Privilege, Pain, and Projection — Joe Hudson’s Story (Part I)

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 with my co-host, Joe Hudson. This week we're going to go into a much-requested topic about Joe's history. We cover the first part of his life from a relatively standard modern start to being kicked out of his house as a 13-year-old, getting a green mohawk, and collecting spiritual tools from around the world. So Joe, tell us what fucked you up.

Oh my goodness. Right. Uh, pretty early on. Uh, if you think, if I think about my first 7 years, I, the, that one was, you know, that was probably as far as like 0 to 18, probably the most, um, most functional part of my childhood. There were some issues, but— and also it's that time when so much, and like so much of your basic attachment issues, you know, get created in that timeframe. And I remember that was the time when I had the strongest relationship with my father. I remember coming home and I remember there was just like, they're always looking forward to him being around and him always looking forward to us. And that was, I think, pivotal. I don't know if I really— I don't know what— how life would have been without that.

And where was this? To get— to kind of get some context, where were you growing up? What was that?

Yeah, the first 7 years were in like suburban, rich suburban Connecticut. And, but after that, like, by the time I was 28, I'd lived 26 places or something like that. I mean, I couldn't go back and count it, but I've been saying that so long that it feels like that's probably what's right. Um, good.

But I was—

there was a time where we were moving every 6 months, so. But the first 7 years were in Darien, Connecticut. And, and the way that, that what happened there, the, the, the The thing that affected me there was that my mom was working and she was one of the first people in that upper middle class white culture where the woman was working. And my mom, in fact, will proudly tell you the story that she had many men who were her suitors and she picked the one that she didn't particularly love at first., but who would allow her to have a career and kids. And so that was like a very important thing to her. And so she, and due to some weird circumstances, she had to go to work. She was a professor shortly after I was born. And, and so my mom was, was a bit overwhelmed and her parenting style was, you know, I would say a bit rigid at the time that, you know, it was very like Like the job was to train me when to go to the bathroom so that she could change diapers on a schedule, you know, at like at a very early age. And so there was not really the, you know, not that she thought of it as bad in any way, but it was very, at that point, what it really taught me was that my needs weren't gonna get met. So it took me probably until my 30s 30s to realize that I— like early 30s, late 20s— that I even had needs. You know, when people were like, "Oh, do you have any needs?" And I'd say, "Yes, water, food, and shelter. Air maybe." And I had no idea that there was things, there was needs out there to thrive. It was only needs to survive in my mind.

So what did you have in place of needs? It sounds like schedule or some outside-imposed structure. What was the thing that was there instead?

That's a great question. Yeah, what was there was my duty to make sure that everything was calm. You know, like there was a duty to make sure that things didn't get too overwhelming, which was obviously impossible for a young, for me, I was a young boy with a tremendous amount of energy. And, you know, had like an abnormally high IQ. And so I was constantly getting into stuff, but that was the job. Like, that was the felt sense of the job at a young age was to— because of course my mom was just deeply overwhelmed with everything that was going on. And she had had a situation where her dad died at an early age. And so she had really not deeply explored her emotional self, and there was no room for that in her childhood. And so there was not a lot of room for my emotional world. So some of my earliest memories were being made fun of for crying. And so, so the needs weren't just a physical need, but the need— like, the emotional needs were also not an acceptable thing. At least some of the emotions weren't an acceptable thing. And so What happened for me was just to even know that emotions were something that was important, happened in my 30s, and to know that I had needs, and then to learn how to identify them and learn how to ask for them was like a huge journey for me. That was a really significant journey later in life because of that. And the other thing I think was that the relationship was very much wanting a level of affection and nurturing, particularly from my mom that wasn't there. I had it with my dad in the early years. I felt that deeply in that experience, but I didn't feel it as much with my mom. When I got sick, I would have it. She'd be very nurturing and caring. I remember enjoying being sick because I would get like this level of care and nurturing and attunement that I didn't really get otherwise. Um, you know, and, and, and I can tell just given her mom, like, how much more attuned and how much more now from this perspective. But as a kid, you don't know that at all. And so all that was there was just this desire to be— yeah, to be held in, in a way that wasn't— that wasn't available. Yeah, yeah.

I'm curious there, to what extent that loving, loving having her take care of you when you were sick, like liking being sick for that reason. I wonder how much that relates back to like having learned that love was being— having your bodily state be managed.

Yeah, that's an interesting— yeah, it was. I think that's another thing that was interesting. My parents very much didn't— weren't into sports. I had eye issues when I was young. I had a lazy eye and And so they didn't want me to fail. And so they didn't want to teach me failure, so they didn't allow me to do sports, which I think created— modern research would say probably created more proprioception issues. And so I had a lot of those as well, where I was, you know, very nerdy, clumsy, glasses, you know, didn't have the same kind of balance and stuff like that. And so there was something about the body. The body in my family was very much not, you know, is the mind that was the intelligence that was really important. The body wasn't, and the body was to be controlled. And, and so there was definitely huge portions of my life where I wasn't, I wasn't in harmony with my body. I was overriding my body or telling my body, like not listening to its intelligence. And I would say that's actually still to this day, that's probably a place where like it requires the most, and it's like the most energy and attention is to, to remember to keep on coming, not on an emotional, like I know my experiential body from tons of meditation, but as far as the, the care of my body to, you know, make sure that exercise happens and everything that still requires more attention. It's not automatic in my system as it would be if it was, you know, if I was taught that at an early age.

Yeah, yeah. So something I'm noticing so far is that, um, what you're describing sounds, sounds like a pretty common Western kind of modern experience of upbringing. Like a lot of our, a lot of our parents have had similar kind of starting places in their parenting style and, you know, people entering— like women entering the workforce more and like sort of the American experiment shifting more to the dual working family from what other traditional forms had existed. And I'm curious what, if anything, contributed to the pendulum swinging in the other direction later in your life to be so heavily invested in, interested in your emotional freedom.

That happens in the teenage years. Like, I think the seed for that happened in the teenage years. So, you know, parenting now, what like I see is that there's like the will starts coming online with a kid or the independence. There's like some big thing that happens at around 3 and another one that happens around 7 and then another one that happens around 10 and another one that happens around 13, where the where the kid's job is to create more autonomy or they have that friction between like, I want autonomy and I want care. And so when that started kicking in for me, call it like at around 10 years old-ish, a couple things happened simultaneously. One is I was— we lived in Saudi Arabia and then— or we lived in Iran, excuse me. And then had to move back to New York because the revolution that happened in Iran in 1978-9. And then the only school we could get into was this public school where my sister and I were the only white kids in the school. And I was like beat up on a regular basis. And occasionally protected 'cause people had a crush on my sister. So occasionally I'd get, it was kind of like I got allowed to get beat up X amount but not past X amount because it was like, you know, if they protected me too much, that was an issue. But if they didn't, then, you know, like it wouldn't get my sister's, you know, attention, approval or whatnot. So that happened. So I had a lot of, you know, I'd just seen a war, evacuated, that stress, moved into a hotel in New York City for X amount of time, just stuck in a hotel. As kids and then moved into New York City. All the time I had this movement happening in me to create more independence. And so I'm dealing with all this trauma and at the same time, this is when my dad is like, where a kid normally stops seeing their dad as like this beautiful, wonderful, like can't mess up anything. You know, my dad was my hero. And then I was starting to rebel against my father and my father was not taking it well, right? And I think all that stress also really increased his alcohol use and, or maybe it was just lots of alcohol use built on itself. And so I was dealing with the one person where I was getting that attunement and they were angry at me regularly, yelling at me regularly. Disappointed in me regularly and mood swinging like the way alcoholism does. And so my sister obviously dealt with this as well, but it was different. She played the role in the family of like the good diligent kid, and I started to play the role of the rebel. And so I think a large portion of my desire to And I think blessing is that there was that role because that role was going to push me into places where my parents didn't approve. And for a while, that was drugs. For a while, that was Mohawks. For a while, that was, you know, skateboarding and, you know, smoking cigarettes and drinking at young ages. All that stuff. But then eventually, you know, by that time I'm in my 20s, it was trying to find alternative ways of seeing the world that weren't my parents' way of seeing the world, which was my dad was very business-oriented, very money-oriented, and my mom was very science-oriented. And so I looked for the place that wasn't science or business. And I think there's also a natural desire to explore this area. Just because I was looking for relief. It was really fucking painful. Like, by the time I hit my 20s, like, existence fucking hurt. It just fucking hurt. Like, the negative voice in my head was so loud, right? That the criticism of my dad and my mom at the time was just very— like, I had taken it on. It would become the voice in my head, and it was brutal. Like, the I mean, I had some depression easily in my, like, in my, like, by 19 years old, there was some depression happening because there was just this constant negative self-abuse. And I wasn't crying. I wasn't having any emotional experience. I was just only allowed to be angry. And so, and that 10 years old was like just the beginning of it. By the time I was 13 years old, I would sit at a dinner table and I would get yelled at for like an hour and a half every night. Just yelled. My dad was deep in the alcoholism at this time and he'd be yelling and I'd be like, "Fine, Dad, you're right." And he said, "See, I told you, you were fucking weak and you would quit." Like it was that level of verbal just barraging on a regular basis. And there was, I'd say, a subconscious agreement that it was like my fault. I was the problem and that was the conscious agreement. The subconscious agreement in the family was, uh, okay, he's, he's mad at him, so not at me. Like, like, you know, that everybody else is like, oh, thank God that it's not. But there was also this moment like, can't you just be nice? Can't you, you know, can't you also just acquiesce to this, whatever this is happening in this? So I felt very isolated.

So you were the, you were the scapegoat in the dynamic, keeping, keeping the game in play?

Yeah, I was that. I was also like the I would say in like family therapy thought process, I was the crucible that kept the parents' marriage alive, meaning that I was, I was the problem that they could, they could like come together over. So, you know, I would, I, at this point, I'm like, obviously didn't want to be home. So I would just like leave. And one point they kicked me out and they had this list of things that I had to do to come back and I wouldn't sign the list and You know, like cops had to take me into the social services. It was, it was brutal, right? And I'm 13 at the time, you know, and, and, and I was like trying to figure out how to live away from home, trying to figure out how to— literally, I was like trying to figure out, can I rent a room if I tutor? Because I had really good grades at the time, and I could— I tutor kids and make enough money to pay for rent and food and go to school. And when I went to the counselor to talk about that, the cops came and picked me up, called me incorrigible, took me to social services.

Wow.

Like, it was— yeah, there was, there was, right? And, and then, so that part was interesting. So if I, if I, if I want to, I want to go back to this. So the, the first part was the kind of the attunement attachment issues, what happened in those first years. What was happening in the second years was, was, um, I was learning deeply, learning that I had to do it all myself. That there was nobody who was going to be there for me and that I was going to be emotionally abandoned, that love was emotional abandonment. And that— and, and though there was these moments with my mom where I did feel her love, like there's a way that she would support me, there's also a way she would fight through me at the time where, like, you know, like I would kind of be her knight and And so there was like both of those things happening. So there were some ways that I felt, you know, like virile. And but there was— there wasn't going to be there for me was that somebody was going to take care of me. So I was going to— and I was going to be emotionally abandoned. What's interesting is that I never felt materially abandoned, meaning that my— what my dad would do, which was amazing, was that, um, like, if I ever got in trouble, which I did regularly, like, went to jail a couple times, uh, just for like little stuff, um, never, never had charges pressed, but, you know, being a rebel, like, it just— and my dad would just come and pick me up and say, okay, what are we gonna do? Like, it never— I never got in trouble for any of that. He was just like, yeah, the cops, that— yeah, there was like Never. It was just like he was very supportive in those moments, which is really fascinating.

And also, yeah, what a mindfuck.

I never thought about that.

On the one hand to be like, okay, well, if the cops are— if you're in trouble with the cops, everything's, hey, you're good, you're good, you're good. And then at the dinner table, rah! It's like, it's like nobody else gets to beat up on you but me almost is the energy.

Yeah. And yes, there was that. There was like this very upset over things like, you know, maybe the coffee, you know, whatever. I had messed up a coffee machine or that like I criticized something or I didn't like, I didn't wear the bathing suit that he had bought me. That was like a, I remember that particular fight in the hotel room. It was like so bad because he had a bathing, he had a Speedo that he wanted me to wear and I wouldn't wear it. But getting, going to the jail for the night and getting picked up, he was just totally cool.

Yeah, I can't get the picture now out of my head of you in a Speedo.

How it was blue with like little— I know you can't— you know, the thing is, the thing is, I never wore it. And so that was the thing he really wanted. He had a matching one. He really— and all of his anger towards me in retrospect now was him like feeling unloved. That's what it all was. It was like he thought that I— like he still wanted me to admire him and love him and want to be him. And what he couldn't see was that all I wanted was his love and appreciation. So it was just this, yeah, so it was a really fascinating time. But what I learned there is that, you know, and which also, it wasn't until my 30s where I, well, yeah, 30s where I started to undo this one too, which was like, I was constantly, when I noticed for myself and others, when you're, when you get taught you have to be self-reliant, it's really great and it makes you successful in business in many ways, or can. But what it also does is it makes it really hard. You make it really hard for people to help you because you never trust it, because you get angry a lot. So there was like a whole bunch of anger issues that I had to deal with. There was a whole bunch of self-reliance issues that allowed it really, really difficult for people to be able to support me. Allowed intimacy was really challenging, to let love in was really challenging, all those things, and then constantly creating it so people would emotionally abandon me. So that was all happening. And that's what that— that's how that got created.

Yeah. Got it. So, so going into your 20s, you've got this super abusive voice in the head, you're depressed, you're miserable. At what point I mean, that's where many people stay, and they also don't necessarily recognize, like, oh, there's an abusive voice in my head, until they show up to a workshop and explore it. So I'm curious, what had you start to recognize something was going on, that there was something you could— yeah, explore and change?

I think there's another thing that was happening was that, like, the narcissism had set in at this point, right? By the time my 20s are coming up, like, I'm feeling better than people, like, that, that protection that is necessary in that world because The— it's like, like, there's— I think there's this reality that happens with kids, which is like, if I really allow the truth in, it means like, oh, my parents can't take care of me the way that I need to be taken care of. And that's like an untenable truth for a child. And, and so instead, what happened was that I created this like very big wall of protection, which I would call narcissism. And I don't mean narcissism like narcissistic personality disorder kind of stuff. I'm—

I just mean like narcissism, not—

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, I was feeling like I was often protecting myself by feeling I was better, very judgmental, um, emotional, like constipation, uh, wasn't able to cry. Yeah, all those things, all those things were happening. And so I was not really available but very much still yearning for the affection and still yearning longing for someone to take care of me.

And to what extent were you aware of that yearning?

Not at all. Not at all. So what— yeah, so what happened was— so I think the seed of it was actually in Catholicism. You know, I, I took a lot of solace in, um, and in CCD and the stories of Jesus. Like, it was the only thing that felt somewhat real to me. Um, the, like, this— the parables, particularly the parables of Jesus, like, they felt very— like there was something there in my young ages. And I would like correct the CCD teacher, so I'd get in— I would get in trouble there. It was like, not only was I rebellious, but I was like capable of being rebellious in like the most annoying of ways. And so But there was something there that touched me and I got really deeply into religion and religious studies. So by the time I go to college, I got kicked out of my first college with like a 3.95, but I got kicked out for behavior, basically rebelling against everything I could rebel against, including myself, frankly, at the time. And—

There's more detail on that story in some of the early episodes.

So the— but that rebellion, um, it, it like— it— with the way it paid off was like, I immediately— like, I got into Hermann Hesse, I got into the stories of Jesus. And so when I got to college, I just was like, I'm not taking this like 101 class, I'm gonna go and substitute it for like an advanced religious studies course. So I studied Taoism, I studied like Hermann Hesse, I studied— and that's where I was, I was deeply interested in these alternative ways of looking at, at, um, of life and spirituality and whatnot. And so I, I started to deeply take a look at that. And but it was all very heady, it was all very intellectual, but it opened the door. It was like the seed was planted that there was like this other alternative, that transformation was possible, um, that there was another way of looking at it. And just like reading, uh, like the texts of Chuang Tzu. I, I, I, I basically, in my 20s, I collected parables of every different religion and saw that a lot of them were the same, studied a lot of religions and, and how they were doing the same thing. And so that was, I think, the very seed of it. And but then the real work didn't start until like the meditation retreat.

Yeah, I'm curious, when you said like that they planted the seed that helped you realize that transformation was possible, what was— what had you recognized that it was transformation and not salvation or some other concept?

Hmm, that's a great question.

That was possible.

I think it was basically— yeah, I think it was the— I think transcendence was in there for sure, uh, uh, but salvation wasn't in there because I was self-reliant. There's no fucking way salvation was gonna happen, you know, that like it— like my— there was a whole bunch of stuff that I had to go over, get over, like I'm not going to hell, that there's no like you know, like there's no heaven and hell and that kind of stuff. And like that I was taught in Catholic Church, um, that I, that I need, and the guilt part, like, but the, but the idea of being saved was like, that's not happening. Like, that, that's not— it couldn't even be a part of my reality. And, and, and, you know, as we think about it now, I see that oftentimes the way that we relate to our parents is the way that we relate to God, is the way that we relate to money. So We're constantly trying to get our parents' love, we're often trying to get money, or if we feel like our authority figure was never going to save us, then usually we don't believe that God is ever going to save us. And so that's— I think that's where it really came from. Like, there was just luck in it. There was like, if I was in a different role in the family, I'm not sure if I'd ever really be here. But the—

all that I think is needed is a different path entirely to something like here, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. The, the, but I think what's needed is, oh, there's a, the belief that there's change possible and, and that there is a, and then the, the drive for that. And if you have those two things, I think that that's all that's really necessary. This, in other words, if you're listening to the podcast, you have everything that's necessary cuz you have those two things if you're listening to this podcast.

Hmm. Yeah. So the, so the seed was planted and You recognized that transformation was possible. It wasn't something that you were seeking, like salvation or anything outside of you. You looked for transformation and that you could do it.

Um, yeah, but I don't think the work really— there was a— there was like, that was all intellectual. That was like reading books and like trying to figure it out. And then there was like, oh, then there was like the body experience that happened, and there was the emotional experience that happened. Then it was like, oh, and that happened because of— really, I would say happened because of my wife. My— so in my 20s, my 20— like 26, whatever, I can't— I'm not good with dates, but met Tara like within 3 months, got engaged and married like whatever, a year and a half. After that, I can't remember, something to that effect. And it got really dysfunctional really, really quickly. But before it got dysfunctional, she, you know, and like we're in the love phase and it's like the engagement happened. And one of the things that she was very adamant about was that doing a 10-day meditation retreat. And I was like, "Yeah, I gotta do a 10-day meditation retreat." And I just was kind of like, it was that young male energy and it was like, I can do that. I can just, I can be silent for 10 days. That was like the big challenge, like hiking the mountain. I had no idea that it was like, I was doing like one of those hardcore Vipassana ones. I had no idea. I'd never meditated before. I had no idea of the pain of sitting still for whatever it is, 12 hours a day. Didn't know that that was the toughest part. And, but that was the beginning. That's when the thing started in earnest or moved out of the head into the body. And I don't know if I've told this story on the podcast, but I feel like it's an important story to tell again if I have. Um, but basically in that meditation, you sit still and you just learn to focus your mind for the first 3 days. And then at the end of day 3 or the beginning of day 4 or something like that, you move your attention up and down. And I had this moment of oneness with the universe. At that, that thing. It lasted about 8 seconds, and it was during the first solid sit that I did, moving the attention around. And all of a sudden I was just like, and everything fucking disappeared, and I was the universe and the universe was me. It was just a very felt sensation of that. And, and I disappeared would be another way to say it. And, and all the Buddhists, I'm sure, have like a very specific, you know, word for this particular kind of opening. And, um, and but what that was was like God's little heroin dose. It was like, like, that was like, that gave, that gave me just enough that the rest of my fucking life was about, that's fucking possible, I am gonna do whatever the fuck I have to do to get there.

What was so attractive about it? So like, you described this in sort of the, the heady way of like, yeah, I was one with the universe, but what, what made 8 seconds of that like heroin, and that you wanted it so badly.

My ego was gone. Like, the thing that— the constant editor of life, the separation, the, you know, the thing that, you know, in the ultimate sense, the thing that I was taught my whole life, which is that like I was a separate and I was a problem— that was gone. It was like I was just one with everything. There was no fight left. There was nothing to fight because I was it. The feeling was of, you know, being vastness. It was like, imagine if you could feel what it would be like to be nature, not to be in nature, but to be nature. Like, that was the feeling. And I was gone in that moment. And, you know, that was the experience for 8 seconds. It was just like, whoo. And whatever that was, I was gonna do whatever. And unfortunately, and fortunately, but unfortunately, what happened in my journey at that point was I tried to recreate that for years. I think 8 years or something like that, maybe 7 years. I tried to recreate that experience. And that like is just flogging yourself. And it's like, I immediately took this thing that was my nature that I got a taste of and I made it a goal. And I made it effort and I made it something that I had to achieve to be good enough. I turned it into all of these things that denied the nature of what I had experienced. I immediately co-opted, or my brain immediately co-opted it and was like, and I would literally, I remember like sitting, meditating, trying to effort myself back into that experience again, not ever recognizing for, for years that it was, it, it was received, it wasn't created.

It's like your memory of the experience ended up taking the shape of all of the blocks that would stop you from being in that experience all the time.

Yes. Yeah, that, that's a great way.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, but so that was the unfortunate part about it. The fortunate part about it was that, um, I was like, that's when it opened up. I'm like, I will fucking take any tool, I will do anything, I will travel to wherever and do whatever to get that back. And so the benefit is that when I was doing that, I— and because of my fierce, like, will that I was taught and the fierce, like, self-independence, the— I just went for— in my conditioning, I just went for every possible tool that I could ever find and just tried it out and And I was doing that, like I did that instead of working for most of, you know, most of my, for most of the next 8 years, I just did that all the time.

So like late 20s, early 30s?

Mm-hmm, yeah, until about 35. Yeah, I was just constantly this therapy, this course, this, I was there, I was in it. And what I didn't know till later was, 'cause I've seen some people go into that space It happens, but like all the psychological stuff, all the emotional stuff is still unhealed, undealt with. And so that can get really complicated. So what was lucky is that not only did I learn a tremendous amount of tools that like, which puts me in a position right now to do the work that I do, but I also healed a lot of stuff before I could access that space or before I realized that that space was my nature, that that was, where I rested. And so there was a lot of work that was done, which was— I'm very, very grateful for. But the pain— the experience itself was painful as fuck because I was constantly not there. I was constantly trying to fucking be somewhere that I wasn't. I was— I was just using it as a way to beat myself up. So all of that stuff just was like— it was painful as fuck.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something that's interesting about, about you in particular to me is that, you know, there's many people who have an intellectual level understanding of like mystic concepts and meditation and all the different layers and levels and the elephant path and all the different things you can do and the neuroscience behind it. And then there's a lot of people that I'm, that I see that have a lot of the felt sense capacity to like reach these states meditating.

Yeah.

And there's something that's less common that I see in you, which has had me very attracted to this work, is that emotional and psychological layer. And for myself, I've been focusing less on the meditative practice and more on the psychological, emotional stuff, just kind of trusting that the more, the more I work through my emotional stuff, the more I just am in myself as in my natural state and less in my conditioning or whatever, whatever story that is.

Yeah.

And I'm curious, like for you, what made that, what made it that your path brought you into so much contact with this emotional and psychological side of this?

So I think, I think I was just lucky, born at the right time, meaning that like I was born at a time when there was free meditation retreats happening for the first time. And you know, I mean, maybe it started in the '60s and '70s, and so I'm doing it in the '90s. And I would say the version like 3.0 of psychology was happening where like it passed Freud and it had passed some of the other stuff, and there was like this kind of more integrated psychological approach. And so there was just a lot of tools available. And I was living in California, so there was just a shit ton of tools available. And I didn't distinguish between a meditation tool and a spiritual tool. For whatever reason, my brain was like, I will just take any tool. There's some wisdom. If this tool— if I saw something that affected somebody in a positive way, I was like, I'll do that. And I didn't give a shit what it was. I was like, I was very lucky in the fact that I wasn't religious about it. And like, some people are religious about like, psychology doesn't work. Psychology does work, you know? Or some people are religious about it like psychedelics work, and some people are like psychedelics don't work. Like, I didn't give a shit. If I saw somebody change, I didn't care what you called it. I just did it. And so, and there was just a lot of it available, and I was really lucky. There was like, I, I could read non-dual teachers, which I did a tremendous amount, and, and I could read them from like 2,000 years of history and cross-culturally. And, you know, I could talk, you know, read a guy who was a heroin addict, non-dual teacher, ex-heroin addict from Holland. And I could read, you know, a 1,200-year-old Zen teacher. And like, I had that. And then I could go do the Hoffman Process, and I could, you know, I had a great therapist. And, you know, so it was just— I was just very fortunate. And a lot of it, like the introduction to it, a lot of it was Tara who had just started discovering it herself, had just done a retreat or part of a retreat, and silent retreat, had a therapist and it was really good. So there was like that, I was very fortunate that way. Tara started to open the door and then because I was rebellious, I was in this artistic community in the '90s in San Francisco. And so there was all sorts of alternative things that were happening that I got to try out. I got to see people transform. And anytime I saw it, I was just like, "What are you doing? Get me in." You know, like that was the thing. And so I think that's what— I think I just got lucky. And there was something else that happened too, which was— and I know I've told this story, but some part of the recognition that I stopped crying from that early childhood time that emotions were shut down. And I saw that picture of me being made fun of for crying. And I, and I was like, okay, this— I just know something's not right about this. And so that's like what began the emotional inquiry. And also like the relationship with Tara, I see this in a lot of relationships. One person kind of holds the emotional, one person holds the intellectual, and the intellectual person is like, I'm better than you because you're like out of control with emotions. And the emotional person is like, I'm not as good as this person, but also fuck you, I'm better than you. Well, Tara was really, really willful. And so she was just not gonna give up. She's like, "Yeah, I don't care. I don't believe your logic. I don't give a— like, you're not smarter than me." 'Cause she's also like just, you know, she also knew she had like this crazy brain on her, but she had done this acting. And so she knew this emotional stuff was important and valuable. And so part of it was just her absolute will to, to just not like, I'm not fucking giving in to you, which was, you know, part of her parenting patterns. And so, and that's what I was attracted to, you know, in my— before Tara, I was, you know, I was trying to get over my, my, you know, the lack of availability of my mom's nurturing. And so I was just seeking it in any woman that I could find it. I was sleeping around tremendously. And it was like typically like sleep around, they would chase me. I'd be like, no, I'm out of here. And Tara was the first one was like, I can fucking take or leave you. And so I was like, oh, that's, you know, like, somehow I felt like, oh, I can, I can depend on that because that person, that person, that person doesn't need me. And since I couldn't love my own need at the time, I, you know, that just felt safe. And so that willfulness, I think, was a huge part of me, of me going, okay, like, I'm not gonna win this fight. She's never gonna agree that I'm better than her because of my intellect. And I got to see some of the benefits of her emotionality. And so that's also a big part of it.

All right, thank you, Joe. We're gonna pause this right here and we're gonna come back again in another episode to finish the conversation. Thank you everybody for listening. And if you know somebody who might appreciate what you heard today, Please pass this along and share what resonated for you. We love your feedback, so hit us with comments or questions through our website, Circle community, or tweet us @artofacomp. You can reach out, join our newsletter, or check out our courses at artofaccomplishment.com.