Speaker 1: If you're used to tuning out things you don't like,
Speaker 1: it starts to creep into things that you do like.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Miguel Chen. He is a meditation practitioner, a yoga instructor,
Speaker 1: and the owner of Blossom Yoga Studio in Lara May
Speaker 1: and Cheyenne, Wyoming. Miguel is also the bass player for
Speaker 1: punk band Teenage Bottle Rocket, who I may have done
Speaker 1: sound for at Bernie's in Columbus, Ohio in the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's. His book is I Want to Be Well,
Speaker 1: How a Punk Found Peace and You Can Too. Hi Miguel,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I am excited to have you on and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about your book I Want to Be Well, How a
Speaker 1: Punk Found Peace and You Can too. And we'll cover
Speaker 1: that in just a moment. But let's start like we
Speaker 1: always do, with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second
Speaker 1: and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. You know, I think your
Speaker 1: life ends up being the sum of of minutes and
Speaker 1: moments and hours, and it all adds up to days
Speaker 1: and years, and eventually that's the life you lived, right,
Speaker 1: And really what we spend our moments thinking about or
Speaker 1: or doing, it adds up. It's a nice little parable,
Speaker 1: I think to sort of sum that up, like if
Speaker 1: you spend a lot of moments angry or frustrated instead
Speaker 1: of appreciative or happy or joyful, you know, it adds
Speaker 1: up and and that ends up being your life, right.
Speaker 1: So so the Wolves, I think, are a nice little
Speaker 1: summary of that. Excellent. So, in addition to writing this book,
Speaker 1: you also own a yoga studio as well as you
Speaker 1: play bass in a punk rock band named Teenage Bottle Rocket.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about how you get from being
Speaker 1: a bass player in a punk rock band to a
Speaker 1: yoga studio and writing a book about finding inner peace.
Speaker 1: I'll do my best to kind of loop this back
Speaker 1: around to this idea of the Wolves. But for a
Speaker 1: long time, all I would think about is like, like
Speaker 1: punk rock music, and I just kind of want to
Speaker 1: party and and travel and be with my friends, and
Speaker 1: and this whole scene and this whole idea sort of
Speaker 1: represents like that kind of freedom. And so that's where
Speaker 1: my attention was, and and sure enough. That's what my
Speaker 1: life manifested. And yeah, I was in this band, and
Speaker 1: I still am in this band, I should say, But
Speaker 1: we started to do really well, and we got to
Speaker 1: go a lot of places and do records and tour
Speaker 1: with a lot of bands that we really looked up to.
Speaker 1: And in the one sense I was I was kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, living living out all of my teenage punk
Speaker 1: rock dreams. But in the other sense, my attention kind
Speaker 1: of got lost at some point and it kind of
Speaker 1: shifted away from like, this is a really fun, cool
Speaker 1: thing I want to do with my life to a
Speaker 1: little bit more like I'm tired because I've party too hard,
Speaker 1: or you know, we're stuck in this van, and and
Speaker 1: I found myself a little bit, I guess, feeding the
Speaker 1: bad wolf, and I got kind of miserable. And it
Speaker 1: really took a moment of clarity to be like, why
Speaker 1: why am I miserable right now? Like I'm doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff that I always wanted to do, So what's
Speaker 1: the problem here. It's kind of startling when that happens,
Speaker 1: when everything you thought you wanted to have happen happens,
Speaker 1: and you're like, but wait, I'm still not happy, You're
Speaker 1: like what now? Absolutely, you know, it's it's a little
Speaker 1: it's startling, and it certainly can be a turning point
Speaker 1: most definitely. And if you read the book, you know,
Speaker 1: you'll learn about like some deaths I had in my
Speaker 1: life that I kind of wasn't really dealing with that stuff,
Speaker 1: but but it was, it was down there, and it
Speaker 1: was underneath and sort of suppressing that the opposite of
Speaker 1: just like feeding into like oh and you know I've
Speaker 1: got these dead relatives. It was really like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to deal with that at all, so like
Speaker 1: just suppress and suppress and suppress it. And that kind
Speaker 1: of started to manifest two, I think, and by not
Speaker 1: dealing with these things, I always kind of had this
Speaker 1: like negative frequency going on, and and it did sort
Speaker 1: of manifest itself in like these like deep depressions and
Speaker 1: you know, like substance abuse. And that's kind of where
Speaker 1: I like dove in and like started to focus my
Speaker 1: energy like I'm just gonna be kind of this like
Speaker 1: not realistic like punk rock star, I'm just gonna like
Speaker 1: party myself to death. And that wasn't really working and
Speaker 1: and so I had to uh, kind of kind of
Speaker 1: this place where you know, what's not working and and
Speaker 1: why am I not happy? And I think, like most
Speaker 1: things in life, it was kind of in the middle.
Speaker 1: It was like some of it was outside of me,
Speaker 1: like these external things I was I was bringing into
Speaker 1: my life. But the the underlying problem was it was
Speaker 1: really like an internal almost an attitude, and you found
Speaker 1: I guess it was a book by Noah Levine, who
Speaker 1: we've had on the show before. But was it his
Speaker 1: writing that sort of first got you interested in, you know,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better word, the spiritual path or
Speaker 1: or was there some was there something before that that
Speaker 1: started you down that path. When I was young, my
Speaker 1: my mother was really like deeply spiritual person, and um,
Speaker 1: I think, like a lot of teenagers, you know, my
Speaker 1: mom thought that this stuff was cool. So I thought
Speaker 1: it was totally lame and wanted wanted nothing to do
Speaker 1: with right. And my mother passed away from cancer and
Speaker 1: it was like a several year thing. I did shortly
Speaker 1: after that in in a car accident. But um, I
Speaker 1: think the first kind of inkling that I had that
Speaker 1: like maybe my mom is like kind of onto something.
Speaker 1: It was like watching like watching her die in a
Speaker 1: weird way, like it was such like a painful, awful thing,
Speaker 1: but she was like with it, and and she was
Speaker 1: still like a joyful person, which I couldn't quite wrap
Speaker 1: my head around, like how how can you be joyful
Speaker 1: like you're you're dying. So that seed was planted, and
Speaker 1: then I just kind of buried it, like really deep,
Speaker 1: like I'm not going to deal with any of that.
Speaker 1: And then a few years after that, we were on
Speaker 1: tour with this band called the Epoxies, and and their
Speaker 1: singer was the one who ended up giving me that
Speaker 1: No Levine book, which I think it was It was
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff all just like the right place
Speaker 1: at the right time, and and these talks I would
Speaker 1: have with her, I was just open, you know, I
Speaker 1: would listen to her, and so she thought that this
Speaker 1: book might help me, maybe it was worth checking out,
Speaker 1: and that kind of like open these floodgates that like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all this like stuff with my
Speaker 1: mom that I'd like buried really deep, it's all kind
Speaker 1: of came pouring out. And and that was the first
Speaker 1: time I kind of realized, like the reason I'm miserable,
Speaker 1: even though I'm living out like my dreams, is has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with like this anything outside of myself.
Speaker 1: It's all it's all inside of me, and I have
Speaker 1: like a power and an ability to change this. So
Speaker 1: so that started along dedicated journey down trying to discover more.
Speaker 1: I always think it's interesting when punk rockers become spiritual.
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up in the eighties and was
Speaker 1: in the very early punk scene and had bands and
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, and I think it.
Speaker 1: I always think about like it seems like such a
Speaker 1: far transition, but I actually don't think it is. I
Speaker 1: actually think that at least my experience was punk rock.
Speaker 1: For me and for a lot of the people I know,
Speaker 1: it was about finding some meaning. You know, life looked
Speaker 1: kind of meaningless, the culture as we saw it looked meaningless,
Speaker 1: and so here was this thing that had meaning. And
Speaker 1: that's not a very far step from spirituality, which is
Speaker 1: really at its most basic is a question about what matters.
Speaker 1: Punk rockers are looking for something really real and and
Speaker 1: anything that's kind of shitty or not like quite the
Speaker 1: real thing. Should I watch my language, by the way,
Speaker 1: if you can. If not, we'll just market as explicit
Speaker 1: on iTunes um and it'll be that's the way it'll be,
Speaker 1: so don't don't sweat it cool. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of punk rockers like are sick of like just fake stuff,
Speaker 1: and so we quest out to look for something a
Speaker 1: little more real. And it's the next door neighbor I
Speaker 1: think of, like yoga or Buddhism, you know, because here's
Speaker 1: other people who, you know, maybe they don't like dress
Speaker 1: like punk rockers are listening to the same music as us,
Speaker 1: but they they too are on this quest where like
Speaker 1: the fake stuff isn't working for them anymore, and so
Speaker 1: they need something real. Right. Yeah, there's a line in
Speaker 1: the book I really liked you say we all get
Speaker 1: to choose our reactions because we all get to choose
Speaker 1: our attitude. To me, that's very punk rock way more
Speaker 1: than having green hair, putting safety pins through your face,
Speaker 1: or obsessively listening to the ramans, all the things I
Speaker 1: do or have done, by the way, And I love
Speaker 1: that because I do think you nailed to me a
Speaker 1: lot of what the punk ethos was or is for me.
Speaker 1: Most definitely, you're Columbus, Is that right, I am? Yeah.
Speaker 1: We we used to play a place out there called Bernie's.
Speaker 1: Ye Oh, I remember Bernie. I used to play there,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, my my partner who does the show does
Speaker 1: the editing, used to run sound at Bernie's for years.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah. I definitely remember like a show and
Speaker 1: some kids have let off some fireworks and started like
Speaker 1: a dumpster fire or something. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: a pretty this is a pretty punk rocktown. But not
Speaker 1: to get to sidetracks. Sorry, no, no, it's a good
Speaker 1: little Yeah. Definitely Columbus and Bernie's. It's gone, but it
Speaker 1: was an institution for a long time. Definitely. So let's
Speaker 1: dive into some of the pieces in the book in
Speaker 1: a little bit more detail. And one of the things
Speaker 1: you talk about is coming to an understanding of who
Speaker 1: we actually are. You know, we talked about the punk
Speaker 1: piece about what's really real and um and you say
Speaker 1: I've come to a semblance of understanding. It goes something
Speaker 1: like this, we are all everyone and everything part of
Speaker 1: one thing. We're interconnected. Can you elaborate on that a
Speaker 1: little bit? Yeah, So I'm super in the like Alan Watts,
Speaker 1: I think was one of like the greatest my and
Speaker 1: like one of the best people explain this. But he
Speaker 1: would always talk a lot about like this whole thing
Speaker 1: is kind of a game, and that's stuck with me
Speaker 1: like a lot, Like um, of course it's not like
Speaker 1: original to him, like if you go back into like Hinduism,
Speaker 1: like it's really kind of there where. Here's this one
Speaker 1: thing and we can call it God if we have
Speaker 1: no other word for it. But like if if you're
Speaker 1: this thing that can do anything, like at some point,
Speaker 1: it's boring, right like at some point over like millions
Speaker 1: of years or however long, like you have to find
Speaker 1: a way to like exist without just being bored out
Speaker 1: of your mind. So you set up a game and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm just gonna manifest as as billions of
Speaker 1: different things, and I'm just going to kind of play
Speaker 1: these games just just to pass the time or just
Speaker 1: to have experiences. And the game only works if I
Speaker 1: don't know that it's me playing. If you take this
Speaker 1: like God thing and it's like a, well, I want
Speaker 1: to experience what it's like to be Eric and In
Speaker 1: in two thousand eighteen and to have the one You
Speaker 1: Feed podcast, So I'm hoping God can do better than that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, well I mean yeah, yeah, so so there
Speaker 1: you are. And then it's like, well, I want to
Speaker 1: know what it's like to be Miguel and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, and here we are just kind of existing,
Speaker 1: but you know, we don't know that that's what we
Speaker 1: really are. And I think at the moment of death,
Speaker 1: like that's when we really are like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: Eric that I thought wasn't me. It was me. It
Speaker 1: was just me playing a different role. It's one way
Speaker 1: of looking at it that that gives me like a
Speaker 1: lot of comfort because it it kind of solves a
Speaker 1: lot of problems in the human realm if you kind
Speaker 1: of accept that, like at least as a possibility that
Speaker 1: guy like cut me off in traffic and I'm so
Speaker 1: mad it, then you kind of take a step back
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's me. It's just me in a
Speaker 1: different incarnation, and it's forgotten that it's it's me or
Speaker 1: um like let's just say, like the most evil, awful
Speaker 1: person in the world and and I'll just leave that
Speaker 1: up to imagination. But it helps you build compassion for
Speaker 1: that person when you're like, that person is not actually
Speaker 1: evil and awful, they're just really deep in the game
Speaker 1: and they've really forgotten, truly like who they are. Because
Speaker 1: the moment they come back to the truth of like
Speaker 1: we are this like one connected thing. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they're like, oh man, I shouldn't continue to hurt people.
Speaker 1: You talk a lot in the book about interconnection. We're
Speaker 1: all interconnected, we're all part of one thing, And you
Speaker 1: talk a lot about disconnect. You say, disconnect is a
Speaker 1: real problem. It's the single biggest obstacle between us and
Speaker 1: the truth. So we need to see it in all
Speaker 1: its forms, past, present, and future. So talk about disconnection,
Speaker 1: And for you, what do you do when disconnection rears
Speaker 1: its head, Because you know, at least happens to me,
Speaker 1: you know pretty regularly that happens to all of us,
Speaker 1: like thousands of times a day. I think let's go
Speaker 1: back to like this idea, like if this is all
Speaker 1: a game and it's spent to be like joyful and
Speaker 1: and and fun, the more time we like spend not
Speaker 1: connected to that, the more we're just robbing ourselves of whatever.
Speaker 1: Like beauty is in front of us, and even if
Speaker 1: it looks like something awful, there's there's something really beautiful
Speaker 1: and powerful, like in anything. Theoretically, so if we're just
Speaker 1: kind of like mindlessly like brushing our teeth and like
Speaker 1: getting dressed for work, like checking Facebook and like doing
Speaker 1: eight things at time. We're missing like this innate beauty
Speaker 1: where if we had done just say one of those
Speaker 1: things mindfully. I had a teacher in India who would
Speaker 1: would tell me, like, we get hungry our immediate impulses
Speaker 1: like just shoved food in your face, and and you've
Speaker 1: missed not only like the joy of enjoying this food
Speaker 1: and like being present with him, being mindful with it,
Speaker 1: and like grateful for the nurturing that it gives you
Speaker 1: to keep existing, but you also missed the joy of
Speaker 1: of feeling hungry, which was a weird thing for me
Speaker 1: to think about it. He's like the actual feeling of
Speaker 1: being hungry, Like if you take the connotation away from
Speaker 1: it is an interesting experience, you know, among like another
Speaker 1: thousand things. That guy told me, Like it kind of
Speaker 1: blew my mind, and I was like he's right, Like,
Speaker 1: no matter what's going on around us, like there's something
Speaker 1: we can connect to about it, it's going to kind
Speaker 1: of like raise us up a little and like help
Speaker 1: us feel something right. And the problem is like when
Speaker 1: something is seemingly unpleasant, like of course we're trying to
Speaker 1: disconnect to it. Like I think about it, like if
Speaker 1: I'm getting a tattoo and it feels awful and I
Speaker 1: hate it, you know, like my mind's immediately like let's
Speaker 1: play some music or let's talk to the artist, and
Speaker 1: let's like do whatever we can to not feel this
Speaker 1: knee little stabbing into my skin a thousand times. But whatever,
Speaker 1: I've like taken a moment to kind of try and
Speaker 1: be present with it, like there's there's something there, and
Speaker 1: that's just what we do with like unpleasant stuff like
Speaker 1: we don't even realize, like stuff that we like, we're
Speaker 1: not present with it, stuff that is seemingly like what
Speaker 1: we want in our lives, Like we don't even pay attention,
Speaker 1: like our friends are around, we're just on our phones,
Speaker 1: or like we're traveling around and like we all just
Speaker 1: have like our nose is buried in a video gamers,
Speaker 1: you know, like the things we like we disconnect from.
Speaker 1: Made me think of a couple of things. One with hunger.
Speaker 1: I've been playing this little game lately where when my
Speaker 1: brain says something like I'm hungry or I'm tired or
Speaker 1: I'm whatever, I try and ask myself, like how do
Speaker 1: I know that there's a series of steps that gets
Speaker 1: to the thought in my brain I'm hungry, and so
Speaker 1: if I can stop and go, how do I know that?
Speaker 1: What is it that's telling me that? Let me get
Speaker 1: you know, the sensation itself or the the thing itself.
Speaker 1: I found it to be an interesting way to be
Speaker 1: a little bit more mindful and try and understand a
Speaker 1: little bit more like, well, what does hungary really feel like?
Speaker 1: You know, what is it? What is it like? And
Speaker 1: so I think, uh, you know, it's a very very
Speaker 1: similar idea and the other ideas you were talking about
Speaker 1: eating mindfully. I'm always amazed by how I'm perfectly capable
Speaker 1: of doing this, and so are a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna go eat something that should be a
Speaker 1: treat for me. I generally gonna eat good and now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go get, you know, a blizzard from dairy Queen,
Speaker 1: And how mindlessly I will eat that often. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not even really enjoying it. I'm always a little
Speaker 1: bit like, well, well that was a real waste, Like
Speaker 1: not only did I eat something that you know isn't
Speaker 1: good for me, and all the various pieces of that,
Speaker 1: like I didn't even really enjoy it. To boot you know,
Speaker 1: I might as well have had nutritious cardboard for as
Speaker 1: much as I paid attention to it. It adds up
Speaker 1: again like these these moments, and if you're used to
Speaker 1: tuning out to things you don't like, it starts to
Speaker 1: creep into things that you do like, and before you
Speaker 1: know it, these series of moments, like you've lived a
Speaker 1: life where you are just disconnected, like a decade goes
Speaker 1: back and like maybe a handful of times you were
Speaker 1: actually really present for what was going on. Where we're
Speaker 1: bored with this ability to to connect, like like in
Speaker 1: a perfect world, to everything every single moment. And but
Speaker 1: you know, like realistically definitely a a lot more than
Speaker 1: we actually do. And I think those moments of like
Speaker 1: pure connection are precious. We can cultivate so much more
Speaker 1: of it, Like you were saying, just slow down, right
Speaker 1: stop and take a moment and be like, well, where
Speaker 1: is this coming from? And investigate a little bit, and
Speaker 1: like retrain the mind to activate and to work that
Speaker 1: way and less to just like shut up and mindlessly
Speaker 1: do what you do. Right. And in the book, you
Speaker 1: talk a fair amount about being in the present moment,
Speaker 1: and I'm kind of curious, how do you do that.
Speaker 1: That's not a theoretical question, that's more of a question
Speaker 1: about like how do you do it? Because it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that my experience has often been like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to be in the present moment, and I
Speaker 1: come to the present moment for about a fraction of
Speaker 1: a second and then I'm gone again. Different people have
Speaker 1: different ways that sort of helped them to reconnect or
Speaker 1: to remain present. Any any that worked well for you.
Speaker 1: The first step in any problem is realizing that it's there, right,
Speaker 1: So it's kind of an over and over thing, Like
Speaker 1: the moment you realize you're really lost, like you're on
Speaker 1: the moon and not present. That helps, and you have
Speaker 1: to like train yourself to notice more. There's definitely things
Speaker 1: for me in my life that that help a lot,
Speaker 1: and some of them are like get up early in
Speaker 1: the morning and and do do my practice, do do yoga,
Speaker 1: do meditation, and like that sort sets the pace for
Speaker 1: the rest of my day. Like all right, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: starting the day connected to my body and I'm starting
Speaker 1: the day connected to my breathing, so it gives me
Speaker 1: a leg up. But it certainly isn't this like, oh
Speaker 1: I did yoga today, Like today, I'm just present. It
Speaker 1: helps start the day on the right foot. But inevitably,
Speaker 1: like anybody else, all of a sudden, I'm just lost
Speaker 1: and I'm gone, and it is just inch by inch
Speaker 1: and step by step. If you notice, deep breath in,
Speaker 1: deep breath out, and come back, and then it will
Speaker 1: happen again and again, and it will keep happening for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, every every time you notice,
Speaker 1: like if I enjoy in hah, I noticed cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The one that I have been having a lot of
Speaker 1: success with when I remember to do it, which you're right,
Speaker 1: that is the key piece is the remembering is just
Speaker 1: this idea of I think I've heard it referred to
Speaker 1: as like grounding yourself in your senses. I think of like,
Speaker 1: all right, what are five things I can see right now?
Speaker 1: And then what are five things that I can hear?
Speaker 1: And then what are five things that I can feel physically?
Speaker 1: You know, like I feel the backpack strap on me,
Speaker 1: or a breeze or a boy I could feel my
Speaker 1: my knee hurts a little bit, or it's just for me.
Speaker 1: That's a really useful way to do it, because anything
Speaker 1: like that that gives my brain a little something to
Speaker 1: do while it's being present really helps me from that
Speaker 1: like I'm present, I'm gone, gone, gone, gone, I'm present
Speaker 1: for half a second, I'm gone. It gives me something.
Speaker 1: It's just the word I always uses. It makes the
Speaker 1: moment a little stickier for me in some way. And
Speaker 1: that's one that like I've really really been trying to
Speaker 1: do a lot over the last several months and really
Speaker 1: find it to be when I remember, I find it
Speaker 1: to be really really helpful for me. That's awesomes Like
Speaker 1: you say, your your mind has to kind of be trained,
Speaker 1: right and and you see it like Buddhism a lot
Speaker 1: you see like like monkey mind call it and it's
Speaker 1: just it's been running wild forever. So now to kind
Speaker 1: of like reel it back in is a big task.
Speaker 1: And you know a lot of people think yoga like
Speaker 1: definition is like union or connection, and I think about
Speaker 1: they go for that, but like if if you go
Speaker 1: to the yoga suitras, like the practice of yoga is
Speaker 1: defined as they say, yoga cheeta, ruti, neurota, and that
Speaker 1: just means yoga calms the fluctuations of mind and and
Speaker 1: so all this stuff we're doing like with our bodies
Speaker 1: where we're like training ourselves to like, okay, notice your
Speaker 1: right foot, notice your spine, notice your posture, Like it
Speaker 1: is all just a process to trade our mind to
Speaker 1: be still. And do you find that you have both
Speaker 1: a sitting meditation practice and a yoga practice for you?
Speaker 1: Are those both equally important? Absolutely? If you go from
Speaker 1: a yoga system, there's like lots of steps, and one
Speaker 1: of the later steps his meditation. But it's like first
Speaker 1: like body and breathing, and then like senses, and it's
Speaker 1: all just from like really external stuff two internal and
Speaker 1: so once you're connected with your body, you can go
Speaker 1: deeper and connect with your breathing. Then you can like
Speaker 1: notice the subtle aspects of your senses, and from there
Speaker 1: you can go to like a seated meditation practice. And
Speaker 1: I didn't even like consider yoga like real thing I
Speaker 1: would ever think about doing like it was just a
Speaker 1: seated meditation practice. All of a sudden, when I when
Speaker 1: I started doing like a physical yoga practice, I was like,
Speaker 1: this makes my meditation so much easier. Do you do
Speaker 1: yoga and then sit down and meditate? Are they part
Speaker 1: of at the same time? You do the physical first,
Speaker 1: and then you find that helps your seated practice. My
Speaker 1: morning routine, depending on how much time I have, is
Speaker 1: usually an hour hour and a half of yoga followed
Speaker 1: by like minutes of seated meditation. So if I'm lucky,
Speaker 1: I have two hours a day. But yeah, what I'm
Speaker 1: not lucky. You know, condense and do what I can
Speaker 1: as I As we say on the show all the time,
Speaker 1: a little bit of something is better than a lot
Speaker 1: of nothing. And you say that in the book. If
Speaker 1: you get nothing else from this book, sit down for
Speaker 1: five minutes a day and start a practice. A question
Speaker 1: for you around your life in the punk rock world.
Speaker 1: How open have bandmates been, other bands, people that you've
Speaker 1: met to kind of what you're doing. And has this
Speaker 1: been something that you've feel sort of isolated in when
Speaker 1: you're out on the road or is it something you
Speaker 1: feel really supported in when you're out on the road.
Speaker 1: It's the full spectrum. I have friends who I'm like
Speaker 1: really close to, and people I look up to a
Speaker 1: lot that like do not even pretend to try and understand.
Speaker 1: They just kind of, you know, rip on me and
Speaker 1: think it's it's a complete waste of time, which is fine.
Speaker 1: And and then I have friends and people I look
Speaker 1: up to and like strangers who talk to me about
Speaker 1: like this, I think you're onto something, you know, And
Speaker 1: the thing I have to keep coming back to is
Speaker 1: not attaching to either of them too much, like connect
Speaker 1: whichever one is in front of me, and then let
Speaker 1: it go when it's done, because it's easy to like
Speaker 1: if someone comes up and it's like, oh, your book,
Speaker 1: like it got me started out meditation and did this,
Speaker 1: this and this, Like it's easy to be like I'm awesome,
Speaker 1: you know, like impat yourself on the back and and
Speaker 1: all that. But then but then you're also like really
Speaker 1: kind of disconnecting from something by being that way. And
Speaker 1: it is also easy when it's like someone you really
Speaker 1: look up to is kind of like, dude, this is stupid.
Speaker 1: This is like the least punk thing you could possibly do. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's hard to not like take that personally
Speaker 1: and like feel really sad. But like that's also part
Speaker 1: of the practice. That's not necessarily true. And this isn't
Speaker 1: necessarily true. Like what's true is it is in the middle,
Speaker 1: and it's it's like I'm just I'm just doing my
Speaker 1: best and you're doing your thing, which is pretty punk
Speaker 1: rock as we talked about before doing your thing. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you find it easier to practice when you're home, stationed
Speaker 1: at home or on the road or is there not
Speaker 1: much of a difference for you in that Again, it's
Speaker 1: kind of twofold. Like at home, it's it's so easy.
Speaker 1: I'm at one of my two studios every day of
Speaker 1: the week. It's easier for me to have a normal
Speaker 1: schedule and a normal routine. But there is also the
Speaker 1: aspect of like I'm home and I'm comfortable. I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's harder to stay motivated to practice all the time
Speaker 1: when you're comfortable. Right on tour, like there's no schedule,
Speaker 1: it's it's always just chaos, and a lot of times
Speaker 1: it's hard to find like a place or time to
Speaker 1: like get this in, so that can be difficult. But
Speaker 1: there is also a lot of times like I'm struggling
Speaker 1: out there, and that motivates me to find time and
Speaker 1: make time and make a place. So it's both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about what you said there at the
Speaker 1: end earlier this week about that at sense of like
Speaker 1: you said, so when I'm struggling, I go to my
Speaker 1: yoga practice, or I go to my meditation practice, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking about, like, it seems like there's this
Speaker 1: point where for a lot of us, something changes. We
Speaker 1: realize like suffering means that there's some actions we can
Speaker 1: take to feel better, and so we suffer that that
Speaker 1: is a motivator towards practice for me that I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that that happened with me. I try to be
Speaker 1: motivated when there's not only by pain. But I know
Speaker 1: some people who suffering and pain and all that does
Speaker 1: not motivate them forward really in any significant way. And
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about how grateful I am that
Speaker 1: that happened for me. Again, I'm not quite sure how,
Speaker 1: but that somehow the idea of I'm uncomfortable, I'm in pain,
Speaker 1: here are some things that I know that are good
Speaker 1: for me to do, and that pushes me towards them.
Speaker 1: I'm just grateful for that that somehow that connection happened
Speaker 1: in my brain. And the people I think who you
Speaker 1: see them, and it seems like all the suffering and
Speaker 1: this pain doesn't motivate them to to find something else.
Speaker 1: I think it's more of a question of time, like
Speaker 1: it just doesn't motivate them yet. And and people have
Speaker 1: a tremendous, ungodly capacity to endure suffering and pain, and
Speaker 1: like everyone's got the like different tipping points, and some
Speaker 1: people's is like wait wait, wait, wait up here, And
Speaker 1: but I do like to think that like at some
Speaker 1: point everyone wakes up a little bit and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to suffer and and this idea you have
Speaker 1: of of feeling gratitude and feeling grateful for for like
Speaker 1: the pain and the suffering that kind of lead you
Speaker 1: to do something about it, like absolutely, but a thousand
Speaker 1: percent I think about that, like, Okay, if if my
Speaker 1: mom and my sister are dead, Okay, everyone who has
Speaker 1: a mom and a sister you know they're going to
Speaker 1: lose them eventually, and and it's just part of it.
Speaker 1: And like given a choice, like of course, my mom
Speaker 1: would be about to become a grandma, my sister would
Speaker 1: be about to become an aunt. They'd be in my life.
Speaker 1: Then I am, we're having a kid next month. Congratulations,
Speaker 1: that's that's wonderful. Your first thing. It is. We're super excited.
Speaker 1: But you know, like it's there, like absolutely I would
Speaker 1: have them here for these moments in my life. And
Speaker 1: but that's not the truth of it. So so if
Speaker 1: I have to look at it and and find something
Speaker 1: to be grateful about, you know, outside of like I
Speaker 1: still feel their presence and I know that they're here
Speaker 1: with me in one sense. But the more tangible thing
Speaker 1: is that had I not had that happened when it
Speaker 1: happened at such a young age, I I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: woken up the way I did and when I did,
Speaker 1: so hopefully I get to spend most of my life
Speaker 1: like a little bit more awake and a little bit
Speaker 1: more connected than I would have otherwise. You know, like
Speaker 1: if they were just around and I took them for
Speaker 1: granted the whole time, and and it wasn't until like
Speaker 1: I was almost dead that I had to wake up.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like like a waste to what
Speaker 1: if you don't wake up till you're like eighty yep,
Speaker 1: and then you die, and you think I just wasted
Speaker 1: like eighty years relatively young, like I was sixteen seventeen
Speaker 1: when when they passed away, and maybe five or six
Speaker 1: years later when I started to really deal with it.
Speaker 1: And thanks to that, I've had many years of a
Speaker 1: really connected life where I get to do really a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of cool stuff. My version or
Speaker 1: variation of that was becoming a Heroin addict at like that.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that it got that bad that fast.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm pretty certain I could have kept drinking
Speaker 1: or smoking weed, I mean for a long time. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm just really glad that, like I just got my
Speaker 1: ass handed to me so early and so hard. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just, you know, it's such a At the time,
Speaker 1: it seemed terrible, but in retrospect was a total benefit. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I I kind of see now with like that
Speaker 1: information what you were saying about, like, what is it
Speaker 1: about you that that led you to want to wake
Speaker 1: up and and change something? Where like others are because
Speaker 1: obviously like Heroin like, there are a lot of people
Speaker 1: who like no matter how much they suffer because of
Speaker 1: that stuff, it isn't the motivator they need to get
Speaker 1: out of it. I would say that's one of the
Speaker 1: great mysteries of my life, is why are some people
Speaker 1: able to do it and others that not. I've been
Speaker 1: around so many people that have and so many people
Speaker 1: that haven't. You could look and say, well, the people
Speaker 1: that get sober, the people that do the following actions
Speaker 1: that help them miss days over which I get, but
Speaker 1: it's like, where did the motivation for that come from? Like,
Speaker 1: it's just it's a mystery. If somebody could crack that nut,
Speaker 1: they have quite something on their hands there, if someone
Speaker 1: could solve that problem. Well, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on. We're going to
Speaker 1: wrap up here because we're out of time. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a little post show conversation like we
Speaker 1: always do, so listeners, if you're interested, you can go
Speaker 1: to one you feed dot net slash support and learn
Speaker 1: more about that. It's a it's a gift we give
Speaker 1: to people who support the show and one of the
Speaker 1: things we're going to talk about our favorite punk rock
Speaker 1: bands and our post show conversation. So thanks so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on. It's been a
Speaker 1: real pleasure. Eric, it's been wonderful to be here. Man.
Speaker 1: All right, bye. If what you just heard was helpful
Speaker 1: to you, please consider making good. Don't nation to the
Speaker 1: One you Feed podcast. Head over to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash support. The One you Feed podcast would
Speaker 1: like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.