A Workshop for Welcoming Fear

By the time we got to the edge of a cliff, everyone is feeling some level of fear, and it's completely understandable. Here it is: fear of annihilation. Welcome to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore how deepening connection with ourselves and others leads to creating the life we want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Brett Kistler, here today with my co-host Joe Hudson.

Hey, Brett.

Hey, hey.

Good to see you.

You too.

I've been dying to ask you about the retreat that you put on. And before I began into talking about that, what I want to talk about is how important it is for me that this happened, because it's the first time that AOA has a retreat that is not my brainchild and Tara, my brainchild, that it's actually the community is growing and now we have for the first time, someone else putting out a retreat. And, uh, and I know it went well because I've heard a lot of stuff, but I want to, I want to have a conversation with you and talk to you about it and see how it was for you. Um, but before, before I even asked my first question, give everybody context. What the hell just happened?

Yeah, so I put on a retreat called Welcoming Fear, and the idea for this retreat was that it would take the kind of work that we've done in AOA but kind of bring it out into nature, into the wilderness, and into very present, physically embodied experiences with fear. And the idea is that it's an invitation for people to really sensuously sit with and enjoy and just notice and learn about the way that their body and their emotional system and their mind process fear. So it wasn't as much of a goal-oriented thing as like, you're gonna come and jump off of a cliff, like, like some kind of bungee sort of operation. It was something that was far more slow and deliberate. And so it wasn't just jumping off a cliff. There was, there was individual work, there was partner work, there was group work, all camping under the stars in the desert near Moab, Utah. And there were two rigged activities led by some world-class guides that are very close friends of mine for many years. And one of them was a Highline, which is essentially, if you're aware of slacklining, it's similar to this, but it's walking on a 1-inch wide piece of, uh, nylon webbing that's strung between two cliffs hundreds of feet in the air. And normally this requires a lot of experience to be able to do, except we had it rigged such that you have another line above you so that a beginner was able to do the walk. And this was a slow way of being able to approach your fear and work with it as you're taking step after step across a line and feeling the way that your body responds and feeling where your attention goes. And then we had the faster way of working with fear, which was connecting to a rope and jumping off of a cliff and free falling for several seconds before the rope catches you and swings you away from the cliff. And that offered people an opportunity to feel through a certain level of fear and then commit. And also notice what happens in their system and what strategies they use to make that kind of a move in their— in this kind of physical environment or in their life.

Ah, cool.

Okay, so that was, that was the retreat. Yeah.

So that was, that was the retreat. So What was your hope? Like, if you were to say, like, you had all these people you were serving, what was your hope in the outcome for the people you were serving in the retreat?

Yeah, my, my hope for the outcome for people was not for them to come through the retreat having learned an ability to conquer their fear. Um, I can talk about this in a moment, but what I really wanted was for people to have developed an enjoyment of the process of being with their fear and not needing to do anything with it, not having, you know, something that needs to happen, not pushing through it, not running from it, but just noticing what happens when they, when they approach their fears in a very subtle, step-by-step way.

What I heard at the beginning there was this idea of, and I think you mentioned at the beginning, you said like a sensual experience of fear and then And then here you're talking about enjoying the fear. For you, what makes that such an important thing is that people learn how to welcome, have a sensual experience, enjoyment of fear. What makes that important that that was the main outcome?

Yeah. For that, I need to scroll back to some of my history. So, when I got into adventure sports when I was around, the timeline could be when I was 18 or 19, but I was also rock climbing much earlier than that and doing kind various outdoor things. So we'll just say that early on in my journey, I had adopted the narrative, which is a common societal narrative, a common way that people approach fear, that it was some kind of an oppressor for me, that it was something that I needed to overcome or to conquer. So I ran with that. And I was like, okay, great, to become, to become a more seasoned person, to grow as a person, to really fully experience life, then what I need to do is learn to conquer my fears. So I went on that path. And what I've noticed over decades of doing that now is that over a long enough timeline, it was the people who were, who stayed in that mode that I was in initially, who were conquering their fears, pushing them away, skipping over them, that ended up having the most accidents, injuries, deaths, and also grew at the slowest rate. Until of course, often something would happen to them that would wake them up and they'd be forced to feel what they've been avoiding, which is something we've, you know, we've talked about a lot on this podcast in many different realms. And I also noticed another thing was the people who were, had been in the sport the longest and with the cleanest safety records and were really kind of the mentors were the ones who really developed a relationship with their fear where they just wore it on their sleeve. They would show up to an exit point, which is in BASE jumping, that's what we call the edge of a cliff where you're about to jump. They would show up to an exit point and just name all the things they were scared of and be visibly feeling it, but not in a dysregulated way. It would just be like, here it is, here's the things I'm concerned about. Or, oh yeah, I've got the fear poops. I've gotta poop, you know, 'cause I'm scared, you know, just kind of playing with it. And then there'd be the guy, you know, sometimes this was me earlier on, especially showing up and being like, okay, I got this. This is the thing I got to do. I'm going to do the thing. And I got it. And just over, over the course of a lot of time, I noticed that there was a very big difference in both the enjoyment and also the safety record of people who were really developing a loving, sensuous relationship with their fear and using it as grounding in their system while they're, while they're jumping, and as a guide for their judgment. So, and so that's, that's really what I wanted people to, to get to play with and experience and to transition from a relationship with fear that pushes it away to a relationship that really welcomes it in, in a grounded and regulated way.

So there's This opens up multiple questions for me. So the first question is that is the most pointed question is like, how much of creating this retreat for you is a way to save people's lives? Like how much of this is like your response to a community that you love and you like, oh, if I can teach this to young people in this sport, like they're, I, either I will not have to deal with as many deaths or there will not be as many. That— how much of that is— how much of that is what's happening here?

Yeah, I— a few years ago, I would have said a lot of what I'm doing here is about saving lives. And interestingly, I feel like that's kind of fallen away. It's like, I don't believe that I— that anyone needs me to save them. But what I do enjoy is being with people in this exploration, and it And because of that history of having lost a lot of friends, a lot of it around various, you know, variations of the way people relate to their fear, whether it is the fear of jumping off a cliff or the, a social fear, which is something that we got into on the retreat as well. Uh, whether that's the case, it's just that I really deeply enjoy and find it deeply meaningful to be with people on that journey, wherever it's going to take them. I don't, I don't need somebody to be like, oh cool, I did the welcoming fear trip and now I want to go jump off of cliffs. And I'm like, great, I saved you. You're going to be safer. It's really just like, I love being in that exploration. That's what I've loved about jumping from the very beginning. And I love being with people in it. Lovely.

I get it. And I think I know the answer to this question, but I want to— I was thinking about more in the reverse. Like if you had the opportunity to take every young cliff jumper, every young squirrel suit, for every highliner, whatever those high-risk sports are, and like put them through this. So it's not about convincing them to go and jump off a cliff. Like, how, how exciting would that be for you? Or is it—

I would love that. Yeah, I would love that so much. But just for anybody, one of the— one of my favorite kinds of moment to have Throughout my years, I've spent many— I've been on the exit point. I've stood on the edge of cliff with many people, hundreds of people at least. And it was those moments where all the cracks start to come through and whatever identity one has, you know, whatever kind of patterns, they both burst to the surface, ratcheted to 10, and also crack open. In that, in that environment. So what I, when I look back on that, on those, uh, on all of my jumps, one of the things that I just enjoyed the most was being at an exit point, not jumping, but being at an exit point with people and just noticing, oh, this person's, this person's fear turns to anger. This person's fear turns to determination, rigidity. This person's anger turns, or this person's fear just moves cleanly. And this is what happens when our group is here feeling this together. This is what happens when there's one person in the group who is really willing to say the thing that they're socially afraid to say because they're in tune with their physical fear. And this is what it looks like when an entire group avoids it. And yeah, there's so much, so much juice there. And absolutely, I'd love to be able to do this work I would love to do this work with people who are, who are on a journey of exploring a sport that does carry inherent physical risk. And I enjoy it for anyone in their life because everyone's life includes inherent fear on their path, wherever they go.

So one, one noticing, and then I want to move to the, the other question about this, but one noticing for me is there's this saying that I've run across or said or heard, I can't remember, but basically, like, in, in this, in spiritual development, there comes a time where you realize that every moment is a death. Every moment you're like, what you were is no longer. Like, there's only the you that's here right now, that there's like a death in every moment. And, and it's, it's a way to describe when the identity falls apart, when the story falls apart. And it's just very interesting to me that the, that that is every one of those is an exit point. And so like, I just notice internally what's happening for me is like, oh, right. What, what happens when you are, and oftentimes the first 5, 6, 7 times you hit that exit point, there's a lot of fear that arises. And what is it to enjoy your fear in those moments of going, oh, what, what if my whole identity is, is, is an illusion or a, or a hallucination?

Yeah. And there's, there's the piece of welcoming and enjoying the fear, and then there's also the aspect of just noticing what other fears are there. Because often what is going on is that we're focused on one fear, that's the one that's the most present, and we over-index on that, and we're actually missing that there's other fears present. So it's not even just about like grabbing onto that one fear and holding tightly and being like, I'm gonna just go into this one. It's also about like, okay, so there's a very big fear here that's present, and what are the other fears that are subconsciously driving me right now that I'm not yet aware of? The whole network of the fears underlying our identity, underlying our physical safety, underlying our safety in our group, underlying our, you know, hopes, dreams, ambitions. There's so many— there's so many different flavors of that fear. And it's only in welcoming a very broad spectrum of them that we feel really grounded in the moment and prepared to take the action that's appropriate rather than the action that, you know, some small aspect of that fear thinks is appropriate.

Right. So you've said a couple of times, like, I'm just happy to be there with anyone, which makes me very happy. I love the idea that you're teaching for your own pleasure. I think that's so critical, not to be there to save the world, not to be there because the world needs you, not to be there to save a single person. It feels to me like the most honest teachings are the ones where the teacher's like, I'm here because I love it. And it's really clear that this is not something that you have created just for people in adventure sports where there's high risk. This is something that you clearly see many, many people would benefit from. Absolutely. So, yeah. So, what I want to know is let's say you have a CEO of a company. And they're coming to this retreat, what is it that you would hope would change about their being a CEO? Or what would they see that would influence being a CEO? Or what is it that they'll get out of it that would benefit all their employees or benefit their bottom line or benefit their enjoyment of running a company?

Yeah. So, kind of scrolling back a little bit to when I was talking about how all of people's, all of our different patterns show up on the exit point.

Yeah.

One thing that people got from this, from this retreat, was just noticing what those patterns are. So there's, there's somebody who showed up and they, they really learned how much that when they're scared, they tend to go into anger at what they're scared at. And that's just an initial response. And they needed to move through that and feel and love the whole thing. To be able to step off of the cliff. And I find that would be really valuable for a CEO. And there was another person who was very buttoned up throughout the entire process, before, during, and after, except for the moment of freefall. And during that moment, they were just— they wanted to be absolutely anywhere else but here. And they were like, well, I can't unsee that that is my response to helplessness when I'm in it. Not just preparing for it or having just experienced it, but when I'm— when it's right there.

Yeah.

And, you know, we had others with sort of like a grim determination. They were like, okay, once I put the gear on, I'm going. And then they went and then had a big process after. So for, for that type of person, I might learn that there's a lot of post-processing that they do and something in the moment, just they execute. And then later on, maybe they need to take space to process it.. And there were a number of other patterns. There's one person who, who didn't even jump, and they got perhaps one of the biggest growth experiences out of it. And the way they learned for more from the way that they related to themselves having walked away and the initial pattern of going into shame and beating themselves up and being able to work with the thoughts that were coming online in real time. And see through them and feel what was underneath it, ultimately they found a really deep freedom of, oh yeah, the biggest freedom for me in my life is to be found in walking through the social fear of being the person that didn't jump. And just, they just had this massive epiphany, this giggle fit for half an hour about the recognition that they just did not need to take so seriously what people thought of them. And I mean, if there's one thing that I would love to like just hand as an epiphany gift to a new CEO or an experienced CEO, you know, it would be that. Or to my, to myself as a CEO.

So let, let's just track one of these down. Let's track the first one down. So a CEO comes in and they have the anger that they react to their fear with anger. And let's say that they've been doing this inside of their company. How do you see that that would play out in a company? And how do you see that once they have this realization, it would play out differently?

Yeah, I mean, prior to the epiphany or transformation, the kind of pattern you might see would be that there's always something wrong. There's always somebody doing something wrong from the CEO's perspective, and the CEO feels alone in it, and they start attacking people. And then people— there's a lot of fear because the CEO isn't feeling their fear. Now the whole team is feeling fear. And of course, that's not going to be— that's not going to be a terribly productive team. That's not going to be a team that feels highly creative and innovative and takes risks. With the company or socially in the team, speaking their truth. It's gonna be a lot of trying to make that person happy. And it's going to depend on how scared that person is, but it's that fear isn't going to be present in the room to be addressed. And so after the epiphany, after the, after the transformation, an example of the way that this might play out would be that the leader, and perhaps you know, the team, because this, the retreat happened in a group context. And so there were a lot of beautiful ways that I can speak to soon that the group held each other and were able to ask each other for what they wanted and how they wanted to be held. So there might be a leader who's like, hey, uh, I noticed that like when I'm scared, often I get angry. And so if you find me being angry, know that it might not be about you. It might just be that I'm scared. And I'd love an invitation to check in with myself. And I'll, of course, be tracking that in myself as well. And if that's happening, like, oh, I see what's going on. I'm actually just scared we're not gonna hit the numbers. Or I'm scared we're gonna lose this client. Or I'm scared we're gonna lose an employee that feels key to me. And I don't know what I would do without them. And I make myself responsible. And I'm afraid of that. And then you can bring to the surface what's actually going on. Rather than a bunch of people running around trying to get it right around an angry boss.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. One of the little nuggets that was in what you just said was that because the fear isn't being felt directly, you're putting it on other people. Like, you're, you're, you're like, it's like a fear hot potato. I don't want to feel this. And so you throw it at someone else and then they're like, I don't want to feel this. And then, or they, or they're the ones that feel it. And so it's like this fear hot potato, which is a big way people not wanting to feel fear. Oftentimes you see it, like I see this in families where somebody holds the anxiety for the family and everybody else is like trying to manage the anxiety. I don't want to feel that fucking anxiety. Like it's going to be fine, honey. Or, you know, whatever. Like, well, we're going to get through this and blah, blah, blah, blah. So you have this group of people all facing fear. How How did the fear hot potato go? How did you set up a system where the fear hot potato didn't go? I would assume that would be a shit show if you're in that retreat and everyone's just passing the fear around. Tell me what happened there and how you thought about it or how you arranged that.

Yeah. Well, for one, we spent a day before we did any of the activities just doing introspective work. And this was like individually, we had, I had people crawl up to the edge of a cliff and peer their head over and then just kind of meditate and ponder on a series of invitations and let that start to dredge up some of their, some of their fears, some of their identity fears, some of, a lot of them came up as fears of death. There was, there was really two main categories of fear that showed up for people, which was the the fear of the death, which is including their identity. And then others were social fears, which I'd say that's also identity related, but they were like specifically about what happens to my partner or what happens to, you know, what my business if I go. And so we brought all that to the surface to begin with. And then by the time we got to the edge of a cliff to either walk the High Line or to jump, The thing that was kind of unique about this is that everyone is feeling some level of fear and it's completely understandable. It's not like, you know, it's not like people were showing up and it took some work to figure out that there's actually a visceral fear of annihilation here underneath the relational work we're doing. It was just, you know, it's table stakes. Here it is, fear of annihilation. Your identity might not feel it, but of course your body does. My body does. I've done it thousands of times, and it's still there. And so that's one of the things that was just unquestionable, that what was going on and what we were all working with was fear on, on the base level. And because of the group context, everybody could see the different ways that that was moving through people and the different emotions that were evoked. So one person might assume that everybody's going to have the same response to the edge of a cliff as they do, or maybe they might not assume that, but they might not really know the nuances of all the different ways that that shows up. And in this, in this context, people got to see that and they got to see the way that it consolidated into individuals in a group. Like there was the person that held the role of here's my anger. There was a person that, you know, held the role, held the hot potato of, you know, I'm the one that's going to be, you know, the helper and the supporter, or, you know, I'm the one that's going to be kind of silent, hanging out in the back, watching everyone else.

So one of the things I noticed that's like actually really interesting because it's so explicit, we're all here dealing with fear, assuming that there's some gentle pointing of like, notice one person's way of handling fear is getting angry. One person's way of fear is helping everybody. One person's way of handling fear is It's an interesting thing because it allows any one of you to walk into the world and see fear where it actually is instead of— Exactly. Which has helped me have a tremendous amount of compassion in life. Somebody gets angry and I'm like, oh, they're scared. Like, creates so much ease and compassion to be with their anger. Or somebody is really helpful in a way that I'm like, Hey, stop, like, stop taking away my empowerment, but I really want to be helpful. Now I can take care of myself. So much compassion because, oh, they're afraid. And we can all be afraid. So it's interesting just like that there's a way in which your retreat allowed that too, to see how other people were in their fear. To witness the different ways of doing it and allows for deeper compassion. I want to ask, how much did I just make that up and how much did— was that an explicit part of the retreat?

Yeah, that was a very explicit part of the retreat. And we also added a few more elements. There was a lot of experimentation. So people were invited, especially for the High Line where you're spending up to like 20 minutes or so walking this line. So there's— you can take experiments. You're like, okay, I'm going to do this one with just looking at the end of the rope. I'm going to do this one. I'm going to like look down and like look where I don't want to look while I'm walking, or I'm going to let my legs wiggle as much as they want, or I'm going to try to manage myself as much as I can. We also had the opportunity for people to ask what support they wanted from their group and for others to suggest prompts. Uh, one of, one of the people who was jumping, it was suggested like, hey, like, why don't we just do this? Like, you, you approach the edge of the cliff and you're ready to jump. You don't have to jump. In fact, you can intend not to jump, but just have the experience of walking up and saying no. And then the group says, we love your no. And this person went up to do that experiment and they found themselves jumping. Like, that was just having that no honored by the group and brought fully to the surface and loved in themselves.

Yeah.

Was, was enough to remove the block to, to honor, like, that piece was honored. And so then the part of them that wanted to jump and have the experience of jumping, not just the experience of the no, but get both, was that was for them something that they wanted at that moment, you know?

That's cool. That's great. I could keep on digging into all this stuff. I could geek out on this forever, and I wanna be conscious of time. So I wanna transition to a, a slightly different topic, which is like, if you look back and you think subconsciously or less than consciously, what was your reason? What were you trying to learn by putting on this retreat? What were you wrestling with? That, if anything? To be clear, I'm, I'm talking about your personal development here. I'm not talking about like, how do I put on a retreat? Like, what were you trying to teach yourself in the retreat by, by putting on a retreat?

Yeah, for, for me, I really wanted to experience facilitating this work in a context that is really deeply, that I'm really deeply steeped in, and that there was such a sense of place to where we were. The, the canyon that we were camped at the top of is a place that I've frequented for over a decade, probably a decade and a half. I've done dozens, maybe hundreds of jumps there. I've been with people for rescues. I've been with people for first jumps, 100th jumps, and had lots of just rich learning from this place. So it was really beautiful to be facilitating something in a place where every time we would turn a corner driving down one of the, one of the roads, there'd just be something else that would pop into my mind, uh, a new teaching, a new reflection, an invitation for the group. And so it was really beautiful for me, and that was one of my intentions, was like, what if— what would I create from, from my experience that also like fully inhabits the work that, you know, that we've been doing together, that I've been learning through you.

Yeah.

And also another aspect of it was facilitating, you know, being, being the sole facilitator in a group in a place with no cell service where there are real risks was something that just re-enlivened something.

That was your high line.

Yeah, that was my high line.

You were like, oh, Right, here, here's my way to fully confront facilitating, right?

Right. It was like right in the deep end. It's like, okay, if we run out of water, we're like a couple hours away from a town, and if we run out of whatever, it's going to be a logistical kerfuffle just to, to deal with anything that was a curveball. So there was kind of that aspect of like, okay, like, how much can I, how much can I trust myself to be building this retreat with all these moving parts different vendors, guides, logistics, and be holding the thing myself, um, without the capacity to make a phone call to be like, hey Joe, what would you do in this situation? None of that was there. Um, and, uh, so that was really cool, just like letting the buck stop with me, um, throughout the process. And I found that that was really important for my, uh, for, for my process because I, I really found a, a different level of capacity to hold the, hold the group and hold the container when there was no part of me that could think that there was any out if I needed it or wanted it. It was just, I'm here and this is it. And that was really important for me.

Yeah. So the thing that I see in what you just said is that you were on your own high line as your doing the fear thing. You're actually doing the being with the dance, enjoying, welcoming your own fear in the facilitation, which I find really deeply helps facilitation. I notice that a lot of times when people are facilitating something, particularly for the first time, they are wrestling with it themselves in their own way as they're teaching it because it makes it very alive in their system. And the reason I put that whole setup is that what I've noticed is when I do a retreat for the first time, there's a way in which it's like the people are guinea pigs and they're getting the first version of it, which is not going to be in some ways as good as the future versions of it, but in some ways it's going to be better than any version because there's something that can happen on the first one that can't happen anywhere else. So, and this is a challenging question, I would assume, but what is it that the first group got that probably is never going to be replicable? And then, or like, it'd be lucky if anybody else got that. And then what is it that you're going to do differently? And so that the second and third groups get something Or the 10th group gets something that's a little more refined and doesn't get what the first group got.

Yeah. Good question. So one thing the first group got was just the reality that I was sitting in my own Highline process. Um, however much they felt it, like that was something. Uh, another piece was the group size that we had this time was it was 8 people, including myself. So there was a small intimacy to that group and I don't think I'm going to run one that size again. But one thing that was really nice about it is that we could all fit in one Suburban, and as I drove around, I got to like share with a whole group and reflect with the whole group, and everybody got to be in, in that space together during the transit times, which was really cohesive for the group.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And another piece was, um, and I don't know to what extent this affected the group, but this is almost a continuation of your further— of your previous question, which was that for myself, I had also brought my base jumping rig with me, and I had an intention to approach the edge of the cliff after the retreat and maybe jump, maybe not jump. And so the entire time during the retreat, I was with my process of approaching. I haven't jumped, I haven't base jumped in about 4 years, 3, 3 years, 4 years. So it's been a little bit of time, and Alexa and I are planning on having a kid soon. And so this was potentially the last chance to do that before having a kid. And then the calculus changes a lot more.

Yeah.

And so like, I feel like energetically I was really there in the retreat. Um, and I, that, not that that can't be true in the future, but there was something, something about that, that it was like, everybody knew that this was my first time running the retreat. In the future, they'll know that I've done it before. There's a different thing going on there.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And to say, to speak to what'll be different in the future iterations, one thing I'd love to do is add another day of, of integration and deep work between the two days of highlining and jumping that we did. So future iterations will be a little bit longer. And for that, there might be some more depth, there might be some more kind of more spaciousness. Um, I think that a lot of people will appreciate that, especially, you know, especially if people are newer to this work. There's just a lot. You're basically doing a couple of big emotional releases back to back. So I want to spread that out a little bit more. And there's also just a number of ideas that I now have for various exercises and ways to work, uh, work some reflections and kind of meditative questions into some of the processes while people are doing the activity.

That's awesome.

Of course, balancing that with being overly structured and letting people have their experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. So I, I just have one last question for you.

Mm-hmm.

Last question I have for you is like, what, what's your biggest gratitude walking out of this, like, there's this deep privilege that you got to be with a group of people, that they trusted you in this experience, that you got to teach something that's very meaningful for you. So there's like this amazing privilege of, of what you ought to do. And I'm wondering just where, what's the, what's the deepest gratitude you have for having chosen to do this, taken the risk of doing this, given folks this experience, which I've heard from so many people was, well, 7, not 8 people who, that it was amazing. Tell me what's your gratitude? What's the biggest gratitude walking out of this?

My biggest gratitude is for the journey that brought me here and for the people who have influenced me along the way. And that, that includes people who are still around, that includes a lot of people who aren't. And, you know, in many of those, in the manner of their transition, taught me more than anything else I've ever learned. And there's just a deep gratitude for— a gratitude that I am here and capable of doing this work. And also just a really deep gratitude. I have a lot of deep gratitude for the training that I've done with you and with Tara, a lot of deep gratitude for the coaching cohort that we have and, you know, the sangha that I practice with. And Ultimately, the deepest— there was a moment on the final night when basically the entire thing had completed and we were going to sleep, and I took a 20-minute walk to a rock that I used to camp under like a decade ago, and I just climbed on top of that like 40-foot rock or something and then sat and just sat in the silence and just felt myself. And felt the place in my history with that, with that location, with that group. And it was just like tears coming down my face for what I had just witnessed in this group. And it blew away my concept of what was probable, not necessarily what was possible, but what I, my conceptions of what I thought this first iteration were going to be relative to what it was. I was just like, oh, it went all the way there. Like there's nothing else that needed to be done. This was, this was it. This was the retreat. And I can iterate, but this was, this was the, the ikigai. This was the, the mix of everything that I've spent so much of my life doing in a place that I deeply love with people that I deeply love doing the kind of inner exploration that I've always been drawn to in many different ways, in many different iterations. And just to feel that richness of life and that love, and just, it just was a deep welcoming in that moment. It was just everything. I can just welcome everything right now. And yeah, there's no difference between that feeling and gratitude.

Yeah, I, I want to end there because that feels like the perfect way to end, but I, I also want to say I am really proud of you, man. Yeah, thank you.

That feels really good.

I'm really grateful that I got to be a part of, in any way, having that happen in the world, and it, and it just— yeah, a lot of I have a lot of pride and very proud of you. Thank you.

Yeah. I wanna add one more gratitude, which is that the day before, the night before I went down there, I talked to you and you said, hey, it's like, you know, if everything goes to shit and you're feeling yourself, it's way better than if everything goes according to plan and you're not. And that was, that one nugget was really, really powerful for me. And so thank you.

You're welcome. Before we keep on gratituding all, all over the place, uh, uh, just if anybody is interested in this, um, when are you doing it again and how do they find out about it?

Yeah, so I'm planning on doing another one in very early May 2024, followed by another one in October, roughly. Uh, so if you're interested, go to welcomingfear.com, um, or just hit us up through any of the normal Art of Accomplishment channels— artofaccomplishment.com, Twitter/X, uh, or the like.

Great. Awesome. Thanks, Brett. Yeah, talk to you soon.

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