How To Go On A Vision Quest & Embark Upon A Rite Of Passage.

Welcome to the show. I'm excited about today's show because when my children are 13, my twin boys are 10. When they're 13, they're going to be doing a rite of passage. And the gentleman who's going to be overseeing their entire rite of passage where they'll be out in the wilderness with nothing but their fire making kit and their backpack and they'll be out there surviving and going through their official passage into manhood. The man who oversees this and is a real expert in these rites of passage for both adults and for children is Tim Corcoran. My kids go to his wilderness survival school every year. He's been on the podcast before and now he is. He's really developing this whole concept of the rite of passage even more fully with something he calls Purpose Mountain. We're going to talk about that in today's show. Today's show, as every show of the Ben Greenfield fitness episode is. I don't know if that quite rolled off my tongue the right way, but I'm gonna stick with it. Is brought to you by Kion. One thing that you may not realize we have over there is an anti aging serum that I spent a couple of years formulating. It is jam packed with 12 essential oils that have been studied and proven to reduce scars and wrinkles, to cause an increased glow and complexion on the face, and to essentially cause a full face wherever you put it. I'll put it on wounds, cuts, scrapes, bruises, put it on my face every day. It has this incredible anti aging effect in terms of the way that your face appears. It can basically reverse a lot of the damage from sun, from living in a dry area, from excess exposure to poor personal care products for a long period of time, you name it. This stuff heals your face, it feeds your face, and most importantly, it battles the signs of skin aging and reverses the clock on your face place. It's called Kion Anti Aging Skin Serum. Kion Anti Aging Skin Serum. And you can get it over@getkion.com where we also have coffee and we have a fat loss supplement that I designed and a whole bunch of other supplements for everything from muscle gain to digestion to mental performance, you name it. So kion getkion.com, k I o n Finally, this podcast is brought to you by Gains Wave. Gains Wave is this revolutionary new way for men and women who want to optimize their sexual performance, who want longer orgasms, better sex, better feeling down in their nether regions to fix everything. It's a pulsating sound wave frequency that they use to increase blood flow to your unit. And it gives you guys a firmer, more resilient erection. For women, it increases blood flow and it's just sound waves and encourages the growth of new blood vessels, which increases oxygen and nutrient delivery to your genitalia. And it works. I've done it four times now, and every time, you know, I come back and for months I'm like a 16 year old boy. It's pretty cool. So you can get a 30% discount on your first GainsWave treatment. They're all over the United States. Just go to gainswave.comBen to find a provider near you. That's gainswave.comBen to save 30% off your first first treatment with GainsWave. In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

I think the bigger, you know, part of the conversation we need to address is that a rite of passage is really part of a longer mentoring process. And so at this time of transition, when we're coming back to what it means to be a holistic human being, you know, I really want to encourage people out there to invest in community and culture, but to build those relationships. And that's really how our soul speaks to us, is through dreams, images, signs, symbols, nature connection moments.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movements get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy.

All the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I was just chatting with my buddy Tim Corcoran even before we started recording about a hunt that I just got back from in Kona, where I hunted some, some scrub cow, some jungle cow, which are actually incredibly difficult to hunt, surprisingly difficult to hunt. And then also sheep and pig. Pig that is amazingly tasty. Fatty pig, fed on macadamia nuts. And Tim, you also, did you just recently start hunting or have you been hunting for a while?

Well, no, no, I just recently started hunting. You know, I did not grow up hunting. My family didn't hunt. My dad did not hunt. Once I got involved with nature connection work in my early 20s, you know, 20 years ago, hunting was like a real dream for me and something that I held On a high regard. But I waited quite a while. I waited until just, I don't know, five years ago to really get started in earnest. And at that time I found a mentor. I found actually a local Native American mentor, a good friend of mine. I'm from the Spokane tribe of Indians. And then I also found a really local. Another friend who was a local mentor who taught me all about the landscape here and how to go after the white tailed deer. So, yeah, so I've been hunting this past fall. I think I got my third whitetail.

Well, I figure you're probably a pretty good hunter because, you know, when I first met you, it was because I was looking for someone to come up to my land and teach me and my boys about how to harvest wild edible plants from our land. Because we want to know what we could eat. We wanted to know what the medicinal or the edible use of certain compounds were. And you took us around and showed us wild nettle and mullen and comfrey and organ, grapefruit and wild mint. And that was my first introduction to you was as this big wealth of wilderness knowledge. And for those of you who didn't get a chance to listen, I actually talked to Tim. We did a whole podcast on how to find wild edibles and just this whole concept of nature connection and animal tracking. We talked a little bit about hunting in that last episode as well. And on this show, rather than repeating a lot of the stuff that we went into in the last show with Tim, which I'm gonna put a link to over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com purpose I want to talk a little bit more about the reason that I've been sending my kids to attend Tim's wilderness survival camp and also the winter and the spring adventure camps that he puts on over here in the. In the Spokane, Washington and northern Idaho area. Because Tim actually has a pretty big passion for, for, for kids and for the development of really robust young human beings and this idea of giving our kids a lot more than what culture gives it these days. And so, Tim, I want to, I want to jump into. I know what you call purpose Mountain, if you're game.

Sure, sure, sure.

Okay. And by the way, for those of you listening, and Tim himself has a couple of kids. What are your kids names again? Tim.

I've got two boys. River, who's my oldest, he's 11. And Forest, who is my youngest, who's eight.

That's right, river and Forest.

And he has two boys. Yeah, you've got two boys, river and Terran.

Right. Yeah. Yes. You've got river and Forest, I've got River and Terran. And of course, also, by the way, if any of you ever get a chance to attend any of Tim's wilderness survival camps or any of the adventure camps that he puts on, you're probably also going to run into his wife, Janine, who my. My best memory of, My fondest memory of was that she was the. One of the camp cooks for the wilderness, the Father Son wilderness survival camp that we went on. And she makes these amazing, amazing foods, but off the land, like off of all the wild plants.

Right, right. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. So you're a lucky man. A lucky man who.

Well, thank you, I am.

Who, like me, surprisingly, is still skinny despite getting cooked amazing food.

Right. Well, it helps to be outside a lot, right?

Yeah, exactly. You're probably outside more than I am. So, anyways, though, Tim, I had reached out to you because I've been on this kick lately.

And kick is kind of a trite word to use, but I've been becoming more and more interested in the. The problem with effeminate men in our culture and, you know, this whole demasculinization, it seems, of. Of many of the guys in our culture who are now, you know, playing video games and shopping for kale at Whole Foods and doing Bikram yoga, but not really able to. To tap into some of the more intense aspects of masculinity that you might find in books.

Like.

There'S. There's a great book called why Am I Blanking On It Now? Right at the time that I'm recording. It's by David Dieta. Do you know the way.

Way of the Superior Man.

Yeah, Way of the Superior Man. And then there's another. Another book, and this is more of like a Carl Jungian psychology type of book about the warrior, the lover, the king and the magician, and how.

King, warrior, magician, lover.

Yeah.

How many boys kind of just stay in this boy stage and never truly become men? And when I did a podcast a few months ago with Paul Check, he got into how he thought that this whole issue with not just men, but to a certain extent, you could say the same thing about girls in our society. There's no. There's no vision quest. There's no rite of passage. There's no official crossing over into adulthood that we tend to see so prevalently displayed in many ancestral cultures. And because of that, you know, many adults in our day and age are still kids inside. I mean, even myself, I still feel, in many cases, I Was talking about this with my wife the other day, as though I never really had a passing from being a boy into being a man like you. I didn't grow up, you know, with a father who taught me how to. How to hunt. I didn't have any. Any special rite of passage or vision quests that I went through that officially marked me as a man. And I think it's a big problem in our day and age.

Huge. Huge. Yeah. So. Well, we've already covered a lot and where to jump in. I mean, I guess I'll say, you know, at this point in my life, Ben, my interest is really in supporting human beings of all ages to develop holistically. And so, yes, you know, I'm still running Twin Eagles Wilderness School along with my wife. We have hundreds of kids come through every year. And as you mentioned, I've started a new business, Purpose Mountain, that's really geared towards working with adults very specifically, not so much, not exclusively in the realm of nature connection, but of course, in this realm of helping people to discover their purpose, which is tied right in with this whole conversation.

You know, I mean, from my perspective, what I see is that developmentally, as human beings, especially here in the modern American culture, I think it's safe to say that our culture has largely been arrested in adolescence. You know, we do develop from babies to toddlers and from toddlers to kids and from kids to adolescents. But largely speaking, the vast majority of, certainly of America here in the Western world, the real development stops at that point. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Clearly, one of the big ones is our lack of connection to nature. And as you mentioned, which of course ties right into our lack of.

Mature, appropriate rites of passage. And we could take a moment and define that, because that word does get thrown around a lot. And oftentimes people mix that up with the term initiation. You know, in my book, classically, if you look to the classic works of, you know, mythologists like Joseph Campbell or others, a rite of passage is a type of initiation that marks the transition from one life phase to the next. And when we consider that, you know, life phase change, we're talking about birth, we're talking about entry into childhood, entry into adolescence, entry into adulthood, arguably becoming a parent and becoming an elder and then death. So we don't have that many different phases of life. Right. There's only a handful now with an initiation. Initiation is simply an intense process that we go through that might mark a different chapter of life. So maybe an initial initiation for me was Starting my new business last year. Right. But that didn't. That was different from stepping into a new life phase. So rite of passage is like a specialty initiation.

What would be an example of some rites of passage that we see in other cultures?

Oh, yeah, I mean, gosh, there's tons.

You know, I mean, classic. Some classics would be the Australian Aborigines have their walkabout, right, where kids. And this was. And it's actually worth acknowledging, you know, because we're talking about the old cultures. A big part of my work, the vast majority of my adult life, I've really put towards connecting with and learning from indigenous culture, especially here in North America. I've been blessed to have a number of elders and mentors that are indigenous to North America. And I've learned so much. But, yeah, some classic rites of passage would be the Australian Aborigine walkabout. And the kids, when they grow up, they would hear stories and there would be songs in the culture that they would hear about the landscape. You know, the verses and the parts of the story, chapters of the story were explaining the various forms and landmarks on the land. And then when it came time for them to step out of childhood into adulthood, they would be sent off on their walkabout. They wouldn't know where they're going. The elders would send them off and say, okay, you know, this is it. This is your time. And they'd have to practice survival skills. They'd have to, you know, acquire their own food from hunting and gathering. And they wouldn't quite know where to go. But then they were told at the last minute, they said, just remember that song that was always sung to you or recall that story that we always told you. And they would sing that song back to themselves or tell that story. And it would have in it like a secret map, right? And as they went through each verse, it told them, okay, now go to the mountain that looks like, you know, a kangaroo's belly or whatever it was, and go from the one spot to the next to the next. And sure enough, that would lead them on their adventure. Other rites of passage. Well, we were talking about hunting. Hunting has been used as a rite of passage for many, many, many years. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. And then, of course, the vision quest, or more simply put, the solo. This idea of.

Taking pause, a mentor once called the vision quest, like the great time out of life call a timeout on life pause. Go out into wild nature, somewhere remote and just completely surround yourself, immerse yourself in wildness, and pick A spot that calls to you, or perhaps your elders have picked a spot for you and ask that, and then be there for four days, four nights, 96 hours fast. From everything familiar, make that sacrifice. Maybe some vision quests would have water, some don't.

So what's the difference between a vision quest and rite of passage?

Yeah, well, let me just finish that last thought and then the essential question of the vision quest being, what is my purpose? Why am I here?

So the difference between a vision quest and a rite of passage. Great question. So a rite of passage, again, we defined as an initiation that's going to take us from one life phase to another. And a vision quest can be used as part of a rite of passage, and it can also be used in other ways. So, you know, for the young person or the not so young person who's ready to really go through rite of passage and claim their place in the adult community, a vision quest is a part of that is a part of it, but it's not the whole thing as well, you know, I mean, I've done a half dozen vision quests in my life. Some of those, well, one was a rite of passage. The other five were simply times when I was not feeling connected to my life's work and I was needing a refresher. Like, hey, what's the, you know, why am I here? What's the current expression of why I'm here? So taking a vision quest to reconnect with purpose. But a rite of passage is going to involve a lot more than just sitting in a beautiful place in nature for four days asking, what's my purpose? A rite of passage is a ceremony. A rite of passage is really a community event. Traditionally, a rite of passage is as much about the individual going through it as the community because it ties us to culture and rite of passage. You know, I facilitate rites of passage and when they happen, it starts with the family. Actually, it's actually a family based process if we're looking at adolescence, right? So boys, for example. Actually, just next month I'll be running a boys rite of passage. And I start, right? And this is to mark leaving behind boyhood and entering into adolescence. And so I work with the parents and it's as much about the parents learning, oh, what does it mean for me to not be the parent of a boy anymore, right? And what is, how does dad need to show up more now for the son, that the son's becoming a young man? And how does mom actually need to step back and not do so much nurturing? Does the young man. Is he still going to need nurturing? Sure. But that's a classic pattern, right? Would be the dad who's checked out, works, you know, workaholic dad or whatnot, doesn't show up for the kid. Mom is taking on more than her fair share of parenting responsibilities. And then the boy doesn't get proper role modeling, proper patterning on what does it mean to be a man?

Right. But he's very good at potentially being a woman and managing some of those things in the household or, you know, connecting to his yin side. And I even see that sometimes with my own boys when I leave for a long time, you know, they'll. They'll kind of start to let fall to the wayside. Some of the things like, you know, things we would consider to be more yang, you know, going out and. And shooting the bow and working out. I know I'm stereotyping to a certain extent here, but engaging in what we might consider to be these more masculine activities that would eventually kind of propel them into manhood, into being able to protect, into being able to provide, into, you know, you know, the 3Ps, right? Protect, provide, and procreate. And yes, and then I come home and I help assist them to kind of transition back into establishing some of those habits and some of those routines that allow them to be able to do that. But more concerning to me is, of course, ensuring that unlike my childhood and my upbringing and the issue that I still struggle with, which is feeling as though I never crossed that threshold into.

Becoming a man, right?

I never actually went through rite of passage. And you could argue that I have gone on vision quests, right? Like I've done plant medicines and ventured out into the wilderness for long periods of time. And many people will do that, right? They'll ask themselves a question and then go off into the forest with. With psilocybin. Right. We see folks in the fitness community especially, go, you know, going out and doing things like ayahuasca retreats or ayahuasca adventures or other forays into plant medicine. But they're. They're kind of few and far between and not very formal and really not a distinct part of culture as much as they're. That someone might do when they're, you know, maybe they're 30 years old and they officially decide they want to go try and find themselves and they discover psilocybin or something like that. But in terms of making this transition from boyhood into manhood or from childhood into adulthood.

More of a structured and readily available thing that young men can do at a certain point in their lives. I've got some questions for you if you're game. First of all, is there an age, an age at which you think like a young man, and correct me if I'm throwing around the term young man too much, and this is something appropriate for young girls and women too, but an age that they would go through that rite of passage into adulthood. I mean, do we see 13, 15, 18, 20?

Sure, yeah. Well, so I think what's important to recognize is that here in our modern world, we actually have a new phase of life that our earth based ancestors did not have. And that of course, is adolescence. You know, if you look back to the old cultures, the kids would transition from childhood to adulthood somewhere between 13 to 16. There was no adolescence. It just they went from childhood to adulthood. Lots of reasons for that. You know, from the fact that they didn't live as long to.

The, the vast difference in culture. And so I think it's easy to look at that and say, oh, you know.

Poor us, you know, we've screwed up culturally speaking, and now we have to extend childhood unnecessarily. But I believe there's actually a gift in adolescence. And when we talk about purpose, I think part of our greater, the greater purpose of the Western world is to really leverage the possibility of fully harnessing the opportunity that adolescence is providing us. So to answer your question, the way I see it, you know, puberty is marking, that's a biological process that's marking the shift out of childhood. So for example, when I take boys on rites of passage, I look for their bodies to tell me, right, acne. And you know, the sexual development, the whole, the whole thing, puberty, Their bodies are indicating when they're ready. And that's not something that can be rushed. You know, there is a natural process to our development as human beings. And so when I do that, I'm initiating them, taking them through that rite of passage from childhood into adolescence. And I use the term young man to describe them. When they're in the phase of adolescence, then there's another rite of passage, really an ideal scene then around the age somewhere, you know, 18 to 24, I would say there's a second rite of passage, which actually could be a third or a fourth, because there's other rites of passage before adolescence. But there's a second one there at 18 to 24, where they're leaving adolescence and entering into adulthood. And the key indicator there being when they're leaving home, when they're truly stepping in to independence when they're not dependent on their parents for their survival. So these are real basic elements of what it is to be a human being. And as an adult male, as a man, I see and I've learned. This is one of the things I learned from my indigenous teachers and elders, is that I have a responsibility to, not just to my family, right. But to the community. So, for example, your sons, you know, I see them a couple times a year, and that's not a ton, but I'm holding them in my heart, right. Like I have a responsibility to them. I'm keeping an eye on them and I'm checking in with you. We talk occasionally, you know, or correspond. And I know there's going to come a time when they reach their puberty and they'll be ready for that rite of passage, and I'm going to be there for them. And so I think the bigger part of the conversation we need to address is that a rite of passage.

Is really part of a longer mentoring process in the ideal scene. And so at this time of transition, when we're coming back to what it means to be a holistic human being, I really want to encourage people out there to invest in community and culture. Okay. There may or may not be a wilderness school where all of our listeners are living. Actually, there's a lot. I mean, we've got a network of 200 wilderness schools now across the US doing similar work to what I'm doing, many of them running rites of passages, but to build those relationships, right? Like if you and I, you know, we're friends, we're brothers, we connect. And there's times when I may be there for your boys and there's times when you may be there for mine. And by working together like that, then our boys have a stronger network of adult males that they can rely on. That's the vision, you know, And I'm not saying, you know, we've achieved that perfectly, but to hold that vision, you know, who are. Because who are going to be my boys, mentors, I need to trust them, right. As their dad, I'm not just going to throw them to anybody.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't want my boys disappearing into the wilderness with just a person who says they're going to take them on a rite of passage. Now, before we kind of get into the nuts and bolts of the types of rites of passage that you do, and I actually want to ask you about this network that you just alluded to.

I guess places that folks can go do a rite of passage. What does it look like? You mentioned, for example, when you take. What I'd like to know is what it looks like for a young man, like a boy, to do a rite of passage, to cross over that threshold into becoming a man, but then also what it looks like when one is embarking upon a rite of passage later in life, like an adult rite of passage. Can you walk me through kind of the nuts and bolts of what it actually looks like? Like, does someone show up and you give them a, you know, an old ratty backpack and tell them to go disappear off in the wilderness for a week? Or how does it actually look?

Yeah, well, so we have this distinction then between our age and our stage. And there's the ideal scene and then there's reality. So, yeah, in the ideal scene, every young person, you know, at the age of 18 to 24 would have a mentor who's been mentoring them or a team of mentors and would take them through that rite of passage. But not everyone gets that. You know, obviously we know that. And so the essential question that I think we need to address is, you know, can you still make up for it if I'm 30 or if I'm 40 or if I'm 60, can I still go have that? And the answer, thankfully, is yes.

So what does it look like, you know, to step you through it?

Again, an ideal scene, the rite of passage is part of a bigger, longer mentoring journey. So, you know, if you do a Google search on rites of passages, you can find them. You can find men's rites of passage or women's rites of passage. And the vast majority of what you're going to find, 95% of what's out there are going to be a weekend or maybe a week long, or maybe a two week long, but a limited time frame experience. You're going to go and essentially have that process. You know, you're going to have some sort of a framing experience for a couple days or more where there's some mentoring happening. And then there's going to be some sort of a challenge, right? So when we look at rites of passage, right, there's the three classic phases. There's separation, ordeal and reintegration. So for a rite of passage to occur, it's got to start with separation. It's got to start with leaving the familiar. That's why I'm a big believer that a rite of passage can't be facilitated by parents. I know you're asking about the adult one, but even going back to the adolescent rite of passage, it can't be done by dad, actually, because the boy or the girl is dependent on those parents. So for them to go, the young person to go through rite of passage, they actually, by definition, are leaving, starting to leave that stage of dependence. So they need to leave mom and dad and have other community members taking them through the process. But, yeah, so separation, ordeal, reintegration, separation, leaving the known, leaving the nest, leaving home, leaving.

The familiar, and then going to some. Some new place. Right. Being and having an experience that's held by individuals who themselves are. Are initiated in whatever phase that person's gonna step into.

So can you get more specific? Like. Like, just walk me through, like. Like, exactly what it looks like, where people go, what they do, what they bring with them. Like, like, yeah, get into brass tacks here.

Yeah. Well, and again, it can go a lot of different ways, say, for a young person who's 18, you know, or 25, 24, ready to do that.

In the ideal scenario, they're going to have that mentoring relationship. So there's going to be preparations ahead of time where they are looking back at that previous phase of life and asking, what are the gifts that I'm taking with me? What am I leaving behind? And there's reflection on that. Then there's the actual experience itself, and there's a lot more to it. I'm not going to cover every last detail, but then there's the experience itself. So, yeah, in the ideal scene, going into some remote area of wild nature, having mentors, having guides who are initiated adults themselves that take them through a process where they're going to have. And it can involve a lot of different things. Probably the most common element here.

For Western Americans is going to be. It's going to be the vision quest, right? Where they're going to spend those days, those four days alone.

In a quiet place in nature.

Hey, I want to interrupt today's show to tell you about how you, too, can turn your car, your workout, your commute, you name it, into a traveling university. I'm almost always listening to podcasts and audiobooks. When you see earbuds in my ear, when you see something plugged in into my car and cable going into my phone, I'm typically not jamming to Tiesto or Kygo or any deep house music. I'm typically not playing top 40. I am usually listening to a book or a podcast to make me smarter. That's how I go through a lot of books. And I was pretty excited when I saw that this company Penguin Random House, which has a whole bunch of audiobooks you can't find other places, is now making audiobooks. They have Dan Harris's Meditation for fidgety skeptics. They've got Find your why by Simon Sinek. They've got a bunch of really good fiction out there. They have the new Clive Cussler book the Rising Sea. Anyways, a fantastic library of books over there. And you can go to tryaudiobooks.com BenGreenfield when you go over there, you get listening suggestions. You can refresh with new audiobooks at any time that you want to. They've got health and wellness books, they've got thrilling fast paced novels. You name it. It's all over there. And it's a very simple URL. TryAudiobooks.com BenGreenfield that's TryAudiobooks.com benGreenfield this podcast is also brought to you by Organ Organifi Organifi makes these juices. They have a red juice, they have a green juice, they have a gold juice. And rather than you needing to go out and purchase a bunch of vegetables and beets and berries and turmeric and everything else and chop and cut and clean and blend and make a big mess in your kitchen, you just take one simple, clean, elegant scoop of this stuff. You drop it into your blender or into a cup of water, give it a shake, give it a stir, give it a blend. My kids make themselves red smoothies now with the Organifi red juice before they go to school. It's fantastic for their blood flow, fantastic for their brains. It's got adaptogenic herbs in it. This stuff's totally safe for children and adults, believe it or not. They even do a nighttime golden juice blend made from turmeric and coconut milk, cinnamon, ginger, lemon balm and reishi for you to cuddle up with for a good night of sleep. They are pretty much the best tasting organic powders out there. And you get 20% off of anything from Organifi. Very simple. You go to Organifi.com that's with an I Organifi.com and the discount code that you use over there is greenfield and that's@organifi.com and use discount code Greenfield.

How do they find that quiet place in nature and what do they have with them? Like, are you. I mean, you know, we've got Naked and Afraid where people show up with a TV crew and they just got to kind of plant in the same place for 21 days and then hike their Way out. But, you know, let's say I were to show up and I were to personally want to go on a rite of passage, and you and I have known each other for a few years. Let's say perhaps that you were the mentor I was turning to for something like that. Do you hand me a knife and a bag of trail mix and tell me, go to this spot in nature with your GPS satellite phone and just sit there for four days? I mean, how does it actually play out when it comes to the nuts and bolts?

Yeah, no, there's going to be very limited gear. It's going to be.

It's going to be like. It'd be like maybe a wool blanket, maybe not. Depending on the time of year, depending on the weather. It's going to be. You know, the idea is to make ourselves vulnerable to the natural world. So that starts with the physical aspect. So there's going to be no food, there's going to be limited water, but you would have water, very little shelter, you know, just kind of. Just enough.

So that you can survive, but that you can connect with the natural world. On the one end of the spectrum, if you went out there in an RV or if you went out there with fancy tents and knives and da, da, da, all this gear, or even primitively, if you had a big, fancy, primitive shelter that you spent days working on, that really insulates you. So the idea is to go out there with very little and expose yourself in terms of finding the spot.

Classically, you know, it's going to be. The main location would be selected by that guide, that mentor. And then the specific place, you would take some time and you would follow your own heart and walk out on the land and kind of like.

You know, a magnetic connection, you would just find yourself. You probably experience this. Others probably have. You know, when we walk in nature, certain places call to us. So you have a place that calls to you, and then you'd claim that perhaps mark the four directions.

Now, now for this, for this land that one is walking out on. Let's say they were to be going through your program or one of these folks who you have run these programs. Is it those people's lands?

Well, I mean, it could. It could be a variety of different places in terms of the specific land. So sure. I mean, sometimes we run program on private property, but it could also be, you know, wilderness area, maybe BLM or national forest or whatnot.

Okay, yeah. So like, like public land, that type of thing. Okay, got it. And as far as where they go, who Is, you know, let's say, obviously if someone's coming into you or someone else for rite of passage and they're, you know, they're, they're immature to a certain extent. I mean, maybe they are trying to cross that threshold into manhood. And there's some, some, you know, some kid from San Francisco who's never spent much time in nature and who has decided, hey, you know what? I listen to this podcast, I've decided I really want to learn what it takes to become a man. And you know, they've. Perhaps they, they come to you and they get mentored a few times and maybe they go through one of your survival camps and then they get sent out on this rite of passage. How do you know that they're safe? Like, is there some kind of tracking beacon on them? Like, if I were to send my boys out on a rite of passage, like, how do I know they're not just going to disappear into the wilderness and get eaten by a bear?

Yeah, good question. Well, that's part of the function of the guide, of course, is to ensure safety. So A, we would select a site that's going to be safe and B, you know, there's going to be check ins. Classically, what I do is have a little, a little place. I don't like to disturb people, generally speaking, when they're on the, on the actual, when they're in their actual right of pass, it's important for them to just have that aloneness. So what we do is we might have a little marker, circle of rocks a distance away. And then every morning at dawn, the person comes out and puts a unique. Makes a shift in the rocks in such a way that I know that that was done by them. We have a pre agreement ahead of time. So there's a check and balance system there to make sure everyone's safe. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Okay, got it. And so this person's out there with whatever equipment they've been provided with, you're ensuring that they're checked in on that they're safe. And how many days is someone typically embarking upon a rite of passage in a situation like that?

Yeah, and again, there's different stages, life stages, and different rites of passage. So if we're talking about the rite of passage into adulthood, you know, and it's a facilitated experience that's going to be, you know, three, four days, typically four days, 96 hours, four full cycles of the sun.

And during that time they're providing for their own food.

Nope. Fasting.

Okay, so you're fasting the whole time. And.

Does the person who's out doing the rite of passage, do they have a book or a journal or anything along those lines?

Some places will do that. They'll have people take journals out. I don't like to, I like to give people just the pure experience. So, you know, the act, there's kind of a meditation like quality to it, right Ben? There's this act of getting real still and quiet in yourself and holding that essential question, you know, what does it mean to be a man? Why am I here? And so then it's asking really in a spiritual way for answers. And classically, and again, this is a classic piece of indigenous wisdom, is that those answers come to us when we're in that place of inner silence. So a lot of the, you know, when I did my first vision quest, my mentor was like part of the prerequisite was go to a sit spot, you know, find a little place in nature and just go there for like 20 minutes every day for a year. And only after you've done that will I put you on a vision quest. You know, I don't put guys, people through that. But that's, you know, that, that was, that was a reasonable challenge because what did I learn there? I learned to get comfortable just on my own, outside in nature. I learned what it was to quiet my mind. I got to know my place. That was all preparation for the bigger rite of passage, the bigger vision quest.

And then what did your rite of passage look like?

Well, when I did mine, yeah, it was four days.

In the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. And it was just a small circle, right? It was like a 10 foot diameter circle that I was basically locked into unless I had to go to the bathroom or go check my marker box to let them know, hey, I'm safe. I was there. So part of it was simply being quiet, really real quiet. Like not just not speaking, but quieting my mind and holding that question, finding that passion within me. What is my vision? What does it mean to be a man? Why am I here?

To the extent, I mean, the initiate, right, we can use that word. The initiate has got to connect with their own sense of passion.

And give from that place. Whether it's a prayer or an intention. Some people are comfortable with prayer, others not so much. That's fine either way. But the bottom line is connecting with that passion and that intention. And then there's, you know, there's different things that can happen and no two experiences are going to, are going to be the same.

But definitely the solitude, the fasting, those are key elements. And some other elements in there could be. Sometimes you can be dancing for your vision, right? You can be literally pouring that passion into physical movement on the land. Sometimes it's prayer.

Sometimes it's dreams. Honestly, the most powerful dreams I've had in my life happened to me on vision quests and rites of passage. And that's really how our soul speaks to us, is through dreams. Images, signs, symbols, nature connection moments. I had my second vision quest. I had a thousand pound bull moose come down and bed down 10ft from me. Well, 15 scared the hell out of me. I was, you know, in that state. I was sure that it was coming to kill me, you know, and maybe symbolically it was, maybe it was coming and killing the young man so the man could be born.

Tell me that story. There's more to that story. I think I've, I think you've talked about that a little bit before. But we've got time delve into this moose story because this occurred during your rite of passage, right?

Yeah. Okay, well, it's two parts. It's two parts.

So on my second vision quest, this would have been, oh, gosh, 2001. I was in the Green Mountains of Vermont where I was studying in a wilderness school. I was 25 years old, I think.

And I'd done one before. So I kind of thought I had it down right. I, I had a little bit of arrogance going on, although I didn't realize it. And I decided I was going to go off on one by myself, which I definitely do not recommend for people. And I was recommended against doing that, but I was like, no, no, I can do this. I've done one before. So I went out into the Green Mountains, Stratton Mountain, Vermont, southern Vermont. And yeah, I just created a base camp with a tent and brought food and stuff. And then from there trekked in another mile into the wilderness, noting landmarks along the way, picking the perfect spot close to the peak of Stratton Mountain there. And a lot happened during that time, but it was on my second day. A lot of that time it's just you relaxing into being alone in nature. And that can be challenging, that can be uncomfortable, but it's all worth it. Anyway, into my second day.

I'm just kind of sitting there and kind of in my meditation and I'd had some, a couple smaller animal encounters. I think an owl had flown by and you know, there was like squirrels and chipmunks and stuff. And I hear this now. This is a Different story than the one I think I told last time. But I hear this huge crashing coming in. I was facing, let's see, I was facing south. So this was coming in from the east. And I was sitting up against this small red maple tree. And I was pretty much surrounded by shrubs, right? Like four or five feet high, shrubs. So I didn't have a good view from my seated position. So I'm hearing this crashing. I'm like, oh, God, something's coming. And I figured, you know, deer. But honestly, I had seen a lot of track and sign. I'd seen the big scat, piles of moose and everything on my way in. And as the sound gets closer, it's just like I can almost feel the ground shaking, right? And I'm just like, oh, my. I get this fear rising up, you know, my heart starts beating. I swear it was like going to jump out of my chest. And sure enough, you know, from my vantage seated vantage point, I could just see like the top half of the head and these massive, massive antlers, you know, I mean, those things are huge, right? This thing was like seven foot high at the back or so. And I'm just like, oh, my God. And right now, I'm two days in, I haven't eaten, I'm fasting. You know, it's an altered state of consciousness. And for me, I was scared. I'll own it, you know, 100%. And so, oh, man, my mind just. And so it comes in and slows down. And as it slows down, I'm like, oh, my God. You know, and sometimes you have to face that. You have to. Part of the rite of passage sometimes and growing up is facing your fears, right? And that's okay. We're so averse to facing fears in our modern world. It drives me nuts. We're so overprotected by our parents now and everything else. But part of my message is it's okay to face your fears, right? So here I am facing my fear. I'm sure this thing is going to come charge me, right? It's like irrational, right? Moose don't just charge people for no reason. Maybe, you know, if it's got a baby or something or if it's there in the rut, if it's mating season. But this is just a lone bull moose, and it was September, so getting close to mating season, but not quite there. Anyway, so it comes in and just slows down and just plops down. And I'm just like, you got to be kidding me. You know, my heart was just like racing and racing. And I don't know how much time went by, man, I lost all track of time. It felt like hours. But.

On the one hand, I was kind of freaking out. Internally, I'm like, planning my escape. I'm like, oh, my God, what do I do if this thing charges me? Do I climb the tree? You know, do I run away? I was really in the midst spell of that fear, right? And yet there was another part of me that was just like. It's hard to put into words, but it was like feeling the bigger connection that was happening. And so eventually, the moose stands up and goes on its way, not towards me. And of course, I was fine.

Later on. It took me some time to process that, and I really struggled. And this is where a guide is really key, because you can have these powerful experiences, but to integrate them, to process them, to have the lessons reflected back to you, a person really needs a guide. A guide who's been through that, a guide who has been initiated, who's gone through the vision quest themselves. So I struggled, and then what did I wind up doing? I wound up seeking out a guide after the fact to help me process my experience. And he was helpful. Luckily, I was able to find someone pretty quick, but I really needed that. And so part of.

What he told me.

He was a great guy with an old connection to the natural world and mentored by indigenous elders himself. And he talked about that power of the moose and.

And that fear when I was in that fear as really being more of a transmission state of connecting with that moose and helped me see that. Oh, what I was doing was really releasing that fear.

Sometimes that's what we have to do. We have to go through it. We don't get to skip it.

So that was part one. And years later, which is actually just a couple years ago.

I found myself here in Idaho.

Not feeling the full fulfillment from my work at Twin Eagles that I once had. And so I was like. I could sense that a new phase was coming. So I went on another vision quest, this time up to a place called Hunt Lake, out south of Priest Lake. A little, beautiful little mountain lake. And I was up on this scree field right close to the Hunt Peak. Not quite on the peak, but this is, like, where there's just a field of boulders, right?

What'd you call this scree field?

Scree field. So there's a mountainside covered in rocks and boulders, some small as a golf ball, all the way up to the boulders, as big as a car. And I picked one that was huge and kind of positioned where it was flat on top and underneath there was a cave. And I used that as my spot. Again, a four day process. Most of the time spending time on top of the rock. But a couple times when a big rainstorm came in and would swirl around this kind of mountain, this little mountain lake, there was the bowl right there that it was sitting in the wind and the clouds would just swirl around like a tornado or vortex in there. And, you know, this intense rain came in. So I would just. At that point I ducked underneath the big rock and there was a big enough opening in there I could stay dry. So it was like a little cave.

But before I did that, this first night, I had brought a small tarp with me because it was later on in the season and the temperatures were cold and I didn't want to get soaked because I knew if I got soaked I'd actually be in physical trouble. So I had just a little 8 by 10 tarp.

And I made before, you know, I realized that the cave was there. I made this little shelter for myself and it rained all night on me and I had limited water, you know, I was going on like a quart a day, I think, which is pretty low, right? Recommended is like a gallon a day. So it was about a quarter of what I should have been at normally. And so I had my little water bottle. Well, at some point during the night, under this tarp in the rain.

My elbow knocked the water bottle and it falls down amongst the rocks, you know, where I couldn't easily reach it. And I was physically conscious when that happened. It was the middle of the night. And then I go back into my sleep and I have this dream. And in my dream I go after my water bottle and I crawl down in there. And I don't find the water bottle though, in the dream. What I find is this big giant moose. And it was white and glowing, right? And it was like the spirit of the moose. And it was that same moose that I'd seen physically.

That's crazy.

In that. In that vision quest 10 years prior. And.

There was this whole moment of connection in the dream. And I processed that later with my guide.

And for me, what that was representing was the completion of something like moose was an animal that I was walking with, you could say during those years, spiritually speaking, with the medicine of moose. And it helped me start the school. And there was a real connection there. And it was like I graduated the moose years kind of right, to use that kind of modern term.

So Is a moose like your spirit animal?

Well, at that I've really connected with that. I'm always sensitive about that language. I have such a reverence for all of this, Ben, and for the natural world. So I always hesitate a little to say a quick yes. And again, I was trained traditionally by indigenous people where it's a real sacred thing. But yeah, I think in my heart I do have that kind of connection with the most, but it's never anything I would want to, you know, be arrogant about or boast about or anything like that.

Interesting. My kids are always Terran is usually a panda bear or, and, or a polar bear. Polar bear. And river is typically a sea otter. For their spirit animals, I'm usually a gray wolf or an eagle or a falcon or a hawk or some kind of flying bird of prey. It's interesting what kind of comes to you when you begin to analyze yourself what your spirit animals would be. What about for a boy doing a rite of passage? How would that be different than a man doing rite of passage? Are the boys typically paired up with other young men? Are they off by themselves? Are there different considerations where we're talking about young men or people who we might even consider to be. Because they kind of are until they've finished the rite of passage. Still kids?

Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, they're in a different phase of life. They're not as old, they're not as physically capable. So it's a different process that they're going to be taken through. But there's a lot of similarities. Right. Like typically for boys, what I take them through is maybe a 24 hour solo. And they're not asking the big question of what's my purpose? You know, they're just stepping into what does it mean to be a young, to be a teenager? What does it mean to be a young man? What does it mean to be an adolescent?

So there's more guiding, there's more connection time, there's less solo time, but there's an element of that. Right. And so where they get to just be on their own with wild nature, with spirit, with God, however you want to phrase that. But there's still that essential element of it. And then we can look back because there's actually rites of passage. There's something we call the right of competence that child goes through when they're maybe seven. Right. If we're really going to flesh out the full developmental cycle. When a child, you probably remember this with your boys when they started to be able to help out more around the house. And you know, when they weren't just totally dependent and constantly needing input and they were starting to be able to help out, you know, competence when they were becoming competent. And in that time, like when I took my boys through this, gave them a rite of competence and it was literally like they spent an hour and a half sitting in the teepee in the woods, you know, so it was like this micro solo, this micro vision quest. But the point even in that was kind of the same, like, okay, spend time just with yourself and be brave, you know, and just have that time to yourself. And of course the whole community was there holding the space before and after. But you know, it's also worth talking about emotional maturity because right now we've spoken a lot about.

The rite of passage itself or the vision quest, which, I mean. Yes, but again, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to see it in a bigger context. And so especially for maybe the listeners out there, one of the big pieces, and this is what I did not get from my indigenous mentors, is the piece of emotional maturity and training modern people. You know, as you said, if there's some 18 year old out there who's, you know, listening to this and getting pumped up, part of it is about learning what does it mean emotionally speaking, to be a man? David Data, way of the superior man, king, warrior, magician, lover. These guys.

Totally know this journey. And so, you know, simply put, as men, are we aware of our feelings, our emotions and are we accepting of them in ourselves and are we expressing them right? This is basic emotional intelligence. We're not getting it in the modern experience. There's men's groups out there, there's rites of passage, you know, where you can get this. But that's a process, you know, and young people need to be exposed to mentors, especially males, right? There's this old story that you're either, what are the options? You can either be a machismo kind of bully or you can be the wimp, right, and just collapse.

Yeah, those are two of the personality types you find in that, that book, the king, warrior, magician, lover book. There are two kind of ends of the spectrum on that book, right?

So there's a third way and that's. So what does it mean to be an emotionally mature man? What does it mean to be able to stand up, feel my feelings, express them, speak my truth powerfully, but not use that, not use my power to hurt others? You know, and so I have a spine, right? I'm not that collapsed energy of anybody can just walk all over me. But I'm also not out there doing damage, right? Hurting people emotionally or physically or otherwise. I know my truth. I know who I am. I stand up for that. I ask for what I want. I know that I may not always get it, but I'm going to have my own back, right? I'm going to ask for what I want and I'll be there for my brothers and for my wife and for my community and for the kids. You know, I've got this strength, I'm a man, I've got this life experience, I've got these gifts. That's not just for me, that's to give. So I'm an asset to my community.

Interesting.

So that's a huge piece, you know, training young people and training adults in emotional maturity. And that's a huge part of what's missing in our world. And so with rite of passage work and vision quest work and purpose discovery work, that's a essential element. Essential element.

So with somebody like let's say river and Taran, you know, they're 10 year old twin boys right now, they've been to your wilderness survival school, they've been to your, some of your camps and will probably continue to kind of attend your camps each year, do they reach a certain point where you're like, okay, these guys are ready, they're ready for the rite of passage and if so, how does that look and what happens then?

Yeah, yeah, so, so typically around the age of 13, like I said, when puberty kicks in.

And this, you know, in their case I will have, I mean, because what, they were six when I first met them, I think. Yeah, so I will have known them at that point for what is that, six, seven years. So you know, I'll be seeing them at least a couple times a year would be the idea, if not more. And watching for those signs, of course, you and Jess are watching them grow and what starts happening, Puberty starts kicking in, they start getting less.

Less interested in all the family routines and the stuff happening in the home and they start individuating, right? So they start being more interested in. It's the classic teen scene, right. Think how important the social setting is for teenagers. That's developmentally appropriate. They need that. They need to separate socially to some extent from the parents and the family and move into a greater social scene that's natural and normal. So we're looking for these signs. They're stopping, the fantasy play is kind of trailing off and maybe they're starting to have romantic Interests. These are all the classic signs. So then at that point, I would, you know, we'd be talking, and we'd be watching and saying, hey, they're ready. They're exhibiting the signs. So then we'd start. Start talking about it, and, you know, there would be a conversation between you and I and Jessa. And part of that I really see that conversation starts with the parents, because it's like, okay, are you ready for this? Right? There's a lot of parents that when the kids get to that age, they can't hack it. They're still tied in with their child as a child.

And so they need mentoring. Oftentimes, not always, but oftentimes just to let go, right, and start to really take a deeper look at the relationship.

And then it's going to be some sort of a calling. You know, I always send a calling letter to the boys. I don't. I don't put it out there as an invitation. I don't say, hey, you know, I don't treat it like a summer camp. I don't say, hey, do you want to come to camp? Or hey, do you want to come do this rite of passage? The way I see it, life's going to happen. Adolescence is going to happen, you know, or just the same, adulthood is going to happen. So the question is not, is it going? It's going to happen. So what are we doing to prepare for it? So when they're under 18, and my take on it is the same as, like, you know, how would, as a parent, I choose if my child goes to school or not? And where they go, right. They don't pick. I do. And so I have the same philosophy. Some people would call that rigid. That's okay. But the way I see it, adolescence is going to happen. They're going to have to face challenges. So what am I doing? What are we doing to prepare them? So the way that unfolds is I send them a letter and I say, hey, your rite of passage is coming. I don't ask them. I tell them, and I say, get ready, you know, start preparing your gear. And I give them questions. I'll hop on the phone with them, maybe. And this typically a small group going through the experience together. Ideally, they've got their friends, similar age, similar stage, also going through it, you know, and we might take 6, 4 to 10, 4 to 12.

Oh, wow.

Boys through together, because it's a tremendous bonding experience. Ben. The boys I've taken who gone through and become young men, the young men I've Taken through, who have become adults. The people they go through that with, like their peers, those bonds are like. They're like blood brothers, man. It's amazing, the bonds.

And what exactly is it that. That they're doing there.

In the. In the adolescent rite of passage? Yeah, yeah, well, so there's going to be that preparation phase. They're going to get ready, they're going to put their gear together, they're going to start reflecting, they're going to look back on what were the gifts of childhood, that I'm. The essential qualities I'll always cherish and have with me. What are the childish qualities I'm letting go of? And again, that would be the same for an adult one. Just looking back, generally speaking, on the previous life phase, asking the questions, what am I taking with me? What am I letting go of?

And. And you know, I'll be honest, there's mystery elements that I don't give away. And that because they've got to be. There has to be a surprise element for them. If they knew everything they're gonna face, it would ruin it. Because life doesn't work that way.

Right.

We all face unknown challenges in life where shit happens and we have to deal. So have we had training in our lives dealing with the. With unknown challenges that just come up spontaneously. That's probably one of the biggest gifts rite of passage can offer a person is, you know, them facing some challenges that are unknown. And again, we have this society that's so controlling and we got to know everything and it's all got to be accounted it for. And then we struggle and we wonder why. The old school, traditional way. No, no. The person wouldn't know what they're going into. So I've shared a lot, actually, but there's definitely mystery challenges as well.

Yeah, I feel as though, you know, I kind of sort of pieced together some of my own rites of passage, as I did, you know, the Spartan delta and the agoge and the Kokoro camp and all these crazy, masochistic endurance events and crucibles that I've put myself through. I feel like to a certain extent I was doing because I never felt like I crossed that threshold into becoming a man and had to prove to myself that I really could rise to the occasion. I could train myself how to do things like. Like bow hunt or how to do things like, you know, learn how to get down to 80ft in the water, free diving with a breath hold and spearfish and how to conquer some of these crucibles like the Navy Seal Crucible and the, the Spartan events. And a big, big part of that, to a certain extent I think I was searching out because I never personally had a rite of passage. And you might even say that a lot of the modern day infatuation with many of these so called obstacle course races and Spartans and tough mudders may be to a certain extent guys and girls seeking out that rite of passage. And I think that we'd probably see a lot less of that constant, constant striving and that constant searching. And the people on their 48th ayahuasca retreat and the people who simply don't have any other way to scratch the itch of feeling like a man or feeling like a woman unless they go out and do a Spartan race. Not there's anything wrong with that, but there's no distinct, yes, this was the day that I became a man, or this was the day that I found myself, or this was the day that I discovered my purpose. And having that strongly delineated, delineated, if that's a word strongly defined and an actual point that someone reaches in their life. That's what I want for my kids. That's what I want for them to be able to achieve. And I brought up that term purpose. I know that you refer now to this rite of passage, this network that you've created of people who can take young people or adults on rites of passages as Purpose Mountain. Why do you call it Purpose Mountain?

Yeah, so Purpose Mountain is my new, my new business that I actually just started in the past year here. And for me, Ben, it was the next expression of my vision of my purpose. You know, it was that vision quest where I was in that cave, that scree field on the mountainside where I had the dream of the moose. When it really came to me that, okay, you know, connecting people with nature is great, but I'm at a phase in my life now where I'm being called into something deeper. I'm stepping into that next phase of my life. And for me, what that is, is to guide people and to really claim it in a bigger way, to guide people to discover their purpose. And so I like the idea of Purpose Mountain because you know, this, it's the metaphor that there is this mountain we have to climb, this metaphorical mountain at the top of which lies our purpose. And it's waiting there for us to claim it. But there is a journey that we must take to get there. So it's the metaphorical.

Purpose Mountain. And what I've realized is that while it's really sexy and fancy. These rites of passage and these, you know, vision quests and everything. And yes, they're super valuable. Yes, they meet a deep developmental need. Yes, they address the needs of the psyche. There is still a lot more needed. And so at this phase, I'm actually. Which is a somewhat radical approach, but I'm relatively not supportive of people just going out and doing a vision quest and calling it good. My experience has been that people who do that still struggle with feeling. With feeling like they haven't really gotten what they need.

Really? That surprises me. So people go on a rite of passage and they still feel like they don't have their purpose?

Well, no, no, what I said is people can go on a vision quest, like the four day event I was describing, and maybe they're more connected with their purpose, but they're gonna, they still struggle to express that purpose. Right. Because there's a difference between finding your purpose and living your purpose. And guys like you and I, I think, let's face it, Ben, we're the exception, right? I mean, I want everyone in the world to like, be on track and be successful, but most people out there are struggling, you know, and I don't say that arrogantly, but I mean, struggle is a huge part of our world today. And. And I'm convinced, you know, what I found was that because I struggled, sure as heck, for a lot of years, even when I was running the wilderness school, which I still am, but in the early years. And the big part of the reason for that is because I had these layers of fear and resistance that I wasn't addressing. You know, for me, I had really had the old traditional cultures up on a pedestal. And definitely there's so much we have to learn from them, but I no longer believe that they hold all of the answers. And it was about, you know, five, seven years ago when I started getting to this point of realizing, oh, I need to be more open to the modern approach, to a modern understanding of the psyche and depth psychology and that there's answers there. And that was when I started my emotional growth journey and really started facing my deepest fears and my deepest resistance and acknowledging it for what it was. And so there's a whole journey, there's a whole mentoring journey of working with those fears and resistance. So many people, those people you're describing on their 48th journey are still really suffering from all that fear and that resistance. And so many people out there have a sense of what they're here to do and yet resist and don't Actually do the hard work of implementing their purpose here in life. And so the answer isn't to just.

Work harder and pound the square peg harder into the round hole. The answer is to pause and to look at with some care and some maturity. Oh, what. What is that resistance and that fear about? And because we all have those parts of ourselves that, you know, like, I got a little nervous before the call. Totally natural. Right. And there's a part of me that would rather just stay home and eat chips and sit on the couch rather than put myself out.

You're on the big, big podcasting stage now. Got to step up, right?

Right. Yeah. But here's the deal. That part of me that would rather not be here, there's nothing wrong with that. My job is not to beat that part up or to demonize it. If I want to find success in my life, I need to actually care for that part and realize, oh, what is that? That's a part of me that learned to stay small when I was a kid. Right. Because it was like, this part of me learned that, oh, it's safer to just stay small and not put myself out there, not take risks. And. And that was a good thing back then. That was a strategy that worked. I mean, I'm alive. It got me here. So the answer is not to demonize that and to beat ourselves up for these. Those sides of ourselves. The answer is to actually appreciate those aspects of us and let them know, hey, life's changed. I'm no longer a kid. You know, we develop these survival strategies when we're young, and then they stay with us. Our circumstances change, but the parts of our psyche that act that way, it's like, they haven't gotten upgraded. They're, like, running like, you know, Microsoft Windows 3.1. It's 20 years outdated. Right. And so our job is to, as we step into emotional maturity, is to not cultivate the inner battle, but to cultivate inner peace and find these parts of. And let them know, hey, it's okay. And then we get into the deep work. I mean, Gillette and Moore talk about this King, warrior, magician, lover. The book you referenced earlier, the inner parenting journey that, oh, as a kid, I had some needs that weren't met. We all did. No one had the perfect childhood. And we had those survival strategies that our psyches brilliantly responded with, but they haven't gotten updated. So here we are at 30, 40 years old, still with the same survival strategies that can appear to be holding us back. So the work now is to appreciate those Parts and to help them learn to grow up.

But not to continue all that lack of harmony on the inner landscape. And that's the old adage, right? As long as there's that inner conflict, we're going to have outer conflict. So for all the people listening who are. It's a big part of my message for anyone out there who's listening, who's struggling with resistance and fear and doubt, A, it's totally normal and natural. Nothing wrong with that. B, don't beat yourself up about it. Care for yourself. Acknowledge those parts of yourself. And if it's an ongoing issue that's preventing you from living fully, get some support. You know, that's a role that I now serve for people.

In one on one mentoring is supporting people through their. To work with their resistance, to work with their fear, work with their doubt. Not that that gets to, you know, drive the car of their life and lead the show, but for them to find peace with that, which is huge. And so that's. I just want to say that's the missing piece in the vast majority of. Of deep purpose work out there and vision quest is people aren't getting the support they need on that, on the inner level to actually go and live their purpose. That's what I'm really excited to be bringing the world right now.

So what's it look like in terms of this whole purpose? You know, let's say somebody's in New York or they're in Florida or wherever, and they're like, hell, yeah. I want to get my kids to the point where by the time they're going through puberty that they can embark upon a rite of passage and cross that threshold. Or I myself want to go to a vision quest or rite of passage. Obviously, as we've just alluded to, you don't want to go off into the wilderness with just anybody. And anybody can also slap up a website and, you know, put out a picket sign and say, hey, I'm gonna lead people through rites of passage. You don't know who your kids are going off into the wilderness with with. So walk me through how Purpose Mountain works. This business that you've built to actually create things like a rite of passage.

Yeah. So Purpose Mountain, I want to be clear, is really designed for adults. So for adults out the 18 plus, if a person's out there, they're interested, come check out the website. You know, get on my list, and let's start connecting. Because I'm offering, at this point, I'm offering one on one mentoring in the future, I'm going to be offering group processes and that can start on the phone. We can start building a relationship and laying the foundation for a proper rite of passage or a proper process of discovering purpose. It takes some time. These are huge questions. It's not going to happen in a weekend. And again, it's our consumeristic society that gets so addicted to fast answers. Part of the message here is encouraging people to slow down and invest in relationships. So anyway, yeah, Purpose Mountain people can, can. There's different opportunities for people to, to connect, to build a one on one relationship with me.

But do they have to travel all the way to Idaho or do you, have you, you mentioned that you have some kind of like a network of people in different areas.

Yeah. So that network is for kids. So. So if they're an adult, I can work with people remotely. And then if they're for kiddos, it's a little bit of a different scene. I believe that kids need in person mentoring. So our school, Twin Eagles Wilderness School, is part of a bigger network of wilderness schools and deep nature connection mentoring organizations. Like I said, 200 strong now across the U.S. really, all parts of the United States. So there's a website which is.

WeAreNature Rising. It's WeAreNatureRising Earth. And a good friend of mine, colleague Mark Mori, put this together and it's got a map of all of these different wilderness schools across the country, many of which are providing rites of passage work and people can get involved and get their kids involved in long term mentoring relationships. So that's that we are Nature Rising. That's a great like directory for people out there if they're looking at getting their kids involved in this kind of work. And for adults interested, I really encourage them to check out my new website, Purpose mountain. It's just purpose mountain.com www.purposemountain.com and I've got a free Purpose discovery kit in there that really has these two essential elements. One, connecting with, you know, loving these parts of yourself and working with the resistance. Sometimes I call that the ecology of self. And then two, you know, taking this deeper journey out into nature and yeah, would welcome people to come check those resources out.

Okay, so then once somebody has checked that out, let's say they want to go and, and do an actual rite of passage. Let's say I'm a, let's say I'm me, right? Let's say I'm a 36 year old guy and I'm like, I want to go out and do a rite of passage. Would I then travel to Idaho where you're at, and you, you equip me with what I would need and then send me off into the wilderness?

Yeah. So again, step one is going to be make building relationship. We can do some. We'd be doing some one on one work on the phone or Skype or whatnot. And then there would come a point where there would be that physical rite of passage, that one, you know, big moment. And yeah, those are in person events that happen here locally. And as, you know, Purpose Mountain grows, I may be expanding that I may start to offer these in different parts of the country. But for right now, those are happening.

And that one big moment, you're off by yourself or are you with a group of people?

Well, that would be a group coming together to have a shared rite of passage experience, during which time so maybe we'd meet for, you know, a week. And then during that time people are going to go off and have their solos and then come back and have the community to come back to it to process their experience with. I like that combination of community and solo time.

Okay, one other question I have for you. You going to do another Father Son wilderness survival camp again, do you think? Think?

Yes. Yeah, I've actually got one coming up just in about a month actually.

Oh, wow.

Here in Idaho. Yeah. And that was the first time you and I. Well, one of the first times you and I connected.

Yeah. So we got that coming up. Yeah, I think that for people listening.

In, by the way, if you have, if you have. Boy, I don't, I don't know if I'm going to this one in a month, but. Because I honestly, I got to pay closer attention to your newsletter. Dude, I get your newsletters and I have somebody who monitors my email inbox and I tell them, star the emails from twin eagles and occasionally I just, I have so many newsletters starred, I don't time to read them all. The Father Son wilderness survival camp, though, that's still something my kids talk about. That was an amazing time, especially when you hid all the children from their fathers and we had to go out and find our kids camouflage and cover with mud and sticks in the wilderness. That was one highlight. The other highlight was the Native American sweat lodge ceremony that us guys did. That was, that was epic. Guys, you know, screaming and losing their minds and running out into the snow and you know, that incredible uncomfortable. It was claustrophobic. It was hot. There were drums beating. There were hot rocks getting thrown in the middle of this sizzling Hole in the middle of the teepee. But that was a very intense experience, man. It was very cool.

Yeah. Yeah. That's quite a description there, I think. I think you overdramatized that just a little, little bit.

But hey, in my mind, that's, that's. I know you'd done it before. That was my first time. So I was, I was, I was calm on the outside, but I was freaking out on the inside, I can tell you that. So. All right, so what I'll do for those of you listening in is I'll put links to all this stuff. If you just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.compurpose that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com purpose I will link over to Tim's website and also for Twin Eagles Wilderness School, where I first came to know Tim, but also to his, his new offering, this Purpose Mountain for adults who want to embark upon a rite of passage. And just so you guys know, I'm, I'm personally planning on my children not only doing their rite of passage when they come of age with Tim and through his program, but I myself really want to go through my own rite of passage and work with Tim to do that, because he's one of the, one of the guys in this sector who I trust and who I respect and who, you know, he knows how to wild plant forage, he hunts, he survives. You can set him under the wilderness with a knife on his back and he'll come back out the other end alive in most cases, unless the grizzly bear is just too big. But he's, he's a guy who knows what he's doing. Yes, Soft spoken, family man, but also a wilderness badass. And that's why I respect you, Tim.

Well, thanks, Ben. I appreciate your good words. Yeah, yeah, it's always great connecting with you, my friend. And yeah, you know, any of the listeners out there, if this is something that, that calls to you, if this is something that speaks to you, come check it out. You know, I got a lot of free resources, especially the Purpose Mountain. Come check it out. Let's, you know, you can get on my list and make a little relationship and if, and if things feel right, maybe this could really help you out. You know, that's, that's why I'm here. I've had people who helped me out, and now I get the honor of giving that gift back to others.

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on the show, Tim. And again, the show notes for those of you listening in are@BenGreenfieldFitness.com purpose and until next time, I'm Ben Greenfoot along with Tim Corcoran of Purpose Mountain and the Twin Eagles Wilderness School. Signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.

Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.