Ben Stewart | Awakening In The Midst of Crisis | Wellness Force #Podcast

How do we use our voice authentically. Without me saying what we should be talking about? Let me ask, should I keep the Twitter going or not? And I think now is the best time. Doctor bauci, do you still support funding.

Of the nih fund.

For the Awakening?

Ben, welcome to Wellness Force, man.

Josh, it's been a long time coming, but we're here.

It has, man. It's been a joy to dive into your work and you know, we were chatting before these beautiful cameras came on. I'm just like so, so happy to do what we do and I'm thinking about what we're all experiencing in the world right now. Like, people know you man. Filmmaker, musician, father. So many things. Gaia psychedelic series. We got a lot of ground to cover and in a good way, I want to start with this question. Like we're all experiencing being really hijacked and pulled by the ancient brain, the amygdala. I felt it myself in the past year. Plus I know you probably have to this waking infinity news that you have like, I guess a good jumping off point man. We all know that right now we are being attempted to be controlled. And this also is a beautiful gift. You know, there's, there's such a beautiful silver lining and lessons and gems that we can pull from this. But at the same time, if we're not careful, if we're not doing the right practices, if we don't have the right awareness, we not going to get the gifts. So how do you see this awakening in the chaos that we're all experiencing? How is that unfolding for you personally right now?

Yeah, well, very good question. I mean it's nuanced because I'm a father, twin two year olds and a six year old daughter and also with my wife, and my wife and I see very, very similar what's happening in the world. But there are nuances of how it, it emerges from us, how that it affects our nervous system. And in many ways I think that's really important. My, my wife is a little bit more focused on where are we going to live, what, you know, who are we surrounding ourselves with? Which is, I think she's, she's got that to a T. And so my process in this is connecting with the outer world and really putting up like a flag and a beacon for those that like your, for those that are also doing the good work. And I'm really promoting how do we use our voice authentically without me saying what we should be talking about. And I think now is the best time for The Awakening. I'll bring it to a quote that I even just read from Charles Eisenstein's book, Sacred Economics. Towards the end he's talking about, he basically just says, because the whole book is. It was written right after the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac housing bubble, that kind of stuff. And he said, this isn't going away. We're going to experience in the coming years more and more crisis periods.

It's like 2008ish, I think.

I mean, he wrote it in 2012, but it was in response to what had happened 2008. And so he made the statement, real change rarely comes in the absence of crisis. And that speaks to so many different levels within us. Like when we're comfortable, we. There's nothing. There's no real deep emerging drives. Something compelling us to really analyze the bedrock upon which we rest. And that change that comes out of crisis, a lot of the times it's done in a. For most people, it's in a panic move, it's reactive, it's not responsive. So the difference there is like a reaction is, you know, somebody does something that irritates you and you lash out. And then afterwards you balance yourself and you're like, okay, I'm sorry, that was reactive. Responsive is what the Lakota would do when they would sit in council and everyone would speak, but they would speak one at a time. And when one was done speaking, nobody would immediately hop in. There was no interrupting, there was a breath. Everyone would take one breath before speaking again out of honor, saying like, we do this to show that I heard you, to make sure that you're done and to also show I heard you and I processed a bit before speaking again. And so I think if we. Not if we. Because it's definitely possible, we have access to our nervous system. You can speak to your nervous system like it's your best friend. And in fact we should. And we, when we come into a better relationship with our nervous system and acknowledge that some things seem very urgent, like we need to do something now. But in what state do you want to start creating the next step? Do you want to do it in sympathetic nervous system or parasympathetic? And so for me, the crisis period that we're in is the perfect set and setting to begin moving in the right direction, which to me is community. And it's reaching out to like minded people and allowing people to speak authentically and not feel ashamed for feeling or believing in certain things. I have friends that believe all number of things about, you know, the shape of the earth and, you know, all different kinds of things that some people would say, well, that's nuts. And I'm like, any. Anyone who feels, you know, bad for having beliefs that they've studied or whatever, come on over this way. Because to me, like, we're. We're all in this together, and I have no clue why this. What superpower these people glean from believing things different than me. So I'm like, let's all come together. Let's powwow. Let's talk about what's good about this. Rather than being like, did you know that blah, blah, blah, believes in blah, blah, blah? To me, I'm like, oh, that's great. I want to learn what that's done to their mindset, how they move forward in the world accordingly because of that.

Yeah.

So I believe that this is the absolute best time to begin moving forward in what we know we came here to do. I believe all of us has something inside us that's like, I have a gift to share with the world. And when we're super busy, we don't share our gifts. We just do the best we can to get by. But we're not here to scrape by. We're here to share our gifts. And in crisis, we are either scared away from that, back into, where am I safe? And for me, I work with people like, you are safe, and you need to. Instead of, you know, what do I trust? Who do I trust? All the news outlets. I don't know what to trust. I'm like, you're looking at the wrong place with trust. Trust your discernment. Start trusting your intuition. When you learn how to trust yourself, then you know when something doesn't feel right and you don't have to have all the answers. You don't have to have all the details. You're just like, okay, move slower here and be more discerning over here. If it feels like an F, yeah, then go for it. And even if you slip up and it's like, what did you learn from it? I think a lot of people believe the world needs to be a certain way for them to feel happy. And I'm like, no, you are what you need. It just needs to be aligned and oriented in the right way. That's inner work.

So I feel like everyone could go probably 40 to 50% slower than they think they should go. Like, so if you're operating with your foot, like, 90% of the gas pedal, I don't know if you're familiar with this strategic coach. It's like this coaching organization and they tell all their high level CEOs because high level CEOs probably have the same kind of ancient brain reaction where they're constantly in the sympathetic and they're getting shit done and they're ticking off boxes and they're white knuckling. And I feel like if that's the advice that people are paying 25 to $100,000 for a year, why don't we just do the shortcut and just apply that to our own lives? Because most of us right now, and I'll say I've even lost friends during this, family members that have excommunicated because I believe something and they're threatened by my belief. I've also noticed my own psyche being like, oh my God, this person's literally wearing a mask on social media, doing campaigns for mask wearing. And, and I watch myself go through, you know, Hawkins emotional ladder where I'm just like straight anger and rage and resentment. And then I go up to courage and then I have the courage to reach out to the person and be like, hey, you know, when you share that mass thing, it brought up some stuff in me. It brought up like some anger and some frustration in me. Would you mind if I shared my opinion with you? Is that okay? Like asking permission. But we've lost this art of dialogue. We've lost the art of communication where it's like, hey, I'm going to hear what you have to say. You, you hear what I have to say and then we'll glean some wisdom like you're sharing from each other. We've lost this art form. Why do you think we've lost it? Because we have.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is. Life is very fast paced. We've, we've fallen into that belief of we need growth, we need to always be in growth and in that. Because that's mainly an economic statement, then. Everyone's lives are so much busier now than they ever were historically. So if we're looking at things evolutionarily, even now, today and in the past hundred years, as anthropologists would go and like they would meet different tribes that had never connected with the Western world, they would notice first, there's a whole different pace. There's a lot more play, there's a lot more family time. And how much do they work? Not as much as you would think. They're not working the four hour work week, but they're maybe 10 to 15 to 20 hours of gathering, hunting, whatever they're doing. And the rest is play and they will say one thing. A lot of the times they say, when they start seeing what the Western world has to offer, they're very intrigued. They also then they have this word come up where they're like, I'm kind of bored with not enough to do. So I think with us, with, with the Western world, I should say, we, we've gotten to this point where we're just, we're just a little too hectic with our lives. But it doesn't mean we need to dial it back to the way our ancestors lived. Yeah, we just need to really drop into the groove. And I'm sure, like any runners would know this. Like, there's a certain pace that you hit. Slower would actually be harder. Faster would be harder. But when you hit that pocket, it's like something's carrying you. So for me, I think that we communicate according to our nervous system a lot of the times when we don't have much time. And I've noticed this as a parent when I have so much work to do and my daughter's like, papa, look at this. Papa, come here, do this. Hey, let's go play. I notice this thing inside me that's like, I don't have time for this. And then I'm like, time, time for my daughter. Like, you know, I don't have time.

Yeah.

So I think when, when we are, when we feel like we need to get more done and we need to be productive all the time, then our communication reflects how much time we think we have. And then we get irritated by things that are outside of the plan and the schedule that we've made in our minds, even subconsciously. And I think we also, you know, Marshall Rosenberg's non violent communication. Just read that and then you'll, you'll come to understand that a lot of it is we don't have the time. So when somebody's saying something and we disagree, we, we don't have the time to do that integral next step, which is, let me echo back what I think I heard from you so you can tell me whether I actually heard you correctly first rather than let's skip the step three and just be like, I disagree, here's why. Because then what that does for the person on the other side is like, I don't even think you understood what I talked about. But they don't say that. They just hop to their step three and it turns into that kind of like, well, obviously we're never going to agree on this.

Yeah.

And it's in those little nuances. Those step twos that we're always jumping over, or step ones, I should say, that we're always jumping over, which is, how is this good that we don't see eye to eye? Where's the beauty? Where's the gift in the fact that we don't see the world the same way? There was somebody just on the Aubrey Marcus podcast that was saying, what do you do with people with anxiety nowadays? You medicate them or you say, I can't hang out with X, Y, and Z, they're making my nervous system on edge. What did we do back in the day? Who in the tribe, what archetype would they be? Well, the anxious people, the nervous, skeptical people. You put them on the periphery as the lookouts, right? So everybody had their role. And so who would we be if we were tribe? Even if we don't agree, even if there's a lot of friction when we come together, how is that good? Without enough time, when we need to be in growth and productivity mode all the time, we don't really pore over those nuances as much. We just think of, how did it irritate me? How can I now distance myself from those people a little more?

Man, the fractals that you're describing, because, like, you, you have a really beautiful way of speaking. The wall here has this, like, 3D element where everything's kind of pushing and fractaling into each other. And that's what I think is going on with the awareness you have, because a lot of people might hear you and they go, you know what? He's right. I should take a breath, I should listen. I should repeat back to the person to affirm that I actually heard them instead of just being a conditioned bundle of nerves and trying to speak over them or feeling my trigger. But yet there's this deeper awareness that must be cultivated in order to really embody what you're talking. And on this podcast, this is all we explore. You know, it's like, we know physical emotional intelligence is very, very important, but yet what are the nuts and bolts and what are the threads of awareness that actually allow us to wear it? Like, to. To be it, to embody it? And I think about your life and all the filmmaking you've done, and, like, you know, let's pull the E brake a little bit, because you just brought up a massive chunk of awareness for everybody here. How did you get to that place? And not like you're, like, flowing with a cape on a hill, Like, I don't think.

Not right now, but I Usually am.

But, but you've, you know, you've achieved a certain level of mastery in your life. I'm sure there's, there's space to go because why not Always awaking infinity. So, so what was it like? What were some of the turning points in your life that brought you to understanding? Like, hey, nonviolent communication is a tool, but I actually can embody that because I've learned how to do it through experience. Like, what were the experience turning points for you?

Yeah, man working backwards. Being a dad, being a husband. Very, very important. My wife and my kids are the greatest teachers in that respect. Especially how we communicate and then going backwards. I was before I was a filmmaker. Filmmaking as well, because I also narrate the films that I do. And what I really focus on in narration is speaking from the place of the confidence that we're a human being. Like, oh my goodness, look at the outside world. Is it scary? It's because you're forgetting how incredible a human being is, even one individual. So speaking from that place, not the buggy eyed. Even when speaking, which I think is important, speaking about uncomfortable topics, speaking about those topics from the place of. But I remember who I am. And that's the most important and most empowering thing. And then going backwards from that. I was in a band. The only reason I got into filmmak was because I was in a band and I was writing the lyrics and people were asking me, I know you're on to something, but what, what's the deeper message that you're bringing here? And as an artist, I'm like, okay, I'm not just gonna tell you, I'll make a film. So I made my first film and I put soundtrack and stuff in it. And that was one, you know. But before that with the band, just being in a band, like being in a small stinky van with five, you know, four or five other individuals traveling around the country, different stop every single night, constantly communicating to the audience, but then having to have artistic differences with the people in the band. Lifestyle choices that are different.

Dietary everything plus road life ain't that healthy.

No, no. And. And at that time I. We had to cultivate because we were probably the healthiest band that was out there. We were all.

What was the name of the band?

Hyrosonic.

Hyrosonic.

And you can find that on Spotify, our very last AL album. Hyro, like hieroglyphics and sonic, all one word. So hyrosonic means sacred vibration, sacred noise, sacred sound. And we. I Mean, everywhere we would get out at, you know, our stop and we'd see other bands slugging beers and smoking joints and we're out there doing push ups and like, you know, taking our luggage and doing like shoulder lifts and stuff like that.

Green tea.

Totally. Yeah. Drinking water in the clubs and stuff like that. Because every night of the week, it's, it's the audience's one night a month to let loose and party. It's every night of the week for us. So we learned sustainability is, is the way. Sustain your body, sustain your temple. Get up there and you rock the house. And people are like, how do you do that every single night? It's just like, well, we don't do that, you know what everyone else is doing. And it's a certain form of respect. But I guess to cultivate what you were just asking, it's a really good question. I've always been very driven by understanding deeper mysteries. I've always been very driven by that. And what I started realizing through my life was if I have people around me that share the same values, then it turbocharges that. So me with my family today, we have the same values. Even if we have different beliefs, we value the same things like community, real open communication. And when I'm talking about nonviolent communication, there's also a place for showing people what they woke up inside you. And this came up on Aubrey's podcast as well, where he was talking about, you know, the way we communicate to, let's say when he's seeing all this stuff that's going on in Australia with the protests and the horseback, you know, infantry that are there, policing wild over there.

It is, it's wild.

And we can get into some of that. And what he was saying was, you know, like, I, I think we're approaching these people the wrong. And when he's saying these people, he's saying like the paramilitary forces that are enforcing some of these things, can't we speak to them in different ways? You know, a little bit calmer? And I think like 99% of the time you probably write that's the best thing to do. But there's also something to be said for if somebody really violates a boundary in you, it's not like you have to be like, okay, let me practice.

Nonviolent communication right as you're snatching my child to go put him in a football stadium.

I saw that.

No, thank you.

I saw that.

So there's a nuance here you're describing because I, I don't see you as a bypassing, like, hardcore woo woo being.

No. And it's not a pacifist. You know, I'm not. I'm not a pacifist. I understand the proper communication. Yeah, but that's by reading the person in front of me. And sometimes the person in front of you, if. If they are really violating something, then they're going to wake up. They're going to see what they woke up. That lion inside, that. Not anger. It's ferocity. And there is a. A minute difference between the two. When a lioness is protecting her cubic, that's not anger. She's not angry. She's ferocious. And there is a very, very clear difference. That's why when you see, you know, a bear or a lion cub or something, you just know like, yeah, step back very slowly. Right.

That's where that phrase mama bear comes from. I felt it myself. Like, I'm driving with my son in the car, and all of a sudden I'll feel like this ancient ferocity. Like you're talking about this ferociousness. And I'm like, wow, that's totally different than me just being angry at the person. It's like, it's loving. It's lo. Protection versus anger and trying to abuse the other person. Right. Two different segments.

Absolutely.

Is what you're describing.

Absolutely. And, you know, we. We have the nuance to. To be able to see, like, okay, if you're gonna see the fury that you awoke inside me on the heels of that, I'm also going to show you I mean you no harm, but this is a boundary, and you just crossed it. So there's. There's a nuance. And that nuance is. Is almost mean. The golden ratio, you notice what it does? It never rides the center line. It's always bouncing left and right of the center line, but it's hugging it ever closer. And if you get down into the nuances, it never arrives at a straight line. It's always weaving left and right. And that's really life to me. And to know that inside me, I have the. The aspect that weaves to the right and to the left inside me. I don't call myself any label that. That says O only on this side of the line or I'm only on that side. Yeah, I'm adaptable. And I'm also, you know, I'm still growing. I'm on my path. So when it comes to what's happening in the world, I also allow myself to speak without that breath, that Lakota breath. If it's something that feels absolutely necessary to communicate something deeper than you really upset that thing inside me sometimes. That's all right. But, you know, how do you. How do you show that you upset that thing inside me or you awoken. It is literally to unleash it without harm. So there's that aikido thing. An aikido master is not looking to whoop someone's ass. It's neutralizing harm. And if that can happen before a single physical contact is made and it's just in words or it's in, okay, I'll just go to the other side of the road. You know, I see that you're in a fury, and guess what? I'll be over here going on my merry way. And I think these things also show for the bystanders who are watching. Watching. Right. When. When you're watching a protest and everything's getting heated up and people are throwing stuff at the cops and stuff like that. Like, a part of that is, you know, maybe they. Maybe they need to let that out. But obviously you don't want harm to come. But though. But then again, the golden mean always, like, understanding both sides simultaneously is they chose to be there. And in a way, they. They chose to be there, almost hoping they could get their point across in that way.

This is so deep because I think the existential angst we're all feeling is driven by private interests, specifically, like the Blackstone capitals, and you could say Illuminati, or not. The label doesn't matter. For me, it's really about, like, what are the economic forces that are driving this existential tension that we're all feeling? Because those police officers, they're literally just doing their job. They have a family. They want to provide for the family. They're not trying to, quote, hurt anyone on horseback, but in a way, they have tacit approval, and they are.

Yeah.

And that's not a judgment. That's me being aware. Like, when in human evolution has it ever been okay for me to touch your shoulder and say, I'm taking your child away from you. I'm going to vaccinate them, and it's for their own good. When has that ever been acceptable in any society in any culture, ever? It hasn't in. And so that that ferociousness is applicable, like, it's actually necessary. I think it's love protecting.

Yeah.

So I think that's necessary in a lot of ways. And there's also going back to this awareness piece, like, can I. Can I have critical thinking when I'm in chaos? Because that critical thinking is going to allow me to ask better questions, to breathe and respond and not just be this like conditioned bundle of nerves where I'm constantly attacking the other person. So the fractals I mentioned before, I think that's really what you're hitting on. This way that we are truly all connected is real. It's something that I can feel sitting here with you. It's something that I feel all the time. I look into my son's eyes, I'm like, wow. The first time I ever looked into his eyes, I really understood what God was. I thought I knew what God was. Nope. Because when I look in his eyes, I'm like, there's never been fear in his eyes. I looked at his eyes when he came out of the womb and I was like, like, oh, that's what it's all about. It's about that. So that awareness actually is my teacher, like you had said. But I'm curious, with everything you're putting out, like, who's been your biggest teacher besides your family? You know, your, your family and your wife, obviously the Mecca of learning. But who else has, has allowed you to glean this wisdom so you can practice this non violent communication so you can know the difference between anger and love? Protecting love.

That's a really good question. You know, I'm sure there's a lot of really good friends that have been mentors to me that I could bring up and I would love to, you know, mention a few. You know, like Paul Check has definitely been one.

I think he's been the most quoted person on this podcast. Yeah, there's like not an episode that goes by without his name.

Yeah, I mean like some amazing women and healers and, you know, a lot of people that I can't even remember their names, but they, it was in passing a moment where I noticed them do something that I'm like, it was so subtle. It was like a whisper, but it was, it was more moving than a scream. And I never saw them again. And I. What I would have to say, I guess the best answer to this are the people who've challenged me the most that most people would say, they're like not, maybe not an enemy, but like definitely not a friend. Those people who seem like the people who trolled me when I started making films, the people who were trolling me. That was one of the best teaching periods of my life because I had to be, you know, I was giving my perceptions of the world. I was giving my thoughts and my ideologies and I was having people in the rudest way possible echo back to me that, you know, I'm a, you know, a treasonous cretin that deserves to die and rot in hell.

And I just got one of those this morning.

Really?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, for me, I've gone through all level of responses back to them, and some felt good immediately and then. And then awful afterwards.

Yeah.

And really, the. The best aspects of that were me realizing and breathing and letting it settle before responding that these people are either hurting or they don't really. Like, they just want to get a rise, and that's. That's all they're here for.

Do you think they're, at their core, just craving? Connection is coming out sideways.

A lot of them. Yes, a lot of them. And there is a nuance. The people who are just like, you know, this guy. This guy's movie is getting a lot of views. I'm gonna. I'm gonna start making it more difficult for him. There's that aspect where they're not looking for a connection with me. They're just like, I'm gonna make him feel as dumb as. I poss. See how this works. And then there's a nuance. People who attack me. But I can tell, like, you really want to learn something, don't you? Like, you really want my response. You're not just trying to get a rise. You're afraid of something that I woke inside you with my film. And those are the people that, like, I'll respond back to. Like, I can't tell you that. Like, I agree, and I feel where you're coming from. You know, I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Here's the nuance for me. Me, you know, and, like, so that was what allowed me to see that not everybody who challenges me and even throws a couple rude words my way are people that I need to just be like, well, screw them. Won't talk to them anymore, you know, ever again. It's a nuance. And that keeps me actually looking at many of the responses that I get online, because you know that, like, you go to a YouTube comment thread or a Facebook thread on a volatile topic.

Oh, my God.

God, you're gonna get the angriest of the angry.

The. The ep. The very first episode we did with Zach Bush, I think it has, like, 1300 comments on YouTube.

Wow.

There are some comments. Go there, y'.

All.

And look, there's people that are literally like, josh, Trent, you. And there's just, like, straight insult, like, and then Lots of emails, like, how dare you spread this information? This is something we can explore. How dare you spread this information, this misinformation? And I'm like, okay, I think in the beginning there were so many comments. I just had, like, my assistant Lauren respond to some of them. But then I was like, no, there's actually something for me to learn here. There's something for me to learn. And it brought me back to exactly what you're talking about. And it was Daniel Schmachtenberger. In my very first year of podcasting, when neurohacker was in Sanitas, I did, like, one of my first in person interviews with him. And he was like, josh, you know, the secret is like, can you just see the world from someone else's eyes? Can you do that? You just see the world from someone else's eyes, if not just for a moment, because there's some kind of juicy lesson there. There's something really good there. And it's not that we have to, like, you know, connect our psyche with theirs and, like, go into their world and lose our healthy boundaries, but there. There's always something. There's always some kind of good that's come from that. And actually, I did learn. One of the greatest things I learned was I need to put more of the other side on my show. Like, both sides of the mask or the vaccine conversation. One of the things I want to jam with you about is this awakening process, because I feel like so many people in, I guess you could say conscious marketing or conscious media creation, because they're great at marketing. They've become really, really good at saying something that they're not. Like, they're not really embodied in it, but they have all the smoke and mirrors, and they're really good at pulling people in and sucking them in. You've been in the media game for a long time. How many years to total?

Oh, 2008 was when I launched my first film.

Okay. And especially with your work with Gaia and the Psychedelica series, which was so cool. I mean, I watched the entire thing. Absolutely amazing.

Thank you.

We're gonna link that in the show notes. Everyone needs to see that, whether you're pro psychedelics or not, there's some gems there for you. But, dude, like, when you look back at your. At the film career specifically, was there. Was there some moment where you said, okay, I'm really gonna change the way that I produce my craft. I'm really gonna content in a different way? Because what you're doing now with the Awakening Infinity, the Waking infinity. I'm like, it's editorial, it's compelling, but it also has this relaxed heart communication in it. And not a lot of news channels can do that. Usually people are just kind of barking at each other and whatnot. When. When did you start shifting your content so it could be powerful but also heart based? Like, when did that occur?

It's hard to say because I think there's an element that never shifted, as in did something new. It just began refining itself from the very beginning. When I made my first film, I realized that, like, okay, there's some conspiracy in this. There's going to be a twist ending at the end. And it's going to be there to empower people and remind them who they are. Why? Because I've never said I out to follow a trend. And there was a Trend back in 2008. Zeitgeist came out. Loose change was already out. I was like, these are all great, but you know what they're missing. They don't focus on, like, what is a human being and how capable are we and where does the work begin? None of them are pointing us back within. So I was like, if we. If we're going to talk about conspiracy, which, you know, and I'm not saying conspiracy theory, I'm talking about the fact that a lot of it is hogwash and some of it is very real. And I think that the hogwash is something sometimes intentionally created to make you not even look at the real stuff.

Absolutely.

So with that being said, I was like, but I still just don't want to be, you know, a guy who's warning you about the sky falling. I want to show you that, like, this is what some of the deeper, darker things that are happening, just like plant medicine will show you the stuff you don't want to see. But hopefully on the heels of that, it also reminds you that this too shall pass. And it's a lesson more than anything. It's not something that's, like, afflicting you as much as it's a teacher that's challenging you. It's like, no, I'm not going to give you this fish. I'm going to teach you to fish. So really, all this challenge and crisis to me, from my very first film all the way to now has been how do I illustrate what I believe are the very real issues out there and then turn it on its head so we don't go into the blame direction where it's like, well, obviously it's their fault and we need to focus on how to stop them. Because to me, it, it's if, let's say the economic game that has been built is obviously very rigged, the trickle down economics don't trickle down to the disenfranchised. You know, we can talk about the, you know, like the other races that are disenfranchised, but let's just look at Native Americans. You want to talk about disenfranchised?

That's right.

And we rarely talk about that. So to me, my work has always been about how do we frame the problems so it's a bit more global. It's not so, like focused on who are the enemies, where, where are the bad guys. It's more like, let's take a look at the whole thing that's happening here. So we can see that as much as we think there's this Illuminati force, which I do believe that people collude behind closed doors. That's. Isn't that what business is?

I think it's been happening since the stone wheel came out.

Exactly. I mean, that's also what business is.

Yes.

Right. You don't tell people your plans and you corner a market for sure, sure. Now what, what if that market, you know, that market that you've cornered disenfranchises whole demographics of people? We would just say, oh, well, unfortunately, that's just how the cookie crumbled. Right. Well, I'm allowed to talk about that. Right. But the, the empowering part, if it's not met with something empowering, then you're just reaching into that archaic nervous system in that amygdala and the, you know, reptile brain, and you're not empowering the people. And I believe that fear is not something we need to eradicate. It's just, where's the next step, fear? What does it do? What did evolutionarily, what did fear always do for us?

Well, it always evolved us so that we could survive. I mean, there's rational fear, there's irrational fear, but to the nervous system, they might feel fucking identical.

Totally.

They might feel like the same thing.

So you get an adrenaline rush because you notice that there's something stalking you. What is that adrenaline meant to do? Do?

It's meant to put all the blood to your internal organs so you can sprint. That's where the term scared shitless came from. Literally animals themselves when they're being chased.

Right.

So. So biology, nature and her infinite wisdom has put these processes, these cascades that happen from a biochemical level to protect us, to survive, so we can perpetuate our species and continue to have consciousness experiences itself.

Totally. And I think we stop short of what fear is trying to do for us, of what adrenaline is trying to do for us. Because nowadays we can say, yeah, but you almost get into a car accident, but you're fine. Your body doesn't feel that way. And then what do animals do after a very crazy moment? Shake.

They get it out. They emote it.

Exactly. They move it. They process it somehow. We talk about it. We barely, you know, we don't go home for the most part and do breath work. Hopefully now, like we're getting to the point where we realize these are things we could do.

You do that at my house.

Totally. Yeah, we do that totally. So I think that that's what I've always been trying to do. Now when I'm doing news, which we were talking earlier, news has always nauseated me. Talking about politics has always nauseated me. But it's really only because the examples that we've been given are not mature enough. If you look at news stations, it's not mature. Here's most news to me, me. Even the ones that I think are doing it better than most. You, you have buggy eyes. When you're talking about something, you always tilt your head and, and feel disgusted. That's the facial expressions, because we have mirror neurons. So when you're watching a newscaster, you're also learning from the nuances of their facial expressions, the intonation on specific words that they have. But then the core of it is there's a problem. Ladies and gentlemen, you are the helpless, freedom loving victim. I'm going to show you the enemies. We're their heads on chopping blocks. And we're going to show you how much we disapprove of what they're doing. But what's not there is in community. What would you do? You just always excommunicate people? You always cut off the ties? No, you find a way to encircle the problem and you rejuvenate it back to the community. So Bill Gates, Fauci, who are the, you know all these heads on chopping blocks? Everyone's talking about them like they know them. I've never met Bill Gates. Sure, he talks about things I absolutely disagree with. He, he preten sounds. He's my doctor. He's not, he's not a doctor either. Right. But do I hate the fellow? Do I hate Donald Trump? Do I hate even like, let's go to the more difficult ones. The Lenin's, the Stalin's, the Hitlers. Never met him. You know what? All I've met with are stories that have been told about them. Now let's go back to junior high. How many stories were told about the albino kid or the kid in the wheelchair, or the one that had a stammer or a stamina stutter, Right? And when you're a kid or when you just don't have all the info, it's easy to just kind of side with your friends and, and just laugh when, when they're making fun of somebody. Even if you don't agree, you don't want to be excommunicated by the group.

And I think even in that time, there's something in our little soul that says, oh, this isn't right, but I'm going to do it anyways. That's how we learn to abandon ourselves.

Safety in those moments, safety in the herd. Now let's look at what's happening in the world. Most people, they're not looking for truth. And this is how I can have a soft. The, you know, the ones out there who are just like, tell me what to do. I don't want to have to think. If you tell me to put a mask on, I'll do it. If you tell me to get a jab, don't even tell me what's in it, I'll do it. You tell me it's important. Cool, I'll do it. I try not to like push back and make fun of these people in any way, shape or form, but actually do what you were saying earlier is like, how do I also see what's happening inside them that leads them to those decisions, that eventually makes them angry, hungry, that I've made a different decision. How do I have compassion? Well, it's because I understand that most animals and also humans throughout evolutionary history found safety in the herd. So if we're not all our own investigative journalists and researchers like you and I, probably research non stop every waking moment we're, we're turning over something in our mind.

I love it.

Most people, they don't, they don't feel they have the time. It's not a part of their repertoire. So guess what they do? They're like, for the stuff that I haven't turned over that my psyche is absolutely sure this is my intuition saying this is my path. What do they do? What are most people doing? Oh, most people are getting the jab. Most people are watching CNN or Fox or blah, blah, blah. Okay, then I'll do that because that's how I stay safe. So how do you make fun of people who are trying to stay safe, even if they're angry with you? How do you stay that center? You really have to also understand that this is what community does. We challenge one another. When somebody else is doing something that you think is unsafe, you'd be like, yo, yo, yo, dude, what are you doing? Like, don't do that. And you're like, no, I've done this before. I know what I'm doing. It's just like, no, no, no. Because they can't wrap their heads around the fact that you've actually gone through this. You've gone through that dark night of a soul. And you know that what is. Whatever danger or risk is worth what it is that you're building or creating. So for me, my biggest push in my Waking Infinity News and my podcast is to show people that, like, yes, I've done a lot of research, but that matters not. What really matters is I'm using my voice for what I believe to be the most true. If you challenge me. Thank you. Thank you. First and foremost, thank you. I'm grateful for that. I'll look into it deeper. And I also see why it's important that you do challenge me. And that's why I love when I do get called out on certain things where I'm like, you know what? I didn't go all the way to that part of the thought process. Thank you. I will get back to you. And a lot of the times, I realize later on I'm like, yeah. But I still agree with my original contention, but I needed to go down there just to make sure that I'm not being delayed, diluted somehow. So that's really. The refinement process is humility. I guess I'll just, you know, wrap it all up in that bundle when you're humble. I can laugh at myself if I make a mistake. Why? Because I know that I'm capable of mistakes. I'm not holding myself to some incredible standard. I wish to move in that direction for sure, but when I'm wrong, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm wrong. That. That happens. You know, that's. Thank God. I tell you guys all the time, my audience don't believe everything that I. The underlying essence is use your voice. Don't pretend like you're not a human with an intuition. Don't outsource your intuition that you already have to the outside world and outsource all of your thinking to them. What I really think we need to be doing a lot more of is having a dialogue with our intuition. Because if your intuition says, you know what I really don't agree with, with getting the jab or not getting the jab, I really don't agree. But my entire family feels this way. So I'm going to go counter to my intuition. What are you telling your intuition? I don't trust you. My nervous system, everything inside me is saying, do this. But I'm like, but the herd is doing that, right? So what do I do? I say, personally, it's risk. Yes, everything is a risk. Risk. But follow your intuition and you'll notice that when you honor your intuition, it'll start speaking louder and more clearly. If you don't, it'll start shutting up. And then you'll have to just follow the herd because your intuition is non existent.

And how else are we supposed to sharpen our intuition other than by trusting it? Because then when my intuition leads me astray, which we're never lost, but we might get off the path a little bit sometimes because the intuition can be like, hey, that guy's full of shit. Don't believe anything he Sundays. And then six months later, you realize actually there was some truth in what homeboy was saying. So. So we're constantly sharpening like almost like a samurai sword, right? The most powerful masters in the world, they always speak really softly and slowly. And like you had mentioned with the Native Americans, there was that breath and the powwow where they would listen to each other. But I think, what's going on, Ben? I'm curious how you feel about this. We have become victimized by our intellect. I just did a solo cast about this about a month ago, and I believe that it's so alluring to the logical mind, especially with, like, how many degrees we all have, how many podcasts we've listened to, how many books we've read, all the things that I can stack up on my shoulder and say, well, I'm smart and my brain's really expensive because I went to this school and so I'm going to trust in my intellect. But unfortunately, what happens is we shunt the wisdom of the heart. Yeah, the heart can't. The heart and intuition can't function because all we're doing is just mashing it down with pure intellect. And I think that's really what's occurring right now in the news or news media. This is why I love your work so much. So, knowing that, I'm curious how you might feel about that. First of all, the intellect versus the intuition, and then how do we navigate this world that we're in without being a victim really of our intellectualized mind? Because it's real. I mean, I feel it myself. I see it in some of the most respected people as well. I'm not going to name same names because who cares, we're humans. But I see it, it's, it's present for me. We are being, our intellect is being honored in certain ways and it's also being totally dishonored by the fear based media. So contrast those two.

Yeah, well, you know, you're totally right. Intuition and intellect historically, I mean in recent history mostly have battled and we, we don't, we don't oftentimes acknowledge that we are a lot more than just one thing. Right. So within us we have instinct, which is also different than intuition.

That's right, that's the wolf.

Right. And so instinct I think is a bit more rooted, grounded, it's biologically based and it's falling back on the wisdom of evolution in a way. Intuition is that which projects out a little bit into the future a little bit more and also draws upon stuff that we haven't physically or personally experienced in our own life. So that's how I kind of break it down. I know there's other ways to break it down, but then there's intellect and the intellect. And so what I'm saying about this is there's a community inside of us and they're always having counsel. But when you give one the right to speak over the other, the other and it starts happening more often than not. Then the one that's being, you know, kind of disrespected starts to shut up. They don't speak up at council meetings anymore and we just forget that we can even listen to it. So then we start thinking that the only thing that exists is the intellect. And the interesting thing about the intellect is we got, we read all these books, we go to university, whatever, we have all this beautiful intellect and it is very beautiful. But what we forget about it is it's, it's one part of the community that's speaking inside of us. And usually we're seeing this on explode this out to society wide. What is the intellect of society right now? It's this trust in science. Trust in science.

Science has become a God per se.

Science institutions and, and I'll even go even further. It's not even science, it's data because SC is an aspect of consciousness now. There's four pillars of society. You go back as far as history can take you in Human civilization and as far across the globe as possible. You'll always have science, philosophy, religion, and art. And sometimes I take the R and the A and I switch them. So it's spar. Sparring is practicing the real world situation. We all have an inner scientist, and what that is, is. Is raw information coming in, raw input and impressions, and you got to do something with it. So it doesn't just sit idly by. We begin philosophizing about it. So even your child, right. Eight weeks old, raw information, witnessing the world. And then a philosophy starts building. Well, when this happens, this also happens. What's the philosophy? And, you know, rudimentary. It might be at the start, it starts becoming developed and sophisticated and it grows with us. Then your philosophy doesn't sit idly by. You got to commit to something. What do I believe in? The philosophy brings out. What do I believe in? You know, this is the world now. What do I believe in now? The religion is. What do I commit to? What am I devoted to? Because religare. What the root of religion. Religare means to bind and to hold together. Kind of like think Mr. Miyagi and Daniel LaRusso binding that bonsai tree back together. It's one and it branches off. But if. If it's not actually holding tight, if it's not bound to one another, then it starts experiencing rot, decay, all those things. But that can't sit idly by. Once you've committed to something, what's the final step? Acting it out, expressing it out. So the art is our expression, it's our voice. It's the way that it comes out of us. And then when it comes out of us, like a child cries and. And then feedback. So the science comes right back. And we're refining that process. So science is in all of us. Science is the process to come to know things, to know science, to know. So when we say, oh, well, the science is very clear about vaccines, or the science is very clear. Like, no, data is not even clear. But we're not talking about science. We're talking about data. Data is coming in. And then you have to frame this data. You have to philosophize about it. So when you frame it in a certain way and you only frame it this way, then it's like vaccines framed this way with this data says this. And most people could be like, that doesn't say that to me at all. Right. It's, you know. And by the way, you framed it this way.

Sure.

And I'm not saying for or against I'm just saying this is what we're hearing from the news is, you know, like, anti vaxxers are anti science. It's just like, no, no, no, no.

I feel like cherry picking exists because there is this part of our brain that's called the heuristic. It likes the shortcuts. I remember Dan Pardi taught me this on the podcast. We love to get the reductionized view of what's going on so that we can feel safe. So if you can just tell me, like, what to believe or what I should do, then I can actually put a barrier between me and discomfort. I don't have to go through the learning process myself. I don't have to dig into the work. I don't have to do the research. It's really what I believe. Laziness. I think we've become really lazy. And that's not to, like, pin a judgment beam on people and be like, we're all lazy. But I think we have become, as a society, really lazy. Look at us, man. We got everything we want at all times. Like, on our phone, groceries dropped off. Everything's so easy that we really have lost this ability to be in communion with the earth and with God, whatever your belief of God is. And a big part of what I wanted to discuss with you was the awakening process. You put out a lot of media on that. And I think every single thing we've chatted about so far in some way is like a layer in the wall of the awakening. And actually, you talked about this. You said you have a video that we'll link in the show, notes how awakening consciousness affects people in ways more than just the Hollywood allure of it all.

Hell, yes.

Because I feel like awakening and spirituality, it's been fucking glamor. It's been put in this light of, like, actually almost like a devil being in the church. It's like, what a great place for the devil to hide is right in the church. What a great place for an attack on consciousness to hide in its presentation of being awakened.

Yeah.

So what. What inspired you to even make this video? And. And let's dig into this part, because this is really where we are, man. We're here. We're all awakening but you. But yet, to the degree that we're connected to what's truly happening in the awakening process depends on how much we will awaken.

Yeah, man. Thank you for that. What a question. The awakening process.

Maybe just start with what even is awakening. Let's get clear on that.

Well, you know, so the philosophy That I come from is that consciousness can become incubated in habit. So it becomes habituated, and when it does that, it's kind of relegated. Like, think of your breathing. It's for the most part subconscious, but then you can bring it conscious very easily. Same thing with blinking and many other things. So there's a goodness to this as well, to certain things being relegated to the subconscious mind. Like a guitar player, I could be sitting here playing a song that I played a million times and still holding a conversation with you. It's still happening, and it's sophisticated. The. The danger with that, it's not like an inhibited inherent problem. It's just an inherent risk that always seems to pop its head out. That awakening consciousness is really bringing things back up to the conscious mind. Like, imagine if you were always conscious of your breathing, always conscious of your. Your blinking and stuff like that, then Huxley's doors of perception would always be wide open. We'd always be in that, you know, psychedelic, like gambling a, you know, aha type state that, you know, I don't think would be good for us. It wouldn't be sustainable.

Yeah.

So awakening comes in these brief, very brief flashes for us. And then afterwards we integrate it. And so I think what awakening is, is it's nuanced. Because awakening moments aren't what awakening will always be. It's it. You know, I think we're always relegating certain things to the subconscious. But. But having access to them and bringing them up should be just as easy as it is to relegate them to the subconscious. And I don't think that happens for most people. Because in society, once you get to the point where you're always in the air condition, then being outside in the Austin Heat becomes like, oh, man, how do people do this? Well, how did our ancestors do it? They just did it. It was difficult, right? But they did it. So. So it's not like we have to do it just because being, you know, if something's easy, it's not bad, right. This is a lot easier to have air conditioning. And guess what? I'll take it. I'll take it. I like to challenge myself. So if for some reason the grid goes down, I can handle the heat or I can handle the bitter cold. But I think the awakening process is understanding what is at least an aspect or the categories of what exists in the subconscious, which is impossible to fully have a grasp of what lies there.

That's a black hole that would never end.

Right. So I think the awakening process is the path of just continually being the student of life and remembering that the lessons that I learned when I was young, I can rehash them today, and I'll learn something brand new if I do. So it's really having. It's being compelled to be the student of and the artist of what is happening now. And so the awakening process is really, really interesting. I feel that a lot of people, they say that psychedelics. I was awoken on psychedelics. You had a great experience, for sure. And I'm sure that you had some things come up to you that were. I had these visions, and it taught me so much. Okay, that's great. But part of the integration process is to realize that as much as momentarily, it felt like those visions and those things that happened, happened are so important, and they will be important in 10 years from now. Remember that this too shall pass, even the importance of this. And when we think, oh, I got to hold on to this thing that I learned, it's like, you know what? If you're supposed to hold on to it and it's that important, you either will just remember it and it will stick with you. And if it fades, it's probably because it was meant to fade. It's just like that wave. It's meant to undulate. So I think the awakening process is a lot more humble than most people think. It's not that, like, I remember everything, and I can, you know, wax philosophically on every topic. And no, it's. I'm here with some beautiful humans right now. Can I be here now? Can I really hear your questions? Can I hear the nuance of it and speak simply, efficiently, humbly, and hopefully, poetically and beautifully to what's being spoken of here, knowing that I'm not solving the entire audience's, you know, all their problems and, you know, I'm not doing any of that. We are doing something together. And that's what I noticed about me being a filmmaker in the awakening process, you can do that with a film. It's an altered state. Your brain is plastic by design when we choose to hop out of our habituation. So when I'm watching a film and somebody else right next to me is watching the same film, it can hit me in a different way than that person, because I'm choosing. Choosing to wake up to what it's telling me, to how it is starting to enliven me. Maybe it's not happening for them and it's not their time. And so that's. To me, the awakening process is like, do we want the whole world to awaken. We don't even know what that means. How do you wrap your head around that? So that's where humility really comes in. It's just like, wake up for sure, have those moments for sure, and then integrate it and realize that because I had that moment doesn't make me smarter than or better than the next guy over who hasn't had a profound awakening process for 10 years. Right.

Such a good point. There's. There's. There's a lot of. There's a lot of truth in what you're saying. Where. And it goes back to how I asked you the question. So many people that might have extremely large followings, like millions of people. I interview them or I see them at conferences or whatever, and there's a fundamental difference which, how they appear on a podcast or on a video versus when the camera goes off. And I'm sure you've experienced this at times. It's not to make these people wrong. I'm just bringing this to light. Have you seen this play out? Especially with your time producing for Gaia? How do you navigate that? To know who is actually being an embodied truth, when they're talking about awakening, when they're telling other people about spirituality, what kind of barometer have you created inside of you yourself? You know, I guess from intuition to be able to know, okay, what this person is saying. I can actually see that they're still on their learning curve and they're doing the best they can. They just happen to have a million followers on Instagram versus. Wow, this. I can really feel in my bones, in my body and my stomach, that this person is truly embodied, the wisdom that they're sharing, because I think a lot of times our wounding can cloud our wisdom, you know, and it's good intentions, it's great intentions, people. I have beautiful intentions. And sometimes I've noticed that my wounding will cloud my wisdom. But I'm talking about it. I'm honest about it. I'm not pretending like it's not there. But I. I don't see that with a lot of people in the spiritual conscious media world. So how do you create that barometer inside of you as a filmmaker?

Very good question. You know, there. There are a lot of those out there who. They can. They can talk the talk really, really well. And of. Of course, there's a level of that that I can see and I can acknowledge. And what I've noticed is when I'm really being humble and. And honest with myself, I'm not Here to call everybody out, you know, even when somebody's kind of just being in their way. And I can see it, I think, what are the very subtle seeds I can plant? You know, and if. If I can tell that if I really just challenge this person, then it'll send them into a process, and then the conversation will be twice as long. And, you know, maybe I'll feel like I've learned something, but maybe I'll feel like I just triggered something and then I had to, you know, stand witness to their reaction to it. So what kinds of seeds can I plant? What can I say that, like, isn't quite in opposition to them, but something that's, like, slightly outside of what they. What they might have a yes man to say back to him? And how can I do that in a way where once. And if they discover what it is that I meant, that it wasn't like, oh, Ben was right. Like, maybe that would happen. But, like, I don't want it to happen that way. Because Inception, the movie Inception, about going inside somebody's subconscious and planting a seed, it has to grow in a way that they feel like it was their idea. Because, let's be honest, none of my ideas are original. Right. Like, I. I have that syncretic, integrative, artistic way of taking other people's ideas and putting them into a novel, new way of being put forth. And maybe that is kind of mine, but at the end of the day, how can I take. I don't even take credit for the films that I do because they come through me in such a way where I'm like, I barely remember how that stream of consciousness came to me.

Yeah.

So when I see it, in other words, people, the first thing I feel is, I've been there. That's been me so many times. And how did other people respond to me? Doesn't really matter unless there's something beautiful that they handled me. You know, how they handled me. So I feel like, what kind of seeds can I plant and just make it an enjoyable experience and then leave? And then later, maybe I didn't teach them something like, hey, listen, I have to tell you how you're wrong about all these things. I made a checklist. Let me go through it. But. Bam, bam, bam. See ya. No, it's like, I'm. I'm not their teacher. I don't force myself to be in the teacher position. I should say, if I can teach, it would be in passing and more by the way that I am, rather than the things that I say. I Noticed that that sticks with people more. You know, I'll be in a conversation with somebody where literally they're talking 95% of the time and me 5% of the time. But if I do it in a way, then afterwards I always noticed, like, hey, my friend wanted to give you his number. He really enjoyed that conversation. And I can know, I can sense from that that, like, something I did created a moment that was useful and enjoyable for them, that they're like, I want more of that. I don't even know what that was, but I want more of that.

It was them being heard. It was them being seen for a moment.

Thank you. Thank you.

Which is really so lacking.

Exactly. That's actually one of the most important parts of communication. Communication is actually just listening. And then that's what I love about Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication is. Let me first echo back to you that I hear what you're saying. Is this right? You know, and they'd be like, yeah, man, that's a great way to put it. Or no, no, no, here's the nuance. And I'm like, oh, thank you for clarifying. It really helps me not just go on my way without the humility being like, oh, I told them. And somehow sometimes, again, like I said, sometimes people deserve to see what you woke up inside them. Sometimes I'm like, listen, brother or sister, I really don't agree with that. And, and here's why. And I've, I've felt that to be dangerous, actually. And if I can say it in such a way that, that I'm not attacking, but I'm like, listen, last time I used that approach or blah, blah, blah, like, I mean, seriously, maybe there's another way that that can go go, you know, But I, I don't see that as being the way. And usually the last time that's happened to me was when somebody said to me, and I've had so many people say this, like, oh, I don't care. I'll say anything to anyone. I'm like, does that, does that automatically make it good? Yeah, these, that make it useful.

These are the people that say, well, it's just my truth. I'm just going to speak my truth. And it's like, that can be. That can be somewhat of a cop out. Because what if you speaking your truth is actually the worst possible thing thing for both people to get closer to love or closer to peace or closer to a solution that benefits all.

Such a good point.

So, quote, speaking your truth isn't always the path. We don't need brutal, radical, violent truth all the time. Sometimes speaking your truth is actually having the wisdom to go, okay, in this moment, I'm actually going to hold on to my truth so that I know it. I don't need to project my truth onto this person because it doesn't serve the moment. And I think that's really the narrative that we need. And I don't know how this directly applies to awakening, but I know it's.

A part of it.

I know it's included in it. Right.

I think awakening really, like, I mean, people think of awakening like it's this awe inspiring, blow your head off type of thing. I think the best awakening, the silent ones, the nuanced ones, like the, you know, when, when I have these moments where I'm not teaching my daughter something, I just, I sit and I watch her playing. And I'm just in awe of the fact that she's growing and, like, she's not mine, right? And I, like, I'm not responsible for, you know, I'm responsible for caring for her and doing the best I can. But she's not like a product of me that, like, you know, I'm getting out to market. No. Like, she's this beautiful thing that I can't understand. I'm doing my best. And it's those silent moments where I notice that. That she's just there coloring and I'm just watching her face and I'm like, wow, I don't get it. I don't get it. Like, I'm in awe. And Eric Godsey says, like, awe is one of the most incredible and archaic things that we can experience because it's simultaneously rapture and fear. And when it comes to speaking your truth, Sid Goldberg, he's a producer at Gaia. I really like him. I came to be friends with him and he said he had this, this, this guru that he worked with a lot. And one time he asked, should I. Should we always speak our truth? And he said back, assuming you know what the truth is. And that's the key. I mean, like, when we're speaking, like, I'm just speaking my truth. Well, you're saying what's coming to you bluntly, that's, that's probably more accurate way of saying it. But saying, like, my true truth, maybe you're just very blunt. And maybe I also need to learn that there are some people that are just super blunt and I don't need to take it so personally or seriously. So that's one way of looking at It. But another thing is, I also notice when I'm really triggered inside. It's murky, it's cloudy, and I'm like, you know, I know what I want to say, but I'm also like, something's happening in me. I don't just need to unload it on this person. Maybe I need to understand what's happening inside me more because maybe they're challenging something that needs to be challenged. Challenged inside me. So that could be the awakening process for me now. What can I do in that scenario other than just keep my mouth shut?

I could be like, I'm triggered. Sorry, I'm experiencing a trigger right now.

Yeah. Like, you know, I'll. I'll tell you what that did inside me right now. And. And please help me understand if I didn't hear you correctly. And it doesn't always need to be this, like. Because I also find, like, how nauseating would it be be? And maybe it wouldn't be nauseating. I have no clue. But imagine if we were all overly polite with one another. You know, imagine the world that's overly polite.

Hardcore Canadians. Whatever you want. Eh?

Oh, sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I find that to be also funny because, like, a lot of us, we feel like we know what would make the world better. And then if we were to get it, imagine if we were all. I call us immature magicians, because we are creating. Creating something. We are manifesting the world and we're collectively doing it. So all of our magic is creating. But imagine if we were all, like, wizards top, you know, like everything we thought just came to. Came to fruition in the next moment. I don't know if I want to live in that world. I don't want to know. Like, I don't know if I would want to live in a world where everybody's passing thought they could just manifest it right in front of them. What if we're actually living in a world, World that's perfectly situated and the dao actually says this? The dao is like, instead of trying to change the world outside you, do you even know what it is? Do you even know what it's trying to teach you? Have you even found the pleasure of surfing the incredibly awesome waves that's hitting the world right now instead of being like, this is wrong. Let's fix it, because I know what right looks like. That's very, very arrogant to, you know, the hubris. You must have to be like, I know what the world needs. Oh, you do? Is there any empirical evidence to back that Up.

Yeah. Wow. I was just feeling a huge passage from the Dao when you mentioned that, and it was, the Great Dao loves and nourishes all things. But here's the key. It does not lord it over them. And that's exactly what you're talking about. The Great Dao always seeks the low. Right. High pressure. Always seeking low pressure. Sodium potassium pump. Hot outside, cold outside. There's always this ph. Every. Everything's always trying to. Chaos is always trying to seek order. So if in that teaching of the Dao, and I'm not a deep student of the Dao, I just really love it. It's one of the books over here. I like to intellectualize.

I love how small it is.

But think about this, Ben. If the Great Dao truly loves and nourishes all things without wanting something in return, and it also doesn't lord it over them, like, look at how I'm being to you. Look at how I'm being to you. What should I get in return? I mean, hold. Holy shit. If we could embody that. That, I believe is a massive step in the staircase of awareness. If we could actually do our work to embody that, how do we do that? How do you think we can do that? How do we love and nourish things without lording it over other people or even lording it over ourselves?

Well, I have to tell you, I have the answer, the immovable answer to that. I just don't know how to put it into words. No, I don't have the answer to that. I mean, the interesting thing about that is, is the answer to that is probably always in flux. It's like the face of God. Like, there is no one face.

Yeah.

There's actually a spot in this Aubrey Marcus film that I'm working on with him.

This is the Dark Retreat.

Yeah.

Oh, and we got a jam about this.

Totally. And he says it's like there's so much, like, intensity in this film. When he's in the darkness, he's. He's speaking. Aubrey Marcus is speaking into an audio recorder. And. And we're, like, putting sound design and imagery over it. And there's this one moment, and it's the peak of the film, but it's one of the quietest parts. And he's just like. You can tell he's busted and almost a little loopy. And he's like, I made God laugh today. I told God I love him, you know? And God laughed, knowing that I'm God too. He just said, good. And he Just did that like long. Good four or five times. And I'm like, okay, if this is a moment where he is speaking for God and what God is saying, how am I going to cover that? So I decided not to put any sound design. Just listen to him say the word. Because it went long, long. But I need to put something over it. And there was this really. The McLaughlin brothers did something for the UN and it was a one minute video. It's. It showed every single frame. And mind you, there's 24 frames per second. Every single frame was a different image of a face. But the eyes were perfectly lined up and the center line of the face. Dude, I'll show you this video. It's incredible. You might even want to put the link in the show notes so the audience knows. Because the only thing I could. And it's just incredibly done. It's like faces from young to old to animals throughout the animal kingdom to just various different things. And I was thinking, wow, I can't license this, so I need to do something similar to it. But the reason is, is like since you can't show an image that really perfectly represents God, like sunlight coming through clouds and stuff like that. Yeah, show everything, but show the evolution of everything. But as soon as you think you can wrap your head around it, you got to change it, you know. And so I was thinking like, this is, this is a perfect way. It's beautiful to watch as well. And so the reason I'm saying that is because in that respect, like, what is God? And like what is the answer? Where should we go as a society? There's so many ways that you can answer that. It's so nuanced. So when you're saying like the dao, how do we embody that? Not lording it over other people? There's so many different ways to answer, answer that it, it wouldn't, you know, we'd be dead, you know, for a million years.

I feel you. I just wanted to know yours because I feel like your heart has a unique signature because of how much content and media you've produced. But I definitely know like your answer. One in a million, right? And a million more out there. If not, if not unlimited.

Well, that was, that was the beginning of the answer. And so how, really, I think I've said the word several times, but. But it's humility for one. There's something about humbling yourself that's not diminishing. It doesn't diminish you. Actually humbling yourself is almost like I said earlier, this guy. Oh, please tell me if I can remember his name. I'll think of it. But anyway, he was the one who said, humbling the ego. Like, when you ask, like, who am I? When you can ask that question honestly, what do you got to do next? You got to listen for the answer. Do you know the language it will speak? In the language will be everything. Everything that comes back to you. So how do you bring that into a nuance? Like, what's the answer? Who am I?

Right.

Everything, right. When you don't choose to be one thing specifically, you awaken in infinity. So it's all available to you. So how, how do you not lord over everything you've learned, all that you are? How do you not lord it over other people? Like, hey, I am your teacher and I'm going to teach you something. You do it in the humblest way possible. You do it in the quiet, quietest way possible. The most poetic way, the most roundabout way, you know, not direct. And that's not the answer. That's. That's just one way. And that's the way that I've found to be the most effective. Most people, like, even children, they don't want to just be told the answer to things. And that's why by Native Americans, I was even taught, if a child's in the woods and finds a bone like a jawbone, it's like, what is this? Like, ooh, I don't know. Instead of being like, oh, that's the jaw of a deer, you know, a white tailed deer, blah, blah, blah. And the kid's like, oh, okay, cool. And they'll still be enthralled by the thing itself. But you just told them that is this, that can work as well, and you want to move towards that. But what about the process of, like, I don't know, what does it look like? Well, it looks like a bone. Yeah, it does look like a bone. So it's not a rock. It's definitely not a rock. No, no, because, you know, like, notice the difference. Yeah, you're right. So is it a small animal? Is it a big animal? Is it an animal at all? Yeah. So you let them. It's like you're teaching them to fish. You let them go through the process of that. They're critical thinking. And to me, not lording it over them is how do we create a game out of this to where you get what you need? But you did it. And I helped. But I'm, I'm your friend.

That's the best kind of teacher I'm not your teacher.

I'm your friend. Let's do this together. And when you come up with the answer, because I know it's inside you, I'll be there to be like, yeah, that's what I felt, too. Yeah, you know, you're. You're probably right, because that's what I felt, too. But we also could be full of shit. You know what I mean? And it's always good to be like. But we're also partly full of shit because everyone, you know, everything that we do has some wrongness as much as it has some right greatness in it. Yes. Humility.

What I heard from you was fostering humility, but also fostering curiosity.

Curiosity, Yeah.

I mean, I'll never forget this man. One of the greatest interviewers ever, right? Suspenders, LA Dodgers hat. I don't know why I'm blanking on his name right now. The older gentleman that passed, one of the most powerful interviewers ever, he said, you know, how do I do my interviews? I'm just curious. Curious. Larry King. Larry King. I'm just curious. I'm genuinely curious about the other person. And he has this kind of raspy voice. Like, I'm just curious. That's how I run my interviews. I'm curious. And I feel like that's actually it. Like, that truly, is it. Like in. In my questions for you, I'm also learning for me and all of us, with us, that that actually is it. Now, of course, there's no one type of curiosity, you know, there's so many different versions of curiosity, but that truly might be it, man. It might be just literally being humble enough to know when to go deeper into curiosity or when to be quiet.

Yeah.

When to let the other person just be. You know, there's some wisdom in there.

You. You brought something up for me that I really like. And it's like, right now, we're learning a lot from one another, right? And who's teaching who? What if it's just the moment? And if we. We're not resistant or we're not, you know, totally. I am this, and this is the role I am in. Then, like, then the moment is teaching us, and we're surfing the wave of what the moment can give us. It's all here, it's all present. And when they say the answer's in you, it's also all around you. It's something that, like, if you're an air bender, earth bender, water bend, you know, like the Avatar series, like, we're just bending the truth. And if you know how to be a conduit for the truth to arise, then we did it. We did it together. Because we didn't resist it. And we also humbled ourselves, didn't lord it over like it was me doing it, that we bent the truth. We allowed the truth to emerge in a form or a language that we can grasp. Also knowing that that's fleeting as well, that truth serves us in the moment. And then 10 years from. From now, it might be different. It actually might be different. And that also it relieves you from having to feel like this is. This has got to serve me forever. Like, no, it's just. It's just now.

Yeah.

You know, none of us really understands the future. Even the best computers out there that are trying to figure out, you know, what's going to happen next with the stock market or whatever, it's all just probability.

Yeah.

And even at the quantum level, really like those electrons and things like that, like, you know, we. Where is it exactly?

Well, and all things can the observer effect. All things can change based on who's watching. So just because predictive analytics or BI engines exist, it doesn't mean they're going to be fucking right. No way. And I'm a huge fan of Kevin Kelly. I love his view of the technium being consciousness, experiencing itself. I think that's fascinating. Yet life isn't linear. Life isn't zeros and ones. We might be in a simulation. The superposition exists where the 0 and the 1 can exist at the same time. Now we all know that. So if that exists, there is absolutely. And I guess it's really like washing my nervous system with peace and hope and joy too. We can never predict what's going to happen in the future. And isn't that awesome? How fucking cool is that? That we don't know what's coming. So for people that say the world is ending, life sucks. This is total shit. It's so not true. It's true because we say it is. It's true because our nervous system and our mind and our subconscious is geared toward it being that. But I hold a really positive light for the world. I think that there's beautiful things coming. I remember I had a podcast with Mark Devine about this, and he was like, I'm really excited about the world. He's like, I don't believe in this doomsday scenario where we're all gonna pass and, you know, Covid is gonna end us and blah, blah, blah. Like, how do you. How do you articulate that? And how do you want to move that type of narrative in the world with this? Maybe talk about a little bit of the dark retreat film and the other things that you're into, like, like it's not all doom and gloom. It's just not. That's a. That's a potential, but it's not the ultimate. It's not the totality.

Standing in the midst of the paradox, you know, allowing for simultaneous potential truths to be existent at the same time, even if they seem contradictory, allows you to stay in a state where you're. You're malleable, but you're always seeking. Where is it the it that we're after? And was it Plato that was saying, believe everything and nothing at the same time, and you'll be in the right state of consciousness to learn? So if you think about that like, as much as I could come up with a poetic answer to a question, but that doesn't mean that the opposite isn't in some way true as well. So standing in the midst of the, of the paradox is great. And one of them is, you know, when we were just talking about all of this, I was thinking, Governor Bill Lee in Tennessee, where I am, just signed through an order that, that it made a few assumption statements at the beginning because of how dangerous COVID 19 is. It. Is it. How did it say it? It was making a factual statement, understanding that the best way to protect the people from COVID 19 is the vaccine. I would challenge that, but it just goes on, it makes those statements, and then it says, from that foundation, now we need start mandating. And then, so when we're talking about the mandates is like, I could come up with a million other mandates. You know, my mandate would be like, what if we had to get together face to face?

What if we had to go in nature like a prescription?

What if we had to learn breath work? What if we had to deep dive into what health is and why fasting can help and, you know, various other things. How can we look at it different, differently than the fundamental truths that they set forth? That XYZ means that the best and only option for us is the vaccine? Really? Like, I'm not even saying that it's not something to consider. I'm just saying that's the one and only thing you could think of.

Food.

You don't care to talk about diet or movement or sunlight, you know, adequate levels of what, nutrients, social interaction is important. We know, know that, you know, like, none of that exists. It's just XYZ means we need this intervention because that seems kind of like, you know, you're going to the last resort first and then working your way backwards into the less dangerous or possibly dangerous and the more timeless things that we can do, like, oh, there's a pandemic happening right now. What are the things that we absolutely need know from empirical evidence, as far as we back as we can go, that help people's longevity and health? So that's one thing. But you know, to me, standing in the midst of the paradox, like, that's why I don't say, and that's why I believe that vaccines are actually bad for you. I don't say that because, like, we have to, I have to wrap my head around what does bad mean for everyone, even people that I haven't met with health conditions that I have no clue about. I have to be very, very arrogant to believe that I can say what is good and what is bad when I'm, when I'm giving the word to millions and millions, if not billions of people. So with that being said, let's go back to some of these things that actually challenge our understanding of who we even are, what life even is. And one of those is darkness. So when I was working, you know, at the very beginning of this Aubrey Marcus film, which is going to be called Awake in the Darkness, this, my deep dives in films always has to do with a ton of research. And what I loved about this is like, I started learning, oh well, a lot of different tribes and civilizations from around the world, even going back into the ancient world, use darkness as a technology, which is interesting. It's like darkness technology.

Yeah.

Can't be breath technology. Can't be cold.

Well, technology is just a information, right?

And it's, it's the, the use of, it's the channeling of what is accessible to us. The, the resources accessible. Gold is always there. We're always breathing. So what is breath work? You know, oh, you're going to breathe for an hour. Weren't you already going to breathe for that hour? Nah, you augment it a bit and you can go into psychedelic states. You can release trauma. You can have an experience that would blow your mind just because you augmented your breath for an hour, not added something new that you weren't doing before. So, like, darkness predates all concept, predates all psychedelics. It predates the breath, except for the breath of Brahma, maybe. Right. So what I love about the darkness thing is I started going back and researching all these different traditions and sure enough, almost every single Tradition used darkness as a technology to go deeper into the mysteries within us. And the mysteries are within us. And that's what alchemy is about, is acknowledging that all these changes we're trying to enact in the outside world, world, we don't realize that the access point is not out there. The access point is within. It's like the. Don't try and bend the spoon. Bend yourself and you'll realize that you are that spoon. So, I mean, I know this can get very difficult for people to understand, but what I'm saying is you don't have to answer the questions you're after. It's not like some solid, concrete, immovable answer is going to come to one of your questions. The very path of moving towards and grappling over the seeming contradictory paradoxes within a question is the process of bringing the answer alive. And the answer is dynamic. It's not concrete or static. It happens as you allow it to move through you. So it's like the dao, it's this thing that's moving through you. And that means how do I orient my nerves, nervous system to just be. To allow the dao to come through me? And that's how I like to speak with people, is instead of giving the answers, it's like, do you hear it? It's happening in between the notes. That's where the dao is. That's where the answer is. And it's being built by our very conversation here. And, you know, Yu Zig Isaag. And in that, the combined total of that begins to become the engine that allows for this process of truth to emerge.

What is it about the dark specifically that allows people to have maybe a greater connection to the access moon D or to knowing themselves? Like there's some kind of potent ass medicine that exists in the dark. I mean, I got done with the vision quest. Lots of dark.

Yeah.

There were nights out there where I literally could not see my hand in front of my face, but I could hear shit crawling around in the bushes. I didn't have a knife or fire. I mean, like, dude, when you start going to that depth of darkness and of sensory deprivation, whatever's running in the background is going to come right Forefront.

Yeah.

So what. What did you find with Aubrey and what did you find with this film? Like, what's the medicine you're trying to give to the world with this film?

Yeah. Well, first and foremost with the film. I love making films that aren't set out to, let's say, teach you something. Put some intellectual concepts Inside your head.

Damn it. That's what I wanted.

It's. It's more of. It's an initiation. It's an experience. You're going into the darkness with Aubrey Marcus. You are seeing how he goes through this process, how he gets broken down to zero and starts building back up in a new novel way. And what we're. What the intent of it is for people to see the hero's journey or to experience the hero's journey. Journey through the avatar of Aubrey Marcus. And so that's really great. And the thing about the darkness is it happens every time we blink, right? It happens a lot at night. Sometimes it doesn't happen for as long as a dark room retreat or for as actually pitch black as a darkness retreat would give us. But the difference is, where's your comfort zone? Where's your habituation? How do we crack you out of it? Because like I said, truth is who we are. It's not something we strive for or hold or say. Right. Truth is something that we allow to come through us, real truth. So for us to embody truth, we need to crack ourselves out of the things that. That keep us from truth, which is our habituation. And for the most part, it's not that you're doing something wrong by having a habit, because we all have habit. And mind you, ceremonies, me is habitual, right? You do things in a very structured, rigid way. But there's something about the dark that you have to acclimate to something that you're not used to. And what's great about this is I don't mention it in the film, but there are people like Daniel Kish. He lost his eyesight at the age of five. He taught himself to echolocate. Did he have some strange X Men mutant?

Does the bass bat do that?

Right? Yeah, that's what bats do. Yeah, they send out a sonic vibration. It comes back to them dolphins and the part of their brain that is not being used up by visual input and other parts of the brain start interpreting the auditory signal as visual cues of what the environment holds. Your brain can do that? Our brain can do that. We just don't teach ourselves to echolocate. There was a woman, I think it was Ellen Dubro or something like that, is a French name. She's on the autistic spectrum. She taught herself to echolocate. Has vision, but taught herself to echolocate as well. Now there's schools in China, in Russia. One in Utah that you know is a martial arts school in Utah that teach people to Read or walk around and do martial arts and like, move through complex terrains blindfolded. And many of the listeners myself, I still have skepticism towards it because I haven't done it myself. But my skepticism doesn't turn me off to being like, well, I have to call it not true because I don't know how to wrap my head around it. This is why I talk about fantastic things that most people are like, come on, that just sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus. Like, but doesn't it wake something up inside you? It wait that hearing that people can do these things that I still don't know if I believe, it wakes something up inside me that's like. It's not like I'm not going to try. I want to give it a shot. Because guess what? I do believe that we are moving into a transhuman future. I just don't believe all humans are going there.

What do you mean transhuman?

Transhuman is. Is. We all have phones, so we're all augmented slightly by technology. We've always been. And as soon as we started changing knees out or hips out for other parts, like you're. But to me, like, the transhuman doesn't mean that it's wrong or bad or that it's ant anti biology, because the very fact that we can alter nature outside of us to fit some kind of end that we're looking to meet means that this is part of who we are. It's part of our art. So the transhuman fear is that we'll all turn into cyborgs and we'll lose our humanity. Yeah, like we're already using technology. Like, you know, I have people telling me like 5G is going to kill us all and technology is terrible. And I'm like, why are you telling me this on a phone then? Why are you using your technology to tell me of your fear? So I think the thing is, is, is that balance. And I believe that the transhuman future is already here. You hear the Internet of things. There's already the Internet of bodies, which is the FDA has approved smart insulin pumps, smart pacemakers, or Injustice Injectables, implantables and wearables, Fitbit, all that kind of stuff. So if you think about it like, where does God not exist? Where does love not exist? Where does truth and possibility not exist? Let's not be so hard on the technology. Sure, we're scared of it because it's come on so rapidly, but think of a psychedelic journey. It's only when a Psychedelic journey comes on so rapidly that we have fear, but we're not even afraid of what's happening that much in the moment, but in the moment, we're afraid of it going further.

Sure.

It's weird because, like, in the moment it's like, oh, ooh, it's accelerating inside me. And I feel like I'm losing control. I'm losing control. It's a fear of the future, of even more lost control. We don't know. It's a fear of the unknown. So the technology thing, it ramped up super quick. So that sets off a lot of ancient triggers inside of us that, like, what if it keeps going faster and farther in this direction? Well, guess what? Waves, everything's virtual. Vibration waves eventually correct themselves, slow down, and then even diminish. And I feel like the future of technology is going to find its way to get smaller, integrate itself more into nature and be less visible. And maybe we can get back to a more biologically, based, you know, nature based existence augmented by super intelligent technology.

I think you're right. And I think it deserves conversations where we're communicating about both sides of it, because it's. If we don't, the Internet of things could literally balloon so much that we could become neurally focused and neurally dependent on IoT devices literally fucking guiding us throughout the day, and we could be blunting our own intuition, our own nature. So I think you're.

We already are.

We already are. So I think, I think your truth is radical. I think it's amazing. And I think that we also need to be cautious, not from a place of fear, but from a place of, like, okay, if I'm on my phone nine hours a day, day, obviously I'm doing things that I'm not always aware of on that phone as well.

Yeah.

And so that has to play into this conversation because Kurzweil talks about this six or seven years ago, human evolution and technological evolution. Technology was the hockey stick. Human evolution is still creeping along. Right. Because we're still cavemen and cave women.

Yeah.

So I, I think it's. It's powerful, it's bold. And I'm curious how this relates to the dark. Because it's in the dark. There's got to be so many things going on in Aubrey's head or in anybody's head that gets wisdom from the dark. Like, is this. Are you passionate about this? Because this is what. What came up from the film, this transhumanism thing. Like, what. What else can you share about the dark? Specifically as a Medicine.

What I like about that is the, you know, the fact that it's coming up is more of a personal thing because like it's what's happening in my world world. I have several projects going on at the same time. So I have the Aubrey Marcus film. And by, by my very way of doing film work, I'm constantly touching technology. Like I'm always on it, so I'm building it via technology. What I like to answer first about darkness, what I feel about darkness is great, is, I mean go the exact opposite direction of where technology has taken us now. Where every, how many times do we check our phones during the day? Like what is the average where. I think I was just working on this. It was something like every four minutes of waking consciousness, people are on their phones or checking their phones just to see if you know, you know, it's a habit. Like, oh, what time is it? Did anyone hit me up? I'll just open it up and scroll a little bit. And that's, you know, again, I don't want to make that seem like that's the enemy or that's the problem. That that's just the thing that's happening right now. It's the thing that's got us. It's, it's got us in its flow. So what's darkness then? It's the absence of any of that light coming at you. And really what do you do when you're in a dark room? Retreat. You can wiggle, you can do breath, you know, work, you can ponder about stuff. Yeah, you're going to drink some water and eat some food and maybe do some push ups or whatever. Right. But you're limiting the input that's coming in. In our visual field there, we just constantly have new things to look at. You know, back in the day we would just sit out there and stare at a tree for a while, watch it bend in the wind and you know, watch a waterfall. And it was like, it was, it seemed simple. But really you look at nature, it's not simple. And we still don't have it figured out. But our technology, it's like, it's what's new. And that's our love for news. Is what's happening happening in the world now? And the one thing I want to say about that is evolutionarily, especially the men would constantly be surveying nature. Am I safe? Is my family safe? Is my tribe safe? So you're looking out into nature. Are there predators? Is there something coming? Is there a storm coming? A bunch of things you have to assess, to know whether you're safe. Why? Because Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You need to feel safe before you could ever get to creativity or play or any of those things. Lovemaking. So how do we check if we're safe now? We don't walk outside and look for the closest forest and stare into it. No. We check the news. What's going on in the world. How crazy is it? Has it gotten.

Or our email. Or our email or something that tells me I'm okay.

Yeah. What fire do I have to put out now for my job? You know, so that's what's different about today. And so darkness does something that it predates concept, it predates human concepts. It was there long before humans or creation in general. The dao even says, like the. The dao, the real dao is older than God. Right. And that's. That's just a way of saying it. And that's hard to wrap your head around. But that's kind of the point. It's. It's not just to give you the answer so you can move on. It's to crack you open so you can explore new territory of what is the darkness. Does that very well. And what I love about Aubrey is he speaks very, very well to the process that's going on inside him. And it was easy to find the hero's journey in all of his recordings that he did. So to me, it was just like, okay, I need to put a dope ass soundtrack to it, some sound design. And that's a great film right there. It's an initiation.

I bet the visuals are amazing too, because so much of the film is dark.

Yeah.

You'd have to find some kind of soul connection to the words that are coming out of his mouth versus what people are seeing on screen. I mean, that's a cool dance to be able to create that.

Yeah. Yeah. And so what we did was we definitely honored that. This is a dark retreat that he's in. So we need to show darkness a lot. You know, not a lot, as in like 15 minutes, you know, of straight darkness. But there's got to be moments where it's awkward. You're sitting in a room with Aubrey Marcus. You're hearing him breathe. He's not doing much. He's saying a few things, but you can tell he's just kind of chilling out. He doesn't know what to do with himself. You shouldn't know what to do with yourself. There's. Because you watch this film not to just be in your intellect and like I know exactly what he's going through. No, like you're in the room with him. It's, it's an experience and initiation. So the animators that we brought in, we have a hand drawn animator and we have a CGI guy and I got them collaborating with one another and we, they said, this is such a rare treat because usually when we're animating, we're not animating from a black screen. It's never that simple for them. And they're like, this is super simple now. So we use the particle effect where it's like this wisp of particles comes up and then it congeals into something as he's talking about it and then it evolves into what he carries on talking about. And then it disappears like a whisper, like just a wisp of smoke. And we do that kind of stuff a lot where it emerges, it undulates, it moves. But it's not just these rapid cuts. But then we also do that where you know how like your mind can go through a million thoughts in a second, you know. And so pretty much, yeah, like sounds like me, there's a knocking on the door and instantly you, you know what's going on, right? So we, we show like, how would the mind present visual representation? What's the visual field of the mind? And how do we augment that and make it different than the editing style from before he went into the darkness. So there's this cool, like rapid frames and shots and stuff like that and how we organize them on the screen and they, they just flitter and go away. We really alter the experience of editing of sound design, which is the subconscious. Because the visuals were usually like, what are the words being said? What does that mean to me? And what are the visuals I'm seeing? And sound design is actually in filmmaking more important than the visuals. So watch Blair Witch Project, right? It was grainy, it was very shaky, right? But the audio, if you turn that film off, you're still like who my heart is pound you know? So sound design is super important. It's the subconscious. It's telling your subconscious, how do I feel about what's happening right now? Because you could watch a movie and there could be somebody dying in somebody else's arm, but if you accidentally put the wrong soundtrack and it's young men. Absolutely right. It's not gonna go well, you know, or maybe it will.

Music. The music and the sound can really break a movie. I hear you, man. That's why I love, that's why we're wearing these headsets, people can feel your voice box and the water in your body connected to it with your heart inside of it. That's why I love beautiful sound, because I'm like, man, you know, on our podcast, like, I used to. I used to do the proximity mic, and I like the virtual stuff. But there's something so beautiful about sitting with somebody, having a conversation and having the audio be real, where you really don't have to do too much to it. It's just the devices that capture it are so beautiful. So I went on a tangent there, but back to the dark. Dark. Like, I don't mean to be finite, but I'm. My curiosity is directing me on this question. The medicine that you're wishing or that you're wanting, that you're desiring the world to get from this film. If you. If you had to put it into a few sentences, you know, what is that medicine that. That you're trying to bring to the world, that you're in process of bringing to the world from this movie? You know, what inspires people to go. To go watch it.

Thank you. And I just want to mention why I like that question, because I do sometimes I love getting flowery and breaking people out of what the canned responses and, you know, getting people into thinking a little bit more fluidly. But it's also really good to just brass tacks. Aubrey Marcus said in the film what I think is the. The perfect way, and it's also part of the. The teaser and the trailer that we have the perfect way to explain the medicine that we're bringing forth is Aubrey. Towards the beginning, he's says, you know, I think fundamentally there's two choices that people have in life, and that's you either just go on with your life and wait for the world to throw you into unexpected darkness, and so you become reactionary to it. Or you can seek some of these challenges. You can put yourself through rites of passages, you can seek the darkness and prepare yourself for the challenges that the world is just definitely going to throw you. And so to put it even more bluntly, is understanding that dark is one of many free tools. Because that's another thing I'm not here to be like. And I also believe there's a bunch of amazing products. I'm about to start going for sponsors from my podcast and stuff. I'm all about people supporting each other financially with specific products that are dope. There may be, but what I love doing with the films is like, hey, I like. I love what Peter Joseph did with Zeitgeist. He put up a free film. It was anonymous. It was very well done too. He was like, I don't want your money, I don't want your fame. I don't even want you to know my name. I want you to understand. I want you to wake up. And for me, the tools that I wish to give the world are the free will ones. Like, do you know how awesome breath is? Do you know how awesome darkness is? And it's free to you. This is free to you. So really the medicine we're trying to give to the world is you have the medicine for what ails you. Come up with a whatever, whatever ails you. You actually have a solution inside you. But we are in this consistent trap where we are looking to the outside world. Solve my problem, problem for me. Nanny state. Tell me what to do. I'm kind of scared and you're telling me what the problem is. Also give me the solution, please. Right. I'm done thinking of it for myself. We've gotten to this kind of, you know, this laziness of thinking. Well, you know, you told me what the problem is and you told me how complex it is. Can you give me the solution too so I don't have to think about it? For me, I'm like, engage with the difficulty of life. Engage with it just joyfully, playfully. Yes. It's going to be difficult going to a darkness retreat or a vipassana where you don't talk for a week or 10 days.

I've been there.

Hard. You know, most people like, I can't be that hard. Try it.

Try not seven. Yeah.

Try not talking for 10 days. Try being in dark pitch dark for seven days. Try not eating for 10 days. Try doing breath work for 30 minutes. Not even every single day for a month. Right. These are things that it's like, well, I know I could, but why would I? It's like, try it. You will realize that what you're doing there is. You are intentionally entering yourself into a challenge. And in that challenge, you discover the gold inside yourself. It's alchemy. You realize, I can survive, survive this. The answers are always here within, and then the answers that aren't here. It's what's calling me to connect with community. And that is by and large what's happening in the world today. There were these economists that were saying, like, you know, what's that? What happened in 2008, that's nothing compared to what's coming in 2020. And people are asking, what do we do invest in gold? Do I invest in silver? You know, do I get my guns? Do I hoard a bunch of food? Do I get into crypto? Or what do I do? Every one of them, Community. Because guess what? That's how we survived. All the tools and tricks, and most of them are gone. We don't use them anymore. But guess what's always been there. Other people. We survive when we wish to come together and move forward. You know, we do well. Especially when we come together. In my band, I couldn't have done alone what my band did together simply for the love of doing it. And we couldn't have done it on stage to enjoy empty room without the audience there, man. Like, there is some X factor between the people in the now when there's enough people there creating that moment, that it's medicine in and of itself. Music is medicine if you do it right. Silence is medicine if you do it right. Right. Almost all things could be medicine. So if everything's medicine, then nothing's medicine? No, no, no. It's a way that you orient yourself to the moment. I believe that is medicine. But you actually have to authentically be listening. And that authentic listening cracks you out of your habituation. That's been really, in a sense, crystallizing you into the problem you're trying to fix. That's probably the most flowery but succinct way I can say the medicine we're trying to give in that film.

Well, stop. A smell of roses. I like that. That's beautiful, brother. Thank you for sharing so much wisdom at my home here. I mean, what a beautiful conversation it has been. And, you know, the one thing that I was feeling when you were sharing about the darkness that I think everybody can relate to. When you take away all the things that are pulling your energy sideways that could be potentially disassociating you from self or misaligning you, then you can actually see what still water breeds. You can see what a clean slate can be seen through. You can see, like, the truth of what is the opposite of addiction is connection. So if I'm addicted to things and I can't go two hours without my phone or a day without food, or if I can't be in any cold water or I can't sweat, I can't do all these things, how much could that blunt us from our intuition, from the wisdom of the heart? So I think it's really, really powerful. It scares the shit out of me to think about going into a dark retreat. Not gonna lie. I'm just like, whoa. And I've done some things.

Well, that means you're awake.

I've done some ceremonies and I've done the vipassana and I've done the things that feels like the path of a warrior to be able to go into the dark. So, dude, we covered so much ground and I'm really appreciative for you sharing. And out of all the things that you've learned, you know, the father, the filmmaker, the true man that is on his path of understanding what life is and what well being actually is, how would you define that? You know, the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, the mental, also the financial. We're here in the 3D world, money's a part of it. How would you define in the center of that, you know, the nexus of all that juice, that intelligence. How would you define wellness? What does wellness mean to you?

I really do think it is somebody genuinely on their path with that curiosity and that humility. I think that's the center of it. Like, obviously you need to eat correctly. There's certain things for, like health, part of the wellness that, that should be obvious. But a lot of the times these things aren't obvious. But I really think, like the nexus of wellness comes from authentically moving on that path, you know, authentically moving on that path. It is the teacher and we're all headed to death. You know, how. How are we going to die? Might change how soon, you know, we all die. But, you know, how well do we actually live? And the thing is, is there are some people that they, they're like burning the candle at both ends. And I can also see that, like, you know, in my, you know, if I had a rigid way of thinking about it, I'd be like, you're not well. But in some ways I'm like, was George, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and some of the, you know, and not just the musicians, but the incredible people that died young because they were burning the candle at both ends. What if that's what the world needed? What if, you know, they weren't supposed to make it to a ripe old age? We have.

What if that was their contract? Ben?

Exactly.

What if that was the contract they signed? We don't know. Who the fuck are we?

Totally imagine. And I've seen, heard these stories and seen this where I think actually you have the book here, how to change your mind. Michael Pollan. Yes. Where there is that kid who was dying and learned such a lesson about it that he became the teacher to his parents on how to deal with his death. He had accepted his own death at an early age, young age, I should say. And his parents couldn't accept it. So he understood his contract so well that he was. He was like, now I need to teach you because that was the last part of my contract. I need to teach you how to be okay with letting your child go. I know you have these tropes and themes in your head that a father should never bury their child. Like, I know that seems very real to you, but I'm going to show you that there's even beauty in the exact opposite of what you thought was supposed to be right.

Ultimate mic drop. What is. What is wellness? It feels like, from what you said, it's this moment to moment awareness of how can I see this unfolding for me so that. Not that I can make sense of it, but so that I can accept it, surrender to it, live as well as I can through it all.

Yeah.

Without it having to be like a specific way.

Yeah.

And that's beautiful, man.

Yeah.

So where do people go to learn about you? There's lots of places. I mean I did. I probably had like 15 links in the show notes already, but. But a starting place to absorb your wisdom. I love your editorial style on YouTube.

Thank you.

Awesome Psychedelica series. And we didn't even get to talk about John Chavez and DMT Quest. We'll link that. We had John on the show.

So.

So we'll have to have you back again because even in two hours we barely scratched the surface on your work and there's so many other beautiful conversations that can come. But where do people begin? Like where do they go to connect with you from your, from your intuition? Based on our conversation, where do you think they would start with you?

I mean, I would definitely say go toBen Joseph stewart.com and that's where you're going to find like all the films that I've done. You won't find Psychedelica. You won't find my show.

Limitless is Psychedelica only on Gaia.

Yeah. So is Limitless and, and also a show that show that I did, Waking Infinity, which is not really the same thing as Waking Infinity News that I've done, but all those are purely on Gaia. Limitless is like a direct to camera thing about human potential. And so all that's on Gaia.com but go to BenJosephStewart.com and that's where people can find all the films that I've done. And also I have a member section. So if you like the news. There's things I can't Talk about on YouTube I'd be deplatformed for. And not all of them are like, like, you know, deep, dark, insidious. They're just things that, like, you know, I have a different way of, of saying and viewing these things. And out of respect, I'll, you know, I'll not say it on YouTube, you know, like. So anyway, you can go to YouTube.com backslash bychance or fate. And that's how you find Waking Infinity News, Waking Infinity Stories, the Ben Stewart Podcast, all that kind of stuff. You can also find it on Spotify. Spotify, Waking Infinity News and Ben Stewart Podcast, which is Spotify.

Have video as well for you?

No, no, I just do the audio on there because I'm really catering to the people who on their commutes listen 1.5 or 2x.

Yeah.

You know, so really trying to make it as accessible as possible. Man, I didn't even talk about what's. What's coming up next, which is the Awakening protocols, which is helping people through rapid awakening, which is what I believe the world is going through right now, and helping people go through it and understand that awakening is not always pretty. I guess this is where we started. Awakening is not always pretty, but there are best practices and there are ways to ameliorate some of the unnecessary suffering of our awakening. And so done almost like yoga videos, but like with amazing artistry and soundtrack and something. Something that like, feels like an art piece, but also is a practice you can engage with. Shaking medicine. Tremoring is one of my favorite, but like layering it. So that's Awakening protocols. Not yet there. If people want to find me benjosephstewart.com or YouTube.com bychance or fate. And that's how you can find just about all the content that I've put out there.

Cool, man. I'm glad I found you.

Thanks for coming up.

Thanks for coming over. And until Ben and I see you guys Again, go to wellnessforce.com forward/podcast. Join the group. We're talking more about Ben in the group. So until Ben and I see you again, we're both wishing you love and wellness. We'll talk to you soon.

Sam.