Speaker 1: When you're angry all the time, all you're doing is
Speaker 1: constantly looking for the threat. You're not looking for the opportunity.
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 Y,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 1: Dylan di Giovanni, an interactive health coach. Dylan has a
Speaker 1: Master of Education and Integrative Wellness, Leadership and Change in
Speaker 1: Individuals and Cultures from Leslie University, Cambridge, mass and a
Speaker 1: Bachelor of Science and Education secondary major in Art at
Speaker 1: the College of New Jersey. You in New Jersey. He's
Speaker 1: a member of the Speaker Bureau of International Information Programs
Speaker 1: and International Association for Health Coaches. Our sponsor on this
Speaker 1: episode is health i Q. To see if you qualify
Speaker 1: and get your free health quote, go to health i
Speaker 1: q dot com. Slash wolf or mentioned the promo code
Speaker 1: wolf when you talk to a Health i Q agent.
Speaker 1: And here's the interview with Dylan di Giovanni. Hi, Dylan,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks very much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on at I mentioned to
Speaker 1: you when we were talking before. I rarely accept unsolicited
Speaker 1: guest requests for people that I don't really know, um,
Speaker 1: but there was something about the way you wrote and
Speaker 1: the topics you brought up that I thought, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to this guy. So I'm I'm excited to
Speaker 1: have this conversation. But let's start like we always do
Speaker 1: with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking to his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second, and he looks
Speaker 1: up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which
Speaker 1: 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. Well. I first learned about
Speaker 1: that parable, I would say, back in two thousand five,
Speaker 1: and I remember someone shared it with me and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. And then over the years I just
Speaker 1: always kept reminding myself of that, and in fact, most
Speaker 1: recently this past June, I got the tattoo of the
Speaker 1: two wolves, you know, one on each arm. But the
Speaker 1: way that I gradually began to apply it more and
Speaker 1: more was as my own wolves started to surface. I
Speaker 1: started to really actively choose more and more the good
Speaker 1: wolf as much as I could, and really focused on
Speaker 1: that as a as a choice that I could make,
Speaker 1: and every interaction, every thought, whether it was an interaction
Speaker 1: live with a person or just thinking, you know, even
Speaker 1: in my mindfulness, excellent. So your main idea when you
Speaker 1: emailed me was about activism and anger. You know, you
Speaker 1: described yourself as an angry activist and and talked about
Speaker 1: how that's changed for you a little bit, and I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in that subject. What I'm interested in is
Speaker 1: that there's lots of things in the world that it's
Speaker 1: easy to not like right now. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: sure for a lot of my listeners there there there
Speaker 1: are challenges. But I think at any point in time,
Speaker 1: right you could look at the world and find lots
Speaker 1: of awful things, people that seem awful all that, and
Speaker 1: yet the question I'm interested in is how do we
Speaker 1: be effective in the world. How do we make a difference.
Speaker 1: How do we do all that without either a being
Speaker 1: miserable ourselves or be making everybody around us miserable because
Speaker 1: we're so upset about it all the time. And so
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I want to cover, you know,
Speaker 1: with you, So if you can maybe just give us
Speaker 1: a little background. Sure. So I identified as an activist
Speaker 1: for a long time, and definitely as an angry activist
Speaker 1: because that was the ideology that I was taught. I
Speaker 1: would say, in my early twenties, I kind of started
Speaker 1: hanging out with this with this group of folks who
Speaker 1: are very politically engaged and their narrative was around anger
Speaker 1: being the way to be effective. So I got absorbed
Speaker 1: into that just kind of like a club, you know,
Speaker 1: and really believed and and really invested in that. I
Speaker 1: didn't even see it as an ideology. I just saw
Speaker 1: it as truth. And we we were all about mostly,
Speaker 1: you know, we were focused on social justice, so racial
Speaker 1: identity politics, sexuality identity politics, you know, social justice issues.
Speaker 1: And then when I became a health coach in Two
Speaker 1: Hells and Nine, that ideology started to crack because I
Speaker 1: started to see that that anger was actually working against
Speaker 1: me because it was driving people away. And that had
Speaker 1: already happened with my family because I was being so
Speaker 1: militant in my opinions, there was no room for anyone
Speaker 1: who had a different opinion and I and I really
Speaker 1: alienated myself from my family or my family for me right.
Speaker 1: And and so the health coaching, the whole foundation of
Speaker 1: my training as an integrative health coach is there's no
Speaker 1: right way to do anything. There's no right way to eat,
Speaker 1: there's no right way to exercise, there's no right way.
Speaker 1: And then so then I naturally had to incorporate that
Speaker 1: into this strong activist identity that I had and it's
Speaker 1: us started to break apart little by little where I
Speaker 1: really started to see that this way of being angry
Speaker 1: in the world was actually doing more harm than good
Speaker 1: and it wasn't actually achieving the ends that that I
Speaker 1: had been told would happen if we just kept being
Speaker 1: angry about what what wasn't working. And then the more
Speaker 1: I started practicing Buddhism, started to just see that as
Speaker 1: more truth. And that's how it evolved over time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to hear different people talk about anger, certainly
Speaker 1: addressed in different Buddhist texts in different ways, and there's
Speaker 1: a sense that anger can be used as an energy, right,
Speaker 1: that the energy of anger can move us towards positive things,
Speaker 1: but the emotional residue or the bitterness that it can
Speaker 1: jeels into, can be so problematic. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that troubles me the most today when I
Speaker 1: look at like social justice issues, which I care about deeply,
Speaker 1: but boy, it's like nobody is exempt from the outrage, right,
Speaker 1: Like you could be on so body's team a dent,
Speaker 1: but if you don't say it exactly right or you
Speaker 1: don't understand exactly where they come from, there just seems
Speaker 1: to be all this outrage and and I feel like
Speaker 1: it keeps a lot of different communities of people not
Speaker 1: uniting as well as they could to move issues forward,
Speaker 1: because there is this sense like this is the way
Speaker 1: it's got to be done. And I have a right
Speaker 1: to my experience and you don't. And you know anger,
Speaker 1: And again, I think anger is an important energy, but
Speaker 1: I agree with you, I can see it can be counterproductive.
Speaker 1: So besides your family and what other ways in your life,
Speaker 1: was it counterproductive for you? I mean myself first and foremost,
Speaker 1: because what I was doing was, you know, turning that anger.
Speaker 1: What I what I can see now is that that
Speaker 1: all that anger inside was I was also turning it
Speaker 1: against myself. I was turning it against myself first and
Speaker 1: then from there turning it against other people and more
Speaker 1: and more. I just saw that that as a way
Speaker 1: of being, in a way of thinking, in in being
Speaker 1: in the world, was bringing about no happiness and no satisfaction,
Speaker 1: because when you're angry all the time, all you're doing
Speaker 1: is constantly looking for the threat. You're not looking for
Speaker 1: the opportunity. What else was instrumental in transforming that identity
Speaker 1: um or that alignment you had with that ideology. So
Speaker 1: I became a coach in two thousand nine, and there
Speaker 1: was still a conflict. There was still an internal conflict
Speaker 1: because I had been in that community for so long.
Speaker 1: I was do I want to use the word brainwashed, maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, but it was it was It was a
Speaker 1: real you know, my brain was really wired that way,
Speaker 1: and but it was starting, you know, starting to to fray.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand twelve, I began the process
Speaker 1: of transitioning my gender identity in my mid thirties, and
Speaker 1: what happened is that was actually the thing that kind
Speaker 1: of cracked the rest of the process because the response
Speaker 1: that people had to my transition ranged. It was everywhere
Speaker 1: from people rejecting me out rightly, like my family the
Speaker 1: relationship I was in similar kind of thing um, But
Speaker 1: then there were other people who were embracing me, but
Speaker 1: kind of treating me like an other, like like this
Speaker 1: alien species, when people had never treated me like that
Speaker 1: for thirty or four years of my life. And that
Speaker 1: plunged me into some real deep anger because for the
Speaker 1: first time I could no longer intellectualize prejudice and discrimination.
Speaker 1: I was experiencing it outright. So you got plunged into
Speaker 1: this deep anger during that period. And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: there were a ton of things going on in that period,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to explore that a little bit because
Speaker 1: it's just not something we've talked about on the show
Speaker 1: at all. But let's stay with the anger theme for
Speaker 1: right now. Sure, And I started to see that the anger,
Speaker 1: because I agree with you, anger is I think a
Speaker 1: healthy thing to have. It tells us something that something's
Speaker 1: wrong right. It's a symptom that says something's not right here.
Speaker 1: But what I learned from my therapist, who was an
Speaker 1: amazing person and just recently passed in June, was that
Speaker 1: it's telling us that there's a feeling that we need
Speaker 1: to address or pay attention to. So with his help,
Speaker 1: I started to get underneath, like what is the feeling
Speaker 1: that's underneath the anger, And the feeling was um fear,
Speaker 1: fear of being abandoned more or you know, stigmatized for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. Fear of not being able
Speaker 1: to control how people spoke to me or how they
Speaker 1: saw me or how they treated me, resentment, all the
Speaker 1: bad wolf feelings. That's when I was like, wow, I
Speaker 1: really understand this parable now, Um, at it, or I
Speaker 1: said I should say, at a deeper level disappointment, regret
Speaker 1: all of those feelings. You know, should I have done this?
Speaker 1: Maybe I never should have made this decision um of
Speaker 1: just the full range. And one night, when I could
Speaker 1: really sit with those feelings, I really started to understand
Speaker 1: that being angry at people for how they were treating
Speaker 1: me or speaking to me, or we're curious, you know,
Speaker 1: the endless questions. Being angry about that was not serving them.
Speaker 1: It wasn't going to help them. It was definitely not
Speaker 1: going to help me, and it was never going to
Speaker 1: change the world for the better. I think that's a
Speaker 1: big part of you know, people talk about forgiveness or
Speaker 1: getting over anger, and I think for me that was
Speaker 1: the fundamental thing that I think turned me into a
Speaker 1: person who's pretty easy to forgive, pretty slow to anger.
Speaker 1: Was when I've really, at a at a fundamental level,
Speaker 1: understood what it was doing to me. You can chalk
Speaker 1: that up to being selfish, which it is to some extent,
Speaker 1: but I just really realized, like, oh boy, like this
Speaker 1: is awful. I am really suffering and the other person
Speaker 1: is not. This doesn't make any sense, and it just
Speaker 1: made me less effective in every way totally. Here here
Speaker 1: I was, you know, making people feel ashamed and embarrassed
Speaker 1: for being ignorant, and ignorant at face value is just
Speaker 1: lack of awareness. Right here are these people not trying
Speaker 1: to be delicious, not trying to hurt me, but just
Speaker 1: doing things from a place of curiosity and ignorance, And
Speaker 1: I was making them feel horrible about it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think there is there. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: we could talk about different types of ignorance, but one
Speaker 1: type of ignorance is just very much like you said,
Speaker 1: it's just I just don't know. And and you know,
Speaker 1: you and I had a conversation before the show a
Speaker 1: little bit where I was like, all right, I want
Speaker 1: to make sure I'm going to get my terms right
Speaker 1: because I don't want to offend anybody in any way.
Speaker 1: I want to treat people the way that they want
Speaker 1: to be treated. And yet it's sort of like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure, and so you know, I think
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases it it comes, like you said,
Speaker 1: it comes from a place of of concern or care.
Speaker 1: But if you're so angry all the time, you can't
Speaker 1: tell them apart almost totally, I agree and and the
Speaker 1: way to use all those words or terms, right, that's
Speaker 1: essentially another whole language, is what I realized. Whereas when
Speaker 1: I was in the activist community, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of you I'm speaking, I'm totally generalizing, but I think
Speaker 1: a lot of activists forget that they've nurtured a culture
Speaker 1: that's exclusive and it has its own rules and language,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of their anger is how could
Speaker 1: I speak for myself? A lot of my anger was
Speaker 1: forgetting that I was making assumptions about what people knew
Speaker 1: and didn't know. And when you step back and you say, well, actually,
Speaker 1: it's a whole different language, which is like a different culture,
Speaker 1: and you know, I wouldn't expect a person from a
Speaker 1: different country to come over and just automatically be able
Speaker 1: to know, Um, it really changed. It was a whole
Speaker 1: different frame. Yeah, it's one of the most fundamental lessons
Speaker 1: I think. But when we stop assuming we understand people's
Speaker 1: motivation were so much better off. You know, like you
Speaker 1: can look at the action and go, Okay, well they
Speaker 1: said this or they did that, and you can like
Speaker 1: that or not like that, right, and you can address that.
Speaker 1: But the minute we go into they did it, because boy,
Speaker 1: I get my you know, I used to get myself
Speaker 1: into trouble. I still do get myself into trouble with
Speaker 1: that all of the time. And it's also very much
Speaker 1: sort of a self absorbed mindset because it means like
Speaker 1: I just assume everybody thinks like I do. So if
Speaker 1: I did this here what it would mean me. But
Speaker 1: it's totally different for someone else, or can be completely
Speaker 1: And now back to the interview with Dylan di Giovanni.
Speaker 1: Let's stay with the anger theme for a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: So talk to me about your relationship to anger now. Mm, well,
Speaker 1: I'm awake to it in a way that I wasn't.
Speaker 1: I think the anger was just in the driver's seat,
Speaker 1: and it just compelled me for definitely, you know, years
Speaker 1: before my transition, but then definitely in the transition early on.
Speaker 1: And then I just started to realize, like, this is
Speaker 1: a self created prison, Dylan, and you signed up for
Speaker 1: this for the rest of however many decades you have
Speaker 1: on this plan, and you either walk through the world
Speaker 1: really annoyed or frustrated or whatever, or you get to
Speaker 1: choose how you're going to respond, you know. And if
Speaker 1: I'm being completely honest, with you, because why not. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really a day to day practice, just like I
Speaker 1: think it is for everybody. But it really is a
Speaker 1: day to day practice for me. And I will say
Speaker 1: it definitely gets easier with time when you come when
Speaker 1: I come from that place that I don't have to
Speaker 1: be perfect. I'm allowed to get frustrated with people sometimes.
Speaker 1: As soon as I allow that, then you know, as
Speaker 1: as it works right as I allow it for myself,
Speaker 1: then I can create that space for other people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a mysterious way things work, is that you know,
Speaker 1: when you allow something or don't resist something. It's very
Speaker 1: easy for me to recognize that in an exterior sort
Speaker 1: of way, like well, I shouldn't resist that I have
Speaker 1: to go to work, or I shouldn't resist that it's
Speaker 1: cold outside, or I shouldn't resist something else. It's a
Speaker 1: lot harder for me to recognize it with a personality
Speaker 1: trait what in a twelve step program we might call
Speaker 1: a character defect. Right, it's a whole lot harder for
Speaker 1: me to be like, all right, I'm just gonna let
Speaker 1: that be there. I'm gonna let myself be that way,
Speaker 1: and it works, it works, But boy, it's non intuitive
Speaker 1: and hard for me to do because there's a fear like, well,
Speaker 1: if I just let it be there, it's always gonna
Speaker 1: be there. Like I can't act like that, I can't
Speaker 1: be like that. You're talking about a work in progress.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm still definitely working my way through. Is
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, some of these things that I've tried
Speaker 1: to get rid of for how many years aren't going anywhere.
Speaker 1: You know, they may not be as as grievous as
Speaker 1: they once were, but they're still there. And so maybe
Speaker 1: the approach needs to be like, all right, you know,
Speaker 1: just sort of like I see you in the same
Speaker 1: way that you know. I talked with people a lot
Speaker 1: in the Coach and I'm sure you do, and we
Speaker 1: talked about on the show around relating to thoughts and
Speaker 1: feelings in that way, get some distance and just see them.
Speaker 1: You don't have to change them, you don't have to
Speaker 1: make them go away. There's different approaches, but learning to
Speaker 1: do that with my own personal sort of flaws, I
Speaker 1: guess it is more challenging. Yep. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: the transition. So I would just be curious, like, for
Speaker 1: how long did you know that you that you did
Speaker 1: not identify with your your given gender. Was that something
Speaker 1: you've known a long time or did you grow into
Speaker 1: that awareness or Thanks for asking the question, because I'm
Speaker 1: really always excited to share my experience because it's pretty
Speaker 1: different from the common narrative that's out there of what
Speaker 1: people think and what other what other folks associate. UM.
Speaker 1: I grew up not really having that internal conflict. I
Speaker 1: was more identified as like a tomboy, right. It was
Speaker 1: kind of more of an androgynous tomboy, which was an
Speaker 1: acceptable identity. And because there was no visibility of transgender
Speaker 1: people when I was growing up in the media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then when I moved to Boston in two thousand
Speaker 1: six from New Jersey where I'm from, UM I started
Speaker 1: hanging out with transgender people, I started becoming exposed to
Speaker 1: them as as a as an as an existence. And
Speaker 1: but it took, I would say, another well, from like
Speaker 1: two thousand three to two thousand twelve for me to
Speaker 1: actually start to explore that for myself, like is this
Speaker 1: true for me? And here's the honest truth. I came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion after exploring that that I couldn't really
Speaker 1: answer the question because I lived as a person for
Speaker 1: thirty four years, and I couldn't imagine into a completely
Speaker 1: different reality. So I ultimately just made the decision to
Speaker 1: try it. And so that's a fairly significant trying it
Speaker 1: is this isn't then again, You're right. The narrative that
Speaker 1: that I've heard or understand is that people lived in
Speaker 1: this unbearable confinement for all this time and then eventually
Speaker 1: summoned all their courage two to make a change. And
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's very different in your case, totally totally,
Speaker 1: because I I always lived self expressed and completely comfortable,
Speaker 1: you know, except for a few occasions where I had
Speaker 1: to wear like the required clothing of of you know,
Speaker 1: you know, for graduation ceremonies or whatever. I mostly wore
Speaker 1: whatever I wanted to wear, and had been doing that
Speaker 1: for many years. So the gender expression of ambiguity or
Speaker 1: androgyny wasn't you know. I'd already been doing it for
Speaker 1: so many years. So then it was the next step
Speaker 1: of like changing other things. And then it was at
Speaker 1: that point that just became like a conscious decision, honestly,
Speaker 1: And I think when I tell people, like, they're like,
Speaker 1: that's wild, you know, and I was like, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: But there must have been enough of a thought that
Speaker 1: that could be the case that you maybe were unable
Speaker 1: to say like absolutely yes or absolutely no. But there
Speaker 1: was a pull in that direction. Obviously. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: one day you were like, I'm going to wake up
Speaker 1: and you know, throw my whole life into chaos to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, just on a whim. Right, Yeah, definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't a whim. It's not like I woke up and
Speaker 1: was like, hey, this would be fun. It was after,
Speaker 1: you know, after careful discernment, where I did ultimately make
Speaker 1: the decision that it wouldn't necessarily be fun, but it
Speaker 1: would be an adventure that I was ready to take on.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had lived a certain way and
Speaker 1: had lived as a certain identity for thirty or four years,
Speaker 1: and at some point my body would give out and
Speaker 1: I had enough of an inkling that I thought, well,
Speaker 1: this would be a really wild adventure. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what it's become. I am a person inside and out
Speaker 1: that I never would have been if I if I
Speaker 1: hadn't done it. And it's pretty awesome. That's wonderful. It's
Speaker 1: so great to hear like that. You know, on the
Speaker 1: other side of it. It feels good. So you refer
Speaker 1: to it as a transition as in past tense, and
Speaker 1: again here comes my lack of real knowledge of it.
Speaker 1: So is it is that something? And it is like
Speaker 1: a point you hit where you're like, all right, done,
Speaker 1: Like I transitioned and I am done. Now the transition
Speaker 1: is over and now I am established in this gender.
Speaker 1: Every person makes that decision at different points. So for
Speaker 1: me right now, I'm satisfied with with any adjustments to
Speaker 1: myself you know, physically, mentally, emotionally, but also mindful that
Speaker 1: I'm of working progress until I leave the planet. So
Speaker 1: it's always going to be, you know, and maybe in
Speaker 1: five years I'll make a different decision or something like that.
Speaker 1: But every person um makes that decision of at different points.
Speaker 1: But for me, I'm content. So that process of transition
Speaker 1: can go on for either much longer or shorter time,
Speaker 1: and that it's totally each person's sort of decision. But
Speaker 1: from your perspective, you feel like at least that part
Speaker 1: of the journey is kind of you know, at a
Speaker 1: at a stand still point, You've got lots of other
Speaker 1: growth and opportunities you're working on. Yeah, definitely one of
Speaker 1: the things I've seen you talk about in your blog
Speaker 1: and in different places is the idea of resilience, and
Speaker 1: I'd be interested in as you went through this transition,
Speaker 1: which was enormously challenging. You mentioned your family abandoned you,
Speaker 1: people that you thought would really understand sort of treated
Speaker 1: you strangely, and where did you turn to for the
Speaker 1: strength to continue that process through and get to the
Speaker 1: other side myself ultimately, Which is why I really wanted
Speaker 1: to share this story with you, because that parable of
Speaker 1: who we ultimately decide to become for ourselves is really
Speaker 1: the most fundamental decision that we can make, because in
Speaker 1: a moment like that where you're really in despair, you know,
Speaker 1: if I have moments in of despair or regret or
Speaker 1: feeling so abandoned, feeling so alone, feeling like, um, I
Speaker 1: really don't belong anywhere or with anyone, like these real
Speaker 1: deep feelings of isolation, in the blink of an I
Speaker 1: or in you know, in a second, I can make
Speaker 1: a different decision and feed that other wolf and say
Speaker 1: that I'm fine the way I am. I'm finding my
Speaker 1: own company, like I can become my own best friend.
Speaker 1: Because of that parable. You know that that's like we
Speaker 1: could go down one tunnel, or we can decide to
Speaker 1: go around back and go down the different tunnel. And
Speaker 1: I can say that they were people along the way
Speaker 1: who would support me and encourage me. But what I
Speaker 1: found is with the transition, there were increasingly fewer people
Speaker 1: who understood. You know, so first I distanced myself from
Speaker 1: the activist community, and then I transition, so that's like
Speaker 1: this whole other layer of a different lens of living life,
Speaker 1: and then I'm really intense Buddhist. There were fewer and
Speaker 1: fewer people who would understand all the different things I
Speaker 1: was understanding and seeing, and so I finally was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I I have to be that source for myself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what you just said, uh interested me. It triggered something
Speaker 1: in me, which was you are mentioning like people who
Speaker 1: understood all those different aspects. You know, I'm no longer
Speaker 1: an activist, and I am transitioning, and I'm a Buddhist.
Speaker 1: And and it's interesting because I used to think of
Speaker 1: mentors and in twelve step programs there's the idea of
Speaker 1: a sponsor, and the sponsor is you know, they always say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, ask the person that you want to be,
Speaker 1: you know, like that you look at them and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: that's where I want to be, and I could never
Speaker 1: do it. I would always look at them and be like, well,
Speaker 1: like I like that and that, but they don't have this,
Speaker 1: or they don't have that, or they're not going to
Speaker 1: understand this part of me. And it took me a
Speaker 1: long time to realize, like, I'm not going to find
Speaker 1: that person. I'm not going to find the person who's
Speaker 1: me five years from now, because that's what I want.
Speaker 1: I want the me in five years to lead me along.
Speaker 1: And I finally hit a point where I was like,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. There is no other me in
Speaker 1: five years. I can go to certain people for this
Speaker 1: type of helper advice and other people for this type
Speaker 1: of helper advice, but thinking that I'm going to roll
Speaker 1: them all into one uber person who's going to be
Speaker 1: like my my true guide and savior was misguided. And
Speaker 1: I think it cut me off for a long time
Speaker 1: from getting help from people in particular areas because I
Speaker 1: was like, well, they don't understand all of me. I
Speaker 1: completely identify with that. I think I look at them
Speaker 1: the major thought leaders today and there's nobody who's living
Speaker 1: my experience that I would want to emulate or you
Speaker 1: know that that I even feel like understands the world
Speaker 1: the way I understand it. They have certain identities and
Speaker 1: they've lived certain experiences, but there's no one who has
Speaker 1: this extra piece that you know, and even like I said,
Speaker 1: I referenced my therapist, he had a lot. But then
Speaker 1: there were moments where I would say, you know, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and he'd look at me and
Speaker 1: he'd say, quite honestly, I don't know what you mean.
Speaker 1: I haven't lived what you've lived, and I don't you
Speaker 1: have to tell me. And that's when that's when I
Speaker 1: had the breakthrough, like I've got to be this for myself,
Speaker 1: and I think that at the same time, we'd have
Speaker 1: to be that for ourselves. And there's places to turn
Speaker 1: for help, right, there's people we can turn to even
Speaker 1: if we're like, well, they know they don't understand everything
Speaker 1: about me. Still, you know, obviously you do you do
Speaker 1: coaching work, so that's you know, part of what you
Speaker 1: offer to people. Sure, sure, yeah, people can make contributions
Speaker 1: right and from the place that they live, and it's
Speaker 1: as valuable. It brings value m If you're enjoying this conversation,
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Speaker 1: to the interview. You've talked about anger being a work
Speaker 1: in progress. Obviously, I think it is for all of us.
Speaker 1: What are the sort of things that make you angry today?
Speaker 1: What triggers you, what sets you off the Dylan of today? Well,
Speaker 1: my own expectations about how other people should behave. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: that's what I really saw, and and you and I
Speaker 1: were speaking earlier, and that's what I see now happening
Speaker 1: on the world stage. Is so much of the anger
Speaker 1: that people have is they keep expecting other people to
Speaker 1: be thinking and behaving the way that they either think
Speaker 1: and behave, or that they think people should think and behave,
Speaker 1: And they don't get that as a distinction. They don't
Speaker 1: get that that they're doing that, and and how they're
Speaker 1: really even in the name of something that they think
Speaker 1: is so just and so positive, they're actually adding more
Speaker 1: aggression to the planet with these unrealistic expectations. And I
Speaker 1: say they're unrealistic because they're not dealing with how people
Speaker 1: really are, right, Whereas if you meet people where they
Speaker 1: really are, then you can work with them right. So
Speaker 1: and and yeah, and you and you said that earlier,
Speaker 1: and I really saw that for myself that so much
Speaker 1: of what makes me angry is when I completely forget
Speaker 1: that people are being who they're being instead of who
Speaker 1: I think they should be being. Right. And that's a
Speaker 1: tricky one, right, because this show is so much about
Speaker 1: finding the middle ground, right, and it's so much about
Speaker 1: balancing contradictions and paradoxes and all that. And and this
Speaker 1: leads us right up into another big one, which is
Speaker 1: I've got this view of the way I think the
Speaker 1: world should be. I've got a vision of what's right
Speaker 1: and what's wrong. So I've got that on one hand,
Speaker 1: and then on the other hand, I've got this sense
Speaker 1: of letting things be as they are and accepting people
Speaker 1: where they are and being in the moment and and
Speaker 1: and acceptance. And it's this sort of constant push and
Speaker 1: pull between acceptance and change. And that's why I love
Speaker 1: the Serenity prayer that was you know, mostly reference and
Speaker 1: Twilstep programs. I would say it is perhaps it's in
Speaker 1: the top five wisest things ever written, I think, because
Speaker 1: that's the heart of our human condition to a large extent,
Speaker 1: is what can I change? And what can I And
Speaker 1: the things that I can give me the strength and
Speaker 1: the energy and the courage to go about changing them
Speaker 1: in a useful way, and the things I can't, you know,
Speaker 1: let me accept those and the wisdom to know the
Speaker 1: difference is obviously the tricky part. And that and that's
Speaker 1: really what I saw, and that that was my last
Speaker 1: kind of handhold to that angry activist identity. Was, um,
Speaker 1: if I let go of this anger, I'll be so
Speaker 1: passive that I will do no good in the world.
Speaker 1: I will be read as being too passive, looking like
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, who cares whatever life is a dream,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll lose this need to help be
Speaker 1: a change agent. And then I realized, no, it's actually
Speaker 1: in letting go of the anger and the need to
Speaker 1: change people that you actually will help change things, because
Speaker 1: when they don't feel threatened and they feel invited into transformation,
Speaker 1: that's actually how I can help make a difference. And
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, why didn't I get this ten
Speaker 1: years ago? You know? And that, and it was it
Speaker 1: was great. Although I think I agree with and I
Speaker 1: think there probably is equally a place for really angry activists,
Speaker 1: and it's probably good we have some of them, um,
Speaker 1: because I think I think, you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of social change probably moves forward in that way.
Speaker 1: But again, I guess the question would be, could you
Speaker 1: use that energy and that drive and all that without
Speaker 1: being so angry? And I don't know the answer to
Speaker 1: that question. For some people, maybe the answer is no.
Speaker 1: I agree, you're right, but it's one of those that like,
Speaker 1: for me, that's not a person anality style that works
Speaker 1: for me long term, um, either in again for my
Speaker 1: own good or for the good of the people around me.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned Buddhism multiple times. You said, you're pretty
Speaker 1: into it. Is there a particular lineage or tradition that
Speaker 1: you follow, a particular teacher that you have kind of
Speaker 1: what's what's that look like for you? Yeah, Pemma Children
Speaker 1: is the person that I really have been following since
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand one probably and then definitely her teacher,
Speaker 1: and I got to kind of, you know, ultimate experience,
Speaker 1: I have to say, Like, I went up to a
Speaker 1: couple of retreats up in Vermont and got to meet
Speaker 1: her a couple of times, and I actually asked her
Speaker 1: this question at the microphone in a program about you know,
Speaker 1: how can I be a more effective activist? And she
Speaker 1: said to me, you know, ask your peers if their
Speaker 1: anger is actually working. So that was a major lightbulb
Speaker 1: moment for me. And then I got to take a
Speaker 1: selfie with her, which was awesome. Yeah. Yeah, she's she's great.
Speaker 1: She is. Um So, Leonard Cohen was the number one
Speaker 1: dream asked for me on this show that I never
Speaker 1: got on the show never happened. Um I got at
Speaker 1: least got his manager to communicate with me. But um shows.
Speaker 1: Anne Jack Hobner, who we had on a couple of
Speaker 1: shows ago, was a Monk with with Leonard Cohen and
Speaker 1: I once I just said to him, I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, what do you think the odds of it,
Speaker 1: like getting Leonard Cohen on this show? I mean, do
Speaker 1: you think you could ask him or you know, like
Speaker 1: I don't like to, you know. And he was like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you should know that his monk
Speaker 1: name means great silence. So don't get your hopes up there,
Speaker 1: you know that said Pema. Chodren is right in the
Speaker 1: top five also of people that I think would be
Speaker 1: great guests. I haven't. I tried it like when we
Speaker 1: started and never got any response because we were virtually unknown.
Speaker 1: We're probably still too small for her, but it what
Speaker 1: never hurts to ask. Yeah, I never know, never know.
Speaker 1: I'm here today because I reached out to you, so
Speaker 1: you never know. Yep. She's wonderful, very remarkable teacher, very relatable. Yes.
Speaker 1: And so then do you have a p do you
Speaker 1: standard sitting practice or meditation practice that you do or
Speaker 1: what's you know? Okay, I'm so undisciplined, but but I
Speaker 1: you know, it's more just evolved into like in the moment,
Speaker 1: just like you know, trying to constantly be conscious and mindful. Yep,
Speaker 1: but I do need to sit more. I started getting
Speaker 1: into meditation when I was twenty. That was a long
Speaker 1: time ago, manage. A matter of fact, it was eighteen.
Speaker 1: It's really only been in the last three years or
Speaker 1: so that I've gotten to the point where I meditate
Speaker 1: pretty much every day. Um. It took me a long
Speaker 1: time to figure that one out. Um, But I finally
Speaker 1: think I kind of cracked the code on it and
Speaker 1: got to the point where I'm like, all right, I
Speaker 1: do this every day. Some days I do it longer
Speaker 1: than other days. Sometimes I'm better about like, Okay, my
Speaker 1: practice is close to an hour a day. There's other
Speaker 1: times it's over an hour. There's sometimes it's like five minutes.
Speaker 1: So it's it's inconsistent in that regard. But I've taken
Speaker 1: the whether I do it or not inconsistency out of
Speaker 1: the picture. So you inspired me, I'll start tomorrow. Well,
Speaker 1: So what I did was I just I would read books,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd read Pama Choder and I read Jack
Speaker 1: Cornfield or all this, and I'd be like, yes, I
Speaker 1: got to meditate. I see why it's so important. And
Speaker 1: they'd be like, sit down for fifteen minutes or twenty
Speaker 1: minutes or thirty minutes, and I hated it, like I
Speaker 1: just couldn't. It just was really difficult. And so I
Speaker 1: started this round with like, all right, i'm gonna do
Speaker 1: two minutes, but I'm gonna do two minutes every day
Speaker 1: no matter what. And then I was able to build
Speaker 1: up to three minutes and then five minutes, and I
Speaker 1: could slowly layer on. So it was really this small
Speaker 1: step approach and then just giving up any expectation of
Speaker 1: what meditation would be like. While I did it, I
Speaker 1: would get so frustrated because everybody else would be like,
Speaker 1: I love to meditate, It's so nice, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that is not how I feel. Right, I'm meditating and
Speaker 1: I feel crazy. Um. And so when I finally just
Speaker 1: went like, well, okay, that's maybe that's just the way
Speaker 1: meditation is for me. I'm still gonna do it, it
Speaker 1: got a lot easier. Excellent. Well, Dylan, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for taking the time to come on. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for reaching out to me, and let's keep in touch. Definitely,
Speaker 1: thanks again for having me. Okay, bye bye bye. If
Speaker 1: what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider
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