8 Solcast - Episode Eight: Stoicism, Aesthetics and Opening the Third Eye Chakra

Back again in the hot seat. Soulcast Episode 8. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, Sol Brah. Uh, it's been a while since I've been recording, so I apologize for that, but We're back, that's what matters. Hope everyone's been doing okay. Uh, I have a feeling that kind of the world over is a bit more good energy. People seem to be a bit more positive about the whole situation. Hopefully that's the case for you and where you are. That's definitely the case where I am. I think the public perception of the whole COVID thing is, is, uh, improving, which is great to see. Hopefully that means they open the gym soon. A couple weeks. I don't know about you guys, but I'm gonna be much more focused than I was before. I mean, I was still focused, but you know, having something taken away from you really puts into perspective how lucky you are to have it in the first place, which you forget, especially for the everyday things such as the opportunity to go to the gym and swim and hang out in the sauna. Sometimes it's good for a little reality check if something's taken away from you briefly. So I hope everyone just appreciates the stuff that they do have. And even the stuff that you have now, which you might think is not a very good mode of living, but for the most part, all of us, our bodies are still working, you know. We have food, we have water and shelter, which a lot of people don't have. So it's always good to think about that. Even when things are bad at the moment. We still have the capacity to, you know, read and research online and, and all that, and expand the knowledge and make use of the time. You know, we're not in a war zone. We don't have to worry about, you know, a bomb being dropped on our heads. So, and that's some people's realities. So sometimes it's good to think about, about that in that sense and just So that you appreciate every day the things that you have and be happy for them. The more things that you see and value and register that you're very lucky to have, you know, it kind of cultivates this sense of happiness and appreciation for everything, which carries over to your mood in general. You know, it's hard to be depressed and upset about things if you look past your plants and you go, ah, So nice that I'm able to keep these nice plants. They provide me with oxygen. Uh, man, it's so cool how I can still go outside and don't have to worry for my safety. Uh, you know, you see your friends or talk to your friends. Some people don't have friends at all. So, you know, I, I always— it could always be worse, uh, any situation that we're in. Not that that's like motivation, you know, we always want to make things better, but Uh, if you get too doomed and gloomed about things, there's, there's a lot to be happy for, uh, and it doesn't do yourself good to just be always worrying about or upset about things in general when you could be appreciative for what you do have. That's the only way you can really be in, in my opinion. So that kind of links into the first topic of this episode. Stoicism in general, uh, Stoicism, it's got a kind of a bad rap, uh, in a way, as being seen as the entry-level philosophy or, or kind of a bit of a meme in that sense. Like, oh yeah, read fucking Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, bro. Um, but that's a great book. It's It honestly is. I've read it and it was one of the earlier books that I'd read on Stoicism. And it really simply and aptly summarizes Stoicism and that kind of mindset and area of philosophy. So I can see why it's been memed and recommended to everyone as like the stepping stone to get into things. If you want to develop, you know, read into philosophy and that stuff. And it's so good, and it's just cool in a way because you're reading it and man, this is literally the words of— or maybe not literally, you know, translations and all that. I'm sure there's a few, few words that are missing or phrases in the wrong way, but the gist is the same. It's his ideas, and I'm sure they're for the most part accurate. Anyway, it's literally— it's his words, you know. I'm sitting under a tree in 2020 or whenever I read it, opening the book and there's the thoughts of a Roman, a successful, famous Roman Emperor from thousands of years ago, or hundreds and a bit. You know, like, to be able to just see his wisdom and his mistakes and what he's learned from his life, just from opening a book, and that's widely accessible to everyone. That's— it's such interesting knowledge and a different viewpoint alone. So just for that novel factor, I like reading older books because you— the times have changed, but people are pretty much the same. They still had betrayal, you know, jealousy. They're still worried, they're still stressed. You know, the big factors are the same. We have the same problems, and they write about these problems or their solutions to them, or or ways of thinking about things that, that really can just be a little download of new information in which you view the world. And it's quite digestible as a book. It's not— you don't have to read it cover to cover to really get something from it, um, because it's kind of varying topics. You can read a chapter or a section and then come back to it, or maybe look at the contents, but bit. I do recommend reading the whole thing, obviously, but if you just want to just go in and dive in and see, and there might be something that sticks out to you on a page or two, which is fun to do just before bed if you're doing a 10-minute, 10 minutes reading or something. Just, uh, pop it by your bedside table so it's right there, and you just do that by candlelight if you have candle. Like, that's going to put you to sleep. No electric lights, no big lamps. Right before bed. Obviously, I recommend having no fluorescent lights. Obviously, they're the worst. But no artificial light apart from candlelight in your room for like an hour and a half before bed. If you do some stretching, maybe some reading before bed, hopefully you're not watching TV right before bed, you know, blue light and all that. And man, if you, if you try and do things by candlelight, your eyes adjust. You feel so much more tired quicker doing this. It's a game changer. I've been doing it recently. Um, the lights of, you know, bathrooms and late at night, they, they affect you. It's not natural. And, and I definitely feel better doing that, implementing that change. So candlelight, 10 minutes of reading, uh, before bed. Anyone can do that. It's just you pick it up, boom, oh, let me open this, but, and then maybe you'll find an idea that you'll ponder and think about before you heard go to sleep. Um, also quite relaxing, you know, you're kind of focusing but not really, uh, so it's, it's a relaxing focus. Um, yeah, and then you just go to bed. But meditations is good. So the essence of Stoicism really is that you logically think that in, in life, don't base your emotions on things that are external to you. So what am I in control of? My thoughts, my actions. So that's the only thing I can worry about in a way, or should worry about. Anything outside to you, you're not in control of. And if If you base your emotional well-being on something that you're not in control of, you know, other people's opinion of you or things that happen in your life, if you only focus on what's happening with you, your actions, your thoughts, and your words, And it's a way to frame the world. Okay, can I do something about this? If I can, cool, let's do it. Let's progress. Let's make a plan. Let's do something about it. If you can't do anything about it, then literally don't worry. Like, it's, it's completely pointless mental stress to worry about something that you have no control over. You know, who cares what that guy's gonna think of you? If I'm gonna get upset by everyone's opinion of you, then that's just gonna lead to a lot of stress and worry, but you don't need to. So Marcus Aurelius is this Roman Emperor. He has obviously go through a lot of stuff as a Roman Emperor, political alliances and scheming and, you know, worried townspeople and responsibilities like of that nature. So he's gone through a lot and he's learned a lot. So Meditations is just his journal basically that he's written over the last, you know, years of his life. So I'm just gonna read a few quotes from that. If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it, and this you have the power to revoke at any moment. So let's, let's maybe break that down a bit. You're distressed by anything external to you. The pain is not due to the thing itself, but to what you think of it. So two different scenarios. You're walking back to your car and you see a bird has pooed on the windscreen. The first person goes, oh, this bird, it's so annoying. Oh, now I've got to clean it. 'Ah man, such a— it always happens to me.' You know, they're angry, they're upset. They see this bird, this is— 'Oh, this bird, you know, always happens to me. It's always on my car, you know. The world is so mean.' And the second guy sees the same thing on his car and goes, 'Well, that was unlucky. Um, cool, clean that as soon as I can.' Bang. And he moves on with his day. The first person has You know, they, they take such offense to it. The same thing has happened in real life, but the reaction, your estimate of it, is what is causing your stress. And your estimate of it, you can change at any time. This you have the power to revoke at any moment. You're— the, the things happen external to you and then the stress comes from what you— your interpretation of it in your head. That's where the dissonance comes from. The stress that you have and worry about things is based on your future prediction, or the dissonance between what you think should happen and what is happening in reality. Logically, it makes no sense to worry and stress about something that's not real. Hasn't happened yet and will likely not happen. It's just, it doesn't make sense to me. And this is the kind of the basis of Stoicism, is to— if there is something going on that's upsetting you, that thing's happening, but you're choosing to be upset in a way. And because you've, in brackets, chosen to be upset, you can choose to be not upset by it. Meditations also speaks a little bit about appreciating things more. So here's another quote: when you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love. That alone, that we can wake up, we're alive, hopefully relatively healthy, that we even are existing on this planet at this time. And the, the chances of everything going to the point where you were born and you're here experiencing, and you have friends and family that you can love and experiences that you can share— like, that alone at a base level is, is enough to be appreciative of. And then on top of that, we're alive, you know, we're free. We can enjoy things. Um, that alone is enough to be happy for and thankful for. So it's good that he, he has it in here. When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love. Our life is what our thoughts make it. Yep, self-explanatory. Two different people can live the same life, and based on how they perceive it, how they think about it, how they frame it, one could be a happy man, one could be a sad man. And you know, what other choice do you have? Another quote: You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone. So I think this is a bit, a bit relevant for today, where in the age of social media, Twitter and things, and the constant news cycle, 24/7 news cycle, is, is that if something happens in, you know, a political event or, or whatever else, you can always step away from that. And you don't— we don't need the opinions of everyone on every single subject. And you don't need to— things that other people are doing, you don't need to have this agenda or comment or, or trouble your mind about thinking these things, about these things. And it doesn't mean not to participate in your society and, you know, screw that, I don't want to think about the issues, because some of the issues might affect you. But think about them, but don't let them distress you. And don't, don't be up hours late at night thinking about like, oh, those people are just so annoying. Or, you know, do what you can and maybe get active locally, politically, if you're into that. But don't, don't spend hours brewing on, on all the, the tragic and woe that we're plugged into. All the time. You know, we know what horrible things are going on the other side of the world in a small village if there's an attack, or, you know, there's, there's so much negativity which we wouldn't be exposed to if, if we didn't seek it out in a way. Um, but it's, it's best just not to be troubled about every single one of these because that, that hyper sensitivity that comes from just constantly being in a negative arousal state. Oh, that's terrible that happened over there, you know. Back in our village days and when we weren't plugged in 24/7, we'd hear about the bad things that were happening around us and that was relevant to us, but we weren't troubled by the events of the world as much. And I think it's not good to be constantly— if you watch the news every night, I'm Sometimes my roommates will put the news on for dinner or something, and every single story is something negative and focused on the bad when none of that really affects you most of the time. So it's good to make that distinction and, and maybe take a step back from a few of those things, relax a bit, because it's not good to be in that state all the time. A final quote. From Meditations, Marcus Aurelius: Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil. Life is neither good or evil, but only a place for good and evil. So this means life is not some— there's no one behind the strings, you know, plotting against you. Yes, things may happen to you, horrible things, and I'm not downplaying tragic events people happen to them, but the small things that happen to you, no one's out to get you. Life is not evil, but there exists good and evil acts that people do in this life. So the main takeaways from the book, I guess, I recommend people buy it, read it. It's a good one to have just I think, is a physical copy, hand down to the kid when he's, you know, 13 or something. You want to try and introduce him to a bit more philosophy reading, perhaps. I think it's good to instill those values as young as possible. I know some schools do a meditation class where they'll just introduce the concept of the self, the ego, the concept that thoughts pop into your head, you know, you are not your thoughts. If you're a kid, they, they get angry about things, but they don't necessarily know why or conceptualize that they have an option not to act in anger. They can feel the anger. And once you tell someone or teach someone, okay, you're, you're reacting to this anger thought that's popped into your head, but you don't have to be angry and, and all that. You can just recognize it. Oh, Why is that thought made me angry? And as soon as you go, oh, that was a thought that made me angry, I'm not actually— I am not angry, it's just an angry thought that's occurred, you have the power then to not feel that anger. Because you go, why is that made me angry? And question that. And as soon as you question it, it's like, oh, it loses its power, it loses its, its hold on you and your consciousness. So I think Introducing that to kids at a younger age would be sick. A good idea. Don't have kids obviously, but one day. Um, so yeah, Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, bit of a meme, uh, in the, in the self-improvement sphere, but good anyway. And a good first kind of read if you want to delve into that, that life and, and try and improve your mindset a little bit. We're gonna go to a break. I'm going to do some handstand push-ups. I've been doing a few of those in the lockdown, which has been fun. Really good shoulder exercise. Definitely going to keep doing bodyweight exercises more. Uh, I was still doing them a lot, but ones like handstand push-ups, um, and properly doing, you know, sets of max reps and push-ups, uh has been good and enabled me to kind of feel a bit more athletic and mobile and, and all that. So I think it's important to stay on top of that even when the, the, uh, weight training starts again. So I'm gonna go to a break. Um, I'm gonna do some shoulder stand push-ups. If you can't do those, just do normal push-ups, just get the blood flowing. Um, we'll be back in a second. Alrighty, welcome back. That was good, got some blood to my head. Uh, apparently headstands are good for the thyroid gland. Not sure how that works, but something to do with the blood flow up there. So if you're interested in that, you have thyroid issues, give that a look into. Um, so we're going to go to a few questions on topics that we've had from listeners. Can you talk about what makes a man attractive in the next Soulcast? What makes a man attractive? Well, First of all, obviously you have your aesthetic looks, uh, partly determined by your genetics, but I think mostly determined by how you treat your body and how you take care of yourself, how you dress, how you groom. Anyone can take themselves from, in air quotes, ugly to, in air quotes, attractive, uh, by lifting as a dude, putting some muscle on, decreasing body fat. That changes the shape of your face a lot of the time, uh, when you naturally increase your testosterone, your, you know, your features change to some degree. As long as you're, you know, healthy people look attractive. And if you take care of your body, eat right, you decrease your stress. Stress obviously leading to aging. And, and you know, if you're always furrowing your brow, upset wrinkles and things like that. So taking care of yourself and getting a tan, just looking healthy, moisturizing so your skin looks good, dressing well, dressing to your size. You know, maybe going for a large when you've been hitting the gym a bit more. Just a nice plain black t-shirt I find is good. You, as long as you're taking care of yourself, the clothes don't really matter too much. You don't have to spend heaps and heaps. You can get your simple basics and you're gonna look better than someone in designer clothes who looks like shit or eats like shit. And maybe that don't exercise. So you don't have to spend heaps of money on clothes, but get some good decent quality basics, uh, and then take care of yourself and groom, get a haircut that suits your face. You know, all of these things you can boost your attractiveness. It's not related to genetics. And then of course the other side of what makes a man attractive I think is how you conduct yourself. Traditionally, obviously, the qualities that make a woman at least biologically attracted, um, your— the level of kind of social dominance you have, uh, the apex male, you know, the king of the tribe, usually the strongest one or the most dominant, um technically got the most women, uh, historically at least. Now the same qualities kind of just modernized. So what does that mean? That means I think you don't have to be arrogant, but you should be confident in yourself, confident in what you're doing, and and happy with who you are. I think that's critical in, in being attractive to other people in general, not, not just girls. As a guy, you know, the, the guy that is happy with himself, happy where he is in life, is, is of a good attitude and, and smiling and seems to be just, you know, doing the best he can with, with life and, and enjoying it. That, that's very attractive to people because because, you know, it kind of signifies or signals subconsciously that you're doing well in life and maybe your genes are, your genes are enabling you to do well and succeed in this life, which subconsciously is attractive to women. So that's communicated through your confidence, through, um, how you seem to be handling yourself. Having your own sense of purpose, I think, is attractive to girls. It's why artists, guys like that tend to get girls, is because they are focused on their craft and they're emotive and they have passion, passion for life, a passion for what they love and creating is very attractive in a guy. So taking steps to improve yourself is, is the first step, uh, in all manners. I think if someone's doing that, they're— they just become more attractive in general, not just physically but socially attractive. You tend to make more friends once you're doing these things and, and being social and not being negative and and all that. So you have more, a larger net in which possibility to meet people, girls, and also those social connections. If you know people, that's attractive as well in a dude. Humor, obviously being funny, girls rate as, as very attractive. And being funny kind of, it subcommunicates intelligence. Maybe you can, you know, if you're witty, you can just have fun with life is what it's communicating. You don't, you don't take life too seriously. Like no one wants to be with a guy that's always like like, oh yeah, well, this is boring, or this sucks. Like, it's negative to be around. And in terms of a partner, it's not attractive. You want the guy, if he's funny, he's, you know, he's rolling with the punches, he's making jokes with it if it's a shit situation, or, you know, it just makes it more fun. Girls want to have fun. Everyone wants to have fun. So that can be another thing. Don't take yourself too seriously. Just have fun in general. Uh, people seem to like that. Definitely don't put girls on a pedestal. Don't put anyone on a pedestal, but there's the, the saying, once you put a girl on a pedestal, she has no choice but to look down on you, right? And that means, you know, just treat them like a human being, like that they are. Um, it's, it's, it's weird to be around someone that's like supplicating to you and, and going over the top to, you know, be nice to you. It's, it's, it's cloying in a way. Everyone's experienced that at some point. You want someone that Or girls want someone that is confident in their own self. They're happy being by themselves and enjoying life, but also just wants to share that with someone. I think it's the best place to, to be or find a relationship in. And the best relationships are the ones where, where people are happy in their own right. They're not dependent on anyone else for their happiness, and then they meet someone that they click with and that you have similar values. Don't necessarily have to have the same interests because you have your own little hobbies and friendship groups that you don't want everything to be the same within relationships. But then you come together and something better is born. You both enjoy each other, you both push each other, and that can't really happen unless you're first focused on yourself and work through your own stuff and, and then come to a place where, okay, I'm It's attractive for someone to be on top of their own stuff. It, you know, subcommunicates maturity or, or whatever else. So all those things that can be done to improve yourself just naturally make you more attractive to girls, as well as the aesthetic side of it, which you have a massive— you can have a massive impact on through conscious effort as well. So all of these things are under your control. So don't be, uh, you know, "Oh, I'm ugly," or, "Oh, I'll never get girls," because there's a lot of stuff you can do to, to just improve yourself. When you improve yourself, good things happen, and chicks like that as well. Next question: What's your view on violence and when is it necessary? How would you deal with a public insult or verbal harassment? Okay, I guess I'll answer that. Two different questions, really. What's your view on violence and when is it necessary? I think it's only necessary when all other options have been exhausted and when there's a danger to you or people around you if you do not use some sort of physical violence. For instance, obviously restraining is always best if talking about some crazy dudes out in the street, maybe restrain them rather than, uh, but that's not— it's easier said than done. And of course, violence on a grander scale, being war I obviously— I'm obviously against all wars unless it's unavoidable. I know unavoidable is kind of whether you choose to go to war or not, but it's not good on a grander scale. I don't think it hardly ever works out properly, and it's just a horrible thing in general. But Vance, on kind of a smaller scale, it's never really worth it now in this day and age when The reality of it is, if it's, if it's violence just randomly out in the street, I've seen this happen because I used to work as a bouncer for nightclubs. So I've, I've seen my fair share of physical violence just out there. People are drunk at 2 AM is, is when you find the most violence. And I've seen too much You know, it's always— I've seen a guy get punched up, falls, hits his head, and now he's brain dead. He's dead. Like, he dies later in the hospital. And that one punch, because you were— whether you feel you were justified or not is irrelevant at that point, because chances are that you can kill someone when you punch someone because you, you feel like they insulted your friend and, and you have some kind of code of honor to stand up to. And like, it's yes to a point. If, if, like I said, if you or your friends are in danger, uh, in today's world, of course, you know, do what you can and you need to to get out of that situation. But the best option is always to be the bigger guy and just go, yep, okay bro, and, and try and defuse the situation. Just de-escalate rather than escalate. It's never worth it. Uh, capability that you might hurt someone, or, or you'll get hurt as well. You never know if someone has a knife or, or a gun. Uh, it's just, you know, like, people that are willing to get into confrontations with you are usually the people that will take it too far, and they don't have good lives to go back to. So they're not worried about, you know, stabbing someone in a moment of passion when they're drunk in a nightclub because of some stupid altercation that you bumped into someone. These are all fleeting moments of anger where that's the majority of the violence that happens in today's world. So it's only really necessary when other people are going to get hurt, or yeah, all the other times that you think you have to avenge your code of honor and all that. It's just, you don't have to, and it's not good in most situations. How would I deal with a public insult or verbal harassment? So this kind of goes back to stoicism in a way, that people can try and offend you, but you can only take offense. So the amount of times that I've been called a dickhead or sworn at and abused by people just because I've said, sorry mate, you're, you're a bit too drunk, you can't come in tonight, the amount of vitriol that I've received, it's— you learn to just shrug it off. It's like, okay, cool. Like, I almost taught it as like a game. It's like you try and just make them laugh and accept it. Like, yeah, yeah, I'm a little bitch, dude. Yeah, nice one. Like, just trying to do my job, you know. People can swear at you, call you a fucking idiot, all that, and you have the power to either be upset by it and be angry, be like, oh no, oh mate, you shouldn't have said that. Versus, yeah, good one, bro. Nice. Guess I am a dickhead. You know, they're these verbal attacks. They don't mean anything. You can take offense to them. So how would I deal with public insult or verbal harassment? It's usually just, yeah, man, nice one. You— people get disarmed when they're received with niceness in those situations. They're expecting someone to rile up. They want the confrontation. So when you kind of absorb it and just go, yeah man, nice one, I hope you're having a good night, something like that, a lot of people get calmed down. Um, public insult, verbal harassment. Yeah, you can ignore it. Next topic. How do you approach a friend struggling with addiction issues? If they did not get better, would you eventually distance yourself? I have a buddy who used to be a king, was in the gym daily, eating healthy, ambitious, generally killing it. In the last year, he's withered away, drinks daily, doesn't wake up until late in the day, barely works out, doesn't want any help. I'm at the point where I'm thinking about giving up on the friendship because I've offered all I can. Any of your words would be much appreciated. Yeah. It's always tough when you see a friend regress in life and not do as well, or, or give up on, on their healthy living and all that, especially if it's related to addiction issues. My take on it is that you can help people and you can be an inspiration, people to people, uh, through how you live. And you can be there for people and always be there for people, but you can't control what people do. Uh, again, kind of related to Stoicism, if someone is maybe tanking their life because of alcohol addiction or, or whatever else addiction, you can't let that bring you down as well. And if they're close to you, of course it's going to affect you, But at the end of the day, people are gonna make their own decisions and make the best— or make the choices that they want to. And you can offer your opinion and offer help and be there for them, but you can't make them do things. You can only show them the best way tell them what you think is the best way, um, check in on them of course, and, and offer your opinions. But some people will still go down that path, and it's impossible to control them. So don't let it affect you too much. You know, you have your own demons to deal with, uh. The people, it's not as bad, but food addiction, I have friends that have been overweight and they've said that my eating has been a good effect on them because I've lived with them at the time. So I was always cooking nice, so they are cooking healthy, so they kind of take some strength in that. So always inspire through action as much as you can. Don't judge people because I'm sure there are some addictions or negative things that you do in your life. I know I do sometimes. That you shouldn't kind of lord it over them and, you know, they know what they're doing isn't probably the best for them, but maybe they're stuck in, in a pattern or a loop. Obviously, reach out to your close, close friends. I You should always, in— if you think someone's been going a bit too hard on drinking or drugs on the weekends and you can see that's affecting their life, if they are close friend, I would definitely sit down with them and say, hey, look, man, I think what you're doing is too much. I'm concerned about you. This is all from a place of love. Is there anything I can do to help? Is there anything you want to talk about? I just wanted to let you know as a friend that Maybe you're not taking care of your health as much as you should. I don't think it's sustainable long-term. It's not good for you. And extend that branch of help and just consciously, with love, say, hey man, I'm worried about you. I'm caring for you. What's going on? And then hopefully they open up and, and you can kind of work through it together. But some people will reject that and say, nah dude, I'm fine. Like, I 'Why are you worrying about me?' Like, they react in this way, at which point you can step back a little bit and just, 'Okay, well, I did, I did try, and I laid it out on the table and made my, made my words known. So let's not, let's not be weighed down by this burden that someone else has to bear, because I've, I've tried, and they are my friend, but I'm not gonna let it rule my life.' How to sharpen intuition, boosting or clearing the third eye, and how. Now this is an interesting one that I've only recently got into, uh, and read into a bit, a bit deeper. So the third eye is referring to the third eye chakra. Which is the concept of an energy center kind of above your eye, between your eyes on your forehead, and it's kind of located around there, maybe inside your head a bit. And your, your body has several chakras, kind of energy centers that are related to certain things in your body, kind of located up the spine starting at the bottom And the idea of the third eye chakra is that once that's open, in air quotes, and you're not being impeded by anything, is that when this third eye chakra— it's related to intuition— uh, you start experiencing things like synchronicities more. Synchronicity is when you'll be thinking about a concept and then you'll you'll see that concept appear just out of nowhere, or a number, or you think of someone and then boom, they'll call you. Like, there's these little moments in the universe where things seem to just match up, and they happen more often, I think, when you're progressing in the right path in life. That's what I've read, is that these things happen almost, or they can appear as signs to you that you're, you're doing well and, and, uh, you're, you're doing what you're in quotes, meant to be doing in a sense spiritually. So the third eye chakra, chakra, can be opened or closed. Um, obviously this is all a bit, you know, it's, it's a concept that's everywhere in Eastern medicine, but Western medicine and Western world we don't really know about it as much. I 100% believe it's a real thing just because I've— on what I've felt. Um, so the third eye chakra can be open, open through things like raising your level of awareness and your consciousness. So moving out of those base level feelings and emotions So you have your lower level emotions, um, lower vibration level in a way. The lower emotions being feelings of hatred, anger, jealousy, shame, guilt, fear, desire. Craving, anxiety, regret. So these are all lower vibration emotions, or mindsets, should we say. And as you do philosophy reading and, and delve more into your consciousness and, and on all those things, you, you start to— when you start to appreciate things, you move into the high level vibrations, including going upwards here. Affirmation, trust, optimism, willingness, acceptance, forgiveness, reason, understanding, love, unconditional love, serenity, joy, bliss, peace. And at the very top is enlightenment, emotion, inevitable, ineffable. So you're just— you are at that point. That's the kind of apex goal of— and, and these people like Buddha and those other spiritual characters would be said to be up at the higher levels of that chart. Um, when you appreciate life and you start to not get worried about things as much and just appreciate your life more, you're raising your level of awareness and consciousness, and that leads to things like your third eye chakra being more open. When you exercise, when you're getting sunlight, you're getting enough water, you're eating well, all of these things help to, uh, unblock, uh, this energy center in a way. So I, I hadn't heard of the concept of chakras, and one day when I was in meditation, I felt this If I felt that if I focused my head in a certain way, almost like it felt like I was almost opening like a blood flow in my brain somewhere consciously. I felt this ecstasy, this just positive energy kind of just flow and burst through me, focused around the top of my head in between my eyes and my forehead, and and I can kind of— I can do it on command almost now that I've gone deep into it and I understand what the feeling is. And I didn't know what that was. I thought I was, like I said, maybe triggering blood flow or something, and that was getting a surge of blood and made me feel good. And I was— I did it with no knowledge of what the chakras were for a while. I felt this and then understood later on. Someone told me that that feeling was me opening my third eye chakra. And then I looked into it, and it's a thing that you can learn to do. Anyone can learn to do this. It seems to be this, this weird, um, spiritual thing that all humans can do if they delve into the world of meditation and, and, uh, kind of read about how to activate these things and live a life more in love and and raise your vibration in your life. It's a strange thing, and I, I wouldn't have believed it. And I'm sure some of you are listening to me being like, hmm, that doesn't sound right. But I felt this independently, and then one day said, oh yeah, that's your third eye chakra opening. That's what it feels like. And I was like, what? What is this? And so I'm— it's got to be a thing. It's real. Like, I felt it. Whether or not you can prove with a test those chakras are there, I think the amount of reading and books that people have written about it and what I felt, it's, it's got to mean that something's there. So read into that if, if you're interested. Living a better life in general, improving yourself, Sun nature, meditation, breathing techniques, all of these things, uh, spiritual readings, but Philosophy reading, all of these contribute to your third eye chakra, your intuition kind of being boosted in that way. Since doing this, I've noticed in conversations someone will be about to say something in response to what I've said and it'll just pop into my head exactly word for word what they're about to say. Just bang, oh, you're going to say this. And then they say it and I'm like, what? And I know some of that is context and you know, you know people, so you know what their responses are going to be. But word for word, and it's been happening more since I've kind of cleared my third eye chakra or whatever. So, you know, you don't have to— it's quite spiritual, it's quite woo-woo in a way, but it's real. So go look at that. Last topic for the Soulcast Episode 8, uh, University Budget Nutrition. So get a few messages from dudes at college looking to increase their appetite, uh, so increase their food intake, um, maybe cook some of their own food. Maybe they've just moved out of home, so it's a little bit tight, uh, the old money situation. This was my situation when I first moved out of home. It was basically I had to find the most nutritional value for least amount of money. And yes, that does mean boring meals. Yes, that does mean eating more for the nutritional content than the taste, but it's still— you can still make good food on the, on the cheap that is tasty. Um, it's not going to be elegant and it's not going to be Michelin star cooking, but it is going to be tasty. And it is possible. First of all, in terms of money, when you're first looking to buy food, there are so many things that you can not buy, like alcohol. You're spending $50, $100 on the weekend for alcohol. That's enough food to last you a week, you know. Look at things where you're spending money which you otherwise wouldn't have to. Food, you need to eat. Food is a good thing to spend it on, one of the best things to spend it on. You don't have to buy the best organic free-range everything, although I do recommend that once you have the money. But when you're first starting out, maybe first moved out of home, first paying for your own groceries, student living, What I was eating was eggs, white rice, ground mince, fruit, buying bulk, buying bulk and buying per the chip, making sure you're getting the cheapest per unit price. You know, you want to look at the weight that's in a packet of rice and how many dollars it is per 100 grams and versus the ticket price, because sometimes you can be— they might have, oh yeah, new, new bottle, uh, $8 for 400 grams, and the smaller bottles might be more worth it to buy a few small bottles than the big bottle based on how much you get. Sometimes supermarkets do that with pricing. So being aware of that, looking at meats that are cheap like ground ground mince, chicken thighs. If you can get a big slice of steak rather than buying individual steaks and cut them up yourselves— yourself, that's what I do as well. All you really— olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, it's worth buying like a big 4-liter, 5-liter one of those. That's like a perfect source, extra good calories to put into your cheap foods. Cans of tuna are good. Good one, just tuna and rice, uh, maybe steam some broccoli, chuck that in. Did that a lot. Add a few eggs into that, olive oil, salt, pepper. That's tasty enough and nutritious enough to put on weight. Also, if you're in a dorm or something, I used to cook chicken breasts on a George Foreman grill. You can just plug that into a wall, um, buy a few chicken thighs and just have them in the fridge. For whenever. Buying bulk, buying, checking the per unit price. Oats is another good one. Um, there are ways for you to cheaply eat a lot of calories and good nutrition as long as you're smart about it. Whey protein powder, whey protein isolate is, is a good per serving, uh, protein amount. I always recommend real food if you can. I don't really have that much protein powder these days, but having a big bag of that you can add to some water and have a shake is a good way to cheaply get your calories up. Um, Also getting the food that's on special, making sure you can go at a specific time of the day to the supermarket. Uh, sometimes early in the morning they'll have the discounted products that are going to expire that day, and so you can go get cheaper meat, like 40% off. I did that a lot. It's not going to be as fresh, but as long as you cook it that day and then, and then store it in the fridge, it's still good for 2 or 3 days after that. Once it's cooked. So looking at the ones that are on special, in that case you can get some bargains, get some good steak for less. Buy a rice cooker, you can just put rice on, can of tuna, mix that up with some olive oil, and then boom, that's in 3 Tupperware containers for the day. That's easy. You can do that in a bowl in your dorm room or wherever. You don't need a lot of equipment for that. That's the kind of food that I was eating. Some cut up tomatoes in that, bit of balsamic vinegar, that's nice. There are ways for it to be done. You don't have to spend a lot of money. Yeah, well, that's, uh, covered quite a bit today. I hope you enjoyed. I've just set up my website, solbrah.com, S-O-L-B-R-A-H dot com. So go check that out. I'm going to be putting a subscription to an email list, so I'll get you guys emails. I'm going to be putting up blog posts, a bit longer form than the Twitter threads that I do. Some of the Twitter threads— well, all of my big ones actually— I'm going to be converting to blog posts and putting up on the website. So that's going to be a lot easier for you guys to find all that information on there. So have a look at that. Um, I've also properly released merchandise. We've got some sick designs, Glycine Dreams and Coconut Culture. So a bit of beachwear and also some gym singlets. Go check that out, my Teespring link in my Twitter bio to have a look at that, or on my website. So if you want to support the show, you can get a t-shirt or something like that. Anyway, that'll do episode 8 of the Soulcast. Thanks for listening. Have a great rest of your day.