a, there's a man that Iknew in high school that had
some trouble, ended up becomingwhat he describes as a tramp.
And he rode the trains aroundfor 17 years, drinking wine out
(31:28):
of brown paper bags andwhatever, and had this.
Well, we, his sister was my bestfriend.
So we ended up catching up yearslater.
And I said like, how, how didyou live like that?
How, how was that?
And he, what he said, he said,do you pay house insurance, home
insurance, and car insurance?
And I said, yeah, he said, thinkabout for a minute, how much
(31:49):
you've paid in the last 20 yearsand have you ever used it?
Is it now?
No, tell me who's, who's notliving right.
You know, and as an example ofthe constructs that you're
talking about, like there arepeople on the street that are
very conscious of what they'redoing and they don't want to be
part of the system.
(32:09):
Yeah.
And they don't want to be forcedinto, they don't want to be
forced into the system.
Well, nothing does.
Nothing wants to be caged.
No biological organism worksgood in captivity, but that's
all colonialism is.
It's captivity.
And we're all, you know, circus,we're all part of the circus act
(32:29):
and the governments are set upin the pseudo system with print
currency that we justmanufacture that we just
manufacture.
So the whole thing is the wholething's bunk, the whole thing's
bunk.
And that's why and there's alsosome nuances too, is that, you
know, using drugs, it makes thatveil really thin, you know,
(32:52):
there's not a lot, there's not alot of space.
For there's a lot, there's lotsof denial, but there's not a lot
of space for, for lies anddeceit in the addict.
If that makes sense, it mightsound like a contradiction, but
on the big picture spectrum,we're just because the people
are so raw and their feelingsare so raw, you're talking about
(33:14):
loss of inhibition.
Well, there's a loss ofinhibition.
I think it's just that our, ourconsciousness.
When we're.
you know, abusing substancesdoesn't have the carrying
capacity to hold all the BS.
And I think that there's a thingthere.
(33:34):
And I think that also with a lotof these substances, it gets rid
of the BS.
I mean, that's some of theclassic and it can be a
substance.
It can be you know, a thrillseeking rock climbing.
I mean, it can be it could be alot of Strenuous activity
running when the organism isdoing something that needs focus
(33:56):
on survival, all the existentialthings and contemporary life get
kicked out.
And.
There's lots of examples of thiswhere people say that the worst
thing that happened to him wasalso the best thing that
happened to him because when thehuman gets into a challenge of
life or death, and I'll sayphysical, mental, emotional,
(34:17):
spiritual, our core essencekicks out all the light bills
and the car payments.
And the windows that needwashing and toilet handle that
needs fixing and the boyfriendand the husband and the kids and
all this and it's just insurvival mode and our core
essence remembers what it's likein survival mode and says, Oh
(34:38):
man, there is like too much.
existential stuff in my life.
So people get this freeingeffect and they say, yes, they
say, Oh, now I see what reallymatters.
And they get this, they get aclarity.
Mostly you'll see about it forpeople that have gone through
extreme physical.
Challenges, you know, like theyhad everything.
They had a great, they had onthe, on the outside, it looks
(35:00):
like they had a great life.
They were making money.
Then they got in a car crash,lost it all, had to learn to
talk again.
And then that was the best thingthat happened to him because it
gave them a reset back to that'sour primal brain.
Right.
Okay.
That makes sense to me now thata lot of what's the same is
you're in survival mode and thatyou come in and out of that and
(35:22):
being in that you're livingcloser to the truth and the way
humans are meant to live in thisenvironment on the earth, which
allows the non essential thingsto be pushed out.
And even though there may be anan element of self centeredness
and focus on the next, you know,the next more, everything else
(35:45):
falls away so that there is apurity and an authenticity that
we don't have running aroundbusy in our culture.
Yeah.
And to say self centered versusgrowing the individual, again,
growing the individual grows thecollective.
So there's a natural ebb andflow.
That we're focused on internal,then we're focused on
collective.
I need to grow myself in orderto give back to the collective.
(36:08):
That's just how it works, right?
Pretty, pretty basic.
There was another, oh geez, youjust said something else too.
But just another false narrativein, in contemporary, in
contemporary society.
But There's a bunch of them.
So anyway, but yeah, so growingthe individual grows the
collective, but the individualhas got to be growing, not just
(36:28):
doing, not just chasingegocentric pursuits.
So there's, there's alignment,there's things, you know, we
have to understand about our,about how we actually function
as humans.
What are some of the things thatyou think people can do to make
shifts?
What are some of the choices?
that we could make in our dailylives that can make a
(36:50):
difference.
And what do you think some ofthe ways, but let me start with
that, because then the nextquestion is about businesses,
which I know you're going tohave a lot to say about.
It's not a, short conversation.
It's going to take some work.
Here's more lessons fromaddiction is like people need to
buckle down and, and heal.
And the first part of that is inthe mental habitat and work on
(37:15):
the mental habitat and get clearabout, get clear about some
things because our physicalactions, people want to say, Oh,
what can I do?
This, this, this, and aphysical, but all the physical
things, all the physical.
Problems in contemporary societyare symptoms of a sick mental,
(37:36):
emotional, spiritual habitat.
So it really is when we grow ourmental, emotional, spiritual
habitat, the physical is goingto follow.
So we will act.
better.
We will make better choices ifwe're conscious, if we keep our
consciousness intact.
And so that means all the, allthe little things don't take in
(38:01):
the false narratives, right?
Quit doing the drugs.
It still gets back to that.
Quit doing, quit taking in thefalse narratives.
And I'll say it.
And I say this from a point ofwhat I like to think is just
plain intellect as a species.
And like, Don't call yourselfAmerican.
(38:23):
It's just a, it's just afabricated concept of
colonialism.
You don't need these labels.
So disengage from these labels.
And if you feel like you'restuck on that label, ask
yourself, why, why do you needthat label?
Let's, let's be clear aboutthis.
We're human.
Let's be a species.
We're a species.
(38:44):
Be a species.
And if you're not aligned morewith being a species than you
are American, then that's acognitive disorder that you need
to sort out.
First, we're a species and we'reall on the same planet.
Are there subspecies?
Yeah, sure.
But let's look at ourself likethat instead of perpetuating all
(39:04):
these things.
Oh, I'm from, you know, Idaho.
I'm American from Idaho.
Idaho's that's just the made up.
That's just the made up.
Overlay and all the and all thegovernment and laws people lived
without these things.
People lived without jailsforever and they were better at
nurturing and they were alsobetter at boundaries that
(39:27):
included if someone was a realshithead, you're done.
And, you know, that might seemstark to some people, but that's
the natural, that's naturalchallenge of life or death.
Not all organisms make it.
And we need to know more abouthow organisms live on this
planet, not just humans, but howlife lives on this planet.
(39:51):
And then, because we're on theplanet, then we follow suit.
We're not above The natural lawsand natural alignment tools that
this planet has for allorganisms.
I know you'll know who said thisquote.
It's the earth does not belongto us, but we belong to the
earth.
It's been said a lot I can'tremember exactly because when
it's good, you have to repeatit.
(40:13):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So true.
And it's what you're talkingabout, right?
Like identifying with we belongto the earth.
And that's, that's point one.
And the organism, what's ourrelationship to other life on
this planet?
You know, we, we get stuck inthe human to human and that's
(40:34):
right.
The humans have the challenge.
That's where the challenge is.
It's easy to understand that,but also we breathe air.
So we've got the trees we'restanding on the ground.
So we've got literally soil, weeat plants and animals.
So we've got those, we've gotall these other relationships.
that we have before the nexthuman.
And how's our relationship withall those things?
(40:57):
So at the core, this isrelationship building with
external is relationshipbuilding with our internal.
And I like to think of it ascross training.
So grow these relationships anddiversity too, because people
get stuck in the relationship toother people.
And not themselves and not otherorganisms.
(41:18):
Right, we all evolved withrelationships with everything
else because we had to know howeverything else functioned in
order for us to get along.
And we still do.
And I, you probably have someother podcasts on that as I do
at the Horse Human ConnectionMatrix podcast on being in right
(41:38):
relationship talks about how weare needing to be in right
relationship with plants, withanimals, with our food, and with
each other.
Yeah.
Science will prove that if it,if it gets a chance, but the
thing is that science can proveeverything at once.
That's not the problem.
The problem is people.
People being able to take thatin, because here's the
(42:00):
narcissism part, is that ifsomeone agrees with one part of
a fact, That mirror is going toshow up.
They're going to have to look atthemselves for truth also.
So that's where we get this.
We get this thing about, well,what's truth and alternative
facts and all this kind ofstuff.
When, well, people don't, peopledon't have that, that
(42:22):
instinctual knowing people don'thave, people don't know
themselves, so it's easy to say,Oh, well, what do we, we don't
know anything at all.
And that's getting truer andtruer because.
It's really, it's an affront toour objective thought process,
and our intelligence is what'sgoing on now.
I think when we talk aboutobjective thought process, one
(42:45):
of the things that comes to mymind, and it's a practice that
I'm not 100 percent at, but Itry, and if I slow down enough,
and have some meditation in mylife of one kind or another.
As the thoughts come in, I canask, is that true?
With every thought, like I givethis example a lot, like the
(43:05):
idea that you're not supposed towalk behind a horse because
you'll get kicked.
Is that true?
Well, no, there's a lot ofreasons.
It's not.
It's not.
An absolute truth.
And if we keep asking ourselvesthese questions about how we do
business, about how we interactwith each other, about how we
may do things that are not inright relationship with the
(43:27):
earth, that people perpetuate,and it goes back to that, that
pressure that other people whoare unconscious are putting on
us, you know, and And thatbusinesses put on us and that
consumerism puts on us.
So I'd like to circle back alittle bit.
If you think we have time andtouch on on businesses like when
(43:48):
you talk about the business ofbeing human and how we might
enact some change on business,or maybe that's such a broad
topic.
We should save it for anothertime.
I don't know.
Doesn't matter to me.
I would say I'll, I'll, I'lltake a step back and then, yeah,
we can do a quick thing aboutthe business of human being
human.
Cause that's kind of a plug forme anyways.
But you know, is there, youknow, there's no, there's no
(44:13):
definitive right way to doanything.
It's all.
And then here we go.
We need to hold diversity in ourminds.
We need to, we need to havebalance in our minds and
objective is, you know, underthe circumstance, under the
circumstance too, You might notwant to walk behind certain
horse, a certain horse, and youmight need to walk behind
(44:34):
another certain horse.
That's a variable.
And so that scarcity mindset'slooking for definitive, and
there's really no definitive.
It's all, it's all, this iswhere we need to hold these
understandings and beaccountable.
Oh, what's it doing?
It's keeping us conscious in thepresent.
What are the variables in thepresent?
And that's objective thoughtprocessing.
And, and that's going to be, wedon't know.
(44:58):
But that's, that's the presentand that's our instinct and
that's understanding thesethings.
So we have a good diversity ofaspects to call upon when we're
in a situation.
A bear, a bear is charging inthe woods.
Do I stand my ground or do Iplay dead?
You know, there's a lot ofvariables to know.
(45:19):
So that understanding and whatyou are asking again is what
people can do is checkourselves, you know, get like
emotional.
We are emotion.
How does your emotion resonatewhen you're looking for answers?
The first thing is don't lookfor a quick fix.
And there's addiction looking,looking for a quick solution.
(45:40):
There's not just understand ifyou're, if you're wanting to
grow, are you wanting to grow?
Are you wanting to get out ofgrowing?
Cause if you're wanting to grow,you're not looking for a
definitive.
If you're looking forunderstanding, you're not
looking for a definitive.
We're we're gathering, we'regathering understanding and we
can't get anxious about that.
(46:02):
And this is a good part where itsays, you know, everything's not
stuffed inside our brain, likeit's only a, you know, 12 gig
hard drive.
We've got infinite capacity to,to have information.
And I think that this part ofthe.
Brain relates to, you know, whatwe call the cloud.
We've got an energetic cloudthat's all around us.
(46:22):
And really, I think ourinformation is all around us and
our brains just picking thatpart out.
Our brain's not so much astorage center as it is a
processor.
And, but whenever we haveexperience, whenever something
resonates with us, that's allpart of our intellect.
That's all part of us growingthat mental habitat.
So make sure that we're notlooking for quick fixes, making
(46:44):
sure, make sure we're notlooking for.
Definitive solutions.
So both of those things and notbeing in right relationship with
each other and the earth andlooking at things or being
addicted to a substance.
All of those things are anxietycausing.
And if I look at the way wetreat anxiety and my own, like,
(47:06):
again, I'm not a doctor of anykind.
But what I've observed aboutpeople in my life that have
anxiety is it seems like ithappens when they're not in
right relationship withsomething.
They're doing making choicesthat go against themselves, or
they can't seem to get enoughemotional regulation to make
choices that make sense, or theycan't sit still and be present.
(47:28):
All of those things.
seem like they cause anxiety.
And if that's true, the converseor the reverse should be able to
help alleviate some of thatanxiety, maybe lessen the drive
towards addiction.
I mean, I can't Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
(47:48):
And addiction, you knowsubstances, medicines have been
around forever.
So the, the addiction isrelatively new thing.
And Gabor Monte talks about thata lot and people know him.
So I like to refer to that.
And really it's, it's a tool,right?
And it's the use or the abuse ofa tool.
We wouldn't use a shovel topound a nail, right?
(48:11):
And written, written laws andeverything like that.
Well, those can be useful tools.
I'm a writer.
I like to write.
I think there's, there's a lotto be said for writing, but
where's the threshold of useversus abuse of saying, here's
some written things that wethink are pretty good ideas
versus mandating them becausemandating behavior doesn't work
(48:31):
like that, that's a faultyconcept in itself.
So if it's mandating behavior.
Just throw it out the window.
It's wrong.
It's people grow and people havecohesive societies because they
engage in their own volition.
Because in a holistic level, weknow that holistic holistic
relationship with our societies,with each other, with everything
(48:53):
around us, that helps us grow.
And when we grow, we help it inthat reciprocity and like
actually understanding thesethings.
That's really well said andreally important.
Yeah, really?
Like that's base.
Yeah.
We have, we have to understandsome, we have to like start from
scratch at this point grow somecore understandings.
(49:17):
Plant some seeds of some coreconcepts.
In our mental ecosystem and thatabout that anxiety.
No.
When you have anxiousness.
Now, some people that live withanxiousness.
That's a longer conversation.
But the, the terms compulsivereactive and conscious
(49:38):
responsive, there's thatthreshold again.
When are we slipping fromconscious responsive to
compulsive reactive?
And that's anxiety.
So, so we sense when we start toget anxious about something, and
then we sit with that anxietyand we need to learn how to
transcend that anxiety.
And that's a, that's the art,that's a skill that comes with.
(50:00):
That comes with work.
It comes with experience.
But to be able to sit withanxiousness and say, okay, now
what actually am I anxiousabout?
And it's not that we'realleviating nervousness
altogether.
It's that it's down to anacceptable level.
And here's another lesson fromlife science.
There's pathogens.
(50:20):
And In nature, everything's gota place and anxiousness has a
place anxiousness.
If we think about what theuniverse is doing, it's right.
It's showing us pay attention tothis.
And when we feel bad, thatsaying, pay attention to this.
Cause if we just felt good allthe time, if there weren't any
challenges, why, why be here?
There's no modality to grow.
(50:42):
And everything grows.
So everything, that place ofchallenge, another key thing is
recognizing the challenge,recognizing the challenge of
life or death.
People haven't been in challengeof life or death, so it's really
foreign to them.
But it still exists, but it'snot super present in physical
form in contemporary life.
(51:02):
Think about how we You know,lived before modern medicine,
before all the predators wereeradicated, when we had to go
out and do all these physicallydemanding tasks.
And that's how basicallyeverything lives.
But I know what I want to say,that, that stroke, that
(51:25):
survival, being in survival modehas a negative connotation and
it shouldn't.
Because it's survival.
We should be surviving.
We should always be in survivalmode.
If you're not in survival mode.
Whoa.
Hello, everybody.
Where are you?
That means you're in nonsurvival mode.
That means you're probably notsurviving.
(51:46):
Welcome to America.
This is the whole system is nota survival mode.
In survival mode, as we'retalking, you're absolutely right
about that.
And as we were talking aboutanxiety and how it relates to
addiction and, and relationship,especially with ourselves, I
think shame, I think it's worthmentioning shame too.
(52:06):
And I think Gabba Mata hassomething to say about that,
that the way we handle shame,shame and belonging to me are
two sides of the same coin.
And the fact that shameregisters.
I'm told, you can challenge it,but I'm told that shame
registers in the part of thebrain where physical pain is
registered.
(52:26):
And it's there as a warning thatwhen we were living in smaller
groups without so many rules andlaws, if you did something that
caused shame, it meant you mightbe outcast, which meant you
would die.
And so the misappropriation ofhow we respond, because you were
talking about responses andhaving a choice in responses, is
(52:49):
responsible for, I think, whatleads a lot of people into
addiction because they gottriggered in a wrong way and the
people around them didn't knowhow to hold the shame and it
ends up becoming a button.
So shame and anxiety are humanorganism warning systems.
That we are ignoring that areresponsible for some of the
(53:12):
plight that we're in as well.
Yeah I think that people havealways had tools.
to help each other grow.
And, you know, fear is one ofthem.
Fear of being outcast is one ofthem, you know, not saying, you
know, no, no, we're, we'regrowing, you know, we're
growing.
I think that our ancestors, youknow, we're, we're in line with
(53:36):
a lot of, with a lot of thingsand they had to be you know, did
someone consciously say, Oh,hey, let's, Let's just not worry
that we're on the planet.
You know, this is just anevolution of a lot of, a lot of
little things that's added up toget to where we are.
And now they're big things.
And now there's big things beingperpetuated.
You know, shame mandatingbehavior.
(54:01):
I don't know.
There's, there's a lot there tounpack.
I will say this, though, is thatthe core of narcissism is fear
of shame, fear of beingconsidered less than, because I
think the, back to thenarcissist thing, the core of a
narcissist is is ego in theclassic sense, To not be good
enough.
(54:22):
And so then when we talk aboutnarcissism, it's another
hallmark of narcissism is thefalse bravado.
So instead of, instead of beinglike, ah, you know what, I'm
just really not good at this andI'm not good at it and I'll find
something else to be good at.
Versus being afraid that we'renot good at something and
(54:43):
stating the opposite.
And this is when we starttalking about emotional
intelligence, this is the hotbutton for the narcissist,
right?
Hallmarks of narcissism talkabout emotion.
Well, they're either likethey're void of emotion is what
the false narrative commonly is,which is just, I mean, that's,
there's no such thing.
And when we start talking aboutpersonal development, this is
(55:05):
the conversation that thenarcissist doesn't want to have.
Why?
Because they haven't had it withthemselves.
The only reason we know thesethings is because we've done our
introspect.
The narcissist isn't doing theirintrospect and now they're in
the catch 22.
Now they're in the addictionbecause they started the false
bravado that says, Oh yeah, Idon't need to do that.
Because I'm okay and there's notreally an end to that.
(55:29):
We're not okay.
It's an ongoing thing.
So as we understand ourintrospect journey, there's no,
there's no end.
It just, there's just more toadd to the situation.
And again, here's another hugething for people's wellness is
don't put a timeline on yourwellness that the clock in your
wellness do not have arelationship.
(55:49):
That's it.
That's an inorganic object.
And we just grow the things thatwe need to be as individuals.
And there's just such a hugelesson there, but yeah, that
narcissism.
That anxiousness about beingconsidered less than in the eyes
of peers and gets back to thatinsecurity in a, you know, the
(56:11):
culture that we want tounderstand it.
Yeah.
Everyone's got their got theiraptitudes and adeptness and what
some person has here, anotherperson might have here, and
that's where we all meshtogether.
So it's, and, and it's just socritical that we nurture each
other's individuality.
Whatever, whatever that is toreally nurture our
(56:34):
individuality.
Cause that's just so, soimportant.
People bring different things tothe table and, you know, even
things like autism ADD, ADHD,all those kinds of things, which
I hate those labels too let'stry and understand more than
just say, Oh, people don't fitinto the common because the
outlier, the outlier affects theaverage more than.
(56:57):
what would fall into theaverage.
And ultimately the average mightnot even exist.
If you write, for example, yougot a group of fives and a group
of tens, the average is sevenand a half, but, but there's no
seven and a halves.
So when we start talking aboutthe average of humanity, there's
(57:18):
another false narrative that'sbeing perpetuated and no one
fits into that.
So there's a big tail chasing.
That's definitely, that'sdefinitely a myth.
You know, a couple of times inthis conversation, my mind has
gone to the story of theemperor's new clothes.
And I think how valuable thatlittle kid who is willing to
(57:39):
call out the lie that everybodyelse is perpetuating is.
And he does so, so innocently,like how could anybody possibly
believe all this bullshit, youknow, and the courage that it
takes to do that.
We all need to have a little bitof that in us, I think, to make
some of these shifts.
The answer to the question isgaslight.
(58:01):
So the gaslighting.
Keeping the false narrative infront of someone, only exposing
someone to a false narrative,time and time again, America
freedom.
That's a gaslight.
That's narcissism.
When I say narcissism,colonialism, that's what it is.
You just said something that Ithink can be a whole other
episode talking about the mythof freedom in America, just like
(58:22):
flashed for me.
So I think I'd like to, if you,I think this might be a good
time to wrap up and maybe youcould tell people a little bit
more about where they can findmore of your podcasts and what
else you have going on.
Yeah.
So Craig Smith, my biz guide, MY B I Z G U I D E.
(58:44):
And my biz guide is Facebook,Instagram, YouTube.
Yeah.
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube,TikTok, all those.
YouTube has mostly content.
There's actually like over 130videos.
We're finishing up thenarcissism series.
(59:05):
There's like seven narcissism,EDU narcissist in the mirror,
scarcity, mindset, addiction,racism, misogyny, colonialism,
capitalism.
All those are, you know, our 15minute workshops that we've
done.
And then just random thingsrandom notes, random topics,
(59:27):
lots of things about addictionand And wellness, and I'm
writing a book called thebusiness of being human.
It's not done yet.
It's probably still got anotheryear out, but I've been working
on it for two in writing anotherbook at the same time.
So yeah, that's what I'm doing.
That's kind of the shortversion.
(59:47):
And yeah, I always appreciatethese conversations, but anyone
can reach out to me and youknow, the website of course, the
contact information.
And I do personal wellness,corporate wellness, addiction,
trauma.
Great.
And I am Ishi Abel with theHorse Human Connection Matrix,
which is a lot about horses alot of interviews with people
(01:00:08):
and things that, you know,affect horses in equine assisted
practices and equine therapy andautism.
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