Tim Corcoran - The Purpose Crisis

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Team. Welcome back to the Man Talk Show. I'm Connor Beaton. Joining me today is a guest that I've had on the show recently, Mr. Tim Corcoran. And if you haven't checked out the first episode, I'd strongly recommend it. We talk about the intersectionality between nature and purpose. On the last podcast. We talk about vision quests. I wanted to have Tim back on because in our last episode, it just felt like there was a second part around this conversation of purpose, where we find purpose, where we find meaning in life, how we can create a deeper sense of meaning, how nature allows us to understand our purpose in life, our purpose in this existence. And so Tim and I, in this conversation, start off by talking about the purpose crisis, what it is, what's creating it. We talk about this fixation on the world, on the material, on modernity. And then we get into nature and meaning. We talk about how and where our purpose is actually expressed and where we can begin to see it blossom, where we can begin to see our purpose actually come into being through our actions, through our decisions. So this is a wonderful conversation. I found, in many ways to speak with Tim again. I just want to. Before I bring him on the show, I just want to say a huge thanks to all of you in the last few months. I've really been blown away in the last six months. I know I've said this before, but I'm really going to say it again because I've put a lot of effort into this show, a lot of effort into these conversations. My podcast producer, Aaron Duran, has done an incredible job at helping me source out guests and curate these conversations. And I just want to say thank you to each and every single one of you that tune in week in and week out to share these episodes with other people, because in the last seven months, we have almost doubled in size. And it has been wonderful to see the podcast growing in this way to this degree, and it feels very, very rewarding. You know, I think one of the things when I started this podcast over six years ago, I've been doing this show for over six years, which seems, honestly, a little odd to say sometimes, because when I started the show, I was hesitant. You know, it was somebody else's idea, and I wasn't really a podcast listener, but I really enjoyed these conversations. And I, you know, you can probably tell I get into them and. And I'm looking forward to having some bigger, more significant guests coming on the show. We have Wim Hof coming on the show soon. And again, all of that is made possible by you. By you sharing the show, by you listening, by you tuning in and telling other people about the show. And so I would just love to, not only thank you, but to just say if you have a moment, I would love for you to share one of your favorite episodes with somebody in your life or to just share an episode with maybe a friend or family member that you think will enjoy the conversation. So thank you again. Goes a long way. And without any further delay, please welcome Mr. Tim Corcoran. All right, Tim, welcome back to the Mantalk Show. How you doing?

Thanks, Connor. I'm doing great. Great to be here.

Yeah. It's nice to have you back. I was thinking about this. So I flew yesterday. I was in Edmonton, Alberta, or just outside of Edmonton, in San Albert, visiting family. And then I went to Vancouver and visited a bunch of friends and flew back yesterday.

Nice.

And so I was thinking about it on the plane. I was like, I don't think I've ever had a guest on the show. And then back on the show so quickly. Usually there's like a, you know, a year period or something like that, but here you are a couple months later, which I feel like is great because we had. I felt such a. Such a solid conversation last time about purpose, which really seems to be so front and center in a lot of people's minds. And so let's just dig straight back in. I think one of the things that I wanted to begin with was just sort of a quick recap for people on how you define purpose. So I feel like that will be helpful for us as we navigate through some of this terrain. And for the listeners that are out there. If you haven't listened to my conversation with Tim, head back and check it out, especially if you enjoy this one.

Yeah, well. And thank you. I feel honored to be back so soon. Yeah. So, quick recap. What is purpose? In the simplest sense, purpose is why something exists. And I like to go straight to soul whenever we talk about purpose. So if there's a place within us or if there's a place, period, that knows our purpose, then that would be our soul or our essence, where we find ourselves connected to, interconnected with all things. And so a way of looking at that would be like, soul is our truest nature. Right. Our true nature, or. And there's a bit of a play on words here, but also our truest place in nature. Right. So. So as I mentioned last time, I really look at discovering purpose as an ecological process even more so than a spiritual Process. And that, yeah, I think, goes without saying, but for me, that nature connection is an essential element of that process of discovering purpose.

Yeah, I would. I would agree wholeheartedly. In my experience, one of the things that I wanted to start off this conversation talking about was this, what I've just called the purpose crisis. You know, I think a lot of people are talking about meaning and the meaning crisis. But, you know, I think how it seems to present sort of systematically with a lot of people is that they feel a lack of purpose. You know, so a lot of the guys that I talk to, you know, whether they are Dming me on Instagram or they've joined our membership or whatever it is, they're usually saying, I don't feel like I have purpose in life. And it's interesting because for the last number of years, I've been really looking at what's happening within us individually, right, as sovereign beings, what's happening spiritually, psychologically. But then what about the environment that we're in? You know, what's happening within our culture that is causing this sort of toxicity that's poisoning the waters of purpose?

Yeah.

And so I would love for you to just expand a little bit on. On what you see happening and what maybe is contribut contributing to this purpose crisis. And if you agree with the sort of general sentiment, then how you would sort of define the parameters of what the purpose crisis is.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a big question, right? So I think if we back up all the way, looking at the purpose crisis, as it were, I think the first thing to acknowledge is that as a modern culture, modern culture doesn't honor purpose. Modern culture puts many things front and center, but the least of which I would say, is deep, soulful purpose. And as well, nature, you know, nature doesn't hold a front and center value in our modern culture. And so we could go back and look at, right, the fact that we all go back, we can all go back and trace our ancestors to eventually find people living close to the earth where nature was front and center, as was purpose, as was cultivating gifts, recognizing gifts from a young age, and having those be tended to, having those be nurtured and supported. I think that some of it is, you know, as we look at our colonial history, there was a lot of work done to a lot of tragedy that happened to really destroy our sacred connection to the natural world. And when we look at whether it's the history of Europeans coming to colonize North America or if we go back further and like in my heritage, the Irish being oppressed, that story repeats itself. To achieve power over another, then that means that we have to disempower someone. And one of the greatest ways we can disempower people is take away what brings them meaning and what brings them fulfillment, what brings them their purpose. And so I think there is this larger cultural context that we're swimming in that's important, you know, and then, so that's kind of a front historical perspective. And then if we take a look at a bit of a more modern perspective on it, more current day, I think we can begin to see that as technology continues to increase and be developed and have a more prominent place in our lives, and this ties right in with our conversation last time, Connor. It gives us more and more and more opportunities to be distracted from what is really central, from our essence, from our calling, from what's meaningful, from what brings fulfillment. So that's a huge piece, right? That's a huge piece. 10,000 Facebook notifications every day or the phone constantly going. But culturally, in the modern experience, how normalized that's. That's become, you know, the. I mean, smartphones. Look at the presence of smartphones and how different our world is now compared to, I don't know, 15 years ago. And then, of course, I think the other big piece is frankly, just the destruction of the natural world. We're seeing more and more of our natural systems be destroyed, be abused. That's hard to look at, you know, on one hand, and it's easy to want to look away from that because it's painful for anyone who's connected and we are interrelated with all things. And so as the natural world is in jeopardy and is being destroyed, being harmed, there's a part of us that's being harmed. And again, like we spoke about last time, those are hard things to look at. And so the natural world is our source of connection, is our source of connection to soul. It's that ultimate context. And so I think that plays a big part into the purpose crisis, to really, you know, we spoke about this last time a lot about. You asked what role pain plays in the journey of purpose, and we talked about the sacred wound and the sacred gift and how those are two sides of the same coin. And so if we're really going to live a deep life of purpose and experience some degree of wisdom that we might be able to share with others, then that means facing that pain. And so, on the one hand, yes, we have a purpose crisis, but on the other hand, I think what's hopeful to me is more and more of these conversations like you and I are, are happening out there in the world. More and more people are gaining an understanding of what is trauma and how has that affected me and how has that affected my family, how has that affected my ancestry? And more and more people are waking up to what's happening with the natural world and beginning to care and take different actions. So there's kind of these simultaneous two different threads that are. That are being woven all at the same time right now.

There's a couple things that really stood out to me. I think one of them was the distraction that a lot of people are experiencing through different modes. Whether that's the distraction of media or social media or the intense amount of psychological fear and anxiety that are dispersed through the media or through the everyday life. You know, the sort of distraction. Maybe it's not a distraction, I shouldn't use that term for this one, but the sort of existential anxiety that seems to be quite prevalent.

Yes.

And, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like what you're saying is that a lot of this purpose crisis is coming because of our disconnection from the natural world. Right. Because we're sort of phase shifting into a psychological existence that's virtual more than it's natural. Is that roughly accurate or good? Good interpretation.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And as the old, what is it Chinese proverbs says, you know, the symbol of crisis equals opportunity. I'm sure you're present and aware of that one. It really is a great opportunity. The more disconnected we get, the more in our face it is that, God, I don't have a purpose and what the heck is going on here? And so there is this. It is this time of great awakening. People are asking that question. I get that too, all the time. Like you're saying, wow, I don't have a sense of purpose. And that becomes more stark, more contrasted in daily life and more front and center in people's consciousness. So. But absolutely, yeah. Our lack of connection to the natural world is a huge, huge, huge piece of that.

Yeah, I was gonna, you know, as you were talking about that part, it's interesting because when I was, like I said, I was just traveling and I was in British Columbia, which I love. I think it's one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And I drove with some friends up to a town called Squamish, and we went, you know, bouldering and climbing. And then we met up down by one of the rivers that's like a glacial fed river and just went in, you know, and there's a. There's such a kind of presence that emerges in nature that's hard to describe and a sense of ease and calmness and, and peace and smallness. But also I think one of the biggest pieces is a sense of interconnectedness. It's hard to feel alone. For me, at least I've found in my life. It's hard to feel alone with the mountains, you know, with the trees, having my, you know, having my body in, in the, in the ocean or in the river. It's. It's hard to really feel alone. And I'm sure that there's been periods of my life where I have been lonely in those places, you know, and I have found a sense of aloneness. But, but it's hard not to feel interconnected. And it, there seems to be for me this thread of isolation that cuts us off from a sense of purpose. And I'm wondering if you agree to that and if you can speak to it and maybe sort of bring some life to that kindle, that fire a little bit.

Yeah. So how does the thread of isolation support a sense of lack of purpose? So I do agree with that. By definition, right. A true purpose or true vision is a purpose beyond self. So we find our purpose, it is in our relationships where purpose actually lives. That's where it's expressed. Right. My wife Janine has done some great work on this and I was just talking with her the other day about this. A lot of people, the question will come up, who am I? As a purpose oriented question. And that's a good question. And she works a lot with it in this field as well. And what she was saying to me was maybe the question isn't so much who am I? But maybe the question is who am I in relationship to? Like within the context of that relationship, My relationship with other humans, my relationship with the natural world, who am I in that space? And so, you know, how does isolation impact God? A sense of lack of purpose? I mean, yeah, it's. Again, there's so many factors in modernity that are, that are isolating us that. I mean, we talk about online communities and this and that and, and people as if that can really meet a deep need and in the deepest way. I just don't think it can. Are there benefits to that? Sure. But yeah, we live in this virtual world where our full senses as human beings aren't allowed to fully process what's happening. We're getting this mirror not even A mirror, just a small version of reality offered to us on a screen. And then we come to think that's real. But when we go out into the natural world or connect with others, humans in the natural world, all five senses come on board. And as you were speaking to Connor, that sense of isolation is really busted. But that means facing ourselves so that there's the blessing and the curse of it, or the good and the bad, that the two sides of the coin. It means revealing ourselves. Right. Brene Brown has done so much work on what is it that facilitates connection? It's the expression of vulnerability. I'm sure that's something you're familiar with. And when it comes to real relationships, you know, that's a whole different thing to express that in that way. But as. As that is expressed, and as we do experience that deeper level of connection, that's where purpose can begin to take root. So, absolutely, yeah. The isolation is a huge piece of.

Maybe this is a bit of a strange question, but maybe there's two sort of two parts. I'm just formulating this as we're. We're talking. You mentioned modernity, so I think one of one of the parts is pre modernity. Do you think that it was easier to find a sense of purpose? And then secondly, what are some of the factors that modernity contributes to this crisis that we find ourselves in with purpose?

Yeah, that's my belief. I mean, I don't know. I didn't live 500 years ago, or if I did, I don't have conscious memory of it.

But you don't have access to all of your past lives. Tim, what's happening?

Yeah, more ayahuasca, Tim.

More ayahuasca. Right, right, right.

But, you know, I mean, I have had the blessing, Connor, of spending time with a number of different Native American communities. In my adult life. I've spent time on that Navajo reservation with the Lakota people. And then here locally, I live up in Northern Idaho, and I spend time with the Spokane tribe. And what I observe in. Now, of course, I've got to preface this by saying that none of those are fully intact traditional cultures, all of them have experienced great levels of genocide and trauma that are still prevalent and still being healed from. So. But my experience is that there are many elements of intact traditional nature based, soul based, maybe we could say purpose based culture that are still intact in those communities. And at least for me, and I know many others, there's a lot to learn from. And so when purpose, when vision, when soul is something that all People have placed a value on and continue to hold as central when it's integrated in community, when there are ongoing rites of passage whose whole function is to connect an individual with purpose, to connect an individual with soul. And frankly, oftentimes in those communities, I don't even hear the word purpose that often. You know, you'll hear the word vision or I'll hear the word spiritual power or things along those notes, but there's a lot of connection there.

Can I jump in there? Because I think what's interesting is that purpose seems to have become sort of like a semi spiritual word in some regards. You know, like I see it's like, I think it's 32% or 38% of the American population is now spiritual but non religious. And it seems to be very prevalent in these communities. Right. In the spiritual but not religious, in the self help genre, in the personal development space. It's very much like, I can't help but feel like there's a tether to spirit, to God, to universe, to a, A bigger aspect. Because whenever I hear and I've interacted with the man that's talking about purpose and even in my own life, purpose is a very. There's a very spiritual quality. Yes. That's attached to it that I often find hard to communicate to. To a man who feels like he's missing purposes.

Yeah, yeah. It's like there's a whole other worldview, a whole other way of experiencing the world that opens up to us when we connect with our purpose. And if we, if that hasn't happened, you know, it's like trying to explain having sex to somebody who's never had sex or what it's like to fall in love with someone who's never fallen in love. Yeah. If you've done psychedelics, what that's like, if you've never. I mean, these are whole other. It's a whole other experience of what it is to be a human being. And so did our earth based ancestors have a strong connection? I really believe they did. And I believe that was front and center in the developmental process of who we were as human beings at that time that the whole culture was supporting.

And so just coming back because I cut you off from the second part of the question, which is how has modernity played a role in maybe uncoupling us from a deeper sense of purpose?

Well, again, I mean, it goes back to what we were speaking about earlier, Connor. There's like a poverty that, a spiritual poverty that exists in modernity that is initially often Invisible to people. You know, there's this sense of desire, of like there's a hole inside of me that I can't quite fill. And we spoke about this a little bit last time. And so modernity is constantly offering us ways to fill that in ways that are actually not nourishing. Oh, if you want to be happy, buy this product, buy my thing, and this will bring you happiness. I mean, are you kidding? Like, look at consumerism and capitalism, like the whole thing is based on that. Or modern marketing is all about what's the pain point? What's a person's pain point? And how do you identify that and get them to feel that pain and then connect your offering with. That's gonna, you know, that's gonna be the fix. So now I'm not saying every, every person in every organization in the modern experience is doing all of that, but there are a lot that do and that still is very prevalent. And so we go through life, you know, seeking happiness, seeking fulfillment in all of these superficial, non soulful ways. And ultimately, you know, we don't find that, that fulfillment. Of course not. You know, I think I said this last time, we can never get enough of what we truly don't need. And modernity keeps bringing that back to us. So, you know, that's why it's so important that there's others doing the work like you're doing, like I'm doing many others now. Lots of individuals and organizations that are rising up in the face of this purpose crisis saying, this is not okay. I don't want to live my life this way. There's so much destruction of the natural world, of families, of the inner psyche, of a sense of meaning and fulfillment in the world. I'm not okay with that. I've got to do something to. I mean, that's the decision I made. I was like, hey, I'm going to dedicate my life to this. That's how important this is. So it's a big, big question. But yeah, that's my answer.

I think you actually, I think you actually pre answered the question in some way, which was interesting because you said our purpose is expressed in relationships, which I feel, you know, I'm trying to have this conversation with you, Tim, in a, in a way where we sort of like sneak up to purpose, right? We sort of like define it, which is like, okay, there's the definition, but then we sneak up to it by sort of crafting a what it's not, what's hindering it and what contributes to its existence. So it paints a much broader picture because I think what happens is that we try and condense these huge things like purpose is a, is a very large entity. You know, as I've come to know it, it's a very large entity. And to squash it down into this one dimensional word and definition is like. Well, you're never going to get the essence of it. Like red. You can probably. It's like red. Yeah, you can get red from seeing it and it's like there it is. But you know, if somebody's never seen red and then you're having to try and explain it to them again like you're talking about with sex. It's a very big thing. And so I love this notion of our purposes expressed in our relationships because I think modernity in some ways has inflicted a vital wound to our capacity to be in proper right. Relationship with other people where we can express our purpose. And so I think a lot of people are struggling because they're, they're the places in which they could express their purpose is maybe being diminished. Right. So if relationship is where we express our purpose. Okay, so that's kind of like the geolocation of where purpose.

And to be clear, when I say relationship, I'm not just talking about, about relationship with other humans. That's part of it, but also our relationship with the more than human world.

Ah, okay. Can you expand on that before we keep going?

Yeah, I mean, I just know that a lot of people are going to hear that word relationship and instantly think of human to human relationships. And that is part of it. But again, what I'm offering is that if we're going to find real fulfillment, if we're going to really discover our purpose, then we have to expand the notion of one way to do it. And this goes back to the old earth based approach is look at the word people. People may not refer to just humans. What about the four legged people? What about the winged people? What about treating the mountains as people? What about treating the sun or the moon as people? You go back to all the earth based societies and they all would refer to like Grandmother moon or my brother the hawk. Now that's an older way of looking at things, but I can't imagine what level of change we would see in our world if that much respect was brought to all of life. And so the terminology that's often used these days, the more than human world or the other than human world is recognizing that there are valuable, important, essential life forms that are just as important as human people out there. That are essential to life, doing well here on planet Earth that we have got to contend with and bring enough love and respect and honor to those relationships, just as we do, or ideally more than we do to human relationships.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. As you were talking, I had a flashback, like a memory of the previous men's weekend that we did. And one man was going through a piece of work and. And I was guiding him through something. And yeah, at one point he just. He, you know, he'd working. He was working through some stuff with his father, and he was trying to basically find his own sense of inner strength. If I could just call it down to something until, like, one sentence. Right. And so he's trying to find his own sense of inner strength. And he had broken down. He'd expressed, you know, a lot of sadness. There was a lot of tears, and then a lot of anger emerged.

Yeah.

And he. He paused for a moment because I was. It was a very physical exercise that I was putting him through. Somatic with releasing through his body. And he paused at one point and I. And I just tuned in because I could tell that something was happening. I said, what's going on inside of you? And he said, I just have the. It gives me goosebumps just telling this. He said, I just have the clearest image of this massive buffalo because he had his eyes closed, right. He's going through an inner process. And he said, I have a. The clearest image of this massive buffalo standing in front of me. And it. For some reason, it feels like he's what I've been missing, you know, and so there's this connection that we have, you know, So I think it's why we play the game of, like, what do you think my spirit animal would be? You know, like, when you're a kid and it's like, you know, what animal do you feel like you represent? It's like we feel this innate connection to nature.

And so I'm going to go down a little bit of a different path in terms of the connection between meaning and nature.

Well, can I actually jump in and just respond?

Take us too far off.

Yeah, yeah. So there's a great thread here, so we could think of it this way. You're familiar with attachment theory, right? Yeah, basics. Right. That our connection with our parents that we have as an infant is especially our mother is hugely influential on for the whole of our lives moving forward, especially intimate relationships. Okay. And there's healing and whatnot that can be done there. But we're holding that an infant's relationship with its mother foundationally impacts their whole life. So what I would offer is that there are two other equally important attachments, bonds that we as a modern culture have just completely lost track of. And one is our attachment to the earth. So if you will, a nature attachment theory that just look at it evolutionally like we evolved on planet Earth and it is essential to us that we have an active, healthy bond with the earth. And all of our earth based ancestors had that. But as modern people that's been lost to us. And so that's a huge essential piece. It sounds like in your story this man was on that journey. And what happens, Conor, is we're a modern psychological culture and so we identify trauma or early wounds or where needs didn't get met. And we think that we assume that the answer to all of our problems lies in just healing those wounds. But we don't recognize that, oh my gosh, maybe there was a whole, a whole other level of bonding and attachment that I needed, that I didn't even know I needed. And so one is that nature attachment and then the other I would say is a soul attachment theory, if you will. Meaning we do have a deeper self, we do have a soul that knows our purpose. And part of the journey of life is to make a healthy attachment with that and be in active relationship, ongoing with that. Just like, you know, if I'm going to have a healthy relationship with my wife, I don't do that once and call it good. Like just talk to her about that. Like there's no way that it is an everyday moment by moment process and we have our ups and our downs and it continues. It's a practice. The same goes for our connection with nature. The same goes for our connection with the soul. I really hold them as that essential.

Hmm. I definitely want to stop and talk about nature attachment theory. I feel like there's a good, there's a good book in there, Tim, but I would love for you to just sort of piece apart. I think the reason why I want to stop there is because as a kid I had such a good connection with nature. You know, every day I would like. My parents had this big backyard and there was a section on the left hand side where there was lots of shrub and bush and trees, trees. And I had like carved a path in there and I had created like a little sanctuary back in there that was hidden and remote. And it was like this, my own little world and beautiful space. Right. And come full circle to where I am today. You know, we have 5.2 acres of land, and there's beautiful little spots that I've started to carve out on the land. And. And so over the years, I've maintained this really important connection or attachment to nature. You know, hiking, being in the mountains, going on solo trips and vision quests on my own, and swimming in the ocean. Those types of things have always felt nourishing and deeply connective to me. And what's interesting is when you said nature attachment theory, when my wife and I were talking about having kids, I just had this fundamental adverse reaction to my son growing up in Manhattan. Know, because we were living in Manhattan before, I was just like, it's dead here. You know, there's no connection to nature itself because it's just concrete. So, anyway, that's a bit of a tangent, but I would love for you to just talk about how do we build that attachment? What is it necessary for? How does it maybe connect in. With. With what we've been talking about in this. This purpose crisis?

Oh, well, it's. It's huge. Yeah. So. And just as a reminder for listeners, I. My wife and I started a wilderness school here in Idaho called Twin Eagles Wilderness school back in 2005. So that's been a big, big part of my adult professional work is, you know, answering that question and living that question. How do we connect humans to the natural world? So one of the things I found the early expression of my vision consciously was. Yeah, to start this wilderness school. And so what do we do there? We connect people with the natural world in the old ways, with wilderness survival skills. Tracking wild animals, learning the language of the birds. Yeah. Figuring out what wild plants are out there that you can actually eat and nourish from, whether it's picking berries or harvesting roots or whatnot, and also finding how to heal oneself just physically, you know, through plants. I mean, they say that for every ailment that's out there, there is a plant that can heal it. So one of the things I found early on in my work at the wilderness school with nature connection was that the kids who stuck with it, there is always this sense of full aliveness. Right. That when you give people. And I've done a lot of work with youth and I've done a lot of work with adults, but when you give people, and especially kids, an opportunity to just be outside in unstructured ways and this. This creativity emerges, and through that, there's this full aliveness that is uninhibited, or some might refer to that as a Wildness, like, they touch their inner wildness by being outside in wild places. It's a context for one's inner wildness to be expressed, to be felt somatically in the body, emotionally, spiritually, on and on. And so what we found was that those individuals who formed a deep connection with nature and, you know, and that's something that's worth pausing and really kind of defining it. But, like, well, what does that mean to connect with deeply with nature? Does that mean gardening? Does that mean hiking? Does that mean going to a nature connection program and learning how to, you know, build shelters or start fires by rubbing sticks together? It can mean all of that. But what I've found in my own journey is that there's no end to the depth of nature connection that a person can experience. There's an old quote that says that the book of nature has no beginning, as it has no end, meaning there's no end to the depth of connection from a naturalist perspective or a biology perspective, or just the oh, my God. I mean, there's people who spend their whole lives just mastering herbalism, and there's others who spend their whole lives mastering animal tracking, and there's no way one human being could ever master it all. So. And at best, that's a mentored process, Meaning, sure, a random person could go out there and eventually figure all this stuff out. But when we look at the process of mentoring of older, more experienced people, guiding the process and helping share with younger or less experienced people, not just for the sake of transferring data, but also for the sake of drawing out the best of that person. Right? Like, I make this distinction at our wilderness school that distinguishing teaching from mentoring. And if you look at the Latin roots of those words, like, if we look at the word to instruct, it actually means to put in, like, I've got data, you don't. I'm going to put my data into your head. Mentoring, though, is very different. Mentoring, if we look at the Latin roots, it means to draw out. And what are we drawing out? We're drawing out the best of that human being. So it's focused on the whole person. Yes, there's this point of connecting with nature, but, like, woven right into that is this person process of drawing out the best of this person. That's why we're doing it. Anyway, so to finish that loop, what I found is that students who had stayed with me for a long time, and particularly youth students, like humans, who started Young and did five, 10 years of nature connection mentoring, by the time they got to like 18, 21, early 20s, they were naturally on fire with their purpose. They had no trouble finding their passions, what they love, turning that into meaningful work in the world, you know, a job, a career, what have you. It just naturally happens because, because those deep needs got met and that began happening more and more and more until, I don't know, about five years ago, I finally realized, okay, I need to actually make this even more explicit because my mission at the Wilderness school was always to connect people with nature. But when I started my second organization, Purpose Mountain five years ago, it was very much in response to that observation. And my mission there, here of course is connecting people to their deep soul level purpose. I love that.

I love that. And I think what's interesting just as we've been talking about this purpose crisis, is that the thing that really stands out to me about our connection, excuse me, in our attachment to nature, is the sense of wonder that comes along with it. You know, the awe and wonder. And as we've moved more to a digital space, it seems like people, people gain a sense of awe and wonder from technology and the on wonder that they used to experience from nature has turned into like fear and apprehension because it's so big and it's so unknown that it's hard for them to connect to it. You know, I see I used to work at Apple and I'd see these parents come in with like a two year old and an iPad in the two year old's hand. They're like, oh look what the two, like he's only two or she's only two and play these games. And I'm like oh that's terrifying. You know, it's like do they know like how to play out in nature or. And so you know, there does seem to be this shift where based on what you're saying that nature is an essential ingredient to a sense of purpose, that there's some access point or some wisdom that comes along with us being in nature that can, that can help us connect to a sense of purpose. And for me that that piece is through wonder, you know, and awe. And because there is something wondrous and awe invoking about nature, that's hope hard to that. I mean I haven't found anywhere in digital space, you know, I might be intrigued or you know, those types of things. And so I'm, I'm wondering if there are other sort of ingredients within nature that help us find, you know, I said awe and wonder. But are there other ingredients that you think are important that we can, that we get from nature that are important to a sense of meaningfulness in our lives and a sense of purpose.

Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, well, and you spoke about fear too, how the awe and wonder has been replaced by fear and yeah, of course. We as humans, we fear what we don't understand. And in my work, like I've oftentimes see, sometimes we refer to this as the five mini rites of passage. And that is facing the elements of cold, wet, dark, alone, bugs.

Like that. Bugs. The last one?

Yeah. Cold, wet, dark, alone and bugs. Meaning when a person spends extended time in the natural world, eventually they're going to have to face these things. And it's amazing. I've worked with five year olds that are going through this and like, oh my God, I don't want to sit here. There's ants crawling. No. And they refuse to sit and they're standing up and they're kind of throwing a fit. And you know what? I've worked with 65 year olds who never faced that growing up, never. Nor in their adulthood. They're literally acting the same way, like, oh my God, like this is a little too much for me. Can I move over here? This is not quite working. It's like oh my God, it's an ant. You know, like this is not a big deal, but yet it is if you're at that stage developmentally. So empathy and compassion for sure. But that's very real, visceral in the senses, in the body and again, there's just no substitute for that. So as we learn, go and work our way through those kind of early five mini rites of passage, so to speak, what are we learning? We're learning courage, we're learning bravery, we're learning to be with tension in the maybe the deepest way. That is a hugely transferable skill to relationships, to living our calling, to living in this world. And there's a huge loss when we don't experience those things, so. And then to the awe and wonder, you know, gosh, it's such a huge one. I can't tell you how many times I and people I've worked with have had these moments of, you know, there's so many different ones. It might be being present, waking up to a sunrise and watching the sky. You see like a picture, you ever do this, you look like a picture of a sunrise. It's beautiful and everything, but my God, then you extend experience it. And if you're on a mountaintop and it's 360 degrees and the sky seems to go on Forever. And your body is filled with this incredible inspiration of like, oh, my God, we have another day. I. I've been touched by this miracle of life. And my God, I. I woke up. I can do anything I want today. The day is filled with possibilities. You know, that's sunrise. Much more than this little 10, 24, 768 digital representation on one screen. And that's just one little archetype. The natural world is full of energetic archetypes, probably infinite, that all have something to teach us to bring about our fullness as human beings. So, yeah, those are a couple of reflections. Tell me your question once again, though.

Well, no, you answered my question, and I actually wanted to continue on, if that's okay. You definitely answered it. I think one of the things that stood out to me just as you're talking is this sense of that maybe the digital space is encroaching in on our capacity to attach and connect with nature. And it's something that I've thought quite a bit about because I think I shared on the last episode that I've. Maybe I didn't bring this up, I'm not sure, but I've always had this sort of theory, because I come from a Jungian background, that the Internet, in many ways, especially social media, has become an extension of our collective unconscious, so that we've actually built an external representation of what. An external manifestation of what our. What our collective unconscious actually can be like, which is a very fucked up thing to try and interact with. Right. Like, you know, there's a reason why I don't interact with my, you know, unconscious in that directive a way. And there's definitely a reason why I don't deal with the collective unconscious within me and within the psyche is because it's very hard to contain, understand, interact with, et cetera, et cetera. And so as you were talking, I kind of got this sense of like, oh, it's interesting how technology is sort of being developed to consume nature in a way, you know, because here we have the metaverse, right, being built, where it's like, you don't have to live in the world. You can go live online entirely. And there seems to be some inherent sort of problems that. That come along with that. And so I'm curious to get your take on. You talk a lot about world fixation, and I was hoping that you could, you know, does this play into that? Can you define world taxation a little bit and kind of get a sense of how that impacts our sense of purpose?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So When I refer to world fixation, what I'm talking about is, and I think we spoke about this just a little bit in our first podcast, but it's referencing like a simple three worlds model of consciousness, right? That if one were to imagine three spheres, one in the middle, one up top, one down below, and we were to name those, middle world, upper world, lower world, then middle world would be referring to average everyday waking reality. The place where, if we're doing healing work, kind of traditional healing work of, say, I don't know, therapy or maybe emotional healing work, the kind of stuff that a lot of men's groups focus on, women's groups as well, that's all middle world work. It's focusing on reality as it occurs to us normally and our physical life history. So then upper world would refer to kind of the realm of classical meditation. Meditation, classical enlightenment, very much popularized here in the west from Eastern traditions. In these last, what, 50, 60 years, when one achieves enlightenment, it's all as one. One is all. It's the non dual awareness of recognizing that in a way, the physical world is all temporary and an illusion, which it is, but that doesn't mean it's not important. And then we would have the lower world, which is probably the least known to modern folks. Also important to note that the middle world is the realm of ego. The upper world is the realm of spirit, and I would say the lower world is the realm of soul. So differentiating spirit from soul, both upper world and lower world then require a degree of ego transcendence. I've got to be able to shed my fixation on the ego in order to experience either of those places. But the lower world is the place of soul. It's the place where purpose is discovered. It's the place of saying, okay, sure, maybe I can transcend this physical world. Maybe I can transcend the ego. I am alive. I am a human being on planet Earth at this time, and there must be a reason why I'm here. And so what is that? So that's lower world.

And I was kind of speaking to this a little bit earlier. So the idea of world fixation is that in the journey of awakening, in the journey of cultivating consciousness, there comes a point where we realize, hey, there's more to reality than meets the eye. Something else going on here. There's lots of ways in. One might start with, yeah, emotional healing work with a therapist. Or maybe one starts on the path of meditation. Maybe one starts. This is more rare. But maybe one does start with soul work. And initially, typically, what happens is, interestingly, I would say it's the ego that fixates on one particular path. So maybe I fixate on men's work because, oh my God, you know, I, I went to this men's group and oh my God, everyone's talking about their feelings. And I've had all these feelings my whole life. I've never been able to talk about them, but here I can. And I feel so much better in my relationship with my wife's getting better. I feel like I'm a better dad, I'm a better leader in the community. You know, I know that story real well. Right. But the ego fixates on, on it. The ego believes this is my one path to redemption, this is my one path to ultimately get all my needs met and answer all my problems. And then we might go a few years or maybe 5 or 10 or sometimes 20 or 30, and we find that, wow, I still experience all this suffering and whoa, my God, I'm actually not fulfilled. And I keep going back to my men's group and thinking about that this is going to be the answer, and yet it's kind of not. And it's really threatening for me to consider that, oh my God, maybe there's a whole other path that I haven't discovered yet that has something to offer me. You know, I fixated frankly on, on the lower world. That was my initial journey out of the middle world. And I really thought that it was going to be all of my answers. And I ran that with that path for, I don't know, 10, 15 years from age, like I don't know, 25 to like my late 30s until I realized, my God, like, I really have got some issues. It was my marriage actually, and I had actively resisted actually going joining a men's group and had gotten tons of invitations. And I was thinking, no, I don't need that. I've got traditional earth based ceremonies. I do this, that and the other. It wasn't until I actually opened open to that Connor, that I realized, oh my God, there's this whole other piece. And now that was my story. I've seen it flipped. Where someone starts, of course, yeah, with men's work and then they need to open up to other things. And so some people talk about this as the triple purpose of life is to wake up, grow up and show up that growing up, referring to the middle world, like cultivating emotional maturity, the men's work, the women's work, you know, psychotherapy, wake up the upper world journey, you know, recognize that there is more to this world than meets the eye and show up right, Discover why the heck you're here. The lower world journey. And so there is that hazard of fixating on any one of those. I don't spend a whole lot of time with upper world work, but I have a basic proficiency there. My specialty is definitely lower world. And that's fine. People are going to kind of have specialties. I know lots of guys who are just total specialists with men's work and all of that, and that's great. But I think if we're really going to find that ultimate fulfillment, I think we all need to experience at least a little bit of all three of those and develop a basic level of proficiency in all three worlds.

Wholeheartedly agree. In the first line of the dao is the dao. That's called the dao is not the dao, which is the way. That is called the way is not the way. And I think we got so stuck on that in our healing journey where it's just like, this is the way, you know, CBT is the only way.

Oh, yeah.

You know, or like vision quests are the only way. Or men's work is the only way. It's like.

Come, we'll. We'll see you in five years.

Yeah, exactly.

Talk to you in 10. Yeah. So good, man. Well, we're. We're up for time.

Wow.

As our. Our hour usually rips past.

Totally. It's crazy how fast it goes, huh?

But this has been another wonderful conversation and I thoroughly enjoyed it. And for people that tune into this one, definitely go back and listen to my previous conversation with Tim. And Tim, just one more time. Where can people find a little bit more about you and the work that you're doing?

Yeah. Come check me out on my website, www.purposemountain.com.

Awesome. Awesome. We'll have links for that in the show notes. And until next week, thank you so much for joining in. Don't forget to share this episode and man it forward to somebody that you know will enjoy it. And until next week, this is Conor Beaton signing off.

Sam.