0:00

Exercising self control is not keeping

0:02

yourself from giving you what you deserve, but

0:04

it's removing the power of

0:07

the want of those things and the feeling

0:09

of entitlement to those things which you're free from

0:11

being controlled by external objects,

0:13

and ultimately the delusion that something

0:16

outside of you is what you need to complete

0:18

you. Welcome

0:27

to the one you feed. Throughout

0:29

time, great tinkers have recognized the

0:31

importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes

0:33

like garbage in, garbage out, or

0:36

you are what you think, ring true,

0:38

and yet for many of us, our thoughts

0:40

don't strengthen or empower us. We

0:43

tend toward negativity, self pity,

0:45

jealousy, or fear. We see

0:48

what we don't have instead of what we do.

0:50

We think things that hold us back and dampen

0:52

our spirit. But it's not just about

0:55

thinking. Our actions matter. It

0:57

takes conscious, consistent, and creative

1:00

to make a life worth living. This

1:02

podcast is about how other people keep

1:04

themselves moving in the right direction, how

1:06

they feed their good wolf. Thanks

1:22

for joining us. Our guest on this episode

1:25

is Corey Allen, a writer, musician,

1:27

and the creator of the podcast The Astral

1:29

Hustle. He focuses on how to live

1:32

better with leading experts in mindfulness,

1:34

neuroscience, and philosophy. Eric

1:37

and Corey have spoken before about his

1:39

book Now Is the Way, but on

1:41

this episode, they just freely talk about

1:43

whatever they want. Hi, Corey,

1:45

Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks so much

1:47

for having me. It's great to be on again. Yeah, it is

1:50

wonderful to have you on. Every time you and I talk,

1:52

I just love it and I always

1:54

find we could just talk forever. So I thought,

1:56

let's just have another time where we get

1:58

together and talk. And I actually, in

2:01

comparison to the normal amount of prep

2:03

I do for an interview, I did way

2:05

way less this time. So we're going to see

2:08

how that goes. Yeah, it's going to go well.

2:10

Yeah, I actually think it will. There is a lot

2:12

to be said for just kind of

2:14

coming in and seeing where things lead us.

2:16

Although I do have some key talking points,

2:19

but we always start with the parable,

2:21

and you're gonna have to answer it again. So in

2:24

the parable, there's a grandparent talking with a grandchild.

2:26

Says in life, there's two wolves inside

2:29

of us that are always at battle. One is

2:31

a good wolf, which represents things like kindness

2:33

and bravery and love, and the other

2:36

is a bad wolf, which represents things

2:38

like greed and hatred and fear. And

2:40

the ranchild stops and thinks about it for a

2:42

second, looks up at their grandparents says, well, which one

2:44

wins? The grandparents says,

2:46

the one you feed. So I'd like to start

2:48

off by asking you what that parable means

2:50

to you in your life and in the

2:52

work that you do. Yeah. So I

2:55

look at that as a direct

2:57

translation to the

3:00

power of mindfulness, because

3:02

one of the most useful elements of

3:05

understanding the inner landscape

3:07

and putting a spaciousness in your life

3:09

through meditation and just slowing

3:11

down in general, allows you

3:14

to be more aware of not

3:16

only the thoughts that are arising in your mind, but

3:18

also the impulses. That's

3:21

a huge part of you

3:23

know, self development is recognizing

3:25

those either conditioned or unexamined,

3:28

arising impulses and then

3:30

in the moment, having half of your

3:32

attention trained on your experience

3:35

and half of your attention trained on your

3:37

inner dialogue, and realizing

3:39

that those arising thoughts,

3:41

ideas impulses, those are all

3:43

just information. It's all just like

3:45

sense, information that's flowing through the

3:48

mind, and those impulses

3:50

aren't things you have to do, right, They're

3:53

just kind of suggestions based off

3:55

of your reactions or you know, how

3:57

you're feeling at the moment, or your past experiences

4:00

and so forth. And so I think about

4:02

these two wolves

4:04

as two polarities of

4:06

the potential arising impulses

4:08

from the mind, and using

4:11

the discipline of the practice of meditation

4:14

and mindfulness allows you to actually

4:16

get out from in front of those

4:19

two wolves. Because if you think about

4:21

it in terms of this analogy, it's

4:23

as if we are human and

4:25

these wolves are behind us, and almost

4:28

has this sense of urgency or fear or

4:30

something like that we have to deal with. Okay,

4:32

I have some meat, maybe I'm the meat. Which

4:34

one am I going to feed to this wolf? You know?

4:37

And how much of me am I going to feed to it? You

4:39

know? But instead through

4:42

looking at it in terms of a

4:44

more floodlight point of view as opposed

4:47

to a flashlight point of view, you

4:49

raise up and now you're behind

4:51

the wolves and the wolves are in

4:53

front of you, and you realize these

4:55

wolves are just arising suggestions,

4:59

just impulse is and I

5:02

am not my thoughts, I'm not even these wolves.

5:04

I'm none of that stuff. What I am is

5:06

which of these impulses

5:09

and these thoughts that are coming to mind that I

5:11

choose to turn into action. And so that's how

5:13

I think about it. It's like once you liberate yourself

5:15

out of the fear and the anxiety

5:17

of being face to face with two wolves

5:20

through of course, calming the body, calming

5:22

the mind through meditation,

5:25

giving your mind enough time to de noise

5:27

and to sort of reset so that you're

5:29

not trapped in the ecosystem

5:32

of your thoughts. Rather you become the an

5:34

observer of your thoughts, and

5:36

there's that spaciousness. Then

5:38

you realize, oh, now it's simply a

5:40

matter of taste. Now it's simply a

5:42

matter of decision making of which

5:44

one of these impulses do I want

5:47

to choose in the moment to turn into action.

5:49

And that can be big decisions, that can be things

5:51

you say in passing conversations, that can be

5:54

simply listening in moments you know, whatever

5:56

it might be, Because that, in

5:58

truth is really what creates

6:01

action in reality and the objective

6:03

world and what makes who you are.

6:06

That's awesome. I often think that the thing meditation

6:09

is most done for me when people are like, what is the

6:11

biggest benefit meditation has given you.

6:13

I've just brought up the old Victor Frankel

6:16

line. You know, there's a space between stimulus

6:18

and response, and I feel like meditation has increased

6:20

the size of that space for me. Right,

6:23

It's just given me more

6:25

space between stimulus and response,

6:27

and which I can sort of do everything you just

6:29

so eloquently said, which is kind of

6:31

look around and go, oh, yeah, here's

6:33

the thoughts, here's the emotions, here's the

6:36

bodily sensations, here's the impulses

6:38

or urges that are arising out of that.

6:41

I can deconstruct that a little bit and then go, okay,

6:43

what's the wise response here? Yeah, totally,

6:46

And I mean it's one of those things where

6:48

you also don't even really recognize

6:51

that that's happening, and that you're caught in the momentum

6:53

of ultimately like just the causality

6:56

of your life. Until we recognize this, we're

6:58

all just reacting, right. So we're just

7:00

we're kind of panicked because we

7:03

are in the state of dealing with the chaos

7:05

of reality and just the logistics

7:08

of being like a weird organism

7:10

on a weird planet. And so there's so many

7:12

intersections. It's such a moving target

7:15

in every direction that we're trying to deal with all

7:17

this, and so we're caught up in this momentum

7:19

of just sort of reacting to this situation, reacting

7:21

to this situation, getting blindsided

7:24

by an emotion, having that overtake us,

7:26

mistaking our emotion or our thought for

7:28

who we are, you know, being like, oh god, you

7:30

know, I had this negative thought and I

7:32

was like rude to this person. Now I'm terrible,

7:34

I'm this root. You know, we get all hung up in this, and

7:37

it takes being able to recognize that and take

7:39

a step back and to get out of that

7:41

causal momentum of reaction

7:44

and start to see the homeless. Second, I actually

7:47

can choose who and how I want

7:49

to be in the present as opposed to literally

7:52

just like I think about like almost like catching a flu.

7:54

In this way, it's like if you were twelve

7:57

and someone or something happened to you know,

7:59

from your parents, sir, in social situation or

8:01

whatever, and it had this really negative imprint

8:03

that created this defensiveness or this vulnerability

8:06

or whatever, and you go through the rest of your life reacting

8:08

to that situation defensively, either through

8:10

aggression or whatever it is to kind of keep people

8:12

back or protect yourself. You caught

8:15

like an illness, right, and it's like by

8:17

recognizing that you're sick, you can then

8:19

heal yourself and then you don't have that illness

8:21

anymore. I think it very much works like that. So

8:24

given that I'm gonna try and ask

8:26

a question that I don't even fully know how to

8:28

articulate. I know what I'm trying to ask, but asking

8:31

it is a little bit more challenging. We

8:33

are, in essence, just a

8:36

soup of causes and conditions,

8:38

right, That's what it is to be a human being. Right. Every

8:40

experience I've had in the past has altered

8:43

me in some way, my genetics, what I ate

8:45

today, the air I'm breathing, right, it's

8:47

all this incalculable recipe.

8:50

Right. So we have a tendency to look

8:52

back and go, all right, here was this

8:55

bad experience that formed me, and

8:57

that's not me. I want to slough

8:59

that, all right. And here's another bad

9:01

experience that happened and that's not me,

9:04

and we want to slough it off. But

9:06

then we also, at the

9:08

same time talk about and

9:10

I think wisely talk about here

9:12

what my values are. Here's

9:14

what's important to me. But that

9:17

value and importance has also

9:19

been shaped by countless uncalculable

9:22

back things. So my question

9:24

to you is, how

9:26

do you think about what to

9:29

keep and what to discard from the past,

9:31

and how do you know what's actually quote

9:33

unquote you. I love that question

9:36

and it invites a deep answer, you know. And really

9:38

what you're getting at is the impermanence of

9:40

self, you know. And if you do go

9:42

deep enough into meditation or whatever

9:44

practice that you can zoom out enough

9:47

from your identity and

9:49

being ultimately attached to the notion

9:52

of your identity, you can see. I guess

9:54

I should explain that a little bit is like all

9:56

of that stuff, the concepts that we

9:58

place on all the information that's

10:01

coming through our nervous system our entire life

10:03

are just concepts. And so

10:05

even like for example, you know, you feel something

10:08

through your hands, you smell something, you

10:10

see something, the information that's moving

10:12

through your nervous system arising to the

10:15

stage of consciousness is just raw

10:17

data. But then based on our

10:20

cultural heritage and etcetera, etcetera

10:22

cetera. At the time we're born, all this stuff, we

10:24

place these concepts on those sensations

10:27

that are really only relative to us

10:29

in a lot of ways, and that generates

10:32

an aspect of our subjective perception. But

10:34

it gets really deep is whenever

10:36

you back up a little bit and you realize,

10:39

like, oh wait a second, my entire identity

10:41

is that, like everything

10:43

that I think who I am and all

10:46

this stuff and who I should be in the

10:48

entire narrative of our

10:50

self aware consciousness, it's just one

10:53

big wave of data

10:55

that we've applied all these symbols and all this

10:57

meaning and all these signs too, that truly

11:00

have come out of pretty much nowhere. It's

11:02

just happenstance, you know,

11:04

of our experience. And so whenever

11:07

you can sit back and really begin

11:09

to see the structure

11:11

of your identity, it becomes

11:13

really hilarious to me. Anyway,

11:16

you know, getting hung up into something like even

11:18

any of the three poisons is something like desiring

11:21

something or thinking you have to go do this, and it's very

11:23

important work some way in life that you're

11:25

being or something you're hung up on. You're like, who

11:27

is the one that's hung up? Like?

11:30

Who is this person that's hung up on that thing?

11:32

I'm watching this kind

11:35

of tapestry of identity

11:37

that's been constructed at me over

11:40

time, and I mistook it for who I am,

11:42

But really I'm the one behind that, just observing

11:45

that character and the actor that's playing

11:47

the role of this identity through

11:50

time. Right. And so whenever

11:52

you see that and begin to

11:54

really accept that, your question

11:56

of like, well, you know, what are these things,

11:58

even the good values have come to me, Well,

12:01

those are also just as conditioned

12:03

and separate from you as

12:06

the bad things. So the move is,

12:09

I think to have that insight, you

12:11

also traditionally kind

12:13

of must have an increase in awareness

12:15

and self awareness through that process, because they're

12:17

just sort of two parts of the same mechanism.

12:20

And in that you can begin to realize

12:23

that your perception is not, of

12:25

course, some vantage point through which the

12:27

true nature of reality can be seen. And so you

12:29

take this into account while following

12:32

you know, your intuition, your instinct about

12:34

what feels right, like what is wholesome?

12:37

How can I be kind? And how can I be patient

12:39

and understanding and be compassionate?

12:42

This is like a sidebar to you know, applying

12:44

symbols to things like people mistake

12:46

compassion for an identity like you see

12:48

so many people in the mindfulness meditation

12:50

community thing, I am a compassionate person. It's

12:53

like, no, No, compassion isn't a trait. Compassion

12:55

is a point of view. It's a way through

12:57

which you see the world and look for

12:59

opportunity. Is to be compassionate, not

13:02

something that you call yourself. All I am compassionate.

13:04

You know, it doesn't do anything when you just call yourself

13:06

compassionate. But what does do something is

13:09

actually acting that way in life. And

13:11

so I kind of look at it like that. So it's

13:13

like, once you recognize the game is of

13:15

the self is just this impermanent, ever changing,

13:18

nonstable, really you

13:20

know, confused collection of

13:22

data and symbols, then you can go,

13:24

all right, well, I'm gonna just be as present as

13:26

possible, and I'm going to truly

13:29

listen to what feels good, what

13:31

feels right, and then try and use

13:33

the spaciousness of mind and the groundedness

13:36

and the calmness that comes from exploring

13:38

in a landscape to then do the

13:40

best I can in this world. And that's the other

13:43

thing is that like our intuition or instinct,

13:45

whatever you want to call it, that's all we

13:47

have at the end of the day. But it's

13:49

not right all the time, but we

13:52

have to just go with it. And by understanding

13:54

it's not always right and just doing our

13:56

best, I think that we can get a bit further

13:59

down the road. I've been working with how to think

14:01

about and talk about this, and I do think

14:03

at the ultimate edge of reality,

14:06

right, what we call self is completely non personal.

14:08

There's no trace of Eric in it.

14:10

That's just my personal belief right. So

14:13

that is one view. But then as you move

14:15

back into the relative world, right,

14:17

as you move back into all right,

14:19

I am a person who has been influenced

14:22

by all sorts of different things. Now I start

14:24

to take on sort of, you know, for lack of

14:26

a better word, of psychological or a personal

14:28

self. And that personal

14:31

self can be more or less

14:33

I like the word you used, wholesome or healthy,

14:35

you know. And so there's that sort of

14:37

dual development. Layer one.

14:40

It's sort of getting rid of that furthest

14:42

out for me, stuff, the surface

14:44

perceptions that people put on me, comparing

14:46

myself to others, trying to live in a culture

14:49

that I may not agree with the values. I move

14:51

back a step and now what's the most psychologically

14:53

and I use that word sort of loosely psychologically

14:56

or personal self. What's the best version

14:58

of that that I can create based out of

15:01

everything that's happened to me and what I think? And then

15:03

ultimately there's one step sort of back

15:05

from that, which is that witness perspective

15:07

or that true sort of dissolving into

15:10

you know, I like to call it the unity of self. Yeah,

15:12

that's a good way to describe it. That sounds kind

15:15

of contradictory what you're saying and what

15:17

I'm saying, and how we're agreeing on that, and

15:19

it is in some ways, but that's

15:22

because all things in nature

15:24

are not black and white. Everything is a

15:27

multitude of polarities, overlapping

15:30

in ways that are often inconvenient, in

15:33

ways that people have a hard time

15:35

squaring and accepting because we look for

15:37

an answer. But what's funny

15:39

about humans is that we look for an answer

15:42

and then we'll look for another answer, like, Okay,

15:44

now I feel comfortable because I have my two answers,

15:46

even when those two answers are contradictory,

15:49

But it goes unexamined because that doesn't serve

15:51

the narrative of mine. Whenever I was talking to Dan

15:54

Pink, on my podcast. He had one of the best

15:56

bits I might have shared this with you, one of the best

15:58

like antidotes I just love of that's burned in my

16:00

brain. He mentioned he was talking to this group

16:02

of people and they all

16:05

had the ability to kind of vote or something.

16:07

It was like at at a keynote speech or something,

16:09

and so we asked the audience, who here

16:12

believes in free will? And of

16:15

the audience raise their hand or whatever, and

16:17

they said, okay, now, who here thinks everything happens

16:19

for a reason? And you know, seventy of

16:21

the people raise their hand. That's like, do we see

16:23

a problem there? Right? But

16:26

but it's like, that's just this such a human thing

16:28

is that we allow ourselves these

16:30

two quote unquote truths to facilitate

16:33

the issue. And the problem that we're talking about

16:35

right now is that there's a contradiction

16:38

in that. But it's because as a creature,

16:40

humans have a strange thing

16:43

we have to deal with, because we have an ability

16:46

to get so spectral

16:48

lee meta in this way and

16:50

see ourselves from this huge

16:53

distant point of view if you put in the

16:55

practice to do that. But at the same time, no

16:57

matter how much you do that, no matter

16:59

how far you go, you're still

17:01

trapped and an animal body. Yeah,

17:03

exactly. Part of that main frame has

17:06

like okay, I have to deal with like

17:08

you can have the coolest, most amazing

17:10

computer program on your computer,

17:12

but you still have to have, you know, an

17:15

operating system. You know, we

17:17

have to have OSX or else none of the other

17:19

cool stuff works. And the operating

17:22

system is, as you mentioned, like our

17:24

our psychological profile. And

17:26

we need that because we have to have an ego

17:28

to continue on because

17:31

at the end of the day, we're really

17:33

just this hotel for our DNA, and

17:35

that we need the ego to believe that we have enough

17:37

value to continue going so

17:39

that we'll know repropagate or whatever.

17:41

Yeah. Yeah, I want to change directions

17:44

here because, as you were saying, I jumped into

17:46

the deep end of the pool there, but I

17:48

couldn't resist. I want to talk about something

17:50

that I just saw it on your social media

17:53

recently, but I loved this line

17:55

you said, dreaming of material wealth

17:57

is a dream of being free from

17:59

design buyers. And you go on to

18:01

sort of say like, uh no, that's not gonna work.

18:04

Let's talk about that a little bit. Yeah, that's

18:06

one of my favorite things that clicked

18:08

on me is like, because our

18:10

culture is so deeply based

18:12

on commerce and marketing

18:15

and capitalism and consumerism,

18:18

Like what are we like, We're consumers

18:20

that are just marketed to from birth, like

18:22

before birth, but really before birth

18:25

there's all this stuff for baby while you're still

18:27

in the womb. It's like the second you step

18:29

out of your mom into you know, meat space,

18:31

all the marketers are ready to hit you with all

18:34

the stuff that you know, they get dialed

18:36

in algorithmically to serve you and

18:38

leverage you. And really what happens is that

18:41

we're told, particularly in America and in

18:43

the Western world, but especially America, because

18:45

one of the great superpowers of our country

18:47

is making things famous, you know,

18:49

that feeds into it. And so there's like a

18:51

celebrity culture and a marketing capitalist culture

18:54

where it's like, if you don't have this,

18:56

then you aren't successful,

18:59

right if you if you don't have this thing, this trade,

19:01

this quality, this material object,

19:03

whatever it is, then you aren't successful. And

19:06

look at this famous person and look

19:08

how happy they are, and look that they're they're driving

19:10

that car or they're holding this stupid cologne

19:13

or whatever it is. So we grow

19:15

up in that ecosystem, and like women who

19:17

are marketed to so intensely with

19:19

I mean god, like the body stuff

19:22

and the makeup in that whole

19:24

world, that whole industry is so brutal, and it's

19:26

like I can't imagine growing up

19:28

having to deal with being told like, hey, you're

19:30

not pretty enough, and so you need to have all

19:32

these things to look better. I mean, it's really treacherous.

19:35

So we grow up feeling really empty, like we're

19:37

missing something, and so we

19:40

get focused on this idea that

19:42

hey, I can not only have that

19:44

feeling go away, but I can crush it and

19:46

be respected by everyone and whatever by having

19:49

a giant house or like a lot of cars

19:51

or owning an island or whatever it is. But that's

19:53

kind of where people stop thinking about

19:55

it in the most time. And it's because obtaining

19:58

those things is practic really impossible.

20:01

Like the people who have a mansion

20:03

or ten cars or whatever, like

20:05

just crazy luxury wealth. It's

20:07

so few that, like you know, people don't

20:10

ever achieve that. So it creates a lot of suffering

20:12

and people don't have the space or the realization

20:14

to actually get there and realize like, wait a second,

20:17

this isn't the answer to how I'm feeling.

20:19

And so if we unzip that whole

20:21

process and pull some stuff

20:23

out of the bag and dial down into

20:25

it, what is it that we're really looking

20:28

for? Because you know,

20:30

at the end of the day, if you have a bunch of

20:32

luxurious items or whatever, it is,

20:35

like that doesn't make you happy, Like,

20:37

it's not really the thing you're going for. And

20:39

so what we're looking for is that to have

20:42

that feeling, the pulling, the tearing,

20:44

and the suffering of not feeling whole be

20:47

gone. And so that's really

20:49

what the material pull

20:52

is cloaked in. And so

20:54

it's great if you can recognize the fact that hold

20:56

on a second, like, it's not that I want all this stuff.

20:58

I just don't want to be wanting all this stuff.

21:01

Like another one of my Instagram posts was the thing

21:03

you want is to want nothing. That's

21:05

really the end of the story. It's like, because

21:07

then you're tapping back into instead of an

21:10

intrinsic type of value,

21:12

you're looking inward and you're saying, like, Okay,

21:15

what is my life like? Just you have to reframe

21:17

a little bit. So first off, you're awake,

21:19

you pulled off the greatest magic trick of

21:22

all time. You don't owe the world or anyone

21:24

anything. You came into existence.

21:26

Take a moment to realize how insane that is.

21:29

It's preposterous, Like you were nothing

21:32

and now you're a conscious being. You

21:34

did it. Congratulations. You don't need to

21:36

do anything else. That's an amazing trick,

21:39

right. The fact that you exist is enough

21:41

your whole by the fact that you were here. And

21:43

if you can sit without a little bit and

21:46

start to just appreciate the fact that

21:48

you get to be here, you get to have these

21:50

experiences and have friends and

21:53

you know, eat food and just enjoy

21:55

the crazy like sensuality

21:57

of being, just like sitting

22:00

in feeling air on your skin is

22:02

like, you know, it's intoxicating

22:04

if you're present enough with it. And

22:06

so recognizing that space and that idea

22:09

helps you get free of that suffering

22:11

and tune into the gratitude

22:13

and really just the bizarre abundance

22:16

of magic that it is to purely exist at

22:18

all. Yeah, so much of that rings

22:20

really true. That what

22:22

we want is to not want. I

22:24

think there's a couple of reasons why this is so

22:27

hard. One is that

22:30

if things like a new car or

22:33

a new house or a hit

22:35

of heroin never worked

22:37

at all, It would be an easy illusion

22:39

to see through. You'd be like that, just dozone

22:42

work right? Like okay, I try to no good right,

22:44

but that stuff usually temporarily

22:47

works to go okay,

22:50

scratch that itch. Problem is the

22:52

itch comes right back. You know what's

22:54

interesting, I just thought of this yesterday. Maybe I sort

22:56

of subconsciously had these things connected in my mind,

22:58

but I tied them up in my mind just

23:00

yesterday, which was we listen to evolutionary

23:03

psychology, they say you're

23:05

wired to be unsatisfied because a

23:07

satisfied creature doesn't survive, right,

23:10

It doesn't seek partners, it doesn't seek

23:12

food. It's just as like, hey, I'm laying in

23:14

the field. Everything's cool. So we're

23:16

not capable on some level

23:19

of satisfaction in the animal sense.

23:21

And it occurred to me like that's sort of essentially

23:24

part of what you know, Buddha's first

23:26

noble truth to me to some degree.

23:29

First and second right, like, which is dissatisfaction

23:33

is imminent for you, you know,

23:35

And so I think it's interesting to think about

23:38

that through in some ways, the Buddha is

23:40

diagnosing the human condition, which is

23:42

that we are designed to continue

23:44

to want. Yeah, and it's a brutal

23:46

one too, because we get hit from both sides,

23:49

because we're designed to never feel satisfied,

23:51

as you said, But at the same time, we're

23:53

also designed to seek the path

23:55

of least resistance because we're

23:58

you know, we're an animal

24:00

that's trying to conserve energy all the time. And

24:02

so it's like, well, what are you supposed to

24:04

do with that? So

24:08

how do you deal with that pole of that

24:10

feeling of not feeling satisfied

24:13

and just that general animal hunger

24:15

of feeling like you have to keep moving, you have

24:18

to keep doing this stuff. How do you stay grounded?

24:20

Well, it's interesting because I'm in the midst of

24:22

it right now. We are planning a trip

24:25

and I'm going to go to Europe for a

24:27

month in June. I've never been.

24:29

I've never even contemplated

24:32

taking anything like a month off work. Don't

24:34

worry, listeners, there will be up two podcast episodes

24:36

a week. I'm working hard now. I've never

24:38

contemplated taking that much time off. So now

24:40

we're looking at where we're going to go, and we're booking

24:42

hotels, and I feel it. I feel

24:45

the I want, I want, I want,

24:47

and I also see right through

24:50

the other end of it, and I'm like, and then I'm

24:52

going to come home, right,

24:55

it's gonna end. So I think for

24:57

me, it seems like the best I

24:59

can do is to at least try

25:01

as often as I can to see

25:03

through the illusion and go, yeah,

25:06

of course I want to stay in that nice hotel

25:08

in that beautiful town in Europe. Like, I want

25:10

that. And you know what if

25:12

I got that, Like if somebody was like, Eric, not only

25:14

do you get to stay in this hotel tonight, but we have

25:16

just gifted you this hotel, you are

25:19

the lucky winner. Right, I'd be

25:21

over the moon for a

25:23

week, two weeks, a month, I don't know how

25:25

long, but eventually that

25:27

hotel would just become my

25:30

normal and I would be back to wanting

25:32

the next thing, which is what you're getting

25:35

at in your post about material wealth.

25:37

Right, nothing stops the wanting

25:39

process, and so as long as we

25:41

think that we can permanently satiate

25:44

it. For me, I put way too

25:46

much stock in the thing,

25:49

you know, used to be a relationship. If I could

25:51

just get that relationship, you know, and now

25:53

I sort of see through it at least. It's not that

25:55

I don't fall into the spell a little bit.

25:57

It's not that I don't feel to use your point

25:59

or elier these impulses that come

26:01

up in various directions, But

26:04

I try my best to keep reminding myself,

26:06

like, lasting happiness isn't there.

26:08

Yeah, there's some enjoyment, there's some pleasure,

26:11

but lasting happiness it's not coming

26:13

via that route. There's this other route

26:15

that I've been nurturing that I need to continue to nurture.

26:17

Yeah. There's a fun test that listeners can do

26:20

on this is that if you think back to ten

26:22

years ago and something that you

26:25

really wanted, it was just like you were burning

26:27

inside, you know, and it

26:29

changed the way that you triangulated

26:31

your reality. You were talking to this person because

26:33

it could get you to talk to this person, and somehow

26:36

that was going to lead to hopefully you getting this

26:38

thing. You know, you chose to make this

26:40

action because you knew like if I can do this

26:42

and this and this, I can sequence this and I'll be

26:44

able to achieve this thing I'm desiring. And you get

26:46

really tense and wrapped up in it and it

26:48

becomes a thing, and then whether you got

26:51

it or not. You can look at it now and think like,

26:53

oh, well that was silly, Like I

26:55

didn't really do anything for me. It just

26:57

made me maybe even like manipulate people

27:00

or say something that you're like, you change my behavior

27:02

in a negative way. And I was tense

27:04

and suffering the whole time and like kind of feverish

27:06

with hunger for this thing. It wasn't

27:09

really pretty. And it's so goofy

27:11

to think back that I was so worked up over getting

27:13

you know, like limited edition sneakers or what

27:15

do you whatever it was, or a new car or the job.

27:17

And then now you can think, oh, that was funny, like what

27:20

I've grown so much, and now do

27:22

that with whatever you're wanting right now, and

27:25

you can see just as how silly it is and

27:27

how illusory it is, because it really is, at

27:29

the end of the day, just a passing illusion. It's

27:31

this thing that the mind teas up for a

27:33

while until it gets exhausted. It's

27:35

really kind of like chewing gum for the ego in some

27:37

ways, just to keep you busy, you know.

27:39

But I think that to me, if you, if

27:42

you step back a few steps,

27:44

and I mean what I do anyways, I stepped back

27:46

a few steps, and everything

27:49

that comes through, whether it's good

27:52

things, bad things, whatever,

27:54

I am really just not

27:57

detached. But I don't

27:59

get involved with the things. So

28:01

of course I like saying in a nice hotel, but

28:04

I don't go thinking like, all right,

28:06

I'm a guy that gets to stay in a nice hotel.

28:09

I just think, oh, I'm a guy. There's

28:11

a nice hotel. I'm going to go into it,

28:13

and then let's enjoy it as much as possible

28:15

while we're here, and really enjoy it. But at

28:17

no point is there a self identification

28:19

through that process. And it's

28:22

sort of like a zen thing of like, you know,

28:24

good things in life happened, bad things

28:26

in life happened. It's like no, no, no, things are

28:28

just happening. The perspective through which you engage

28:30

with those things is what dictates your reality and your

28:32

experience and ultimately your levels

28:35

of attachment. And so even

28:37

yeah, these beautiful things that we can't

28:39

experience and there's nothing wrong. I mean, that's one of the other

28:41

hang ups. I think people who are trying to go inward

28:44

in this way often um struggle

28:46

with is they think, like, I'm terrible for wanting

28:48

a nice car. It's like, no, you're not. There's

28:51

nothing wrong with that, And a nice car is a beautiful

28:53

achievement of engineering, Like it's

28:56

it's a great you know, it's a great thing. But if

28:58

it changes your behavior you're and

29:00

whether you're in it, if it makes you feel

29:03

arrogant or like better than everyone else,

29:05

then you have a problem. But if you're driving

29:08

that nice car just like it was

29:10

a Toyota or whatever, then

29:13

you're all good because you're not mistaken and

29:15

applying the concept of

29:17

the thing to your identity. You're just a

29:20

identity engaging with an experience.

29:22

And that's how I anyways stay free from

29:24

that stuff. It

29:57

feels almost like we're talking about two

29:59

levels of suffering that we

30:01

can have around these things. One is the

30:03

one you just hit on, which is very much identity

30:06

based. Right. It's if I

30:08

had enough money, then I

30:10

would be good enough. If

30:12

I had that car, then I would be respected.

30:15

I would be the kind of person who owns that car. There,

30:17

so there's an identity element that's

30:19

wrapped up in that. I think that's very real,

30:22

at least for me personally. You know, I always

30:25

don't want to overstate things, but for me

30:27

personally, I think a combination of age

30:29

and several somewhat shattering spiritual

30:31

experiences have dropped

30:33

a fair amount of that identity game, right

30:36

Like that I feel less

30:39

tied to For me, it seems

30:41

to remain more around

30:43

the basic mechanism,

30:46

the wanting process, you

30:48

know, just the wanting to be comfortable,

30:50

the wanting to be happy, the wanting

30:53

to feel differently than I do,

30:56

not because of who I am, or maybe

30:58

they're connected in a deeper way, but it seems

31:00

like those two different ways sometimes

31:03

for me that I have to approach things. Can I shake

31:05

off the identity apart? And then there's

31:08

the other part, which is sort of like a creature

31:10

that's optimizing for pleasure, right Yeah,

31:12

And that aspect of it that you're talking about,

31:15

I think that stepping back and observing

31:17

the arising bodily impulse

31:21

is not only a great way to deal

31:23

with it, but it becomes hilarious to me

31:25

because it just becomes absurd. You can

31:27

use all plethora of things

31:29

to test this and play with this with yourself, but hunger

31:32

is a great one. What we're getting down to is

31:34

like the mammalian brain, you know, signature,

31:37

the vapor rising off the mammalian brain

31:39

that's affecting, you know, the higher higher intelligence.

31:42

If you kind of realign that higher intelligence

31:44

to observe the vapor rising from the mammalian

31:47

animal brain, then it becomes

31:49

sort of strange and funny.

31:51

And you see how that constant urging

31:53

of want is just another

31:56

impulse and just another signal which

31:58

you can choose to just really like let

32:00

go of. And I think, to me, like curiosity

32:02

is a really helpful way to like play those games.

32:05

So I think maybe one year ago, two years

32:07

ago in Austin, there was a period where

32:09

what they were calling the snow apocalypse. You know, Texas

32:12

is not set up for snow, and

32:14

it snowed in an insane amount during

32:16

COVID lockdown, and everyone lost

32:18

their power and water for like a week. People

32:20

were freezing and they didn't have no food and it

32:23

was brutal. We had a little bit of food, but not any

32:25

water, and so we were

32:27

sitting around and didn't know how long this is gonna

32:29

go. And I just thought, I'm gonna

32:31

just like instead of you know, worrying

32:33

about this too much. There's really

32:36

not much I can do at this point, and

32:38

there's no reason to panic. Instead, this

32:40

will be a fun test to see what

32:42

hunger really is about, Like

32:44

what is that animal creature impulse

32:47

to want to eat? And I'm not, of course belittling

32:49

anyone who's starving or trying to denigrate

32:52

that in any way, but I mean just as

32:54

something that arose in my own life where I was like,

32:56

huh, let's see like what hunger is.

32:59

And I just sort of like watching the feeling of

33:01

hunger in that way and observing

33:03

it and then just observing how it was changing

33:06

my perception, how it's changing, like the way that

33:08

I was reacting, and like my levels of patients,

33:10

my energy levels and all that. But

33:12

after a while, just you know, it

33:14

became really funny and just sort of a

33:16

silly thing, like it lost

33:18

its teeth to me, you know, and it

33:21

was a good way to deal with it. And so I kind

33:23

of used that little experience moving forward

33:25

for some of those similar things where it's like it

33:28

feels like it has more power of you

33:30

because it's coming from a deeper,

33:33

older part of the mind. But really

33:35

it's just the same as the

33:38

identity issue. It's just coming from the bottoms

33:40

of the top. Yeah, that's a great way to say

33:42

it, it is coming from the bottom instead of the top.

33:44

And it's so interesting though, because

33:46

when you think about what we are,

33:49

I use the analogy of soup earlier,

33:51

or incalculable recipe. Right,

33:54

A big part of that soup and incalculable

33:56

recipe are hormones and

33:59

neurotransmitters and all these things

34:01

that really control to a certain extent

34:03

our experience. And

34:06

I often like to think about how free

34:08

will? You brought that up earlier. Do we have free

34:10

will? Right? Without going into the deep philosophical

34:13

sense of it doesn't exist, Let's just assume it does

34:15

exist to some degree. Do

34:17

all humans have the same degree of it? You

34:20

know? So, for example, free

34:22

will when it comes to not eating that piece of

34:24

chocolate cake over there, you can take me and

34:27

five other people, and depending

34:29

on the biological makeup of those five people,

34:31

depending on hormone levels, but depending

34:33

on a variety of different things, depending

34:36

on blood sugar levels, a whole bunch of different things.

34:38

It may be relatively easy for me to look at that

34:40

piece of chocolate cake and be like, no, no big deal,

34:43

whereas it might be like a Jesus

34:45

on the cross moment for someone

34:47

else to walk away from that piece

34:49

of chocolate cake, right, And so

34:51

I find it really interesting to think about

34:54

our ability to work with impulses

34:56

that are often mediated by things

34:58

that feel beyond control. What are your

35:01

thoughts on that? Yeah, it's really interesting. I mean it's

35:03

something I've thought about a lot. And the idea of

35:05

determinism is very tasty, you

35:07

know, to keep with the food, and it's

35:09

very tasty, like it seems it

35:12

seems so plausible,

35:14

and I think it is. It does

35:16

seem to be, and just to sort of give a

35:18

super shortcut to determinism for it's

35:20

not familiar and basically saying that we have no free will

35:22

because everything in the universe is causally

35:25

created, so like essentially there

35:27

was the Big Bang, and then that created

35:30

planets, and then over time it created

35:32

some speaking of soup, there's a little you know, protein

35:34

soup of bacteria and the oceans, and

35:36

then some little fish and so forth, and

35:39

then it goes up until sapiens being

35:41

created. And then all of the

35:43

chance, inheritance of action

35:46

from your parents and everything that you know pushes

35:48

you then dictates the options

35:50

that you can have and that you can make because you're just

35:52

this motion of all

35:55

of the things that happened before you, and you're not really

35:57

able to make any other choice because

36:00

everything has been kind of determined by what's happening

36:02

before you. It's simple causality, and

36:04

I do think that's one element of it, because

36:06

just on a physics level, that checks

36:08

out right, does it? Though? My question

36:11

about that is doesn't quantum

36:13

physics sort of throw that whole thing off by

36:15

saying, hey, what's going to happen here is a

36:17

probability not a made decision?

36:20

Yeah? Sure, And it was about to say, was that

36:22

I have not you know, the person to say so it definitely

36:25

physics is definitely work out on that. But

36:28

a person who's an expert in nothing and it has no

36:30

certification whatsoever and didn't go to

36:32

college and no expertise.

36:35

But it seems as though that linear

36:37

train of thought resolves,

36:40

you know, and makes sense. However, again,

36:42

back to what we're talking about previously, is

36:44

that that's a very human thing to be like,

36:47

Okay, this one answer and this one

36:49

way of going that's it's like, well, no, it's it's

36:51

a couple of things that are all happening at once, and

36:54

you have to kind of step out and peel

36:56

back your perception a little

36:58

bit to hold those two things at the same time.

37:00

And I love your example of people have different

37:03

or varying degrees of free will because it fits right into

37:05

like this thing that I've thought about for

37:07

a long time is it's kind of like compatible

37:10

ism in a sense, but it's more of like,

37:12

we don't have free will per se.

37:15

However, inside the ecosystem

37:17

of our own mind, because of our subjectivity,

37:20

we're able to choose our choices. So

37:23

on the palate of your own perceptual

37:26

identity and awareness and nervous system,

37:29

plus the inheritance of your past,

37:32

you then have the freedom and

37:34

the will to choose the very

37:36

small switch bank of choices that you're

37:38

able to think of were able to muster at

37:41

that moment. But it doesn't mean that

37:43

in other areas you are acting

37:45

without realizing it, because we certainly all

37:47

are doing that constantly totally. But at the

37:49

same time, we have a little bit of elbow

37:52

room, a little bit of wiggliness where it

37:54

seems as though we're able to

37:56

choose a variety of options in certain

37:59

situations. Yeah, I think to say

38:01

that our choices are certainly limited by

38:03

so many factors. I mean, if somebody's

38:06

listening to this in you know, Mumbai,

38:08

they have different set of choices about what they're going

38:10

to do with their afternoon than I do in Columbus. Like

38:12

it's just the way it is, whether they're better or worse. Like

38:14

I couldn't say right, they're just different. But

38:17

I do think this question of the ability

38:19

to make choices, and I think our amount of free will

38:22

is different on different things. It's so interesting

38:24

for me because I know at one point, like to

38:26

choose not to take a drink. For me,

38:28

ultimately, yes, it was my choice.

38:31

I I was the one who picked up a drink and

38:33

either did or didn't at the end of the day, that's

38:35

where it ends. And it

38:38

felt so hard then

38:41

so hard, and now it's so easy,

38:44

right, same person, same thing.

38:47

But the level to me like now

38:49

it's it feels like an easy choice. Then it felt

38:51

like being torn apart inside choice.

38:53

What do you think is a way that

38:56

people move from

38:58

those impulses that them up that

39:01

feels so strong that

39:03

we almost despite our best

39:06

intentions, give in to them. And we could be talking

39:08

about hard core adiction or or even not right

39:10

on a spectrum, but where the impulses

39:13

are really strong, and I find it hard to just

39:15

let them go. Versus the other hand, what you're

39:17

describing is is a much different

39:19

thing where I'm like, I'm observing what

39:22

could be a pretty strong impulse like hunger.

39:24

I've got a lot of space around it. What's

39:26

the path do you think from

39:28

one end of that to the other. I think the

39:31

hugest thing is not being overwhelmed.

39:34

So the person who is out

39:36

of control of their decision making

39:39

is overwhelmed, like they have no

39:41

spaciousness of mind. The tension

39:43

and the stress and often the emotional

39:46

stress that they're feeling because of generally something

39:48

traumatic that happens to them

39:50

is so heavy and they feel so

39:53

limited in their options that it's

39:55

like they're in grid luck traffic times twenty.

39:57

It's too much, And so whenever the imp

40:00

luso arises, it's like, Hey,

40:02

this thing, I'm going to accept it

40:04

because one, I don't have the

40:06

space or the emotional energy

40:09

to really be thoughtful about it. But two,

40:12

I'm so compacted and I'm so overwhelmed

40:15

that anything is worth having

40:17

a break from that. I just want to have a break

40:19

from this feeling, you know, And that's why drugs

40:22

or alcohol or sex or whatever, pick

40:24

your your pleasure or you know, careerism,

40:26

you know whatever. There's so many different forms of it.

40:29

Social media definitely one.

40:32

But it's like it's something that we feel

40:34

overwhelmed with negative emotion and

40:36

with you know, often intellectual energy,

40:39

and we are stuck between

40:41

a rock and heart place because we for

40:43

whatever reason aren't ready or don't have the toolkit

40:46

to look at where our sufferings come

40:48

from and to begin to integrate and work

40:50

with that, you know, psychological pain,

40:53

and we feel like we can't move forward because

40:55

everything is too tense and two dense. So what

40:57

we want to do is basically just nomb

41:00

out and just get out of that somehow

41:02

and be distracted from what we're

41:04

feeling. But of course you can only

41:07

stay distracted for so long and wherever you come back to

41:09

it, well, hey, nothing has changed, You're

41:11

still there. It's one of the things that people experience

41:13

with something like pain killers or anti anxiety

41:16

meds, where of course, you know, in low

41:18

doses at reasonable times, those can be useful

41:20

for people with you know, certain chemical imbalances,

41:22

but if you depend on them and you're

41:24

using them every day, recreationally.

41:27

That river of emotion doesn't just go

41:29

into the ether. You're just putting up

41:31

a damn you know. And that's why, you know, whenever

41:34

you stop taking them, all that floods back out

41:36

and like, O God, this is terrible, I'm gonna take them

41:38

again, and it creates a real issue. You know. The

41:40

way to having that spaciousness is,

41:43

of course, you know, the therapeutic approach

41:45

of having some you know, some type

41:47

of talk therapy to begin to open those

41:49

doors and let out some of that emotional pressure.

41:52

And also, of course I would recommend your meditation

41:54

or mindfulness practice to begin

41:57

to calm the body down because

41:59

most people, especially in this you know, the

42:01

era of information, we're

42:03

scared. We're like, we're in a constant

42:06

state of anxiety because there's so

42:08

many things to deal with and there's so much

42:10

information and now there's so many types

42:12

of flavors of truth and reality coming

42:14

at us that people are just freaked out. So

42:17

they're just going from one thing to the next thing to the

42:19

next thing, and they really get stuck in

42:21

this fight or flight modes, Like the the amygdala

42:24

is just turned on because we're like, okay,

42:26

now I have to do this, and after this and blah blah

42:28

blah, and I feel, you know, worried. And now even if I'm

42:30

sitting on the couch, I'm thinking about work or

42:32

I'm thinking about this other thing. And so

42:35

why meditation is so valuable

42:37

is that whenever you calm the body and

42:39

you actually you know, can be as simple

42:41

as just you know, sitting and breathing. That's all you

42:43

gotta do. Give yourself that space

42:45

to sit and breathe. Just by taking

42:48

regular relaxed breaths

42:50

and just relaxing the muscles every time you exhale,

42:53

it sends signals, you know, to

42:55

the brain, telling your brain that the body is safe.

42:58

And that's the issue is that people feel that level

43:00

of overwhelmedness because the body

43:03

doesn't think they're safe because they're dealing

43:05

with so many things. They're engaged with so many

43:07

things, and they're worried about so many external

43:09

factors, right, and so their body

43:11

is like, oh, well, we must be under a threat because

43:14

we're on like a high beams are on and we're like

43:16

constantly doing so stay in fight or

43:18

flight mode. But by meditating

43:20

and consistently using the compound

43:23

growth of that of sending these signals

43:25

just through relaxed breathing to the mind

43:27

the hey, the body is safe. You can actually relax

43:30

now. The mind then changes

43:32

all of the chemical nature of itself and

43:34

goes into the parasympathetic nervous system mode

43:36

of the you know, the rest and digest mode, where

43:38

it's like, okay, we can actually calm down

43:41

a little bit, we can stop you know, keeping

43:43

us locked into fight or flight mode, and

43:45

that relieves some of the pressure. It

43:47

gives people an ability to calm

43:50

down, to actually collect the thoughts,

43:52

to blow off and release some of that stress

43:55

and have a bit more spaciousness. And that's really

43:57

step one in removing

43:59

the pressure from the overwhelmed that creates

44:02

addiction and impulsive behavior.

44:42

I read a tweet from somebody today that

44:44

I loved that echoes something I've said many

44:46

times, and it ties to what you just said a little

44:48

bit, which is it was basically an underappreciated

44:52

victory and mindfulness is

44:54

realizing you simply didn't make things worse,

44:58

yeah, which I've

45:00

often said. You know, if you boiled all the work

45:02

that I do down, you might say like, well,

45:05

you know, I just have basically taught you how to not

45:07

make things worse. However, for some of

45:09

us, our capacity to make things worse is

45:11

so profound. Yeah, that

45:13

that's a huge win question

45:16

for you. I was reading again something

45:18

of yours recently, and you mentioned you do an

45:20

hour of exercise every day

45:22

and you do about thirty minutes of meditation,

45:25

So you're actually doing, you know,

45:27

basically double exercise to

45:29

meditation. So speak to the role

45:32

for you of exercise in creating

45:34

some of the freedom we were just talking about. Oh yeah,

45:36

it's so important. I mean, you know, my entire

45:39

life, I was just hyper intellectual

45:42

and really shutting down, compartmentalizing

45:45

all emotionals everything like that, while you

45:47

know, intensely studying Buddhism

45:50

and just general Eastern wisdom traditions

45:52

and also you know, Western philosophy

45:54

and thinking I was really getting somewhere. And I

45:56

was to some degree until you know,

45:58

it hit me that I I had

46:01

a mentor or a kind of a slight teacher

46:04

way back like twenty years ago that said make

46:06

sure and open your heart before you open

46:08

your mind. And I was like, whatever, you know, I got

46:10

this, you know, of course, as like a twenty

46:13

year old, and I got to this

46:15

place that I call existential paralysis,

46:17

where like my level

46:20

of the computation of the

46:22

detail of the existential

46:25

landscape was so intense that

46:27

it was kind of like almost like

46:29

a nervous like intellectual breakdown or

46:31

something. I was so overwhelming, and

46:34

I could describe it, but it would be exhausting for

46:36

for listeners for me to go into the detail. It's

46:38

like a tiny snapshot would basically be like

46:41

I got to this place of opening my eyes in the morning

46:43

where I'm like, well, there's a bunch

46:45

of blood vessels that just expanded because

46:47

like rays of energy coming from like

46:49

a nuclear furnace nine million miles away

46:52

just like flew through space and a radiant like bounced

46:54

off the walls and those cells, you know, had

46:57

a cellular change in my eyes. Now my blood

46:59

and you know, and just the stuff and like walking

47:01

outside and like, oh, all the microbes

47:03

in the grass and the you know, in the soil, or

47:05

there's all these microbes in every single blade

47:08

of grass and all you know, the blood vessels

47:10

of the trees, of the blood vessels of the

47:12

earth, and so you know, times a thousand, just stuck

47:14

in that zone, I sat down. I was

47:16

actually, okay, this is too much and I lose

47:18

like in that space for a couple of years, and

47:21

you just get increasingly more intense. And that was in my late

47:23

twenties, and I thought, Okay, I gotta fix this. What's

47:26

the foundation? Like, what am I missing here? Because

47:28

I'm clearly missing something. I'm out of balance, I'm

47:30

out of whack. What is it? And I thought,

47:32

what's kind of like our birthright as a human being?

47:35

And I thought, it's the mind, body and soul,

47:37

right and soul whatever you call that, whatever

47:39

you want. I caught the non self, you

47:41

know, but it doesn't sound positive

47:44

people, but I mean it in a positive way. So

47:47

I thought, okay, well, I've been working on the mind in

47:49

the you know, the self intensely compulsively

47:52

for all this time, and I've never

47:55

one time thought about my body. And

47:58

so I thought, oh, well, no wonder, I'm freaked

48:00

out. No wonder. I'm like, because I'm so ungrounded

48:03

and I'm so trapped in my head that

48:05

I need to get back in the ground, get back

48:08

into like being an animal, and actually,

48:10

you know, get in tune with the physical

48:13

nature of being as opposed to just the

48:15

the intellectual or the you know, inner

48:18

aspect. Of it, and so I just started like running

48:20

and doing yoga, and I started reading about

48:22

nutrition, eating well, and all of a

48:25

sudden, I was like, wow, I feel fifty

48:27

percent better after two weeks, you

48:29

know. And so then it became

48:32

a thing where I just started running

48:34

five times a week for like ten years,

48:37

and I recently have switched that up to

48:39

something else. But getting up in the morning

48:41

and having all of that intellectual

48:43

energy, all that animal energy, you

48:45

know, because we I think, you know, some

48:47

statistic I read one time like whenever

48:50

sapiens were nomadic, we walked like eight

48:52

miles a day or something like that. It's like it's

48:54

built in. It's to need to move and to get

48:56

that all that energy out. And

48:59

so that's it's so important to me, is

49:01

just like blasting out all the

49:03

animal energy, really getting

49:05

the body revved up, and it wakes me

49:07

up and really like get you alive. And I

49:09

think that another aspect of it is breaking

49:11

through barriers of resistance. It's a great practice

49:14

because, like we talked about before,

49:16

we're sort of wired to seek

49:18

the path of least resistance, and so that

49:21

of course feeds into life. Anytime that we're

49:23

going through something like well, I have some emails to

49:25

do, but it sounds too overwhelming.

49:27

Like I joke about a friend of mine, it's like something really

49:30

important, you know, that you need to do, and it's like, well,

49:32

that would have taken twenty minutes. I can't

49:34

deal. You know, that's way too overwhelmed.

49:36

You know, no way could I pause and do that. But

49:39

the exercise, it taps you into

49:41

the power of like your animal

49:43

creature power. And so whenever you get

49:45

in that mindset of like, okay,

49:47

say you're running and you start feeling tired,

49:50

you could just stop, you know, sure,

49:52

But also humans are so much

49:54

more powerful, and our will and physical

49:56

strength is so much more intense

49:59

than we give it credit for that. If you just reframe

50:01

that and change your mindset, you can keep

50:03

running for you know, an hour or

50:06

something like that. And so breaking

50:08

through those little barriers because it's basically just

50:10

your mind throwing up a little thing that's like, hey, we're

50:12

spending a lot of energy. You should stop in case

50:14

the lion drives to attack you or whatever. And then

50:16

it's like, no, you can override that, you know.

50:19

I just sounds so weird, But whenever I was younger,

50:21

I used to imagine whenever I would get tired when I

50:23

was running, that I was like chasing

50:25

like a hog through the undergrowth in the jungle,

50:27

and that the only way that the tribe would

50:30

eat is if I could catch this thing. And

50:32

I would really just go there like Jordan's you know,

50:34

and back. God, I gotta and but it was

50:36

just a good, like kind of nervous system

50:38

reframe. But yeah, anyway, so that's

50:40

so valuable because then whenever you're in

50:43

your daily life and it's time to have a tough conversation

50:45

or to do that, you know, one extra task,

50:48

it's not a thing like well I'll just give up. It's like, this

50:50

is no big deal. I caught the hog girlier in the undergrowth.

50:53

This is you know, talking to this person. This

50:55

is nothing, you know. So that's super

50:57

super viable. I mean, it's it really is the foundation.

50:59

And and I think that stacking these

51:02

habits in this way to me anyway,

51:04

it's all a routine that just facilitates

51:07

the way I feel the best and the you know, the happiest,

51:10

clearest, most energetic mind. And

51:12

it's that, you know, the exercise, shaking off the

51:14

energy, breaking through barriers, you know, waking

51:16

up the nervous system and then going

51:19

to the meditation and then calming it all

51:21

down and focusing it and just continue that

51:23

cultivated sense of awareness. And after that, I

51:25

mean, it's go time. You know, it feels so

51:27

beautiful. Yeah, I'm with you. My

51:30

exercise to meditation ratio might

51:32

be might be close to two to one. And if

51:34

I was forced, you know, if

51:36

I was forced to be like you can only have one

51:38

wellness intervention in your life, Eric,

51:41

it would be exercise. I would jettison

51:44

at all. I'd be like, well, I'm sorry, never meditating

51:46

again. Med's okay, they were helpful, but goodbye.

51:48

It would be I'm going to exercise, which

51:51

is tremendously boring thing to say,

51:53

Right, what's the best way to feed Eric's goodwolf?

51:55

Exercise? Okay, show over. We did not

51:57

need five hundred episodes like We're done.

52:00

Um turns into a health podcast.

52:03

Yeah. Well, I interviewed a woman recently.

52:05

I don't know if you've seen the book, but I think you would like it. It It was

52:07

called Move by Caroline Williams,

52:10

and she does a lot of research

52:12

on why exercise

52:14

is so beneficial for us. I think you

52:16

would actually really kind of nerd out

52:19

on it a little bit. There was a lot of stuff

52:21

that I had not seen before as

52:23

to like more up and coming scientific

52:25

theories about what's going on with

52:27

movement and us. It was a good book

52:30

and she was actually a good interview too. It'll be out

52:32

by the time any listener, here's this Okay, listeners,

52:34

you can find that episode in our in our

52:36

back catalog. I know that. You

52:39

know. The Other thing about exercise that's interesting

52:41

is I just had this conversation with Jenny

52:43

the other day, and I think this speaks

52:45

to some of what we've talked about a little

52:47

bit before. And I've got a coaching

52:50

client who's right in the midst of this, right,

52:52

We've got him back on track, and he's just crushing

52:54

it exercise wise, right, And the first

52:56

three weeks it's like, yes,

52:59

yes, right, Like he feels

53:01

different, he feels better, it's it's awesome.

53:04

And somewhere around the three to five

53:06

to six week mark, what happens

53:08

is we adapt that feeling

53:10

better starts to become sort of the new

53:12

normal, and you go, well,

53:15

jeez, am I really getting a lot out of this, which

53:17

is I think why we often stop

53:19

things. And I was having this conversation with Jenny

53:22

the other day. I was joking, but I was like, you know,

53:24

as much as I exercise, I should feel

53:26

like even better. And she was like,

53:28

why don't you stop for a couple of weeks and talk to

53:30

me about how you feel? And that's the exact

53:33

truth, right, which is just the

53:35

benefit of it sort of melds

53:37

into the new normal. But the new normal

53:39

is eight clicks higher than the old normal.

53:42

I've often joked that if you could take the like

53:44

eighteen or twenty or twenty two year

53:46

old me and put him in my brain now,

53:49

I think he would think he was enlightened. And

53:51

I don't mean that because I'm enlightened. I mean

53:53

that because the gap between

53:56

what that poor little guy understood

53:58

and felt and what I do

54:00

is so dramatic. And that's

54:02

often I times think enlightenment is often

54:05

people talk about being enlightened when they have

54:07

an experience it is so dramatic. I

54:09

think it would be a pretty dramatic experience

54:12

for that eighteen year old to inhabit my current

54:14

level of consciousness. Yeah, and I hope

54:16

I can say the same thing at eight I can. I hope by

54:18

the eight I can be like a fifty year old me could drop

54:21

into this brain, you know, like, I think

54:23

that's a good sign that that we're growing totally

54:25

yeah, yeah, I totally feel you on that. If I took

54:27

eighteen year old me and put him in my brain now,

54:30

he would probably think, like, what

54:32

you're You're so soft now, you

54:34

know, you're so weak. You're like

54:37

being nice and like feeling things, creating

54:40

space, like, yeah,

54:42

it's amazing. Is it dead in

54:45

here? What's going on? There's nobody here?

54:48

Yeah? Yeah,

54:51

where's all the delusions of grandeur comes on?

54:53

That was tasty. Yeah,

54:56

man, that's inspiring. You know. It shows

54:58

that like like if we're talking earlier, is

55:01

like, well, who is the self? Who? Who

55:03

is your identity? What does that really mean? And

55:06

that's just another example of the

55:08

way that it's got sort of a main

55:10

frame to it. You know, you're still Eric, but

55:13

what's blown through over the course of

55:15

several decades you're just a completely

55:17

different person, you know, And the

55:20

challenge of looking at something

55:22

about ourselves that we might want to change

55:25

feels like the stakes are really high,

55:27

and it feels immovable and it feels maybe

55:29

impossible. But if you just remember

55:32

anyone that's like, hey, you know, hold on a second, Well,

55:34

actually I have progressed, I have like broken

55:36

through things in my life, and this thing just

55:38

seems huge because it's just the

55:40

next one, you know, and so you can just

55:43

move right through that one as well. And realizing

55:45

that like real change is possible.

55:47

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's such a good

55:50

reminder, is we've been through

55:52

change before and recognizing that just

55:54

because change feels difficult doesn't mean it's

55:57

not doable. Yeah, And change is a funky

55:59

one because it makes us deal

56:01

with fear and discomfort

56:03

at the same time. And so that's a pretty

56:06

big proposition for people because they're like,

56:08

well, this is the unknown, so I'm scared

56:10

of like what comes after this change, and

56:13

it makes me uncomfortable about like who I am.

56:15

So it's like your identity plus fear

56:18

and so a lot of people don't want to do it. But how many times

56:20

do you have to finally make that change

56:22

or have some sort of like you know, external

56:25

traumatic intervention or something that makes you

56:27

make a change and then afterwards like, oh my god, I

56:29

feel so much better, Like I wish I would have done that

56:31

five years ago or whatever. It's like how many times

56:33

you have to go through that before you just didn't realize,

56:35

like, you know what, I should be more aggressive

56:38

in my changes than you, just like attack. We

56:40

talked about this, I think on on my podcast

56:42

recently, is the power of aggression on the path

56:44

and like how much it has a place, you know,

56:47

of finding those moments about yourself where you feel

56:49

that resistance or those areas where you should

56:51

move into and actually using

56:53

some of the animal energy, using some of that

56:55

that aggression or assertiveness to then

56:58

break through those things. Because you know, it's

57:00

like we're all sitting around waiting for permission

57:02

to make our lives better, but no one's

57:04

gonna ever give it to you. You know, you have to just

57:07

recognize what your pain points are,

57:09

what things you want to change. It's all

57:12

possible. We discount our will and

57:14

our ability to do things so much, you

57:16

know, and just recognize

57:19

that and then using some of that a servantess to go through

57:21

it. You know, it's a really powerful skill. Yeah.

57:23

The word I love that I think

57:25

sums up sort of what you were describing when you're

57:27

running and you you push through or

57:30

that you just sort of used with you know, aggression

57:32

or a servness is fierceness. You

57:35

know, fierceness just feels

57:37

like it's clean. And whenever

57:40

I think of it, I think of man juiciary

57:42

who is a Buddhist icon of Bodhisattva

57:45

and he holds a flaming sword. You

57:47

know, the flaming sword is there to

57:49

cut through delusion. You know, there's a fierceness

57:52

to him. He's a body safa dedicated

57:54

to bringing all beings to enlightenment and great

57:56

love. And he's also got a flaming

57:59

sword. And now

58:01

it's been relegated to TikTok videos. The

58:04

flaming sword thing. I love that. I really

58:06

resonate with that a lot. Again, it's one of those weird

58:08

things where I don't know, I suppose it's

58:10

not a disservice, but it's just a level of confusion.

58:13

I think that people that look at the world

58:15

of meditation or mindfulness

58:17

with the you know, the the undoing of the

58:19

self, and they think the point is

58:21

turning into a puddle and being this sort

58:23

of like passive, soft

58:26

observer sort of whatever.

58:28

That's very gentle and like you know, all this stuff,

58:30

which I mean gentleness is great, but that

58:33

is just almost sort of childlike

58:35

in their delicateness, and

58:38

that doesn't really have anything to do

58:41

with the inward bath, you

58:43

know, it's just

58:45

a possible outcome of how

58:47

someone deals and integrates those

58:50

teachings, you know, And the

58:52

issue with that is that those

58:54

personalities are often

58:57

characterized as, oh, well,

58:59

this is the goal, this is what you should look like.

59:02

You know, this is who someone who has done all this work.

59:04

Look how soft and gentle and they're always

59:06

smiling and all that that they are, and how softly

59:09

that they speak, and blah blah blah blah blah. They

59:11

cut their carrots with a knife and fork

59:13

and they don't even hear the plate noise either that, you

59:15

know, that's how soft and sweet

59:17

there. It's like, well, that's great for them, but that's

59:20

not also what everyone is like,

59:22

you know, that's not what everyone's personality is like.

59:25

And to me, I try to be vocal

59:27

about the fact that I am a very like calm

59:29

person, but I'm also very

59:32

very like internally, I'm very

59:34

assertive and very sort of like

59:36

I listened to like hardcore wrap all

59:38

the time, you know, like, and it's like that energy

59:41

is like to me, is just embodies the same

59:43

way that you're talking about. Is it's like, for

59:45

whatever reason, that's just the way that feels

59:48

right to me, because it's the energy of like

59:50

having an hunger for existence

59:53

and a passion and almost like it feels like a download

59:55

thing. That's where the exercise helps too. But it's like there's

59:58

like a pressure of like energy or force

1:00:00

of like vitality, and like it's

1:00:02

so awesome and like everything this

1:00:05

is just it's so rich and complicated

1:00:07

and beautiful that I just like to get in there.

1:00:09

And that's a really valuable and

1:00:12

valid energy and you know, and so I

1:00:15

I dislike whenever people think like, oh I have to

1:00:17

like melt into something I'm not or

1:00:20

else I'm not making that same type

1:00:22

of advance. But it's not true. It's not about who you are how

1:00:24

you rock the thing. It's about how

1:00:27

you show up in and how you live it. Yeah. Absolutely.

1:00:29

Another Zen thing that I've always loved

1:00:31

is a great determination. I just have always

1:00:34

liked that. I've just been drawn to Zen to

1:00:36

a certain degree because there's not a lot of softness

1:00:38

in it. Culturally, the word zen

1:00:40

people think means peaceful and soft, but if

1:00:42

you look at the Zen tradition, I mean they hit people

1:00:44

with sticks all the time. I mean, they are. It is

1:00:47

not a it is not a

1:00:49

milk toast kind of spirituality.

1:00:51

You know. I want to go back to what we were

1:00:53

talking a minute ago about making change

1:00:56

and doing better things for ourselves,

1:00:58

and you said self discipline, and isn't

1:01:00

depriving yourself of things, it's giving

1:01:02

yourself freedom from being controlled

1:01:05

by them. Wow. Is that a great reframe?

1:01:07

Thanks. The feeling of being

1:01:10

entitled to stuff is a real

1:01:12

issue because in the same way

1:01:14

that we feel like you know, we want the material

1:01:16

thing or whatever, the indulgence

1:01:19

somehow has been sold to us as

1:01:22

if it's something that we are owed or that

1:01:24

we deserve. And so whenever

1:01:26

people are trying to evolve in

1:01:28

some self mastery in some way, what typically

1:01:31

throws them off the path is this egoic

1:01:33

miswire of like, well, you

1:01:36

know, I deserve to have whatever,

1:01:39

like you know, the chocolate cake all the time. I deserve

1:01:41

to have a couple of beers to the

1:01:43

end of the day or whatever. Both of the beers and

1:01:46

cake are both find you know, a big fan of both,

1:01:48

But it's not about the fact that you deserve

1:01:50

it. So when you reframe It's like

1:01:53

exercising self control is not

1:01:55

keeping yourself from giving you what you deserve,

1:01:57

but it's removing the power of

1:02:00

the want of those things and the feeling

1:02:02

of entitlement to those things, so that you're free

1:02:04

from being controlled by external

1:02:06

objects and ultimately the delusion that

1:02:08

something outside of you is what you need

1:02:10

to complete you. And after you recognize

1:02:13

that and make that reframe, then

1:02:15

all the ornaments in the tasty snacks

1:02:17

and the various things in our human

1:02:19

world, they're all fine, but you control

1:02:22

them instead of them controlling you. Yeah,

1:02:24

that inner freedom. I mean, we used to say in

1:02:26

a a all the time, people who got sober

1:02:28

in jail, they would say, I felt more

1:02:31

free in jail sober than

1:02:33

I did out of jail with drugs

1:02:35

because I was their prisoner, like I

1:02:37

was enslaved to drugs.

1:02:40

Right, there was no inner freedom.

1:02:42

I love that idea with whatever it is we're

1:02:44

wrestling with that. You

1:02:46

know, self discipline isn't depriving yourself

1:02:48

of things, right, it's giving yourself freedom

1:02:50

from being controlled. I think that's a beautiful

1:02:52

idea. I know, you gotta run a minute. I want

1:02:55

to wrap up with one thing. Do you get a minute.

1:02:57

Sure, yeah, all right, it would be relatively quick,

1:02:59

I think, although with you and I nothing is quick. Um.

1:03:03

I want to talk about MI neural beats. You

1:03:05

create a bunch of these, you obviously

1:03:08

believe they help and do something, or

1:03:10

you wouldn't create them. So what is it that you

1:03:12

think that they do? And then my my

1:03:14

follow on question would be is there much

1:03:16

scientific evidence to their benefit

1:03:19

or is it more anecdotal from your perspective? Like

1:03:21

this helps me, and so I do it. I really, against

1:03:23

my own will, became like

1:03:26

a world renowned binoral beat creator

1:03:28

because my prior life I was

1:03:31

you know, in music production and also just

1:03:33

composed music. But it was always

1:03:35

an internal kind of practice and just a

1:03:37

thing that really tied into my spiritual

1:03:40

or inner life practice. Over time is like I

1:03:42

can create these sounds and ultimately it's just

1:03:44

creating like ambient music. But twenty years ago

1:03:47

before it was cool, you know, and I was like, how can

1:03:49

I create these sounds? Like I noticed when I listened to this Like

1:03:51

for example, like I mentioned earlier, hip hop

1:03:53

gives you a lot of energy. Listening to death

1:03:55

metal gives you a lot of energy. Bill listening

1:03:57

to you know something relaxing or whatever.

1:04:00

A sugilberto is gonna make you feel calm

1:04:02

and like mellow or whatever, and then taking that another

1:04:04

step lower, like ambient music, it's like, Wow,

1:04:06

that's gonna make you feel really spacious and mellow.

1:04:09

And so I would create sounds for my

1:04:11

own meditation, and I That's what I was doing

1:04:13

forever. And then I just was always,

1:04:16

you know, nerd ing out on various ways

1:04:18

that sound could affect the mind and

1:04:20

the body because it's just just fascinating to me. So,

1:04:22

you know, twenty years ago, I got into

1:04:25

nyl beats and was making them just for myself for

1:04:27

meditation. I was like, oh, these seems like I'm dropping

1:04:29

into a different gear with these. It's

1:04:31

sort of like almost a self hypnosis type of

1:04:33

thing from the vibrational quality of them.

1:04:36

And then fast forward to maybe like seven

1:04:38

years ago or something, a friend of mine

1:04:41

who has a sizable platform asked me

1:04:43

about them. Hey, can you make some for me? As yeah,

1:04:45

sure, So I made him something just for fun and

1:04:48

then he's like, these are so amazing, like we should

1:04:50

sell these, and I was like all right, and so we sold

1:04:52

him and then people went crazy for him,

1:04:54

I mean and then I ended up making like more and

1:04:56

more and more, and people just kept

1:04:59

coming back, and then people all of the world started

1:05:01

hitting up for private commissions and all this stuff,

1:05:03

and it became a whole thing. So I never really like

1:05:05

wanted it, but it just happened, and I

1:05:07

was like, people are enjoying it, so I keep

1:05:09

doing it and it's kind of fun to make. So that's how

1:05:12

I kind of got into making them. And do

1:05:14

I think that they work. They seem to

1:05:16

work to me, And it's like I said, in the same

1:05:18

way that different tones and kind of vibes and

1:05:20

music will change how you feel. I think

1:05:22

that this is that, but with a specific intention

1:05:25

on creating the described effects.

1:05:27

Looking into the science of it, there have been a handful

1:05:30

of research studies done on them,

1:05:32

particularly one that I was a part of actually

1:05:35

in the university and in Australia, which

1:05:37

they're putting people who have anxiety into

1:05:40

fMRI machines and then playing the

1:05:42

tracks that I made, and also a

1:05:44

control track, so it's just the music

1:05:46

without the tones to see if it has

1:05:49

any brain wave change. And basically they were just discovering

1:05:51

that it was creating, you know, neurological

1:05:54

changes and reducing anxiety and stuff

1:05:56

like that. So you know, I would never make any claim

1:05:59

of like this is scientifically proven

1:06:01

that that you know, FDA proved, but

1:06:04

try and be very clear and up front about that. Is like

1:06:06

you can try it, like if it works to you, great,

1:06:08

and if it doesn't then that's cool too. But

1:06:10

in the study they've done so far, it looks

1:06:13

like it's not just the music,

1:06:15

it's the actual binaural underlying

1:06:17

quality of what's happening there. Yeah,

1:06:20

interestingly interesting. I've

1:06:22

listened to some I think yours primarily

1:06:25

in the past, but I had somebody asked

1:06:27

me about them recently and I was like, well, that'sk Corey

1:06:29

because he's against his will kind

1:06:31

of a guy. Yeah.

1:06:33

Well, you think about, like, think about how sound

1:06:35

affects us in a in a kind of a deep way, even

1:06:38

back to you know, a few thousand years

1:06:40

ago, people going into battle are beating

1:06:42

drums. Why because the constant pulsation

1:06:45

of that drum is increasing their

1:06:47

energy and their fury. A gong

1:06:49

and a temple in a meditation hall

1:06:52

is an is a chronic type of beats. So it's

1:06:54

basically what happens when someone hits a gong,

1:06:56

he goes. So

1:06:59

it's instead of bin earl, which is two beats,

1:07:01

it's one wave, one beat moving

1:07:04

forward, and they have used that forever

1:07:06

to calm and center people. And

1:07:09

so basically the binarial aspect is the

1:07:11

same idea, but just taking it to the

1:07:13

notion of like, well, what are our brain wave frequencies?

1:07:15

You know, what are the ones that help us relax

1:07:18

and stay focused? And can we target

1:07:20

those by creating you know, the same type

1:07:22

of effect with a bit of audio technology

1:07:24

and it seems to work to me. Awesome,

1:07:27

Well, thank you so much Corey for coming

1:07:29

on. It's always such a pleasure to talk with you. Yeah.

1:07:32

Likewise, man, beautiful. If

1:07:50

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