Speaker 1: Sometimes spontaneously we start to remember that which we had
Speaker 1: repressed that was too much to bear as a child,
Speaker 1: but now as an adult we can bear. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is John J. Printer Gast, PhD.
Speaker 1: He's a psychotherapist, retired professor of psychology, spiritual teacher, and
Speaker 1: founder and editor of chief of Undivided, the online journal
Speaker 1: of Non Duality and Psychology. He received his undergraduate degree
Speaker 1: from you See Santa Cruz and m A and PhD
Speaker 1: from the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is licensed
Speaker 1: as a marriage and family therapist. His latest book is
Speaker 1: called In Touch, How to Tune into the inner guidance
Speaker 1: of your body and trust Yourself. Here's the interview. Hi, John,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much, great
Speaker 1: to be here. I'm happy to have you on. You
Speaker 1: came to me recommended by Locke Kelly, who was a
Speaker 1: guest I don't know, some number of episodes ago. The
Speaker 1: really enjoyed that interview, and when you know, when he
Speaker 1: recommended you, I thought it was a great idea to
Speaker 1: get you on. And I read your book and enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: and we'll get to talk about it here in a minute.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. We'll start, though, like we always do with
Speaker 1: the parable. There's a grandfather and he's talking with his grandson.
Speaker 1: He says, in life, there are two wolves that are
Speaker 1: inside of us, that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: grandson stops for a second and he looks up at
Speaker 1: his grandfather, and he says grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. It's interesting, um, I suppose it depends what
Speaker 1: we mean by feed. And it is true that if
Speaker 1: we favor the good wolf those nineties they will grow,
Speaker 1: and so they can be cultivated to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: And it's true that we don't want to act out
Speaker 1: these less conscious and more destructive impulses. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, if we repress them, they have a way
Speaker 1: of biting us. And so simply favoring one and dismissing
Speaker 1: the other. I have found in my work, because I've
Speaker 1: worked for many years as psychotherapist and trained therapists as well,
Speaker 1: we actually need to make room for these shadow elements,
Speaker 1: not to act them out, not to indulge them, but
Speaker 1: to give we might call the dark wolf, some space
Speaker 1: actually and begin to inquire, to be curious and to
Speaker 1: welcome what these unwelcome elements have been. And what I found,
Speaker 1: which is very interesting working with people, that if we
Speaker 1: take this approach, not to indulge them, but not to
Speaker 1: repress them. Very surprising qualities emerged that I would consider
Speaker 1: often the polarity of it is initially expressed. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: if we take the quality of terror, if you actually
Speaker 1: begin to explore it intimately, breathe into it and feel
Speaker 1: where it is in the body, and sense it um
Speaker 1: and begin to tolerate it, it becomes a kind of
Speaker 1: portal or opening to a place of fearlessness. It's very
Speaker 1: interesting how that kind of flip can happen, and it
Speaker 1: can happen with desire as well. If we really explore
Speaker 1: what it is that we seem to be greedy about.
Speaker 1: You know, we may feel a sense of lack and deficiency,
Speaker 1: and if we explore that sense of lack, we'll find
Speaker 1: fullness ultimately. And it's true for all sorts of these
Speaker 1: unwanted qualities. It's quite interesting, I find so um I
Speaker 1: would say, whichever wolf is the wolf that correct trying
Speaker 1: to not favor If we actually kind of welcome it
Speaker 1: in as a guest and in a certain way, interview
Speaker 1: it in the way that you interview your guests, you know,
Speaker 1: and kind of find out what's really here, something essential
Speaker 1: begins to emerge. Like if you take rage, You'll find
Speaker 1: you rages is because we feel powerless and if we
Speaker 1: actually enrage can actually be even though it's misdirected, could
Speaker 1: be a very strong life protective force. So if you
Speaker 1: go into the essence of rage, you'll actually find power
Speaker 1: there as well, and that can be channeled then in
Speaker 1: a positive way. So when I when I consider your parable,
Speaker 1: this is what comes to me. Excellent. So your book
Speaker 1: is called in Touch, how to tune into the inner
Speaker 1: guidance of your body and trust yourself. Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of what you're talking about in this book is something
Speaker 1: you call inner knowing. Could you tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what that term means. Yeah, Well, we've
Speaker 1: heard the phrase the small still voice within. It's voice
Speaker 1: of sometimes it's called intuition. It's a very quiet voice.
Speaker 1: It doesn't insist on anything, it doesn't judge anything, it
Speaker 1: doesn't assert itself. But it's something that's inherent in all
Speaker 1: of us, um, And it's something that loves the truth.
Speaker 1: It just loves to see things as they are, even
Speaker 1: if they're not particularly in our favor. And this is
Speaker 1: what I'm referring to as knowing. And and so we
Speaker 1: also the body participates in this knowing I've I've found
Speaker 1: in my work and this is what my book is about,
Speaker 1: that the body has a sense of this knowing. I
Speaker 1: felt sense of this knowing. There can be a knowing
Speaker 1: about things like it's this situation really appropriate for me,
Speaker 1: this partner or this work. For instance, we all know
Speaker 1: the experience of going out on a date with someone
Speaker 1: and we have a feeling. I don't think so, but
Speaker 1: we you know, we want to play it out for
Speaker 1: a while and then it's confirmed. You know, we had
Speaker 1: an initial sense, an initial knowing about this. That to
Speaker 1: be a knowing about relationship and could be annoying about work.
Speaker 1: But there's also a knowing about oneself, about who we
Speaker 1: truly are. And this is a subtler kind of knowing.
Speaker 1: It's like honing in into what's essentially human, this open, spacious, radiant,
Speaker 1: loving awareness actually which is inherent in all of us.
Speaker 1: And this is self knowledge and this knowing refers to
Speaker 1: that as well, So that the deepest knowing is actually
Speaker 1: the knowing of ourselves. That makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: that that inner knowing what I found interested in the
Speaker 1: book though, that you said, and this is really something
Speaker 1: that I wrestle with as you say that most of
Speaker 1: what we call hunches or intuition is based on fear
Speaker 1: or desire. Are inner knowing is heavily filtered by how
Speaker 1: we do or do not want things to be. And
Speaker 1: I think that that's really challenging. Certainly, there have been
Speaker 1: times in my life where my inner sense of what
Speaker 1: I should do was really bad. I was you know,
Speaker 1: I was an addict for years, and there was an
Speaker 1: inner sense of like I must um. So how do
Speaker 1: we go about starting to filter out those things that
Speaker 1: are driven, like you said, by desire or attachment, and
Speaker 1: how we filter that out to get to that still
Speaker 1: or smaller voice that is actually who we are because
Speaker 1: and you talk about in the book a little bit
Speaker 1: about the idea of there's a lot of static in
Speaker 1: the system, right exactly, Well, we kind of know it
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have that compulsive feeling, right, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't have it's not judgmental, and it's not sort of
Speaker 1: well I'm kind of describing what it's not right, So
Speaker 1: it has a it just has a different flavor to
Speaker 1: it um and sometimes we're pretty unfamiliar with that. We're
Speaker 1: heavily conditioned and we know what it feels like to
Speaker 1: be compulsive. We're obsessive about something and we kind of
Speaker 1: know it's not that, up right, if that's what's happening,
Speaker 1: it's not that. And we can also tell by contractions
Speaker 1: in our body if we feel really nervous or guilty
Speaker 1: or ashamed, you know pretty likely you know, acting on
Speaker 1: those or from those is not a good ideas. So
Speaker 1: it comes from a from a peaceful and in quiet
Speaker 1: place internally. So what is the process at a high
Speaker 1: level of beginning to move into inner knowing and beginning
Speaker 1: to be able to listen to our body? What's that?
Speaker 1: What's that look like? You know, you talk a lot
Speaker 1: in the book about going from the head to the heart. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: which is you know, the cliche is it's a you know,
Speaker 1: it's a really long journey, and it's because it's true.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the ways that you work
Speaker 1: with people to start to move into being more aware
Speaker 1: of who we are inside? Well, one of it is
Speaker 1: actually to use our body as a resource. And and
Speaker 1: sometimes is when we you know, I had difficult childhood's
Speaker 1: in terms of bonding with caretakers or trauma, it's really
Speaker 1: uncomfortable actually to feel what's going on, and so we
Speaker 1: live on the outside of our body, either a short
Speaker 1: distance from it or kind of on the surface, and
Speaker 1: we really don't know what's going on inside. So part
Speaker 1: of it is just actually beginning to breathe and slow down,
Speaker 1: and since you know what's happening here, you know, what
Speaker 1: am I feeling in the heart area? What am I
Speaker 1: feeling in the gut area, and actually beginning to listen
Speaker 1: in a different way and knowing that or at least
Speaker 1: being open to the possibility that there's a different kind
Speaker 1: of knowing that's not driven by the condition mind. So
Speaker 1: one thing is just kind of slowing down and breathing
Speaker 1: and beginning to feel into the interior of the body,
Speaker 1: you know, taking a few minutes to do that. And
Speaker 1: another is actually to begin to question our thoughts, particularly
Speaker 1: are repetitive and limiting and negative thoughts as well, because
Speaker 1: when we're caught in our thinking and we're identified with it, um,
Speaker 1: we're deeply entranced and and acting out of delusion as well.
Speaker 1: So getting getting a bit of space, some separation from
Speaker 1: our thinking, to being able to observe thoughts as thoughts.
Speaker 1: This is, you know, it seems like a very simple
Speaker 1: idea but for some people it's quite radical, but it's
Speaker 1: an important step to This is kind of a mindfulness step,
Speaker 1: you know, just to be aware of thoughts, to be
Speaker 1: a witness of thoughts, and to be more intimate with
Speaker 1: the sensations and feelings of your body. So those are
Speaker 1: kind of entry entry level approaches to a different kind
Speaker 1: of listening, I would say. And then another thing is
Speaker 1: as you have to experiment with it. If you get
Speaker 1: a kind of quiet inclination to move in a particular
Speaker 1: direction in terms of relationship or work or whatever it
Speaker 1: may be. It maybe small movements, not particularly life changing significance,
Speaker 1: you might act on them and see how they go
Speaker 1: and and take note, and then you begin to reinforce. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to listen. I'm starting to tune in as
Speaker 1: well as we do, so we'll feel more congruent with ourselves,
Speaker 1: will feel more in our integrity, will feel more connected
Speaker 1: with ourselves and with others, and we'll notice that our
Speaker 1: listening becomes better and our judging diminishes of others as well.
Speaker 1: So it has an impact in our relationships quite immediately
Speaker 1: as well. Where there's about eight different directions, I want
Speaker 1: to go from there because I think you touched on
Speaker 1: about five or six of the different questions I want
Speaker 1: to ask, So I need to think through the best
Speaker 1: best direction here, but I think I'll start with just
Speaker 1: an observation I had, and you were talking about living
Speaker 1: in our thoughts, and there were a couple of things
Speaker 1: you said. To live in our head means that attention
Speaker 1: is largely centered in the forehead, which I thought was
Speaker 1: really an interesting thing to look at. And then you
Speaker 1: went on to say that one of your main teachers,
Speaker 1: John Klein, calls it the factory of thought, which is
Speaker 1: I interviewed Mary O'Malley recently. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: know Mary, but but she wrote a book in a
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of crossover in what you
Speaker 1: guys say, but she talks about that we are basically
Speaker 1: thought factories. So I thought it was very interesting to
Speaker 1: have heard that term, you know, referring to our thoughts
Speaker 1: as a as a factory um twice in the last week,
Speaker 1: which I think is a really interesting observation. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: bringing an important point. It's like we begin part of
Speaker 1: scanning the body is noticing where our attention tends to
Speaker 1: localize something we're not normally aware of. But as as
Speaker 1: we just begin to do that investigation, very often we
Speaker 1: will find it localizing in the forehead right because we identify.
Speaker 1: It's almost like we think we're up here, somewhere in
Speaker 1: our brain behind our eyes, and we live up here.
Speaker 1: And when we do so, it means we're really identified
Speaker 1: with our thinking. The less identified we're with our thinking.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean we stop thinking. It doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: devalue our thinking, but we have a different relationship to it.
Speaker 1: We're not yanked around by it. We're much more in
Speaker 1: a witnessing mode. As that happened, attention begins to fall
Speaker 1: actually and begins to drop down, usually gradually. This is
Speaker 1: not something dramatic, although we may occasionally experience it more dramatically,
Speaker 1: but attention tends to begin to fall down into the
Speaker 1: trunk of the body, you know, either into the heart
Speaker 1: or in the gut, or both. With time, I used
Speaker 1: to be very head centric when I was an adolescent
Speaker 1: and a young adult as well. I was very reliant
Speaker 1: on my intellect, and I gradually learned that it was
Speaker 1: a limited way of being partial, not to devalue it,
Speaker 1: but to know that it's just a partial way you
Speaker 1: say early in the book that really the first step
Speaker 1: is to have an intellectual openness to the possibility that
Speaker 1: there are other ways of knowing than the rational mind.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a statement that it's easy to
Speaker 1: breeze past. And I think that a lot of us,
Speaker 1: you know, where people are getting into mindfulness and we're
Speaker 1: thinking about this, but we don't think that we're discovering
Speaker 1: different way ease of perceiving or interpreting the world, which
Speaker 1: is is a pretty big shift. That we can be
Speaker 1: aware from a different place than the brain. That's right.
Speaker 1: And and even physiologists, neurophysiologists are realizing that, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole body is involved with of course sensing, but
Speaker 1: also with a kind of intelligence and a kind of knowing.
Speaker 1: Dan Siegel, who has done a lot of work on neurobiology,
Speaker 1: uh and neurophysiology, is discovering, you know, just the nervous
Speaker 1: system and these different organ systems they all contribute, so
Speaker 1: we know, even on a physiological level, increasing that these
Speaker 1: are sources of information and understanding. And as we pay
Speaker 1: more attention to them, this is the interesting thing. They
Speaker 1: grow in in capacity as well, and we as we
Speaker 1: learn to trust them more and as they proved to
Speaker 1: be trustworthy, UM, they actually develop in an interesting way.
Speaker 1: So we become more balanced, we're not so top heavy,
Speaker 1: you know, we actually feel ourselves more deeply seated in
Speaker 1: our body and yet expansive and open. And it's a
Speaker 1: much more peaceful and actually economic that is to say,
Speaker 1: we're not wasting energy worrying about things that we don't
Speaker 1: need to. UM. It's a much more peaceful and joyful
Speaker 1: and efficient way of being. So for people, say who
Speaker 1: have a daily mindfulness practice or a meditation practice where
Speaker 1: they meditate, let's just pretend for twenty minutes a day
Speaker 1: and it's pretty much focus on the breath or um,
Speaker 1: you know, repeat a mantra type practice. What are ways
Speaker 1: that they can take that time, you know, and engage
Speaker 1: in an interior practice that that becomes more body focused
Speaker 1: or body centric. What are some techniques that can be
Speaker 1: worked into that. There are many techniques and you know,
Speaker 1: one of them is to to scan the body and
Speaker 1: and and breathe deeply into the body. And it can
Speaker 1: be a nice way actually to start a meditative practice,
Speaker 1: whether it's mantra or focusing on breath mind typical mindfulness,
Speaker 1: you know, feel feel your feet on the floor, feel
Speaker 1: the bottoms of your feet, you know, imagine you're breathing up,
Speaker 1: you know, into the bottoms, you know, from the earth
Speaker 1: up into the bottoms of your feet and exhaling down
Speaker 1: into the ground. And feel the lower half of your
Speaker 1: body and and feel your lower abdomen um you know
Speaker 1: when Japanese called the horror Japanese martial arts and so on.
Speaker 1: So you begin to actually bring attention down and then
Speaker 1: you can start your meditation practice if you like. One
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about meditation, and I used to
Speaker 1: be a t M practitioner and teacher um. I was
Speaker 1: a teacher for very long, but I practiced TM in
Speaker 1: from quite regularly, and probably it was useful in terms
Speaker 1: of quieting the mind, but also it felt constrictive. And
Speaker 1: what I discover is when I began working with my
Speaker 1: my root teacher at Jean Klein UM, he introduced me
Speaker 1: to a different kind of meditation, which is like just
Speaker 1: resting in awareness and being in silent. So for people
Speaker 1: who practice meditation for a while and may feel a
Speaker 1: bit dull with it or dry with it, it can
Speaker 1: be interesting to begin the meditation with that initial focus
Speaker 1: and let it go and then stop efforting and trying
Speaker 1: to achieve or trying to concentrate or focus anyway, and
Speaker 1: just relax deeply into this open, spacious awareness and rest
Speaker 1: in and outs that. So that's a beautiful practice. And interestingly,
Speaker 1: in so doing, um, it's like bathing the whole body
Speaker 1: mind in warm, soapy water. You know, has we with
Speaker 1: dirty dishes, you know, it has a way of energizing
Speaker 1: the whole system because we're no longer subtly focusing and
Speaker 1: trying to effort as well, it's very restorative. In the book,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that there is a combination of
Speaker 1: techniques of becoming more in touch with the body, and
Speaker 1: there are also psychotherapy type techniques that are tying maybe
Speaker 1: previous emotional wounds into that practice. So how do those
Speaker 1: two things come together? How does this sense of ourselves
Speaker 1: knowing ourselves and our body ultimately you you had to
Speaker 1: the point of that, you know, we're not a separate self.
Speaker 1: How does that marry up with the more standard psychology
Speaker 1: based dealing with things in our childhood? What's the what's
Speaker 1: the connection? The connection is that we are a multidimensional
Speaker 1: being and we have many levels of experience and as
Speaker 1: you were alluding to initially, are there's this kind of quiet,
Speaker 1: deep listening and then there's a lot of noise in
Speaker 1: the system and a lot of static and um, that's
Speaker 1: the condition body mind, and that primarily is our psychological conditioning,
Speaker 1: most of which originates in childhood. So I worked with people,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been a psychotherapist for over three decades now,
Speaker 1: a licensed psychotherapist and taught therapists you know, on a
Speaker 1: master's level graduate program. So I know this field very well.
Speaker 1: And what I see again and again with people who
Speaker 1: are experienced meditators and they're interested in really resting, in
Speaker 1: being and becoming acquainted with their deeper knowing. Um, in
Speaker 1: many cases that process is heavily filtered by our hijacked
Speaker 1: by our conditioned body mind, you know. And we particularly
Speaker 1: noticed that when we're off retreat, our off our meditation
Speaker 1: Christian and we're interacting in the world with other people,
Speaker 1: it's in relationship when we tend to get triggered and UM.
Speaker 1: So I work with a lot of people who have
Speaker 1: a deep spiritual practice but are also working with psychological
Speaker 1: material because it interferes actually with that. And so there's
Speaker 1: certain ways of being with experience that I've developed, and
Speaker 1: I'm not unique in doing that. I've certainly borrowed, if
Speaker 1: not stolen, heavily from others, quite shamelessly, i should say.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm very pragmatic. So you know, people
Speaker 1: will come in and they may feel anxious or depressed
Speaker 1: and at the same time have a kind of deep
Speaker 1: spiritual orientation. So we need a way to address that
Speaker 1: that's not avoiding, you know, and this is one of
Speaker 1: the problems that you see in with spiritual practitioners as
Speaker 1: they actually they're motive is to feel better, and so
Speaker 1: they're trying to transcend or get away from their experience,
Speaker 1: and you can you know, you can only do that
Speaker 1: for so long. That was my experience as a as
Speaker 1: a very anxious being who could sort of calm myself
Speaker 1: a meditation, but then become anxious out of it, particularly
Speaker 1: in relationships. So that said is a kind of background.
Speaker 1: You know, there are a few basic principles that I
Speaker 1: work with and helping people work through their conditioning, and
Speaker 1: it's all under the rubric of what I call being
Speaker 1: intimate with your experience. So for instance, often I'll guide
Speaker 1: people to feel in their bodies what's happening both in
Speaker 1: terms of reactive feelings and somatic contractions, because those generally
Speaker 1: are always accompanying each other. If we're kind of triggered
Speaker 1: emotional state, there'll be some kind of constriction in the
Speaker 1: interior of our body as well. So the invitation then
Speaker 1: is actually to begin begin to be curious and more
Speaker 1: intimate with it, which would be which would mean to
Speaker 1: breathe into it, for instance, and be willing to just
Speaker 1: feel it, not to change it. Though this is where
Speaker 1: the condition mind gets in. It's always trying to change
Speaker 1: and manipulate and get rid of our experience, but much
Speaker 1: more innocently to be curious, what is this? You know,
Speaker 1: what's in the very center or core of this? To
Speaker 1: feel into it, and very often simply by bringing that
Speaker 1: the breath and attention into some unpleasant somatic experience, contraction,
Speaker 1: or emotional reaction, it'll start to soften and open of
Speaker 1: its own. It just is wanting some loving attention. Now,
Speaker 1: sometimes that won't happen, and in that case there's usually
Speaker 1: an underlying belief that's fueling that reaction. And that's why
Speaker 1: being aware of core limiting beliefs, and I devoted a
Speaker 1: chapter to that my book I found to be very important,
Speaker 1: and I'll just say a word about that, if that's okay.
Speaker 1: Part of my approach and working with people is and
Speaker 1: when they're dealing with their this noise in the system,
Speaker 1: is to start to be aware of whether core limiting
Speaker 1: beliefs are. And usually they're very simple, and they're simple
Speaker 1: because they originated in childhood, so it's like a child's formulation.
Speaker 1: And usually there are variations on two main themes. One
Speaker 1: is I'm lacking, I'm not enough, and another is something's
Speaker 1: wrong with me, I'm plawed. And almost all of our
Speaker 1: negative beliefs can be traced back to some variation of
Speaker 1: one or both of these. So we can just ask ourselves,
Speaker 1: you know what, what are my limiting beliefs and make
Speaker 1: a list and boil them down to five or seven words,
Speaker 1: and see if you can find the ones that really
Speaker 1: pack a punch, you know, really, And you can tell
Speaker 1: because when you think the thought, there'll be an emotional
Speaker 1: reaction and a contraction in the interior of your body,
Speaker 1: so you know you've sort of struck gold when you've
Speaker 1: uncovered one of these. So another is you can you
Speaker 1: can know them just by going through the body with
Speaker 1: a chronic contraction, and then feeling into it and just
Speaker 1: inquiring what's the belief that goes with this, and then
Speaker 1: make a note of what that might be. And in
Speaker 1: a third in common way, as through our reactions to others,
Speaker 1: our projections, you know, what we just cannot stand in
Speaker 1: someone else is usually something we can't stand within ourselves,
Speaker 1: and we have some belief that's associated with that. So
Speaker 1: the first step is to uncover it, and the second
Speaker 1: step is to inquire into it, and not to inquire
Speaker 1: in itto it from the thinking mind, but more from
Speaker 1: the heart. And so it's a little method that I've
Speaker 1: developed that works quite beautifully, which is to ask yourself,
Speaker 1: what is the thought here that's really the core limiting belief,
Speaker 1: And then bring your attention to the heart area in
Speaker 1: the center of the chest, and ask yourself, what's my
Speaker 1: deepest knowing about this? And then be quiet not to
Speaker 1: go to the thinking mind for an answer. It's like
Speaker 1: you're dropping a pebble into the pond and you're just
Speaker 1: you're you're you're open, You're waiting for a response, and
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. You know what can happen sometimes you
Speaker 1: know that riot that's still inner voice will respond, you know,
Speaker 1: and it may say, you know, that belief is completely irrelevant,
Speaker 1: you know enough, not enough, flawed, not flawed, it has
Speaker 1: no relevance at all. Or it may answer in the
Speaker 1: positive you are enough, you know, or there may just
Speaker 1: be a kind of release in the heart area or
Speaker 1: in the gut as well. So this is a way
Speaker 1: to work with our subconscious mind and with our reactive
Speaker 1: feelings and our somatic contractions. And as the noise diminishes,
Speaker 1: it's much easier to a tune with this quieter inner knowing,
Speaker 1: and it facilitates that process. So that's the connection I
Speaker 1: found working with people in the book. You tell some
Speaker 1: stories of people, you sort of describe this process that
Speaker 1: you you were just talking about, and these people respond
Speaker 1: to you in very poetic and deeply felt ways. When
Speaker 1: I inquire into myself generally with that, there's a lot
Speaker 1: less being said, and it's certainly not as poetic or
Speaker 1: as metaphorical or as graphic. Is what you're describing is
Speaker 1: that a individual personality thing. Is that a thing that
Speaker 1: those people have been working for a longer time, And
Speaker 1: so what's coming out is more rich. What would you
Speaker 1: say to somebody who says, well, I do those things
Speaker 1: and I don't get much back. You know, it could
Speaker 1: be any of those things. It could be that people
Speaker 1: are more familiar and with their internal experience and so
Speaker 1: a kind of richness of description comes out of that.
Speaker 1: Could be that they're inclined in that direction already temperamentally.
Speaker 1: Um and and then of course if people don't have
Speaker 1: a lot to say, it's not a good case presentation.
Speaker 1: You're you're pulling the more dramatic stories. I am, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, you just you have to do that because
Speaker 1: you want to engage the reader, and so the descriptions
Speaker 1: are not so important. What is important is that people
Speaker 1: are in touch, you know, with what's going on. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's rather worthless, you know, there's there's very little
Speaker 1: that said. But you can feel a shift when there's
Speaker 1: an understanding that opens, and that's the felt sense that's
Speaker 1: really you're you're tapping into the inner knowing and there's
Speaker 1: a kind of there's a release that happens, there's a
Speaker 1: sense of settling down and in there's an openness. These
Speaker 1: are the qualities, you know, but I've tracked that are
Speaker 1: frequently emergent as people get in touch you know, everything
Speaker 1: in life tends to take um. You get better at
Speaker 1: things as you do them. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I talked about on the show a lot is
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us will hear some technique
Speaker 1: like if I just try and be with my experience,
Speaker 1: then that you know that I hear that makes everything better.
Speaker 1: And we go and we be with our experience twice
Speaker 1: and life doesn't change dramatically, and we go, well, that
Speaker 1: must not work, and we cast it off. And my
Speaker 1: experience has been that some of these things that we're
Speaker 1: talking about are it takes a while to start to
Speaker 1: know how to do some of these things. So maybe
Speaker 1: does it take a while to learn to listen to
Speaker 1: your body? Maybe the first time you do a body
Speaker 1: scan and you're paying attention to what's going on in
Speaker 1: your foot, maybe you don't notice much, But over time
Speaker 1: do you begin to develop a better sense? Is that
Speaker 1: some of what this is also is kind of sticking
Speaker 1: with these practices. It is, but you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a big one on practice, Okay, so that is to
Speaker 1: say arduous practice or I'm more like, I'm more playful
Speaker 1: than that. I'd like to be more spontaneous and in
Speaker 1: the moment and and curious and kind of interested and
Speaker 1: engaged and what's happening now, rather than doing in a
Speaker 1: kind of a formal, serious way of sitting and okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to scan the body, and in other words,
Speaker 1: when that tends to pull for the you know, the
Speaker 1: controlling mind, I find often that becomes dull and kind
Speaker 1: of dry. So it's much more about certain qualities of curiosity,
Speaker 1: I would say, and a willingness to experience what's actually here.
Speaker 1: It's not about, you know, so much about practice, although
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, we may be drawn deeply to sit
Speaker 1: or breathe deeply, or go to nature, or we've got
Speaker 1: our own special ways of whatever to be more in
Speaker 1: touch with ourselves. But I think it's important that it
Speaker 1: be done lightly and playfully too, that we kind of
Speaker 1: have fun. On the flip side of that is that
Speaker 1: very often it's our suffering that becomes the incentive to
Speaker 1: look more deeply in our lives. We live our lives
Speaker 1: according to certain routine patterns of self medication and distraction
Speaker 1: and avoidance, and after a while it becomes rather unsatisfying,
Speaker 1: if not painful, to us. You know, we have repetitive
Speaker 1: relationships that don't work, we find ourselves involved with work
Speaker 1: that's not truly creative or congruent with what we are.
Speaker 1: We actually start paying attention to that, we get curious,
Speaker 1: you know, and we begin to notice, I'm suffering, I'm
Speaker 1: really not very happy, and I wonder if there's a
Speaker 1: different way to approach life, and that becomes the fire
Speaker 1: for some people. Often it's two things. One is like,
Speaker 1: there may be just a calling to be really, what
Speaker 1: is life all about? Who am I really? You know?
Speaker 1: There may be that kind of existential questions that are
Speaker 1: very lively for us. That may be our love of
Speaker 1: the truth. That's one one pole. And then there's a
Speaker 1: push from our suffering from really not being intimate with
Speaker 1: life and being intimate with ourselves. And actually it's a
Speaker 1: combination of those two that get us engaged in a
Speaker 1: deeper inquiry and investigation of our lives. And I think
Speaker 1: that is where the real fire and the real aliveness
Speaker 1: comes from, rather than some mental agenda and self improvement.
Speaker 1: In the book, you also say something to the effect
Speaker 1: of that if you don't remember much of your childhood,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty safe bet that you've been in the
Speaker 1: practice of disassociating so the healing from that comes from
Speaker 1: learning to be in your body, not in learning to
Speaker 1: remember your childhood. That's right, Yeah, I mean we left
Speaker 1: our bodies and distance from our feeling because it was
Speaker 1: simply too painful to be with. And it doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that we have to go back and somehow remember all
Speaker 1: of that, But it does require a re entry into
Speaker 1: the body and a renewed capacity, a kind of thawing
Speaker 1: of whatever froze you know, early on in our experience,
Speaker 1: And in so doing there may be some very strong
Speaker 1: early feelings that emerge, Feelings of abandonment or invasion or
Speaker 1: you know, who knows what may arise in the process.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't necessarily mean we have to go into
Speaker 1: psychotherapy and uncover and remember everything. But I would say
Speaker 1: sometimes spontaneously, you know, we start to remember that which
Speaker 1: we had repressed, that was too much to bear as
Speaker 1: a child, but now as an adult we can bear.
Speaker 1: Can that become a tendency that persists even if you're
Speaker 1: not in the same painful situation um that you just
Speaker 1: in general are not much of a remember, Does that
Speaker 1: does that sort of carry on even once you're an
Speaker 1: adult and not you know, not necessarily in painful situations,
Speaker 1: we don't remember because we're actually not paying attention. And
Speaker 1: what happens is we start paying more attention. And when
Speaker 1: we pay attention and we tend to remember more. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we become less spacey, we become more aware of our surroundings,
Speaker 1: more aware of other people, more aware of our interior experience,
Speaker 1: and we tend to remember it more. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: some people are more oriented towards remembering than others, But
Speaker 1: I think it's generally true what I'm saying, some of
Speaker 1: us not naming anyone can't remember much of anything. Well,
Speaker 1: we will name any dings. Um, you've got a line
Speaker 1: I want to explore a little bit deeper. And you
Speaker 1: say judging is different from discerning. What what's the difference
Speaker 1: between those two. Discerning is just seeing things as they are, Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: it's not evaluating them from any moral or ethical stance.
Speaker 1: And that's what judging is. It's saying good or bad,
Speaker 1: right or wrong. So if we take our inner experience,
Speaker 1: for instance, let's say we're experiencing grief, you know this
Speaker 1: heaviness or depression, discernment would be just acknowledging, Oh, this
Speaker 1: is grief, right, it's a very matter of fact. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a sense of loss here, there's sorrow, maybe there's depression.
Speaker 1: It feels like this, and it locates in the body
Speaker 1: as a kind of heaviness in the heart area. Let's
Speaker 1: say the judgment would say, you shouldn't be feeling this way,
Speaker 1: snap out of it. This means something's wrong with you
Speaker 1: or you're a victim, you know, and whatever happened to
Speaker 1: you that caused this should not have happened. Do you
Speaker 1: hear the should? Like the should? Is that the should
Speaker 1: is the big clue in our thinking and our speaking.
Speaker 1: Should or should not? It's always point to the judging
Speaker 1: mind in operation. Discernment does not go to shoot or
Speaker 1: should not. That's I think the clearest way to actually
Speaker 1: discern the difference between discernment and judging. Judging is about
Speaker 1: setting up an ideal. Right, we have some ideal to
Speaker 1: which we imagine our experience should controm either our inner
Speaker 1: experience or outer experience. We should not be feeling this way,
Speaker 1: We should not be thinking this way, We should not
Speaker 1: be acting this way, nor should anyone else. Right, I
Speaker 1: should be this way. I should be happy. I should
Speaker 1: be you know, full of I should be peaceful, I
Speaker 1: should be you know, generous or whatever. So that's the
Speaker 1: that's the judging mind at work, but discernment just doesn't
Speaker 1: go there. Very interesting. So so discernment is actually accepting
Speaker 1: reality as it is, it's not measuring it against some ideal.
Speaker 1: And this was a This is a point I wasn't
Speaker 1: clear about for a long time. I didn't see it,
Speaker 1: But once I saw it, it's like my question really
Speaker 1: changed from what should I be experiencing or should not
Speaker 1: be experiencing? To what am I experiencing? And that was
Speaker 1: a very liberating transition for me. Because one of the
Speaker 1: effects we know from judgment is that it creates distance
Speaker 1: in some subtle way internally or externally. I shouldn't be
Speaker 1: experiencing this. That creates distance from our actual experience. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't be experiencing this. I create distance from you. So
Speaker 1: that's another effective judgment we we we can recognize it
Speaker 1: by its effects as well. Whereas discernment actually invites intimacy.
Speaker 1: To be close to intimacy means to be close, very
Speaker 1: very close to experience, and that's what's actually wanted and
Speaker 1: needed in our system, is like be close to both
Speaker 1: of the wolves, embrace both of the wolves, you know,
Speaker 1: and then see what happens. Not to change the walls,
Speaker 1: you know, but in a way, the black wolf and
Speaker 1: the white wolf are not really separate their polarities in
Speaker 1: our nature, and it's kind of a spectrum, and when
Speaker 1: we embrace both wolves, we could have blend. There are
Speaker 1: a couple of things I wanted to explore. One of
Speaker 1: them was this idea of I should or I should not.
Speaker 1: And I really think we're kind of in like a
Speaker 1: double whammy situation these days, because I think that the
Speaker 1: natural human tendency is to sort of go towards what's
Speaker 1: pleasurable and go away from what's painful. So there's a
Speaker 1: there's a natural I'm in pain, and so there's a
Speaker 1: natural movement away from that course. I think it's so
Speaker 1: compounded culturally these days by the fact that we're we're
Speaker 1: constantly shown what life should be like. And so the
Speaker 1: combination of those two things that the sort of innate
Speaker 1: human tendency, and then with the cultural addition, it becomes
Speaker 1: very very hard to get away from the should's. It's
Speaker 1: true in the mass media, we're constantly being pitched, you know,
Speaker 1: the solution to our suffering and fulfillment, you know, if
Speaker 1: we buy this or get this, or have this object
Speaker 1: or experience as well. So it's reinforced kind of amplified
Speaker 1: in media, but it's always been there in culture. You know.
Speaker 1: If you look in traditional cultures, there's all sorts of taboos,
Speaker 1: you know, of how one should and shouldn't be, and
Speaker 1: those are used to reinforce social hierarchies and keep control
Speaker 1: and ultimately protect the tribe as well. We're very tribal
Speaker 1: in our thinking and and our acting, and so there's
Speaker 1: always been strong currents in this direction. And so it
Speaker 1: actually takes a real love of the truth, i would say,
Speaker 1: and courage actually to find out what's true for us,
Speaker 1: you know. And this is the this is the movement
Speaker 1: towards autonomy and integrity as well, to step out of
Speaker 1: the herd, you know, and the cultural mentality, and we
Speaker 1: can begin to question for ourselves, and in so doing
Speaker 1: we discover our inner power and our inner authority as well.
Speaker 1: But it can be a little lonely, a little scary,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a bit overwhelming. So it can be it
Speaker 1: could be nice to have, you know, a few friends
Speaker 1: along the way. Absolutely, you mentioned the word depression, and
Speaker 1: depression is certainly something that I have had my share
Speaker 1: of challenges with, and I'm curious how your method works
Speaker 1: because depression, to me, by and large, is a complete
Speaker 1: absence of any feeling. So how how do we work
Speaker 1: with depression when we when what what is? Really there
Speaker 1: is almost a nothingness or a blankness? Is it just
Speaker 1: going in and embracing that? Well? Yes, in fact, I
Speaker 1: mean there's two things. One is I tend to work
Speaker 1: more cognitively with people who are depressed because depressive moods
Speaker 1: are often linked to subconscious beliefs, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of research about mindfulness, meditation, cognitive therapy, you know, in
Speaker 1: in conjunction with the use of medications as being the
Speaker 1: most efficacious treatment for depression. But that being said, actually
Speaker 1: opening to a sense of nothing, you know, an absence,
Speaker 1: even though it seems contradictory to the mind um, can
Speaker 1: be very fruitful and we simply begin to tolerate this
Speaker 1: kind of absence or nothing. It's like going into a
Speaker 1: dark well, and it actually can open to a sense
Speaker 1: of fullness eventually. I can't remember the wording of how
Speaker 1: you put it in the book, but I'm always fascinated
Speaker 1: by the interplay of thoughts, feelings, and action. They all
Speaker 1: seem to have an interaction with each other, and there's
Speaker 1: a there's a desire at least, you know, I have
Speaker 1: this desire to say, well, it's thoughts, you know. Cognitive
Speaker 1: behavior therapy says it's your thought that drives the emotion.
Speaker 1: And yet I know lots of people who it seems
Speaker 1: like they have an emotion and then they have to
Speaker 1: go thinking about why they have the emotion. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be thought always causes emotion, and you
Speaker 1: reference something in that about how for some people it
Speaker 1: really goes the other way. It's an emotional thing first,
Speaker 1: and then the thoughts follow that. I think in the
Speaker 1: majority of the cases it is rooted in thought, but
Speaker 1: it's usually subconscious thought, so we don't it's not like
Speaker 1: we're consciously thinking of it. It's it's more going on
Speaker 1: below the surface, you know, more what we call automatic
Speaker 1: thought or subconscious thought. And that's why I'm going to
Speaker 1: think and trying to figure it out rationally or even
Speaker 1: approaching it rationally is incomplete. It has some superficial value,
Speaker 1: but often not lasting. So that's why getting deep into
Speaker 1: the body and the feelings and then finding what those
Speaker 1: core beliefs are can be really really important. That said,
Speaker 1: sometimes the source of let's say the disturbance is prior
Speaker 1: is so early on developmentally in someone that the really
Speaker 1: the brain wasn't developed to formulate much in the way
Speaker 1: of cognition, and it's much more on the level of
Speaker 1: feeling and sensation. So, for instance, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a baby and you're being raised by a caretaker who's
Speaker 1: really not there, are you know, not really connected with
Speaker 1: you and not really attuned with you, there's not much
Speaker 1: in the way of thinking going on, but there's a
Speaker 1: big impact in terms of feeling and sensing, and that
Speaker 1: you know, when you're working on that level, you know,
Speaker 1: verbalizing and talking about beliefs is not going to be
Speaker 1: very relevant. You have to work more directly with the
Speaker 1: body and sensing, and there are specialized approaches for that.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you're saying that there isn't sort
Speaker 1: of a one size fits all here with this stuff.
Speaker 1: That's been my experience. Some people are going to get
Speaker 1: a lot out of cognitive behavioral therapy. They're going to
Speaker 1: recognize that what's going on in their head all the
Speaker 1: time is you know, well, we know that what's going
Speaker 1: on our head is not reality, but that we have
Speaker 1: particularly clear and easy to identify distortions that are causing
Speaker 1: lots a lot of pain. And some people can get
Speaker 1: a lot out of that. And then there's other people
Speaker 1: who are really going to need to do more of
Speaker 1: a somatic or a body oriented way of getting into
Speaker 1: it and it and and probably most of us need
Speaker 1: a little of both. Yeah, there's a spectrum here and
Speaker 1: and then some approaches really work with the subconscious thoughts
Speaker 1: as well, you know, so yeah, all of them, And
Speaker 1: it could depend where someone is. I heard you say,
Speaker 1: I don't remember whether it's in the book or somewhere
Speaker 1: else that you were talking about that subconscious thoughts can
Speaker 1: be made conscious easier than we think. Well, it was
Speaker 1: I did mention that in the book. It's just like, uh,
Speaker 1: you know what I call sort of the direct approach
Speaker 1: was just to ask yourself, you know, what are your
Speaker 1: core limiting beliefs, and then to start writing them down,
Speaker 1: you know, and you'll be surprised. It's almost like it's
Speaker 1: waiting for the invitation and we're not. They're kind of
Speaker 1: when I say subconscious, you may be vaguely aware of them,
Speaker 1: you know, or not fully focused on them, and simply
Speaker 1: by shining the light of awareness of inquiry, they'll pop
Speaker 1: up as well. But sometimes you know, they're not as
Speaker 1: easily accessible, and we know them in the other ways.
Speaker 1: That I said is you have somatic contractions and our
Speaker 1: projections onto others. We are kind of at the end
Speaker 1: of time here, but I want to wrap up with
Speaker 1: one final question. There are people who believe that all
Speaker 1: the pain that we feel in our body comes from
Speaker 1: emotional sources. They trace it all back there. Is that
Speaker 1: your belief? Is that kind of what you're saying, or yes, no,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that, okay, because you're sort of getting
Speaker 1: into that area of you know, what's happening and our
Speaker 1: body is tied to emotions. Now it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very complex area, you know, psychosomatic experience, and um, certainly
Speaker 1: some we know that some some sensations and some illnesses
Speaker 1: are more clearly tied to emotional disturbances than others. But
Speaker 1: I don't think they all are, and and if they are,
Speaker 1: they may be you know, small amounts, much more than
Speaker 1: some people imagine. Yeah, yeah, that's kind of been my
Speaker 1: sense to at least my understanding of it. And when
Speaker 1: someone sort of starts saying that it's all emotional and like, well,
Speaker 1: that doesn't really make any sense because if I break
Speaker 1: my leg, I mean, that's like not an emotional component
Speaker 1: to that. Now. I may add emotional components onto what
Speaker 1: I think about it, but there's you know, there's real
Speaker 1: physical pain that underlies that. Right, So there's one point
Speaker 1: before we end, if we have time. But I just
Speaker 1: wanted to mention because it's really the heart of my book,
Speaker 1: and that is that our bodies do have a sense
Speaker 1: of our deepest knowing are relative and absolute knowing, and
Speaker 1: that I've discovered that there are certain markers, somatic markers
Speaker 1: I call as you read those are And one of
Speaker 1: them is a core relaxation and sense of groundedness. Another
Speaker 1: is a sense of inner alignment congruence. Another is a
Speaker 1: sense of growing openness of heart, and another is a
Speaker 1: sense of spaciousness. And these are all facets of the
Speaker 1: inner knowing, and we may experience some more than others,
Speaker 1: and we may not experience them at all. But as
Speaker 1: people drop in and really get in touch with their truth,
Speaker 1: generally one and often more of these qualities begin to emerge,
Speaker 1: and it's valuable to know this because it lets us
Speaker 1: know we're on the right track. That's why I wrote
Speaker 1: this book. You know, I've worked with people for years
Speaker 1: and years, decades, and I've done you know, I've been
Speaker 1: a meditator, you know, for longer than that, and also
Speaker 1: do spiritual teaching. And when people begin to hone in
Speaker 1: on their truth, their bodies respond, and this is very
Speaker 1: useful feedback. They're not ends in themselves, they're pointers, and
Speaker 1: they're pointing us to who we are fundamentally. And that's
Speaker 1: really the deepest kind of teaching of the book. And
Speaker 1: I would hope you know your readers who are interested
Speaker 1: not only in the psychology that we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: but what's beneath the psychology, are inherent true nature. I
Speaker 1: thought the other thing that was great that you did
Speaker 1: in the book because you talk about all these childhood
Speaker 1: things that we go through, but you also addressed the
Speaker 1: fact that there are fundamental existential things. It's not all
Speaker 1: that you were damaged in childhood. Some of it is
Speaker 1: that you're a what appears to be a you know,
Speaker 1: nearly completely insignificant human in a in a constant, you know,
Speaker 1: thousands and millions and billions of us, and that we're
Speaker 1: all going to die, and that has its own role
Speaker 1: to play in what happens with us. Absolutely, these are
Speaker 1: the existential questions that all of us grapple with, regardless
Speaker 1: of our conditioning, you know, and and we have to face.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's primal anxiety, you know, and and
Speaker 1: confusion about these points. And and as we deepen into
Speaker 1: our inner knowing, actually they begin to resolve. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of the felt sense of knowing. And
Speaker 1: when you say those begin to resolve, the question that
Speaker 1: people want to ask is what what is that? What
Speaker 1: does that mean? And I think you're saying that you're
Speaker 1: not going to get there through the conscious mind, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not coming from the conscious mind. It comes from
Speaker 1: the inner knowing. So it's the knowing and the being
Speaker 1: of that. What we discover is that we're not the
Speaker 1: separate self that we imagine we are. We discover we're
Speaker 1: unimaginably vast, and we could say connected. We're not separate
Speaker 1: from everyone and everyone else. And that's where the resolution comes.
Speaker 1: And that resolution comes from a sense of knowing that
Speaker 1: that that's what you just said. As an intellectual concept
Speaker 1: that we hear over and over and over again but
Speaker 1: doesn't provide much actual comfort. No, the thought, the thought
Speaker 1: is pretty useless, but the actual experiential knowing of it
Speaker 1: is profoundly transformative. Excellent. Well, I think that is a
Speaker 1: great place to wrap up, So thanks so much for
Speaker 1: taking the time to come on. I've really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 1: On our show notes page, we will have blanks to
Speaker 1: your book your site. We will also have a free
Speaker 1: download of some of my favorite quotes from your book
Speaker 1: so people can explore it a little bit deeper and
Speaker 1: hopefully will then go through and explore it further. Great.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I've really I've really enjoyed our conversation
Speaker 1: or excellent. All right, thanks John, all right, goodbye. You
Speaker 1: can learn more about John J. Prendor Gast and this
Speaker 1: podcast and one you feed dot net slash j J. P.