If Talk Therapy Worked, You'd Feel Better: Mike Zeller Reveals New MDMA Therapy Breakthrough

What if we're not broken? What if there's just a part of us that is wanting to be loved?

Our core longing as human beings is connection and love. And you think this wounded victim, angry, that is you, because that part is in the driver's seat and you're so identified with that feeling. When you do this work, now you separate the enmeshment. So now, because you have the separation, you can recognize the patterns and awareness instead of just be in it so much that you can't see.

Mike Zeller helps achievers heal their trauma and rewire their nervous system. He is an MDMA advocate for mental health and author of Genius Within.

Psilocybin, MDMA, which I primarily use, you have a 3 to 6 hour window basically where your nervous system is more wide open than any known point in your life.

When you say wide open, what do you mean by that?

It's like I have backend access to your programming. If you think of the human operating system as like a computer operating system, I've got backend access to Josh with your permission, with your support, with your insight, where We work together on turning on and off switches. The medicines create the opening, but then you still have to do the parts work.

How does that actually work from a neuroscience perspective and also from a spiritual lens? What if we're not broken? What if there's just a part of us that is wanting to be loved?

I think that's spot on. I mean, if you look at the end of the day, our core longing as human beings is connection. And love. I heard a Rob Bell talk one time. He talked about how at the very cellular, like, atomic level, structures is connection. Electrons want to connect with other electrons. And when it— when, you know, there's this thing on quantum physics, when two or more electrons connect with one another, it's called phase entanglement. They leave a piece of each other on each other. The whole universe is wired for connection at the fundamental subatomic particle level. So if that's the case, then that's more complex organisms like you and I. We're wired for connection. Yeah, like I'm coming in for your birthday next week because I want connection with you and others, right? You're connected with Carrie. Yeah, I'm connecting with my wife Sarah because we love to feel love and connection. So I think we run from it though when it feels scary, when that connection was violated. Were not honored when we were in vulnerable states, like developing children. You can have a session tonight with a client. He did not get emotional nurturing at all as a child. So intimacy feels really effing scary to him. And he wants to abort, abort, abort, even though he's in the most loving relationship he's ever had romantically.

But it's like a mix of fight or flight when people go with their full heart and then something inside of them gets so triggered in fear about, oh my God, am I Am I worthy of the love? Is this really my person? We get really messed up mentally, man. And I've been there. We're going to talk about this in the podcast today, my experience with you. Your marriage was saved by the very work that you do. I find that so beautiful. Also so mysterious and paradoxical. Can you just share with us a brief synopsis, not too deep, of what exactly you do now? I know that'll change.

Yeah.

But what do you do now to serve people in healing themselves and healing relationships?

Yeah. So I am a psychedelic trauma healer and peak performance coach. My wife is a 3-time suicide survivor, and, uh, we were in a marital— and she was in a personal crisis, a mental health crisis, and started in October 2020 and, uh, basically got triggered by getting pregnant. And she had prepartum, in a way, just started having flashbacks of her very traumatic, overwhelming childhood, um, very abusive mom, stepfather. They overwhelming. She was one of 11 kids, and so like she was in the cycle of taking care of the children, holding the family together, and getting in between mom and dad when they were really violent with each other and all that. And her nervous system never got a sense of safety, so she never got secure attachment at all from either parent. Um, and so when you have that, then her nervous system, uh, was really dysregulated. And then when we get in a relationship and get pregnant, then that triggered her childhood trauma. And so as a result, I basically became a Sherlock of the nervous system of like trying to figure out what the heck is going on here. My wife was good, now she's not. There's triggers, cause and effect. My daughter would cry and would literally send my wife into a depression spiral if she cried for longer than 20 seconds. I would carry my baby out into the streets crying to the point of like the neighbors are gonna think I'm like a horrible dad because I always have a crying baby in my arms in the streets, or I'd be like yelling at my wife, get out of the house, get out of the house, get out of the house, if Sonnet, our daughter, was crying and didn't want to go out of the house, or I couldn't get her out of the house in time because I just could see her nervous system react. And so at the end of the day, I had to learn how to— I was in peak performance coaching, mostly NLP-based, working on the subconscious for leaders, entrepreneurs. But then I didn't really understand the nervous system at that level. And, and I was in a deeply like my peak performance stuff, pattern interrupt, NLP stuff was not working because it was literally, it was an unconscious physiological reaction that my wife would have when my daughter would cry. And so that's when I got into psychedelics. I explored that, took me 6 months to study, and I was like, okay, there's something going on here. The psychedelics create the opening. In the nervous system. I studied it, and then I actually experimented on myself with a guy's trip, did some mushrooms for the first time. And it was like, I didn't lose my mind, which was my biggest fear. Like, I was like, I like my mind. It's a good mind. Yeah, yeah, I don't want to lose it. Um, but it was— instead, I got flooded with gratitude. I remember sending my wife a weepy text that after this, after the journey, I was like, babe, life is so beautiful, blah blah blah, I love you, blah blah. And And then she sends me a text back, "You did what?" Like, she was freaking out. Like, because she's like, all scared of like new stuff at that point. Came back, talked her into doing it. And she was kind of stuck in a depression spiral or a loop of just like, everything is suffering. That first night we did it with her brother-in-law and sister, we all laughed for like 2.5 hours. First time she really had laughed in years at that point. And I was like, okay, so this created a radically new opening. Then as I started working with the medicines and helping her, I basically put together the medicines create the opening, but then you still have to do the parts work. Because like, she would do the medicine, we would go to ceremonies, but then our daughter would still cry. She was an infant or, you know, a little girl, a little baby, of course, she's going to cry. And then I would try and talk my ceremonial leaders into guiding her. To work on the triggers because I understood what was happening. I was like, there's a trigger here. If we work on the part of her that is getting activated while she's on the medicine, while her nervous system feels safe— because medicines almost like bomb you with a sense of love and safety— then I think she'll be different. They wouldn't do it, but it just wasn't their training to work on trauma.

Literally had no idea. Yeah.

And so no judgment on that. They're like both facilitators of the psychedelic facilitators, the group that— they're friends. I collaborate with them now. Like, they help me on my retreats now, ironically. Um, but they, uh— but then I talked to her therapist into doing a session, and I talked my wife into doing a guided session, a 5-hour session. That was February 2023. Literally the day before, our daughter cried for like 30 seconds. I couldn't get my wife out of the house in time, couldn't get my daughter out. She was— my wife was trying to soothe my daughter. What happened? My wife cries, on the basement steps for an hour, in the bathtub, cries for another 2.5 hours, says it's hopeless, let's give up, cancel the appointment. That was on a Tuesday night, end of, end of February 2023. I said, no, we're not canceling. I just held my ground. I'm like, this is— it's worth a shot. I think it will work. Wednesday night, 5-hour session. I get home at 10:30. I was like, oh, my wife's different. I dropped my daughter off at my mom's. Then Thursday I pick up my daughter and bring her home. And a couple hours later, we're up in our bedroom and our daughter, who's about 20 months old at the time, toddler temper tantrum meltdown, 8, 9, 10 minutes long. She's just screaming and flailing her arms on the ground. And you can't do anything to soothe the toddler when they're having a temper tantrum meltdown. Yeah, I get it. Just got to ride it out. 2 days before, our toddler had cried for 20 seconds. And it sent my wife into a 4-hour depression spell, right? That was literally lasted until the next day, where it was a depression hangover. That time, Thursday, after the temper tantrum meltdown, she sits there on the bed and laughs and realizes our daughter's okay, she's just being ridiculous. And I was like, oh, something's— she's never laughed and been so calm when my daughter has screamed. And I was like, okay, let's see if this sticks. Sure enough, it stuck. We're knocking on 2 years and almost 3 months now. And I would say that was that Wednesday night with her session, guided session like I do now, uh, has been— that was the day she got cured of depression. I would say 98% cured of her complex PTSD. Now, the other stuff led to that, you know, like we did NAD optimization and other trauma work and nervous system work. But that was the clincher.

That was an opening.

Yeah, that was a massive—

there's so much there. Thank you for sharing that, because it's literally the fuel of love. It's not just pain that fuels you. It's love for your wife and for Sonnet. Yeah, it's so beautiful, man. I feel like the greatest gift we could ever give to ourselves and our children is a life that's free from our stuff.

Yeah.

Free from our pain, free from our projections. It's easy to hear that.

Yeah.

But to be it and embody it is so difficult and so different than traditional psychology.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny, we have so many episodes on this podcast where we've gone into ceremony talk and the one thing— and I'm curious how you feel about this— the one thing that I see across the board is that these ceremonial practitioners or these ayahuasqueros or whatever you want to call them, they just give people the medicine and then they say, have your experience. There's no guidance, there's no structure, there's no psychic surgery, there's no framework that you use, which is IFS, peak performance, optimization of the body, understanding psychology. How did you even, beyond just your experience with your wife, how did you see the white space, the open healing space that's needed in the ceremonial space? Did you see that very clear before you even began your journey?

Yeah. I wouldn't say before, but in the midst of it, like when I was hunting for solutions for my wife. Yeah, I saw that the medicine gave an opening. So it's like the medicine— and if you look at the neuroscience, you have two major critical periods when you take a psychedelic, whether it's ketamine, psilocybin, MDMA, LSD, whatever. In that window, the first one knows the acute subjective experience, um, and this is from a research report, August 2023, Nardo et al. And the acute subjective experience, for example, psilocybin, MDMA, which I primarily use, you have a 3 to 6 hour window basically where your nervous system is more wide open than any known point in your life.

When you say wide open, what do you mean by that?

Meaning it's like I have backend access to your programming. If you think of the human operating system as like a computer operating system, I've got backend access to Josh with your permission, with your support, with your insight, where we work together on turning on and off switches, right? Like when we did our session working on the parts that are activated, almost like you got this program over here. When this happens, when Carrie says this, this part of Josh comes out, boom. Yeah. And he attacks and he gets defensive. Or this happens, or when this happens in business, then Josh comes out in this way. Well, we got back in access now in that, but I'm going in I'm looking at patterns before I do the session, but I'm looking at patterns and, and almost like I consider myself a neurosurgeon of the subconscious mind. I'm going to hunt—

that's so good—

for the cancer, for the problems, for the kinks in the, in the programming, for the bugs, right? Because my clients are like you. They, they're high-impact individuals. They want to make a big difference. They, uh, are driven And they have their— if they don't get themselves right, they might have ripple effect of thousands of people, right? So we don't have time. We don't have 2 years to sort through stuff. Like, my clients are like, Mike, I don't have time to unravel. Like, I need to be back on my game on Monday. Yeah, like, it's Saturday. I need to be back on my game in 2 days. Okay, so I have to like open them up, clean out the gunk, put them back together, prime them for Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the month, really. So the medicines create the opening, acute subjective experience is the first window. That's the biggest window of our life because also we have, you know, if you think you and I— you're about to turn 45, I'm 45 right now— our, uh, our prefrontal cortex, everything's developed. When my daughter, who's almost 4— you have young kids as well— so when we until like age 7, our prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. But at this age it is.

Yeah.

So, but we don't get the neuroplasticity at this age that our children are getting at age 3 and 4. So we just basically bio-opted or went back in time, gave us the neuroplasticity. You can make rapid changes in the human operating system. And the next window is the critical period reopening, which is 2.5 weeks for MDMA and psilocybin. Where your neuroplasticity is pretty close to what your children are under age 7, where they're flexible, they're adaptable, and there's a gentle, but it's still a lot, a lot of patterns can be changed, which you guys, for example, in your window, you guys did really well overall. Not everything's perfect probably, but you made so much progress.

Yes, man, I love that. One thing you said when we were doing our work together, you were like, progress over perfection, which for the hard charger in me, I'm like, no, perfect. It's got to be perfect. Man, I love that you said that you work with people and they're like, I gotta be good by Monday.

Yeah.

Because I know you spent almost 1,500 hours working one-on-one in the room with Tony Robbins in Peak Performance.

Yeah.

And I remember him saying once, he was giving a talk and he is like, I, my job is when the pro golfer is burning down at the hole, he gets on the phone with me and I have to coach him so he gets results right away.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I feel like that's really interesting because he gets paid so much and he's at, he's at such a high level. When you spent time with Tony, did he have parts? And if so, was he honest about those parts?

I think he wouldn't— he didn't disclose it, but you could tell. And he's aware and he wasn't like hiding it and he just didn't go into it.

He's still a human being.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. But he, he even nicknamed like with his wife and, and NLP— NLP is like part psychology. They don't call it like IFS is like protector part, firefighter, manager, all this stuff. LP, you can— I like the freedom that you can name those parts, like Little Joshy or whatever, right? Or Magic Mike, or Weak-Ass Willie is one of my parts. Um, but Tony jokes about his wife, how she has like 34 different personalities. So he has like Bonnie Pearl is a sweet woman, and then Sage is his powerhouse woman, and then this other version is like, whoa, she's venting, she's on fire, like watch out. Like, I don't remember all her— all the names that he had for her, but he would describe how he has different parts of his psyche and she has different parts and recognizing when do I need the different parts for different scenarios.

Yeah, yeah. We all play a role. We're in this unfolding magical theater. I love that you say Magic Mike. That's one of your parts. We're in this magical theater and the sad part, but also the beautiful part, which is why we're here, man. It's why God brought me to you through Mark Groves. That's why so many of my friends are working with you. Like, this isn't just an ego pump for you.

Yeah.

When I find something that has weight, that has significance, that really matters, and that can impact people at scale, my job as a podcaster storyteller is to amplify it. So I'm here to amplify my own experience with you because, man, I don't know about you, the only way that I get wise, you know, we're on the podcast Wellness and Wisdom. The only way I get wise is by going through an experience that garners me wisdom. It's different than intelligence. In your world of peak performance and psychology and even, you know, IFS, and NLP, there's a lot of intellectualizing. Yeah, everything's like top-down. The bottom-up is really what I feel like you bring. When did it first come online, the IFS awareness, the NLP integration? This is pre-Ceremony, right? This is back when you're with Tony Robbins and everything else. At what point in your life did you start to see that these somewhat siloed visual things could really work together?

Yeah. Yeah. I think it probably clicked either on my first mushroom journey or my first MDMA. Experience.

And when was that?

Uh, that was in October 2022.

Okay.

Was my first MDMA ceremony. And the reason— because like I had the cognitive part down, like I, you know, I'm driven by my mind, I'm smart, like I've studied a bunch, I've read thousands of books, I love this, the stuff. But the emotional side, I would say I was basically a stoic. I was like in a range of emotion. I didn't go up or down a whole lot. My wife would even try and jab me and get me in fights because she was like, she was full range.

She wanted to feel your range.

Yeah, she wanted to feel the range. And she's like, you're, you're like talking to a wooden board. And she used to make fun of me because I used to sleep like a soldier. My arms were straight back, like, just I wouldn't move. And, and she would try and pick fights. Like, she grew up in a home where there was a lot of emotions, right? And she's a very emotional, feeling-oriented being. And I'm very high in the thinking. Well, when I did my first MDMA experience, I got flooded with feelings in a way that I'd never experienced. I could feel, and I was like, wow, this feels really good. I feel fully alive. And I didn't lose my mind. Like, I think, you know, I think there's 4 quadrants of communication. And even Jesus says this in Mark 12:30. What's he say? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul or spirit, and all your strength or body. Heart, body, mind, spirit, right? Well, we want to be 100% on, on all four of those quadrants. At the beginning of this journey, I was like, my mind was on 80%, body 20%, heart 10%, maybe spirit maybe another 20%. Now my heart is— I'm, I would say I'm connected to my heart like 65, 70%. Like, I'm much more connected. I still got some work to do.

It'd be cool if we had like a heart meter. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, she's 50% in her heart.

Yeah, she's 75.

Yeah, exactly. Doesn't work like that though, unfortunately not. But, um, now it's like that pathway from my heart to my, my mind connection, it's like it was a gravel road, now it's like a four-lane highway. It's getting there. A lot of traffic's flowing, right? And that muscle was building. So I started putting together— and even in my work now, and I'm training practitioners right now as well— and so I'm, guys, we gotta— we're working on the cognitive, the spiritual, the emotional and the somatic side, or the body. And even in my work, when I'm helping someone work through trauma, whether it's like they were processing, you know, childhood molestation or rape or something else traumatic, if their body is still stiff, then it's not finished. And so I'll guide them as they're processing. They might work through it cognitively. Lots of times people are like, yeah, I work through that in therapy. But they did cognitive behavioral therapy, which is 83% of therapy. So they never work through the emotional side or the somatic side, and their body still remembers. The body keeps the score. You know, our average red blood cells live 115 days. Our average, uh, skeletal muscle cells live 15 years, or 5,475 days. So literally a massive difference. So when the muscles literally remember what happened they were alive then. And then if they weren't, the epigenetic side, the muscles that were before them were telling them, watch out. Yeah, this could happen.

Yeah. Wow. There's so much data in the body. We're like this huge water muscular hard drive. It's funny, even the hard drives— I, I've seen this, um, on the internet, that way I know it's real.

Yeah.

Um, but the hard drives of the future will be water.

You seen this? Oh no.

So the hard drives of the future are water because they can store and hold so much information. We're mostly water, you know, and carbon and some other things. So I really resonate with what you're saying here that like the muscle memory, 15 years. Yeah, it's not like we have to wait 15 years to heal the trauma that's stored in the tissues. There's a shortcut. And typically this goes against my regular way of thinking. Any time in my life, Mike, I don't know if you feel this way where I look for a shortcut and it always turns into a long cut. But there's intelligent trails. There's intelligent pathways that can get us to a healing state or to a wholeness state faster. For somebody that has no idea what IFS is, we've heard of NLP, we've talked about it a lot on the show. We had Scott Jackson, who's one of the top 25 trainers in North America.

Great.

What is the, the high-level truth about parts work and IFS, and, and why is it so applicable to be dovetailed with peak performance and being a neurosurgeon of the subconscious mind?

Yeah, so if you look at the fundamental nature of even Think of, let's go back to Genesis. What's it say? Let us make man in our image. It's actually plural. God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So plurality. We are, and we live under a distortion that we are separate. You even see it politically. You can see, you can tell when a leader is a healing leader, they see the unity and they create unity. When they are a destructive leader, they create, uh, disharmony, and they get you to believe that you are separate, that what Josh does doesn't affect me, what Mike does doesn't affect Sarah. Well, that's, that's BS. Energetically, we know that it's happening even back at the quantum level. Phase entanglement— when two or more atoms or subatomic particles collide, they always are entangled, they are always connected. So, and consciousness. You even hear of people when they do an ayahuasca journey or do some of this other stuff, even what's— I can go in a lot of different religious traditions, like Christian, we're all one body. When the hand says to the foot, I have no need of you. Apostle Paul wrote about that, right? So we make a mistake when we lose sight of our unity and But we have multiple parts. And if you look in our psyche, we have a part of us that is like playful. Like, I have a part of me that is competitive, that wants— like, still wears Jordans. I wear a lot of Air Jordans, probably bought 20 pairs of Air Jordans in my life. I love— I'll still watch Air Jordan, Michael Jordan videos. I love like competition. And there's a part of me that wants to be like Mike. As in Mike Jordan, Michael Jordan. Then there's a part of me that is driven towards like intelligence. There's a part of me that's driven towards being powerful and playful and a dynamic speaker. Then the part of me that's a high achiever and the part of me that just wants to go on vacation in Tuscany, right, and unwind and read a bunch of books and not be extroverted. Yeah. So And then they can show up, like in my wife and in our relationship, when we get in a fight. I have a part of me that is— I call him Get Shit Done Mike. Like, he, he is a taskmaster. He's on it. He's efficient. He's like locked in, right? Uh, Get Shit Done Michael is not very helpful in terms of intimacy.

Yeah, don't bring that in the bedroom.

That's very abrasive. Then when that part is activated, it activates my, my wife's big sister part where there's an angry or tense, uh, white man in the house that is like driving her and her siblings to, um, like, because it unconsciously triggers her, uh, relationship with her stepfather who was very abusive and angry a lot. And so then she has to put— save everybody, and she gets in a frantic, um, state And then, and then we're just combustible in that moment. That's— and then we'll get in fights around that. Um, but she has a part that once is playful as like a Disney princess, and another part of her that is more sexy and vivacious, right? And then almost like a part of her that's like a dragon, fierce and powerful, right? So we have these different parts of our psyche. The challenges— like one of my prior clients, she is a best-selling author, written 80 books. She writes under a pen name, so it's not her real name that she writes under, but her artist part— because she had developed a team of ghostwriters after the first like 20 books, she got bored. She'll create the plot line and the storyline but not write the whole thing, um, because it's pretty formulaic for her novels. And her artist was like, you're a fraud, you're not even writing the books, your name's on it. Her entrepreneur side, it was like, hey, you're making millions of dollars. You're paying for 27 people to work for you. They have livelihoods and jobs that they like, but they were getting— they were— she's at the time was in her late 40s. They were in such tension that her hair was falling out and she just did not have this inner harmony. And we had to get those parts in integration. So we did a half-day session, worked on it. Next day they were in harmony. Like, we had lunch. I worked with her for another 4 months, I think it was at the time. And she was good. And even like, it's 4 years later now, still in harmony. She's still doing good.

Harmony is the key word, right?

Yeah.

That one, one thing that— and I know you're on a flow there, but I had to jump in.

Yeah, you're good.

The reason why I think we're out of harmony is because first and foremost, from NLP, we don't even know the outcome. We don't even know that we don't know. It's true unconscious incompetence. So if I don't know that Josh has multiple parts, yeah, then there's no shame or blame needed, 'cause I just don't know that I don't know. But then here's the thing. Once I know that I know, and I have unconscious competence, I work the scale and I get to the top where I'm like, it just works and I don't know why, 'cause I've done the work, then it becomes a sacred responsibility. Not from shame, not that you quote, have to, or you should be the most loving person, be the most integrated person. But man, our ancestors, I have an altar over there with all my ancestors, my grandfathers, my grandmothers, my father, my mother. They are literally in this podcast studio right now.

Yeah.

Like the Zellers and the Trents, they're watching us. They're watching us and they're so proud of us.

Yeah.

They're so proud of us that we're here having this conversation because they didn't even know that they didn't know. It's so exciting, but yet it requires work. It requires effort. How do you blend the efforting and the effortlessness of this integration process of the different surgery and the psychics?

Yeah. And so to get to the effortless and the more harmony, those parts have to be in integrity. Integrity is basically in alignment, right? And so to create integrity, you have to create integration. And integration, for example, in that bestselling author, let's say her name is Lara. It's not— it's pretty close to her real name, but not actually her name. When we did that work, Afterwards, those parts heard each other, they respected each other, they let each other guide and lead, and they weren't in distrust. They were in trust, and they recognized they each had a role to play. And so they had appreciation for each other because it's just working on the psyche. Like, I'll literally have clients like yourself— let's get the different parts of our psyche at a table, and you, while we're on the medicine or without the medicine, I'll guide you to Hey, get the part of you that's the 4-year-old Josh that's scared versus the 17-year-old Josh that's like competitive or whatever. Get them to listen to each other, appreciate each other, and hear each other out on their concerns, um, so that they can work in harmony. So when they're in harmony, then you got— then everyone's rowing in the same direction. Then it becomes effortless because you're not having that internal friction. You can think of a pro athlete. When a pro athlete or a team You think a team that is really magically in sync, like my favorite basketball player was Michael Jordan. So like you think of the Bulls run, so they're back to back, they're double three-peats, man. When they were in harmony in the finals, you could tell Pippen and Jordan on the same page. Pippen or Jordan and Kerr or John Paxson or whoever, they were just in sync. Rodman knew his role. He had an important cog being the harasser and the defender and the rebounder, and he would he wasn't taking the game-winning shots. He was just like, everybody get out of the way, let Jordan take it. And so you, you're in harmony with each other and, and simpatico, like just in this, uh, you know, Napoleon Hill writes about in Think and Grow Rich of like you're in this mastermind collective where you're just in, in sync. And it's, it's, it's like going downhill, but, uh, skiing downhill. But if we have to work up into that state of psychological, emotional and somatic harmony. And if we encounter resistance, like if there's a little bit of emotional resistance, then that is going to be like a deadweight. So we have to work through that and see what's really going on there and create that resistance space for that resistance to bubble up and be acknowledged so that then you can basically be rowing in the same direction.

There's a book out there, and I've mentioned it before, I'm going to say it again, Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy. I actually think that's the worst title. I get it that it's cool for marketing. Any time— I wonder how you feel about this— any time that I or we are completely dissolving or trying to push away a part of us, even if it's a protector that's doing a good job for the exile that's really feeling the deepest pain, we are actually abandoning part of ourselves. And that's the part that I think people don't understand. Can you provide clarity on that? The exile that's being protected. This is a core piece of IFS.

Yeah, so for example, for you, when we were— when I was like, hey, progress over perfection, because you had this part of you that was demanding perfection. And you were like so committed. And so— and I was like, he's— I was like, all right, if I allowed your psyche to stay in that lane, then you're gonna basically sabotage yourself. Right? Because then when that part inevitably screws up a little bit, then you're, you're landing on a little bit of shame, right? When we screw up, we, especially as men, our least favorite emotion is shame. We don't want to feel shame.

Yeah.

So, so what I was doing there was I wanted those parts of you, the protector part and other parts, exile, whatever, I wanted them to feel, be gentle with one another. And if they could be gentle, then I'm changing the chemistry of the interaction that you're having inside, the inner dialogue. If the chemistry of the inner dialogue is gentle versus harsh, then guess what you're going to project to your children, to the woman you love? Gentleness. Right? You know, Jesus says a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit. Because we're always projecting our energy that we're speaking into the world is often a reflection of what is on the inside, at the core, right, if we're authentic. So with exile protector parts, they're there to protect something that was vulnerable, something that was happening in our life where we got taken advantage of, or someone was really harsh with us, or whatever, something that's unprocessed. So respecting the protector part, but the exile any part that is just way out and like that part is wreaking havoc and we're not feeling— we're losing energy. Energy is going out in a waste. Like, if you— energy is neither created nor destroyed as a law of physics. So that energy that is on the exile of our psyche is, is just over here just wreaking havoc and we're having to manage it. Well, we don't want that. We don't want an exile to be an exile. We want an exile to integrate. So we got to gently invite that part back into our psyche, make sure that part feels safe even when he or she has a little bit of a flare-up, then approach again with gentleness so that the flare-up becomes less and less. Like, my wife and I, we used to have 2-day fights, then we went down to 2-hour fights. Literally, on the ride home on Monday night from the airport, it's like 10 o'clock in the— at night in the car, my wife has a little gets triggered about something. And I was a little triggered. I was like, woman, you're acting totally irrational, is what I'm thinking. And so we had a little 15-minute fight. Our daughter is even whimpering in the backseat. Like, she's seeing this fight and she starts crying. Not a great thing. It took us— by the time I filled up the car with gas, I had recalibrated myself. I went around to her side of the car, opened the door, hugged her, kissed her, said, babe, I know you're blah blah blah. I know I was being a little harsh with that, but I believe in you. It was all about her writing. I was like, she wanted to forget a project. And I was like, babe, you're called to that project. I wasn't letting her give up on it, but she was being defensive on it for— anyway, so, and then I went to the back seat and soothed my daughter and gave her a kiss so she, her nervous system would know she's safe too, and that Mommy and Daddy are good. Because I was like, I'm, I'm training her nervous system too. My wife is training our daughter's nervous system as well. So, because I didn't want her exile part. So if we didn't soothe our daughter, then what happens is that exile part becomes more exiled, doesn't come back in, that part that is scared. But because I went and soothed her, and we've cultivated a habit, my wife and I have cultivated a habit of helping our daughter recalibrate when she gets wound up. Now she's in harmony. She's like, even at the playground, she is— when she sees another little boy or little girl upset, she'll walk over and start rubbing their back.

That's so cool. You know, she's like a mini practitioner.

Yeah, because we want, we want those parts in harmony.

Yes, man. Yeah, the harmony is the part where we all feel it when we're not. We feel it when we're not in harmony. Yeah, but we don't have the tools.

Yeah, that's—

it really comes down to that. Yes. So once I have the tools, then it's about practicing and not falling into the shame spiral of being perfect. Yeah, you said You said something after our work together, and you'll probably say it again during our work together.

Yes.

You said that it's about becoming masters of repair.

Yeah.

And I love this because ruptures will happen. To be a human being in relationship with self and other is a playground for fucking rupture. It's just going to go down. Yet ruptures happen to us all. I think so. Such a small percentage of us actually have the awareness and the consciousness and the tools to become a master of repair. So when we look at repairing the rupture, does it matter to the degree of the size of the rupture what type of tools we would apply to repair, or is there fundamentally a through line to repairing any size of a rupture?

Well, I mean, you can think of where your boundaries are, like if it's infidelity or something like that, or whatever, some sort of deep, deep sense of betrayal that was intentional, etc., then that, that could be a little different. But, um, um, or abuse, obviously, you know, um, those are, uh, much dicier scenarios. Um, but in terms of normal repair, normal ruptures, like I've got one tonight that I'm dealing with, with a client, that, um, they've made so much progress, but this— the man in the relationship, he's got some deeper, deeper wounds around emotional intimacy. And I think as a general principle, looking at, all right, whoever is leading the repair is the leader in that moment. And so it's not a male or female thing. And we shouldn't, even if that person was at fault, then if the other person can lead the master, be the master of the repair in that moment, that person is leading. And, and that's— it's not an ego thing. Yeah, it's just like, all right, do you care about the relationship? Then step up and lead when you are in the right mind to be able to lead, or get yourself into the right mind, the right energy, the right emotion ASAP. Don't make excuses. It's like, it's just part of— if— be 100%. Everyone be 100%. But sometimes my partner she's too activated, or she's too drained, or she's too this or that, or she went through a really rough day. And so that drained out 90% of her potential for connection and repair. So then I have to lead it. And that's okay. It's, it's not like sometimes we have to carry the other partner.

Yeah.

And that's just part of it.

I've fallen into the trap where I've resented having to be the 100%. And I know I'm speaking to everybody's heart right now.

Yeah.

What is it that we do, or how do we be is the better question? How do we choose to be in a moment where we're feeling resentment that, quote, we have to carry the load?

Yeah. So first, like acknowledging that, like not bypassing it, not stuffing it, like you can sit with that part of you that feels the resentment and the frustration.

Why do I have to do this? Why isn't they— why aren't they doing it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's fair. That you feel that way. There's— that's okay. Like, I deal with a lot of relationships that are in dicey scenarios, and I've been in those moments too of like, all right, like, I had 2 years where I felt like I carried our relationship, and, and I in many regards did, and my wife will acknowledge that. But, um, what do I want? This is where you're getting leverage on yourself of like, what is it I really, really want? Do I want a great relationship with this human? Then what's going to help us get there? Is it going to be me holding on to that resentment? Or is it going to be me focusing on repair? Again, I still need to process the resentment. So acknowledge that I feel that. Acknowledge that I feel taken advantage of, or I feel that, hey, they're not carrying their load. But also, if I can acknowledge that and move through it, then I might be able to see they don't have the capacity to carry their load. Right now because their metabolic energy is suffering, because they got a horrible sleep that night, or because they're dealing with their sister or a work crisis or an enormous amount of stress. Um, something else is happening, or they're not seeing it yet. That's okay. Then give that grace and then help them move towards— like, I see people make enormous amounts of progress I always encourage in my couples scenarios of like, man, if you can see and focus on progress over perfection— and sometimes we have to zoom out from the micro. Like, this week might have sucked, you guys might have been rambunctious, combative individuals. But let's zoom out. How have we been over the last 90 days, the last month? Where did we make progress? Where did he make progress? Where did she make progress? Where did I make progress? And then we start, because you can create so much progress so fast, as long as you're not obsessed about the micro moments.

It's not getting tripped up in the pursuit of perfection again, to go back to this progress over perfection. Because we've been taught, specifically men, we touched on this earlier. I'd love to dive a little deeper here because this is big for you and I as men, especially high-achieving men.

Yeah.

Why is it so hard for high-achieving men to feel and access and heal their inner child?

I think some of it is high achieving men often were high achieving because we want love and we're clamoring for love, right? And we think our pathway to get there is to be perfect, to excel. Like, to— like, I've got, uh, 8 or 9 medical doctors as clients right now, and almost every single one of them, man, to go through med school, to go through residency, like, you're pretty top, top-level individual.

Yeah.

And one of them, a relationship in crisis that I dealt with, the husband had already filed for divorce 3 months before our session. It was a session I saw the week after I saw you and Carrie. And what was just jumping out during the session and what his wife could finally see after I got her out of her part to where she could see, yeah, she was hurt. But also see that he was acting out of the drive to achieve so that he would feel worthy of being loved. And so that sometimes our high achieving nature, and I don't see— with my work right now without MDMA, because it creates such a heart connection, I don't— in the majority of my men, cases like that, we would never really get there, or the marriage would— it would take too long. The marriage would be over. Like, I don't have 2 years to get them unstuck, right? Yeah. Like, that marriage was already filed for divorce. They're heading towards divorce, and they got a little kid. Now they're back on track, literally, you know, in 2 weeks, right? But because we got the heart connection there and they could see and feel each other's pain and see also that he was achieving, and it still hasn't fully landed with him, but it's on its way of landing. Oh, I am achieving so hard and working so hard so that she will love me. When she actually already loves you. You don't have to do all those things. And then he could be achieving out of or in the state of love instead of achieving to get love. So like sometimes we're achieving out of scarcity. I don't have it yet. I'm not worthy of it.

Yeah.

Instead of what I want to achieve from the state of I'm already loved and I'm already worthy and I just want to offer my gifts to the world.

I remember a ceremony I did like 5 years ago, not in a good space. Definitely not a Mike Zeller space. At the— the sun was coming up and I was like, babe, I'm going to create the biggest kingdom for you. I'm going to do everything for you. And she was like, relax.

Yeah.

And I just, I just remembered that right now because it's like that part of me, that achiever part, is for sure 100% used to be connected to the fear of being poor, the fear of being alone, the fear of being unloved, and essentially if you really want to get down to it, the fear of death, the fear of dying alone. Yeah, it's second simplicity, to quote Mark Gaffney. I just had him on the podcast, and the second simplicity is that we all share these universal wounds. They're there whether we want to see them or not. If you open up anybody's emotional closet, it's like gonna dump out, you know, you clean your house and you like stuff everything in the closet. So we all have it, we all share it. Yeah, this is the most exciting part of the conversation for me because it's like this beautiful breath of honesty, like, yo, we all have these parts. It's okay, guys, it's all good. Like there's no shame needed for these parts, right? They're there. So now let's just be honest and we get to do the work about it. What do you, what do you do to explain simplistically to somebody that— I mean, obviously if they're drawn to you and the parts work and the IFS and the NLP, like they're coming to you because you have this essence of peak performance to you. But yet finally, when you get them to drop into their heart, what do you meet there? You talked about it earlier. You probably meet a protector in them. That has been doing such a good job for so long that the white-knuckling is real and you have to try to pry their fingers off the steering wheel.

How do you do that? Sometimes it's a process. Like, my client tonight, it will be his 5th session. He's super competent. Like, he's wicked smart. One of the most, uh, challenging clients I've had.

So you can— when you meet him, you can see he's always studying you and listening to every word you say.

Well, and the different parts of them, like literally the first session I did with him, he had a— it was like I was doing jiu-jitsu where I was like fighting off samurai soldiers. Like, I'm like, I'm about to— I'm about to land the plane and create transformation on this other part. And then boom, another part comes in and smacks. And then I'm like, where did that go? Like, I was about to finish that. And in one of his parts, is called clenching. And he— we're unraveling, we're getting really close to the core. But he just had— his protectors were really protective and really exceptionally developed. The most I've ever seen. So sometimes we have to just keep lovingly nurturing. We can go as fast as we can. But we can't go faster. We have to go at the pace that he— his body, his spirit, his psyche is willing to go, because otherwise it creates, uh— you're so often going to have a little bit of the vulnerability hangover, um, but it can create too much if you force it. Um, so we have to keep creating safe space for that part to feel seen, to feel— to come to the surface So like, you know, little Josh, right? To help him see that he's loved, it's okay. And then help him. Then something I do that's different that you don't see a lot in IFS, but you see in NLP, which is future pacing. Like in our next session, we'll probably get to do a little more future pacing, and especially on the peak performance side. Like if I can future pace, for example, that little wounded protector part that is really scared to see that, hey, if he stays in a protector space instead of surrendering and opening up, then he's going to actually block the thing he most wants, which is love. Right? For in your case, my other client's case, the thing they most want is a loving, successful relationship. A successful relationship is one where there's a free flow of love and connection and repair. And all the things. But additionally, on the future pacing, that's where we can also work with the peak performance side of like, I can prime Josh to kill it on stage. Like, I had another client who threw her first big live event. She's got the number one, uh, YouTube channel in the world for her category. Um, and we— for 6, uh, 6 virtual sessions, we worked on priming her nervous system to have an amazing first live event. And she did. By the time the event showed up, instead of being like riddled with anxiety, which is what she would have been, she was in flow. She was just calm, at peace, just in her feminine energy. She was in a nice dance with feminine and masculine, where before she was all in her masculine. And she killed it. She had a great event.

The flow state that you've touched on a little bit, I want to go into that because I read Stealing Fire, Jamie Wheal and Steven Kotler.

So good.

And I love it. Of it because this, this flow state— and I think they wrote about it— it's this, it's this alluring yet elusive piece that requires our full commitment, our full self. And if there's any part of us that isn't along for the ride, then the flow state won't happen, which is a beautiful dovetail to your work. I mean, it's literally like they wrote the book for you, man. And so the flow state equation when it comes to entrepreneurs, or let's just even use the word achievers, right? Just a human being that, that wants to achieve something the flow state can be elusive because all of their parts aren't along for the ride. How do you see that being a lie that entrepreneurs and achievers are sold, that you have to hustle and grind and kill your competition and take no prisoners? Yeah, it might work for a while on your journey, but it ain't going to get you there. Can you go into that?

Yeah, I think the hustle culture has done a lot of damage because it's not like I have a former business partner, his third marriage ended because of— he just worked 100-hour weeks. And yeah, he was on the way to building a billion-dollar company, but then that— he had some Shopify issues, and that company that generated $150 million in revenue went out of business. And he has a lot of regret around some of that where he sold out. And I was working with him, I was like, dude, You need to— like, he wasn't really open at the time. He had to crash and burn. But at flow state, yeah, I, I do a lot of work with flow state with my clients, and I think that nicely dovetails. I would say first, a prerequisite for, for accessing flow state, um, some of the things you need— I think if you have some active PTSD and significant anxiety, it's going to be really hard to get in flow state because your amygdala is kicked on Um, when your amygdala kicked on, that's your fight or flight little almond part shaped of your brain that will take over, and it is sending you into a sympathetic state instead of parasympathetic state. When you're in parasympathetic, you're calm, collected, grounded, right? So we got to shift you out of that. Now, fortunately, MDMA helps you do that when safely and appropriately done. But if you don't work through the parts that are activating that, then you're basically the same person on the other side. So the thing that I found in a lot of the ceremonial psychedelic guides is you have this magical journey that's basically self-reflective, then on the other side you're still the same person, you just got a little escape.

Yeah.

So I've seen people like— I'm literally— I literally have facilitators that I'm working with that have been under practitioner training for like 8 years and they haven't dealt with some of the core things, and I'm helping them deal with those core things. So we gotta shift you into parasympathetic state So prerequisite, you got to— if you have PTSD, have significant anxiety, can't relax and be present. ADHD is a sign of like some stuff in the background that you're not able to sit and be still. I'm not saying like sit like a yogi and be still, but just be able to focus.

Just be at home in your body.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, then, uh, you know, doing also doing some breathwork and stuff like that to get into flow state, um, because you got to calm, center ground, meditation. Can be a 20-minute practice with music. I like supplements like Genius Consciousness, Genius Mindfulness, limited caffeine. Um, and then, uh, you need something like Kotler and, uh, his book The Art of Impossible, which was after Stealing Fire. Both of those are great. He talks about you need, um, it needs to be roughly 10% beyond your comfort zone. So any new skill, like, it just needs to be a stretch. But if it's too much, if you're at 20 to 30%, you're probably going to enter what I call the zone of paralysis, where it's going to be too much of a leap and you might crash, right? And you think of a big wave surfer. Big wave surfer doesn't go from surfing a 40-foot to 100-foot wave. It might go from 40-foot to 50, 60-foot. Even that 60-foot is going to be a little too much, more than likely. But you're kind of bumping up. In a way where you get locked in. It causes you to lock in because you're, you know, if you fuck up, you're going to have a little side effects, right? And it needs to be challenging enough so that you're, you have to focus. Because if it's easy, if it's my normal. Yeah, there's no, no. That's why Jordan got bored and he retired twice. Like, I've already top of the world. There's nothing left for me to do here. I need to go try a new sport. Right. Um, but then the next, um, the next piece is when you're in flow state, you're 500% more productive and you release all 6 neurochemical cocktails— the positive neurotransmitters: oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine. So you release all those chemicals in it. That's why it's feel-good. And also helps you pull out of depression. Getting in flow state is going to help you feel amazing so that you're no longer— like in, in Steel on Fire, they talk about how it has helped Veterans get cured of PTSD when they activate and experience enough flow state. Um, but you also typically need a minimum working block of about 90 minutes. Um, and so at least 90 minutes, maybe 3 hours, where you get really deeply in and you lose track. And it's a— it is definitely a massive hack for productivity and effectiveness.

The same flow state that we all desire— I mean, if you're here listening, you desire this— is the same flow state in work or in relationship. But the one in relationship can be, in my opinion— I don't know how you feel about this— a lot more confrontational. Because with the right woman or the right man, when they're really your soulmate, yeah, you can't hide. Yeah, they're gonna be like, hey, what about that thing? And, you know, your wife's gonna poke you or prod you. You're gonna be like, oh, I knew that was there, but I don't want you to touch that.

Yeah.

In work, it's like there's a bit of more egoicness, or there can be more egoicness, because we're performing, we're in our lane, we're doing our thing. How do you pull the qualities and the characteristics from flow state for work into flow state for love and relationship?

One of the things, if you think of like MDMA, when we do MDMA, what's it do? It helps us be here now, helps us stop the mind chatter.

No doubt.

And so because you're here now, you're able to access flow state as a couple. And you're just present because at the end of the day, present when you're in flow state, you're so immersed that you've lost track of time and you're so deeply present.

Yeah.

And so you're one with the wave, one with the basketball, one with your partner. So MDMA is in a way a secret hack for that, or 2C-B is another one. But the, the medicine work helps you get there. But I— you don't want to become dependent on it. Medicine work is just helps training your nervous system for what is possible without the medicine. Like, even when my wife and I did— when my wife did her first medicine psilocybin journey, like, she's laughing, she's happy for 24 hours. Like, okay, that is possible. We can get there. How do I create the environment, get the crud out of the way or out so that she can be there consistently? And she's there consistently. My wife doesn't even do full medicine journeys really at all anymore.

Yeah.

For over a year.

You don't have to go as often and you don't have to stay as long is what I heard from you.

Yeah.

Bob Proctor said that if you have like annoying relatives, don't go as often and don't stay as long. I'm not saying that it's annoying in therapy, but it can be because these parts, these exiles get touched and the protector gets relaxed. And then next thing you know, I was realizing things about Josh that I had intellectualized probably 100 times at this table. Yeah, 100 times or more. And, and I'll share because it's so profound. And this is like the beauty of your work, and also, dare I say, the challenging part of your work, is to witness parts of me or people that are in session with you, that they're seeing them and experiencing them for the very first time. It's so sacred, it's so powerful, and there can be a lot that comes up. It can get pretty volatile, I'm sure. So I had told this story 1,000 times. And I was 11 years old and my mom was getting carried out of the house on a stretcher. She had a manic bipolar episode and my grandparents were there and they were lying to me and they were like, oh, your mom's fine. Everything's going to be okay. And what I touched in the session with you was this phrase, where the fuck were you, Dad? Where the fuck were you? Like this anger and resentment, like, you got my mom pregnant and you left? Like, what the fuck? Like, what were you thinking? What were you doing? And I can even like, you know, just feel it right now. The— yeah, the emotion of it, the energy in motion. And I was able through some of your ninja skills to go in there in a way and hold 11-year-old Joshie in a way that I had never, ever held him before. And I share this not because I'm so special, but because we're all really special and we all have this part or multiple parts in us that we probably have intellectualized.

Yeah.

We've probably actually built a foundation of identity by hiding and protecting that part that felt like it was gonna die or that felt like it was alone. And so I'm sharing that because, man, to be able to touch that part and be with that part, it completely revolutionized our entire relationship. Because now I'm able to talk to the part of Carrie that I'll let her share publicly if she wants to. So Carrie's part, her young part, and little Joshy can have conversations. And for the past month, man, we've been having these conversations.

You know what I'm talking about?

Like, hey babe, little Joshy want to know if you and your little part want to go on a date, or little Joshy's feeling something right now. Like, I got him, I got him, he's right there, but I just want to let you know what he's experiencing. And then she's able to talk to him. The very weight that was holding us back in relationship was that she would say, I feel like you don't accept me for who I am.

Yeah.

And I would say, I feel like you don't love me.

Yeah.

But it wasn't really us. It wasn't the adult us. It was the part of us that was locked in from childhood as a coping mechanism, as a protector.

Yeah.

So that we wouldn't fucking die. And this is what I'm telling y'all, like, full stop, if you are interested in going into the depths of yourself. I truly don't believe from this point in my life and experience that you can get there without the healing of the parts, the psychic unconscious surgery that you do, and the calming down of the brain hemispheres through whatever medicine that's done. MDMA seems to be pretty powerful. It feels like— I wonder how you see this, and also in working with us, when we put in the parts of healing to address the parts of self that have been locked away for so long, it's like the biggest deep exhale you could ever feel. It's so profound. It is. And you know why I know it sticks is because we can practice the language forever. We can practice the way of being forever, regardless of the rupture.

Yeah.

So what comes up for you when I share that? I know that was a lot.

Yeah, I know. It's great and beautifully said. And it's one of the things I see a lot is sometimes before we do like a session like you did, you're so enmeshed with a part, like even how you describe you and Carrie, like, you're not hearing me. You're not this or whatever.

Oh, yeah. Full-blown war.

Yeah. Full-blown war. Yeah. And you both— and I was like, I know you're like— I was like, both of your parts are activated. Yeah. Was my guess. And that was right. Right? So you're so enmeshed, and you think this wounded victim, angry, whatever, taking advantage— that is you. And that is only you. And she thinks that is only her, right? Because that part is in the driver's seat. And you're so identified with that feeling. And that feeling is the fact in the, in that moment. But what happens is, when we do this work, now you you kind of create this separate enmeshment where you're no longer enmeshed with this part. You recognize, oh, that was little Joshy and Carrie's little wounded part. But there's an— you have some separation. And you can say, oh, okay, I have another part of me that is the confident lover, or whatever. And I have another part of me that is this or that. So now, because you have the separation, you can see recognize the patterns and awareness instead of just being in it so much that you can't see. And so it's almost like now you're on the outside of the bottle of your own relationship. You can see the patterns from a different third-person perspective is what's coming to mind for me.

Yeah, it's literally being the observer, which is what Schwartz talked about. I know you love— I think it's loving all your parts. What's his quote?

No bad parts.

No bad parts.

Yeah.

I love the one, you are the one you've been looking for. You are the one. So one of the things that he said is that the self is the true inner leader, the core essence, calm, compassionate, courageous place of the inner witness. Yeah, that's what you just described. Now, the pathway to getting there includes the exiles, the protectors, and the firefighters. We haven't talked about firefighters, man. This is really— I was a firefighter for a long time. You ever been a firefighter?

Yeah.

Yeah. Can you share what the firefighter is? Because for me, it was pornography. That was, that was the firefighter for me. It was like, okay, when the building's burning down, I don't feel loved. I feel like I'm going to die. Yeah. I'll just pop open a screen and look up something.

Yeah.

Can you share what that is? This is really important for people to understand.

Yeah. So the firefighters are often going to be like, when you are just in extreme state of overwhelm or extreme hurt or whatever, then they're going to try and soothe it with something, some alternative, whether it's alcohol, whether it's you know, pornography, whether it's marijuana, whether it's a gallon of ice cream, workaholic. Yeah, exactly. So, and it's usually going to be an unhealthy, like, activity, right? And but it's, it's always to meet a good desire, trying to soothe. Um, even like Gabor Maté talks about, 98% of the addicts he's worked with have unprocessed trauma. So they're literally trying to bomb themselves. It's a coping mechanism. So the firefighters are just there. If you think of them as separate parts, they are there to go and help and help you feel better. It's just doing it in a less than healthy way. Yeah.

And what's really frustrating and paradoxical is that there's this temporary reprieve where it's like, oh, it almost works. I get that little, little tiny exhale, but the sustainable exhale of the integration of your systems I believe is only present when you look at the role of the firefighter and not to even put the firefighter in exile or push the fire, to love the firefighter. I remember I was talking with Paul Cech and he looked right at me and he was like, "Can you love the part of you that was addicted? Can you actually love the part of you that was looking at that screen? And can you give love and nurturing to that part of you and thank it for not letting you get to cocaine and drugs and all the other crazies?" And that was like an aha moment for me. I'm like, wow, it's that same thing with Gay Hendricks.

Yeah, wrote The Big Leap.

He's like, Josh, you need to love your fear. I'm like, love my fear? What the fuck?

Yeah.

What are you talking about? Love my fear? So it seems like— and I wonder how you see this from a clinical lens and also your personal lens. Yeah, it really boils down to learning how to nurture and love and accept all of these parts so that the ones that are harmful to self and others don't run the show.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that creates the integrity or integrus where all the parts are in harmony, where you're not acting in harshness, and they have a voice, whether it's a firefighter part or this or that part that speaks up and wants to like, "Josh, you're in danger. You're not going to get what you want. You're like going to get rejected or whatever." And so it's like screaming at you. "Oh, okay. I see. All right. Tell me more. What else do you want me to see? What else do you want me to hear? What else is going on?" Where are you afraid of getting taken advantage of? Or this or that? Okay. Can you see then that part? You know, I think of all this work, it's inner. I had to learn how to do this with my wife. And I initially learned this from Tony Robbins' Ultimate Relationships, where you have to let the woman fully vent. And you keep asking over and over, anything else? Tell me more. Until that bucket is empty. And they're like, No, I feel complete. And then you ask again to make sure they're complete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you sure? And then once they've— my rule of thumb is like, once you've— they've said, no, I feel complete in 3 different ways, then it's probably complete. And then you can move on. Yeah, we have to do that with our own parts to create the harmony. And that's like in sessions, I'm constantly doing that. I'm checking for completion. The— but when they're in harmony, then they will cooperate and not resist more powerful badass Josh leading or badass Mike or whatever, because they feel seen and they know they have a voice. You want your parts to always feel like they have a voice in your life because they have a good intent. There's always a good intent.

How do you know there's true completion?

Test.

And what does that test feel like?

Um, you're testing, uh, that's where you're testing for the congruence. And I'm also looking at, uh, when I'm guiding people, I'm looking at their somatic. How's their body feel? Oh, is there a little tension? Is there a little resistance? Or is it— are they— feel— yeah, I feel great. And they just feel fully— like when you hear that voice, yeah, I feel great, then you're like, perfect. Like you sense there's congruence.

Yes.

And then you— and then sometimes they won't be complete and you have to go back and do some more work on it.

I remember you said when we started, you're like, hey, you guys, this might take more than one round.

Yeah.

Which I, I can agree on. I will say though, I feel like we had a quantum leap.

Yeah, you did.

Quantum leap.

Yeah.

Because with new understanding comes new awareness, and with new awareness, fucking anything is possible. If somebody is in the new stage of awareness, how do you typically see people regress? In other words, they have the peak experience, there's the height, but your goal, if I'm getting you right, is not so that they have the mountaintop and the valley, it's the mountaintop and then a plateau and then another mountaintop. How do you do that exactly?

Yeah, so great analogy there. So yeah, I want people to keep making progress, but also give themselves grace when they have a little speed bump. You're gonna have speed bumps. And so something I really borrowed from NLP side, and I've really incorporated in, is future pacing. Because I was future pacing you guys, because I want to future pace you so you succeed. Because if you expect things to be perfect afterwards, and there to be no conflict, and Carrie to always perfectly love you, and you to perfectly love her, or whatever, then you're set up to fail. Right? But I wanted to future pace you even become masters of repair. That's a future pacing of an identity meaning and emotion attached to mastery repair. Oh, and then for you, I was actually internally also creating leadership leverage. Because you want— you are a leader, and you, you want to be a great leader in your family. So like, all right, how do I— how do I just plant this in Josh that helps him get to where he wants to go? Yeah. Which is like the great family and the love. I was like, all right, so I'm gonna plant this in Josh and help implanted in myself too. I'm like, all right, math— I'm working on being a master repairer. Like, I did it on Monday night with my wife. I led the repair, and I was okay with that, right? Even though she was kind of getting activated. Yeah, even though— anyway, but so future pacing is a big piece. Like, I want to— because I want my client to succeed and not just feel great about our time together, I want them to have the success and the wins afterwards and then also be prepared as much as I can for the speed bumps. And then when they get off track for a moment, how to get back on track. So I'm using metaphors a lot, like, all right, you know, we created a— it's almost like going down the interstate, got a new exit ramp called Loving Connection that we created. You're used to fighting. There's that exit ramp is well developed of combative argumentative, blaming, shaming, whatever, right? Not you guys, just in general, right?

Yeah.

And where anxiety is, a well-developed extra ramp, it's got the super malls, you know, big outlets, all the food. And then peace and calmness, there's like a, you know, Holiday Inn and McDonald's and a Shell station. Not a whole lot going on there. But if you get— take that extra ramp, you get off at anxiety, and you're like, oh, um, I shouldn't I want to go back to the joy and peace. Do a U-turn, come back. And eventually that, that exit ramp with joy and love has so much more traffic that the development goes over here.

Yeah.

And I see it happen like—

I love this because we all know how to get home without even looking at Google Maps. Yeah, we do it.

It's unconscious.

The neural pathways are so set in couples, let's say 5, 10 years of bitterness of of maybe even betrayal, arguments. You know, you say a lot about neuro rewiring and actually how to— you even called this something really cool. You said a surgeon of the unconscious mind. Yeah, I actually— it's funny, people have asked me about my experience with you and I'm like, yeah, he's doing this like psychic surgery. Yeah, I've even said that before. So to really rewire the neurology, we have to first admit that we can get home to anger and bitterness and resentment without ever looking at happen. Then from that place of honesty, then we can start driving the new on-ramp to peace and joy. How does that actually work, man? Yeah, from a neuroscience perspective and also from a spiritual lens?

Well, I'm not, I'm not erasing those old pathways, right? They're still there. But I'm literally, I'm helping you create a new pathway and you have a new option. And then even how I describe it as a new option, I want to, if you're the desire is more love, then I want you to have almost in this pre-make the decision, right? Like it's kind of those, the whole, why do people who sign up for personal fitness training get more results than people that just sign up for a gym membership? They've already booked, they've pre-made a decision. I'm showing up every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 7:00 AM. Yeah. And I'm not letting someone else down, right? So you've pre-made a decision. So I want people to pre-make the decision to choose joy, to choose repair, to choose peace, to choose progress over perfection. Because now I've pre-made that decision to give myself grace, to give her grace when she f's up, which she will inevitably, which I will inevitably. So I've pre-made decisions, and those decisions are going to lead me to this joy. Lead me to this connection, lead me to this love that I long for, or lead me to the health, right? Metabolic health is another thing. And if I pre-make all these decisions, then I'm actually bypassing— I'm not even going down the anger, judgment, fear-mongering, whatever. I'm going down this path automatically because of— and I've— that's where you future pacing yourself into that, envisioning Like oftentimes in sessions, I'll have clients envision 3 scenarios in the next 6 months of where they might be tempted to go down that old route, but then they choose the new route. So now I've literally— especially while you're on medicine, because you're on that heightened neuroplasticity— I'm creating that open— you're creating that opening in your own nervous system. But then I'm guiding you to create that new— use that opening to maximal impact And so now you're pre-making these decisions and envisioning. So you're already seeing the thing that's going to happen. It's kind of like, you know, Tom Brady's seen himself throw that touchdown-winning Super Bowl pass before it happens. He's seen himself, he's played the whole game plan over and over and over. So by the time it happens, he's already He's already played that movie. Yeah, everybody knows what's going to happen in our software, even in our hardware.

We don't know the difference. Our body doesn't know the difference between future and present if we feel it equally.

Yeah.

Isn't that such a fucking mind? So we can make it such a mind. I mean, how cool is it that we're the programmer and the player at the same time?

Exactly.

That's the part that's so incredible. And it's not just woo-woo, it's actually hard science. You mentioned Brady. Every Olympic athlete All these athletes, they put on headphones, they close their eyes, they run the race before they ever even run it. That's the science that we're talking about. This isn't just woo. Now, where I'd like to create, and what we're going to create together, is Josh being in authentic joy and expressing authentic joy.

I love that.

That's the— I mean, I'm like, my whole body's just getting warm just thinking about it. So that's the ramp that we're going to create together because I know, I just trust, I just know. It's a knowing. I know everything that I I see possible is on that on-ramp.

Yeah.

I'm also in the space of giving myself grace while I get there. I don't have to get there tomorrow.

Yeah.

But that's the kind of— is that future pacing? And then if so, what is required for future pacing to actually be reality?

Yeah, good question. I mean, future pacing can be as simple as like you're driving down the car, down the road.

It's not just manifestation, it's something different, right?

Yeah, it's, it's for a few, like the deeper levels, like you might be doing a deep, you know, 20, 30-minute or an hour-long visualization and experience and writing out, might be describing your future self, might describing your, you know, those exercises, a day in my ideal life.

Yes.

That's kind of future pacing in a way. Yeah. But I look at it as a, like, the whole gamut of it is like, all right, yes, there's the deep meditative experiences and the deep visualization, but we're not doing that all day long. We can't. We got work to do. Yeah, we got people to hang out with or whatever, we got babies to feed or whatever. Um, but when you're walking back to your house from your podcast studio, are you future pacing? Are you seeing, oh, I'm gonna— my wife's probably gonna be stressed, haven't been with the kids or this or that.

Oh yeah.

So how do I come in?

Boom.

I'm not gonna get triggered when she's abrasive because she's tense and stressed, and I'm not gonna personalize it. Instead, I'm going to come in as a calming, peaceful warrior. I'm going to bring peace and I'm going to bring love and I'm going to bring joyful playfulness. I'm going to connect, allow her to process her energy so it moves through because I'm the first adult she will have talked to in person that day, right? So I'm going to help her process that and then I'm going to love on her, help her feel safe, play with my kids, bring joyful Josh, and then I'm going to bring joy to her and I'm going to be a master of helping her create a state change. Go from stressed to joy. It might take 30 minutes.

Mm-hmm.

But, and so even there, I've future-paced you to see yourself playing a role, right? So you just dance with, it's like intentional, playful daydreaming as well as deeper meditation and visualization and asking yourself, what if I did this? What if I did that? What if is one of the most powerful opening parts of a question. And then you put in what I want. What if I brought joyful Josh into every aspect of my life?

What if, or would it be possible?

Yeah, exactly.

Would it be possible? That's one thing we do. I have a men's group tonight.

Yeah.

And I see the same things in men's group that I'm sure you see in business that I know we all feel in relationship. It actually is the same lens that we're looking at. When we look at human relationships and understanding human beings. I don't know if I'm ever supposed to fully understand my woman, but what I learned from men's group that I bring to her and what I'm learning from you that I can bring to her is actually the re-alchemization of Josh. And when I say alchemization, I mean like, you know, the ancient masters that would turn lead into gold. Like, that seemed like it was irrational and not possible. Yet in order to have the A+ relationship or the incredible life, the life of authentic expression of joy, It requires fucking alchemization. And at first glance, it might seem crazy. So I would just like to offer— just plant this in the garden for everybody. If your life is having results, if your life is yielding results right now of something that you hate, first take ownership that you are the creator and you have created a life you hate. And then there can be less shame and judgment. There can just be an acceptance. I wonder when we look at marriage, there's so much societal conditioning about marriage. You know, wives need to act this way and husbands need to be this. And if you're a man, you're good, but only if you have 6 zeros on your bank account. If you're a woman, you're good, but only if you look good on Instagram. What is the one question that couples get to ask each other before they enter into marriage?

The question I would probably lean towards is like, what would make me feel really loved? Loved? Like, really, really asking that. And then, but then you'd have to ask like 7 layers deep. So when they answer that question, uh, when you give me, when you give me your attention. Okay, and what does that do when you give me your attention? Well, it makes me feel like I'm important. Why is it, why does that matter to you to feel important? Because it makes me feel like I have significance and that I'm in this life with you. Okay. What does it feel like to be in this life with me and to feel significant? Feels like, you know what, I've made a difference and my life is better because of— and you just keep going until you kind of hit rock bottom. 7 questions.

Usually by the time you get to 6 or 7, is it pretty clear?

Yeah, it's— you've gotten closer to a root. Because we often offer— it's almost like that outer layer skin, that the first answer to the question.

Yeah, I'm sure by 2 or 3, the people know if they're a match. I would assume. Yeah, the matching can be challenging because there's a lot at play. There's traumatic bonding. You could be attracting a partner that would temporarily heal you.

And the thing that I saw, and the thing that I see with a lot of couples is both of our core wounds are often going to be activated in a very precise and needed way from the other partner. Meaning my wife's core wounds and my core wounds, they're perfectly in friction. Like, it's— and we— I needed her, and we could have run from it, we could have aborted Right. But if, if I aborted, then I wouldn't have— I would have cowardly out on my— on dealing with my core shit.

Yeah.

And vice versa.

It's not to shame anyone.

Yeah.

When I say this, what I'm about to say, I think it's 80% of marriages eventually divorce. I know it's over half. Yeah, it's definitely over half. Right.

For sure.

And 80% of the data is that women are the ones that start the process. So what I see that's the greatest generational healing possible is a marriage and a union that's intact, but that's whole, that's loving, that's committed to doing the work together. So, so this isn't to shame anybody who's single or been through a divorce or none of that energy. Part of what I'm diving into in my life right now is the science and the spirituality of understanding how to not give our children the gifts that our parents gave us. Class. Yeah, emotional epigenetics. It's so easy for me and for all of us to see that, you know, a baby is born with certain genetic predispositions.

Yeah.

But I find it so fascinating, man, that in science there's this massive gap that I want to do my role to fill that understands the way that spirit and emotion transfers to the baby as well.

Yeah.

And also that we're not just the product of our environment. It's like going from genetic predeterminism to full-scale vitality and there's a lot there. Can you look back and connect a part of that from your father or your mother that in a beautiful way helped you become the man that you are and heal so many people?

Yeah.

What is that for you?

Yeah. You know, one of them. So my dad passed away last month. And in that, you know, it's a little bit of a transition, right, of being, quote, the oldest man in my legacy. And, um, he was— he had a lot of wounded. He grew up in— was born 1940 in Germany. His parents were anti-Hitler, um, but they had— they still were living in southern Germany and outside of Munich, and they, uh, had to have a picture of Hitler hanging in their house or that his parents would have gone to prison, right? And so they had a picture of Hitler hanging in a closet so the Gestapo would come for their surprise visit every month And they walk them back to the closet and show— open up the door. There's a picture of Hitler. There's their little silent way of protesting that wouldn't get them thrown in prison. And— but he had passivity and woundedness from his childhood, from just— you think of that generation or what Ukrainians are experiencing right now, or Russians, right, of their war, or Jews and Palestinians. There was, there was a lot of burying and stuffing the pain and not processing and moving through it. And so I'd say in many regards, most of my dad's life, he was pretty passive with some things. And then him and my mom never really worked through connection. They stayed married. They were good parents. But they should have— I even in my early 20s, I was like, you guys need to go— or when I was a teenager, you guys need to Why don't you see a therapist? I tried to therapize them. It didn't work. But they didn't process through some of that. So I've had to undo. And even in one of my sessions that my wife and I did together, I had a wave of grief pass through me from my dad. Like, just I wept. I wept for the second time in my life. And my wife, she was having this big journey. Where her higher self was connecting with her and saying— she was suicidal at the time. This was December 2022, 2 months before the big journey that she had, the guided experience. And still to date, the only guided experience she's had. Well, her guides or her higher self was saying, her spirit was saying, quit trying to leave Earth early again. You're meant to be here. Your art is going to see the light of day. Stop trying to escape. And that— so that kind of helped her move closer and closer to integrating or exploring. And at the same time, I was like shedding the emotional heaviness that I had energetically, epigenetically, you know, carried on from my dad. On the epigenetic side, since I know you're doing emotional epigenetics, there's a study— I'll have to find it for you— but it took 7 generations of rats The first generation, they shocked every time they would eat pomegranate seeds. Guess what? The next 7 generations of rats would not touch pomegranate seeds, even though rats biologically love pomegranate seeds. But they remembered in their muscle memory, even though those rats had never been shocked in their lifetime, would not touch pomegranate seeds. That meant pain. So there's a lot there and a lot that we have to undo. And I do see a lot of ancestral trauma come up and that we move through it. I'm still learning about it. I would not call myself a master of helping people clear ancestral trauma, but spontaneously it happens. Yeah, yeah.

I could see you and Mark Wolden sitting at a table one day. He wrote It Didn't Start With You. Yeah, um, I got the book. I need to read Intergenerational Trauma. Another intro from Mark Groves. Shout out to Mark. Yeah, so I love that you shared that. And yeah, I can I could feel that, you know, my grandfather who's over there and my grandmother, he was in World War II. And so that lives in us. See, the part that's interesting is it's so hard to quantify scientifically. The study with the pomegranate seeds is interesting. And I've heard another one out of South Africa where they would just traumatize the rat. I don't know what they did, but they could measure it in the, not even from pomegranate seeds, I think it was a different study. And they could measure the hypervigilance 5 generations deep in the rats. So the part of this that's so fascinating is like, okay, we know it, so what?

Yeah.

It's like, we know this stuff, so what? So the what is what we get to do so that we don't give our children this trauma response, this hypervigilance, and all this stuff that people have to suffer with. I think it's inevitable. I say it's safe to say it's inevitable that we're going to suffer, but I fully believe that we can absolutely suffer less.

Yeah.

Like right now it's probably 80/20 for many people, not everyone, I think we can flip it. I think we can learn from that 20% of hardship and get enough understanding of what love isn't and what joy isn't so that we don't have to suffer so much, man. We're made in the image of God here. We're this beautiful being. We're on a playground. Yes, it's going to hurt sometimes, but like, man, what else gets to be said when we look at the intersection of your tools, of your work, and the really like it's almost like a basket, like you're weaving these things together in modernity.

Yeah.

But a lot of these things you're doing are connected to the past.

Yeah, 100%. So I've created a formula that's part of my neuro rewired process. I call it 9 Pillars to Thriving. And some of the ones— I'll just mention some of them. One is metabolic health. Um, I mentioned that a few times, but with my wife, for example, I recognized it wasn't a single solution. That was a silver bullet. It was like I needed to find the perfect recipe for her, for her healing, and it would be different than the perfect recipe for Josh or the perfect recipe for Mike. So, but fundamentally, there's always— if you have good metabolic health, that means good cellular energy, your brain is functioning right, your cells are making and producing energy, then you can— you have a better baseline. But I find people with PTSD, depression, anxiety, leaders that are overstressed, and they're over-caffeinated and/or over-substantiated, their metabolic health is crashing.

Yeah.

And I— my NAD levels on the cellular level are the equivalent of healthy, like, 12-year-old now, even though I'm 45. I feel great. I can, uh, hang with a 20-year-old playing basketball and guard. Like, when I, uh— I haven't played basketball in a little while, but, um, because I haven't found a group down here in Austin since I moved. From Nashville, but I had a group I played with every Monday night, and I almost always guard the fastest, best player, and, and he'd be like less than half my age. Um, but it's— my energy is great. Then I'd look at the part psychology is another big one. Um, so metabolic health, part psychology, environmental, uh, patterns, and like relationships. Am I in a, you know, do I have an abusive boss? Do I have a loving boss? Do I have good co-workers, you know, overstressed. Like my wife, if my wife had to take care of our daughter perpetually, she's, she's a highly sensitive person, um, and she would just crash. So like her being in that environment would, would basically unwind her, right? And then a few other things of like, you know, uh, healthy relationships being obviously part of that healthy environment, but then spiritual purpose, direction. Like, have— do you have inspiration? If you're misaligned with your spiritual purpose and you're not working towards it, not sure what it is, then you're not going to be as inspired. So in the whole 9 Pillars of Thriving, I have more of that tied to, you know, my, um, neuro rewiring site where I have, you know, you get the download for 14 tools on how to rewire your mind. But at the end of the day, I want there is a formula for you to thrive. And, but you gotta have access to joy. And lots of men, especially like men, you know, the average 7-year-old daughter has a more emotionally rich vocabulary than her father.

I don't doubt that.

Yeah. So they're like, my daughter is way ahead of where I was at, you know, age 15. Yeah.

She's calibrating other kids at the playground. Yeah.

She's like, I'm so angry, I'm so frustrated. Sometimes.

Yeah, man, this has been so good. I'm so grateful for you. And not just from your academic past and the NLP and the peak performance, going from that world to going to the world of, let's be honest, energetic and spiritual healing, emotional healing, can be a little challenging, right? Especially when you're like known for some— you went through an identity shift as well. I've been I'm in the process of an identity shift myself as I have a media company and also a coaching company. And one thing I would just love to claim publicly is that your work is so profound and I could see the, the IFS, the peak performance, the NLP and the other tools that you have. I truly believe this could be part of any healing or ascension program because it hits us where we live and that is in our parts.

Yeah.

So thank you for following your path and trusting yourself and learning how to trust yourself and going through all the pitfalls and the rises and the ascensions that you did. Um, what's parting guidance for somebody that wants to take a really 50,000-foot view on a lot of these terms?

So Dr. Bruce Lipton says that your subconscious mind processes 500,000 bits of information per second. On average or more. Your conscious mind, 40 to 100 bits. Sorry, actually the subconscious mind, he said it was 20 million bits. I got it mixed up. It's because the subconscious mind is 500,000 times more powerful than your conscious mind. 500,000 times. So the mastery of self and the mastery of, of rising to your best self, whatever that looks like for you, is going to come down to your subconscious mind. Because yes, we can consciously focus on something and override our subconscious mind when we put our eyeballs on it. The moment we shift our eyeballs to something else, it's going to default to whatever's in your subconscious programming. So yeah, I would argue that the next evolution of peak performance is going to be highly, highly focused on the nervous system, because the nervous system is more encompassing than what we think of in our subconscious mind. This whole conscious mind, subconscious mind battle. It's going to be your somatic response, your physiological response. And I see when people have money blocks, when they have belief blocks, when they have relational patterns, when they have stories about their health, it's a somatic, emotional, physiological reaction and resistance that is in the body that we have to not just shift the unconscious beliefs, shift the emotions and the energy. Even Einstein and Tesla said The medicine of the future is energy. So what I've been encouraging my leaders and high performers is like, if you can become a master of your nervous system and reprogramming it to where you want it to go, then you've programmed yourself to shine at the highest levels as its default, right? That's where we want to get to. How do I make it So I'm just going downhill, I'm skiing downhill. That's going to come down to your nervous system being programmed to flourish in the way you want to flourish.

Well, I'm just going to say a big heaven yes to that. Thank you so much, man. Um, the impact you've made in my life is so, so appreciated, so genuinely appreciated. So y'all get to do an ice bath and you get to work with Mike, or you get to go at least to Mike's website, mikezeller.com. Uh, anywhere else they should play with you.

Yeah, uh, all the social media channels. I'm at The Mike Zeller, that's Z-E-L-L-E-R. Most active on messaging on Instagram, though I haven't posted as much content yet, uh, in the last little bit, but that's changing in the next month or so. And then YouTube as well. And then, um, also neurorewiring.com is where I have a guide for the 14 most powerful tools to rewire your nervous system, and you can get on my newsletter if you want from there, where I send out every week something powerful around rewiring your nervous system for peak performance or healing trauma.

So thank you, bro.

Yeah, thanks, brother.

Thank you for the impact. Yeah, such a big impact.

My pleasure. Thanks for the trust.

Love and appreciate you. You're so welcome. You're so welcome. Y'all share this podcast if you know it's worthy of sharing, because I know it is, especially if somebody is struggling, deeply struggling with nervous system regulation, with understanding their parts, if you feel like somebody's at war with self, share this podcast. This is worthy of sharing. This is how we shift generations. This is how we actually heal and become whole. So until Mike and I see you, I already know, on another podcast.

Sounds great, dude.

We're both wishing you love, wellness, but most importantly, peace and power. You cannot have power unless it comes from peace. We'll talk with you soon.