Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: What's Up, everybody, Welcome back for another episode of Comeback Stories.
Speaker 2: I'm so pumped for today's show as I actually found
Speaker 2: today's guest on TikTok like maybe two weeks ago and
Speaker 2: was so moved by his words and his.
Speaker 3: Delivery and story speaking ability.
Speaker 2: I really always try to get close to people that
Speaker 2: have something that I want, so like, this is kind
Speaker 2: of a selfish move on my part, but I know
Speaker 2: many other people are going to benefit. And when you speak,
Speaker 2: I honestly, when I was hearing you talk, it kind
Speaker 2: of to me it sounded like a smarter version of
Speaker 2: myself talking. That's kind of like like using the same words,
Speaker 2: but just like, really, man, I really appreciate your words.
Speaker 2: So our guest today has spent the last decade traveling
Speaker 2: over eighty countries around the world, working with all kinds
Speaker 2: of people, companies, and not profit organizations. He's been teaching
Speaker 2: and leading people how to heal their heart, awaken their souls,
Speaker 2: and become the most radical and loving, truest version of themselves.
Speaker 3: So welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: B C siRNA, Wow, sir thanks for being here. Thanks man,
Speaker 4: it's those introductions are always like you know, like teeth
Speaker 4: cooling of like all right, all right, let's get to it,
Speaker 4: you know, but I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: God, let's let's let's talk about that right away, Like
Speaker 2: I would love to I mean, we're gonna maybe get
Speaker 2: to your story. Well, we'll get to it at some
Speaker 2: point if this has to be two episodes, but I
Speaker 2: would love to know right away that that that acknowledgment,
Speaker 2: that why do we struggle so much with acknowledgment? Right,
Speaker 2: Like we're we're as humans, we're bad at acknowledging, like
Speaker 2: the practice of it, both to each other and definitely
Speaker 2: to ourselves. But why do you think that is that
Speaker 2: we struggle when someone is like like cheering us on
Speaker 2: or giving us praise.
Speaker 4: Oh man, ask you a question. I mean, you guys
Speaker 4: already know you know, it's just that that h that
Speaker 4: like I guess that just like friction between like just
Speaker 4: we're normal people. We're like I'm a goofy dude who
Speaker 4: just laughs at jokes with my friends and and you know,
Speaker 4: like I've been super I guess, humbled and honored to
Speaker 4: travel the world and do what I've done. But at
Speaker 4: the end of the day when you want to I
Speaker 4: think the you know, the more you succeed in, the
Speaker 4: more accomplished in life, you just want to like be
Speaker 4: you just want to be normal and real with people.
Speaker 4: And uh so, I don't know. It just is kind
Speaker 4: of like that funny it's like the opposite of what
Speaker 4: you strive your life for. Like you strive your life
Speaker 4: to have like the front of your business card mean something,
Speaker 4: and then once you get there, you kind of just
Speaker 4: want to focus on the back of your business card,
Speaker 4: you know, like the part of the business card no
Speaker 4: one sees, like who you truly are. Wow, And uh yeah, man,
Speaker 4: So I don't know, man, you know you're saying that stuff,
Speaker 4: and it's just kind of like, ah, man, like I
Speaker 4: don't even I don't even know where to begin other
Speaker 4: than like God's good and like I've been humbled my
Speaker 4: whole life just by by like the grace of God,
Speaker 4: you know, not like in a religious way, but just
Speaker 4: like in a way of like humbledness. So it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that acknowledgment thing I think sometimes on
Speaker 2: This is sometimes an exercise I will do on my
Speaker 2: retreats often is if somebody's maybe at the end of
Speaker 2: the retreat, someone's sharing something. We would do this like
Speaker 2: thunderous applause, so they would share whatever, a ninety second
Speaker 2: story stand up in front of everybody, which is extremely
Speaker 2: vulnerable and you know, one of the scariest things for
Speaker 2: many people to do and get that thunderous applause, and
Speaker 2: they wanted to they could not get back to their
Speaker 2: seat quicker, you know, or they're crossing their arms, or
Speaker 2: they're getting completely uncomfortable because we're not used to doing it.
Speaker 2: But then there's a whole nother thing around the self worth,
Speaker 2: like are we worthy of this? Or there's the idea
Speaker 2: of like diminishing right and dimming our lights. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I love that you we just dove right into it, man,
Speaker 2: But I want to go back and tell us a
Speaker 2: little bit about your childhood and what it was like
Speaker 2: growing up for you man.
Speaker 4: I know, you guys have a dope podcast joked for
Speaker 4: like you guys' topics and conversations and obviously comeback stories
Speaker 4: and uh yeah, childhood. I mean, man, that's that's a funny.
Speaker 4: That's a funny way to start of just like, yeah,
Speaker 4: never really fit in I guess very similar, you know,
Speaker 4: I was dyslexic ADHD. I moved a lot, so I
Speaker 4: never really had friends. I never really found like a
Speaker 4: core group of dudes. I just moved all throughout the
Speaker 4: country and just feel like I felt like I missed
Speaker 4: a meeting, Like there was like a meeting on how
Speaker 4: to be a human, and I feel like I missed
Speaker 4: it in like third grade or fourth grade, and there
Speaker 4: was all these clicks of people, and I was like,
Speaker 4: did I miss something somewhere? Like why do I feel
Speaker 4: so behind and left out? And I started school young,
Speaker 4: so like I was younger than everyone too. But yeah, man,
Speaker 4: so I guess that was like the biggest part of
Speaker 4: my journey of just being like, damn, I don't feel
Speaker 4: like I fit in or I belong or I don't
Speaker 4: know what I need to wear or do. I tried skateboarding,
Speaker 4: I tried sports. I was like, what do I need
Speaker 4: to do for someone to invite me over for like
Speaker 4: a sleepover? You know what I'm saying. So, yeah, Rose,
Speaker 4: there's a lot journey.
Speaker 2: Did you have, Like can you can you trace back
Speaker 2: to an early childhood memory of pain?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, man, shit, I've done a lot of inner
Speaker 4: child healing work. Man, I don't even know where to start. Uh. Yeah, man,
Speaker 4: I think I think when I was uh, when I
Speaker 4: was left out, you know, like when I was picked,
Speaker 4: when I started to be picked last and I got.
Speaker 4: I got. I was playing football when I was eleven
Speaker 4: and I got a blood clot in my brain. I
Speaker 4: got a concussion and I had to have brain surgery
Speaker 4: at eleven years old, and I almost died. And I
Speaker 4: missed like a month or so of school, and uh,
Speaker 4: I went back to school and all the kids at
Speaker 4: school made fun of my scar. I have like this
Speaker 4: massive scar on the side of my head, and so
Speaker 4: all the kids were making fun of me, and I
Speaker 4: felt like I was in I was in fourth grade
Speaker 4: or I was in fifth grade, and I remember just
Speaker 4: sitting in my desk being like, God, if you can
Speaker 4: make me invisible, like just please make me invisible, Like
Speaker 4: this is the worst I've ever failed my entire life.
Speaker 4: Like everyone looking at my scar. I had like thirty stitches.
Speaker 4: It was ugly, it was nasty, and yeah, that moment
Speaker 4: just wanting to be invisible kind of lived with a
Speaker 4: decade or so of just like that kind of tenderness,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean our stories kind of sound identical as
Speaker 5: far as like the the source of like I feel
Speaker 5: like an alien here in this world and in these
Speaker 5: environments I'm always in. That's what I always talk about.
Speaker 5: Like the first episode we did on the podcast, Donnie
Speaker 5: interviewed me, and I said, you know, growing up for
Speaker 5: me was confusing because you know, here I am is uh,
Speaker 5: you know, this black kid with his first group of
Speaker 5: friends are white. They're in his neighborhood kind of just
Speaker 5: doing what he likes to do outside, and you know,
Speaker 5: you go to school and everything. I feel like everything
Speaker 5: I did was just like seeing through the eye of
Speaker 5: a microscope from you know, people with my skin coldors,
Speaker 5: like well, why do you do this? Why do you
Speaker 5: talk like that? Why do you listen to this music?
Speaker 5: Why do you Why are you so sensitive? Why are you?
Speaker 5: And it's just like I feel like I couldn't take
Speaker 5: a step from early elementary school without being like, okay,
Speaker 5: how do I arrange every movement, every thought, everything I
Speaker 5: do to let these people know that I'm okay or
Speaker 5: let these people know that I'm normal.
Speaker 4: And it's very exhausting.
Speaker 5: And I mean, here I am thirty one years old,
Speaker 5: still kind of dancing around that inner child work myself
Speaker 5: of really diving, like I feel like I've made some
Speaker 5: progress and acknowledged it, but as far as there's still
Speaker 5: some things that I need to go back for, like
Speaker 5: and so it's I very much relate to your early journey.
Speaker 5: That's why I'm just kind of sitting here just like, man, yeah,
Speaker 5: looking like I'm looking in the mirror thirty one. Man,
Speaker 5: it's young, Donny.
Speaker 4: How old are you?
Speaker 3: I'm forty six.
Speaker 4: Let's go. Okay, you guys got some good diversity. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's what's cool? Is your your business card? Analogy?
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about my business card and actually on the.
Speaker 2: Front of it is you know, my information, and on
Speaker 2: the back of it is a QR code for the podcast.
Speaker 3: So I guess that tells you who I am.
Speaker 4: Man. Yeah. Well, I feel like a big part of
Speaker 4: like I said, we I feel like we spend our
Speaker 4: twenties just trying to put on all these badges. We're
Speaker 4: trying to like prove ourselves. We're trying to like validate,
Speaker 4: like we're seeking validation, and then we finally turned thirty
Speaker 4: and we're just like exhausted and we're just we just
Speaker 4: like start peeling off all of these badges we've spent
Speaker 4: our entire adulthood putting on, and we start peeling off
Speaker 4: friendships that don't really serve us anymore. And I truly
Speaker 4: begin our life begins at thirty, Like I believe at
Speaker 4: thirty years old, we actually start unpeeling the layers of authenticity.
Speaker 4: And so, yeah, Darren, like I said, thirty one, man,
Speaker 4: that's I was. I was at thirty one years old.
Speaker 4: I was in the desert for two months by myself,
Speaker 4: with no cell phone, and I found found God.
Speaker 3: Bro, you know, like, tell us more, tell us the story.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thirty one years old, COVID happened. LA was shut down.
Speaker 4: I was living in LA for like eight years and
Speaker 4: LA was shut down. So I built out a van.
Speaker 4: And you know, like there's little vans you can live
Speaker 4: in and yeah kind of, but like a big like
Speaker 4: a sprinter one. Oh yeah, yeah yeah. So I built
Speaker 4: out a Sprinter van. One day and I left my
Speaker 4: house in LA with all my friends. I lived with
Speaker 4: all my friends like near the beach, and just drove
Speaker 4: to the desert and turned my phone off, deleted social media,
Speaker 4: and I was just like I got to figure out
Speaker 4: what I need to do to evolve to the next
Speaker 4: level of life. And it was crazy, bro, it was
Speaker 4: a wild journey, man, just two months like pretty almost
Speaker 4: by myself and just yeah, solitude.
Speaker 3: What did you learn?
Speaker 4: Shit? I learned bro, man, dude, it was the whole
Speaker 4: journey of a like ego death of dying. Like I've
Speaker 4: been on this journey for a long time and had
Speaker 4: many different ego deaths. But I think I was still
Speaker 4: getting through, like over a heartbreak from a girlfriend that
Speaker 4: I had that was in LA for a while, and
Speaker 4: I just La is so enticing, man, It's so distracting.
Speaker 4: There's fame everywhere, there's women everywhere, there's like there, It's
Speaker 4: just everything is like so enticing in La. And so
Speaker 4: I was just so distracted for like seven years and
Speaker 4: extremely grateful. But I realized whether it was women or
Speaker 4: success or anything like that, there was no amount of enough.
Speaker 4: It was just more, you know. And so I think
Speaker 4: I got so drunk on arrogance and like my like
Speaker 4: my head was just up my ass trying to figure
Speaker 4: out who I was. So when I went to the desert,
Speaker 4: all my friends thought I was crazy, Like what do
Speaker 4: you mean you have? Like your work is amazing. You know,
Speaker 4: you live on the beach with your friends, and it
Speaker 4: was just my coming to God moment. So yeah, man.
Speaker 4: And then in the desert, like I said, I found
Speaker 4: God and whole new way I didn't I knew God.
Speaker 4: And like I used to be a youth pastor for
Speaker 4: inner city kids when I was in my early twenties,
Speaker 4: so like I was like and I lived with monks.
Speaker 4: I've studied religions and beliefs all around the world and
Speaker 4: I've never I've just done a lot of when it
Speaker 4: comes to spirituality, but I never understood the actual church,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, is nature. Like nature is holds the answers.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: I just I've like had encounters with the divine, with God,
Speaker 4: the Holy Spirit. But then I was in nature and
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, this is it. I was like,
Speaker 4: nature holds all the answers to the questions we have.
Speaker 4: And the way nature works, how slow it is, how
Speaker 4: patient it is, how it all communicates with itself. So
Speaker 4: I started leading retreats to nature. Oh yeah, you lead
Speaker 4: retreats to Sedona. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. So I started
Speaker 4: bringing just groups, I like started bringing like twenty five
Speaker 4: people on a retreat through nature. After these two months,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know this, I didn't plan on making
Speaker 4: retreats after this. I literally went to nature for two
Speaker 4: months and then God was like, bring people to nature,
Speaker 4: and I started bringing people on retreats into nature and
Speaker 4: it was crazy. It was awesome. No's amazing.
Speaker 5: I get that because I've spent a decent amount of
Speaker 5: time in nature. I've been to Sedona, I've been a
Speaker 5: lot of places, but one place in particular that stuck
Speaker 5: out to me was I went to Zion National Park
Speaker 5: January of twenty twenty two, I guess, and just being
Speaker 5: in that environment and everything that you talked about, but
Speaker 5: also just this feeling of like I've never felt so small,
Speaker 5: but also like never felt like I was more in
Speaker 5: the place that I should have been at that very moment.
Speaker 5: And like you said, like the distractions of La or
Speaker 5: Las Vegas or New York, wherever you may be at
Speaker 5: aren't there. Like nature is still. It's not moving, it's
Speaker 5: stood through time. It's you know, forcing you to kind
Speaker 5: of sit there and do the same and mirror that.
Speaker 5: And it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 5: I always look back on coore things that I value
Speaker 5: and things that kind of fill my cup and when
Speaker 5: I'm not feeling all the way there, I can look
Speaker 5: down and check that list and know that nature is
Speaker 5: probably not being stepped into as I would like to.
Speaker 5: And as soon as I get get out there and
Speaker 5: get in and I'm just like, ah, like deep, excell.
Speaker 4: You know, oh yeah, man, yeah, you guys know, you
Speaker 4: guys have to say, yeah, we led retreats to Sedona
Speaker 4: and Zion and all those places, and yeah, man, it's
Speaker 4: just like the same thing as you go, like, we're
Speaker 4: part of nature, We're part of the animal kingdom in
Speaker 4: a sense, and so like you go to a zoo
Speaker 4: and all of the animals are depressed and anxious and
Speaker 4: on drugs. All the animals look like they're miserable. And
Speaker 4: so you go to an urban jungle the city and
Speaker 4: everyone is on medications and coffee and they're they're they're
Speaker 4: they've lost the vibration, the frequency and connection to their home,
Speaker 4: you know, which is nature. And so yeah, man, it's
Speaker 4: it's so healing, it's so cathartic and therapeutic.
Speaker 3: Darren, didn't you weren't you fasting during that Zion trip
Speaker 3: or was that a different trip?
Speaker 5: I think I might have been. Yeah, that was around
Speaker 5: That was around the time that I started like implementing
Speaker 5: it into my off season, you know. And it's something
Speaker 5: that I miss because with fasting, I mean I kind
Speaker 5: of inspired from a book that I read by a
Speaker 5: Christian pastor, but the way that it was presented at
Speaker 5: the time of me trying to figure out just my
Speaker 5: relationship with lust in general and just like you know,
Speaker 5: being attracted to everything walking and like having to try
Speaker 5: to manipulate, you know, and fasting was presented as a
Speaker 5: way to strengthen my no and to yeah, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying, and strengthen my response when it came.
Speaker 4: To what was the book.
Speaker 5: The book is called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by
Speaker 5: John mal Comber, one of the best books I've ever read.
Speaker 5: Always recommend, recommended much times on this show. But I
Speaker 5: did it. I did it for a day the first time,
Speaker 5: and then I started doing one day a week. And
Speaker 5: those days you think like, oh, you're gonna be irritable
Speaker 5: and angry, But once you get past the stomach kind
Speaker 5: of screaming at you and get into the flow of
Speaker 5: your day, like those little trivial anxieties that you think
Speaker 5: about throughout your day are gone, and there's like this
Speaker 5: stillness and clarity that comes from it. I just really enjoyed.
Speaker 5: And I did a three day fast once too, so
Speaker 5: it's just like kind of diving into that and I
Speaker 5: want to see you know. I mean, I'm still playing ball,
Speaker 5: so I can't do it all the time, but that's
Speaker 5: something that's gonna be a part of my routine going
Speaker 5: forward because I just feel like there's such more to
Speaker 5: explore there, you know.
Speaker 4: Dude, it's the most sacred. Fasting is the reason Jesus fast,
Speaker 4: the reason Muslims fast, and Jewish people and Buddhists like
Speaker 4: the reason fasting is in every spiritual practice is because
Speaker 4: your relationship with food is a relation is your relationship
Speaker 4: to everything else in your life. So how you show
Speaker 4: up to food is how you show up to every
Speaker 4: area of your life. So if you don't have discipline
Speaker 4: with food, if you don't have consistency with food, if
Speaker 4: you don't have a good relationship with food, it just
Speaker 4: literally projected into every part of your life. Food is
Speaker 4: the most vulnerable part of our spiritual journey, and so dude,
Speaker 4: it's fast. Fasting is the UH is one of the
Speaker 4: portals bro to uh, to where you need to get
Speaker 4: to this then to get to the promised land of
Speaker 4: that man. That's powerful.
Speaker 5: I've heard, yeah, it was on it was on so
Speaker 5: many different things, bro. But he got to fasting as
Speaker 5: a practice of slowing down or something to implement into it.
Speaker 5: And but yeah, Bro, I highly highly, highly highly recommend
Speaker 5: that book.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna write that one down.
Speaker 2: I've heard you say that to our mission, our number
Speaker 2: one mission is to figure out what you need to
Speaker 2: do to be fully okay with who you are. And yeah, man,
Speaker 2: just like keep going on that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's that's part of the journey man,
Speaker 4: that we're all on of Just man, why are there things? Well,
Speaker 4: I mean the question the easiest thing is why are
Speaker 4: there things we don't like about people in the world.
Speaker 4: That's easy. Everyone can list people they don't like, politicians,
Speaker 4: they don't like, things they don't like about the world.
Speaker 4: That's the easiest thing you can do. And then people
Speaker 4: can easily list the things they don't like about themselves
Speaker 4: and how those worlds are tied together. And once you start,
Speaker 4: like I said, once you start peeling back the layers,
Speaker 4: you realize everything you don't like about people or you
Speaker 4: or you judge people is just because you don't like
Speaker 4: that about yourself, and so you start to just have
Speaker 4: grace and forgiveness for yourself and you're like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: I don't like that about myself because of this, I
Speaker 4: don't like the way I look because of this, I
Speaker 4: don't like you know, And you just go down the
Speaker 4: list and then you forgive yourself and you have grace
Speaker 4: for yourself, and then you look at everyone else and
Speaker 4: you go, ah, man, I don't need to I don't
Speaker 4: need to be I don't need to make someone feel bad.
Speaker 4: I don't need to judge someone. I don't need to
Speaker 4: change someone, like like when we were young or even now,
Speaker 4: like how how offensive does it feel when someone tries
Speaker 4: to change us? Like it just it feels so like counterproductive.
Speaker 4: If someone's like, oh, you got to change, man, I
Speaker 4: don't like this about you. I don't like this about you.
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be your friend until you change.
Speaker 4: I'm just like, I mean, the only I think, the
Speaker 4: only thing that's ever changed anyone in the history is love.
Speaker 4: And if you can meet people where they're at and
Speaker 4: you can love them where they're at, they'll find the
Speaker 4: safety within themselves to be like, all right, I'm ready
Speaker 4: to change. I'm ready to give up alcohol. I'm ready
Speaker 4: to give up X, Y and Z, you know, and
Speaker 4: all of the judgment, all the shame, all the embarrassment.
Speaker 4: We try to change people. It just doesn't work. It's
Speaker 4: never worked.
Speaker 5: I don't think, Oh my god, bro, that's that's uh
Speaker 5: speaking to me right now, because I feel like I'm
Speaker 5: still a long way from feeling the best I can
Speaker 5: about myself, Like I still feel like there's a long
Speaker 5: way to go there. And one of the reasons is
Speaker 5: because I see a lot of like codependency that shows up,
Speaker 5: like whenever there's little patches in like my man or
Speaker 5: is that happen, I feel like it's because of that.
Speaker 5: And that's like I heard somebody say codependancy is like
Speaker 5: a covert attempt at control. And it's like, I always
Speaker 5: looking at myself and kind of looking around the world.
Speaker 5: It's like, why do we when it comes to issues
Speaker 5: that start and are kind of rooted internally, why do
Speaker 5: we try to control external things to make us feel
Speaker 5: better about ourselves? And I'm just kind of like that's
Speaker 5: something I'm chewing on in the mirror right now because
Speaker 5: I can get on here and say, like, bro, I
Speaker 5: still feel like I gotta do. I still feel like
Speaker 5: I got to show up and provide value in some
Speaker 5: way or otherwise. Like I'm still that kid that's still
Speaker 5: trying to figure out, like how do I just find
Speaker 5: my place out here? You know?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's where you know, guys like you, you
Speaker 4: just seek wisdom right from the older players, from the
Speaker 4: people who've gone down your road, and you just and
Speaker 4: you just say, what would you tell your thirty one
Speaker 4: year old self, And every single one of those old
Speaker 4: heads they're just like just rely, just like one day
Speaker 4: at a time, just be ground yourself in gratitude and
Speaker 4: don't walk over people. And all of these guys man,
Speaker 4: the wisdom and the Tom Brady's and all those guys. Man,
Speaker 4: Kobe Bryant's man. You see, like Kobe Bryant like after
Speaker 4: he retired, man became this like Buddha guru man, like
Speaker 4: saying stuff like we were all like what And he
Speaker 4: became so embodied man, and he became so like just
Speaker 4: I don't know, man. The way he was a dad,
Speaker 4: the way he was a leader, the way he was
Speaker 4: an entrepreneur. I think the whole world was just like
Speaker 4: who is this guy? And like where has he been
Speaker 4: hiding this wisdom? And all of these successful Kobe Bryant's,
Speaker 4: Tom Brady's, you know, after they leave the league, they
Speaker 4: just want to let all these young guys know, like,
Speaker 4: you know, put your feet on the ground, pray, meditate,
Speaker 4: journal one day at a time, don't get it, don't
Speaker 4: get your head full of air, you know. And so yeah, man,
Speaker 4: that's powerful. But you're aware, Bro. That's the secret to
Speaker 4: all of it, Bro, is that you're aware. So you're
Speaker 4: already ninety nine you're ahead of ninety nine percent of
Speaker 4: the other thirty one year old or men or people
Speaker 4: in the league because you're aware of what's going on.
Speaker 4: And awareness is the greatest gift you can have. Like, like,
Speaker 4: I work a lot with people in divorce and relationships
Speaker 4: and couples, and I'm always telling women, if your man
Speaker 4: is aware of his struggles and his patterns or unhealthy habits,
Speaker 4: you have to like meet him there because most men
Speaker 4: are so they're just so prideful, you know, right.
Speaker 2: You know you said it earlier about we have to
Speaker 2: meet people where they're at. And it reminds me a
Speaker 2: lot of I say this in yoga in teaching, like
Speaker 2: let the practice.
Speaker 3: Meet you where you're at today. I believe yoga is.
Speaker 2: For everybody, and everybody everybody is different and every day
Speaker 2: is different. And so to be to know where you're at,
Speaker 2: you have to be in your body, and to be
Speaker 2: in your body, you have to connect to your breath.
Speaker 2: And that's why I think, you know, especially with yoga,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the main intentions always needs to
Speaker 2: be self love, so that you're making choices in your
Speaker 2: practice that are rooted in self love, not because the
Speaker 2: person next to you is doing some crazy shit, so
Speaker 2: you know, you think you need to do it right.
Speaker 2: It's like we have to let the practice and until
Speaker 2: we can actually meet us where we're at, we're not
Speaker 2: going to be able to meet anybody else where they're at.
Speaker 2: So it like always comes back to self and it
Speaker 2: always comes back to this whole idea of like, you know,
Speaker 2: loving ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, yoga, dude, Yoga is the medicine the world needs. Man,
Speaker 4: it is it is between you and you in the
Speaker 4: on that mat and like you're if you try to
Speaker 4: go to yoga so you can get a workout game over,
Speaker 4: like you're already.
Speaker 3: Lost, Yeah, and exactly.
Speaker 4: And then you're in yoga and you're, yeah, comparing yourself
Speaker 4: to everyone and you're already lost, and that you and
Speaker 4: the mat and that's like, I mean, that's what most
Speaker 4: you teachers, I think, try to say, between you and
Speaker 4: the mat. But it is uh man, dude, even those
Speaker 4: yin classes where you're holding one stretch for like ten minutes,
Speaker 4: Oh man, that's Shit's medicine.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about when I first did yoga. How when
Speaker 3: I did it, everything hurt, every posture, heard, everything move,
Speaker 3: And now for me, everything feels good. It is the
Speaker 3: ultimate medicine for me, I would say in my recovery,
Speaker 3: it is probably the most important part. You know, I
Speaker 3: came from a recovery background in twelve steps, but I
Speaker 3: believe the one thing missing in the twelve steps is
Speaker 3: the mind body connection. It's never addressed that our issues
Speaker 3: are in our tissues and that the body remembers everything.
Speaker 2: And it's the twelve steps is so valuable and there's
Speaker 2: so much freedom in those steps. But that's that shit
Speaker 2: is in our body still, and so how do we
Speaker 2: move it? We are how do we Yeah, we move
Speaker 2: it right? We move energy.
Speaker 3: We have to move move mindfully and breathe mindfully.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, we listened, dude, We listened to the body.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of what I talk a
Speaker 4: lot about my trauma work is so many people think
Speaker 4: the brain is in control and the brain is the conductor,
Speaker 4: when in reality, what science has shown us is that
Speaker 4: eighty percent of all the information is our body sending
Speaker 4: information to our brain, and twenty percent is our brain
Speaker 4: sending it to our body. And so when you think
Speaker 4: about we spend eighty percent thinking our brain is controlling everything.
Speaker 4: That's why we don't wake up feel and motivated. That's
Speaker 4: why we feel insecure. We don't like you know, that's
Speaker 4: why we're negative because we think this is in control.
Speaker 4: But when you sit there and you breathe and you
Speaker 4: pray and you meditate and do yoga, your body actually
Speaker 4: is like freaking out and there's a trauma right here.
Speaker 4: And so the biggest thing about trauma is you cannot
Speaker 4: think your way out of pain. Right So you actually,
Speaker 4: what I always say, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 4: people say it is you have to feel it to
Speaker 4: heal it. And so, you know, just being able to
Speaker 4: go back to that little boy Darren, that you were,
Speaker 4: you know, when you were a kid, and sit with
Speaker 4: him and listen to him and be guided by like
Speaker 4: just him being seen, him being like not feeling like
Speaker 4: an outcast, you know. And yeah, man, it's it's wild.
Speaker 3: Why do you think we close our eyes when we
Speaker 3: meditate and pray?
Speaker 4: Oh? Man, I think I think our eyes are the
Speaker 4: biggest distraction to the spiritual realm. I think I think
Speaker 4: our eyes separate us. It's our eyes are constantly judging
Speaker 4: people right the skin color, their height, their age, their look.
Speaker 4: But if you ever if you've ever done this thing,
Speaker 4: there's this kind of trend happening. I don't know how
Speaker 4: big of a trend is, but there's dinners you can
Speaker 4: go on where you're blind the entire dinner and there's
Speaker 4: like twenty five people in a room. And so before
Speaker 4: you go into the room, you get blindfolded and it's
Speaker 4: pitch black dark, and you have dinner with like thirty people,
Speaker 4: and you talk to people, and you meet people and
Speaker 4: you have no idea what they look like. And it's
Speaker 4: the most liberating experience you'll ever have because you were
Speaker 4: connecting to their essence and to their voice and to
Speaker 4: the experience much more than your eyes distracting you from
Speaker 4: the pimple on their face or their hair or what
Speaker 4: they could do for you, or if they're attractive. And
Speaker 4: so our eyes and hit with us from looking into
Speaker 4: the spiritual realm. And so it's very sacred to to
Speaker 4: to practice praying and meditating and and flowing with your
Speaker 4: eyes closed. Man, It's it's divine. Even when I don't
Speaker 4: know if you guys have done plant medicines at all,
Speaker 4: but even there's even there's there's times when you're on
Speaker 4: plant medicines and you're you know, it's like daylight out,
Speaker 4: it's like gorgeous out, and your like eyes are closed
Speaker 4: and you literally could sit there for like two hours
Speaker 4: without open your eyes and just be in the most
Speaker 4: magical place you can imagine. And I think that is
Speaker 4: just like the essence of of what, yeah, of just
Speaker 4: what it remembers to disconnect from the distractions.
Speaker 2: You know, did your two months in the desert with
Speaker 2: the ego deaths that involve plant medicine or was that
Speaker 2: a different one?
Speaker 4: No, No, that there was a little bit of plant
Speaker 4: medicine in in those ego deaths. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: Powerful stuff.
Speaker 2: Darren and I have talked about it, and we when
Speaker 2: we started this journey, we were two guys that had
Speaker 2: been sober and not put any substance, if you will,
Speaker 2: in our systems, and through this process have just found
Speaker 2: some like had some pretty magical experiences. And yeah, we've
Speaker 2: talked about it. We've had our guest, a guest, Don
Speaker 2: bergeron on our show shout out.
Speaker 3: To Don and he and he talked about it.
Speaker 2: I had done it, and you know, it's one of
Speaker 2: those This was Buffo the five O DMT, and it
Speaker 2: was just such a profound experience. And I was doing
Speaker 2: my best not to should all over Darren and like
Speaker 2: telling me, should he should go do this right, because
Speaker 2: it's like so profound and and here's my thing with it,
Speaker 2: my experience for those that hadn't heard the story, is
Speaker 2: my intention in doing it was to get closer to God,
Speaker 2: to have a deeper spiritual connection, because I felt like
Speaker 2: I was talking the talk but not really like having
Speaker 2: a like praying, praying and having an actual meaningful conversation
Speaker 2: to establish a meaningful relationship.
Speaker 3: So that was my intention.
Speaker 2: And as I went in through the journey, I basically
Speaker 2: sat in the presence of God. I didn't see a face,
Speaker 2: but I felt it and I just started saying I'm safe,
Speaker 2: I'm safe out loud, and it made me realize my
Speaker 2: whole life like I felt safe because.
Speaker 6: I was like I was there, like I'm good, like
Speaker 6: I know where I'm going after, like it's all good
Speaker 6: and so feeling so held and safe, it made me
Speaker 6: realize everything I've done, caring what other people think and.
Speaker 2: Validation was all for safety. So this idea of safety,
Speaker 2: and it opened up my eyes to women and how
Speaker 2: they can you know, they walk out to their car
Speaker 2: at ten at PM and they don't feel safe.
Speaker 3: We don't even think about that.
Speaker 2: So that was like so profound for me, Like that
Speaker 2: was the experience for me, and it basically told me
Speaker 2: that everything's gonna be okay and I'm enough, like it's fine,
Speaker 2: so you can't unsee that. So that was my experience.
Speaker 2: For those that hadn't heard.
Speaker 4: It, Amen, man, Yeah, like most of us, most of
Speaker 4: our addictions, all of them, I would say, come from
Speaker 4: wanting to numb our mind right or numb our emotions even,
Speaker 4: and so a lot of us are in fight or flight.
Speaker 4: So we're traumatized as kids, and there's moments where like
Speaker 4: our parents are yelling, or we're in a car accident,
Speaker 4: or we're picked on at school, and then we just
Speaker 4: live our entire life unaligned from our nervous system. And
Speaker 4: so when we discovered cannabis or alcohol or pornography, we
Speaker 4: just fucking eat that shit up because it's it's letting us,
Speaker 4: it's letting us numb the insecurities and the emotions, and
Speaker 4: so we go as far as we can down that
Speaker 4: rabbit hole. And then one day we're fucking exhausted and
Speaker 4: we're like, Okay, well, I'm so numb that I can't
Speaker 4: even feel the positive sides of life. I can't actually
Speaker 4: feel joy or love or freedom because I've been my
Speaker 4: nervous system's been on the line for so long. And
Speaker 4: that's a lot of times where people start doing the work,
Speaker 4: start asking the questions, start feeling the emotions, and plant medicines.
Speaker 4: Like you said, it helps you feel safe, because your
Speaker 4: nervous system can't heal. You can't heal trauma unless you
Speaker 4: first feel safe inside your body. So once this little
Speaker 4: boy inside of you feels safe, because he's a little
Speaker 4: five year old boy, right, so he's fucking terrified. That's
Speaker 4: the reason he's numbing himself and surrounding himself with muscles
Speaker 4: and money and sex and fucking everything else, and so
Speaker 4: he's terrified. So then the boy feels safe to come
Speaker 4: out of that like fucking you know, dark closet and
Speaker 4: just be like okay, it's safe. And then your soul
Speaker 4: is like, yeah, you can come out. And then the
Speaker 4: boys like, am I allowed to cry? And it's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you can cry. You can cry five year old dren
Speaker 4: you know or whatever that is, you know. And then
Speaker 4: am I allowed to dance? Yeah? You can dance? Am
Speaker 4: I allowed to like be myself? Can I be Goofy? Yeah?
Speaker 4: You could be Goofy. You could play if you want.
Speaker 4: And this five year old, the first time in almost
Speaker 4: his entire life, once into unless you you know, before
Speaker 4: he was a kid, can play again and can laugh
Speaker 4: and can dance and can be goofy. And uh, that's
Speaker 4: like the journey back home. That's that's what the journey is.
Speaker 2: I'm curious what you would say to somebody that maybe
Speaker 2: is because this was me actually, so I'm curious what
Speaker 2: you would say somebody maybe in sobriety that that is
Speaker 2: like never experienced plant medicine and as actually like questioning
Speaker 2: maybe Darren and I sobriety for experience going through this process,
Speaker 2: this healing journey.
Speaker 3: What would you say to those people.
Speaker 4: Man, same thing I would say to a lot of
Speaker 4: these Christians, man. A lot of Christians are or religious
Speaker 4: people or spirit or conservatives. They are just they think
Speaker 4: it's a drug. That's what they've been told. That's what
Speaker 4: it's been labeled. They think plant medicines. That's the that's
Speaker 4: the narrative culture has portrayed. And I thought that for
Speaker 4: my whole life too. I didn't try any drugs pretty
Speaker 4: much until I was thirty years old, and the you know,
Speaker 4: mushrooms and during COVID and uh, because I know I
Speaker 4: have an addictive personality and so I knew whatever I
Speaker 4: danced with I'd be all in. And so so yeah,
Speaker 4: I was about thirty years old. COVID happened March twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: I went into the desert with my friends. Same thing.
Speaker 4: I was like, all right, this is either going to
Speaker 4: get me closer to God or not, and I'll never
Speaker 4: have to do it again if it doesn't, and if
Speaker 4: it does, then that's dope. And it got me the
Speaker 4: closest to God I've ever felt, And I mean you
Speaker 4: can get close, you can get pretty, you can get
Speaker 4: extremely close to God without it, for sure, but there's
Speaker 4: another level of your mind finally detaching from your soul,
Speaker 4: and you're in the present moment. Time doesn't exist right
Speaker 4: when you're on the plant medicine, and so you literally
Speaker 4: sit in the presence. I got satin rivers. Man just
Speaker 4: butt naked in a river with Jesus, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: sitting in this river. It's like full moon dark and
Speaker 4: me and Jesus are talking for like two hours. But
Speaker 4: time doesn't exist, and so two hours in a river
Speaker 4: seems crazy to someone. But I'm just you're separated from
Speaker 4: time for the first time I'm maybe in your life.
Speaker 4: So yeah, plant medicines. I think the bad rep is
Speaker 4: a bad trip, which bad trips don't actually exist. The
Speaker 4: only time someone would have a bad trip is if
Speaker 4: they are suppressing whatever is supposed to come up. And
Speaker 4: so basically, if you're at a if you're at a party,
Speaker 4: if you're at a concert and there's intense people around,
Speaker 4: or you're at a Halloween party and you're on a
Speaker 4: medicine like that, of course you're going to have a
Speaker 4: bad trip because you don't know the energy that's around you.
Speaker 4: You don't know, like can you imagine at a concert
Speaker 4: and you're trying to forgive your dad and you're just like, wait, Dad,
Speaker 4: I don't want to forgive you right now, like I'm
Speaker 4: trying to dance. And so that is what a bad
Speaker 4: trip is. It's you trying to suppress and control the
Speaker 4: emotion that needs to come up. And so I would
Speaker 4: just say to people, be open hearted, open minded that
Speaker 4: this medicine is the cleanest medicine that there is in
Speaker 4: the world, like most pharmaceuticals. Obviously we know that route
Speaker 4: and other dm teas, and you know, there's the mbma's,
Speaker 4: the ketamines. There's so many therapies out there that have
Speaker 4: now been proven in science. But I would say people
Speaker 4: open I mean, nowadays there's documentaries on Netflix and Amazon.
Speaker 4: You could watch millions of films on like how incredible
Speaker 4: mushrooms are and MDMA and psilocybin, all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I've heard you also say how our reality is created
Speaker 2: in two different things. It's attention and intention. So you know,
Speaker 2: it's always our awareness. You talked about this earlier. Awareness
Speaker 2: is the first step in creating any kind of change.
Speaker 2: It's important to have awareness.
Speaker 3: It's also.
Speaker 2: Not it's hard work when you're aware too, when you
Speaker 2: wake up to things like not everything's easy to do
Speaker 2: because too much that's given comes great responsibility. There's like
Speaker 2: a knowing. I'm very confident that us three have probably
Speaker 2: been called like to do the work, whatever that work
Speaker 2: is in our families, right to break to cycles. And
Speaker 2: I think that's why we're here. But for you, you know,
Speaker 2: you said, like your awareness about what's going on around
Speaker 2: you and then your intention to actually do something about it.
Speaker 3: That was like fire. So can you elaborate on that?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Man, I just for me, I just try to
Speaker 4: simplify this world and this perspective for people. I think
Speaker 4: we get so caught up in big words and books
Speaker 4: and there's so much to Like we think that the
Speaker 4: cerebral way is the way to enlightenment or I don't know,
Speaker 4: like some sort of like we're the smarter you are.
Speaker 4: We like like we we idolize Albert Einstein, right, Like
Speaker 4: we're like Albert Einstein the smartest man alive. Like we
Speaker 4: idolize these brilliant minds when reality, the people we actually
Speaker 4: idolize are embodied people the Jesus, the mlk's the gandhis
Speaker 4: people who actually didn't need to be like, didn't need
Speaker 4: to flaunt, you know, in certain ways. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: I just try to I just try to simplify things.
Speaker 4: So when I say, like, your reality is two things,
Speaker 4: your awareness and your your intention and your attention and
Speaker 4: basically your attention to and so that way you don't
Speaker 4: judge people. So your attention to what's going on and
Speaker 4: your intention to do something about it. So like what
Speaker 4: I always use as the reference is you're in high
Speaker 4: school and you're hanging out with your friends and one
Speaker 4: day you see a kid eating alone. That's your attention.
Speaker 4: So you're like, oh, that kid's eating alone, all right, well,
Speaker 4: and then you're gonna keep eating. And then one day
Speaker 4: you go, damn, that kid's eating alone. I guess I
Speaker 4: could invite him over here. I can go eat with him.
Speaker 4: That's your intention. And then that is where you find
Speaker 4: your purpose. Your purpose isn't you embody your purpose? And
Speaker 4: so your attention, oh that car is broken down, Well,
Speaker 4: I got an hour to kill. I could probably pull
Speaker 4: over and help that car. That is where you find
Speaker 4: your purpose. Your purpose isn't some sort of grandiose thing.
Speaker 4: It's actually just you embodying a person that's attention and intentional,
Speaker 4: and that's the formula of purpose and everyone's to seek
Speaker 4: their purpose of Like, am I supposed to change the world?
Speaker 4: And it's like, no, You're supposed to serve the people
Speaker 4: in front of you, whoever it is, if it's the
Speaker 4: person that coffee station or the gas station, the coffee shop,
Speaker 4: You're just supposed to embody a presence of love and action,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it makes perfect sense. There's I felt
Speaker 5: there's really no true fulfilling life without purpose. And I
Speaker 5: mean I feel like just with comeback stories like Donnie
Speaker 5: and I, a story that there was no purpose realized
Speaker 5: or stepped into without some level of pain, like things
Speaker 5: along the way that had us in a place of brokenness,
Speaker 5: hopelessness figuring out just like what is going on? Like
Speaker 5: there's got to be more than this. And I see
Speaker 5: I've seen you talk about like twenty thirteen was a
Speaker 5: tough year for you. Could you describe to the people
Speaker 5: that are listening why that why it was tough and
Speaker 5: maybe just the experience that you gained from that year
Speaker 5: for me?
Speaker 4: Yes, Oh okay, I thought you were talking about Donnie.
Speaker 4: I didn't know you knew about my twenty thirteen you're
Speaker 4: talking to me, Yes, I'm talking about about my dad
Speaker 4: passing away. Yeah, oh wow, Okay, I mean I didn't
Speaker 4: know you guys. I didn't know you guys knew that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah man? How yeah you said it. Your pain
Speaker 4: is your purpose. If anyone's searching for what their purpose
Speaker 4: is in life, you just have to go to what
Speaker 4: hurts your heart the most. And because I didn't fit
Speaker 4: in most of my life, because I never felt like
Speaker 4: I belonged, I've spent the second half of my life
Speaker 4: making sure no one ever has to feel like they
Speaker 4: don't fit in. So I used to throw events in
Speaker 4: La and I remember I used to announce on the
Speaker 4: events like no cool people allowed. Like I was like, yo,
Speaker 4: if you're too cool, don't come, you know. I was like,
Speaker 4: I was like, yo, I want to make sure when
Speaker 4: I host an event, I want to make sure everyone
Speaker 4: feels fully seen and celebrated and heard. Because I've been
Speaker 4: to a million events where I feel invisible and I
Speaker 4: feel like I want to just go home, you know.
Speaker 4: And so that's my pain, man, And then my pain
Speaker 4: of losing my dad, and you know, turning that into
Speaker 4: my purpose. Man. Like I said, after I lost my dad,
Speaker 4: I started mentoring inner city kids in Denver, and I
Speaker 4: would say eighty ninety percent of all my kids that
Speaker 4: I mentored for six years never had dads. And so
Speaker 4: I like became a brother figure or even like a
Speaker 4: father figured to a lot of my high school kids
Speaker 4: and ended up getting my inner city kids passports, took
Speaker 4: them around the world, like, got them cameras. Like it's
Speaker 4: like they're like my They're like my little brothers for life.
Speaker 4: It's been a decade now I just got the phone
Speaker 4: with one of them. But uh but yeah, man, so
Speaker 4: you just you got to figure out what breaks your
Speaker 4: heart more than anything. And and you don't need to
Speaker 4: judge people. You don't need to shame people like I
Speaker 4: don't need to convince people like if your if your
Speaker 4: passion is climate change or saving the animals, or helping
Speaker 4: inner city kids, or helping homeless people or helping kids
Speaker 4: in Africa get an education, you just got to choose
Speaker 4: one or choose something, and then you just have to
Speaker 4: stay in your lane. I'm not going to try to
Speaker 4: convince you to care more about homeless people than kids
Speaker 4: in Africa. You know what I'm saying, It's not a competition.
Speaker 4: And I think a lot of people are trying to
Speaker 4: force people to care just as much as they care,
Speaker 4: and I think that negates the whole purpose of purpose,
Speaker 4: right that we need to stay in our lane and
Speaker 4: we need to we all need each other. And yeah, man,
Speaker 4: so my whole, my whole movement, and like my kind
Speaker 4: of my programs called pursuing purpose because we have the
Speaker 4: idea of pursuit of happiness in America. And I realized
Speaker 4: when people are pursuing purpose, all of the knobs that
Speaker 4: are like depression, anxiety, all these things that are like
Speaker 4: struggling with all of your knobs get turned down when
Speaker 4: you're in alignment with your purpose because it's not about you.
Speaker 4: And so you're just kind of like, oh man, this
Speaker 4: life isn't even about me. I'm so stressed and anxious
Speaker 4: and overwhelmed and depressed about me. But then you go
Speaker 4: help someone and you're like, man, I don't even care
Speaker 4: what I look like right now. I'm just like helping
Speaker 4: someone that doesn't have a meal to eat tonight. I'm
Speaker 4: helping a kid in Africa that just wants to learn
Speaker 4: how to read. I'm helping plant trees for the better
Speaker 4: world for tomorrow. And it's like you don't even care
Speaker 4: what you look like. You don't even care why much
Speaker 4: money's in your bank account, you don't care how many
Speaker 4: followers you have. When you're in alignment with your purpose,
Speaker 4: everything of your worries disappears.
Speaker 2: So well said, I've always talked about how purpose is.
Speaker 2: Your purpose isn't static, it's dynamic, right, It's fluid. It's
Speaker 2: not like we declare this purpose statement. So I always said,
Speaker 2: like that word discover, right, discover is to take the
Speaker 2: cover off, to discover. Your purpose is what's been in
Speaker 2: there all along. It's not something outside of us, right,
Speaker 2: It's like everything we'll ever need is already inside of us.
Speaker 2: And I've heard you say it in the beginning. It's
Speaker 2: like we don't need more, we need less. And so
Speaker 2: our work every day is to chip away at all
Speaker 2: the shit that's in the way. You know, you talk
Speaker 2: about the work because the work teaches us that what's
Speaker 2: in the way is the way.
Speaker 3: Right, It's like that the center of the wound is
Speaker 3: it's where our freedom lies.
Speaker 2: And like it's cool because us three and that clip
Speaker 2: of you sharing about your dad was the one that
Speaker 2: I saw that you know, you came across my feed and.
Speaker 3: That's what connected us.
Speaker 2: So you talk about like just how beautiful it is
Speaker 2: and being able to carry the message. And people can
Speaker 2: say whatever they want about social media, but if you
Speaker 2: can and I'm not saying I can, but like, if
Speaker 2: you can manage it the right way and get your
Speaker 2: algorithms in check, you get to like listen to people
Speaker 2: like you every day and it's dude, it's just like
Speaker 2: you do this so well.
Speaker 3: It's been cool to connect with you.
Speaker 4: Thanks man. Yeah, I mean you guys both know this.
Speaker 4: Vulnerability is the way vulnerability is the is the medicine
Speaker 4: the world needs because when you're vulnerable, like like I
Speaker 4: always say, like our passions can connect us, like oh
Speaker 4: you like travel, you like football, that connects us. But
Speaker 4: our pain is what bonds us. It's our adhesive And
Speaker 4: so the moment you say that you didn't fit in
Speaker 4: when you were a kid, or the moment you say
Speaker 4: you've lost your dad or whatever it is, we are
Speaker 4: immediately adhesive, bonded to where like I don't care who
Speaker 4: you voted for, how much money is in your bank account,
Speaker 4: what car you drive. I don't give a shit about
Speaker 4: any of that stuff. I just you lost your dad too.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh man, we're already connected. And so the
Speaker 4: sooner we can become vulnerable with our audience with people
Speaker 4: like I can make these videos that are like, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe inspiring or cool or helpful about trauma or like educational.
Speaker 4: I can make educational, inspiring videos. But man, the moment
Speaker 4: I'm like sharing about losing my dad or being homeless
Speaker 4: or like all these things, the followers turn to like family,
Speaker 4: and people go from like, oh man, I used to
Speaker 4: follow you because of your content. Now like I'm praying
Speaker 4: with you and for you, and we're connected. And that's
Speaker 4: the level of commitment that we need to with each
Speaker 4: other right now because everything else is vanilla. Everything else
Speaker 4: is like fickle to where like our followers will leave
Speaker 4: us tomorrow if we say the wrong thing, you know.
Speaker 4: And so what we're looking for is we're looking to
Speaker 4: magnetize soul family like you guys, like soul brothers, you know,
Speaker 4: and what you guys are doing in the industry of
Speaker 4: like men talking about this stuff, like dude, you guys
Speaker 4: are man, you guys are paving the way dude, it's
Speaker 4: wild to think that, you know, so many men in
Speaker 4: your guys' fields are doing conversations about like who the
Speaker 4: best basketball player in the world is, which is cool.
Speaker 4: I love that shit too, but like you guys are like, no, no,
Speaker 4: let's talk about childhood and plan medicines and healing and masculinity. Like, dude,
Speaker 4: that shit it's going to change the world. Man, it's wild.
Speaker 3: Well you've said it's like heal the boy and the
Speaker 3: man will appear. Right, what do you feel like for you?
Speaker 2: I've heard you also say, like the question that us
Speaker 2: men can start with asking ourselves or having somebody that
Speaker 2: we trust ask us is is when did you feel
Speaker 2: unsafe or unseen?
Speaker 3: Right? Can we talk about that? I've heard you. I've
Speaker 3: heard you use that as an access point, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: so beautiful, Like I'm using that one for every man
Speaker 3: that comes to anything that I do, because it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I mean it's really simple. Like I said,
Speaker 4: it's a lot simpler than we make it seem when
Speaker 4: it comes to who people are. And you know, one
Speaker 4: of the videos I made I talk about one of
Speaker 4: the first questions I ask people when I first meet
Speaker 4: them or just one of these uncomfortable questions. I aske like, yeah,
Speaker 4: when's last time you cried? And I've been doing this
Speaker 4: for like ten years. And I'll be at events. I'll
Speaker 4: be at like these big events in LA and I'll
Speaker 4: you know people, I'll be like, yoh, one's last time
Speaker 4: you cried, like right when I met them, And it
Speaker 4: just opens up this portal of conversation of someone being like, oh, man,
Speaker 4: I was probably six years old when my dog died,
Speaker 4: and you're like, WHOA, twenty years you even cried. And
Speaker 4: some people are like when I woke up this morning,
Speaker 4: You're like, WHOA, what's going on? And at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, humans want to just like emotionally connect.
Speaker 4: We're emotional beings before we are cerebral beings. I think
Speaker 4: a lot of people think we're very ebel beings because
Speaker 4: we've succeeded in technology. But look at kids like my
Speaker 4: son is one hundred percent pure emotion. Like when he
Speaker 4: is sad, he is crying. When he's happy, he's happy
Speaker 4: when he's he's the most present. He's in the present
Speaker 4: moment at all times. He doesn't know tomorrow exists, and
Speaker 4: so someday teachers start to tell him about homework, and
Speaker 4: then tomorrow exists, and then he someday someone goes, oh,
Speaker 4: you look weird, and then he goes in the mirror
Speaker 4: and he's like, wait, I look different. And then some
Speaker 4: day someone's like, you can't dance, and then he's like, wait,
Speaker 4: I can't dance. I'm the best dancer in the world,
Speaker 4: I thought. And so every moment in the childhood, they
Speaker 4: are told they can't sing, or they can't dance, or
Speaker 4: they look different, or they're not smart because they didn't
Speaker 4: get an A plus. And so every human, all you
Speaker 4: have to do is go back to those moments when
Speaker 4: they first felt like they had to dim their light
Speaker 4: or they had to act a certain way or put
Speaker 4: on a character, you know. And so if you know
Speaker 4: for a fact every human has that, all you have
Speaker 4: to do connected that right away and in different ways
Speaker 4: with questions or anything like that. But you know, when
Speaker 4: I talk to couples about breakups, a lot of the
Speaker 4: person going through a divorce or a breakup, they're so
Speaker 4: they're telling me so much about what the person has
Speaker 4: done and what they're doing, and I'm just like, yoyo,
Speaker 4: I get it, I get it. They did, X, Y,
Speaker 4: and Z. But it has nothing to do with them nothing.
Speaker 4: It has everything to do with how you are feeling,
Speaker 4: what you were experiencing, how you allowed that person in
Speaker 4: your life, and so you have to take that projection
Speaker 4: and bring it all to yourself. How is this a
Speaker 4: gift because you called that person in your life even
Speaker 4: if they cheated on you? And how are you experiencing
Speaker 4: them cheating on you? Because You're not going to change
Speaker 4: my opinion about them. I'm not here, We're not here
Speaker 4: to talk shit about them. But how do you feel?
Speaker 4: What does that make you feel? That they cheated on you?
Speaker 4: And you're like, oh, it makes me feel really like
Speaker 4: pissed and sad. Why is that odd? Because when I
Speaker 4: was young, this girl that I like cheated on you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying, and you just and it all
Speaker 4: comes back to the personal experience. And so everything that
Speaker 4: makes us mad or triggers us is just showing us
Speaker 4: something that makes that word mad about, you know, or
Speaker 4: that we have an emotion that haven't haven't been met yet.
Speaker 5: I remember, yeah, I remember reading somewhere relatively recently. It's
Speaker 5: like the present moment, like the moment isn't bothering you.
Speaker 5: You're bothering yourself about the moment.
Speaker 2: Hmmm.
Speaker 4: Why Just like looking at that, it's like like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's it.
Speaker 2: The theme and a lot of what this conversation around,
Speaker 2: I think is just it's its ownership and taking personal
Speaker 2: responsibility for your life and and and to stop stop
Speaker 2: waiting for the right situation or the right circumstance or
Speaker 2: waiting for that person to change. Is my old relationship
Speaker 2: therapist would say, like stop like trying to fix her
Speaker 2: and fix yourself, like be the change you want to see,
Speaker 2: like if you would in my then another therapist was like,
Speaker 2: whatever you're wanting, just go do it, Like stop complaining
Speaker 2: that you're not getting it, and go do it. And
Speaker 2: if you believe in karma, what you put out comes
Speaker 2: back to you, and then if you're putting it out
Speaker 2: and then you're not getting it back, then that's some
Speaker 2: valuable information that you have to make decisions. But like
Speaker 2: you know, I think there's that intention of like why
Speaker 2: are you doing it? Why are you saying I love
Speaker 2: you so you can hear it back. So if I
Speaker 2: don't say it back and you and you say, well
Speaker 2: you didn't say it back, why did you say it
Speaker 2: to me in.
Speaker 3: The first place. So it's that intention part.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, and even them cheating on you, you know it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it all comes back to self. You know. Like my
Speaker 4: favorite thing about Jesus is I believe Jesus was the
Speaker 4: best at asking questions and listening to people. That Jesus
Speaker 4: asked more questions than he spoke. And so like, if
Speaker 4: any human you talk to, if you can get really
Speaker 4: good at asking questions and listening and I'm not talking
Speaker 4: like just fucking listening. I'm talking about listening to what
Speaker 4: they're saying, then you can actually help them get the
Speaker 4: answers that they need without saying a word, Like you
Speaker 4: guys know that, And so it's just you know, and
Speaker 4: that's like what the art of listening is is just
Speaker 4: like continue to like dole down what you want to
Speaker 4: say or what you should say, and just listen a
Speaker 4: little bit deeper, and then you'll just ask another question
Speaker 4: and then one, and then at the end of that thread,
Speaker 4: they'll most likely come to the answer, I mean.
Speaker 2: And it's it's valuable for anybody in any relationship because
Speaker 2: it's people aren't going to remember what you said, They're
Speaker 2: going to remember how you made them feel and everybody
Speaker 2: loves to be heard, and everybody loves.
Speaker 3: To talk about themselves. And I've had to as a teacher,
Speaker 3: yoga teacher in the beginning, a teacher constantly teaching and instructing,
Speaker 3: and then about five years into teaching, I started coaching.
Speaker 3: And it's different. You have to take a step back,
Speaker 3: and I'm grateful for some training through.
Speaker 2: Coactive Training Institute that they teach you to like the
Speaker 2: client has.
Speaker 3: The answers within them.
Speaker 2: Your job is to ask short, powerful questions, you know,
Speaker 2: and the other saying is like God gave us two
Speaker 2: ears and one mouth for a reason, you know.
Speaker 4: Amen. Yeah, man, Yeah, So it's powerful, man, And it's
Speaker 4: just it's just a lot of it's just a lot
Speaker 4: of being vulnerable, being honest, you know, being transparent, like
Speaker 4: having men in your life. You guys have any how'd
Speaker 4: you guys meet?
Speaker 3: I was Darren's Uh.
Speaker 2: Darren was a coaching client of mine, so we had
Speaker 2: connected and I was familiar with his past and my
Speaker 2: past was similar on him.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: He was sharing his story on Hard Knocks on HBO
Speaker 2: and I was I was watching it and working with
Speaker 2: athletes back in Phoenix and saw it and saw this
Speaker 2: dude stepping up and sharing his story on like I
Speaker 2: did it in a yoga community in my hometown. He
Speaker 2: did it on you know, for the world to see,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I gotta meet this dude.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then it just like well connected from there
Speaker 3: I was twenty nineteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, whoa, that's amazing, dude. I love that story. Yeah,
Speaker 4: that's cool.
Speaker 2: When we started this, like you know, we are in
Speaker 2: purpose right now as we speak, because we started this
Speaker 2: to reach as many people as possible, to remind them
Speaker 2: that they're not alone.
Speaker 3: And like, you know, when.
Speaker 2: People like might project their image of what a man
Speaker 2: is or like you know, a football player Darren with
Speaker 2: his helmet on, right, and like we're changing the language
Speaker 2: of what it really what I believe it feels it
Speaker 2: sounds like to talk like a real man and talk
Speaker 2: about these things and bring people on and like a
Speaker 2: Michael Phelps or a Darren or people that think they
Speaker 2: have all their shit together and they come in and
Speaker 2: they're talking about their real life mental health struggles that
Speaker 2: they're still having, and so that bankrupts the story for
Speaker 2: the person sitting there thinking their problems are unique or
Speaker 2: that they're alone and that's what we're here to tell
Speaker 2: you that you're not alone. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean I think that just bringing that story back
Speaker 5: up kind of ties everything together, right because through me
Speaker 5: being vulnerable and making that choice that one time ultimately
Speaker 5: led me to my purpose.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: And like and you look at the power of like
Speaker 5: small individual choices, Like there was people with the Raiders
Speaker 5: at that time that were as I was going to
Speaker 5: do this interview portion, I was just going there to
Speaker 5: talk and just keep it real about where I had been,
Speaker 5: and there are people like, you know, you don't have
Speaker 5: to do this, you don't have to share, and I
Speaker 5: was just kind of like a, I mean, I'm not
Speaker 5: like that, that fear and that just that weight of
Speaker 5: just like that shame wasn't there anymore. So I just
Speaker 5: went in there and talked and didn't think anything of it.
Speaker 5: And then next thing, you know, it's just like I
Speaker 5: checked Instagram one day and shit, my shit is flooded
Speaker 5: with people just like like you. Like I thought about
Speaker 5: just taking the rest of the pills in this bottle
Speaker 5: and ending it, but I heard you say what you said,
Speaker 5: and now I want to shift. Now I want to pivot,
Speaker 5: And it's just like whoa I wasn't even looking for this,
Speaker 5: but just for somebody that's listening, Like your decision to
Speaker 5: be vulnerable. Who knows what type of scale it may
Speaker 5: be on or the ultimate impact it may have metric wise,
Speaker 5: whatever it may be. Like, the choice you make to
Speaker 5: be vulnerable is going to impact somebody somewhere in your
Speaker 5: world and your spere of influence in a way you
Speaker 5: can't even imagine. So just when it comes to making
Speaker 5: that choice, we hope that you will just show who
Speaker 5: you really are, the scars, the wounds, all of that, man,
Speaker 5: Because it doesn't it doesn't get easier, but you'll start
Speaker 5: to see that your life means that much more to
Speaker 5: you when you do it.
Speaker 4: Mm wow, man.
Speaker 2: Man, so good. I feel like we could go all
Speaker 2: day long with this and BC Man, I feel like
Speaker 2: we're going to have to have you on multiple times,
Speaker 2: probably at least once once a season for sure, because
Speaker 2: it's when.
Speaker 3: I heard you talking.
Speaker 2: I mean, you're you're just speaking everything that we talk about,
Speaker 2: and like I said in the intro, I think you
Speaker 2: just say it in a way that, yeah, your storytelling ability,
Speaker 2: just like.
Speaker 3: You your presence on camera and you're hearing your voice.
Speaker 2: I mean I believe God speaks to the mouths of
Speaker 2: other people, like that's where I hear it, and I
Speaker 2: believe that I can hear and see God through TikTok
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 3: Know, and it's beautiful to to have.
Speaker 2: Those moments where it's just like this, this dude has
Speaker 2: something that I want. And that's what I think my
Speaker 2: superpower maybe has been when somebody has something that I want.
Speaker 3: Not the material shit.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about the inner stuff, the inner piece and
Speaker 2: the calm, confidence and the knowing.
Speaker 3: I just get close to him and you know, proximity
Speaker 3: is power. So here we are.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's your wisdom, bro. I mean, dude,
Speaker 4: if young people understood what you just said, it's oh, man, dude,
Speaker 4: you gotta Yeah. A lot of people think the success
Speaker 4: they're like, man, if I could just get around these
Speaker 4: wealthy people, I could just get this knowledge and this wisdom,
Speaker 4: and then you're around them and you're like, oh, they've
Speaker 4: just been like playing the system. You're like, oh, these
Speaker 4: wealthy people are just kind of wealthy because they played
Speaker 4: the game. Like the system they like they you know,
Speaker 4: they kind of manipulated the system. And then you kind
Speaker 4: of go, that's not as cool. But then you get
Speaker 4: around embodied people man like my mentor and people I've
Speaker 4: like been mentored by, and you're just like, like, I'll
Speaker 4: just give a story, like, you know, a quick story
Speaker 4: about one of my mentors. He's written three New York
Speaker 4: Prist time selling books. He's not really known like in
Speaker 4: the social media world because he doesn't have social media
Speaker 4: that's so much he doesn't care about it. But his
Speaker 4: name's Tommy Spalding and he writes, he write, He wrote
Speaker 4: a book about how he teaches CEOs of fortune five
Speaker 4: hundred companies how to love their employees better. Like that's
Speaker 4: this guy's level. Like he sits with like these billionaire
Speaker 4: CEOs and he teaches them how to love people better.
Speaker 4: And one time we're at this conference and this was
Speaker 4: like a decade ago, so this was like way before
Speaker 4: vulnerability and masculinity was even a thing. And we're at
Speaker 4: this thing he's speaking at and he's one of the
Speaker 4: keynote speakers, and there's all these businessmen in suits and
Speaker 4: ties and it's this really you know, massive event, and
Speaker 4: like I said, this was over a decade ago, and
Speaker 4: he sees one of his buddies and after everyone's trying
Speaker 4: to get book signing and pictures with him, and he
Speaker 4: goes up and he grabs him by the face and
Speaker 4: just kisses him on each cheek and he like kisses
Speaker 4: his cheek and he just like his entire ore, like
Speaker 4: all these people were like around him, and he just
Speaker 4: and I was like, did that guy just kiss a
Speaker 4: dude on his cheeks and like around all these other
Speaker 4: successful businessmen and suiting ties. And I was like, man,
Speaker 4: I wish I could have that type of masculinity. And
Speaker 4: he's like he's Italian, you know, like at heart, but
Speaker 4: he's not you know, it's not for am Italy, but
Speaker 4: he's like has this Italian heart. But it was just
Speaker 4: so the essence of what he brought into a room
Speaker 4: full of business card kind of men, and I was
Speaker 4: just like, dude, these men are trying to have these
Speaker 4: firm handshakes and this guy just melted into a five
Speaker 4: year old seeing his like lifelong best friend kissed him
Speaker 4: on each cheek and like his aura just surrounded him
Speaker 4: where all these people were around him and no one
Speaker 4: else existed. And I remember just being like I was
Speaker 4: twenty I was I was partly twenty two twenty three,
Speaker 4: just being like I want whatever that is. I want that.
Speaker 4: I was like, I want to figure out how to
Speaker 4: kiss a guy on his cheek in front of one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty men. And it's like it's just and
Speaker 4: it's I don't know, man, it's just embodied.
Speaker 2: Like I said, dude, tell the audience where they can
Speaker 2: track you down.
Speaker 3: What are you doing? What are your offerings?
Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like you're doing so much and
Speaker 2: I know there's going to be listeners that are gonna.
Speaker 3: Want more of you. So let him know where they
Speaker 3: can track you down.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I appreciate that. I mean, right now, it's
Speaker 4: just my social media is my name BC Serna, and
Speaker 4: I just had another son. I have two kids. I
Speaker 4: have a one year old and a four month year old.
Speaker 4: Crazy but yeah, man, so I'm not doing too much
Speaker 4: right now. I'm doing someone on one like mentorships, some coaching,
Speaker 4: a little bit of like potentially a men's retreat in January,
Speaker 4: so people just stay tuned. But right now, man, I'm
Speaker 4: just doing everything I can to just like spend as
Speaker 4: much quality time with my two sons. I never had
Speaker 4: being a dad on my vision board, but I knew
Speaker 4: I wanted to someday. But my purpose was always my
Speaker 4: message or my focus, my compass. And then when I
Speaker 4: was in the desert, this is the last story I'll tell.
Speaker 4: I know you guys are trying to wrap up, but
Speaker 4: I'm in the desert and one night I am sitting
Speaker 4: there and I'm not on any medicines, but the moon
Speaker 4: comes up over this mountain range and it's this pink moon.
Speaker 4: It's the biggest moon I've ever seen. And I see
Speaker 4: it and like, I just kind of start crying and
Speaker 4: get emotional, and it was weird. I never cried at
Speaker 4: the moon before. I didn't even think that was a thing.
Speaker 4: And I like went through this feminine portal of the moon,
Speaker 4: if that makes sense, and it was like the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 4: and I don't know, there's this term in the Christian
Speaker 4: called the Holy Spirit, and it's like I realized the
Speaker 4: Holy Spirit was feminine, and I realized that all of
Speaker 4: us men came through a feminine portal. We came through
Speaker 4: our mom's feminine portal to get here. And so I
Speaker 4: went through this moon, this full moon, this feminine portal,
Speaker 4: and I started crying for all the feminine women that
Speaker 4: have changed my life, and like my mom my, sister,
Speaker 4: my grandma, and these women that i've also like women
Speaker 4: that I didn't honor in a way that like was
Speaker 4: very honorable in my life. And so I cried on
Speaker 4: behalf of just like asking for forgiveness for them. And
Speaker 4: then God was just like, hey, idiot, if it's not
Speaker 4: your best friend, who else would it be. And at
Speaker 4: the time, Esa was my best friend, my partner, and
Speaker 4: la Is I mean, Issa was my best friend and
Speaker 4: she's beautiful, but like la is La, I was like
Speaker 4: I loved dating women in la and I was still
Speaker 4: getting over a heartbreak. And so God's like, hey, idiot,
Speaker 4: if it's not your best friend, who else would it be?
Speaker 4: And I was like that makes sense? So I uh
Speaker 4: so I called Isa. She was in Lebanon, that's where
Speaker 4: she's from, and she moved into my van with me,
Speaker 4: and we lived in my van for a year and
Speaker 4: then had a baby, and then I built out a
Speaker 4: school bus and then we lived in a school bus,
Speaker 4: and then we had a second baby, and so this
Speaker 4: is our first house we've ever had in North Carolina.
Speaker 4: And we went from a living in a van starting
Speaker 4: our relationship, living in a van for a year and
Speaker 4: then living in a tiny home and then a school
Speaker 4: bus and for two months we've had our first house.
Speaker 4: So it's been it's been a journey. Yeah, man, that's wild.
Speaker 2: We got yeah, we we just barely tapped into your
Speaker 2: your story and all these other cool things you're doing
Speaker 2: and have done because you got just so much good
Speaker 2: quality wisdom. So yeah, we'll dude, we'll definitely have you
Speaker 2: back on. But thank you, thank you for being here,
Speaker 2: thank you for making time. I'm so grateful that we've connected,
Speaker 2: and I trust that our connection, the three of us,
Speaker 2: will only build from here.
Speaker 4: Hey, man, you know I'm praying for you guys, and
Speaker 4: I'm so honored to be on this show with you guys.
Speaker 4: I'm so honored to be in your guys's presence. And man,
Speaker 4: I just can't imagine all the young boys listening to
Speaker 4: you guys, all the young men listening to you guys
Speaker 4: and just finding hope, finding peace, finding clarity, and just
Speaker 4: hopefully feeling like their feet can touch the ground and
Speaker 4: just feeling like they're not alone. So I just I
Speaker 4: celebrate you guys, and I just can't think you guys enough.
Speaker 4: Appreciate you.
Speaker 5: Appreciate you brother man Man Morty Morty. You know, bro,
Speaker 5: like this is the true work. Like that you're what
Speaker 5: you're doing is helping men open their eyes to what
Speaker 5: they don't even know what they want, but deep down
Speaker 5: they truly will want one day and know that will
Speaker 5: be something that will fill that void within them.
Speaker 4: Bro.
Speaker 5: So for that man, big time salute, Bro, Thank you,
Speaker 5: thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Man. Thanks guys, praying for you, guys, Appreciate you all.
Speaker 3: All Right, We're out, everybody, Suer peace.
Speaker 1: Comeback Stories is a production of Inflection Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.