Meditation, Psychedelics, and Signs from God! Ren Koi’s MIND-BLOWING Journey into Consciousness!

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Consciousness— we all know what it is, but we can't explain it. We can't define it. We just know. Scientists and philosophers have debated this for years. What's the source of consciousness? What is consciousness? Is it generated by the brain? Some have gone so far as to call consciousness the one thing we know for sure, an illusion. Wren Koy is a consciousness explorer. He's a deeply contemplative man who has studied consciousness from every possible perspective. And he's put his observations into the book that we're going to discuss in this interview. And this book will appeal to the scientific as well as the spiritual seeker.. So stay tuned to find out what he's learned about his consciousness and about consciousness in general, and learn how you can explore your own.

Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hey everybody, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief 2 Growth. And I've got with me today Wren Coye. And Wren is a British author and he's the host of the Life in Recovery podcast. He's an ex-DJ and a music producer. He spent over 10 years drinking alcohol and using drugs. Before he joined the 12-step program— 12-step fellowships, I should say— in 2010, following an emotional breakdown. In 2010, he was going by John at the time. He had a spiritual awakening and a psychic change as a result of working the 12-step program. Having a strong affiliation with Japanese culture, he changed his name to Ren Koi, Ren meaning both lotus and love in Japanese, and Koi being the symbol of courage in Buddhism, while also being associated with perseverance and adversity and strength of purpose in Japan. So a very appropriate name that he's chosen. In his first book, Addiction Prevention: 12 Steps to Spiritual Awakening, he proposed that the implementation of addiction prevention classes in schools could prevent the onset of mental, mental health issues that people attempt to medicate with addictive substances and damaging behaviors, which lead to addictions. He's since published 3 more books and is currently writing his 5th book, which I believe is a book we're going to be discussing today, All Is One. So that's his 5th book. I love this quote I saw when your publisher sent me some information. So I want to read this kind of kickoff our conversation. Despite centuries of analyses and debates between scientists and philosophers, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial. It's the most familiar yet mysterious aspect of our lives. There might be different levels of consciousness, or different kinds of consciousness, or just one kind with different features. Modern research in the human brain is yet to provide conclusive answers. And we don't know if animals, insects, or plants are conscious, or even the universe itself. And I think that's a great way to kick things off. Because I think consciousness is fascinating. I think it's, it's like, for me, in a sense, it's the only thing that is, but it's like the least understood thing. So tell me, what got you started on this journey to exploring the nature of consciousness?

Well, thanks for the introduction, Brian. And thanks for having me on the podcast. So I, well, I'd already written, um, 4 books previously that were dealing with addiction and recovery and the treatments for addiction. And then, and all, a lot of the writing has to do with spirituality and psychedelic medicines as well, which both of which spirituality and psychedelics was something that I found on my journey um, and have really helped me. And during, um, my ayahuasca ceremony in 2017, I had a very profound spiritual experience whereby my entire being— so my, first of all, my ego kind of completely dissolved, and then my sense of physical self completely dissolved, and then I just became one with the universe and you know, this kind of like this, this, um, this narrative that the, you know, the great mystics of the, of the past have kind of sent forth into the, you know, into the present, which is that everything is one, that consciousness is everything. That was what I experienced. Now obviously that was, you know, usually under the use of psychedelics. So when I came back to kind of reality, so to speak, in inverted commas, strangest thing was that reality didn't really feel like reality anymore. It was, it was like where I'd just been was reality and this isn't reality, if that makes any sense. So that kind of began my, um, exploration into consciousness. And, um, you know, I'm not kind of like a learned scholar or anything, so I had to kind of do a lot of reading and researching and and I just kind of set about learning as much as I could about the subject. And as I was writing, started to kind of make notes, this was around the time that my daughter was due to be born. And when my daughter was actually born in February 2020, the pandemic hit immediately after. So in March, from March onwards, we were in complete lockdown. So all of a sudden I had all these notes on consciousness, I had this tiny baby who kind of like sparked off all these questions in my mind about consciousness as well. And it just seemed like the perfect opportunity to write another book. So that was, that was the beginning of it.

So I know you talked about in the intro that you'd given me that you did have a time in your life where you were going through drug and alcohol addiction. What do you think it is that you, you were seeking? And this is, this is not unusual. A lot of us go through that, right? So what do you think we're seeking when we're doing that?

I think we're just seeking connection more than anything. I think, um, I think that this, you know, I mean, when you— I suppose when you take everything back to the bare bones of it, that, you know, that all is one. So if consciousness is, is the, is the starting point and everything emanates from consciousness, well, in the, in the truest sense of the word, we are all connected. You know, everything comes from— everything is connected. So when we do anything that disconnects us, and on a human level, when we're disconnected from our fellow humans, that's when all the problems start. You know, that's when we start to feel lonely, we start to feel isolated. It can create mental health problems, it can create physical health problems. And any time in my life where I felt lonely, isolated, and disconnected from people around me, I've really suffered. And that was at that time, you know, like deep in my addiction I mean, I was drinking and using drugs for about 10 years, from the age of 17, 18 up to 29. And towards the end, in those last kind of couple of years of my addiction, I just wanted to die. I felt so lonely and so low and just so hopeless. And then I had quite a profound spiritual experience. And, um, off the back of that spiritual experience, I, I started to feel connected again. Um, and that was kind of like the beginning of the journey. So yeah, it's very much about connection for me. And, you know, my, my, uh, my normal mindset is actually like— I'm an only child as well, so I, you know, I kind of like my own company. Well, I have to be careful because I can kind of avoid people quite easily, you know, and just kind of keep myself to myself. So I actually have to make quite a lot, a lot of effort to connect with people.

So tell me about that spiritual experiences you had that kind of turned things around for you.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper, thoughts I don't always get to in the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. Feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there.

So the morning after my last drink, so, and I didn't know it was going to be my last drink, but I just did my usual thing really, which was I bought way too much alcohol than I actually needed for the situation. We were just having a kind of like a little party. We were actually, Lee, my partner, and my ex-partner and I were were leaving the country to fly to Australia. So we decided to kind of emigrate from the UK, and on the way to Australia, we were going to stay for a month in Thailand. And, um, I just decided, well, you know, I'll get enough alcohol to see the job through, which was way too much, as I said. And the last thing I remember is just blacking out on the sofa. So I was kind of like, I got this this look of disappointment from my partner, who, you know, kind of— I was isolating myself, really sat on the sofa, and they were kind of playing cards on the table. And when I woke up in the morning, that's the last thing I remember. When I woke up in the morning, I just knew that I couldn't do it anymore, Brian. I was like, this has got to stop, you know, I just couldn't keep doing it to myself. And I couldn't keep doing it to my partner. I kind of rolled over in bed about to apologize and, you know, and do the usual, you know, groveling. And my partner wasn't in bed with me, and she was actually in the bathroom kind of with her sister. And I walked towards the bathroom, and I overheard my partner saying that she was going to leave me if I didn't stop drinking. So that was kind of my moment of surrender, really, Brian. I kind of You know, they say in the 12-step fellowships, say that, you know, you've got to concede to your innermost self that you're an alcoholic or an addict. And that was my moment where I just conceded that I had a problem and I needed to stop. So I walked back into the bedroom and I just got down on my knees and I just prayed and I just asked God to help me. I just kept repeating over and over again, 'Please help me, I just can't do this anymore.' And when I stood up from that prayer, something inside me around my heart just felt like it was kind of dislodged. And, you know, that night I had the best night's sleep I've ever had in my life. It was, you know, the war in my mind, the, you know, 'Will I drink? Will I not drink?' was just gone completely. And, um, and the next day after, when we arrived in Thailand after a 12-hour flight, I had absolutely no desire to drink at all. It was just completely removed from me. And, you know, it felt like a miracle because I'd been addicted to alcohol for at least 5 or 6 years. I had to have it every single day. There was no question of whether I was going to drink or not. And, um, yeah, I just didn't want to drink anymore. So that was the first kind of experience, um, of a spiritual nature. But also, what was quite important was on the flight from the UK to Thailand, I read a book called The World's Religions by Huston Smith. And by the time I got to Thailand, I kind of— and this is just for me, you know, like, I'm not knocking anybody that's religious at all because I think that there's much to be learned from religious people. But for me at that time, I kind of I came to the conclusion that religions were kind of, you know, fairy tales for adults, and that I kind of needed some sort of spirituality, but religion wasn't going to work for me. So I set off on a kind of journey, really, to learn about how I could be a spiritual person and to try and find out what had happened to me. How I'd just managed to stop drinking. And then a series of other crazy things happened to me that led me into Alcoholics Anonymous.

Wow. Okay. So, but, but the desire that, that prayer that you, you kind of reached out, that sounds like it just quelled the desire to drink.

Yeah. And I think it was because it was a sincere prayer, you know. I mean, there's been, there's been many times over the years. I mean, I've never been a religious person. I mean, I've always believed in a power greater than myself, in some sort of higher power. But, you know, I never, I never kind of, um, I never kind of related really to any particular religion. Um, and, uh, you know, I've used prayer many times before, you know, please help me, please get me out of this, you know, that. And it, it was always a bargaining chip, really. There was no sincerity behind it. Whereas that time it was, it was a sincere prayer. I really knew that I needed help. And, um, and, you know, and the help came.

Well, you know, religion is an interesting word. So, and let's talk about religion, because the thing I, I love about your book— this is my favorite thing to do, discuss— is like, like I said, consciousness. But religion, science, philosophy, you know, all these, these are different ways that we look at things. And you say that religion wasn't working for you But you kind of saw to make— kind of went on your own quest to find out your own truth. So would that be an accurate way of describing it?

Definitely, yeah.

So, um, what— so you said you read that book on the way to Thailand, and that kind of woke you up to say it's not religion. So what was your next step?

So the next book that I came across was, um, the— I think it was called The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality, and I read that book and then I was kind of convinced almost that I could be an atheist but also be spiritual, um, which I'm neither now. I'm not, I'm not an atheist anymore and I'm not a religious person. But like you said, you hit the nail on the head there when you said that I went on my own quest. What, what I've come to believe is I've come to believe that anybody can have their own relationship with God. And the word God, you know, whether you want to use God, higher power Spirit of the Universe, you know, whatever, whatever word you, you choose to use. Um, you can have that direct relationship with the, the Divine, and there isn't really any need necessarily for religion, you know, for a specific path. However, it really does work for people, you know, and a lot of religion is to do with community, it's to do with um, you know, brotherhood, fellowship, um, being of service to other people. And for me, that's wonderful, you know. I think what I'm— what I find, what— where I've been lucky is that I've found all that in 12-step fellowship. So really, I've got kind of like my own religion on, you know, you know, my own, my own fellowship and my own spiritual community is the 12-step fellowship, which is what I would get if I went to a church or a synagogue or you know, whatever. So I've kind of got that part of my life, and I've also got a direct relationship with a higher power. Um, and where that ties in with the book All Is One is that for me, you know, this idea of a, of a kind of, um, of a God that is separate from the universe, again, that's something that doesn't work for me. It just doesn't make any sense to me. So when I started to kind of investigate, you know, the different forms of philosophy around like panpsychism and, um, pandeism, and, you know, basically more of an idea whereby a higher power or God is the universe and everything in it is, is God, that made much more sense to me. And also kind of like, you know, the yin and the yang, the good and the bad, you know, everything is encompassed in the universe. There is no— there's no such thing really. In my mind, there's no such thing really as kind of good and evil. There is just what is. And as a human being, you have a choice as to, you know, which path you take, whether you do good things to put for people and for yourself, or whether you don't. Um, but I don't think that at the end of it there will be kind of like a ledger to say you know, this person did so many good things and this person did so many bad things. I think that it'll just come to the end and then it'll reincarnate and it will carry on and carry on and carry on.

Well, let's talk about— we're using a lot of loaded words here. So atheism is another word I find to be loaded because atheism has become to be equated with materialism. Um, and, and atheism— so to be an atheist means that I don't believe in that we are spiritual beings, that we pre-existed, that we exist after. Um, and it's always funny whenever I talk to someone that says to me, well, I'm an atheist, and I said, well, what, what God don't you believe in? And I would— we always say, I don't believe in that God either. Um, so I've kind of come to the same conclusion that you are, because religion has come to tell us that we have to believe— some religions, many religions— we have to believe in this, this God that's separate from his creation. But they're not all religions believe that, right?

Yeah, not all the religions believe that, and that was what I really delved into in the book, you know. Um, Hinduism, uh, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, you know, that's, that's kind of an area of religion that I'm very, very interested in. And, and that's where this idea of, um, you know, God being the universe kind of really, um, comes to life in the, in, in those works. And You know, and I suppose— I don't know, I don't know, I don't know whether this is just laziness, Brian, on my part or not, but, you know, I feel as though I don't need to necessarily read every single detail of these books in order to understand what, what they're trying to say. Because for me, spiritual experiences are personal. So, and, and the, the key word is the experience. Like, I can't explain to you exactly what my spiritual experiences are because they're my experiences, and vice versa. So your interpretation of the universe and what God is, and, you know, and how that affects you in your life, is probably going to be quite different to how it is in my life. But there will be some similarities, so, you know, maybe we can come to some kind of agreement on that. But when I, when I read these books a lot of it seems quite obvious to me. Like, what I mean by that is, like, I— when I went on holiday a few years ago, I read the Bible. So I decided to sit down because I thought, I really want to read it, I want to understand what, you know, what people make of it. So I read it, and, um, you know, I didn't— I didn't have any massive epiphanies that came out of it because I just thought to myself, well, given the experiences that I've had, I can just say that that the general, um, message within this book is the message that I agree with and that I believe humans should live by, you know, which is basically treat each other as we treat ourselves, you know, look after each other, love each other, peace on earth, you know. For me, that is just a given, and it just almost seems crazy really that, you know, that we're in this day and age where we're not doing that. You know, like, why are we not, why are we not living like that? Yeah, but at the same time, because I've come from a background of addiction, control, you know, wanting fame, wanting power, um, all that stuff is all wrapped up together. I completely understand why the world is the way that, the way that it is, you know, and I just feel quite blessed really that I've almost I've almost checked out, Brian, in a way. I'm kind of like, I'm in the world and I have a job and I have a family, but I'm not kind of like of the world. Like, I don't need the material stuff to make me feel happy. Like, my life is very, very simple. And that's all I need. Like, the best thing that's happened to me all week was spending 5 minutes with my daughter. The other day at the park, it was like just that interaction with her was like beautiful, and nothing, nothing compares to that.

Yeah, I totally relate to that, you know. And it's interesting when you're talking about the Bible, because I've seen different numbers, but it's at least 30,000 different Christian denominations, which just blows my mind. But I've seen estimates of anywhere between 30,000 and 40,000 Christian denominations. I mean, so these are people who have read the same book, and we fight over all the details, right? And, and we get all caught up with like, no, it's this way. Well, you have to baptize this way. And I was just watching a lecture series done the other day about whether Jesus was God or not, and everybody assumes now that every Christian's always believed that Jesus was God, but that hasn't always been the case. So, you know, the thing is, I love about what your journey— and I, I'm on a similar journey I've read the Bhagavad Gita, and I've read some of the Upanishads, and I've read the, you know, and I've read different things. And you, like you said, it's like there's great revelations, but not really so much because they're all kind of the same.

Yeah, well, I'm currently reading Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations, and, and again, you know, I'm like, and I suppose when you think about it logically, I mean, these books were written thousands of years ago. So you know, that knowledge that a person like Marcus Aurelius had has now been filtered into society. So if you've got any kind of philosophical or spiritual leanings, you're bound to have heard most of the ideas that he wrote about. But that's the kind of feeling that I'm having, you know, like I'm just having this sense that, you know, I know all this already. And I don't mean that in an arrogant way, I just mean that like, and I know exactly what it is that he's saying, and I'm trying— I'm already trying to apply these things to my life, you know. I'm already trying to be an honest person. I'm already trying to have integrity with the things that I do. Um, I'm already trying to be of service to people. Like, I'm doing all this stuff as best as I possibly can. Now, that doesn't mean by any stretch of the imagination that I'm a perfect human being, because I still have all the faults that I used to have. I'm just much more aware of them now. Like, my level of self-awareness— excuse me— is extremely high now. So I could, I could sit down with you quite easily and tell you all my positives and all my negatives and, you know, and all the things that I tried to do to compensate for those things. And, you know, 10 years ago, I couldn't have told you any of that stuff. Like, I had absolutely no— I was completely oblivious to the way that I affected other people. And it's quite painful, actually, Brian. You know, sometimes when you— as you become more self-aware and you realize, and you kind of realize that, um, you know, like, I can be quite, uh, a controlling and, um, very— I can be very, very, uh, sharp with people because of my personality type. I'm what they call an Eagle personality type. So I'm, I'm not like a naturally compassionate, I'm not naturally kind of, uh, gentle with people. I like want— I want answers quite quickly and I want to get to the point quite quickly. So I have to fight against that sometimes and I have to be able to listen. I have to be able to understand where another person's coming from. I have to be able to try to put myself in the other person's shoes. And that doesn't come naturally to me. I've had to learn all this stuff, you know, over the years. But that's the point of my existence now, really, is to kind of just try to keep growing and evolving and, and, and really be a good example for my kids. That's the main thing.

Yeah. And what you said earlier, I think, was, uh, just spot on. You know, I've heard people I used to love to read C.S. Lewis, and he was saying that, you know, at some point people were complaining that Jesus didn't really teach anything new, that all the stuff that Jesus taught had been taught by others before. And I love what he said. He said, you know, there is no— when we listen to a great moral teacher, it's not new. It's more of a remembering. It's more of a, oh yeah, you know, I've forgotten that. Or yeah, or it's a different spin on it. But as he put it, he called it the Tao. He said the Tao is eternal, existed long before the Bible. So you can't expect, you know, anything really new to come out of a great moral teaching. So we, we read these different things because it can bring us insights, it can bring us a different way of looking at it. But, uh, there is no great new moral teaching. It does— it doesn't exist.

No, I mean, they're all saying the same thing. And this is where it goes back to the All Is One, you know, the reason why the book is titled All Is One, and the, the whole point of premise of the book is to, you know, is to investigate all these different philosophies and scientific, um, uh, and, you know, and sciences like, uh, as I said, like panpsychism, um, and, and all the religious traditions and such, and to show that they're all pretty much saying the same thing, you know. Everything emanates from this thing that the Tao is, is the— is just another word for it, you know. And It's funny, actually, you know, you've mentioned Jesus a couple of times. The thing that really piques my interest with, with anything spiritual is when, when something very, very strange happens to me. And I'll tell you a couple of stories, um, in a moment, but just, just this, this one quickly because this relates to when I read the Bible. So I read the Bible and I was, I was sat on the beach, um, and I just finished and I put the book down and I did a bit of meditation and I kind of said a silent prayer. And I said something along the lines of, okay God, if you really want me to believe that this guy died on a cross, rose again a few weeks later, he actually, you know, he actually rose again, then I'm gonna need some sort of a sign for that. I'm gonna need some sort of indication that that actually happened. So, uh, and I kind of chuckled to myself. And this is no word of a lie, so about 5 or 10 minutes later we left the beach and we were— it's quite a 15-20 minute walk back up to the, uh, the apartment. And as we were walking, there's this guy coming towards us running, you know, running on the road. And he ran past me and he looked— he had, he had a He basically looked exactly like Jesus. So he had the long dark hair, he had the beard, he had the kind of Arab complexion, he had his top off, he was just running. He looked me straight in the eye and he carried on running. And I looked at him and I thought, that was a bit strange, that was a little bit strange. And I said another prayer, and I said it out loud this time, and I said, okay, I said, that was a bit bit too much, that one. That was a bit too much of a coincidence. So I got to the apartment and I went for a dip in the pool, and I'm just swimming in the pool and I was just leaning on the side, and the same guy comes running back down towards the pool. He looked me straight in the eye again and he ran off past the hotel, disappeared, and I never saw him again for the rest of the holiday. And I was kind of like Wow, you know, these are the— these are those weird things that happen that really make me question what the truth of things are. And that's what just keeps me, me kind of like investigating this stuff and learning, you know, because I don't know.

I love that story. I saw it in your book, and I am all about synchronicities. And the more I study about the universe, the more I think it's more of a magical place than we really, you know, can believe. And I'm a very rational person. My background's engineering. So this morning, just this morning, I'm walking and I'm doing this like little meditation exercises and finishing up my walk. And I see a cardinal fly like right in front of my face, like, and lands in a tree over here. And a lot of people think cardinals are signs from our loved ones. And I was telling you before we got started, my daughter passed away a few years ago. So whenever my wife sees a cardinal, she goes, oh, it's a sign from Shayna. Well, I'm, I'm more rational-minded, so I'm like, I live in Ohio, there are several, you know, there are cardinals here, that might or might not have been a sign. Not 30 seconds later, a finch flies the other direction across the road, dives right in front of me, and lands in the, on the, in a yard right next to me, like 20, 30 feet away. Finches, yellow finches, are pretty rare around here. I'd hardly ever seen one. And I walked right over to it. I actually videotaped it for like 20, 30 seconds, just kind of kept hopping around, didn't fly away or anything. I'm like, well, that was weird, you know. That was one, just, just like the story that you're telling. So these things happen.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, and I think that that's the beauty of the universe, isn't it? It's there to kind of really make us question and wonder. And I was always like that from a, from a young age, you know, like from a very early age, despite the fact that I wasn't religious. I always I was always wondering, where do we come from? What is this life all about? And I suppose in many ways that kind of led me to want to be something in the world, to have some— because I was a DJ for about 10 years, and not a professional DJ, kind of like a semi-professional DJ. And I always wanted to be a professional. I wanted it to be be, you know, my life and my main job. And it never quite got to that, that place. But I realized that when I, when I, when I went into recovery, that that was all about what was missing inside. And it, and it was from when I was a child, you know.

It was—

we call it the hole in the soul, you know. And I was, I was always seeking something when I was young. And then I found it in the music and the clubbing and, you know, and, and having some level of fame in that kind of world. And then I then discovered it fully in recovery when I found, you know, the spiritual, um, you know, fellowship. And, and, and, you know, and what actually fills that hole in the soul is compassion, empathy, you know, connection, being, you know, being a father, being a good friend, being a good son, being a good husband. You know, it's, it's all that stuff. And I don't need the other stuff. And ironically, you know, when you did the introduction, I did used to do this podcast called Life in Recovery for a few years. And, and actually, the story of when I got this, this book got published because I'd spent the last few years kind of like building a following with the podcast. And I've written these other books. And, you know, I had quite a big following on Facebook. And and all my social media. And again, I just had this epiphany where I was just kind of like, I just don't want to invest into this anymore. I just want the simple life. So actually, I don't actually do the podcast anymore, and I don't have any social media presence anymore. And I felt terrible when the publishers contacted me and were kind of, you know, asking me to promote the book via social media because I can't do that. So obviously I'd committed to these podcasts, and I do want the book to do well. It's not as if I don't, you know, I don't want the book to do well. It's just my life's changed now. Like, my number one priority is my family, and it's just kind of— it's trying to connect with, um, you know, with the higher power. And, and that's— that is my life at the moment.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And, you know, it's funny, when you said that the phrase 'hole in this— in the soul' You know, I was raised in the church. So that was drilled into me. And one of the things they said in church that still resonates with me is like, they're like, there's a God-shaped hole in everybody's heart. And they were talking about the specific Christian, you know, Thor kind of God or Zeus kind of God. But I do believe that human beings do have this hole in us, this desire for connection, this longing. And I think that's the thing that the loneliness that you talked about, that that causes us, a lot of us, to turn to drugs and alcohol to either— and that's why I wanted to ask you the question— either numb that or to try to maybe transcend it in some kind of way, the way that maybe psychedelics do.

Yeah, I think it's both. I think, I think the thing that I tried to numb was my emotions, because emotions hurt, you know. When you feel emotions, whether they're good or bad emotions, they can be very powerful. And if you don't know how to manage those emotions, then they quite quickly become mental health issues. That was what the subject of my first book was, that I tried to simplify addiction to 3 very basic principles: is the emotional disorder that precedes the mental health issues, and the mental health issues that we attempt to medicate with the drugs.

Wow.

Yeah, the emotions, um, you know, the spiritual malady, as it's called in the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, that, that is, that is like emotional problems. And what I see is, um, and I've just been through this with one of my stepchildren, is, um, it's an inability to manage their emotions. So when some— when fear comes, obviously fear manifests as anxiety. And when anxiety becomes very strong, it is, it's a horrible feeling, you know. It's something that, I mean, anybody that suffered it, I'm sure you have at some point. I have And especially if you feel like you're gonna have an anxiety attack, it feels like you're actually gonna like have a heart attack or you're gonna die. Yeah.

So we'll get back to Grief to Growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach? If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving, his book Grief to Growth is a best-selling, easy-to-read book that might help you or someone you know. People work with Brian as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at www.grief2growth.com, www.grief2growth.com, or text growth, G-R-O-W-T-H, to 31996. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grieftogrowth, www.patreon.com/grief2growth to make a financial contribution. And now back to Grief to Growth.

To be able to have something, have some tools that will allow you to process that emotion and to, um, bring that anxiety from down from a level 10 to a level 1, level 2. Well, my belief is that every child in this world should be taught those, those, that way of living, you know, and should be given those tools. Um, and I know schools do try, that there are certain ways in which schools do try to help them with with those emotions. I just found that the 12 steps and the process of going through the 12 steps just completely worked in that sense, just absolutely works. I really believe that it could work for children as well.

Yeah, that's interesting, because I do believe that's a big hole in our, in our education. And a lot of parents— I was just talking to someone about this the other day— we turn over our responsibility of the education of our children to the school systems. And we expect them to teach them everything. And we don't teach them emotional intelligence. We don't teach them how to deal with their emotions. We don't teach— in this country, you know, we— if we said we're going to do mindfulness, we're going to sit and do meditation in school, you'd have some people saying, that's a thing of the devil. That's, that's of a different religion. We can't, we can't be doing meditation in schools. So we have a real problem, because on the one hand, religion doesn't teach it very well, for the most part, and teaches it from a very limited perspective. And then the regular education system just doesn't address it. And so we walk around with all these people who are physically adults, but emotionally children.

Yeah, that's so true. It's funny, actually, I was listening to a podcast today, and a great lama from— a great Buddhist lama came over to America and lived in America. And that was exactly what he said. He said that Western people are adult children, basically. And, you know, and it isn't that we haven't learned to— like you said, emotional intelligence. We're not emotionally intelligent countries because we haven't had the education. Um, and you know, and the sad thing is that— well, two things actually. You know, you said about the whole thing about meditation being of the devil, etc. You know about the book, the book that was eliminated from the Bible? Was it— is it the Book of Thomas, I believe, or one of the Gospel of Thomas?

Yeah, it was one of them.

Yeah, yeah. That book apparently is all about meditation. And that, and that would have introduced it to the, you know, to the Christian faith.

Yeah.

And then it just would have been— because as you said earlier, you know, Jesus wasn't teaching anything new. I mean, the Buddha was way before Jesus. There was so many, so many spiritual teachers that came before Jesus. Jesus was just espousing the stuff that he'd learned from those great masters, and they're all, they're all, you know, saying the same thing, that We have to get quiet. We have to, you know, understand what's going on within us, um, connect with it, with consciousness, connect with that inner part of ourselves that is the universe. And then once you kind of understand and appreciate that you are— I am you and you are me— then you can't harm each other. Yeah, there is, there's no way that, you know, I, I can't cause you harm if I know that you are me, right? It's impossible, isn't it?

Right, right. So let's— I do want to get into, um, because I know you, you did some psychedelic drugs, which, uh, can be controversial, and especially I think as someone who's a recovering alcoholic. So how did you, how did you make that decision that I'm going to, I'm going to try this?

Well, first of all, it was one of the best decisions that I've ever made in my life. But it was a very hard decision to make because initially when I was introduced to the idea of ayahuasca specifically, which was a member of the fellowship introduced me to the idea of it, and I was straight away I said no, there's not a chance that I could do that because it would be a relapse and I just think that it would be very stupid to risk one's sobriety for, for taking a psychedelic drug. And then, and then I wrote the book Addiction Prevention, and, and whilst I was writing that book, I then actually researched psychedelics for myself. So whilst I was researching, um, you know, the psychedelics, I started to change my opinion slightly and was kind of of the opinion that, you know, maybe, um, these could be used as medicines for people to have some sort of a spiritual experience. And then the thing that clinched it was, um, and blew me away slightly because I was totally unaware of it, was that, um, two things. One, Bill Wilson, who was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous, was actually in, um, a hospital where they were giving him psychedelic treatments before he had his first spiritual experience, which led to the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. So It could be argued that his, his actual white light experience that he calls it was as a result of belladonna, which is a psychedelic. So that was the first thing. And then the second thing was that about, I think it was either 15 or 20 years into his sobriety, it was at the time when LSD became a medicine that psychiatrists were starting to use. And he actually underwent a series of LSD experiences, and it really helped him. And he said that he felt that it could be very, very, um, helpful to alcoholics who were struggling to have spiritual experiences. And as a matter of fact, he introduced one of his sponsees to LSD, and they wrote— there's a book called The, The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which is like a kind of like, um, a breakdown of all the steps and all the traditions, which we use as a, as a guide when we're taking sponsees through the Big Book. Now, AA purists don't believe in using the Twelve and Twelve, some of them, but I always have done, and I was sponsored that way myself. And I actually found out that Bill and his sponsee Tom wrote that book off the back of their psychedelic experiences. So when I, when, when I discovered that, that really kind of cemented it for me that it was something that I wanted to try for myself and see what, you know, see what it was all about. And actually what happened was I had an experience that was analogous to having about 10 years of therapy in one session. So it kind of, um it took me through— well, I actually wrote a book about it. So my book, um, Together: An Ayahuasca Experience, is the full story of, uh— so funnily enough, I was— I wrote about— the second book I wrote was called Anonymous God, and I was writing the end of that book when I went on the ayahuasca experience. And that book ends where I'm at the, um, the ceremony. And then the book Together is the whole story. And it was just phenomenal, Brian. I genuinely don't believe that I would have overcome some of the issues and trauma that I had from early childhood if I hadn't have had that experience. I don't think that therapy would have got to it.

Yeah. Well, you know, the thing about ayahuasca, and we call them psychedelic drugs. And I've heard a term now that's being used more is plant medicines, because I think people confuse like ayahuasca, from what I know about it, is like you don't take it recreationally. You don't just, I'm going to drink ayahuasca just to get high or whatever. It's got to be done properly, to be done with a guide and with ritual and ceremony, et cetera. So we tend to say, well, it's either a drug or it's not. And this is, I think, more of a medicine.

Medicine.

And people have been using it for hundreds, if not thousands of years. And I've even heard— I heard this pretty recently— there's a theory that the Hebrew writers, the writers of the Hebrew scriptures, that they were— some of the things that they were talking about, they were doing plant medicines, which would explain some of the visions that they were having.

Yeah, even the burning bush, it was the supposedly the acacia bush, which has DMT in it. So they believe that the acacia bush was on fire when Moses went up the mountain, and, uh, he had a psychedelic trip when he, you know, received the, the Ten Commandments. So a lot of interesting stories. I mean, you know, again, without like— there's no, no arrogance when I say this, but the experience itself, it kind of, um, it talked. It was like, it was like Mother Earth was talking to me the whole way through this experience, and You know, they call her Mother Ayahuasca, and Mother Ayahuasca said to me that this is how Jesus, this is how Moses, this is how Buddha, this is how all the great sages of the past came to all their realizations. They, you know, what you've experienced is all you will ever need to experience in terms of understanding the universe. Now that sounds very grandiose, but it, it can just very quickly be simplified to the title of that book. It was just that all is one, you know. It was that the universe is just, you know, it's no— it's also, it's working in, it's working in our favor as well. It's everything that happens. You said it right at the very beginning, I think, before we started, that everything happens for a reason. You know, that in itself is the truth, is that every, every single thing that happens has a knock-on effect for other things to happen. And it's all moving in this, in a way of positivity. Everything's evolving in some sort of grand design to help us evolve individually, to help the universe evolve. I don't know why that is exactly. I have absolutely no idea why that is, but it's just, it seems to me as though it's almost just for the sake of creativity, I think.

Yeah, I think so too. So let's talk about, you know, the experience you had, because I think it's fascinating, because to me, it reminds me a lot of near-death experience. But let's, let's talk about, you know, just why do you think it is that this, this drug releases or expands or whatever your consciousness. And let's tie that in with the idea of panpsychism and pantheism and all the other things we talked about.

Well, I think, I think that the, the element of panpsychism and any other theory that I jive with is that consciousness is in everything. So, you know, at the base level, quantum physics tells us that everything is basically— there's nothing there, that everything is space. So, you know, the atoms— that when atoms are broken down, the, the vast majority of what's going on there is nothing. Now, that doesn't make any sense, does it? So there has to be something in that nothingness. And I believe that, that whatever that is, you know, this, this energy consciousness you know, there's so many different ways of trying to like explain it, like the mind of God, like how, how do we put it into words? But whatever that thing is, that is what is emanating, like as it, as it becomes denser and denser, that then matter is created. So to have that as a starting point makes total sense to me. Um, where these experiences— and you know why the psychedelics give you these experiences is, I believe, so that you can understand that the material world and all the things that you think that you need in your life to make you happy just don't matter. So, so that we can— so that we can go on some sort of a journey And you can— and as I said before, you know, like, your spiritual experiences are going to be different to my spiritual experiences. So there's going to be things in my life that I'm going to have to overcome that you won't have to overcome, and vice versa. So like, currently the thing in my life that causes me the most pain is my addiction to chocolate, and it's been that way for ever since I— ever since I stopped drinking, it's been that way. Where there's been things that have crept into my life. First it was sex and relationships, then it was, um, you know, buying material things like clothes and stuff like that. And then more recently, over the last few years, it's been chocolate. So chocolate is what I use to fill my hole in my soul when I'm not— when I'm not doing things that I should be doing.

Yeah.

So my journey at the moment is to try to do use all the tools to overcome that, that part of my addiction. And I believe that that is, you know, edging me ever closer to— let's call it enlightenment. Not that I believe that I'm ever going to become enlightened in this particular lifetime, but it's edging me ever closer to it. I believe the more things that we drop out of our lives that are not you know, not useful to us, the closer we come to experiencing consciousness.

Yeah, well, I, we kind of jumped into, I use some terms like panpsychism and panentheism that the listener might not be familiar with. So explain to people what, what this actually means. What is this concept of the universe you have when you say all is one? We all understand that the concept that there's a creator God who sits up in a throne and creates the universe, and we are all separate from him and all separate from each other. So how does all-in-one— how does it differ from that?

Well, panpsychism suggests that there is an element of consciousness in absolutely everything, so that even a stone has consciousness. Now, what it doesn't do is it doesn't profess that the stone can think like a human being thinks. It, it suggests that there's different levels to consciousness, so the consciousness of a human being compared to the consciousness of, say, an ant or a bee or spider, it's the same consciousness, but it's just different levels of it. So it, as a, an intricate human brain, has developed over millions of years through evolution to a point where it can actually assess itself. So it's aware of itself being conscious. What the panpsychist suggests is that a dog, for example, a dog is conscious, but it isn't aware of the fact that it is conscious. So we're ever, ever evolving. And that's, that's what panpsychism— that's the reason I think that that is true. I believe that that is a good case for what the universe actually is. Now, the question that then sits behind that for me is still, well, where does the consciousness come from? So some people might suggest that, you know, a higher power, a God, some sort of being created this consciousness, whereas others would say the consciousness is God. So God is experiencing itself through ever progressively evolving life forms. And again, it's just kind of a matter of faith and belief, I suppose. That's the thing that jives with me. It might change, you know. I mean, 10 years ago I was completely in the dark and I had absolutely no idea about any of this stuff. So, you know, now this is my current understanding. And I don't— you know, Brian D Smith, I'm a fairly intelligent person. I'm not the most intelligent person that I know by any stretch of the imagination. And a lot of this is very mind-bending for me. Like, when I was reading you know, reading it and writing about it, I was kind of like, you know, I was having to reread it and I was having to— because also I was trying to simplify these concepts so that— because I knew the type of people that I wanted to read the book. I didn't, I didn't want this for, for learned scholars. I wanted this to be for the everyday person. Um, and I've given the book to, you know, to people that I know and they've said it's quite hard to get your head around, but that you know, they just have to kind of keep with it and they kind of get it.

Well, you know what I find fascinating about it, 'cause I said I am a scientist by nature and I don't understand it. And I've heard, I can't remember the guy's name, he said, if you think you understand quantum physics, then you just haven't got a clue. And that's kind of where I am, you know? And I hear about, you know, Einstein's theory of relativity. What I can understand is the big pictures, that there is no time, that time is an illusion, that it's something that our brain perceives but it doesn't exist in the sense that we think it exists. And it is definitely relative. So it's not absolute the way that we think it is. But what's really cool for me is like, and I love what you like, you study these ancient philosophies and religions along with the science, is they're kind of merging together. So even though I don't understand, for example, the double slit experiment, and I've heard about it, and I know that it says consciousness can affect things, but this is what the ancients have told us. You know, and I learned a little bit more about Hinduism. I had a friend that is a Hindu, and I interviewed him for my podcast. And I'm like, this is exactly where current philosophy is going with idealism. And this is where, this is where science is starting to go with us, where they're saying, the universe seems to be conscious, we don't understand what that means. But it's, it seems to be so it makes sense, you know, this idea that consciousness not only precedes the material, but the consciousness material sits on top of it, you know, um, that it's not really separate, that, you know, because, you know, people say, well, say materials will say, well, where did the consciousness come from? Well, I say, where did the material come from? If we have— if we had a Big Bang, where did that start?

Yeah, and the scientific, um, explanation for that that really works is this idea of a zero-point field.

Yes.

So they know that the zero-point field, which is a vacuum— can, like, matter can actually be created in a vacuum, which sounds completely insane, right? That's scientifically proven. So they know that if this zero point field does exist, then matter being created from the zero point field is a definite, and that zero point field in itself could be the precursor to everything. So that could be God, you know.

Yeah, which is exactly what the Hindus said 10,000 years ago.

Exactly. And it's exactly what— and it's exactly what they were trying to achieve at, um, CERN, wasn't it? You know, with the, um, what was it called?

The, the collider. I can't remember.

Hadron Collider.

Yes, yes, yes.

But they were trying to— they were trying to create that experiment, weren't they? They were trying to create a particle out of a vacuum, and they did it. You know, they created what they call the God Particle. So we know that that is possible. And, and another point of the book was that science will one day prove what the Hindus were saying thousands of years ago. And that, to me, again, you know, like when I was saying to you earlier on that these things just seem obvious That to me seems obvious. So it's like, you know, I wrote this book, I put down what I think is a pretty good argument to suggest that that will be the case, that one day science will kind of prove all this stuff that, that, you know, that the mystics believe, the mystics have told us. And then at that point, I kind of was like, I'm done, you know. I'm like, I put that book down and I'm like, I'm done, because To me, I've convinced myself from writing the book.

You know, I think the book is so, so important though. I don't know if you mentioned, if you mentioned in the book, are you familiar with the work of Bernardo Kastrup?

Yes, he's in there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you had. So I guess I read the book. It's been a little while ago, but I'm like a huge fan of him and I got him on the podcast. So I was so— it was such a great thing. And I think it's, I think it's such an important idea because our Western minds have gotten so caught up with— and you said it just then. Science is going to prove. It has to be proven for us to believe it.

Yeah.

For thousands of years, people have said, this is obvious, this, this is the way that it is. And, and man just accepted it up until about 200 years ago. And about 200 years ago, we got this mindset that says, well, nothing's true until we can prove it. So now we're running around trying to prove it. And like you said, you know, it becomes, in math, they call intuitively obvious. After a while it becomes intuitive. I was— I don't need a proof at this point, you know. I, I, you know, you and I, now we can enjoy the universe and we can say, you know, that guy that ran in front of you, that was, that was a sign. You know, the cardinal on the fence I saw today, I can say that's a sign. I don't need to understand exactly how it works. That's, that's great if we ever figure it out, but I don't, I don't know that we ever will. I don't think our brains are capable of figuring it out.

I think that one day we will evolve past this experience, you know, whatever this experience as a human being is now, I think that, you know, within the next few hundred years it's probably going to be over and something else will take our place, whether it's, you know, with machines or whether machine AI takes over from us, I don't know. But I think that at that point then we might start to, you know, whatever comes after us might start to be able to understand the, the true nature of the universe. I mean, I'll just tell you the, the quick, quick, you know, we're talking about coincidences and signs, etc., earlier. So this is the story that changed everything for me, was, um, was, uh, in early, in early kind of abstinence. So I wasn't actually in recovery at this point. I went to Thailand, I had a month in Thailand where I was sober, I didn't want to drink. And then I arrived in Australia and, um, my partner got a job working in a, in a fashion store and the guy that managed the fashion store was a born-again Christian, so me and him kind of like had quite a lot of philosophical conversations, and I was explaining to him that this miracle had happened to me. You know, I said, "Before I came here, I was drunk, you know, had to drink every single day, and now I don't drink. A miracle," you know, and I said, "But I don't understand what's happened. I don't understand why this is." So he said, he said, all you need to do is just ask for a sign and you'll get one. I said, okay. He said, you know, if you want to believe— if you don't believe that there is a God, God will give you a sign. So I said, okay. So I left the shop that evening, and on the way home, I looked up at the stars. And actually, I've got a tattoo on my shoulder, which is a tattoo of a woman which represents Venus, and then a lot of stars around her and the moon, because the moon was shining really bright and I could see Venus as well and all the stars around it. And it was just a beautiful moment. And I just said, okay, God, if the— you know, if you exist, I really need a sign. I really need something to prove it. So I went home and I went to bed that night, and then I woke up the next day and I went to work. Now, the day before all this happened, I'd been at work, and what my kind of like morning ritual tended to be, I'd get to work and I'd switch on Facebook and I'd go on social media, and I just met— because obviously I was over the other side of the world, so I'd, you know, I'd message anybody any family members or friends or anybody like that, or, you know, just have a quick look what was going on back home. And on that particular day, um, it just came to my mind that I should search for my childhood friend Angela because I hadn't seen her for about 10 years. Last time I saw her actually was on our 18th birthday, so it'd been over 10 years since I last saw her, and she just popped into my mind. So I searched for— I wasn't actually friends with her on Facebook at this point, so I searched for her on Facebook, couldn't find her. Searched for another means, couldn't find her. And, uh, and, and that was that. Had that conversation, went to bed, woke up the next day, walked into work, sat down at my computer, logged onto my computer, went onto Facebook, and there was a friend request waiting from Angela Moffat.

Wow.

And I was obviously, as you can imagine, I was like blown away by that. So I answered the friend request, I accepted it. Went onto her page, was looking at her photographs, like her recent photographs, and there's all these photographs of her in Australia, in the places that I'd been to, to recently. And I was like, that's a bit strange. So I sent her a message and I said, oh, you know, it's crazy, I was thinking about you yesterday, I can't believe you sent me a message. I said, um, it looks like you might be in Australia, please, you know, this is my number, please give me a call. So she rang me that night. Turned out she lived about 15 minutes around the corner from where I lived in Australia. Wow. Unbelievable. But the weird thing was as well, she was going traveling within the next couple of days and I was going traveling within the next couple of days, and I actually ended up leaving Australia and going home. So I never got to meet her in Australia. About 6 months later, she moved— she came over to the UK to visit family. So we met up in, in the UK. And when I told her the story, she just said exactly the same thing. She said she was just sat at a computer and the thought of me came to her mind. And she just thought, "Oh, I wonder what John's doing and I'll check." So she checked and that was how we found each other.

Yeah, you know, I actually got goosebumps just listening to that. And that's just, you know, it just— that's the title of your book. So we're all connected and we We don't— we're connected in ways that we don't know. And when we start to, to open up to the possibility, then we can see that, you know, so because a lot of people say, oh well, that's just a coincidence. Well, that is way more than a coincidence.

It is. And, and just to, and to, to cement it, just to make it an even more dramatic story, so because I'm a little— because I'm very pessimistic and a very rational person like you as well, like I do pride myself on not you know, not just believe in things. Even though that happened, I still wasn't like— it didn't automatically make me think, oh my God, there's, you know, there's definitely a God. I was— even then I was like, oh well, that was a crazy coincidence. So when I went—

when I—

when we set off traveling, um, I'd been— another woman that worked at the store where my partner worked, she was a I'm not— she was a Black woman, and the reason why I say that will become clear in a moment. She's a Black woman, and she had a sister that lived in Alice Springs who was apparently pregnant because she talked about her a lot and, you know, and told us loads of stories about her and stuff. So anyway, we flew to Alice Springs and we hired a rental car, and as we were setting off into the outback to go camping I said, you know, we need to go to the store and pick up some supplies. So we pulled up at the store, and as we were walking into the store, this pregnant Black woman was walking towards us. And sorry, the bit that I've missed out as well is, as we were driving towards the store, I said to my partner, I bet we'll see Rose's sister. And she said, why would you see Rose's sister? There's like thousands and thousands of people in this town. And I said, I've just got this feeling that we're going to see her. So we're walking into the store and there's this pregnant black woman walking towards me and I just walked over to her and I just said, excuse me, I said, do you have a sister called Rose who lives in Melbourne? She said, yeah. And I was like, well, I know this will seem a bit weird and straight away I think she thought it was like Candid Camera or something and she was a bit like, you know, where's the cameras? And I said, oh, I'm sorry, I don't mean to alarm you. I said, the strangest thing is that my partner here has been working with your sister in Melbourne for the last 6 months. And she just happened to mention that she had a sister that lived in Alice Springs. And I said, "And I was convinced that we were going to bump into you and here you are." So she was just freaked out really. She kind of almost like ran away from us. And then when we'd been to the store and we went into the outback, we went camping. So a couple of days later, the same woman, Rose, had recommended a book to me called Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and It's All Small Stuff, which is this little book. As we arrived in the campsite, we, um, the campsite that we wanted to go in was booked up, so we had to go into another campsite just for one night. When we went in there, it wasn't very nice. It was a bit of a, you know, bit of a rundown place. So I was a bit disgruntled, and I said, I'm gonna go and change my book at the Book Exchange. So walked over to the Book Exchange, gave the woman my book, walked over to the bookshelf, and the first book that I picked up was Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, and it's all small stuff.

Wow, wow.

So those 3 things happened to me, and that was when I was— I was— after that, I was convinced. And I was like, there's no way that that is not something more, something bigger, you know, some sort of higher power.

I just can't explain it, but from that day onwards, I was convinced Well, I have to say, the, um, I think the book is a great exploration of these concepts and, and tying things together as we've, as we've been discussing over the last hour or so, you know, the religion, the philosophy, the science, uh, and I, and I love having you on so people can understand you're not some, some crazy woo-woo guy that just believes stuff because you believe it. This is, it's well researched, it's really well researched, um, it's a really enjoyable book. So as we're coming to the end of our time, is there anything else you'd like to leave us with as far as a parting message or anything, last words you'd like to say before we call it a day?

Yeah, I mean, I just obviously love people to read the book. But one thing that I'm really interested in is hearing people's stories. And so I would love people to get in touch with me through O-Books. So it's www.o-books.com. As I said, I don't have my podcast or my website or social media anymore, but I'd love to hear from people with their stories. And yeah, maybe there'll be another book at some point in the future.

Yeah. And just so everybody knows, it'll be in the show notes, but I like to put— like to get it on, on air also. It's All Is One by Ren Koi. That's R-E-N-K-O-I. It's available on Amazon, I believe, and it's available at o-books.com. You can, you can get in contact with Wren there. Great meeting you. Really great having this conversation with you.

Wonderful. Thank you. It's been a real pleasure. I've really enjoyed it.

All right, enjoy your evening.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/brian-d-smith- patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian and grief to growth, visit www.grief2growth.com.

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