This is a transcript excerpt from a YouTube interview (host Josh Trent with guest Luke) about overcoming the inner critic and 'coming home' to oneself. Luke describes how childhood hurt and addiction led him to avoid intimacy by equating freedom with detachment; after recovery and a committed relationship with his partner Allison he reframes freedom as the capacity for vulnerable love. Central metaphors include 'home' and the heart as the locus of self; Luke references Soltara and Ram Dass and emphasizes that arriving 'home' is an inward, present-moment process that anchors against loneliness.
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Man, you had so many years of not wanting to get down in there. Really, your heart was like, wanting. Was it that you didn't feel worthy? Was it that you didn't even know what that was? Like there was something in there that wanted love, but then there was something else that was like mashing it down. Like, what was that? That fight, that duality?
Well, I think it's my misunderstanding of the principle of freedom, you know, and that I thought freedom was not having to commit to another person. I mean, it's really. It's so ridiculous sounding now to even voice that out loud, because now freedom to me is like with my. Oh, God, Freedom now with my amazing partner Allison is. It's. There's such a depth of freedom. There's a freedom to unabashedly, with any. Without any reservation whatsoever, to express how much I love her both in. In word and in deed, and not to feel, which is how I used to feel. It's just now the dysfunction becomes so clear to me because of the contrast. But I really used to believe if you truly showed a woman how much you love that they would eventually take that information and use it as a dagger to destroy you. I mean, this is the kind of dysfunctional thinking I used to have. So that element of freedom and then the other element of freedom to just be at home, you know, that feeling you have when you walk into your house, provided you have a home that you enjoy and feel safe and, you know, some people don't. Yeah, I used to not, but it's that feeling of. Of being home and just to have zero guard up and to just be able to breathe, you know, it's like I was in so many situations that I put myself in relationally, where I was always holding my breath thinking, well, at least I'm not fully committed to this, so I'm free, you know, but like, holding your breath, how is that free? You know? And now it's just. I mean, I'm still shocked at how authentic and real I can be with my girlfriend and that she still loves me, you know, and that's. I'm not. Again, it's not a self deprecating thing. I'm just like, I didn't know you could actually be yourself to this degree. And just the more myself I am, the more that self is received and loved and accepted. And I also have the capacity to do that as well, which is ever growing, you know, so it's like, I think that the restriction that I was putting on myself was just a protective mechanism. Man, Because I, you know, I was just hurt so much when I was a kid and then I, I made like a lifelong career out of hurting myself even more and I was just hell bent on self destruction. And then once I escaped that, then it was, you know, about trying to cobble together this a new version of myself when I got sober. And as you indicated, all these other sub addictions and sub coping mechanisms that, you know, yeah, you're not doing drugs and drinking, but the shopping and the sex and racking up debt and smoking cigarettes and just dysfunctional relationships and all of that stuff that one can use to evade that depth of feeling and felt sense of being.
I, I love this, I love this aspect of coming home because, you know, we talked probably for a really big like 45 minutes about this journey, this navigating ocean wave journey of like cutting all cords to the boats that held the childhood trauma so you could actually bond with somebody and love them for who they are and be comfortable and be at home. And then we also explored like a little bit of consciousness. And I'm thinking about like this phrase of coming home. Ram Dass, Rumi, most people in some way, with whatever words they want to use, they'll say, eventually we all come home. We're all coming home to ourselves. What does that mean to you? To actually come home to Luke, to actually come home to you, to yourself? And how good does that feel at this stage in your life to be able to know, you know what? I definitely have done the work and I am embody these certain things. I deserve to be at home now.
You know, man, that's really the happy ending to the story, is that we're all here on this big orphanage. You know, we're all in a sense, lost kids trying to find our way. And you know, we meet people like you and one another and my lovely Allison. And we, as Ram Dass said, which is one of my favorite things he ever said, and it's the most simple, is we're just, we're always walking each other home. And I think what I really found at Soltara in that experience and was a huge part of unpacking the relationship challenges that I had had was just. Heart is where the home is. You know, it's like you need people, but you don't. At the same time, you know, the person that I need is myself. The place that I am striving to arrive at through accomplishments and milestones, goals, etc. The thing that I think I'm going to feel is that sense of I'VE arrived. And the only time that that arrival can take place is right? It's the only time there is, and it's the only home there is. And so to be a wanderer, as I have into some pretty bad neighborhoods at times, to arrive back within that solitude and to face my greatest fear, which is to be alone. You know, as a kid, I just had this existential loneliness that was like the one anchor of my life was just like, what am I doing on this planet? I do not belong here. Somebody dropped me off on the wrong planet. Please. I'm sending out a beacon, an SOS Someone pick my ass up and get me out of here. Which drugs and alcohol are a facsimile of. Of that escape from this realm. Why? Because I was taking this realm to be all there is and taking this way too seriously. So in the journey where I've gone is in this cosmic u turn, you know, it's like out all around the world, all these different people, all these different ways of playing with your biology and chemistry and other people and finding fulfillment and losing it and chasing it again. It's like that road just always leads right back within, right back to my heart. And anytime I feel astray and I start to feel that sense of being alone or being lost, that's the place that anchors me back in, is just in my heart. It's really. It's in my physical heart and in my energetic heart. It's here. This is like the base of my whole being here. And I have a sense that in the form of consciousness, when we do disembody, that that energetic field is actually the core of what we take with us, and that's. That's the vehicle by which our soul travels interdimensionally.
Do you feel like that is a rad way to describe it? Do you feel like that is actually what karma unfolds as, whether we choose to actually come from that, relate to, and lead from that heart, space or not? Because sometimes I'm like, why is there so much suffering in the world? What the hell is going on? I've definitely felt like, get me off this planet before. What the hell is money even? Like, if nothing matters and everything matters at the same time, what the hell's the point of that? And then I come back to this reminder from you today, and this is why I love podcasting, man, because you've reminded us of so many things. But the one thing that I have been reminded of you is like, okay, I'm good right here. And that's what makes everything else around me good, loved and well.
