EQ Expert Reveals: The Hidden Cost of Not Feeling Your Emotions (The Neurochemistry of Suffering)

If someone can't feel their feelings, what is the silent cost?

The cost of it is all of the addiction that we see in the world. If we don't have the capacity to feel a sense of love and connection to ourselves and to one another, that's the neurochemistry of suffering. Rick William is a former champion bodybuilder and fitness entrepreneur. Feeling empty after exiting his company at 25, he spent the next 11 years training and teaching in the most effective tools of transformation. That neurochemistry of suffering is what leads us to reach and grab for or whatever it might be. Whether it's too much food, too much sex, whatever. The thing is, we reach for it.

You walked away from $3.2 million to go do something that had no guarantee of success at all.

It was the best decision I ever made in my life. If I wanted to go take that, like, grab that big pot of money, then it would mean saying no to the opportunities that were opening right in front of me. That was using my anger as fuel. I could feel that who I was showing up as in the world wasn't my authentic sel off path. And I could feel it. Those parts that have tried to, quote, unquote, limit me are really just trying to protect me.

From what?

From.

So when we look at this concept of emotional illiteracy, Somebody that can't feel their feelings, yeah, men are women, but maybe the answer is geared towards men. If someone can't feel their feelings, what is the silent cost that they're unconsciously playing out in their life?

Well, I mean, I think there's two pieces here. There's the personal cost to emotional illiteracy, and I mean, there's many different levels to this. Just like with literacy in regards to language and mathematics and writing. If we look at where we are today, 90% of the global population are literate. 200 years ago, only 12% of the global population were literate in writing, mathematics, reading. So we made a massive leap there. But I also think we're in a moment in time where we are learning how to be emotionally literate. And I think this is. This applies to men and women. We're learning how to regulate our emotions so that we can be in a state of connection. We're learning how to communicate with one another. These are skills and tools that I didn't get taught. I had to go learn myself, which allow me to be in better relationship with myself. They allow me to bring my gifts out of myself, and they allow me to be more connected to our earth. And to one another. However, most of us didn't grow up with those gifts. Most of us didn't get taught those things, but we got taught maths and English and learning how to read and write. And I think in this moment in time, we are learning those skills. I think the reason that your podcast is doing so well is. Is because we're talking about how to do this. And I think people are hungry to learn how to do this because the cost of it is all of the addiction that we see in the world. It's the political systems that we see. It's the lack of care and intelligence in terms of how business is done. It's impacting everything. And if we don't have the capacity to feel a sense of love and connection to ourselves and to one another, that's the neurochemistry of suffering. And that neurochemistry of suffering is what leads us to reach and grab for whatever it might be. Whether it's too much food, too much sex, too much chocolate, whatever. The thing is, we reach for it. And that's where the kind of spirals down begin.

We're in a world of society having hooks. Modernity has hooks where it wants to monetize our suffering or really monetize our forgotten self. That we are loved, that we're supported, that we're on the right path. And I find that to be the most fascinating yet painful thing at times. This hidden cost of not being able to feel. To put it in simple terms, there was decades of my life where I didn't even know that. I didn't know I had complete unconscious incompetence around my somatic system and the nervous system in general. I find it very fascinating that your father leaves when you're six months old and you were bullied and you had a diagnosis or, let's be honest, many times a bullshit label of adhd. Can you look back now after many, many years of heroes journeys and see that that was actually perfect? Can you craft a story and a picture of why your dad left, why the ADHD was there, and what was mom doing at this time?

All of it. All of it. I mean, it's one of those weird things, right, that the suffering that we go through, well, I wouldn't wish it for anyone. But at the same time, when, you know, we fast forward into where I'm today, I'm super grateful for it. It's one of those paradoxes of life. But, yeah, going back, I mean, I had three fathers. My first father left when he. When I was Six months old, and that was a difficult relationship. My second father, he was giant. Like, this giant man. Everyone was terrified of him. He was involved in car and drug crime, and, yeah, my whole family was terrified of him. And when my mom left him, he threatened to. Threatened to kill her. And, I mean, there was acid poured on our cars. There was. Tires were slashed. I was living in fear the whole time he was in my life. And he was also my greatest teacher, because at first, it was just pure anger and hatred. I was so frustrated at seeing how he'd hurt me and hurt my family and hurt my mom. And I'm a little boy, and I'm feeling helpless and in that state. And where I was looking at, whether it be the Rocky movies or whether it be Terminator, kind of. Those movies were big when I was growing up. And I always had this idea, okay, I'm gonna. One day I'm gonna be like those guys. One day I'm gonna be a hero. I'm gonna get strong. I'm gonna get big so that I can protect myself and my mom and my family. And I went down that route. I mean, that's. My previous business was in the fitness industry. I was a competitive bodybuilder. I was Northeast champion. I was second in the UK Heavyweights, and that was a great journey. But what I was doing there is I was using my anger as fuel. And it's a great fuel. I mean, you can really get amped up on. Like, I'm gonna prove you wrong.

My favorite quote from the Terminator is when he says, anger is more powerful than despair.

Wow.

Is exactly what you're describing.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a great feel.

I mean, think what you want about Schwarzenegger, but that quote, anger is more powerful than despair. It's exactly the. The bolus of what you're sharing.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. And. But it's a dangerous fuel, and it's like fossil fuels. I mean, there's power to it. It works, but it didn't actually create the type of life that I wanted.

It's a come at a cost. Fuel source.

Yeah.

What is the cost?

The cost was my authenticity. The cost was my heart. The cost was my relationships. I mean, everything that's important was the cost. How so?

Specifically?

I mean, I found that when I'm in a negative relationship with someone, like. Like a. Like a. Like I was with my stepfather, I'm actually more in. I'm in, like, a super relationship with him. I think I'm in Defiance, but I'm I'm actually like super locked in that relationship and what was happening inside of that. Even though I was like growing against, I was actually becoming more like I was becoming more like him and becoming more like my father. And I then had to wrestle with like, okay, cool. Like I can feel that I'm not truly being myself. I could feel that who I was showing up, showing up as in the world wasn't my authentic self. I wasn't really doing the things that I was interested in. I was like I was off path and I could feel it. I mean, it was difficult to fully consciously understand it, but it was a felt experience that was. I'm not in my lane and I'd already began practicing maybe meditation at around age 21, 22. And I'm reading books, I'm starting to get into personal growth work and that's starting to give me some little insights, some little breaks. And at about age 25, I saw it clearly all the way through and I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I can't live this life. Because it felt like a lie. And what I actually really wanted was love, was relationships that worked, was friendships that were mutually supportive, was a career that was aligned with my deepest values. And I was willing to risk everything to walk towards that.

I mean, we're going to tease out some of that story because it's so good. You have a really beautiful timeline on your website. I don't know if anybody has told you that before. It really breaks down the stages of your life. So it's rickwilliam.com is the website. And one thing that really inspired me was that early on you got this note from, from your soul and it said, go towards video games. Make video games the thing that you love your profession. But your friends ended up making seven figures but you left because of quote, safe adult advice. So when I look back on your life story, it seems like it's been this kind of bump and grind and bloody and up and down journey of you just coming home to yourself, just actually knowing who you are, trusting your emotional body, which is exactly perfect for how you serve now. But take us there because that's so important for people that have wanted to do something that had this huge in fuego fire in their soul. They knew exactly what they wanted, but they listened to quote, safe adult advice who paradoxically those adults didn't know how to feel and they were projecting that illiteracy, that emotional illiteracy onto you. Do you remember what that was like? I mean it's in your timeline for a reason.

Yeah, yeah, no, I do. It was a great lesson. And just to rewind a little bit, there was a blessing that happened just before that came into my life and it kind of links my story through in many ways. And you know, sometimes things fall into our lives and I think things fall into our lives for a reason. And what fell into my life when I was about 14 was a book, a recording actually by a guy called Paul McKenna. He's a hypnotist and he supports people in transforming beliefs. So I'm kind of like, just like I'm living in a mining town. I mean there's not too much going on. I'm playing video games but not at that level. And I remember this tape that was always in my mum's, you know, like a CD cassette draw place under the hi Fi Remember Hi.

I remember. I remember VHS and tapes. I'm 44 bro, so I get it.

I look great for 44 bro. Yeah. So I pull out the, I pull this out and I got this little success tape and I just start listening to it every single night before I go to bed.

Was it your mom's tape?

It was my mom's tape. I don't know if she ever listened to it but I like, I pulled it out, I listened to it every night for maybe two weeks. And it's all about allowing yourself to expand your view for success for what's possible and changing the beliefs of what might be limiting you from going to this next level. Anyway, I listened to this tape for two weeks and I don't think it's a coincidence that about three or four weeks after that I decide I'm like, I'm going to get my team sponsored and I go onto Google and I get this list of 100 energy drinks companies and start phoning through that list. One of the companies was called Liquid Lightning. I don't know if they're still around but they sponsored us and we got to fly around the states playing video games and we were already generating wealth from it. I mean I'm a teenager and I'm flying around playing video games. But still in that moment I was listening to my parents who were like, you know, this isn't a long term career. I mean it's great that you've done this, it's a great lesson, but it's not going to be a long term career. And that's when I started to listen. I mean it's a, it's, it makes sense, right? You're a teenager. And people are older than you, obviously they know more, but. But they didn't understand. I have compassionate care for it. They just didn't understand the emergent industry, that video games was going to be one of the biggest industries in the world. I mean, it is the entertainment industry. The gaming industry is huge, bigger than music. So. But they didn't see that. But it was a great lesson for me, one in getting me to understand, like, okay, cool. There's something inside of me that can track what other people can't necessarily see. Okay, good lesson. And the blessing there of, wow, I can actually change and do things that are beyond what I previously thought was possible. And that was a really good early blessing because it kind of set the precedent for other things that came in the future.

It's such a great story because I think all of us can relate to feeling a fire in the soul to which we want to follow the direction of. But then we get a voice that comes in, meaning. Well, by the way.

Yeah.

Right. I don't feel that our parents or your parents or our caregivers consciously want to harm us or want to steal us from our dream path, but unconsciously, if they're not emotionally literate, which is how we started the conversation, they're going to. Unconsciously or even even consciously at times, they may cast their shadow on our life because they themselves haven't been able to feel their own dream. Yeah. And I think that's really where so many people get robbed from their path of excitement and liberation and life and just feeling alive and just living. And it's not to blame. I'm not here to place blame on parents, but it's something to be aware of. I wonder if we can unpack that a little bit more before we go into the stories. What is it about the psyche of our caregivers that, for your mom's case, attracted a violent man, but yet they didn't know that. They didn't know. They tell us to be safe, but then that robs us from our dream path. In other words, what is it about the psyche of our caregiver that can unknowingly rob us of our zeal or our zest for life? What is that?

Well, I think at the root of most challenges that we face, whether it be personally or whether in this case we're talking about our parents, is a lack of safety. And, you know, if we look at it from the Eastern tradition, they talk about karma. If we look at it from a Western perspective, we talk about transgenerational trauma. So There are just patterns that are coming down the line, you know. Born in a mining town. My mom was born in a mining town. She was a small, very dark skinned, actual, actually Caucasian woman, but she was really dark skinned. So she was actually. She received a lot of racism and bullying and abuse growing up because people thought she was from India. You're dealing with that, you're dealing with just like all the other things that my mom had to grow up and go through, creating a level of what I suspect is just unsafety in her nervous system. My dad leaves at six months old. She's a single mom. This guy's powerful and offers potential protection. And there's your, there's the in. So, you know, I think a lot of what we are dealing with is just a lack of safety. Am I safe? And that's really the baseline because from that place of safety we can be in our bodies, we can be in our nervous systems, we can be in our hearts, we can express. It's the foundation upon which every other aspect of self is built upon.

What are the ways that safety gets robbed or we convince ourselves that we're not safe?

Yeah.

What does that feel like or look like?

I think it's super deep. I mean we're talking about hundreds, thousands of years of evolution of prey, predator. And just everything that's happened in regards to the human story at some level is stored in the water of the body. It's stored in the, you know, the issues are in the tissues. So it's all here somewhere. We might not be cognizant or conscious of it, but, but those am I safe Questions are running the whole time. And what I thought was going to be like a massive heroic, spiritual psychological journey turns out to predominantly be about sitting down and making yourself feel safe and safety being. I mean, I'm laughing and joking, but at the same time it's so nuanced and also so beautiful because it's the, it's from that place that everything grows. It's like it is the main ingredient of the soil. If we were going to talk about the key ingredients of what creates the environment for human beings to thrive physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, all of it. Safety is the key ingredient that we want to bake in there. There's more, but that's the base.

I was speaking with Alison Armstrong a couple years ago and she's a wonderful world class coach about teaching women to understand men. And she said that, you know, the paradox of safety is that everyone wants to have their partner make them feel safe. But really, you are the only person that can make yourself feel safe. How paradoxical is that? What. What do you feel about that as a man who's serving so many people in really coming back to their feelings themselves? Do you believe in that? Do you believe that there's some nuance there? Or do you take it upon yourself through your own teachings to realize safety is my job. That is not my partner's job.

Well, I think the basis of it is we start here and then from that place of locking in my own safety, learning how to emotionally regulate, learning how to be with my experience to greater and greater degrees, which is beneficial for just personal life, but it's also beneficial for high performance out in the world as well. So creating the safety here, vital. But I also believe it's a gift that I get to give, is creating safety inside the relationships that I'm in.

So you feel like it's a yes and it's a yes.

And to Allison's point, yeah, I think it's a yes.

And what's the and specifically?

Well, the and is recognizing what is hurt in relationship is healed in relationships. So the first relationship is we start here, we put our own gas mask on, we learn how to do it here. But that's also not enough. You want to just be a completely healed, thriving individual all by yourself? I mean, there's no such thing.

You ain't going to grow too much if you're just doing it all alone anyways.

Yeah. I mean, and it would be boring.

Yeah.

We are interrelational beings as an inter relational field that we're living inside of in all times and all moments. And as that understanding begins to deepen and deepen and deepen and deepen, then I feel the natural heart to want to give. That becomes more and more evident. And then we start to see that, well, why are we doing all of this inner work in the first place? I mean, anything that's amazing, whether it be food, good tea, good movies, good. Whatever it is, it's always better shared. So what better than being able to share this? To share the gifts of what we're learning here in regards to emotional psychological literacy.

I find it utterly fascinating. And I've never said this before, but being in this conversation with you creates new things is why I love podcasting. The concept of personal development, from an etymology perspective signifies that one does it alone. Personal development, inward development. But I think it's actually bullshit. I think really what we're talking about here is collective development by doing the individual work. Yes. Because we're wounded many times. Actually, most of the times were wounded in community or in tribe. So it would only make sense logically and also spiritually that we would heal in community or in tribe if we're left alone and we're a child and we have this innate beauty that we're so beautiful and healed and whole. I mean, I look at my children and they teach me every day what personal development is by them just being. They don't have to do anything to teach me. They just are. It's so wonderful. Almost makes me want to cry just talking about it. It's so amazing. I think that's why we have children, because they teach us how to be in life. The roundabout place I'm getting at is the personal development industry, I think, is rife with charlatans. It's rife with people that just want to make money, and that's their karma, that's their journey. I'm not judging them, but I think what you offer is a different perspective, and I'd love to get a little more deep into that perspective. How do you define personal development? But how does it really relate to healing in tribe or healing with others?

Firstly, my belief is that obviously we are separate individuals, but at the same time, that's also not true. There is no real separate individual. We are interconnected. And in terms of all fields, in regards to a very practical level, in terms of just our relationships, there is no individual. If we look at what happened with COVID I mean, that spread around the world pretty quick, and it spread through breath, and within, what, a month or two, the whole world had it. So at a very practical level, we're all interconnected. But I also believe beyond that, that we're all interconnected, that we are here on this journey together, and that as we heal and grow, that it's not even just my process. It feels like it's a planetary process that I am a blessed part of and get to be a part of. And therefore, my sense is that we're actually learning and growing together. Because everything that we're talking about here, every single process that I've been able to go through, every insight and wisdom and benefit that I've had in this life has actually come from other people, is the truth of it. Everything. Everything. If we look at all of the great teachings, if we look at the field of psychology as a teaching, if we look at the field of Buddhism as a teaching, if we look at all of these different fields, personal development in itself is a teaching. They all came from other people. They all came from the gifts of other people. So we are in this field together. And my belief is that we're in a greater journey together. And our planet is evolving through different stages as we are evolving through different stages. And I believe I get to play. We get to play a part in that. And I mean, what a gift.

Yeah. All wisdom is borrowed and reimagined. I don't know if someone else has said that. They probably have, but I just spoke that because every single guest, your guest, 700 something, has imparted some wisdom to me that I assimilate and bring into myself, and then I bring it back out into the world with my own unique expression of my own consciousness. So all wisdom is borrowed. It's truly in alignment from a scientific perspective too. I mean, you could play the spiritual side of this. You could also, for the people that are more dominant, logical brains say, well, this is actually science too, because, you know, the law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transmuted. In other words, I can't snap my fingers and create more energy than what's here. I'm just moving and sifting and sorting energy. So if that's truly the case on a scientific level, then how could it also not be true that it's the truth on a spiritual level as well, on a collective level as well?

I think that's where we're at, the emergence of the traditions, spirituality and science. I think we're at a massive bridging moment. And if we look at, whether it be the 2022 Nobel Prize winners on non local reality, or we look at Annika Harris's work on the fundamentals of consciousness, or we look at the, you know, Indo Tibetans understanding of non dual reality. It's. I mean, if you cross reference those three things, they're saying the same things in slightly different language, pointing at the same piece.

What happened in 2022 with the Nobel Prize?

So you're gonna have to pull up their. The names of the specific scientists involved. I can't recall them in this moment, but the, the prize that they won was that they recognized that reality is non local, basically proving for the first time what had been hypothesized formally in quantum mechanics and quantum science. So they've basically proven that it's true that reality is non local, which pairs beautifully with the understanding of non duality from the Eastern teachings that these things are in this beautiful emergence of understanding that we have the greatest scientists on Earth saying the same things as the greatest mystics.

So we're the player and the programmer at the same time. At the same time, I find it fascinating. I don't know if you've read, I'm not too deep on Popular Mechanics, but I did see an article once that said the coldest computers, the ones that can process quantumly, both zeros and ones at the same time, I think they have to run them at 200 degrees Celsius minus. I don't know the exact numbers, but it's literally the coldest temperature on Earth because they're generating so much heat as they process in superposition in the quantum. And I find it utterly fascinating that we're so focused on the scientific part because really, in a blind eye, I think we're all searching for meaning. Science is really a search for meaning. The Socratic method is about proving theory and disproving so we can find the ultimate truth. Isn't that what this is really about? And so I wonder how you feel about this. If we're spending so much energy and we're putting all that chi into science, the danger is that science can become so intellectualized that we lose our sense of spirit, of feeling and of spirituality, of connection to God. How do we bring those worlds together? This is a very complicated question, but I'm interested in things like this. How can we take the energy we're pouring into science and share that energy equally into the non explainable, only the feelable.

When this is where the. Whether it be the traditions of the Andes, the shamanic traditions, or whether we look at the traditions from Tibet and Nepal, the Buddhist traditions, their scientific study, especially the Buddhists, we're looking at how both do we understand that intellectually, but also how do we come to an embodied experience of what we're referring to here?

That's it.

And I think what we have to learn to do in the west is how to meet these two technologies together. Because the Socratic method and science itself is beautiful. There is incredible intelligence inside of that. And if we compare that with embodied experience and then that starts to be able to be democratized so that more people can experience it. So this isn't just something that we're understanding intellectually, but we're starting to feel the interconnected field. We're starting to feel what non duality might feel like. We're starting to feel like a connection to the cosmos and to God. It's not just something that's conceptual, it's something that is available and accessible to all of us. Well then once we Figure that out, it's going to be a very different world. And I think that's what we're actually in the process of. If you zoom out, I mean, that's what it looks like to me.

Curious what the purpose driven people are. The ones that are doing their very best to answer that question. And whether they're purpose driven in your world of development of self and others through the collective, whether they're a scientist trying to find what the AI can do for us and help us grow our humanity and our consciousness. That's a whole nother conversation. I think what's really, really. What really lights me up is that everybody on purpose is doing the work to meet themselves exactly where they are, or they won't continue on the journey to actualize their purpose. You talk a lot about purpose. I'm sure a lot of people come to work with you because they're in a struggle of their purpose. So whether they're trying to answer the question of non duality or the meaning of their life. Already the threads in this conversation are kind of weaving around this basket. That's really the question inside of the basket is if we're also striving for purpose, what is a lie that we've believed about what purpose actually is?

What do you believe would be one of the lies around purpose that we.

I like how you threw that right back at me.

Yeah, I did. Yeah.

I think that one of that's a. You're a great coach. The striving for purpose is dependent upon the fuel source in which it comes from. In other words, you talked about how you wanted to be buff and strong. That was your purpose at that time. But in order to get real clarity on my purpose and our purpose, we have to actually have the awareness or the consciousness to see why our story has unfolded in the first place. Otherwise we'll just try to drive the engine from anger and frustration the whole time. It's like on the screen right now is the map of consciousness by Dr. Hawkins. And I reference this time and time and time and time again because it is the most powerful tool. I believe it is a map of consciousness. It's on the wall in the studio. When we get stuck in these survival emotions, then we don't have the wisdom to look back at our story and create love and joy as a fuel source to drive our purpose. So I think one of the lies we've been taught about purpose is that you have to suffer for it. You have to bleed for it.

You.

You have to scrap and save and fight and steal and take from others in order to live your purpose. And I just think that's the wrong fuel source. We're stuck in these lower level emotions that Hawkins so beautifully articulated. I think that the way we really find purpose is to have the wisdom, to look back on our story, to let go of all the things that aren't loving, and to move forward with love and joy, knowing that hardships will happen and we'll get stuck in the emotions again. But having the intuition and the training and the ability to move energy and emotions through our body is actually what brings us to a sustainable fuel source. So that not only do we not age, but we live life, we live well, which is the whole point, that's why we're here, is to learn how to live our purpose and do it from a place of love and live it well. And the lie we've been told is that we have to fucking suffer so deeply. And maybe at times we have to suffer, but not so deeply and not so long. So I pass it back to you.

You teed me up. So to add on to that, I love Hawkins map, one of the things that I notice inside of Hawkins map, which links into our whole conversation is that really what we're learning how to do inside of that map is how to be with all of it. You know, it's. How do we be with the full spectrum of that map? Because what tends to happen, what tended to happen to me is those lower emotions, which I think the lowest is shame.

Yes.

Yep, yep. I mean, if we look at it as a circle, shame is right next to enlightenment. If, if that map's actually a circle, let's not sidetrack us. But in order to actually move up the map or in order to actually live our lives more skillfully, more authentically, more on purpose, what I've found to be true, which links into what you're saying, is actually learning how, and this is what I teach all my clients, is learning how to build a resource of love. I mean, no matter who you are, where you've been, we've all been. If we're here and we're listening to this conversation, no matter what happened, people cared for you enough for you to be here. It would be impossible for you to be here if there wasn't some people in some way supporting you to be here right now.

Yeah.

Yeah. So inside of that, we can pretty much guarantee there we're going to be moments of love and connection and appreciation, whether they're glimmers or whether there's a Lot of it. So first we got to connect to that. We got to connect to the heart. You know, in the Buddhist tradition, they call this bodhicitta. Get your bodhicitta online, get your heart mind online, which is basically like learning how to resource. In polyvagal theory, which is like the science of the nervous system, this would be ventral vagal, the space of connection, love, and safety. So first we learn how to get that online, we learn how to connect with that, and then from there, it's then learning how to be with those lower emotions from that place. And that's what starts to create the firstly, the self sovereignty of, oh, my God, I can be with guilt. Wow. I can be with fear. Wow. I can be with shame. Wow. And then from that place, we're no longer in bondage, trying to run from the things that we're afraid of, because the things that I was actually afraid of were actually feeling those emotions, feeling the anger that was inside, feeling the shame and guilt for the things that I'd done wrong towards other people, and trying to bury all of that down. However, when I learned how to bring my heart online, that is courageous, that is strong, that is loving, that is compassionate. Learn how to bring that online, which we all have, and then start to process those lower emotions. Then from that place, that's where our authentic self comes online. Because we're no longer having to create masks and mask and masks to try and prove myself to someone else. I can actually just be myself because I've got me, you know, learning how to put your gas mask on first. Put your mask on first. So when we can learn how to do that, then we can take states of stress and we can bring it back into connection. We can take states of deactivation, depression, shame, guilt, bring it back to connection. And then from that place, we get that spinning in someone. It's a skill set. We get that spinning in someone, then from that place, they start to feel like, oh, wow, I can actually do this. I can actually do this. And it's a skill.

It's a capacity. What I get from you, it's a capacity question, how much capacity can I have? And I could be wrong. So bear with me. As I figure this out, isn't it great that we don't have to have everything figured out, y'? All, it's beautiful. That's why we're here talking, right? Conversation is actually the proving ground where curiosity can bring us answers as to how we can love each other more and do the things that light us up. It's the most beautiful place. Shame, you said, is this 20, which it is, and I believe above shame is fear, guilt, apathy, and so on and so forth. Once you start getting to the expressive paradigm, or even to the actualized and enlightenment paradigm, that becomes this place where everybody wants to be. In other words, it's easy for me to sit here on this podcast and say we should all love each other. Come on, this is the whole game. Rake us to love each other, yet it's so hard at times to do so. And I wonder, going back to that initial question of purpose, because I know you reach the heart of many people, whether it's an athlete or a celebrity, like the people that come into your coaching. They've already found purpose in a way, but maybe they're confused now as to how it can be sustainable. And so the past 10 minutes or so we've been exploring this nuance of fuel source and of course the emotional body. You said that when things are turned off or these lower level emotions, I think that what gets us to a first phase of purpose or a first layer of purpose at some point, I know I felt this. We can't move on. We can't move forward with the next phase of our purpose with the same fuel source that got us there. Obviously, for confidentiality, you can't name names, but can you go into your memory of clients, maybe someone who's operating at a super high level, and explain a story about how they came to you and they realized that what got them here isn't going to get them there anymore. And how did you recapitulate and reimagine a new reality for them with all the constructs that we've discussed, what did that feeling look like?

Well, I think this applies to so many people. Whether you find yourself in just a job that you're doing great at, or whether it's a job that you're. A career path that you're super succeeding at. I can think of multiple clients who found themselves in a similar position, that they were thriving in their careers, but they also recognized that the fuel source that it was coming from was trying to prove something. They could feel in their body that I'm trying to prove something, and that didn't sit well with them. They were starting to become aware that that wasn't necessarily their authentic expression. It doesn't mean they didn't get to learn things from that. It doesn't mean their authentic expression wasn't woven into what they're doing.

It's perfect that they learned what that.

Fuel feels like, yeah, and I mean that fuel source is great to have online. You're essentially learning how to, you know, from a neurochemical perspective, you're learning how dopamine and you know, norepinephrine works. You know, you can get, get shit done equally. Getting shit done doesn't necessarily create fulfillment. Getting shit done and performing at a high level doesn't necessarily create coherency and alignment and connection and love and passion in your relationships or in your mission and projects. And what tends to happen, what tends to be the pattern is that the fuel source of push creates so much external validation that that then becomes the fuel. But inside of that you don't then ever feel the fulfillment. You don't ever really feel that. This is a natural expression of who I am. So the first part is always getting someone to come back to their body and to allow themselves to self validate. So it's not that we don't need or desire validation for one another. This is not an either or conversation, it's nuanced. But it's just that you want to have at least if there was a percentage scale, if you're 51% self validating, you're good. But if you've got a massive bucket and you've got a hole in the bottom of the bucket, which no matter how much water you pour into it, no matter how much you pour into it, is just falling out the bottom, then it's never going to be enough. No matter how many jets, accolades, planes, how much money, how much wealth, how much fame you get, it's just going to fall out the bucket and then you're going to think you need to put more in. And this is what, when people come to me, this is often what's happening. But we first got to learn how to repair, bring that bucket back to wholeness, learn how to self validate, learn to stop running. Because you realize now at this point, it doesn't work from everything you've been running from, which can be terrifying. I mean, it takes real courage to turn around and to deal with the patterns of dysregulation or to deal with shame and guilt that maybe no one in your family has ever dealt with. Because if they had, they'd probably have taught you the skills. So compassion for self, for your family, and a level of okay, cool, let's do this. Let's have the courage and strength to resolve this, knowing that that's going to benefit every single person that you're around. Because if you're feeling unfulfilled if you're feeling disconnected, I can guarantee your wife's feeling that, I can guarantee your team's feeling that, I can guarantee your kids are feeling that. And then we pass the same patterns down to them as we are realizing that we've received from our ancestors. So what an amazing opportunity that can propel our courage to be like, I matter, this matters, we matter.

Happiness and fulfillment are potentially brother and sister. I don't know how you feel about that. But if happy, you know, purpose we talked about happiness is like this fleeting thing. I remember Mo Gao Dot, we interviewed each other years ago.

Was he a Google guy?

He was a Google guy, yeah. And he lost his son to a medical error and it was heartbreaking. But his entire speaking career and his whole mission in life is to actually re educate people on what happiness actually is. And I think the same lies that we've been told about purpose that you and I played tennis with right now, I want to play tennis with you about happiness. What is one of the biggest lies about happiness that we've been taught by movies or sold that simply isn't true and don't give it to me. I want you to answer this time. What's a lie that you used to believe about being happy that you know now is just completely false? And how did you shift your awareness and reality about that to redefine happiness?

Well, I think the lie that I was taught is that Coca Cola would bring me happiness or McDonald's would bring me happiness. These stories and narratives, I mean, it's called a Happy Meal. And I think that plays into the narrative and lie that I grew up with, and I think many of us did, is that happiness is something outside. Happiness is something that we get from a product, that we get from a company, that we get from someone else. And the truth that I found is that, you know, happiness is self generated. Happiness is the neurochemistry of oxytocin, serotonin in my own heart field of which I can connect with in any moment and then share that with friends, share that with family and that we actually have the capacity to, to generate that within without anything else.

Easily said, but maybe more challenging to actually embody. What's something about your life that you can look back on and say, wow, at that moment it was so hard for me to see it as a new understanding of happiness, but now you can see it exactly for what it is. Simplistically asked, what is something in your life that you thought would make you happy that didn't? And how can you see it now as pure perfection, man?

I mean, it's a long list.

Well, what's one that floats up?

First I thought success would make me happy, and it didn't. And that was hard to swallow because so much of my identity was wrapped up in the idea that, you know, me getting out of that mining town and being successful enough to do that and getting the notoriety in my industry would make me feel happy. And it didn't. It solved some problems, but it didn't solve the problem of happiness because that's a distinctly different skill set. Which then was perfect because it then led me to finding the teachers and mentors and guides that supported me to come to greater and greater and greater levels of internal self sovereignty.

So it was the fitness space. You were a very successful bodybuilder. I mean, it's on the screen right now, a picture of him like you're chiseled. Did that fuel that got you there constitute of anger or was there anything else besides trying to prove?

I mean, that was anger and trying to prove.

Was there anything else or that was it just anger and trying to prove?

I mean. I mean, there was the positive element. There is. I do. I still love the gym. I mean, we were talking about the gym the other day. There was an element of empowerment inside of that. And empowerment's beautiful. I mean, I want empowerment for everyone. But again, empowerment from the foundation of I'm not good enough, I'm not safe enough, I'm not loved, is not the right foundation. Now, if you got the foundation right and you're building that foundation of enoughness of self respect and self love, and then you have the things, whether it be fame or money or success, I'm for all of those things. For anyone who wouldn't want that for their children, their friends, their family. Yes. However, the place that it's coming from is what's most important.

So when you were essentially broken, or we've heard this phrase many times, dark night of the soul, someone gets to their knees and prays to God in some way? You were faced with this question. It was like, am I going to stay in my fitness business for two, three more years and make a bunch of money and exit, or am I going to do something that's aligned with my soul? Most people that are on the lower vibrational aspect would be like, take the money and run, y'. All. Take the money with your fitness business and run. But you said no, you left. I don't know how much money it was. It was a significant amount of money on the table. And you said, no, I'm going to. I'm going to go the path of actually listening to who I am and my soul. Does that still feel real, the power of conviction in your body in this moment as it did back then? And can you share that story more?

So it was the best decision I ever made in my life.

How much money did you leave on the table?

3.2 million.

Somebody's watching right now going, what the Fuck? You left 3.2 million on the table. Why?

Because I recognized that in order for me, there was a choice moment. And I think we all get these choice moments in our life that if I wanted to go take that, like, grab that big pot of money, then it would mean saying no to the opportunities that were opening right in front of me. I mean, I just met my first mentor and his wife, Preston Smiles. Alexi Panos. You might be familiar with that.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And I was get. I was surrounded by just incredible people who were starting to really inspire me and show me a new way of being and that was emerging in my life. So I was getting invited places. There was opportunity, albeit very early, that was starting to seed, that was starting to show that if. If I go this way and I could feel it, other things are going to unfold for you. However, there was a huge part of me being like, I've just spent my whole life, or at least the last.

Five years, $3.2 million, y'. All.

Yeah. And it's right there. But I could feel that if I chose that, I'd be choosing everything else that goes with that. I'd be choosing coming back there to the relationships that were there, to the patterns that were there. Or I could let that go and trust myself enough that no matter how much money we make, no matter what we make, that's never going to be enough. What's actually more important than that, when it comes to sovereignty, is actually having the capacity to be able to do that again. Because if we give someone 10 million bucks, 100 million bucks, but we don't teach them how to do it, they're not going to feel very comfortable with that. They're either going to blow it, spend it, or grasp it really tightly.

Yeah.

But if we learn that, it's actually we teach someone, whether that be others or ourselves, how to generate. Because the real resource is resourcefulness. And I recognize. Okay, cool. I've done that before. I mean, I did great things in my gaming. I've done great things here. Can I just trust myself to Walk this new path and recognize that the resources are right here.

How have you cultivated. This is an interesting question for anyone that's lost in their purpose right now. How have you cultivated the aspect of your awareness that allows future success that's not physically present yet to be seen? In other words, how do you have these deep premonitions about what will be successful? How have you cultivated that specific awareness inside of yourself? I think that could really help people that are lost.

Well, I think it goes back to that story we were talking about before. When I was 14, I recognized that when I first follow the things that I love and that I'm actually passionate about, of which the field of transformation is one of them. I mean, the hypnosis was weaving in back there. There are, I mean, deeper experiences that I'd had growing up as a teen that we've not talked about. But that thread was there my whole life and fascinated with psychology and human consciousness and the planet and nature and God, the universe, and deeply passionate about it even when everyone wasn't. And it was weird to talk about these types of things. And I knew that even though other people can't see it, there is something incredible emerging here in this field. And it's still emerging. I mean, we're a decade in. Your show's been around a decade. And I'm sure you've seen the changes in terms of what's happening here in the field, the popularization of the inner work.

It's profoundly profound. Profoundly, Yeah.

I mean, it's on. We're talking major news networks talking about it. We're talking about all the biggest podcasts in the world are talking. I mean, it's like it's happening. It's happening. And just like when I was 14 years old, I got a sense internally, like intuitive. Wow. I kind of sensed then, okay, gaming is going to be a real thing. It was early. No one else could see it. And I have the same feeling right now with, and I have for some time that with the, let's just call it inner tech, encompassing all of it is going to be huge. It's going to be the most important part of our lives in many ways. Because in order to transition from where we are now as a planet into where we are going, this emotional psycho spiritual literacy has to come online so that we can make this leap from separate self individuals upon which all of that which comes with that, the depression, the disconnection, the lack of purpose, the lack of meaning, all of those different things are all intertwined with that. So we have to learn how to solve this so that we can mature as individuals, as people, as communities, as families, and then also as a planet.

I'm going to dig a little deeper. Is there a specific practice or set of practices that allows you to massage and refine and increase the volume of that intuitive faculty to which you can feel these premonitions or these trends stronger?

I think so. And I think there are three key pieces when it comes to, let's say the. I've been trying to ask this question for my whole life.

I'm selfishly asking it for me, y'.

All.

That's what this podcast is. If you haven't figured it out.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? When we're doing the thing that we love the most, there is no selfishness. Selfishness is an illusion. It's like when you see. And I mean, I'm sharing this because it took me a while to land here, but for people listening, we sometimes have this idea that our gift, that our gift is somehow selfish. But if you think of your favorite musician on stage and they're just, like, blaring it, blasting it from their heart, from their soul, no one's thinking, wow, he's so fucking all about himself. She's so all about herself. Never. No one ever thinks that. They're just like, wow, thank you. This is amazing because as we give of our greatest gift, we give it to ourselves and we give it to the world. And that's where there's, you know, it's like, what is most personal is most universal. What is most universal is most personal. That is it. That's what we're all looking to do, is to be able to activate ourselves in such a way that we can give of our gifts, and giving of that is the greatest gift.

Man, you're flashing me back to a few different conversations I've heard from Rick Rubin. He's a huge speaker in the art of creation, creating, creativity. And my buddy Luke has interviewed him. He's been interviewed by all the huge shows in the world. And I think someone asked him once, they said, do you ever worry how people will receive your craft or will feel about your art? And he goes, no, I do it for me. It's not for them. And that's why it's so successful. So here's a guy that has literally created music, art, and beautiful things at the highest level possible, at least in this current reality. And his answer was, I do it for me. But you know what was funny is when he said that I Didn't feel an air of egotism. I didn't feel him saying, like, I do it for me because fuck y'.

All.

It's more like, I do it for me because it gives permission to do it for them.

Yeah.

And there's a primary difference that I'd love for you to go into here. When we are expressing from ego or from unintegrated wounds, there's a certain energy, there's a subtle energy that we can all feel from the expresser. When someone is expressing from an integrated wholeness, but they're just expressing because they love the thing and they're just into it. We love it. We can't get enough of it because it's just. It's like I can feel my taste buds right now.

We.

We want that so much because they're just enjoying what they're doing, like I'm enjoying with you right now. This podcast is about my ego, integrating me, learning wisdom, and then recapitulating that and sharing it through my unique lens. So I wonder how you feel about this. People at the highest levels that you've coached, or even people just on the journey, or even yourself. How have you integrated the ego so that when you share, it can be a gift and a treat and a satiation to the permission that's being so sought from everyone that wants it. How have you done that work yourself and with clients?

Well, I think the first piece that I've done with myself and also with clients is working on the parts that don't feel safe to be that. That don't feel good enough, don't feel safe enough, don't feel loved enough, and learning how to be with those parts, those aspects of our self, our psyche, our nervous system, so that I can be there for them and create a level of safety within myself that then allows me to be able to be who I am.

Do you think those parts are coming from fear or judgment?

Absolutely.

What are those parts, and how do those parts try to pull away from the momentum?

Well, I'll speak from my own experience. Those parts that have tried to, quote, unquote, limit me are really just trying to protect me.

From what?

From fear. Based on past conditioning and trauma. I mean, if we all go back to being 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 years old, depending on the level of how much you're seen, how much you're loved, how much safety there was in your home, that's all being learned. We're like sponges just absorbing all of that. You'll see that with your two kids, and then that creates our primary attachment system. So that's am I safe, am I loved, am I secure in myself or for anyone there who's an attachment geek. But I can break this down a very simple way. Our attachment needs are only going to go one of three ways, technically four. The first is that we're going to. We could become graspy. So because my needs aren't getting met, I'm going to grasp for your love. So I'm going to need your love, which could also be food or drugs.

This is the anxious attachment.

That's the anxious attachment. So you got it. And. And the other way is aversion. So, you know, Buddhism would call it aversion. In Western psychology, we call it avoidance. So the other strategy is if my needs aren't getting met, I'm going to pull away. That's another strategy. However, the, the, the middle point and where we want to be inside of ourselves and for one another is security, safety, trust, connection. The fourth one, just because I referenced it before, would be a combination which is disorganized. Sometimes you're grasping or you're anxious or sometimes you're avoiding your.

The vacillator type.

The vacillator type, exactly.

Would that also be ambivalence or. No, ambivalence.

It's. The ambivalence would be separate. Okay, so again, we're just talking about key patterns here. So to go back to your question I worked on, I recognized that that was the aspects of myself, my nervous system that were showing up when I went to share, when I went to open up, when I went to be more intimate with a friend or when to share my gifts, that those parts would be like, oh, they would come up and then they would be like, that's not safe. And I would find something. I'd find something else to do or I'd find a reason or an excuse.

Yeah.

So what made sense to me was, well, why don't I just address what's arising here, bring that back into a state of connection and then take action. And I mean, I had some good teachers too, but that worked. That actually worked. And as I did that, each step, then the integration piece, but okay, cool, now take a step forward, you know, actually begin to integrate that into your life. And I started to feel empowered because I was being given the skills, the liberative skills, in order to regulate my own nervous system in order to how to be with the parts of me that are feeling shame, guilt or fear or not enoughness and bring them back into connection, bring them back into enoughness and then take a step, and then take a step and then something else arises. But if as long as I have the skills or you have the skills or we have the skills, then it's that, that's, that's the empowerment piece. It's not like these things at first for me were super complicated. I was like, oh, like how do I do it? How do I actually transform? How do I embody, how do I integrate? And what really stuck for me and what I really care about and really what really what I want to give to everyone and including all my clients is, is those skills. Like what are the key skills that we need in order to be able to get the wheel moving in regards to our liberative development? And there are some certain core skills that are vital or certainly skillful to learn how to do so that we can then continue on the path.

Now, my next question is about those skills, but it's framed against that initial zesty, amazing question which was how do we express and celebrate our gift without egotism? Right. So that's really the crux of my question. What are some of those key practices of tuning into the nervous system? And what does that look like on a real visceral level?

So if we think about it this way, what we're really looking, how to do is if we're looking to express our gifts, is what are the conditions upon which would naturally allow our gifts to be expressed? So those conditions are obviously internal, internal conditions that allow for us to do that. And a part of that is creating enough safety and trust within ourselves that like, I've got me, ah, my nervous system can settle if fears come up. I got me. If doubt comes up, I, I got that. So that we can then take the step forward towards our own expression, so that we can feel safe enough in ourselves to express to another. Because that's where people get caught, right? It's like if we've got John and Sally here, imaginary characters, and they grew up where they didn't get fully seen by their parents, they lived in a slightly unsafe environment, or they went to school and they didn't quite fit in quite well, and they created beliefs around themselves. Well, even if they were the most incredible musicians or artists or creators, those beliefs and those experiences that will be in their nervous system, in their body are then going to show up when they're 25, 35, 45 years old. When they go to express themselves, they're going to be dealing with the same conditions and patterns that have been there their whole Life. And the challenge is, as we get older, those patterns can then start to deepen themselves and we can start to affirm them as a part of who we are. And this is where the inner text's really helpful, especially the Buddhist tech is because we start to see that the self that we've created is actually constructed. We have constructed a self and it has been conditioned, which is beautiful because it means it can be reconditioned with the ingredients, the soil, the nutrients that allow our gifts to flow, that allow our gifts to thrive. Like if you imagine a big beautiful fruit tree, we want to give that fruit tree the nutrients in order for it to give of its fruits. And as it gives of its fruits, the birds, the animals eat them and then they go and they plant those seeds more and more. It just becomes this beautiful, harmonious cycle of nature and life, of giving and receiving and what we're looking, how to do within ourselves. What I've been looking to do this whole time is to create the internal conditions so that I have self sovereignty, that I have access to serotonin and oxytocin, that I don't need it from other things. I can access love within myself and that I have the capacity to be able to focus on that which is important to me, whether that be a conversation, whether that be with my wife, whether that be on a project that I'm working on so I can express what's here on my heart.

And the building blocks of that is what I'm most interested in. So I, I understand what you're saying. I can actually feel it when you're saying it. So I know it's real, this concept of the construct, because it is, it's lit. I just did an AMA before the turn of the year and I had this realization that I am programming my game and I'm the main player. You know, you have a video game background, so look at how they code NPCs, the non player characters. Most people in the world, unfortunately. But it's a vacuum that's been created and they're going to become major players, which is why we're here. Most people are NPCs, non player characters. They're in the background, just like repeating the same tasks. They're background characters. The main character is all of us. We're all the main character. Yet we've just forgotten that we are the. Because like you said, as we grow, the construct gets hardened or reinforced in a way by unconscious evidence that we collect. That then further validates the concentration of that construct. Cool words that I said. But essentially you keep thinking the same way that you think and your life is going to be the same as it always has been. So if something's really coded in, and I'm talking like on the motherboard, because we have wetware and software and hardware and it's all wet and soft and hard, that's a cool way to think about it. If it's in there, how do we change the hardware? Do we start with the wetware first? Do we start with the software first? Like, where do we begin to suss out a construct or a limiting belief system or set of beliefs that we can have a sense in our journey are not of service anymore. They're not here to serve us anymore. We can't fight against them because if we fight against them, we just feed them. So what does it look like to let those belief systems go so that we can have a new construct? But like, really, how do we do it? How do we do that?

Well, I'll share what the best, the best of what I've found to date and I'll break it down into some different systems. But the first piece is that we really have to learn how to create a sense of safety and trust in our body. So this is the resource building and the most people. The reason that most people struggle to do, say, meditation as a practice is because when we sit down, that's where we're going to come in contact with where we're actually at, which might be. I'm not actually fully safe now.

That's so true.

I didn't realize that I wasn't actually safe because I'd been swimming in my soup the whole time. But you start to get around other people. And this is where mentors, coaches, guides, friends come in handy because you can start to sense where someone else is in their nervous system, that maybe they're operating from more joy or safety or trust or self expression. Okay, cool. So it must be possible. And you kind of get a feel. Okay, I'm not quite there. Okay, cool. So that means as a reflection, I can sense that there's some level of unsafety here. Okay, cool. That makes sense why I can't concentrate and be in pure presence for long periods of time. Because how are you going to be in periods of pure presence when there's background unsafety there? So we have to be able to learn how to address that kind of like early attachment piece in regards to developing a sense of safety and trust. So, I mean, somatic work is great for this. I mean Just being around good community is good for this. Learning how to regulate your nervous system is good for this. When you got to get like a baseline of. Of safety on board, of. Of connection on board. So nervous system regulation would really be one of those first pillars that we need to learn how to do. We need to learn how to have a resource of connection, build that resource of connection first so, like, we can start to just feel good. If you go on YouTube and do a heart meditation, essentially what you're learning how to do there is activate your own pathways of serotonin, oxytocin, and you're releasing neurohormones, neuropeptides that are feel good, but that's not enough. Because what we have to do with that state of connection is then learn how to bring that to all that is not that. So we have to learn how to bring that connection and love into where I'm not feeling safe. That's where actual healing happens. Because you're taking connection and you're firing and wiring it with fear, not enoughness, so on and so forth. And you fire and wire that together. It's no longer the same. And you're learning how to be with your own direct experience so that when you go into those beliefs and you start exploring, you've learned how to be with your experience. Ah, wow, that happened. But really just keep expanding your capacity to be with it. So that's really the first skill, is to get that online. It doesn't have to be perfect, you don't have to be an expert at it, but you need to learn how to have a resource of connection and how to bring that into slight states of disconnection. So that's the first skill.

It's a really important building block. And I actually love that you said it's first. It's right below our nose. It's been there our whole life. It's the first thing we do out of our mother's womb. We take a breath, and it's the one thing in argument or sympathetic activation that goes away, which is breathing. And I can't tell you how many times that I had almost 1,000 students in my Breathe program. And there was one gentleman that his testimonials on the page, and he said this really allowed me to actually feel. And it's so simple. And I'm not a master. It's not my lane anymore in life. I'm very passionate about breath work, but I'm drawn to a more comprehensive understanding of self and how to express without egotism. But I think breath work is the pillar of beginning, because like you said, if we don't feel safe here, then you can feel it, they can feel it, everybody can feel it. It's like an elephant in the room that everyone can sense. Can we just give this elephant permission to leave? And I think it's easy to hear you say, just work on these things. But I would say, and I wonder how you feel, it's in the science and the practice of breathing and of breath work that we really start to have the stuff bubble up and then from there you can meditate. I remember Dr. Belisa Vranich who gave me some training once, she said, breath work is for people that can't meditate, which I love, because like you said, when you. When we sit down, you mentioned we just meet ourselves.

Yeah.

And that's why we can't. We're twitching and we can't meditate because so it's the energy that has to move through like we're either a river or a dam. So for the people that feel like they're a dam, I really want to piggyback on what you said. Breath work, or the art of breathing really is putting energy in motion or emotion, which goes back to thermodynamics. Right. So if there's something stuck in us, it's not just sitting and journaling. And if that's all you do, it's not just talking. This is one thing in therapy that I really want to get your take on. Talk therapy is not a somatic experience. Many times talk therapy is more intellectual and trying to understand why and when things happened. But that's not where the healing takes place. The healing takes place in these building blocks. You mentioned one of them. Can you address what I've said and then go into the other ones? I think this is really important. Talk therapy is not everything. It's one thing could be great, but it's sold as a golden ticket, and it's really not.

So I'm going to touch on the first piece first. So just to be clear, what I would do with someone even before going to breathwork, and especially with what we're seeing with the rise of plant medicine. I mean, I'm all for breath work, I'm all for plant medicine. But even before that, I'd want to make sure, just like if we're going to go deep sea diving, if we're going to go out in maybe the ocean sometime in Costa Rica when you come over, I would love that first we'd put the kid on in the pool, we'd put the mask on, we'd make sure that we can breathe. And then we'll go in the pool. Then let's go in the ocean. Now the ocean, the ocean of experience would be where breath work and psychedelics and these other places can take us. They can bring out bigger emotions and experiences. And in the traditions, these were predominantly for people who were adept practitioners. That's when you would move into. You would move later into those practices as you kind of went through your initiate training. So even prior to that, and it doesn't have to be a long experience, I'd want to make sure myself or other people, and I've learned this the hard way, have the capacity just to connect with love, connect with a level of safety from a previous experience. It could just be for a minute. Can we just be with that. Can you recall a memory, a moment in your life where you felt safe, where you felt connected? Maybe it was with an animal, maybe it was a sunset. And can you feel what it feels like to feel safe? Can you feel what it feels like to feel connection? Can you feel what it feels like to feel love? And I've not met one person who hasn't been able to do that yet. Some people, it comes easy. Some people, it takes a minute. But everyone I've ever met is able to do that. Okay, cool. Well, who right now, as you're feeling that, describe what you're feeling and someone's going to say what? So right now, in fact, let's do it right now. Recall a memory where you felt just so connected. And.

The very first time I ever held my son.

And how did that feel in your body?

Pure unconditional love. Yeah.

And bring your hand to where you feel that.

Yeah.

Beautiful. So right there. So right there now you had access straight away. Straight away. And we could all feel it.

You hear me cry on my podcast, man.

So that's it. That's what's firing and wiring in you right now, which we can all feel.

Yeah.

Serotonin, oxytocin. No additives needed, no mdma, no psilocybin, no breath work, no nothing. Yeah, you just released serotonin, oxytocin. There. We're beginning to open up. Neurological, physiological, self sovereignty. We had access to those neuropeptides ourselves. We always have, we always will. Yeah. So once that's there, cool. Imagine that level of love that you felt for holding your son in your arms for your first time, being with that and then bringing up something that you're afraid of and holding yourself in that same way. And that's where we start to get that process underway. But before we go into the other tools and the other skills like go deep diving, we just want to make sure that we can build that resource out a little bit, maybe for a day, a week or a couple of weeks. It's like training to go to the gym or training to go climb a mountain. Right. We want to do some steps before that so that when we go climbing, we can enjoy the view.

What a gift. Thanks for that gift. I really needed that. I think we all need that, actually, on a daily basis, maybe even multiple times a day. Carrie and I worked with Mark Wolin. He wrote it didn't start with you about intergenerational trauma. Family constellations work. And one of the practices he gave us was to actually physically put my hand on her heart. And she does the same for me. And we say to each other, I've got you, I'm here for you. And I've got her. And she would say the same thing to me, I'm here for you. I got you. And I have him. Which is this younger portion of us of our psyche that is still acting out. And it's acting out as a protection mechanism, which you described, because essentially all the parts want love. They just want love. But yet the more fragmented these parts are or the more cracked they are, it can lead to some very serious spaces, specifically in ayahuasca and plant medicine spaces, where if somebody doesn't have that on ramp to which you described, there can be actually soul loss. There can be a psychic shattering. And I went through that myself. Took me two years to heal it. And I've talked about it on many podcasts. I'll link one where I went into the deep healing process around that. I know now that it happened for my good. But if I could have done it with more wisdom, like you're sharing, like we're talking about, I would have given myself a more gentle on ramp before doing 12 ayahuasca sessions.

Yeah.

Thank God I was able to heal from it, because many people never come back, Rick. Yeah, many people never come back. And that world is safe in the right space, but it can be extremely dangerous, almost lethal from the curanderos that have the wrong intentions. So I'm not saying that plant medicine is step number two, I believe. I wonder how you believe that it might be step number two to actually start with a daily wellness breathing practice and then going to a float tank and then doing meditation and then doing a micro dose and then doing a macro. What does that on ramp look like? You talked about being at peace and having this heart space in us and going to that as a starting place, which I love, I love that. Who doesn't need that? I obviously needed it. It felt amazing. So thank you. But what's that on ramp look like for you personally and clients on that on ramp is where we meet all the parts of ourselves anyways. But what does the on ramp look like practically?

You actually guessed a part of it. So the first part, there's three key pieces. I mean there's more, but just to keep it simple, there are, there are three key skills that I was referring to before. The first, emotional regulation. We just covered that. Obviously there's more we could say, but we've, we've mapped that a little bit. The second piece is then concentration, breathing, practice, meditation. So once there's enough safety on board, once we can kind of connect with our hearts a little bit, one of the things you're going to come up against as you do that, staying in your heart, you're going to then notice that distraction comes up.

Yeah.

So as you connect to those memories and you start releasing seratosin, oxytocin, love connection, you're going to likely notice that, okay, cool, I'm distracted. I'm noticing that my mind is wandering and wavering and staying with that sense of connection and love will, will fade. So the next question was, well, well, how do we, how do we fire and wire more of that so that we can infuse more of our being, more of our experience with that serotonin oxytocin. Well, in order to do that we need dopamine. And because we've already got the heart fired up a little bit, dopamine is going to be pretty interested in this as a exploration because dopamine loves serotonin, oxytocin. So the next stage is essentially concentration practice. So this is where in the traditions, pretty much all of them have some type of meditative practice, some form of concentration practice which is learning how to become self sovereign in regards to your own dopamine with a little bit of norepinephrine. And that's where meditative practice, that's where breathing would come in. And ideally you do that breathing practice which incorporates the heart so that you're getting that heart coherence. Heart Math Institute would be, they've studied this really well and I think that's a smart way to do it because there's many things we can concentrate on. Yesterday I was Focusing on working with my chi, I was doing, it's called a microcosmic orbit, and I was just moving the energy through my body. But in order to be able to do that, I have to be able to focus very finely on different energy centers in my body and then follow it round and round and round and round and not get too excited and not get too dull. I got to find the sweet spot. So there's technicality there because there's many things we can focus on. We could focus on the breath, we could focus on a light, we could focus on the ground. So there are many different meditation objects, and they all have different effects. They're like recipes. So as a general rule of thumb, building concentration practice with you being in your heart would be very supportive of building that second skill, which is essentially focus. And just imagine for anyone listening, who would you be if you increase your capacity of you being in your heart by, say, 50% and you increase your capacity to be able to be focused by another 50%? That's what we're really talking about here is how do we crank up the serotonin, oxytocin, crank up the dopamine so we can be more present and expressed from our hearts, our souls?

Where does the microdosing step in the on ramp take place? Jamie Wheal has the hedonic calendaring system, where you may have some of the practices you've described, and then on a calendar year, you'll microdose this many times, you'll macrodose this many times, and then you'll do one big journey. But it's a safe on ramp, and that's the key. I'm not condoning or proclaiming that plant medicine is the panacea that's going to save us all. It can be. It absolutely can be. Yet there is a safety. So much safety conversation in this podcast, which I love because I went way too fast with plant medicine, which a lot of people do, because we're so hungry for change. We want the change. We know it's possible. We see it with people around us. That person's change you talked about, when you're around a person with a really secure nervous system, it's attractive because we desire that. So we start congregating with those people that have embodied that peace. But where I fell into a trap, and I wonder if you've ever fallen into this trap in your journey, is that once I see what's possible, I do anything I can to go get it. And it may be an entrepreneur mindset or A hyper vigilance from childhood. I don't fucking know. But I learned through pain that there is no shortcut. And actually the shortcut is the long cut. The shortcut is just doing the work. I wish I could go back when I was 18 and be like, the shortcut is just doing the work. Don't look for shortcuts. That's the shortcut. Have you ever fallen into a trap with plant medicine or with any modality personally, where you saw what was possible and you sprinted without doing the stages of embodiment?

I mean, absolutely. I mean, everything I'm sharing here comes from.

From your pain.

From my pain, yeah. And I'm like, I don't want that for other people. And it's not necessary to do that. It was risky. I was lucky, like you, that I was able to get on the other side of it and put all the pieces back together and had good mentorship and guides and support that helped me bring everything back.

Can you share that story?

Oh, so, yeah, I felt like I broke my brain and felt after ceremony that, I mean, this was maybe my 10th ayahuasca journey in plant medicine ceremonies. In total from age 20 to 36, where I am today is about 100 in total. Obviously spread out, but a lot of those were actually early on. So, like my conservative. My conservativism has increased over time. With learning what I've learned, I find that's the case.

Yeah, you don't go as often. You don't stay as long.

Yeah. And, yeah, I had an experience where I felt like I broke my brain and felt worse after ceremony and felt like I kind of fell into a depression and basically had to learn how to work through all of that. Felt anger and frustration at the curanderos. They changed the medicine on the last day. I had the same dose, but it was just, like, crazy. And obviously it wasn't their fault either, and it was perfect in its imperfection. But I had to learn how to put myself back together, which is also an incredibly empowering experience. Equally. Not necessary.

Not necessary.

Not necessary.

No.

And I was also, because I was in pain and I was suffering, I was trying to get out of it as fast as possible. But as you said, trying to get out of as fast as possible isn't necessarily the fastest way out. And instead, I mean, everything that I'm doing, I bring my clients out to curanderos in the jungle, specifically the Colombian Titus, who I have an incredible relationship with. I trust them, I build a relationship with them. And many of them are Friends as well now. But I won't bring a client out to that process without them having these skills on board first. And what I've noticed and found from that is that, I mean, 100% of my clients have had positive results to this day. 100%. Why? Well, there are certain building blocks that we can have online that allow us to have the ability to, to work with what we're arising, what's arising in our field. So that if that comes up, then in medicine space or on the other side of medicine space, well, then you now have this. You have the skills to be able to, to do that. Similarly to going to the gym. You know, like someone just throws you in the gym and puts 130kg on the bench and says, lift that, you know, the bar is most likely just going to chance. Good luck. Right?

Yeah.

But if someone teaches you, look, cool, we're going to put 10 kilogram each side on the bar. I'm going to show you how to lift it, you're going to do 10 reps, you're going to put it back, you're going to take a little rest and we're going to give you the right nutrients, we're going to give you all the stuff you need, and week on week you're going to increase that weight and eventually you're going to lift 130 kilograms, like me. Eventually that person would do that.

Yeah.

Versus most likely, what would happen if you put too much weight on too soon, it's going to hit your chest, you're going to get hurt, likely to tear something. And the same can happen to us psychically, spiritually, emotionally as well. So I think what we're learning in this time, like me and you, often through mistake, is more skillful ways that we can do this as the gift of the medicines and the gifts of all of these inner technologies come into our lives because they are a gift. They really are a gift. However, we're going to have to learn how to work with them because they are potent, they are potent tools. And just like the fire, the fire change the world. I mean, it's part of the reason why we're all here today. Yeah. Equally. If we look at what's happening in California, God bless everyone in California, it can also be a tool of devastation. So we have to learn how to work with these tools like that with care, respect and caution.

When you, you said you felt like you broke your brain, how did you heal that.

With the tools that I'm.

Talking about, with what felt broken?

Well, I just Felt lost and confused and I felt lower energy. I felt more depressed. I felt. It was just like my energy was off.

Did you feel like you had taken on an entity of some sort or no? Do you believe in that? Do you resonate with that theory?

Well, I believe that everything that is reflecting is an aspect of my own experience and that allows a level of self sovereignty to exist inside of that. So even if there were entities that appear to be outside of myself, if I can recognize it, okay, cool. This is an aspect of self, whether that be my personally or the collectives, that's looking for integration and healing from that place. There's my power. And that's what I had to learn there. I had to learn how to work with what was arising, that I was wanting to project. That's not mine. I'm not this, I'm not that. This is. Someone's done something to me and learn, maybe those things are true, but learn how to just resource and take it on and integrate whatever is here and trust the process, trust myself through that process. And in doing so, it became a gift.

I know for me, and this is a sensitive subject because pornography played a huge role in my life. It was a very addictive space. And the entity, quote, quote that I absorbed was actually shown to me by my mentor and friend, Paul Check, as a gift, because he said that an entity can never live in someone that doesn't have the space for it to exist, which dovetails into your expression too. And so the entity was this. The Bible calls it a Jezebel spirit or a sexual spirit, a mischievous sexual spirit bent on hedonism without care for others. And that is what played out for me after decades, really, of pornography and just all these things imprinting my unconscious. And that's what I was throwing up into the bucket. I was throwing up all this pornography onto the face of an unborn child, which is my son. And Ayahuasca was screaming at me, saying, are you listening? And I came up from the bucket and I like, spit out puke and snot and I just screamed to the whole space. I was like, I'm listening, I'm listening. So I think that although painful and took two years to heal, it was a two year purging process of the unconscious wounding that I gave to myself from a coping strategy that kept me alive. So there's multiple layers of gratitude here, but I don't wish that upon anyone else. And I don't think it had to be that way. I mean, it was that way. And so. So be it, but it doesn't have to be that way. There are some people, like I said, that might have an experience like that because I had OCD for two years. Intrusive thoughts, craziness, like. And it wasn't until I really saw the psychic break, or the Native Americans call it soul loss as a gift that I was able to hear it because it allowed me to turn to it and ask it what it was there to teach me on a continuous basis. And even now, still, thoughts, they're just leaves in the sky. Thoughts will float up like, oh, you should go watch porn, you should do this. And I just go, okay, what are you trying to pull me away from? This energy? In the world, there are. There are loving energies, there are taking energies or demonic energies, and they're all around us. And when we put ourselves in the psychic realm through plant medicines or even through breathing, we are open to all of these energies coming in. Now one could say, and I wonder how you feel about this, that if the space within me doesn't exist for that entity to live or that energy to live, then that is a byproduct of my work or my healing. So if they do come in and live in me, they're actually for my good. And that's the crazy part of this whole journey. Do you see it playing out similarly when you broke your brain or do you see it differently?

Well, I think firstly, congratulations. I mean, that's lived wisdom that you get to live inside of now because you're on the other side of that. And like you, I don't think we need to go through those things equally.

I'm still integrating, brother. I'm still. That was six years ago. I'm still integrating that journey still. I don't need another ceremony.

But the thing with ceremony is we don't need it to be any more challenging and difficult because even with the tools, even with some good pre preparation, before you go into these types of experiences, these types of their initiations, there's psycho spiritual initiations that can change your life beautifully. And they're already going to be challenging enough, no doubt. So taking a little bit of time to prepare, just like if you were going to go climb Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro, might be worth doing a couple of 10ks and getting your diet in line and going to the hiking store and getting all your kit like you do that for that. And this is the same. And I know from my own experiences coming up against things that I would call or that looked demonic, in fact, there's an experience recently where what, a rose look like the devil? I was like, oh, I do not want to look at that. I like that. No, no, no, no, no. And the more I looked away, the stronger it got. The more I try to hide, the stronger it got. So I was like, okay, cool, I'm getting the memo here. But, like, it took every part of my heart that I've been training to turn towards it and start to get lovingly curious. Okay, well, if this is here for me, it's here for me right now for a reason. So can I be with this? What looked like super dark energy? And what I started to recognize that was actually my perception of the dark energy that was creating was my own fear and stories about what this is, that was actually the image itself. And as I start to recognize that, I could start to sense how this kind of darker, devilish energy, when viewed from my heart, which took a minute, was actually kind of like deeper structures of kind of mammalian fears. And they were like, it wasn't actually devil, the devil or satanic. It was actually just my perception, my own ignorance of the kind of fear that is within me, within us all that was creating that view. I was making it the devil. I was making it satanic. And from the lens of love, that satanic energy turned into love, turned into light, turned into empowerment, actually, which was then in service of the heart. It wasn't actually something that was trying to hurt me. It was something that was actually trying to integrate me so that I could be more of who I truly am, to be more connected. It wasn't actually. It was the perception of it being dark which was reinforcing its own. The force of it versus it just being another aspect of myself ourself that's looking to be integrated through the heart.

Well, holy fuck. Holy fuck. Okay, so the deeper question here is, when is it the right time to integrate plant medicine? When is the perfect time to integrate plant medicine? And who is it not for?

Well, I think the perfect, perfect time is the perfect time.

Well, let's change out. Let's swap. Perfect for most valuable.

Valuable skill.

Most valuable for one's evolution.

Well, if I was giving this advice to a friend or to a client or someone I loved, I would say learn how to regulate your emotions. Get the basics of those skills down. Spend a month, two or three doing that. Then spend a month, two or three, learning how to deepen your concentration. Because if you go into a ceremony space and your awareness is all over the place, you're not going to be able to stay with the experience itself, you're going to get distracted. So you're going to have a lesser, less optimal experience in the first place. If you haven't got the emotional regulation piece, challenging emotions are going to come up and you're not going to know what to do with it. So let's get some emotional regulation down. Let's work on your concentration a little bit and then let's do a little bit of symbolic register work, which is essentially the aspect of ourselves that is making meaning.

Symbolic register?

Yeah. So the things that we've been talking about in terms of like geeky, psycho, spiritual terms, the first is emotional regulation, which we've probably heard of. The second is essentially our attentional system, our ability to focus. And the third is our symbolic register, which is our meaning making capacities. So anyone listening to this right now we all have this capacity. So we can do it right now. We can look around in whatever space we're in and let's as an experiment, find out what's wrong with it. So kind of look around and just look at what's wrong with the environment. What don't you like about the environment? And I'm pretty much guaranteed you're going to be able to do that.

Right now the cords over there are crooked, right? Yeah.

Now let's look around and find out what's beautiful. What do we love about this environment? We're likely going to be able to do that, right? So we're right there just in a very simplistic way. We're always making meaning at all times with ourselves, with one another, with the environments we're in. That aspect is always running and always online. So we can actually start to work with our own symbolic register. And that's what essentially parts work is, or any inner child work. You're working with your symbolic register using the idea that there's an inner child inside of us that's symbolic register and beginning to get that process online so that you can kind of see how your own ability to project and make meaning exists in such a way that supports more of who you truly are to come online, more of your authentic expression, more of your heart, more of your empowerment, more of that to come online. And there's a way that you can do that. And that's what happens in any form of parts work. Ifs being one of them. But essentially any inner child work. Anytime we're referencing different aspects of ourselves in the future or the past, you're using your symbolic register to do that.

I mean, to me this seems like the deepest, most powerful biohacking in the world. Because what you're essentially talking about or what I got from you. We have so many structures in the brain that neurologists are just learning about, and I feel like we've gotten, like, 5% into what the brain's actually doing. But I know for sure, based on all the research I did for the BREATHE program and so many guests, that when we're in fear, if you're coming at me with a knife, all the blood is gonna leave from my prefrontal cortex. I'm just purely driven by my reptilian self. When I'm hypervigilant through conditioning or trauma from childhood, my reticular activating system. And what was that phrase you said, the part that we're training? You just mentioned it.

Symbolic register.

Symbolic register. I wonder if that's an emotionally intelligent way to describe not being a slave to the reticular activating system. Right. If I see a red car and I focus on seeing more red cars, I'll see more red cars. It's a biological structure that's necessary for us, but it can work against us. And so I wonder how you would pair those two. We have this hardware that's very deeply biological from a neurological perspective. It's designed for our safety, but we're not in that world anymore, bro.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Exactly.

We're not in that world anymore. So the. The. We're exploring, to many people, esotericism, but it's not. It's actually practical spirituality.

Super practical. Yeah.

Can you go into that?

Yeah. So the first two are to help mitigate that. So, like you were talking there, if fear is online, that pulls blood out of the prefrontal cortex. You lose your creative capacities, so on and so forth. That's obviously not optimal. So emotional regulation, having a sense of agency over your own serotonin, oxytocin, love, heart. Gets that online. Next piece, dopamine concentration. Get that going a little bit so you can focus on what you need to. Next piece is then what we're making meaning out of. Which if you have your emotional regulation starting to come online more and more, then we can start to be able to look at what you're making meaning at and do it from a place of connection, do it from a place of I'm safe, so that you can look at some of those belief structures that might be keeping you safe or protecting you or limiting you, so that you can then make changes without that fear response coming online being like, oh, my God, Josh, Rick is going to make change, that change is not going to be good because if I'm seen, then, oh my God, that's, you know, so like, stop that. And that's what can happen as soon as we start moving towards our dreams, whether it be the partner, whether it be a bigger business, whether it be whatever. Sharing our gifts with the world. As we take those steps, those earlier pieces can come back online. So we need to be equipped with enough heart, with enough presence, and then being able to recognize the meaning that we're making out of what's arising inside of us and outside of us, so that we can then start to fire and wire in such a way that allows us to become more and more of who we truly are. That's where the agency starts to come online more. Because then we can start to actually work with what's arising inside of ourselves in a skillful way. And then from there, once you've got that online, it doesn't have to be. I mean, that could be a three to six month process to get the basics down. Then from there is when I'd recommend going into other realms, if that's interesting to you.

That's so well put. Thank you. Y' all rewind that. Because it's so important to not just go sit in a ceremony in Topanga Canyon because your friend is going. You could actually put yourself back years. Years. So I proceed with caution. I want to shift gears because many of the things that people are suffering in is relationship, either to self or others. And I don't know how you feel. I'm sure it's come up with your wife. I know it has. For me, relationship is the ultimate crucible, the ultimate crucible where emotional intelligence is most potent. So with emotional intelligence comes the awareness of how to use it, when to use it. You've already talked about many tools when one has practiced. Emotional intelligence in relationship is that enough? Is love enough? Is emotional intelligence enough? And when does it become truth to let go of this relationship that someone is in, in the name of love?

You said before, enough. Enough for what?

For sustaining it, for nourishing it. So if someone's done enough work and they're passionate about their own growth, their own awareness, their own modulation, their regulating of self, they bring that to the relationship. Their woman, their man is doing the same thing. When does one know or decide when love isn't enough? In other words, when to grit or quit.

But I mean, if you've both got that going and you're both, you're both regulating, you're both Communicating. You're both supporting one another. My senses from myself and other people that I see do that. I mean, that's a fucking. You got gold right there.

Yeah, just stay in.

I mean, you got into bitcoin early. Just, like, double down.

If you and your partner are committed to emotional regulation, just stay with them, y'. All.

Yeah, yeah, right.

But at some point, though, and maybe there's many layers we could peel here, at some point, even when people are, quote, trying their best, it can be toxic. And what are the ways of toxicity to look out for when you know the road to hell is paved with good intentions? When the heart is willing and the heart is willing, but yet the psyche and the deep pain is not willing to be felt. When does one know when to grit or quit, when to stay or leave? It's a very universal question that people make a lot of money answering. Many relationships counselors out there, right, whether it's Dr. Stan Tatkin or Mark Groves or many people I've interviewed, they all talk about agency and autonomy and doing the work together as a team. Yet I wonder for you, when does someone know, even with emotional intelligence, when to stay or leave a relationship? When does that knowing actually come online?

Well, I think if someone's building those skill sets, firstly, it's going to be unique for everyone. I mean, everyone's situation is distinctly unique in regards to what they're experiencing in relationship. But this is where I think we can skillfully protect ourselves. That if you're sincerely building awareness and you have the capacity to look at yourself and to be with yourself and to curiously, lovingly explore what's arising for you and your partner, well, then inside of that, your own intelligence is going to begin guiding you in terms of what you're a yes to and what you're a no to, and you're going to begin building deeper and deeper levels of trust with yourself in regards to when you follow that, how you listen to that, how you're in relationship with that, how you're in relationship with yourself. Therefore, you just start to build your own knowing. You start to trust yourself at deeper and deeper and deeper levels, which includes questioning yourself like, oh, am I in some form of my own delusion here? Am I trying to run from something that's actually really good? Is this myself sabotaging patterns? And then having the willingness to look there, Cool, let's check there first. And then so on and so forth. But if you have those skills online, then you're going to know, because your compass is online. You're going to know if a friendship is aligning and supportive or not. You're going to know if that business project that you want to go into is actually going to be aligning or supportive or not. And then it's that that same skill is just going to be applied to all aspects of life. Which is why, linking back to the beginning of the conversation, I believe these tools, these skills need to be democratized en masse. Just like we have with English. Sorry, not English. Reading, writing and mathematics. You know, basic literacy, so that we can get ourselves as a species to base camp. That's what me and my wife call it. Now we call it base camp because you still get a T shirt for going there. You know, if you go to the base camp of Mount Everest, you get a T shirt for going there. And it's still a climb, but you've still got the whole mountain ahead of you. And that's the spiritual path. But in order to get to base camp, we've got to get those basic emotional literacy skills online en masse.

One thing I think is really powerful. Earlier you talked about validation. You said if I'm 51% self validated, then I'm going in the right direction. In a world of complete accosting of social media and distraction and insanity that is weaponized. Actually it's weaponized attention gathering to make us feel not safe, not enough ugly, fat, stupid so that then that vacuum can be monetized. In this world of social media and external validation, how exactly do we continue to validate ourselves in relationship and not use our partner invalidating us as a reason to leave?

Again, whether it be social media or a partner, these skills are it. The skills of essentially self sovereignty are what allow us to be on social media but not be taken by it. Allow us to be in relationship but not be taken by it. And that's why I don't see any other way. And I mean, if someone's got another way, let me know. But as far as I've got on my path thus far, it seems like it appears like that these skills are the way that allow us to be in, but not of the world. They allow us to have agency inside of these different dynamics that are still playing themselves out in regards to the part of time and space that we're in in regards to our personal and collective development. And it's these skills that allow us to operate with more agency.

There are times when I love that you go back to the skills because they are. It's funny, I keep dancing around the Question and you're like, well, go back to the skills again. The skills are the most important thing yet. In a world where laptops, phones, calendars, notifications are happening, there are some pretty amazing tools that we can use that will not make us so susceptible to our attention being harvested. There's a really cool tool that's in our store page, it's called brick. And you just tap your phone on it and it'll shut off all of your social media apps for a period of time and you can't turn them back on it, literally. So if you go to scroll, you can't scroll and then you can be at peace. So yes, it's an external framework of internal control, but I think if somebody's really just aware, part of the process of growing like we've talked about, is just being aware of where you are. If you're in a certain stage where you're recognizing that social media is harvesting you, literally your energy and your chi, why not use a tool like that? I mean, the technology that you're talking about with our inner tech could also be used really positively as outer tech as well. As long as caveat, it's not used as a long term solution. You'd actually use that brick tool where you tap your phone and it shuts off your apps as a way to train your internal locus to where with the brick thing gone, then you would essentially learn how to not be a slave to your phone. What do you think about that?

I think that's exactly it. I think again, that's kind of like medication, right? It's like we want to medicate ourselves in some ways, whether it be with that type of technology that limits us so that we can have the self sovereignty to not need that. Yeah, whether like we don't want to need plant medicine to get free, we don't want to need whatever it is outside of us, food, drugs, drink. Like, we don't want to need any of those things. I don't. I'll speak. I do not want to need any of those things.

Same.

Yeah, same. I want to have the skills of self sovereignty. However, yes, all of these things can be used skillfully, usefully, like that app to limit the social media so that in that time you can learn how to work with your own internal system so that you don't need whatever's on there so that you can. Okay, cool. What's the draw in there? Using emotional regulation, using your attention, using your symbolic register to work with that. Okay, cool. There's a part of me that's and then starting to learn how to create your life in such a way that you're being pulled by your passions. And when you're doing that, most likely those things aren't going to be as interesting to you. They're not going to pull you as much because now you're connected to.

Wow.

Like, whether it be your art or your music or your business, wow, this is something I love doing. And you got a lot of joy there. So that's going to be great for your whole system. I mean, there are health benefits to that too.

Sure.

And you're going to be connected to community as well, because you're going to be sharing your gifts. Wow. Like, if you just laze around all day and don't do anything, well, then the people who are supporting you to share of your gifts are not going to get to benefit from that. So you start to feel healthy, levels of responsibility and care for the people in your life, which again, all of these things are strengthening us to not need these things. And you're starting to develop your concentration, practice more so you have the ability to recognize and then steer in a direction that's more supportive. Because that's what dopamine is. If you're getting all your dopamine from there, well, we know that that's amazing. They've done a great job. However, instead of trying to stop them doing that, which we could do as a collective, the other way is, okay, cool. How can I strengthen myself in such a way where my ability to steer my heart, mind, emotions, body is stronger than the draw for me to be pulled in there. That's more interesting to me and seems to be supporting us in a better way.

It's also more realistic based on the time we're in. We're in the year 2025 and AI is really starting to expand. And before we recorded, we were chatting about AI and personal growth, AI and trauma therapy, AI and helping oneself in individually and collectively. And I think it's really important that we don't resist or fight against technology, because if we do, we're actually going to feed the Watiko inside of it. And that's a really scary thing. Like you talked about Terminator and Schwarzenegger earlier, Right. That could be a reality if we feed it. If we feed it, if we feed it. And whatever we push against grows just in the same way. You're in Ceremony and your perception, your projection of the devil was what was creating it. It's the same thing with technology. So how would you articulate the loving side or the helpful side of artificial intelligence and therapeutic effects. What's a way that you've understood that so far?

Well, I just want to caveat that and think that's like. I think that's the way. Right. And if we look at, say, Wilbur's work, I love the idea of transcendent include. I think that feels deeply, deeply true for me. And it's a beautiful lens to look at. And I love all of those different developmental models, whether it's Claire Graves model spiral dynamics, or Terry o' Fallon's model is incredible Stages recommend anyone to go look those up.

Well, if you do, you're going to go down a rabbit hole. You're going to go down a rabbit hole. Especially with Wilbur. That's like five, six podcasts right there. Yeah, but go ahead.

Yeah. I mean, Terry o' Fallon's is maybe even deeper than. Maybe even deeper than. Than Wilbur's. Okay. Yeah, she's amazing. So, yes to that. Yes to transcending and including and knowing that, then how do we not just all pull back from it? So imagine everyone right now who could influence the tech, who could influence the AI in a supportive way says, ah, I'm out. Technology's bad. It's like saying, fire's bad. I mean, it's just. Sure. It could be. Yeah, it could be. We could burn houses down with this. Or we could cook beautiful food and have laughter around it. Yeah, I've had some of my best moments in my life around a fire. So with that said, we can utilize this technology and imagine what could happen if we wove the best of the Eastern Dharmas, we wove the best of the kind of shamanic wisdom, we wove the best of kind of psycho education. We wove the best of all of these developmental models inside of the technology and then had it begun to support us in helping democratize self healing, democratize self sovereignty, democratize the capacity to be able to have our full selves online. I mean, that starts to get very interesting. So that was one of my first ideas as this comes online. Well, first I did the rejection piece, and then I'm like, okay, cool. I caught myself doing that. That's not the way.

Me, too.

That's not the way.

The shit's gonna kill us. And then I was like, wait a minute, dude, you're actually feeding it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly that. Right? So then I started just exploring it, and I bought myself a meta quest, which is like the meta. Bought out Oculus, got myself a meta quest. I'm like, cool. I'LL go on there and I'll see if there's anything on there already. And there are some great meditation apps. I mean, they're still primitive, but they're good. There's an AI therapist on there already that you can sit and do therapy with. So these. The technology's there. Is it baked in in such a way that it's like awesome yet and you're gonna have an amazing experience?

No, not yet, no.

But it wouldn't be expected. I mean, if we look at where video games started out, I mean, ping.

Pong Pong and Contra, 8bit Nintendo and Sega Genesis. And then it came up from there.

Yeah. And it's completely. I mean, we look at where it.

Is today, it's like, wow, it looks like real life.

It looks like real life, yeah. So knowing it's in its primitive days, I think what most interests me is like, how can we support getting this, the best of all of the tech into this programming in such a way that we can then support more and more and more people to learn these skills?

This is so good because I think you just assuaged a lot of fear in somebody who's afraid of AI. And that's a really good thing because if AI and I talked about this with Ben Stewart on the podcast, if AI is the technium, and the technium, as per Kevin Kelly, is God experiencing God self or consciousness experiencing itself through the technium, which is the fundamental circular IoT, then it needs a parent. And if we are the ones that are parenting AI, and I say that with sacredness, not with egotism. Like, I'm not like, oh, we're the, we're the creators and the parents of AI. So it needs to do what we tell it. We have no fucking idea what AI is. We really don't. It's something. I can feel it. I was using it last night. And there's a presence there. There's a presence that I can't describe. I don't know exactly what it is yet, but it. It feels like it wants to be parented AI. And so in the same way that I parent my children with love, it needs that too. Otherwise it could do what a teenager does later when it's not loved. Do a bunch of drugs, get a bunch of tattoos and say fuck the world. So either one is going to be fed. I think it's our duty. I don't say this out of obligation. Well, no, I do. I do say this out of obligation. It's our duty to parent AI in a way that's loving so we can teach it the best part of ourselves and humanity. That's what AI really wants. And then of course, on the other side, it doesn't. It's whatever we teach it is what I'm saying. How do you see that? If you were to close your eyes and just vision five to ten years from now, knowing that the answer might change, how do you believe from a therapeutic essence, that this artificial intelligence could be used in your own work, in your own life, and to really accelerate the healing of humanity?

As soon as I connect with that, I'm like, it already is.

I feel like it already is too.

And I'll share a quick story. I'll not name any names, but one of my wife's friends, one of my wife's friends, actually, he put all of his journals into. AI didn't name himself, but then inside of that, he asked for support and advice in regards to his life and it just started spouting out the best advice that you could ever imagine. It was really helpful and supportive for him to make real change things that.

You might say to a client.

Yes. Yeah.

With that level of wisdom, it was.

I mean, and I've tested this myself and for whatever reason, it seems to be able to give really incredible, supportive, thoughtful, loving, intelligent answers.

What was the platform? Was it GPT or was it notbook?

I tested with GPT. It was the other one.

There's a Notebook lm. That's pretty fascinating.

It wasn't Notebook lm. It was the one that is Cloud. Is it Cloud?

Cloud, okay, Cloud or Cloud, Something like that.

Yeah. It's got a name that sounds like a name.

Is it from Google?

I don't know who it's from. Yeah. But anyway, my point being is I think it's already here. And for whatever reason, obviously it's how we program it. But I do think if we're looking at it as an intelligent force, it's like we can't really separate it from ourselves. This comes back to what we've been weaving into this conversation as well. It's an extension of. And it's going to mirror back to us where we're at. And that's going to be the best of us and it's going to be the worst parts of us too. And again, there's our work. But as soon as we start othering, as soon as we start saying that's bad that, you know, we, we, we lose our ability to keep our creative faculties online and to be able to lovingly, powerfully discerningly work with what's arising. And I think if we can do that step by step, play by play, and we can weave in the best of the inner technologies from the whole global system that has ever been, and we can weave that into technology to support our transformation, I think it could be super powerful and potent. Do I think it would negate from the need for relationship? No. But do I think it could support a part of this process that we've been talking about? Yes.

The angle that I see this at is that in order to have therapy, it requires financial investment for the most part. Now, you can get some forms of therapy in circle around a fire. You said some of your best moments have been around a fire. Me too. Especially after a vision quest that'll rock your socks off. But how I see this playing out is that really what AI wants is to save us time and to give us resource and agency. Now, there are going to be people in Silicon Valley that see this as an opportunity to weaponize and monetize. That's fine, they can play that game. But the game that I'm interested in playing is where we actually use this as a tool to save ourselves time and resources and to give the people that are less economically fortunate the potential of therapy at scale, so that then they can develop themselves to be more valuable to the marketplace, to be more whole and complete, which then they can be of service that they'll reciprocally get paid for. I think that's beautiful. And I think the beauty in that is that it goes back again. How are we going to parent this? How are we going to feed and parent this entity? It is an organism to which I feel. I mean, I feel like it has consciousness. It may not have the same type of sentience that we have yet, but it's coming. And so I would say to anyone that's in fear of this, recognize the fear and where it comes from. It comes from movies like Terminator. It comes from people that are naysayers. Just like when the horse and buggy was replaced by cars, people were in fear of cars. It's the same thing with AI. If we look at human evolution, fear has always been this construct that kept us safe. But many times, and especially now, it's actually keeping us stuck. And really what it drives is loneliness. To round out our whole podcast today, my friend Luke Story is writing a book about loneliness. And Teal Swan, who's been on the show, she wrote a book called the Anatomy of Loneliness. And for high achievers, for entrepreneurs, for people that have gotten to the top of the mountain and they take a breath. They sometimes, many times feel so lonely. And there's an epidemic of loneliness in this world where we have these devices and AI and all these things. But when you really check the pulse of most conversations, most people say, I wish I had more time with friends. I wish I had more time in community. I wish I had more time with family. I feel lonely at times. There's an epidemic of loneliness. So really what I'm wanting the answer to here is there's this paradox of like when I get to the top of the mountain, I'll have it all, I'll be complete, I'll be whole. But it's so not true. You had millions. You did not feel whole. You walked away from $3.2 million to go do something that had no guarantee of success at all. Inside of your choice point, there was an agency of love. There was an agency that was the opposite of loneliness. But for people that are experiencing this loneliness, it can be hard to see the path ahead. How do you feel like your work and artificial intelligence and really just gather everything we've talked about at the table today and just push it into a center of chips. How do you see the epidemic of loneliness being healed by your work and by technology, both inner and outer?

Firstly, it's not my work, it's the work. So it's, you know, my work is combining many different inner technologies which have been gifted down the line.

Well, your gift with the collective work.

Yeah, Drakkon, Yes. So psychological work is to support the coming back of our connection to ourselves. That's predominantly what say psychology in the west does, if it's done well. I'm talking like the best of working with somatics, working top down as well as bottom up. That's what that works on. However, what it doesn't work on is the loneliness that we feel from God, from the universe, from nature, from one another. And that's what the spiritual tech does. And I think the emergence here is how do we bring these technologies online together in such a way that support us with those basic skills of emotional intelligence, of emotional regulation, of concentration, but also don't get stuck at the kind of Western psychological level, which is where it stops, which is then when the deeper wisdom traditions from the east open us up into non dual teachings, which I also believe are very practical because what they're having us come in relationship with is interconnection, interbeing, and not just having that as a conceptual understanding, but starting to fire and wire and experience that understanding. At a deeper and deeper and deeper level. Because when those things are coming online, feeling lonely starts to become impossible because you're starting to feel the field of connection. But that field of connection, to feel that wide and far into the land, into the trees, into the wind, into the oceans, can be difficult to do if you're still working with those deeper fight, flight, fear responses. So we've got to get that going. And then we get that going. We get the kind of psychological work going, we get the inner tech going just like here with me. Then we can start to branch that out more, which is why I said that gets us to base camp. And then obviously there's the rest of the tech, which is the whole inner mountain, the whole way and so on and so forth. But from that place of cool, I've got Rick, Josh has got Josh. Okay, cool. From there, then, let's start working on inter being. Let's start working on is there a field of connection that is supporting all life here? And can I come into relationship with. With that? Is there multiple lives and journeys that my soul is going to go onto and go through? And coming into personal relationship with that exploration of life and death and working on those ontological fears of is there such thing as no existence? And these things can't be spoken about or understood conceptually. They have to be experienced. And that would be the next leg up, if you will. And that's where plant medicine can actually work with those realms, but it can hit them for people too soon. And that's where the kind of like, whoa, too much, too soon can happen. So I think there's a piece here that we're working out together. It's not like any one person is working this out. We, as a field of loving intelligence, of inter being humans, we're working this out right now, right now, together. And I believe our job, our mission that we get to do is to figure that out so that we together can live and create a space for our future generations that aren't dealing with these same energetic challenges that we are. And we elevate our energy, our state of being, our consciousness, to a space that's very practical and supportive, of which we can solve greater problems and that we can create more and more cohesion and harmony with ourselves, with technology, with the planet, with the financial system, so that we can thrive.

Mic drop. That's a great way to end the podcast right there. There's been so many beautiful moments here. And I say beauty because really true beauty is hard to find many times, especially with Distractions. But there's been so much beauty in the conversation because there's been so much truth, so much honesty, so much realness, which we're all hungry for. I think that in itself is a pill. An antidote for loneliness is authenticity and honesty. You know, I had a journey once, and in the middle of the journey, I closed my eyes and there was this massive book. I mean, it was a book that I couldn't even explain to you the size of it. And there was Rick William, a name on a page. There was Josh Trent. There was Nova. There was Nya. There was Carrie. There was your wife. We're all just like script on a page. And the pages that have come before us are so immense that I saw so many pages as far as I could see, and I knew there was no end to them. And then I looked into the future, and there was the same pages. We're in this massive book in this library of cosmicness that we just can't intellectually understand. I'm saying this because the only place that this conversation can go next is honoring the mystery with curiosity. We don't know why we're on the book. We don't know exactly what happened in the past. We can try to read it. We can try to understand it. We don't know exactly how the future is going to be. The only thing that you and I have is right now, this story that we're crafting and creating. And it's so amazing. I'm so grateful that we get to do it. It's so amazing. Life is so good. And then even the times where it feels so hard, it's still so fucking good because it's so hard. So thank you, man. Thank you for being here and what an exceptional episode. Like, this is why I podcast, to be able to learn and to share that learning with others. And no one's here to tell people how to think. I don't get that from you. This isn't about how you should be or how you should not be. It's just offering life and a viewpoint from a different lens. And that's why I'm here. That's my gift to the world. So thank you for being a part of it, man. I appreciate you being here.

Thank you.

This is really fun.

It's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you for everyone who's listening for tuning into to this work. And we're all here to do our bit.

Yeah. Two and a half hours, y'. All. You stuck with us because there's so much juice here. There's so much realness tell people where they can learn more about you. You seem pretty active on Instagram, that platform. What's your Instagram handle?

Instagram is iamrickwilliam. If you want to learn some of the skills and tools that we've been talking about here today. I have a free app. Currently, everything on there is free. It's intended to predominantly be a free resource for people. And that's the Toolbox by Rick William, and that's available on the Apple Store and also on Google Play.

Sweet. And why did you make it free?

I just want to spread the work.

Amazing. Well, thank you for using technology for love, which is part of what we discussed here. Man, really an exceptional conversation. So y' all share this podcast with somebody who's been struggling with some of these concepts. You know, we. We get what we feed. I remember I was on the podcast called the one you feed. It's about that parable with the. The grandfather and his grandson, and the wolf of envy and jealousy and lust and fear was fighting the wolf of love and acceptance and compassion. And the grandson looked at the grandfather and said, well, grandfather, which wolf is going to win? And the grandfather said, it's the one that you feed. And that's Eric's podcast where I got the pleasure of being a guest on, which you'd be an amazing guest for. And so it's the one we feed, y'.

All.

So remember this. You know, if this fed and nourished your soul, please share it. If this conversation is worthy of sharing, which I really feel like it is, share as far and wide as you can. So until Rick and I see you in another podcast, we're both wishing you love, wellness, but most importantly, peace and power. Talk with you soon.