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Speaker 1: A team. It's Harps. Who else would it be. I

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Speaker 1: hope you're bloody terrific. So I've been reading the book,

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Speaker 1: which I've spoken about once, I think, or twice maybe recently. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I'm not selling the book, and it might seem like

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Speaker 1: I'm about to open the religion door. I'm just opening

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Speaker 1: the thinking door. So anyway, the book is called unfollow

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Speaker 1: by a lady named Megan Phelps Roper. I don't have

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Speaker 1: it in front of me. I'm sure that's her name,

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Speaker 1: and she was a member of the very famous, slash

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Speaker 1: infamous Westboro Baptist Church from the States that did all

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Speaker 1: kinds of very very controversial things and continue, I think

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Speaker 1: to do very controversial things, allegedly in the name of God,

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Speaker 1: and then allegedly under the banner of scripture and biblical

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Speaker 1: teachings that they interpret a certain way. Anyway, not about that.

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Speaker 1: It's about the fact that she now, having grown up

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Speaker 1: in that church, having grown up in that echo chamber

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Speaker 1: of thought and behavior and philosophy and ideology and theology,

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Speaker 1: having been completely programmed and completely indoctrinated, with no access

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Speaker 1: really to know external influences in the way that most

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Speaker 1: of us would have she left the church. She left

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Speaker 1: the church, and it's it's a much, much, much, much

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Speaker 1: bigger conversation than that. But in reading this book and

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Speaker 1: or listening to this book, I should say, on audible

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Speaker 1: and hearing her journey, about her journey, and not just

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Speaker 1: the not just from the you know, the practical getting

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Speaker 1: out of the church, which was a bit of a nightmare,

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Speaker 1: and all of the sociological, emotional, practical complications and issues

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Speaker 1: and challenges that came with that, but just listening to

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Speaker 1: her reflect about the way that she believed certain things,

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Speaker 1: and the way that she saw the world, and the

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Speaker 1: way that she understood how life worked and other people worked,

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Speaker 1: and how much she was convinced that everyone in the

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Speaker 1: world except the people the eighty or so people in

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Speaker 1: her church, were wrong, were destined for an eternal damn

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Speaker 1: nation were you know? And so on and so on.

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Speaker 1: And I know too those of you who've never been

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Speaker 1: to church and never been religious, this would seem like

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Speaker 1: crazy town, and I get it. But the truth is,

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Speaker 1: for these people, and for people like Megan who grew

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Speaker 1: up in this, they don't know any different, they don't

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Speaker 1: know any better, and they truly believe, albeit misplaced albeit flawed,

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Speaker 1: they truly believe what they are doing and saying. And anyway,

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Speaker 1: so and I grew up not in that level of

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of religious idiocracy, but you know, at

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Speaker 1: times not that far away. And so for me there

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Speaker 1: was a lot of familiarity and a lot of curiosity,

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Speaker 1: and a lot of kind of light bulb moments. But

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Speaker 1: just listening to her talk about how she extricated herself

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Speaker 1: from that environment, from that situation, from that culture, from

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Speaker 1: that thinking, from that conditioning, from that pressure, the immense,

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Speaker 1: the immense pressure and expectation to comply and conform in

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Speaker 1: a line and be this soldier of God, in this

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Speaker 1: army of God against the evil that exists outside the

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Speaker 1: walls of the Westboro Baptist Church and fucking fascinating, you know.

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Speaker 1: But but what interests me, you know, zooming out from

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Speaker 1: the micro of Megan's story and zooming out to the

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Speaker 1: macro of you and me and the rest of us

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Speaker 1: who all think, who all have beliefs, Not saying she

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Speaker 1: didn't think, but the rest of us who, you know,

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Speaker 1: we all have thoughts, we all have ideas, we all

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Speaker 1: have beliefs, we all have values, we all see the

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Speaker 1: world in a certain way. We all see ourselves in

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Speaker 1: the world a certain way. We all look at everything,

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Speaker 1: every situation, every newspaper article, every story on TV, every

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Speaker 1: event that unfolds in three D before our eyes. We

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Speaker 1: all look at that stuff, process that stuff, understand that

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Speaker 1: stuff through our own window of understanding, our own filter.

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Speaker 1: But the truth is that we don't often see the filter.

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Speaker 1: We don't even recognize that we're looking at a version

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Speaker 1: of what is in front of us, our version. So

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Speaker 1: there's the thing that's going on. There's the event, the situation,

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Speaker 1: the person, the conversation, the result, the outcome, the number,

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Speaker 1: the problem, the whatever it is. And then there's the

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Speaker 1: lens through which you look at that process at understand it.

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Speaker 1: Then there's me over here with my lens and my

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Speaker 1: understanding and my interpretation. Then there's Bob over there, and

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Speaker 1: Sally over there, and then there's John over there and whatever.

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Speaker 1: And so now we've got four or five six people

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Speaker 1: looking at the same thing, the same event, the same outcome,

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Speaker 1: the same number, the same painting on the wall, the

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Speaker 1: same whatever, and none of us are having an identical

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Speaker 1: experience around that. Because we create our own experiences, and

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Speaker 1: in part our experiences are a byproduct of our genetic disposition.

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Speaker 1: But we now know with some level of confidence, through

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Speaker 1: neuroscience and neuropsychology and psychology in general and research, we

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Speaker 1: now know that a lot of who we are and

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Speaker 1: how we are, and how we experience the world, and

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Speaker 1: how we think and how we frame things, and how

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Speaker 1: we tell our cell story and what we agree or

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Speaker 1: disagree with and why we get offended or don't get offended.

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Speaker 1: We know that a huge amount of that is about

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Speaker 1: our programming, is about our experiences, is about what we've

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Speaker 1: been through, what we've been taught and told and trained

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Speaker 1: to believe or to think or to do. And I'm

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Speaker 1: fascinated with this because when I'm talking to a person,

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Speaker 1: i'm talking to you know, if I'm talking to a

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Speaker 1: forty year old, I'm talking to forty years of experiences

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Speaker 1: and programming and beliefs and conditioning and culture and perhaps

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Speaker 1: theology and philosophy. And I'm talking to the totality of

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Speaker 1: that person's experiences, not just to the person in the

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Speaker 1: middle of it all. And I'm fascinated with that bit

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Speaker 1: who's in the middle of it all? If I can

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Speaker 1: separate Craig Harper from Craig Harper's conditioning programming. Who's Craig Harper?

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Speaker 1: And of course it and me are intertwined. But my

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Speaker 1: fascination is around who I might be, or who I am,

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Speaker 1: or who I could become in spite of my programming,

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Speaker 1: or beyond my programming, or beyond the beliefs that I

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Speaker 1: have that I didn't choose. So this episode is just

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Speaker 1: me thinking out loud about this stuff. I truly think

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Speaker 1: that most of us don't think outside of our own

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Speaker 1: little kind of echo chamber too often. So this is

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Speaker 1: a monologue of reflection and contemplation and wondering and hopefully

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Speaker 1: self awareness. So I think it was Aristotle, although there's

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Speaker 1: been some debate whether it was Aristotle or Socrates. That

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Speaker 1: was one of those old dudes, one of those philosophers,

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Speaker 1: one of those stoics who said that to know thyself

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Speaker 1: is the beginning of wisdom. Like who or what is

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Speaker 1: the self? Who or what is the self that exists

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Speaker 1: beyond my programming? Who or what is the self that

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Speaker 1: exists beyond my journey and my experiences and my schooling

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Speaker 1: and my church and my exposure to media and social media.

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Speaker 1: Where is Craig beyond all of that, like who am

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Speaker 1: I without stuff? Without all that stuff? And if I'm

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Speaker 1: more than an idea, which we all kind of agree on,

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Speaker 1: I think if I'm more than an idea, if I'm

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Speaker 1: more than a belief or a shape or a size,

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Speaker 1: or a brand or an achievement, if I'm more than

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Speaker 1: a number or a bank balance, then where am I?

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Speaker 1: What am I? Who am I? Where can I be found?

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Speaker 1: Beyond all that? If we take away my appearance and

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Speaker 1: my brand and my podcast and all of the things

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Speaker 1: that I am known for, or all of the ways

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Speaker 1: that people can recognize me, what's left where? Or what

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Speaker 1: is my identity? Trying to figure out who we are

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Speaker 1: beyond all the stuff that we're not, Like if I did,

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Speaker 1: if I were if my mind, if my emotions, if

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Speaker 1: my creativity and my curiosity was a clean slate, if

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Speaker 1: it was a blank canvas, Like who would I be

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Speaker 1: if I was the same person genetically and my mom

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Speaker 1: and dad were the same people genetically that is the

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Speaker 1: same body, born with the same body, the same genetics,

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Speaker 1: the same nervous system, heart lungs, the same brain. But

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a Buddhist environment. I would have

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Speaker 1: been a Buddhist. I would have had Buddhist beliefs. I

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Speaker 1: would have more than likely been a vegan. And if

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Speaker 1: Ron and Mary had have moved to I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Let's say India. Let's say mum. Let's say Dad moved

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Speaker 1: there and Mum went and they moved there to. But

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Speaker 1: I don't I set up a business or run a

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Speaker 1: charity or do something when I was one year old

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Speaker 1: and then I grew up. I was born here, but

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Speaker 1: I grew up there, and I'd spent fifty nine of

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Speaker 1: the last sixty years in India. There's a fair chance

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Speaker 1: I might be a vegetarian Hindu. There's a fair chance

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Speaker 1: that I would see the world despite the fact that

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Speaker 1: I had the same brain and the same genetics, if

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Speaker 1: I grew up in a totally different sociological, cultural, behavioral,

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Speaker 1: religious environments, I wouldn't be me, or I'd be a

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Speaker 1: different me. Like did I choose? Did I choose my worldview?

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Speaker 1: Did I choose my beliefs, my opinions, my faith, my ideology,

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Speaker 1: or was it chosen for me? I think about this

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Speaker 1: a lot, like I think about whether or not I

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Speaker 1: simply clothed myself in the psychological, emotional religious, sociological, and

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Speaker 1: behavioral wardrobe of my parents, Like, how can you not?

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Speaker 1: And I'm not saying, by the way, that all of

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Speaker 1: these influences and all of this programming and conditioning and

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Speaker 1: education was bad. I'm not saying any of it's bad.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you grew up in a beautiful family with beautiful environment, beautiful.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's all good, Maybe it's all amazing. Nonetheless, I

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Speaker 1: think it's still good to think about where does that

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Speaker 1: start finish? And where do I start? Where do these

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Speaker 1: ideas of mine come from? Are these my ideas or

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Speaker 1: are these Dad's ideas that I've just adopted because I

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Speaker 1: trust Dad, I look up to Dad. I think Dad's right.

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Speaker 1: Where did my beliefs come from? Did I choose these

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Speaker 1: beliefs or are these beliefs a byproduct of growing up

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Speaker 1: in this particular environment, surrounded by these people who adhere

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Speaker 1: to this protocol and this belief system and who don't

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Speaker 1: open any other doors of possibility. What if I was

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Speaker 1: taught evolution from birth, not creation, for example, creation being

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Speaker 1: the Bible story, then there's a fair chance that I

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Speaker 1: would have been either agnostic or atheist, or at the

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Speaker 1: very least I would have believed in evolution, I would

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Speaker 1: think a certain way about certain things. And what if

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Speaker 1: I had sixty years of diverse, different, totally different experiences, situations, encounters,

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Speaker 1: exposure to different ideas and different people in different environments.

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Speaker 1: Who would I be? Then? I don't necessarily think better

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Speaker 1: or worse. I'm just curious think about how many of

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Speaker 1: us are trapped in essentially a psychological or emotional and

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Speaker 1: or behavioral prison because of our self limiting thinking, because

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Speaker 1: of the beliefs about ourselves that we didn't choose. And

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Speaker 1: it might be that we grew up in an ideological

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Speaker 1: echo chamber that we weren't allowed to question and we

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Speaker 1: couldn't escape. Or it might be that we grew up

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Speaker 1: around people who told us what we couldn't do and

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Speaker 1: how stupid or ugly or how much potential we lacked.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe the opposite, maybe we grew up with beautiful,

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Speaker 1: amazing people who encouraged and supported. Either way, you know

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Speaker 1: we're a byproduct of that. Either way, it's good to

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Speaker 1: think about where did their beliefs stop and where do

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Speaker 1: my start mine start, and where did they come from?

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Speaker 1: Did I choose them or did I adopt them as

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Speaker 1: just an unconscious byproduct of just being in the proximity

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Speaker 1: of that belief system or that ideology or that culture.

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Speaker 1: What what if instead growing up in you know, a

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Speaker 1: small country town, what if I grew up on a

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Speaker 1: remote farm in the middle of nowhere where our neighbors

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Speaker 1: were twenty kilometers away. What if that, or what if

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Speaker 1: I the same dude grew up in a city skyscraper

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Speaker 1: in the middle of New York, or in a cult

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Speaker 1: or in a traveling circus. Who would I be and

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Speaker 1: how would I be? What is the stuff that I

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Speaker 1: drag around with me that doesn't work? What is the

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Speaker 1: belief that I have? What is the idea that I have?

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Speaker 1: What is the fear that I have that is a

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Speaker 1: prison to my potential and my possibilities? What's the thing

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Speaker 1: that I believe that that really makes no sense? I

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Speaker 1: think the challenge is not too not to upend our lives,

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Speaker 1: but to recognize the unconsciousness of our existence. And maybe

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Speaker 1: this is not used, so discard this, but how much

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Speaker 1: we do so many things on a version of autopilot,

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Speaker 1: this unconscious kind of groundhog danus of doing things with

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Speaker 1: you know, in relationships, with money, in business in Korea,

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Speaker 1: with food with God, with habits and behaviors that don't

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Speaker 1: serve us that don't work, with outcomes that we consistently produce,

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Speaker 1: which are at odds with our alleged values. What are

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Speaker 1: my values? Where did they come from? Why do I

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Speaker 1: say that that these things are my values? They're important

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Speaker 1: to me? But I behave in a way that demonstrates

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Speaker 1: the opposite consistently, While saying that health, physical health is

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Speaker 1: important to me, I consistently do things to sabotage my

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Speaker 1: own health. What is that about? Where does that habit,

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Speaker 1: that behavior, Where does that rationalizing mindset come from? When

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Speaker 1: will I change? You and I are both a byproduct

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Speaker 1: of our unique journey, unique to you and me anyway,

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Speaker 1: And that's not good or bad. That's human. I think

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Speaker 1: The question The question is maybe, or one of the

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Speaker 1: questions is what are the what are the beliefs and

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Speaker 1: ideas and habits and behaviors that are an unconscious byproduct

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Speaker 1: of my journey? And which of those should I challenge

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Speaker 1: or dive into or poken prod or maybe even discard,

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Speaker 1: Like what if I what if I was brave enough

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Speaker 1: to say that this thing that I've thought for a

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Speaker 1: long time could be wrong. You know, this is one

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Speaker 1: of the one of the challenges of having and I'm

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Speaker 1: not saying obviously, I'm just talking as a general concept here,

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Speaker 1: but when we have ideas and beliefs that are very concrete,

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Speaker 1: and I've had very concrete beliefs in the past about

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Speaker 1: things that if I'm being a bit brave and a

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Speaker 1: bit honest and a bit authentic and a bit vulnerable,

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Speaker 1: I had concrete beliefs, unequivocal, I wouldn't be open to

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Speaker 1: anything else. You can't talk to me about it. I

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Speaker 1: absolutely know I am right, when in fact I really

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Speaker 1: had no evidence. I just had belief. I just had faith.

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Speaker 1: I had no proof. But I was unteachable, I was untrainable,

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Speaker 1: I was arrogant, I was self righteous. I knew that

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Speaker 1: I knew, but deep deep down, I knew that I

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Speaker 1: didn't know, deep deep down. I was fucking terrified of

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Speaker 1: questioning this thing that I've thought, that I've believed, this

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Speaker 1: ideology that I've inhabited, and not necessarily a religious one.

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Speaker 1: The idea might be that one of my ideologies or

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Speaker 1: one of my ideas was I'm not smart enough to

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Speaker 1: go to university, I'm not smart enough to do this

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Speaker 1: to do that. I don't have the genetics that could

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Speaker 1: create this or that outcome. And I spent so long

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Speaker 1: basically trapped in a m a prison of my own making,

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Speaker 1: where my potential wasn't the problem, but my thinking about

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Speaker 1: my potential. My genetics, albeit they weren't amazing, they're fine,

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Speaker 1: but my thinking about my genetics, my thinking about my intellect,

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Speaker 1: to my thinking about my future self, my inability or

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Speaker 1: my lack of willingness perhaps to question people and to

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Speaker 1: question ideas and to question beliefs that I was very

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Speaker 1: comfortable with. And I was only comfortable with them because

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Speaker 1: they had been so intertwined with my life. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: comfortable because they were necessarily correct. I was comfortable with

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Speaker 1: them because they were very, very very familiar to me.

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Speaker 1: They were very familiar to me. And it's interesting when

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Speaker 1: I listened to Megan Phelps Roper talk in this book

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Speaker 1: Unfollow about, you know, her journey out of this ideology,

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Speaker 1: this cult, have thought, this religious cult. But and then

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Speaker 1: she she would think something, and then all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: a scripture averse from the Bible would come to her

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Speaker 1: mind to under mind that thought that she had, where

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Speaker 1: she would start to question something, then a scripture would

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Speaker 1: come to mind, which would basically tell her that she

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Speaker 1: shouldn't think, that she shouldn't trust herself, that she was

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Speaker 1: nothing and that God was everything, and that she basically

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Speaker 1: was worthless in all of this stuff. And it's so

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Speaker 1: easy for us to self sabotage. It's so easy for

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Speaker 1: us to live in fear. It's so easy for us

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Speaker 1: to not question who we could be, what we could do,

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Speaker 1: Who might I become? If I would try, if I

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Speaker 1: would realize and recognize with courage, that maybe some of

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Speaker 1: the things that I think, maybe some of my ideas,

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Speaker 1: maybe some of the beliefs that have been intertwined with

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Speaker 1: my identity for decades, maybe they're not true. And that's terrifying.

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Speaker 1: That's terrifying because you're your sense of self is tied

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Speaker 1: into that belief and if that belief is wrong, I

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Speaker 1: don't know who I am anymore. But the truth is,

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Speaker 1: if the belief is wrong anyway, you don't know who

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Speaker 1: you are. You just have a story that you believe.

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Speaker 1: So who would you be if you had a different life?

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Speaker 1: And who would you be if you started to open

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Speaker 1: that door of awareness and curiosity as I've said before

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Speaker 1: on this show. Consciousness starts when we recognize our lack

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Speaker 1: of consciousness. Real self awareness begins to unfold when we

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Speaker 1: realize how unaware we've been. See Next Time