Speaker 1: A team. It's Harps. Who else would it be. I
Speaker 1: hope you're bloody terrific. So I've been reading the book,
Speaker 1: which I've spoken about once, I think, or twice maybe recently. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not selling the book, and it might seem like
Speaker 1: I'm about to open the religion door. I'm just opening
Speaker 1: the thinking door. So anyway, the book is called unfollow
Speaker 1: by a lady named Megan Phelps Roper. I don't have
Speaker 1: it in front of me. I'm sure that's her name,
Speaker 1: and she was a member of the very famous, slash
Speaker 1: infamous Westboro Baptist Church from the States that did all
Speaker 1: kinds of very very controversial things and continue, I think
Speaker 1: to do very controversial things, allegedly in the name of God,
Speaker 1: and then allegedly under the banner of scripture and biblical
Speaker 1: teachings that they interpret a certain way. Anyway, not about that.
Speaker 1: It's about the fact that she now, having grown up
Speaker 1: in that church, having grown up in that echo chamber
Speaker 1: of thought and behavior and philosophy and ideology and theology,
Speaker 1: having been completely programmed and completely indoctrinated, with no access
Speaker 1: really to know external influences in the way that most
Speaker 1: of us would have she left the church. She left
Speaker 1: the church, and it's it's a much, much, much, much
Speaker 1: bigger conversation than that. But in reading this book and
Speaker 1: or listening to this book, I should say, on audible
Speaker 1: and hearing her journey, about her journey, and not just
Speaker 1: the not just from the you know, the practical getting
Speaker 1: out of the church, which was a bit of a nightmare,
Speaker 1: and all of the sociological, emotional, practical complications and issues
Speaker 1: and challenges that came with that, but just listening to
Speaker 1: her reflect about the way that she believed certain things,
Speaker 1: and the way that she saw the world, and the
Speaker 1: way that she understood how life worked and other people worked,
Speaker 1: and how much she was convinced that everyone in the
Speaker 1: world except the people the eighty or so people in
Speaker 1: her church, were wrong, were destined for an eternal damn
Speaker 1: nation were you know? And so on and so on.
Speaker 1: And I know too those of you who've never been
Speaker 1: to church and never been religious, this would seem like
Speaker 1: crazy town, and I get it. But the truth is,
Speaker 1: for these people, and for people like Megan who grew
Speaker 1: up in this, they don't know any different, they don't
Speaker 1: know any better, and they truly believe, albeit misplaced albeit flawed,
Speaker 1: they truly believe what they are doing and saying. And anyway,
Speaker 1: so and I grew up not in that level of
Speaker 1: you know, kind of religious idiocracy, but you know, at
Speaker 1: times not that far away. And so for me there
Speaker 1: was a lot of familiarity and a lot of curiosity,
Speaker 1: and a lot of kind of light bulb moments. But
Speaker 1: just listening to her talk about how she extricated herself
Speaker 1: from that environment, from that situation, from that culture, from
Speaker 1: that thinking, from that conditioning, from that pressure, the immense,
Speaker 1: the immense pressure and expectation to comply and conform in
Speaker 1: a line and be this soldier of God, in this
Speaker 1: army of God against the evil that exists outside the
Speaker 1: walls of the Westboro Baptist Church and fucking fascinating, you know.
Speaker 1: But what interests me, you know, zooming out from the
Speaker 1: micro of Megan's story and zooming out to the macro
Speaker 1: of you and me and the rest of us who
Speaker 1: all think, who all have beliefs, Not saying she didn't think,
Speaker 1: but the rest of us, who you know, we all
Speaker 1: have thoughts, we all have ideas, we all have beliefs,
Speaker 1: we all have values, we all see the world in
Speaker 1: a certain way. We all see ourselves in the world,
Speaker 1: a certain way. We all look at everything, every situation,
Speaker 1: every newspaper article, every story on TV, every event that
Speaker 1: unfolds in three D before our eyes. We all look
Speaker 1: at that stuff, process that stuff, understand that stuff through
Speaker 1: our own window of understanding, our own filter. But the
Speaker 1: truth is that we don't often see the filter. We
Speaker 1: don't even recognize that we're looking at a version of
Speaker 1: what is in front of us, our version. So there's
Speaker 1: the thing that's going on. There's the event, the situation,
Speaker 1: the person, the conversation, the result, the outcome, the number,
Speaker 1: the problem, the whatever it is. And then there's the
Speaker 1: lens through which you look at that process at understand it.
Speaker 1: Then there's me over here with my lens and my
Speaker 1: understanding and my interpretation. Then there's Bob over there, and
Speaker 1: Sally over there, and then there's John over there and whatever.
Speaker 1: And so now we've got four or five six people
Speaker 1: looking at the same thing, the same event, the same outcome,
Speaker 1: the same number, the same painting on the wall, the
Speaker 1: same whatever, and none of us are having an identical
Speaker 1: experience around that. Because we create our own experiences, and
Speaker 1: in part our experiences are a byproduct of our genetic disposition.
Speaker 1: But we now know with some level of confidence, through
Speaker 1: neuroscience and neuropsychology and psychology in general and research, we
Speaker 1: now know that a lot of who we are and
Speaker 1: how we are, and how we experience the world, and
Speaker 1: how we think and how we frame things, and how
Speaker 1: we tell our cell story and what we agree or
Speaker 1: disagree with and why we get offended or don't get offended.
Speaker 1: We know that a huge amount of that is about
Speaker 1: our programming, is about our experiences, is about what we've
Speaker 1: been through, what we've been taught and told and trained
Speaker 1: to believe or to think or to do. And I'm
Speaker 1: fascinated with this because when I'm talking to a person,
Speaker 1: i'm talking to you know, if I'm talking to a
Speaker 1: forty year old, I'm talking to forty years of experiences
Speaker 1: and programming and beliefs and conditioning and culture and perhaps
Speaker 1: theology and philosophy. And I'm talking to the totality of
Speaker 1: that person's experiences, not just to the person in the
Speaker 1: middle of it all. And I'm fascinated with that bit
Speaker 1: who's in the middle of it all? If I can
Speaker 1: separate Craig Harper from Craig Harper's conditioning programming, Who's Craig Harper?
Speaker 1: And of course it and me are intertwined. But my
Speaker 1: fascination is around who I might be, or who I am,
Speaker 1: or who I could become in spite of my programming,
Speaker 1: or beyond my programming, or beyond the beliefs that I
Speaker 1: have that I didn't choose. So this episode is just
Speaker 1: me thinking out loud about this stuff. I truly think
Speaker 1: that most of us don't think outside of our own
Speaker 1: little kind of echo chamber too often. So this is
Speaker 1: a monologue of reflection and contemplation and wondering and hopefully
Speaker 1: self awareness. So I think it was Aristotle, although there's
Speaker 1: been some debate whether it was Aristotle or Socrates. That
Speaker 1: was one of those old dudes, one of those philosophers,
Speaker 1: one of those stoics who said that to know thyself
Speaker 1: is the beginning of wisdom? Like who or what is
Speaker 1: the self? Who or what is the self that exists
Speaker 1: beyond my programming? Who or what is the self that
Speaker 1: exists beyond my journey and my experiences and my schooling
Speaker 1: and my church and my exposure to media and social media.
Speaker 1: Where is Craig beyond all of that? Like who am
Speaker 1: I without stuff? Without all that stuff? And if I'm
Speaker 1: more than an idea, which we all kind of agree on,
Speaker 1: I think if I'm more than an idea, if I'm
Speaker 1: more than a belief or a shape or a size,
Speaker 1: or a brand or an achievement, if I'm more than
Speaker 1: a number or a bank balance, then where am I?
Speaker 1: What am I? Who am I? Where can I be found?
Speaker 1: Beyond all that? If we take away my appearance and
Speaker 1: my brand and my podcast and all of the things
Speaker 1: that I am known for, or all of the ways
Speaker 1: that people can recognize me, what's left? Where? Or what
Speaker 1: is my identity? Trying to figure out who we are
Speaker 1: beyond all the stuff that we're not, Like if I did,
Speaker 1: if I were, if my mind, if my emotions, if
Speaker 1: my creativity and my curiosity was a clean slate, if
Speaker 1: it was a blank canvas, Like who would I be?
Speaker 1: If I was the same person genetically and my mom
Speaker 1: and dad were the same people genetically, that is the
Speaker 1: same body, born with the same body, the same genetics,
Speaker 1: the same nervous system, heart, lungs, the same brain. But
Speaker 1: I grew up in a Buddhist environment. I would have
Speaker 1: been a Buddhist. I would have had Buddhist beliefs, I
Speaker 1: would have more than likely been a vegan. And if
Speaker 1: Ron and Mary had have moved to I don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's say India. Let's say mum. Let's say Dad moved
Speaker 1: there and Mum went and they moved there to. But
Speaker 1: I don't I set up a business or run a
Speaker 1: charity or do something when I was one year old
Speaker 1: and then I grew up. I was born here, but
Speaker 1: I grew up there, and I'd spent fifty nine of
Speaker 1: the last sixty years in India. There's a fair chance
Speaker 1: I might be a vegetarian Hindu. There's a fair chance
Speaker 1: that I would see the world despite the fact that
Speaker 1: I had the same brain and the same genetics, if
Speaker 1: I grew up in a totally different sociological, cultural, behavioral,
Speaker 1: religious environments, I wouldn't be me, or I'd be a
Speaker 1: different me. Like did I choose? Did I choose my worldview?
Speaker 1: Did I choose my beliefs, my opinions, my faith, my ideology,
Speaker 1: or was it chosen for me? I think about this
Speaker 1: a lot, like I think about whether or not I
Speaker 1: simply clothed myself in the psychological, emotional, religious, sociological, and
Speaker 1: behavioral wardrobe of my parents, like, how can you not?
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying, by the way, that all of
Speaker 1: these influences and all of this programming and conditioning and
Speaker 1: education was bad. I'm not saying any of it's bad.
Speaker 1: Maybe you grew up in a beautiful family with beautiful
Speaker 1: environ and beautiful Maybe it's all good. Maybe it's all amazing. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I think it's still good to think about where does
Speaker 1: that start finish? And where do I start? Where do
Speaker 1: these ideas of mine come from? Are these my ideas
Speaker 1: or are these Dad's ideas that I've just adopted because
Speaker 1: I trust Dad, I look up to Dad. I think
Speaker 1: Dad's right. Where did my beliefs come from? Did I
Speaker 1: choose these beliefs or are these beliefs a byproduct of
Speaker 1: growing up in this particular environment, surrounded by these people
Speaker 1: who adhere to this protocol and this belief system and
Speaker 1: who don't open any other doors of possibility. What if
Speaker 1: I was taught evolution from birth, not creation, for example,
Speaker 1: creation being the Bible story, then there's a fair chance
Speaker 1: that I would have been either agnostic or atheist, or
Speaker 1: at the very least I would have believed in evolution.
Speaker 1: I would think a certain way about certain things, And
Speaker 1: what if I had sixty years of diverse, different, totally
Speaker 1: different experiences, situations, encounters, exposure to different ideas and different
Speaker 1: people in different environments. Who would I be? Then? I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily think better or worse. I'm just curious think
Speaker 1: about how many of us are trapped in essentially a
Speaker 1: psychological or emotional and or behavioral prison because of our
Speaker 1: self limiting thinking, because of the beliefs about ourselves that
Speaker 1: we didn't choose. And it might be that we grew
Speaker 1: up in an ideological echo chamber that we weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to question and we couldn't escape. Or it might be
Speaker 1: that we grew up around people who told us what
Speaker 1: we couldn't do and how stupid or ugly or how
Speaker 1: much potential we lacked. Or maybe the opposite, maybe we
Speaker 1: grew up with beautiful, amazing people who encouraged and supported.
Speaker 1: Either way, you know we're a byproduct of that. Either way,
Speaker 1: it's good to think about where did their beliefs stop
Speaker 1: and where do my start mine start, and where did
Speaker 1: they come from? Did I choose them or did I
Speaker 1: adopt them? As just an unconscious byproduct of just being
Speaker 1: in the proximity of that belief system or that ideology
Speaker 1: or that culture. What what if instead growing up in
Speaker 1: you know, a small country town, What if I grew
Speaker 1: up on a remote farm in the middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: where our neighbors were twenty kilometers away? What if that,
Speaker 1: or what if I the same dude grew up in
Speaker 1: a city skyscraper in the middle of New York, or
Speaker 1: in a cult or in a traveling circus. Who would
Speaker 1: I be and how would I be? What is the
Speaker 1: stuff that I drag around with me that doesn't work?
Speaker 1: What is the belief that I have? What is the
Speaker 1: idea that I have? What is the fear that I
Speaker 1: have that is a prison to my potential and my possibilities?
Speaker 1: What's the thing that I believe that that really makes
Speaker 1: no sense? I think the challenge is not too not
Speaker 1: to upend our lives, but to recognize the unconsciousness of
Speaker 1: our existence. And maybe this is not used, so discard this,
Speaker 1: but how much we do so many things on a
Speaker 1: version of autopilot, this unconscious kind of groundhog danus of
Speaker 1: doing things with you know, in relationships, with money, in
Speaker 1: business in Korea, with food, with God, with habits and
Speaker 1: behaviors that don't serve us, that don't work with outcomes
Speaker 1: that we consistently produce, which are at odds with our
Speaker 1: alleged values. What are my values? Where did they come from?
Speaker 1: Why do I say that that these things are my values?
Speaker 1: They're important to me? But I behave in a way
Speaker 1: that demonstrates the opposite consistently While saying that health, physical
Speaker 1: health is important to me, I consistently do things to
Speaker 1: sabotage my own health. What is that about? Where does
Speaker 1: that habit, that behavior, Where does that rationalizing mindset come from?
Speaker 1: When will I change? You and I are both a
Speaker 1: byproduct of our unique journey, unique to you and me anyway,
Speaker 1: And that's not good or bad. That's human. I think
Speaker 1: the question The question is maybe, or one of the
Speaker 1: questions is what are the what are the beliefs and
Speaker 1: ideas and habits and behaviors that are an unconscious byproduct
Speaker 1: of my journey? And which of those should I challenge
Speaker 1: or dive into or poken prod or maybe even discard?
Speaker 1: Like what if I what if I was brave enough
Speaker 1: to say that this thing that I've thought for a
Speaker 1: long time could be wrong? You know, This is one
Speaker 1: of the one of the challenges of having and I'm
Speaker 1: not saying obviously, I'm just talking as a general concept here,
Speaker 1: but when we have ideas and beliefs that are very concrete,
Speaker 1: and I've had very concrete beliefs in the past about
Speaker 1: things that if I'm being a bit brave and a
Speaker 1: bit honest and a bit authentic and a bit vulnerable,
Speaker 1: I had concrete beliefs, unequivocal, I wouldn't be open to
Speaker 1: anything else. You can't talk to me about it. I
Speaker 1: absolutely know I am right, when in fact I really
Speaker 1: had no evidence. So I just had belief. I just
Speaker 1: had faith. I had no proof. But I was unteachable,
Speaker 1: I was untrainable, I was arrogant, I was self righteous.
Speaker 1: I knew that I knew, but deep deep down I
Speaker 1: knew that I didn't know, deep deep down. I was
Speaker 1: fucking terrified of questioning this thing that I've thought, that
Speaker 1: I've believed, this ideology that I've inhabited, and not necessarily
Speaker 1: a religious one. The idea might be that one of
Speaker 1: my ideologies or one of my ideas was I'm not
Speaker 1: smart enough to go to university, I'm not smart enough
Speaker 1: to do this, to do that I don't have the
Speaker 1: genetics that could create this or that outcome. And I
Speaker 1: spent so long basically trapped in a m a prison
Speaker 1: of my own making, where my potential wasn't the problem,
Speaker 1: but my thinking about my potential. My genetics, albeit they
Speaker 1: weren't amazing, they're fine, but my thinking about my genetics,
Speaker 1: my thinking about my intellect, to my thinking about my
Speaker 1: future self, my inability or my lack of willingness perhaps
Speaker 1: to question people and to question ideas and to question
Speaker 1: beliefs that I was very comfortable with. And I was
Speaker 1: only comfortable with them because they had been so intertwined
Speaker 1: with my life. I wasn't comfortable because they were necessarily correct.
Speaker 1: I was comfortable with them because they were very, very
Speaker 1: very familiar to me. They were very familiar to me.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting when I listened to Megan Phelps Roper
Speaker 1: talk in this book Unfollow about, you know, her journey
Speaker 1: out of this ideology, this cult, have thought, this religious cult.
Speaker 1: But and then she she would think something, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden a scripture, a verse from the
Speaker 1: Bible would come to her mind to under mind that
Speaker 1: thought that she had, where she would start to question
Speaker 1: something then a scripture would come to mind, which would
Speaker 1: basically tell her that she shouldn't think, that she shouldn't
Speaker 1: trust herself, that she was nothing and that God was everything,
Speaker 1: and that she basically was worthless in all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's so easy for us to self sabotage. It's
Speaker 1: so easy for us to live in fear. It's so
Speaker 1: easy for us to not question who we could be,
Speaker 1: what we could do, Who might I become if I
Speaker 1: would try, if I would realize and recognize with courage,
Speaker 1: that maybe some of the things that I think, maybe
Speaker 1: some of my ideas, maybe some of the beliefs that
Speaker 1: have been intertwined with my identity for decades, maybe they're
Speaker 1: not true. And that's terrifying. That's terrifying because you're your
Speaker 1: sense of self is tied into that belief, and if
Speaker 1: that belief is wrong, I don't know who I am anymore.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, if the belief is wrong anyway,
Speaker 1: you don't know who you are. You just have a
Speaker 1: story that you believe. So who would you be if
Speaker 1: you had a different life, And who would you be
Speaker 1: if you started to open that door of awareness and curiosity.
Speaker 1: As I've said before on this show. Consciousness starts when
Speaker 1: we recognize our lack of consciousness. Real self awareness begins
Speaker 1: to unfold when we realize how unaware we've been. See
Speaker 1: Next Time.